cently and defenfively publish them him

felf.

Pope's private correfpondence thus promulgated, filled the nation with praises of his candour, tenderness, and benevolence, the purity of his purposes, and the fidelity of his friendship. There were fome Letters which a very good or a very wife man would with fuppreffed; but, as they had been already expofed, it was impracticable now to retract them.

From the perufal of thofe Letters, Mr. Allen firft conceived the defire of knowing him; and with fo much zeal did he cultivate the friendship which he had newly formed, that when Pope told his purpose of vindicating his own pro

perty

perty by a genuine edition, he offered

to pay the coft.

This however Pope did not accept; but in time folicited a subscription for a Quarto volume, which appeared (1737), I believe, with fufficient profit. In the Preface he tells that his Letters were repofited in a friend's library, faid to be the Earl of Oxford's, and that the copy thence ftolen was fent to the prefs. The ftory was doubtlefs received with different degrees of credit. It may be fufpected that the Preface to the Mifcellanies was written to prepare the publick for fuch an incident; and to ftrengthen this opinion, James Worfdale, a painter, who was employed in clandeftine negotiations, but whose vera

city was very doubtful, declared that he was the meffenger who carried, by Pope's direction, the books to Curll.

When they were thus published and avowed, as they had relation to recent facts, and perfons either then living or not yet forgotten, they may be fupposed to have found readers; but as the facts were minute, and the characters being either private or literary, were little known, or little regarded, they awakened no popular kindness or refentment: the book never became much the subject of converfation; fome read it as contemporary history, and fome perhaps as a model of epiftolary language; but those who read it did not talk of it. Not much therefore was added by it to fame or

envy; nor do I remember that it produced either publick praife, or publick cenfure.

It had however, in fome degree, the recommendation of novelty. Our language has few Letters, except those of ftatefmen. Howel indeed, about a century ago, published his Letters, which are commended by Morhoff, and which alone of his hundred volumes continue his memory. Loveday's Letters were printed only once; thofe of Herbert and Suckling are hardly known. Mrs. Phillips's [Orinda's] are equally neglected; and thofe of Walfh feem written as exercifes, and were never fent to any living mistress or friend. Pope's epiftolary excellence had an open field; he

had

had no English rival, living or dead.

Pope is feen in this collection as connected with the other contemporary wits, and certainly fuffers no difgrace in the comparison; but it must be remembered that he had the power of favouring himfelf: he might have originally had publication in his mind, and have written with care, or have afterwards felected those which he had moft happily conceived, or moft diligently laboured; and I know not whether there does not appear fomething more studied. and artificial in his productions than the reft, except one long Letter by Bolingbroke, compofed with all the fkill and industry of a profeffed author. It is indeed not cafy to diftinguish affectation