hitherto remained a Sealed Book, except to a privileged few. Some of them, indeed, found their way to the public through the medium of Warburton, Warton, Johnson, and Malone. To the two first of these writers they were communicated by Mr. Spence himself. Among his papers, I find this memorandum, dated April 7th, 1744.-" Mr. Warburton thinks of writing Mr. Pope's Life, whenever the world may have so great a loss, and I offered to give him any lights I could toward it."

He afterwards gave Dr. Warton the following more circumstantial account:

"As they returned in the same carriage together from Twickenham, soon after the death of Mr. Pope, and joined in lamenting his death, and celebrating his praises, Dr. Warburton said he intended to write his life; on which Mr. Spence, with his usual modesty and condescension, said that he also had the same intention; and had from time to time collected from Mr. Pope's own mouth, various particulars of his life, pursuits, and studies; but would readily give up to Dr. Warburton all his collections on this subject, and accordingly communicated them to him immediately." "Warburton (says Mr. Tyers) was entangled by late friendships et recentibus odiis. His prospects of elevation in the church, made him too great for his subject. He did nothing on this occasion; but thirty years afterwards he assisted Ruffhead, and revised the life, as written by his locum tenens, sheet by sheet." This is no doubt a true account of the transaction, for in 1761, Warburton says to his friend Hurd, "I have sometimes thought of collecting my scattered anecdotes, and critical observations together, for a foundation of a Life of Pope, which the booksellers teaze me for, you could help me nobly to fill up the canvas. This hint does not appear to have been seized by Hurd with the avidity that was perhaps expected, and the Life of Pope did not make its appearance until the

year 1769. Owen Ruff head seems to have been a dull plodding lawyer, and all that is of value in this ponderous performance, must be attributed to Warburton, whose hand may be traced upon every important topic in the book. Almost every anecdote of interest in that Life of Pope is derived from this collection, and always without acknowledgment. It is remarkable that it should not be published until the year after Spence's death, as if there was some consciousness of this appropriation.-Warburton affected to speak contemptuously of Spence; had he any intimation that Spence had ever spoken, as he has written, that "Warburton was, thirty years since, an attorney at Newark, and got into orders by spitting into a nobleman's face at an election!"

Dr. Warton lived in habits of friendship with Spence, and has enlivened his delightful Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, with many particulars derived from these anecdotes; and makes the following grateful acknowledgment, which is of the greater value, as it came too late to flatter the living ear of his friend. After mentioning Spence's Essay on the Odyssey as a work of the truest taste, he says: "I am indebted to this learned and amiable man, on whose friendship I set the greatest value, for most of the anecdotes relating to Pope, mentioned in this work, which he gave me when I was making him a visit at Byfleet, in 1754."

When Dr. Johnson was engaged to write the Lives of the Poets, application was made to the Duke of Newcastle, by Sir Lucas Pepys, for the loan of his manuscript, and it was conceded to his use in the most liberal manner. He acknowledges the "great assistance" he derived from it, and says: "I consider the communication as a favour worthy of public acknowledgment," but does not mention to whom he was obliged for it.

These Anecdotes were indeed almost the sole documents

he had for the Life of Pope, and they will enable the admirers of that capital specimen of critical biography to appreciate his skill in forming so interesting and eloquent a narrative from such slight materials. In the Lives of Addison, Tickell, and others, he has also made use of the information these Anecdotes contain.

At a subsequent period, the late Mr. Malone was favoured with the free use of the Anecdotes, when engaged in writing the Life of Dryden, and he availed himself of the privilege of making a complete transcript for his own use; in doing this, he has not observed the chronological order of the original, but has classed the anecdotes, bringing all that related to Pope under one class, which he has called Popiana;" disposing the others under their respective heads. He has added to his transcript a few notes and corrections, and it was these which the late Mr. Beloe had intended to use, when he announced the work for publication some years since.

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Having been favoured with a sight of this transcript, since the greater part of the present edition was printed, I am happy to observe that nothing of any material import has escaped me which had occurred to Mr. Malone; and I may add, that some obscurities have been removed, by the light which I have derived from the papers of Mr. Spence.

The manuscripts which have been used for this publication consist of one bound volume, in octavo, in which the anecdotes had been copied fair from the first loose memorandum papers; this appears to have commenced in August, 1728, and finishes in 1737. The variations of this copy I have pointed out, and cited it as MS. B. Besides this; the anecdotes, digested and enlarged in five paper books in folio, each containing two centuries or sections, the first dated 1728, and the last terminating at Pope's death, in 1744. These have been carefully compared with the first

MS. memoranda, and with the bound MS. B. above-mentioned, and the important variations noticed.

The additional anecdotes, which I have thrown into a Supplement, were derived from some loose papers and memorandum books, and seem to evince an intention on the part of Mr. Spence of continuing the Anecdotes down to a later period. All the MSS. were in the hand-writing of Mr. Spence, and on the first leaf of the Paper Book containing the two first centuries, the following note was written by him in pencil: "All the people well acquainted with Mr. Pope, looked on him as a most friendly, open, charitable, and generous-hearted man;-all the world almost, that did not know him, were got into a mode of having very different ideas of him: how proper this makes it to publish these Anecdotes after my death."-Beneath this is written with a pen, "Left in this drawer because so many things in them that were not enter'd in the Vellum MS."

It is obvious that one of the principal objects of this collection, must have been to record those things worthy of remark which fell from Pope in the course of familiar conversation; but it was subsequently enriched with curious particulars, gathered from the same kind of intercourse with other persons of eminence. This gives it a more miscellaneous form, and that variety, which is the very spirit of such a work, and fits it for the intended purpose, a Lounging Book for an idle hour. A complete though brief AutoBiography of Pope may be collected from it, and the most exact record of his opinions on important topics, probably the more genuine and undisguised, because not premeditated, but elicited by the impulse of the moment.

In regard to the account of the quarrel between Pope and Addison, contained in the following pages, the necessity must be apparent of examining with caution this ex-parte

evidence: I the more anxiously urge this, because I have omitted to comment upon it in the notes. It is with great pleasure I refer the reader to a spirited vindication of Addison by Mr. Bowles, in a note to the fourth volume of his edition of Pope's Works, p. 41.

In the variety of such a miscellaneous farrago, it might be expected that some trifling and unimportant matter would be found, some things too may have lost their interest by the lapse of time; but I have thought that most readers would like to make their own selection; what may be deemed frivolous and useless by some, would be considered of importance by others, and the omissions I have ventured upon, are only of such articles as were already printed by Mr. Spence himself, or which were of a nature to be totally unworthy of a place, even in a collection of this kind. After all, perhaps I have sinned in giving too much instead of too little. The notes are merely such as occurred to me in transcribing the work for the press; more time, or a more convenient access to books, would have enabled me to enlarge them, but I know not how it would have been possible to make two large volumes, as was the intention of Mr. Beloe, whose materials were not near so copious as my own. The Supplemental Anecdotes, the various additions from Memorandum Papers, and the Letters, were not in his hands, nor could he have obtained them.

I have much pleasure in being the instrument of making this curious repertory accessible to the lover of literary anecdote. From a very early period of my life, I earnestly desired to see it, and should have been grateful to any one who had placed it in my power, in a form similar to that in which I have now the satisfaction of laying it before the public.

Bushey, Herts, December 11, 1819.