considered them not so much as once to wish them ill; of such, her contempt was great enough to put a stop to all other passions that could hurt them. Her love and aversion, her gratitude and resentment, her esteem and neglect, were equally open and strong, and alterable only from the alteration of the persons who created them. Her mind was too noble to be insincere, and her heart too honest to stand in need of it; so that she never found cause to repent her conduct either to a friend or an enemy. There remains only to speak of her person, which was most amiably majestic; the nicest eye could. find no fault in the outward lineaments of her face or proportion of her body: it was such, as pleased wherever she had a desire it should; yet she never envied that of any other, which might better please in general in the same manner, as being content that her merits were esteemed where she desired they should, she never depreciated those of any other that were esteemed or preferred elsewhere. For she aimed not at a general love or a general esteem, where she was not known; it was enough to be possessed of both wherever she was. Having lived to the age of sixty-two years; not courting regard, but receiving it from all who knew her; not loving business, but discharging it fully wheresoever duty or friendship engaged her in it; not following greatness, but not declining to pay respect, as far as was due from independency and disinterest; having honourably absolved all the parts of life, she forsook this world, where she had left no act of duty or virtue undone, for that where alone such acts are rewarded, on the 13th day of March, 1742–3.'

"The above character was written by Mr. Pope some years before her Grace's death." So the printed edition.-WARBURTON.

Warburton inserted this Character in his edition of Pope's Works (1751) with the following Prefatory Note: "We find by Letter XIX. that the Duchess of Buckinghamshire would have had Mr. Pope to draw her husband's character. But though he refused this office, yet in his Epistle on the Characters of Women, these lines,

To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store,

Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor,'

are supposed to mark her out in such a manner as not to be mistaken for

another; and having said of himself that he held a lie in prose and verse to be the same, all this together gave a handle to his enemies since his death to publish the following paper (entitled the Character of Katherine, &c.) as written by him. To which (in vindication of the deceased poet) we have subjoined a letter to a friend, that will let the reader fully into the history of the writing and publication of this extraordinary character." Warburton appended to the Character' Pope's letter to Moyser of July 11, 1743 (see Vol. V., p. 216), in which the poet denies the authorship of the 'Character.' Warburton's reason for inserting the Character' was evidently not so much to deny that it was the work of Pope as to drag in his allusion to the character of Atossa, whereby he asserted, in the only way open to him, that the latter was intended as a portrait of the Duchess of Buckingham, and not, as Pope's enemies declared, of the Duchess of Marlborough. We know that the couplet he cites was substituted for the four concluding lines of the Character' in the original MS. (see Vol. III., p. 106); and I have no doubt that this was done, the couplet about the will added, and an alteration perhaps made in verses 137-8, to suit the character of the Duchess of Buckingham. Bolingbroke, as we see from his letter to Marchmont on the subject, was struck with the want of resemblance in some of the lines to the character of the Duchess of Marlborough. For the complete history of the matter see p. 351 of this volume.

·

CORRIGENDA

IN VOLUMES III., IV., IX., X.

VOL. III.

Page 29. For

"Not fashion's worshipper, not fashion's fool," Read

"Not fortune's worshipper, not fashion's fool."

59. Note to Moral Essay' i. 67. I think the explanation given in the note is incorrect. The construction is inverted :

175.

223.

"Flat falsehood serves the dull for policy."

'Moral Essay' iv., v. 34, note 3. 'Rustic.'-The definition given of this term is not quite accurate. Gwilt, in his Encyclopædia of Architecture,' defines it as "A mode of building masonry wherein the faces of the stones are left rough, the sides only being wrought smooth, where the union of the stones takes place."

'Prologue to the Satires'-Introduction. "The Longleat MS. of the verses (see note to ver. 156) cannot have been written later than 1724; and already Gildon's 'meaner quill' of the original lines is transformed into 'venal quill' with evident reference to the 'ten guineas' of Warburton's narrative (see note to ver. 156)." Mr. G. Aitken, however, has announced in the Academy of February 9, 1889, his discovery of a version of the lines published in the St. James's Journal of December 15, 1722, which has the reading "venal quill." It is evident that this (which is the earliest version) cannot have had reference to the story about the ten guineas, otherwise Pope would not afterwards have altered an epithet so significant into "meaner." Both epithets were probably used with reference to Gildon's general character, and the fable of the ten guineas was perhaps suggested to the poet's imagination by the use of the word "venal."

