INEDITED POEM BY POPE.

(Vol. vii., p. 57.)

This, which is headed "Note," ought to have been headed Query: and it affords an instance of ignorance on the part of some of our correspondents; and of, I fear I must add, inattention on that of our worthy Editor, which I think it right to notice as a warning to all parties for the future: and I appeal to the candour of our Editor himself to give my protest a place.

The first step in this curious affair is to be found in "N. & Q.," Vol. ii., p. 7., where "the Editor of Bishop Warburton's Literary Remains" produced, as attributed to Mr. Charles Yorke, a kind of epitaph of sixteen lines, beginning—

"Stript to the naked soul, escaped from clay."

That the "editor of Bishop Warburton's Literary Remains," and his friend "an eminent critic," should have been at a loss to know where these well-known verses were to be found, and should have countenanced their having been Charles Yorke's, seems the more wonderful: for the verses are given in Warburton's own letters as Pope's, and were printed near a hundred years ago in Ruffhead's Life of Pope, as Pope's; and in the MS. copy furnished by Mr. Yorke, they are marked as "Mr. Pope's."

The next error is, that this mention of Mr. Yorke's name—though his MS. bore the name of Pope—seems to have given rise to the idea that he was the author, which Lord Campbell has so fully adopted as to have reprinted, in his Lives of the Chancellors (vol. v. p. 428.), the verses as the composition of Charles Yorke.

We next find in "N. & Q.," Vol. iii., p. 43., a reply of W. S. to the Query of Warburton's editor, stating "that the verses were by Pope," and lately republished in a miscellany by James Tayler, with a statement that they were not inserted in any edition of Pope's works. The fact being, that they have been inserted in Warton's edition, 1797; and in Bowles', and in all subsequent editions that I have seen: and it seems strange that W. S. did not take the trouble of verifying, by a reference to any edition of Pope, the statement that he quoted.

Next we have, in the same (3rd) volume of "N. & Q.," a communication from Mr. Crossley, which states correctly all the foregoing circumstances, with the addition, that the verses appeared as Aaron Hill's in an edition of his works as early as 1753. Thence arises another discussion; were they Pope's or Hill's? Roscoe thought they were Hill's; Mr. Crossley thinks they were Pope's. I think, both from external and internal evidence, that they were not Pope's. But that has little to do with my present object, which is to show how often the matter has been already discussed in "N. & Q." I must observe, however, that Mr. Crossley has fallen into a slight anachronism. He says that the verses were "transferred from Ruffhead into Bowles' edition;" whereas they, as I have stated, were transferred into Warton's many years earlier.

After all this disquisition comes a recent Number of "N. & Q.," of which a column and a quarter is wasted by a correspondent A. T. W., who confesses that he (or she) has not a modern edition of Pope within reach, and begs to know whether these verses (repeated in extenso) "have been yet introduced to the public?"

Surely "N. & Q." should beware of correspondents that write to inquire about Pope, without having an edition of his works; and I cannot but wonder that this crambe, which had been served up thrice before, and so fully by Mr. Crossley, should have been recocta, and introduced as a new theme, entitled to a special attention.