104 



NOTES AND QUEHTES. 



[2''dS.N<'110., Feb. 6. '58. 



Pope's father, be it remembered, was one of the 

 Catholic converts, and no doubt, like most con- 

 verts, very zealous. His library, as his son told 

 Atterbury, was filled with the controversial tracts 

 of the time — " had no other books," but " a 

 collection of all that had been written on both 

 sides in the reign of King James the Second." 

 In 1687 the Catholics too were full of exultation 

 and triumph and publication. Pope's father, we 

 know, married a Turner about that time. Now 

 there was a Catholic bookseller of that name, and 

 he may have been related to Mrs. Pope. Luttrell 

 records on June 18, 1680: — "One Mathew 

 Turner, a Popish bookseller, was fined 100 marks 

 for publishing the scandalous libell entitled the 

 Compendium of the Plott." This was probably 

 •• Purgatory Turner," whom Dunton mentions 

 amongst those he had " forgotten to characterise." 

 It could not have been the " Mr. Turner, near 

 Lincoln's Inn," for he is described as " a true son 

 of the church," who will probably be " Alderman 

 Turner in a few years." 



I throw this out as a mere speculation for the 

 consideration of the curious. P. F. 



Papers Father residing at Kensington. — Mr. 

 Hunter tells us that Pope's father, after he retired 

 from business, " did not immediately establish him- 

 self in his retreat at Bivfield, for Mr. Roscoe, in 

 his Life of the Poet, informs us that he lived for a 

 while at Kensington." Mr. Carruthers refers to 

 the same story, but adds, with judicious discretion, 

 " we have no evidence of such residence." Now 

 Carruthers and Roscoe both refer to Bowles as 

 authority for the story, who thus tells it : — 



"Pope's father acquired whatever property he possessed 

 by trade: in the deed by which his estate, when sold, 

 was conveyed, he is intitled ' Alexander Pope, merchant 

 of Kensington.' " 



He adds in a note : 



" From a respectable inhabitant of Binfield, who as- 

 sured me he had seen the deed.' " 



What could an inhabitant of Binfield know 

 more than an inhabitant of any other place about 

 the description of the elder Pope, before the elder 

 Pope had become an inhabitant of Binfield? It is 

 obvious that Bowles names the place of residence 

 in proof that his witness had some especial oppor- 

 tunities of knowing what he asserted, and I cannot 

 doubt that the " estate " referred to was the estate 

 at Binfield. When the elder Pope had sold, or 

 had agreed to sell, or resolved to sell, his "estate" 

 at Binfield, he probably had temporary lodgings 

 or hired a house at Kensington ; and while there, 

 and before he permanently took up his residence at 

 Chiswick, the deed was drawn by which" he con- 

 veyed his estate at Binfield, and which deed a re- 

 sident at Binfield had seen, and described to 

 Bowles. P. F. R. 



Baptism of Catholics. — Respecting the birth of 

 Pope, Mr. Carruthers tells us that it cannot be 

 determined by the usual reference to parish re- 

 gisters, , because, a/ that time, they took no cog- 

 nizance of the baptisms of the children of Roman 

 Catholic parents. This assertion is, I think, much 

 too general. That the children of the lower class 

 of Roman Catholics, and even of those Catholics 

 whose property was altogether personal, were not 

 baptized in the Protestant churches, and are not 

 registered there, may be true, and is true of many 

 Protestants amongst the humbler classes ; but it 

 is certainly not true of the "higher Catholics — of 

 the estated gentlemen — as the registers them- 

 selves prove. Indeed, I know not how estates of 

 inheritance could, at that time, have passed with- 

 out such legal evidence of birth : for other evi- 

 dence, evidence of baptism by a Catholic priest, 

 could not have been produced in our courts, as 

 being in open violation of the law. B. O. C. 



Popes " Letters to Cromivell" (2°'* S. ii. 181.) — 

 I have in my library a copy of the Letters of Mr. 

 Pope and several Eminent Persons, from the year 

 1705 to 1735, with a note in the title-page that "This 

 edition contains more letters, and more correctly 

 printed, than any other extant." Printed for J. 

 Smith, and sold by the booksellers of London and 

 Westminster, 1735. 



The " Address to the Reader " is as follows : — 



" We presume we want no apology to the reader for 

 this publication, but some may be thought needful to 

 Mr. Pope. However, he cannot think our offence so 

 great as theirs who first separately published what we have 

 here but collected in a better form and order. As for the 

 letters we have procured to be added, they serve but to 

 complete, explain, and sometimes set in a true light those 

 others which it was not in the writer's or our power to 

 recall. 



" The letters to Mr. Wycherley were procured some 

 years since on account of a surreptitious edition of his 

 posthumous works. As these letters showed the true 

 state of that case, the publication of them was doing the 

 best justice to the memory of Mr. Wycherley. The rest 

 of this collection hath been owing to several cabinets ; 

 some drawn from thence by accidents, and others (even 

 of those to ladies) voluntarily given. It is to one of that 

 sex we are beholden for the whole correspondence with 

 H. C, Esq., which letters being lent her by that gentle- 

 man she took the liberty to print; as appears by the 

 following, which we shall give at length, both as it is 

 something curious, and as it may serve for an apology for 

 ourselves." 



At the end of the volume of letters is added : 



" A narrative of the method by which Mr. Pope's pri- 

 vate letters were procured and published by Edmund 

 Curll, Bookseller." 



W.J. 



55. Great Coram Street. 



[There is nothing remarkable in the edition referred to 

 by our correspondent. The " Address " which he quotes 

 is in the edition of 1735, printed for " The Booksellers ; " 

 for Roberts ; in one printed for Cooper, and two for Curll, 



