508 



NOTES AND QUEETES. 



[2''d S. No 104, Dec. 26. '57. 



Popes Imitations of English Poets. — Your cor- 

 respondent (2"^ S. iv. p. 446.) says that the edi- 

 tion of 1736 was " the first occasion on ■which the 

 Imitations, as we now have them, were printed. 

 One or two only had appeared in 1717, quarto." 

 It is probable that your correspondent meant 

 that the edition of 1736 was the first occasion on 

 which they had been published together ; and 

 this agrees with the "Advertisement" prefixed to 

 the volume which he quotes, where we are told 

 that the Imitations, " having got into the ' Mis- 

 cellanies,' are here brought together to complete 

 this juvenile volume." Still I cannot but believe 

 that he has overlooked, or has no faith in, the 

 statement in the " Advertisement," which implies 

 prior publication ; and that from his reference to 

 the "one or two" in the quarto of 1717, the 

 reader will infer that only " one or two " had 

 been previously published. I can, however, of my 

 own knowledge, say, that with the exception of 

 those of Cowley, — and these may have appeared, 

 though I have not noticed it — they had all been 

 published before. Thus the Imitation of Chaucer, 

 Spencer, Dorset, Swift, " The Happy Life," ap- 

 peared in the " Miscellanies," 1727 ; the Imita- 

 tion of Waller " On a Lady singing," in the Crom- 

 wellLetters, 1726, according to the title-page, 1727; 

 " On a Fan," in quarto, 1717 ; of Rochester " On 

 Silence," in Pope's MiscelL, 1712; and "Donne 

 Versified," if considered as Imitations, in 1735. 

 I do not pretend to give the dale of first publica- 

 tion, but simply of publication before 1736. I so 

 entirely agree with your correspondent as to the 

 importance of determining the exact date of Pope's 

 publications, that if he, or any other, can help us 

 to the month as well as the year, he will render 

 good service. P. S. I. 



Lines on the Dunciad. — The following verses, 

 written in a contemporary hand, are on the fly- 

 leaf of a copy of T'he Dunciad, 2nd edit., 8vo., 

 1729, Ass frontispiece (ed. 1^. of "N. & Q.") 

 now in the possession of Mr. Alexander, book- 

 seller, of Kingsland Road. Have they ever been 

 printed ? If so, where, and by whom were they 

 written ? 



" To Mr. Pope on * The Dunciad.^ 



" O thou whose glories like thy Phoebus strike, 

 And shine on the unjust and just alike, 

 Show every Beauty, make all spots appear, 

 And gild a Dunghill as they gild a Sphere ! 

 And can such Rage th' immortal Bard inspire 

 Abate the Dog-day fury of thy fire ? 

 Prest by th' incumbent Dunciad, leave them there, 

 And by their bellowing know the pangs they bear, 

 So whelm'd with ./Etna Typhon heaves in vain, 

 And roars and stuns an Island with his pain." 



L. D. 



" Additions to the Works of A. Pope " (2 vols., 

 Baldwin, 1776.) — The compiler of this work is 



not known. As it is the only authority for attri- 

 buting certain poems and letters to the poet, it 

 becomes of consequence that we should test its 

 own authority, and I beg leave, therefore, to start 

 the subject in " N. & Q." 



The collection is generally attributed to George 

 Steevens; why, I know not. "The Editor," in 

 the Preface, tells us that " several of the pieces " 

 first appeared in the St. James s Chronicle — that 

 the favourable reception they met with suggested 

 a wish to give them a more durable form, and he 

 accordingly communicated this wish to his friends ; 

 who assisted him so much beyond expectation, that 

 "instead of one volume," he has "been able to 

 make out two.'' Thus, then, it appears, that one 

 half the whole of the contents first appeared in 

 this work. The editor then goes on to say, that 

 "many of the Letters and Poems . . were tran- 

 scribed with accuracy from the originals in the 

 collections of the late Lords Oxford and Boling- 

 broke. . , Others of the Lettei*s are taken from 

 pamphlets printed some years ago." This sounds 

 well ; but how are we to distinguish between the 

 letters professedly copied from the originals and 

 those taken from pamphlets ? And how did the 

 editor distinguish between the genuine and the 

 spurious which had appeared in pamphlets, and 

 what was the value of his discretion and judg- 

 ment ? Fortunately, we are enabled to form an 

 opinion on these points by the following : — 



" His [Pope's] Letters to his favourite, Miss Blount, 

 lead to the support of a charge often urged against him — 

 his want of original invention ; for tho' the extent of his 

 erudition, and his elegant turn of thinking, gave him a 

 superiority to all his contemporaries in polishing to a 

 degree of originality other peoples' sentiments, yet . . 

 he has committed a plagiarism on Voiture, which would 

 be unworthy a much less celebrated pen than his." 



Thus it appears that the editor, in whom we are 

 blindly to put our confidence, did not know that 

 these Voitui'e letters were a hoax played off on 

 Edmund Cui'll, and actually prints them as genuine 

 letters addressed by Pope to Miss Blount. 



I come now to tlae following notice of this work 

 by Mr. Hunter : — 



" The collection of these pieces is usuallj' attributed to 

 Steevens. But I am in possession of a copy which be- 

 longed to a person who claims to be the editor. It is hand- 

 somely bound, and has this note in his own handwriting 

 on a flj'-leaf of the first volume: — 'These collections 

 were made by me from the London Museum, &c., and 

 the Preface written by me, W. C Lowndes gives this 

 account of the book, * culled, says Mr. Park, by Baldwin, 

 from the communications by Mr. Steevens in (lie St. 

 James's Chronicle, and put forth with a preface by William 

 Cooke, Esq.' " 



That William Cook, or any other person, made 

 the collection from the London Museum, I doubt. 

 Why collect at second-hand when the originals 

 in the St. James's Chronicle were equally easy of 

 access ? and as Baldwin, the proprietor of the St. 

 James's Chronicle, was also printer of these " Ad- 



