its original form, as it appeared in 1728, is now printed with the collected works for the first time. Those Appendices which appeared in different editions during Pope's lifetime, but were afterwards omitted by Warburton, have (with the exception of the Paper from the Guardian,' which will appear among the Prose Works) been replaced, and many readers will probably derive amusement from the humour of 'Virgilius Restauratus.'

is there stated (my information having been derived from Mr. Croker's Preface to Lord Hervey's Memoirs ') that the couplet :

And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,
Impatient waits till * * join the choir,

occurs in the first edition of the 'Dunciad.' I have cited it accordingly in support of the contention that the provocation in the quarrel had been given by Pope. The lines, however, first appear in the edition of 1736, and must therefore be regarded as part of the punishment inflicted by the poet on Lord Hervey, in retaliation for the Epistle to the Doctor of Divinity.'

THE

DUNCIA D.

IN

FOUR BOOKS.

WITH

THE PROLEGOMENA OF SCRIBLERUS, THE HYPERCRITICS

OF ARISTARCHUS, AND NOTES VARIORUM.

A

LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER,

OCCASIONED BY THE

FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE DUNCIAD.

Ir is with pleasure I hear, that you have procured a correct copy of the DUNCIAD, which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a COMMENTARY: a Work so requisite, that I cannot think the Author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this Poem.

Such Notes as have occurred to me, I herewith send you: you will oblige me by inserting them amongst those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by others; since not only the Author's friends, but even strangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take some care of an Orphan of so much genius and spirit, which its parent seems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended.

It was upon reading some of the abusive papers lately published, that my great regard to a Person, whose Friendship I esteem' as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater respect to Truth, than to him or any man living, engaged me in enquiries, of which the inclosed Notes are the fruit.

I perceived, that most of these Authors had been (doubtless very wisely) the first aggressors. They had tried, 'till they

In edition of 1729, "I shall ever esteem."

were weary, what was to be got by railing at each other: Nobody was either concerned or surprised, if this or that scribbler was proved a dunce. But every one was curious to read what could be said to prove Mr. POPE one, and was ready to pay something for such a discovery: a stratagem, which would they fairly own, it might not only reconcile them to me, but screen them from the resentment of their lawful Superiors, whom they daily abuse, only (as I charitably hope) to get that by them, which they cannot get from them.

I found this was not all: ill success in that had transported them to Personal abuse, either of himself, or (what I think he could less forgive) of his Friends. They had called Men of virtue and honour bad Men, long before he had either leisure or inclination to call them bad Writers: and some had been such old offenders, that he had quite forgotten their persons as well as their slanders, 'till they were pleased to revive them.

Now what had Mr. POPE done before, to incense them? He had published those works which are in the hands of everybody, in which not the least mention is made of any of them. And what has he done since? He has laughed, and written the DUNCIAD. What has that said of them? A very serious truth, which the public had said before, that they were dull : and what it had no sooner said, but they themselves were at great pains to procure, or even purchase room in the prints, to testify under their hands to the truth of it.

I should still have been silent, if either I had seen any inclination in my friend to be serious with such accusers, or if they had only meddled with his Writings; since whoever publishes, puts himself on his trial by his Country. But when his Moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can secure the most innocent,-in a manner, which, though it annihilates the credit of the accusation with the just and impartial, yet aggravates very much the guilt of the accusers'; I mean by Authors without names; then I thought, since the danger was common to all, In 1729, "accuser." 2 In 1729, "is."