PREFACE Prefixed to the First Genuine Edition in quarto, 1737. F what is here offered the reader, fhould happen I'm any degree to 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 fo many Letters, of which he never kept copies, were preserv'd; and to the malice of the latter, that they were produced in this manner. He He had been very difagreeably used, in the publication of fome Letters written in his youth, which fell into the hands of a woman who printed them, without his or his correfpondent's confent, in 1727. This treatment, and the apprehenfion of more of the fame kind, put him upon recalling as many as he could from those who he imagined had kept any. was forry to find the number fo great, but immediately leffened it, by burning three parts in four of them the rest he fpared, not in any preference of their style or writing, but merely as they preferv'd the memory of fome friendships which will ever be dear to him, or fet in a true light fome matters of fact, from which the fcriblers of the times had taken occafion to afperfe either his friends or himself. He therefore lay'd by the Originals, together with those of his correfpondents, and caused a copy to be taken to depofite in the library of a noble friend; that in cafe either of the revival of flanders, or the publicaof furreptitious Letters, during his life or after, a proper use might be made of them. The next year, the pofthumous works of Mr Wycherley were printed, in a way disreputable enough to his memory. It was thought a juftice due to him, to fhew the world his better judgment; and that it was his last resolution to have fuppreffed those poems. As fome of the Letters which had paffed between him and our author cleared that point, they were published in 1729, with a few marginal notes added by a friend. If in thefe Letters, and in those which were printed without his confent, there appear too much of a juvenile ambition of wit, or affectation of gaiety, he may reasonably hope it will be confidered to whom, and at what age, he was guilty of it, as well as how foon it was over. The reft, every judge of writing will fee, were by no means efforts of the genius, but emanations of the heart: and this alone may induce any candid reader to believe their publication an act of neceffity, rather than of vanity. It is notorious how many volumes have been published under the title of his correfpondence, with promifes ftill of more, and open and repeated offers of encouragement to all perfons who should fend any letters of his for the prefs. It is as notorious what me thods were taken to procure them, even from the publisher's own accounts in his prefaces, viz. by tranfacting with people in neceffities, or of abandoned † characters, or fuch as dealt without names in the * dark. Upon a quarrel with one of these last, he betrayed himself so far, as to appeal to the public in Narratives and Advertisements: like that Irish highway-man a few years before, who preferr'd a bill against his companion, for not sharing equally in the money, rings and watches, they had traded for in partnership upon Hounslow-health. Several have been printed in his name which he never writ, and addreffed to perfons to whom they never were written ||; counterfeited as from bishop Atterbury to him, which neither that bishop nor he ever faw ** ; and advertised even after that period, when it was made felony to correspond with him. I know not how it has been this author's fate, whom both his fituation and his temper have all his life excluded from rivalling any man, in any pretenfion, (except that of pleafing by poetry) to have been as much afperfed and written at, as any Firft Mini * See the Preface to vol. i. of a book called Mr Pope's Literary Correfpondence. † Poftfcript to the Preface to vol. iv. of ditto. Narrative and Annecdotes before vol. ii. of ditto. In vol. iii. Letters from Mr Pope to Mrs Blount, &c. ** Vol. ii. of the fame, 8vo, pag. 20. and at the end of the Edition of his Letters in 12mo, by the book fellers of London and Westminster; and of the last Edition in 12mo, printed for T. Cooper, 1725. fter of his time: pamphlets and news-papers have been full of him, nor was it there only that a private man, who never troubled either the world or common converfation, with his opinions of Religion or Government, has been reprefented as a dangerous member of Society, a bigotted Papift, and an enemy to the Establishment. The unwarrantable publication of his Letters hath at least done him this fervice, to fhew he has conftantly enjoyed the friendship of worthy men; and that if a catalogue were to be taken of his friends and his enemies, he needs not to blush at either. Many of them having been written on the most trying occurrences, and all in the openness of friendship, are a proof what were his real fentiments, as they flowed warm from the heart, and fresh from the occafion; without the least thought that ever the world fhould be witness to them. Had he fat down with a design to draw his own picture, he could not have done it so truly ; for whoever fits for it (whether to himself or another) will inevitably find the features more compofed, than his appear in these Letters. But if an au thor's hand, like a painter's, be more diftinguishable in a flight sketch than in a finished picture, this very careleffnefs will make them the better known from fuch counterfeits, as have been, and may be imputed to him, either through a mercenary or a malicious defign. We hope it is needless to say, he is not accountable for feveral paffages in the furreptitious editions of those Letters, which are fuch as no man of common fense would have published himself. The errors |