Prefixed to the First Genuine Edition in quarto, 1737.

I

F what is here offered the reader, fhould happen in any degree to please him, the thanks are not 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, Sof which he never kept copies, were preferv'd; and to the malice of the latter, that they were produced in this manner.

He had been very difagreeably used, in the publi cation 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 thofe who he imagined had kept any." He 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,

fact, from which the scriblers of the times had taken occafion to afperfe eith his friends or himself. He therefore lay'd by the Originals, together with those of his correspondents, and caused a copy to be taken to depofite, in the library of a noble friends that in cafe either of the revival of flanders, or the publication of furreptitious Letters, during his life or after, a proper ufe might be made of them.

The next year, the pofthumous works of Mr. Wycherley were printed, in a way difreputable 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 thofe poems. As fome of the Letters which had Raffed 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 reit, 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, t

It is notorious how many volumes have been publifhed under the title of his correfpondence, with promifes ftill of more; and open and repeated offers

of

of encouragement to all perfons who should send any letters of his for the prefs. It is as notorious what methods were taken to procure them, even from the publifher's own accounts in his prefaces, viz. by tranfa&ting with people in neceffities, or of abandoned characters, or fuch as dealt without names in the dark. Upon a

laft, he betrayed him quarrel with one of thefe

fo 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 fharing equally in the money, rings and watches, they had traded for in partnership upon Hounflow-heath.

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 correfpond 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 pre

* See the Preface to vol. i. of a Book called Mr. Pope's Literary Correfpondence.

Poftfcript to the Preface to vol. iv.

Narrative and Anecdotes before vol. ii.

§ In Vol. iii. Letters from Mr. Pope to Mrs. Blount, &c.

Vol. ii. of the fame, 8°. pag. 20. and at the end of the Edition of his Letters in 12, by the bookfellers of London and Westminster; and of the laft Edition in 12°, printed for T Cooper, 1725.

tenfion,

tenfion, (except that of pleafing by poetry) to have been bas much afperfed and written at, as any Fitf Minister of this 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 Papist, and an enemy to the Establishment. The unwarrantable publication of his Letters hath at leaft done him this fervice, to fhew he has conftantly enjoyed the friendfhip of worthy men; and that if a catalogue were to be taken of his friends and his enemies 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! his real fentiments, as they flowed warm from the heart, and fresh from the occafion; without the leaft thought that ever the world fhould be witness to them. Had he fate down with a defign to draw his own picture, he could not have done it fo truly; for whoever fits for it (whether to himfelf or anofor ther) will inevitably find the features more compofed, than his appear in thefe letters. But if an author's hand, like a painter's, be more diftinguifhable 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.

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