may also be read with interest. The researches and discoveries of Mr. Dilke are published among his ¢¢ Papers of a Critic," while an examination of Pope's edition of Shakespeare will be found in Mrs. Lounsbury's valuable book, "The Two First Editors of Shakespeare." Among the Essayists and critics who have paid special attention to Pope are Isaac Disraeli, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Thackeray, Mark Pattison, and John Conington. Spence's "Anecdotes," Dr. Johnson's short "Life," and Warburton's discursive "Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope," cannot be neglected, though Ruffhead's "Life" may be taken as read. Interesting allusions to the poet will be found in the "Letters" of Dean Swift, Lord Bolingbroke, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mrs. Delany, Lady Hervey, Lady Suffolk, Samuel Richardson, Aaron Hill, the poet Gray, Horace Walpole, and Lord Byron, as also in the works of Lord Chesterfield and the table-talk of Dr. Johnson. For the curious in such matters, there is a whole library of lampoons on Pope in the British Museum, including attacks by Dennis, Welsted, MooreSmythe, Ducket, and other members of the society of Grub Street. In the manuscript-room at the Museum are a couple of volumes containing unpublished letters addressed by Pope to Ralph Allen and Hugh Bethel, from which passages have been quoted. My warmest thanks are due to Captain Cottrell Dormer, of Rousham (the beautiful Oxfordshire house where Pope so often stayed), for his kindness in allowing me to read, and make extracts from, the interesting manuscript correspondence of Mrs. Cæsar, of Bennington. I have also to thank Professor Courthope for the helpful letters that he was good enough to write in response to an appeal for "more light" on certain incidents in the poet's career. May 23, 1909. |