2'"» S. No 76., June 13. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



461 



LONDON. SATURDAY, JUNE 13. 1867. 



^aiti. 



Warhurton and Pope (2°* S. iii. 404.) — It is 

 certain that Warburton edited the Dunciad, the 

 Essay on man, and the Essay on criticism, with his 

 own notes, in the lifetime of Pope. I also consider 

 it as certain that he edited no other portion of the 

 works of Pope within that period. In support of 

 my conviction, I transcribe a statement on the 

 subject by the reverend annotator himself, in a 

 letter to Mrs. Cockburn, the metaphisical writer, 

 dated Newark, Jan. 26, 1744-5. 



" In answer to your obliging question, what works of 

 Mr. Pope have been published with my commentaries and 

 notes? I am to inform you, they are the Dunciad in 

 quarto, and the Essay on man and on criticism, in the 

 same size. Which affords me an opportunity to beg the 

 favour of you to let me know into whose hands in London 

 I can consign a small parcel for j'ou : for I have done 

 myself the honour of ordering these two volumes to be 

 sent to you, as I believed j'ou would with difficulty get 

 them of your booksellers so far north ; and I hope you will 

 forgive this liberty." 



The letter which contains the above information 

 was printed by the bishop of Worcester in 1794. 

 The assertion of Bollngbroke is no contradiction 

 to it. The identity of the Essay on man and the 

 four Ethic epistles is unquestionable — the second 

 title of the Essay, as printed in the Works of 

 Pope in 1736, being The first hook of ethic epistles. 

 In the edition of 174.3 the fly-title Epistles to seve- 

 ral persTfns was substituted for the former fly-title. 

 Ethic epistles, the second book, while the second 

 title of the Essay on man was left without the re- 

 quired alteration. Bolton Cobnet. 



Pope's Father ; his first Wife ; and his Half- 

 Sister Mrs. Rackett. — The curious early London 

 Directory described by Mb. Bolton Cobnet in 

 " N. & Q." of the 2nd May last, contains an entry 

 which, though it escaped that gentleman's keen 

 eye for literary facts, has proved to be of con- 

 siderable importance, as illustrating the biography 

 of Pope. 



A correspondent of Mr. Hotten, of Piccadilly, 

 has communicated to the Adversaria attached to 

 his Catalogue the fact that a copy of such di- 

 rectory exists in the Manchester Free Library, 

 and that there was duly registered in such di- 

 rectory as then living, i. e. in 1677 : 



"Alexandee Pope, Begad Steeet." 



That this was the poet's father there could be 

 little doubt. There can be none now. The hint 

 was slight, but it has been already well followed 

 out. In The Athenceum of May 30, we have an 

 article in which the identity of Alexander Pope 

 of Broad Street and the poet's father is clearly 



established ; but we will quote the writer's own 

 words : 



" Part of Broad Street is in the parish of St. Bennet- 

 Fink, and the Register records, — 



"'1679, 12 Aug«t. Buried, Magdalen, the wife of 

 AUixander Pope.' 



" Here, then, we have, for the first time, evidence that 

 the elder Pope resided in Broad Street in 1677 — 1679; 

 and there died and was buried, in 1679, Magdalen, the 

 wife of Alexander Pope the Elder. There can be no 

 doubt that this Magdalen Pope was the wife of the poet's 

 father, and the mother of Magdalen Rackett, who, as we 

 have shown, and shall hereafter prove, on the evidence of 

 the poet himself, was the daughter of Pope's father by a 

 first wife : and thus the question of relationship between 

 Mrs. Rackett and Pope will be decided after a century of 

 discussion, and against the recorded judgment of the 

 biographers. We learn also from a comparison of this 

 Register with the inscription on the monument at Twick- 

 enham that Pope's father was about or above forty when 

 he married his second wife. Pope believed that his 

 mother was two years older than his father; but that 

 was a mistake, for from the Register of her baptism at 

 Worsborough, June 18, 1642, which follows, within seven 

 months, the baptism of an elder sister, she appears to 

 have been ninety-one instead of ninety-three at the time 

 of her death. Mrs. Rackett was, it now appears, at least 

 nine years older than Pope. 



"The fact being established that Magdalen Rackett 

 was the daughter of Pope's father, it materially bears on 

 the question as to the amount of his property ; for as he 

 left her and her husband but Gl. each for mourning, it 

 must be inferred that he had given her or her husband 

 her entire fortune before he made his will." 



We cannot give further extracts from the ar- 

 ticle, which is full of new and curious information 

 as to the Racketts, and illustrated by extracts 

 from original and unpublished Letters of Pope — 

 the more valuable that, unlike those which he 

 himself prepared for the press, they have not been 

 tampered with. Of the value of such letters there 

 can be little doubt, especially when they contaia 

 such passages as are to be found in the following, 

 in which he thanks Caryll for his kindness to one 

 of Mrs. Rackett's sons : 



" 6 Feb. 1730-1. 'I thank you for your kind promise 

 in relation to mv nephew in case of any future oppor- 

 tunity in Lord Metre's family, and I doubted not j'our 

 long-experienced friendship would have assisted me, in 

 him, had the occasion presented. Mr. Pigot, you know, 

 has lost his son, which I am concerned for, but he told me 

 there was no way for our poor conscientious Papists to 

 take but to pass for clerks to some Protestants, and get 

 into business thereby laying hold of their cloaks, as they 

 used to try to get to Heaven by laying hold of a Fran- 

 ciscan's habit. . . . I'll now answer all your Quseries 

 as they lie. . . . My sister Racket was my oton father's 

 daughter by a former wife. . . . I'm taken up veiy 

 unpleasanth' in a law suit of my sister's, which carries me 

 too often to'London, which neither agrees with my health, 

 nor mj' humour.' " 



Not the least valuable portion of this paper is, 

 however, the clues which it affords to quarters in 

 which further search for materials illustrative of 

 Pope's history might be made with probabilities 

 of good result. ^Vho are the representatives of 



