collected by
Warburton, Warton, Bowles, and Roscoe combined, and many of them are of
immeasurably greater importance in determining the character and conduct
of Pope than any which have previously appeared. There are others among
them which, under ordinary circumstances, would be too trivial to be
printed; but particulars, which are separately insignificant, have
assisted in dispelling some of the mystery or exposing some of the
deceptions in which it was the poet's pleasure to involve his life, and
as nobody can pronounce with certainty what facts may be of service to
future inquirers, I have thought it better to add a few superfluous
pages than to run the risk of rejecting materials which may prove useful
hereafter. I have, in like manner, admitted letters which had a
biographical value, although they were neither written by Pope nor to
him. Second-hand statements cannot supply the place of authentic
documents, and to have dissociated the subsidiary from the main
correspondence would have frequently deprived both of the increased
importance they derive from being read in connection.

In Pope's own, and every succeeding edition, the letters are divided
into groups. The arrangement of the entire collection in one consecutive
chronological series is, in his case, neither desirable nor possible. It
is not desirable because a unity of subject often runs through his
intercourse with particular persons, and the interposition of the topics
upon which he touched with other friends, far from presenting a
connected view of his thoughts and actions, would reduce the whole to a
medley of disjointed fragments. It is not possible because many of his
letters are undated, and, though we can frequently determine their place
in each class, there are no means of settling their order when all the
letters of doubtful date are thrown together. In numerous instances the
year in which they were written can at most be discovered, and the
attempt to fix their precedency within that period would be attended
with as much uncertainty as if they were shuffled like a pack of cards.

The liberties which Pope took with his correspondence in preparing it
for publication diminish the authority of that extensive portion of it
which we owe to his printed or manuscript copies alone, and have
rendered it essential to specify the source from which, every letter is
derived. Where the letter was sent to one person and was published by
Pope as if it had been a