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WORKS

O F

Alexander Pope Efq.

VOLUME I.

CONTAINING HIS

JUVENILE POEMS.

LONDON

Printed for H. LINTOT, J. and R. TONSON, and S. DRAPER.

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TO THE

Large OCTAVO EDITION.

M'

R. POPE, in his laft illness, amused himself, amidst the care of his higher concerns, in preparing a corrected and complete Edition of his Writings *; and, with his usual delicacy, was even folicitous to prevent any share of the offence they might occafion, from falling on the Friend whom he had engaged to give them to the Public †.

*"I own the late encroachments upon my "conftitution make me willing to see the end of all "further care about me or my works. I would rest "for the one in a full refignation of my Being to be "difpofed of by the Father of all Mercy; and for "the other (though indeed a trifle, yet a trifle may "be fome example) I would commit them to the "candour of a fenfible and reflecting judge, rather

than to the malice of every fhort-fighted and malevolent critic, or inadvertent and cenforious "Reader. And no hand can fet them in fo good a "light, &c." Let. cxx. to Mr. W,

: + "I also give and bequeath to the faid Mr. "Warburton, the property of all fuch of my Works already printed as he hath written or shall write Commentaries or notes upon, and which I have "not otherwife difpofed of or alienated; and as he fhall publifh WITHOUT FUTURE ALTERA"TIONS."His laft Will and Teftament.

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In difcharge of this truft, the Public has here a complete Edition of his Works; executed in fuch a manner, as, I am perfuaded, would have been to his fatisfaction.

The Editor hath not, for the fake of profit, fuffered the Author's Name to be made cheap by a Subscription; nor his Works to be defrauded of their due Honours by a vulgar or inelegant Impreffion; nor his memory to be difgraced by any pieces unworthy of his talents or virtue. On the contrary, he hath, at a very great expence, ornamented this Edition with all the advantages which the best Artists in Paper, Printing, and Sculpture could beftow upon it.

If the Public hath waited longer than the deference due to it fhould have fuffered, it was owing to a reason which the Editor need not make a fecret. It was his regard to the family-interefts of his deceafed Friend. Mr. Pope, at his death, left large impreffions of feveral parts of his Works, unfold; the property of which was adjudged to belong to his Executors; and the Editor was willing they should have time to difpofe of them to the best advantage, before the publication of this Edition (which hath been long prepared) thould put a stop to the fale.

But

But it may be proper to be a little more particular concerning the fuperiority of this Edition above all the preceding; fo far as Mr. Pope himself was concerned. What the Editor hath done, the Reader muft collect for himself.

The FIRST Volume, and the original poems in the SECOND, are here printed from a copy corrected throughout by the Author himself, even to the very preface: Which, with feveral additional notes in his own hand, he delivered to the Editor a little before his death. The Juvenile tranflations, in the other part of the SE COND Volume, it was never his intention to bring into this Edition of his Works, on account of the levity of fome, the freedom of others, and the little importance of any. But these being the property of other men, the Editor had it not in his power to follow the Author's intention.

The THIRD Volume, all but the Essay on Man (which together with the Effay on Criticism, the Author, a little before his death, had corrected and published in Quarto, as a specimen of his projected Edition) was printed by him in his laft illnefs (but never published) in the manner it is now given. The difpofition of the EpiAle on the Characters of Men is quite alA 4

tered

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