f of their inaccuracy. The arguments, on the
contrary, are altogether in their favour. Four printed pages of the
first Moral Essay, with the corrections in manuscript, were discovered
by Mr. Kilvert among Warburton's papers. "Some of the words," says Mr.
Croker, "are so neatly written as to leave a strong impression on my eye
of their being Pope's; other portions of the manuscript are more like
Warburton's looser hand." The faint doubt expressed by Mr. Croker would
hardly have arisen if his suspicion had not been previously awakened,
for the corrections are all indubitably in the handwriting of the poet.
Nor was the manuscript in this instance the guide of Warburton. He
followed a copy of the Moral Essays printed by Pope in his last illness,
though never published. "Warburton has the propriety of it as you know,"
wrote Bolingbroke to Lord Marchmont, one of the executors; "alter it he
cannot by the terms of the will."[2] This of itself is an answer to Mr.
Croker. The executors had access to Pope's latest printed version of the
Moral Essays, which was Warburton's avowed authority, and he could not
alter a single word without certain detection, and the consequent
forfeiture of his legacy. He was alive to the risk. A portion of Pope's
revised edition of his poetical works was passing through the press at
the time of his death, and Warburton directed the printer to give the
sheets, when the executors inquired for them, to their colleague the
celebrated Murray, who was afterwards Lord Mansfield, adding, "Pray
preserve all the press copy to the least scrap."[3] The terms of the
will bound the editor to be faithful to his trust, under a penalty of
4,000_l._, the estimated value of the bequest,[4] and he saw the
necessity of having the voucher of the poet's handwriting for the
minutest departure from the previous text in such of the proofs as had
not received Pope's final imprimatur. A more ample guarantee could not
be desired for the authenticity of the particulars in which Warburton's
text differs from the printed copies superintended by Pope. All the
displaced readings, which are not utterly insignificant, are preserved
in the notes to the present edition, as well as numerous unpublished
variations, which are taken from the manuscripts of Pope, or the
transcripts of Richardson.

The text of Pope's poems is more easily settled than elucidated. No
other poet so near to our own time presents equal difficulties. His
satires aboun