PREFACE.

THE task of editing any portion of Pope's writings has been so much lightened by the labours of four generations of commentators that there is now very little room for original research, or for any important additions either in the way of commentary or illustration. I have had before me the editions of Warburton, Warton, Bowles, Roscoe, Elwin, and Courthope, the notes of Wakefield, Conington's interesting essay, and I am indebted to them all, but especially to Mr. Elwin's notes and to Mr. Courthope's excellent Life of Pope. As this edition is designed mainly for the use of students, both in England and in the Colonies, the notes are very copious, but I have endeavoured to make them as succinct and relevant as I could. I have, I hope, left no passage or even word, likely to present any difficulty, unexplained. It has been necessary to quote somewhat freely from ancient classical authors, but where quotations have been given they have always been translated. It seems a great pity that instruction in the principles of criticism should

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be so generally neglected, both in our schools and in our colleges, and so little encouraged by those who prescribe the subjects of study in our higher government examinations. The proper place of the Essay on Criticism is no doubt beside Horace's Ars Poetica, and it is better adapted for classical than for non-classical students, but to non-classical students it would be perfectly intelligible, and the study of it could not fail to be of benefit to them in more ways than one.