very preface, which, with several additional notes in his own hand, he delivered to the editor a little before his death. The juvenile translations, in the other part of the second volume, it was never his intention to bring into this edition of his works, on account of the levity of some, the freedom of others, and the little importance of all. But these being the property of other men, the editor had it not in his power to follow the author's intention. The third volume (all but the Essay on Man, which together with the Essay on Criticism, the author, a little before his death, had corrected and published in quarto, as a specimen of his projected edition,) was printed by him in his last illness, but never published, in the manner it is now given. The disposition of the Epistle on the Characters of Men is quite altered; that on the Characters of Women much enlarged; and the Epistles on Riches and Taste corrected and improved. To these advantages of the third volume must be added a great number of fine verses, taken from the author's manuscript copies of these poems, communicated by him for this purpose to the editor. These, the author, when he first published the poems to which they belong, thought proper, for various reasons, to omit. Some, from the manuscript copy of the Essay on Man, which tended to discredit fate, and to recommend the moral government of God, had, by the editor's advice, been restored to their places in the last edition of that poem. The rest, together with others of the like sort, from his manuscript copy of the other Ethic Epistles, are here inserted at the bottom of the page, under the title of Variations.

The fourth volume contains the Satires, with their Prologue,—the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot; and Epilogue, the two poems intitled MDCCXXXVIII. The Prologue and Epilogue are here given with the like advantages as the Ethic Epistles in the foregoing volume, that is to say, with the Variations, or additional verses from the author's manuscripts. The Epilogue to the Satires is likewise inriched with many and large notes, now first printed from the author's own manuscript.

The fifth volume contains a correcter and completer edition of the Dunciad than hath been hitherto published, of which, at present, I have only this further to add, that it was at my request he laid the plan of a fourth book. I often told him, it was pity so fine a poem should remain disgraced by the meanness of its subject, the most insignificant of all dunces, - bad rhymers and malevolent cavillers; that he ought to raise and ennoble it by pointing his satire against the most pernicious of all,-minute philosophers and free-thinkers. I imagined, too, it was for the interests of religion to have it known, that so great a genius had a due abhorrence of these pests of virtue and society. He came readily into my opinion; but, at the same time, told me it would create him many enemies. He was not mistaken, for though the terror of his pen kept them for some time in respect, yet on his death they rose with unrestrained fury in numerous coffee-house tales, and Grub Street libels. The plan of this admirable satire was artfully contrived to show, that the follies and defects of a fashionable education naturally led to, and necessarily ended in, freethinking, with design to point out the only remedy adequate to so destructive an evil. It was to advance the same ends of virtue and religion, that the editor prevailed on him to alter everything in his moral writings that

1 The corrections are few and trivial. The account which Warburton gives of the novelties in his edition is from first to last exaggerated.

2 The only restored lines which improve the orthodoxy of the Essay on Man relate to a future state.

might be suspected of having the least glance towards fate or naturalism, and to add what was proper to convince the world that he was warmly on the side of moral government and a revealed will. And it would be great injustice to his memory not to declare that he embraced these occasions with the most unfeigned pleasure.

The sixth volume consists of Mr. Pope's miscellaneous pieces in verse and prose. Amongst the verse several fine poems make now their first appearance in his works. And of the prose, all that is good, and nothing but what is exquisitely so, will be found in this edition.

The seventh, eighth, and ninth volumes consist entirely of his letters, the more valuable, as they are the only true models which we, or perhaps any of our neighbours, have of familiar epistles. This collection is now made more complete by the addition of several new pieces. Yet, excepting a short explanatory letter to Col. M[oyser], and the letters to Mr. A[ilen] and Mr. W[arburton] (the latter of which are given to show the editor's inducements, and the engagements he was under, to intend the care of this edition) excepting these, I say, the rest are all here published from the author's own printed, though not published copies delivered to the editor.2

On the whole, the advantages of this edition, above the preceding, are these, that it is the first complete collection which has ever been made of his original writings; that all his principal poems, of early or later date, are here given to the public with his last corrections and improvements; that a great number of his verses are here first printed from the manuscript copies of his principal poems of later date; that many new notes of the author are here added to his poems; and lastly, that several pieces, both in prose and verse, make now their first appearance before the public.

