The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable interview I have hitherto only traced to “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of A. Pope, Esq., by William Ayre, Esq.,” 1745, vol. i. p. 100. This work comes in a very suspicious form; it is a huddled compilation, yet contains some curious matters; and pretends, in the title-page, to be occasionally drawn from “original MSS. and the testimonies of persons of honour.” He declares, in the preface, that he and his friends “had means and some helps which were never public.” He sometimes appeals to several noble friends of Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publication, and that of its execution, are not in its favour. These volumes were written within six months of the decease of our poet; have no publisher’s name; and yet the author, whoever he was, took out “a patent, under his majesty’s royal signet,” for securing the copyright. This Ayre is so obscure an author, though a translator of Tasso’s “Aminta,” that he seems to have escaped even the minor chronicles of literature. At the time of its publication there appeared “Remarks on Squire Ayre’s Memoirs of Pope.” The writer pretends he has discovered him to be only one of the renowned Edmund Curll’s “squires,” who, about that time, had created an order of literary squires, ready to tramp at the funeral of every great personage with his life. The “Remarker” then addresses Curll, and insinuates he speaks from personal knowledge of the man:—“You have an adversaria of title-pages of your own contrivance, and which your authors are to write books to. Among what you call the occasional, or black list, I have seen Memoirs of Dean Swift, Pope, &c.” Curll, indeed, was then sending forth many pseudo squires, with lives of “Congreve,” “Mrs. Oldfield,” &c.; all which contained some curious particulars, picked up in coffee-houses, conversations, or pamphlets of the day. This William Ayre I accept as “a squire of low degree,” but a real personage. As for this interview, Ayre was certainly incompetent to the invention of a single stroke of the conversations detailed: where he obtained all these interesting particulars, I have not discovered. Johnson alludes to this interview, states some of its results, but refers to no other authority than floating rumours.
The line stood originally, and nearly literally copied from Isaiah—
| “He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes;” |
which Steele retouched, as it now stands—
| “From every face he wipes off every tear.” |
Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks, has too much of modern quaintness. The difficulty of choice lies between that naked simplicity which scarcely affects, and those strokes of art which are too apparent.
The last line of Addison’s tragedy read originally—