295. Imitation of Horace' Satires. For "Sir John Hawkin" read "Sir John Hawkins."

Page 308. Note to v. 51. "It seems almost too extravagant a stroke to

make Avidien charge his friends for the game which he sent them as presents." Several critics have pointed out quite justly that this is a misinterpretation of the line

"Sell their presented partridges and fruits,"

which no doubt means that Avidien and his wife sell the game and fruits which have been sent to them as presents.

338. Note to v. 106. The epigram on Tweedledum and Tweedledee is wrongly ascribed to Pope or Swift. The real author was Doctor Byrom. See Vol. IV., p. 445, where the epigram is given at length.

...

350. Note to v. 13. I think the interpretation I have given of the couplet is wrong. It means "Edward and Henry . . . closed their long glories with a sigh, but obtained at last the gratitude of base mankind however unwillingly paid."

409. Note 2. 'Imitation of Horace,' Book ii., Satire 6. "The Emperor of Austria" should, of course, have been "The Emperor." 411. Note to v. 184. Through a lapse of memory I have stated wrongly that the Prince of Wales had a house in Lincoln'sInn-Fields. His house was in Leicester Fields.

438. Satires of Dr. Donne Versified.' Satire iv. 134. "Who got his pension rug." I explained this as probably meaning "who got a bare covering by his pension." I find, however, that Grose, in his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,' says that "rug" is a cant word meaning "all right"; so that the meaning would seem to be, "who got his pension right and tight."

468. Epilogue to Satires. In Mr. Croker's note to v. 123 "the Duchess of Kent" should be "Duchess of Kendal."

VOL. IV.

319. Editor's note, 3 d., v. 153. It is I who am in error, not Pope. Misled by the identity of name as given in Pope's note, I believed him to be referring to Nicholas Harpsfield, of New College, Oxford, whose works answer to the description in the text. My friend Archdeacon Farrar, however, has pointed out to me that the person really referred to is De Lyra, a Franciscan of the thirteenth century, and in his day a famous theologian.

342. Editor's note s., v. 94. I have perhaps said rather too absolutely that "the history in this couplet is not quite accurate." The Ostrogoths indeed never invaded Latium, but if by Latium Pope meant Italy, he would have been thinking of the

invasion of the Ostrogoths under Theodoric in 487 A.D.

The

first invasion of Spain, answering to the irruption of the Dunces into the polite world, was, as I have stated in the note, under the Vandals and Alans, but these were afterwards dispossessed by the Visigoths, who established themselves in Spain, till they were in turn overborne by the Saracens in the beginning of the eighth century.

Page 343. Editor's note a to v. 106. "How could the Antipodes in the time of Gregory I. have known anything of the burning of Virgil, when Gregory himself did not know of the existence of Antipodes?" The answer to the puzzle as I have stated it affords a curious instance of Pope's love of mystification and equivocal meanings. He is alluding not, as seems to be the case at first sight, to Virgil the poet, but to Virgilius, Bishop of Salzburg, who put forward a theory of the rotundity of the earth, and assured his contemporaries that there were people like themselves walking under their feet. This theory was attacked as heretical by Boniface, Archbishop of Maintz, who held that it involved a belief in another world of men, another Fall, and another Redemption. Virgilius, however, seems to have explained his theory to the satisfaction of the Pope, and so far from being punished, he was canonised after his death. The controversy arose in the early part of the eighth century, and therefore long after the death of Gregory 1st, to whose burning of the Pagan authors Pope alludes in his note on v. 102.

343. Editor's note aa to v. 118. I have said that Pope's note as to the wars in England about the right time of celebrating Easter is not to be taken literally, as the method of celebrating Easter was settled at the First Council of Nicæa. Dean Milman speaks of the ruling of the Council of Nice as if it had been accepted by the whole Christian Church ('History of Latin Christianity,' vol. i. p. 44), but afterwards, describing the introduction of Christianity into England, he appears to leave it to be inferred that the Roman usage and the Eastern in this respect had continued to be separate; and what Pope, at any rate, is alluding to is the fierce controversy that arose between the Scotch and Roman monks in England in consequence of this diversity of usage.-' History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 246. 357. Editor's note ss to v. 200. For " Magdalen and Clare Hall," read "Margaret and Clare Hall."

371. Editor's note 5 z to v. 618. The note to this verse in the text is ironical. Though the passage from the 'State Poems' is as old as 1704, Pope's allusion is to Walpole's ineffectual Convention with Spain, and to the forced inaction of Admirals Vernon and Haddock, owing to Walpole's lukewarm conduct of the War.