4

The author's life deserves a just volume, and the editor intends to give it. For to have been one of the first poets in the world is but his second praise. He was in a higher class. He was one of the "noblest works of God." He was an "honest man,"3-a man who alone possessed more real virtue than, in very corrupt times, needing a satirist like him, will sometimes fall to the share of multitudes. In this history of his life, will be contained a large account of his writings, a critique on the nature, force, and extent of his genius, exemplified from these writings; and a vindication of his moral character, exemplified by his more distinguished virtues,—his filial piety, his disinterested friendships, his reverence for the constitution of his country, his love and admiration of virtue, and (what was the necessary effect) his hatred and contempt of vice, his extensive charity to the indigent, his warm benevolence to mankind, his supreme veneration of the Deity, and above all his sincere belief of Revelation. Nor shall his faults be concealed. It is not for

1 Either Warburton had never heard of Madame de Sévigne's letters, or what is more likely, he was unable to taste their charm. Their delicate graces, and native liveliness, would have been lost upon the man who thought that Pope's artificial epistles were “true models of familiar" letters.

* The assertion that the copies had not been published is unaccountable. Every line of them had been published twice over by Pope in his lifetime, and all but two or three pages, had been published again and again.

3A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod,

An honest man's the noblest work of God.-WARBURTON.

It will be printed in the same form with this, and every future edition of his works, so as to make a part of them.-WARBURTON.

The Life which Warburton promised with such solemn pomp was never written, and he was content to assist Ruffhead in his feeble compilation.

the interests of his virtues that they should. Nor indeed could they be concealed, if we were so disposed, for they shine through his virtues, no man being more a dupe to the specious appearances of virtue in others. In a word, I mean not to be his panegyrist but his historian. And may I, when envy and calumny have taken the same advantage of my absence (for, while I live, I will freely trust it to my life to confute them) may I find a friend as careful of my honest fame as I have been of his! Together with his works, he hath bequeathed me his dunces. So that as the property is transferred, I could wish they would now let his memory alone. The veil which death draws over the good is so sacred, that to tear it, and with sacrilegious hands, to throw dirt upon the shrine, gives scandal even to barbarians. And though Rome permitted her slaves to calumniate her best citizens on the day of triumph, yet the same petulancy at their funeral would have been rewarded with execration and a gibbet.2 The public may be malicious but is rarely vindictive or ungenerous. It would abhor all insults, on a writer dead, though it had borne with the ribaldry, or even set the ribalds on work, when he was alive. And in this there is no great harm, for he must have a strange impotency of mind indeed whom such miserable scribblers can disturb or ruffle. Of all that gross Beotian phalanx who have written scurrilously against the editor, he knows not so much as one whom a writer of reputation would not wish to have his enemy, or whom a man of honour would not be ashamed to own for his friend. He is indeed but slightly conversant in their works, and knows little of the particulars of their defamation. To his authorship they are heartily welcome. But if any of them have been so far abandoned by truth as to attack his moral character in any respect whatsoever, to all and every one of these and their abettors, he gives the lie in form, and in the words of honest Father Valerian, mentiris impudentissime.

:

1 Warburton intimates that Pope's only faults grew out of his credulous belief in "the specious appearance of virtue," which was a sarcasm directed against those friends of Pope who were the enemies of Warburton.

2 The demand of Warburton was not for a truce on the day of Pope's funeral, which took place seven years before. He insisted that because Pope was dead no one should ever again question his title to be called "good." Neither Pope nor Warburton was accustomed to spare dead men, and the claim for exemption was specially inconsistent in the preface to works which were full of bitter attacks upon both living and dead. Warburton was to go on circulating Pope's venom, and any victim who retaliated was to be pronounced "sacrilegious," "a scandal evon to barbarians," and worthy to be "rewarded with execration and a gibbet."

3 Warburton was a fortunate author. Though he published a host of paradoxical notions, his opponents, if we are to trust his repeated assertions, were always fools and knaves.

INTRODUCTION.