The Works of Alexander Pope Part 5

[Footnote 44: Though the work is printed in two thin volumes, it was always done up as one.]

[Footnote 45: "Notes and Queries," No. 260, p. 485. This article is from the same pen as the articles on Pope's correspondence in the "Athenaeum."]

[Footnote 46: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 430. The statement occurs in a private note written at the time to Smythe, before the bookseller had any idea of appealing to the public, or suspected that the letters were printed by Pope himself.]

[Footnote 47: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.]

[Footnote 48: Vol. I. p. x.x.xvi.]

[Footnote 49: Vol. I. pp. xl. xli. All the statements to which I have referred occur in this preface of Pope to the quarto of 1737, and some of them in many other places besides.]

[Footnote 50: Vol. I. p. x.x.xvii. Appendix, p. 419.]

[Footnote 51: Vol. I. p. x.x.xv.]

[Footnote 52: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 420.]

[Footnote 53: Vol. I. p. x.x.xviii. The anonymous friend was put in the place of Lord Oxford. Half the notes relate to the Wycherley ma.n.u.scripts in the Harley library, and could only have proceeded from the author of that fiction. Pope's official editor, Warburton, signed all the notes with Pope's name.]

[Footnote 54: Vol. I. p. x.x.xv.]

[Footnote 55: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 445.]

[Footnote 56: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 444.]

[Footnote 57: This circ.u.mstance at once attracted the attention of Swift. "I detest the House of Lords," he wrote to Lady Betty Germain, from Dublin, June 8, 1735, "for their indulgence to such a profligate, prost.i.tute villain as Curll; but am at a loss how he could procure any letters written to Mr. Pope, although by the vanity or indiscretion of correspondents the rogue might have picked up some that went from him.

Those letters have not yet been sent hither; therefore I can form no judgment on them." Swift's detestation of the House of Lords for not punishing a man who was proved to be innocent of the offence with which he was charged, is an instance of the kind of justice to be expected from violent partisans.]

[Footnote 58: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 445.]

[Footnote 59: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 429.]

[Footnote 60: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 429, 445.]

[Footnote 61: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 439.]

[Footnote 62: P. T. said 380, but the 3 was probably a misprint for 4.]

[Footnote 63: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 429.]

[Footnote 64: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 430.]

[Footnote 65: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 423.]

[Footnote 66: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 438. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets,"

Vol. II. p. 261.]

[Footnote 67: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 435.]

[Footnote 68: Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 61.]

[Footnote 69: "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. II. p.

vi.]

[Footnote 70: vol. I. Appendix, p. 446.]

[Footnote 71: vol. I. Appendix, p. 430.]

[Footnote 72: vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.]

[Footnote 73: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 447.]

[Footnote 74: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 431, 435.]

[Footnote 75: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.]

[Footnote 76: Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 61.]

[Footnote 77: "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. III. p.

xii. Vol. I. Appendix, p. 439.]

[Footnote 78: The "Athenaeum" of Sept. 8, 1860.]

[Footnote 79: When Pope put forth his preface to the quarto he could not have intended to disguise that he was the writer of the "Narrative," or he would have been at greater pains to vary his language. If the general resemblance had been less marked, an invention common to both productions would reveal their common origin. In the "Narrative" we are informed that the complete collection of Pope's had been copied into a couple of books before Theobald published his edition of Wycherley's posthumous works, and that it was from these ma.n.u.script books that the Wycherley correspondence was transcribed for press. This a.s.sertion was untrue. Theobald's volume came out in 1728, while Pope's collection, as appears from his announcements to Lord Oxford, was still in the process of formation in September, 1729, and he was only "causing it to be fairly written" in October, after his own Wycherley volume had pa.s.sed through the press. The false account is repeated in the preface to the quarto, where we are told that the posthumous works of Wycherley were printed the year after the copy of Pope's collection of letters had been deposited in the library of Lord Oxford, which throws back the deposit of the letters from the close of 1729 to 1727. Since the poet revived and authenticated an anonymous fiction respecting his personal acts, he may reasonably be supposed to have been the author of it. The object of the imposition was to uphold the tale he had advanced in his Wycherley volume. He had ceased to state openly that the publication was the act of Lord Oxford; but he wished to have it believed that the letters were in the keeping of his n.o.ble friend at the time, and to leave the impression that the notion of printing them had not originated with himself.]

[Footnote 80: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 420.]

[Footnote 81: Vol. I. p. x.x.xix.]

[Footnote 82: Warton's Pope, Vol. II. p. 339.]

[Footnote 83: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 63.]

[Footnote 84: "Athenaeum," Sept. 8, 1860.]

[Footnote 85: Maloniana, p. 385.]

[Footnote 86: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 62.]

[Footnote 87: Vol. I. p. 417.]

[Footnote 88: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 430, 431, 443.]

[Footnote 89: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.]

[Footnote 90: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 431, 443.]

[Footnote 91: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 443.]