The Dying Christian To His Soul.
Vital spark of heavenly flame, &c.
These two letters were published by Warburton, but are not given by Pope in the edition of his correspondence, published in 1737, and the poem has no place in the collected works of 1717. It has been said that if the piece had been written in 1712 Steele would have inserted it in the
Spectator
. But it was not received until the last number of the
Spectator
had been published. Three months then elapsed before the appearance of the
Guardian
, to which Pope contributed eight papers. Pope, on his part, would be naturally unwilling to connect with the poem the few words he had sent with it to Steele, saying,
'You have it (as Cowley calls it) just warm from the brain. It came to me the first moment I waked this morning. Yet, you will see, it was not so absolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho, &c.'