English Men of Letters

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY

ALEXANDER POPE

BY

LESLIE STEPHEN

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1902

POPE.........
BYRON....

Thomas Fowler.
..F. Myers.

...G. Saintsbury. .Sidney Colvin. David Masson. .Alfred Ainger. .......................R. C. Jebb. ...A. W. Ward. .E. W. Gosse. Leslie Stephen.

H. D. Traill. .J. Cotter Morison.

.Austin Dobson.
..Mrs. Oliphant.
W. J. Courthope.

.R. W. Church.
H. D. Traill.

.Leslie Stephen. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.....J. A. Symonds.

...John Nichol. KEATS....

CARLYLE.... John Nichol.

iamo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume.

Other volumes in preparation.

.Sidney Colvin.

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.

Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

Stacks Hift

Prof. Austin Warren

345-70

Added copy

PREFATORY NOTE.

THE life and writings of Pope have been discussed in a literature
more voluminous than that which exists in the case of almost any
other English man of letters. No biographer, however, has pro-
duced a definitive or exhaustive work. It seems, therefore, desirable
to indicate the main authorities upon which such a biographer would
have to rely, and which have been consulted for the purpose of the
following necessarily brief and imperfect sketch.

The first life of Pope was a catchpenny book, by William Ayre,
published in 1745, and remarkable chiefly as giving the first version
of some demonstrably erroneous statements, unfortunately adopted
by later writers. In 1751, Warburton, as Pope's literary executor,
published the authoritative edition of the poet's works, with notes
containing some biographical matter. In 1769 appeared a life by
Owen Ruffhead, who wrote under Warburton's inspiration. This is
a dull and meagre performance, and much of it is devoted to an at-
tack-partly written by Warburton himself-upon the criticisms ad-
vanced in the first volume of Joseph Warton's Essay on Pope. War-
ton's first volume was published in 1756; and it seems that the
dread of Warburton's wrath counted for something in the delay of
the second volume, which did not appear till 1782. The Essay con-

tains a good many anecdotes of interest. Warton's edition of Pope Edita

-the notes in which are chiefly drawn from the Essay—was pub

lished in 1797. The Life by Johnson appeared in 1781; it is ad- Morley's

mirable in many ways; but Johnson had taken the least possible
trouble in ascertaining facts. Both Warton and Johnson had be-
fore them the manuscript collections of Joseph Spence, who had
known Pope personally during the last twenty years of his life, and
wanted nothing but literary ability to have become an efficient Bos-