278 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Oct. 13. ]S55'. 



well (if they happened at all), must have happened 

 during this time, and Beau Cromwell's triumph, if 

 true, could not have been much to boast of. It is 

 curious that when Mrs. Thomas, some years after, 

 undertook to furnish Curll with some particulars 

 of Dryden's life, she had nothing to tell, save that 

 he was born in a certain year, in a certain family, 

 and that he had lived in Gerard Street, Soho ; 

 upon which she proceeds at once to the fatal eri- 

 sipelas in the leg, and winds up with her long 

 story of the funeral — an invention of her roman- 

 tic brain, which was adopted, with a slight reser- 

 vation, by Johnson, and believed to be true for 

 nearly a century. 



This is, in my opinion, not the only mistake that 

 has been made about Mrs. Thomas, alias Corinna, 

 by the editors of Pope. In the published letters 

 of Pope to Cromwell, and of Cromwell to Pope, 

 the name of "Sappho" is frequently found. If 

 the name always refers to the same lady, and that 

 lady was the mistress of Cromwell, it is quite clear 

 that she was Pope's mistress also — that, in fact, 

 lie must have shared his mistress with his friend. 

 That this evidence of the young poet's depravity 

 did not startle Mr. Bowles, is not surprising ; but 

 that Mr. Roscoe, who would not allow the possi- 

 bility of Pope's indulging in a little double-dealing 

 about the publication of the letters, should have 

 accepted Mr. Bowles's notes without remark, is 

 extraordinary. Pope, in his letter to Cromwell, 

 dated March 18, 1708, says : 



" I do not know one thing for which I can envy London, 

 but for your continuing there. Yet I guess you will ex- 

 pect me to recant this expression, when I tell you that 

 Sappho (by which heathenish name you have christened 

 a very orthodox lady) did not accompany me into the 

 country. Well, you have your lady in the town still; 

 and I have my heart in the country still, which being 

 wholly unemployed as yet," &c. 



And in another letter : 



" I made no question but the news of Sappho's staying 

 behind me in the town would surprise you. But she is 

 since come into the country." 



Again, three years after, he talks of writing by 

 *• two pair of radiant lights," &c., and adds : 



" You fancy now that Sappho's eyes are two of these my 

 tapers, but it is no such matter ; these are eyes that have 

 more persuasion in one glance, than all Sappho's oratory 

 and gesture together, let her put her body into what 

 moving postures she pleases." 



This, I suspect, was a compliment to the " fair- 

 haired Martha and Teresa brown," who were 

 probably present, and gratified by hearing the 

 letter read aloud before sealing. But who was 

 this Sappho — this mysterious lady, famous for her 

 oratory and gesture — who, not content with cor- 

 rupting the youthful poet in town, must accom- 

 pany him into the country to pollute the neigh- 

 bourhood of his virtuous and peaceful home with 

 her unhallowed presence ? Some of your corres- 



No. 311.] 



pondents, who are so well informed on the subject 

 of Pope, will, I hope, give us a hint. I cannot help 

 suspecting, that she was some very respectable 

 and virtuous friend and neighbour of the Popes 

 — a "very orthodox lady" — who simply happened 

 to be sometimes in town and sometimes in the 

 country; and who was as innocent as she was ig- 

 norant of all the fine sayings and gallant gossip 

 which Mr. Cromwell and young Mr. Pope, in his 

 temporary character of a sad dog, thought fit to 

 say and to write about her. Mr, Bowles, how- 

 ever, in a note to the first of these extracts, ex- 

 pressly declares that the Sappho referred to is no 

 other than " Mrs. Thomas, who sold the letters of 

 Pope to Curll when she was in distress ;" and still 

 farther to fix the poet with the honour of a close 

 intimacy with the supposed mistress of Mr. Crom- 

 well, finds one of the letters to several ladies, in 



which a "Mrs. " had assured Pope that, but 



for some whims which she can't entirely conquer, 

 she would go and see the world with him-in man's 

 clothes. The " Mrs. " was, in an early edi- 

 tion, printed "Mrs. T ;" and, according to Mr. 



Carruthers, who apparently quotes from the ori- 

 ginal at Maple-Durham, it was originally written 

 "Mrs. Teresa" [Blount] — the letter having been, 

 in fact, addressed to her sister, Martha Blount ; 

 but Mr. Bowles (if he had really seen the letter 

 in manuscript), being misled by faint ink, or un- 

 aided by that zeal for the poet's fair fame, which 

 might have improved his eyesight on the occasion, 

 reads it " Mrs. Thomas ;" and adds in a note, " so 

 it is in the original." After this fashion we have 

 the case made out against Pope, and another great 

 poet added to the list of the fair Corinna's con- 

 quests. Whether she jilted him also for Crom- 

 well, or jilted Cromwell for Pope, is not expressly 

 stated. Mr. Bowles and Mr. Roscoe would appear 

 to have been of opinion, that, wiser than of yore, 

 she managed in this case to gain the onejjwithout 

 relinquishing the other. In a letter of Pope to 

 Cromwell, dated May 7, 1709, he speaks of — 



" The time now drawing nigh, when you use, loith 

 Sappho, to cross the water in an evening to Spring Gar- 

 dens," &c. — 



and then makes a joke about the lady, too wicked 

 for the columns of " N. & Q." 



On another occasion, he has composed a still 

 more wicked rondeau, in imitation of Voiture, 

 which he desires his friend Cromwell "to show 

 Sappho." Another time he writes, " If once you 

 [Cromwell] get so near the moon, Sappho will 

 want your presence in the clouds and inferior 

 regions." There is another allusion, in one of 

 Pope's letters to the same gentleman, to "the 

 lady in the clouds," from which the expression 

 would appear to have had some meaning. To the 

 name " Sappho," on one of these occasions, Mr. 

 Bowles says in a note, " Mrs. Thomas." This 

 completes the inferential charge against Pope ; 



