LETTER XIV. Of the freedom of a friend, the incongruity of man, and the vanity of the world - Page 300 XV. Of the Version of Homer: Party animofity 303 concerning Mr. Ad- difon, Philips's Calumny, and Mr. Gay's 325 XXIII. The Answer XXIV. Mr. Pope to the Earl of Halifax XXV. Dr. Parnelle, Dr. Berkley, Mr. Gay, and A Narrative of the Method by which Mr. Pope's pri- PRE- PREFACE OF THE PUBLISHER OF THE SURREPTITIOUS EDITION, 1735. IVE prefume we want no apology to the reader for this publication, but fome may be thought needful to Mr. Pope: however, he cannot think our offence fo great as theirs, who first feparately published what we have here but collected in a better form and order. As for the Letters we have procured to be added, they ferve but to complete, explain, and fometimes fet in a true light, those others, which it was not in the writer's or our power to recal. This collection hath been owing to feveral cabinets : fome drawn from thence by accidents, and others (even of thofe to Ladies) voluntarily given. It is to one of that fex we are beholden for the whole correfpondence between H. C. Efq. which Letters being lent her by that Gentleman, he took the liberty to print; as appears by the following, which we shall give at length, both as it is fomething curious, and as it may ferve for an apology for ourfelves. ΤΟ TO HENRY CROMWELL, ESQ. June 27, 1727. FTER fo long a filence as the many and great opAFTE preffions I have fighed under have occafioned, one is at a lofs how to begin a letter to fo kind a friend as yourself. But as it was always my refolution, if I must fink, to do it as decently (that is, as filently) as I could; fo when I found myself plunged into unforeseen and unavoidable ruin, I retreated from the world, and in a manner buried myself in a difmal place, where I knew none, and none knew me. In this dull unthinking way, I have protracted a lingering death (for life it cannot be called) ever since you faw me, fequeftered from company, deprived of my books, and nothing left to converfe with, but the letters of my dead or abfent friends; among which latter I always placed yours and Mr. Pope's in the first rank. I lent fome of them indeed to an ingenious perfon, who was fo delighted with the specimen, that he importuned me for a fight of the reft, which having obtained, he conveyed them to the press, I must not fay altogether with my confent, nor wholly without it. I thought them too good to be loft in oblivion, and had no caufe to apprehend the difobliging of any. The Public, viz. all perfons of taste and judgment, would be pleafed with fo agreeable an amufement; Mr. Cromwell could not be angry, fince it was but justice |