-

forth their hoards of old gold and most valued jewels; so Sappho had recourse to her hid treasures of letters, and played off not only yours to me, but all those to herself (as the lady's last stake) into the press. As for me, I hope when you shall coolly consider the many thousand instances of our being deluded by the females, since that great original of Adam and Eve, you will have a more favourable thought of the undesigning error of

Your faithful friend, etc.

HENRY CROMWELL.

Now shall our apology for this publication be as ill received as the Lady's seems to have been by the Gentlemen concerned; we shall at least have her comfort, of being thanked by the rest of the world. Nor has Mr. P. himself any great cause to think it much offence to his modesty, or reflection on his judgment, when we take care to inform the public, that there are few letters of his in this collection which were not written under twenty years of age on the other hand, we doubt not the reader will be much more surprized to find, at that early period, so much variety of style, affecting sentiment, and justness of criticism, in pieces which must have been writ in haste, very few perhaps ever reviewed, and none intended for the eye of the public.

(9)

A

CATALOGUE

OF THE

SURREPTITIOUS AND INCORRECT EDITIONS

OF

MR. POPE's LETTERS.

FAMILIAR Letters to Henry Cromwell, Esq. by Mr. Pope, 12mo. Printed for Edmund Curll, 1727.

[In this are Verses, etc. ascribed to Mr. P. which were not bis.]

II. Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years: from 1704 to 1734. Being a Collection of Letters which passed between him and several eminent Persons. Printed for E. Curll, 8vo. 1735. Two editions.

The same in duodecimo, with cuts.
[These contain several letters not genuine.]

The third edition.

III. Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence, Vol. II. Printed for the same, 8vo. 1735. [In this volume are no letters of Mr. Pope's but a few of those to Mr. Cromwell reprinted: nor any to him, but one said to be Bishop Atterbury's, and another in that Bishop's name, certainly not his: one or two letters from St. Omer's, advertised of Mr. Pope, but which proved to be only concerning him; some scandalous reflections of one Le Neve on the Legislature, Courts of Justice, and Church of England, pag. 116, 117, and the Divinity of Christ expressly denied, in page 123, 124. With some scandalous anecdotes, and a narrative.] The same in duodecimo.

IV. Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence, Vol. III. Printed for E. Curll, 8vo. 1735. [In this is only one Letter by Mr. Pope to the Duchess of Buckingham, which the publisher some way procured and printed against her order. It also contains four Letters, intitled, Mr. Pope's to Miss Blount, which are literally taken from an old translation of Voiture's to Mad. Rambouillet.]

V. Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence, Vol. IV. Printed for E. Curll, contains not one Letter of this author.

The same in duodecimo.

VI. Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence, Vol. V. containing only one letter of Mr. P. and another of the Lord B. with a scandalous Preface of Curll's how he could come at more of their letters, 8vo. printed for the same, 1736.

VII. Letters of Mr Pope and several eminent Persons, Vol. I. from 170 to 1711. Printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 8vo. 1735.

The

The same, Vol II. from 1711, etc. Printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Wesminster, 8vo. 1735. same in 2mo. with a Narrative.

VIII. Letters of Mr. Pope and several eminent Persons. From 1705 to 1735. Printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 12mo. 1735.

[This edition is said in the title to contain more Letters than any other, but contains only Two, said to be the Bishop of Rochester's, and printed before by Curll.]

IX. Letters of Mr. Pope and several eminent Persons, from the Year 1705 to 1735, Vol. I. and II. Printed for T. Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster-Row, 1735, 12mo.

[In this was inserted the Forged Letter from the Bishop of Rochester, and some other things unknown to Mr. Pope.]

PREFACE

PREFIXED TO THE

FIRST GENUINE EDITION IN QUARTO,

1737.

IF what is here offered to the reader, should happen in any degree to please him, the thanks are not due to the author, but partly to his friends, and partly to his enemies it was wholly owing to the affection of the former, that so many letters, of which he never kept copies, were preserved; and to the malice of the latter, that they were produced in this manner.

He had been very disagreeably used, in the publication of some letters written in his youth, which fell into the hands of a woman who printed them, without his, or his correspondents' consent, in 1727. This treatment, and the apprehension of more of the same kind, put him upon recalling as many as he could from those who he imagined had kept any. He was sorry to find the number so great, but immediately lessened it by burning three parts in four of them: the rest he spared, not in any preference of their style or writing, but merely as they preserved the memory of some friendships which will ever be dear to him, or set in a true light some matters of fact, from which the scribblers of the times had taken occasion to asperse either his friends or himself. He therefore layed by the originals, together with those of his correspond