Oct. 13. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



279 



but there is a suppressed postscript to one of 

 Pope's letters, which throws a little light upon the 

 matter : 



" P.S. — My Sappho (as you heathenishly christen her) 

 is more properly your Sappho, having, been alone this half 

 3'ear in town. My service, pray, to tlie other Sappho, who, 

 'tis to be hoped, has not yet cast herself headlong from 

 any of the Leucades about London; altho' her Phaon 

 lately fled from her into Lincolnshire." 



From which it appears, first, that there were 

 two Sapphos ; and secondly, that one of them, to 

 whom the poet and his gay companion so lightly 

 gave that "heathenish name" — a name of no 

 very good odour in the days of the Behns and 

 the Manleys — became Mr. Cromwell's Sappho, or 

 Mr. Pope's Sappho, by the mere fact of her re- 

 siding alone for six months in town or country. 

 Your correspondent. The Writer, &c., has given 

 a momentary glimpse of a Mrs. Nelson ; a person 

 •who appears to have written verses, and to have 

 been one of Pope's early Catholic friends, a " very 

 orthodox lady," and an occasional visitor of the 

 neighbourhood of Binfield. Could this be the 

 lady? 



To know who was Mr. Cromwell's Sappho is 

 not important ; but even here, I suspect, the edi- 

 tors are mistaken. That Cromwell knew Mrs. 

 Thomas — that he gave originals and copies of 

 his correspondence with Pope to her, four or five 

 years after that correspondence had ceased — and 

 that, twelve years after, he alluded to her in his 

 letter to Pope explanatory of how she obtained 

 the copies, and calls her " this Sappho" — every- 

 body interested in the subject knows. But every 

 woman who dabbled in literature was occasionally 

 called Sappho in those gallant and witty times. 

 Pope, in his lines to Lady Winchelsea, says : 



" In vain you boast poetic names of j^ore, 

 And cite those Sapphos we admire no more." 



Sappho is the name he continually gives to 

 Lady Mary, though he thought fit to say that he 

 was " far from designing a person of her condition 

 by a name so derogatory to her as that of Sappho 

 — a name, prostituted to every infamous creature 

 that ever wrote verse or novels." 



Mrs. Thomas's nom-de-plume was, as we have 

 seen, "Corinna;" and she does not seem to have 

 been ever called " Sappho," save on the occasion 

 referred to, where the name appears to have been 

 applied as a scornful epithet, on account of her 

 dealings with Curll, poetical and prosaic. On the 

 other hand, it is curious that Corinna herself tells 

 us of a " Sappho" to whom Cromwell expressly 

 gave that n&me. In a letter of hers to Mr. Uve- 

 dale, published by Curll, and dated as early as 

 April 20, 1703, she says: 



" You will confess, I know you will, that Mrs. Martland 



has learning, &c., sufficient to atone for the vices, folly, 



and ill nature of a much larger city than Winchester. 



How can vou complain of solitude ? or how can vou call 



No. 311.] 



that place dull where our English Sappho resides ? Sappho 

 was the name Mr. Cromwell chose for her, and not unde- 

 servedly ; her excellent verses requiring a nobler epithet, 

 if the records of time had afforded it." 



Mr. Uvedale does not seem ever to have heard 

 of his illustrious neighbour ; but it appears that 

 Mr. Cromwell knew her before he knew young 

 Mr. Pope. 



The memoir of Corinna, in Cibber's Lives, says : 



" Mr. Pope had once vouchsafed to visit her in company 

 with Henry Cromwell, Esq. ; " 



and the story is repeated in Chalmers and else- 

 where. Mr. Carruthers is evidently of opinion 

 that he had visited her more than once. In his 

 Life of Pope (p. 81. note') he intimates that it was 

 not unlikely that the celestial machinery in the 

 Rape of the Lock was " suggested to Pope by a 

 passage in one of Dryden's letters to Mrs. Thomas," 

 and adds, " a lady with whom Pope was then very 

 intimate'^ The letter referred to by the above was 

 written before December 29, 1699, and was not 

 published till 1735 ; so that as Pope had not 

 thought of his celestials in 1712, when he pub- 

 lished the first draught of the poem, Mr. Carru- 

 thers's surmise means that it is probable that Pope, 

 profiting by his supposed " very intimate " ac- 

 quaintance with Corinna, obtained a private view 

 of the precious document (which contains, after 

 all, only a passing allusion to a very well known 

 work translated into English and sold for many 

 years by Mr. Curll) between the year 1712 and 

 the year 1714, when he had added the machinery: 

 and hence the sylphs and gnomes, and all that 

 render that poem so " airy, ingenious, and de- 

 lightful." All this strikes me as " considering too 

 curiously." I do not believe, notwithstanding 

 these authorities, that Pope had any acquaintance 

 with her, save by name. If she had been his mis- 

 tress, it is absurd to suppose that Cromwell gave 

 her, as precious relics, the letters of his own (sup- 

 posed) rival ; but still more improbable is it, that 

 if such had been the case, that industrious caterer 

 for her employer Curll, who preserved the letters 

 to Cromwell so carefully, should have had no 

 letter to herself to show, or even anecdote to tell, 

 of the famous Mr. Pope in his wild and wicked 

 days. W. M. T. 



AN EARLY SEED KBLATING TO ETON. 



The original deed, of which the following is a 

 copy, was formerly in the possession of Thomas 

 Martin, the well-known antiquary. If not too 

 long for your space, it may interest some of your 

 readers. Although wills giving property to ec- 

 clesiastical institutions in consideration of masses 

 for the soul of the testator are very often met 

 with, deeds of this nature are not so common. 

 The college or other institution preserved the 



