is no direct evidence to show at what time he
commenced the practice of transcribing letters; but at the close of 1726
he began to compile the collection of 1735, and thenceforward he was
sure to let nothing escape which could contribute to his design.]

[Footnote 138: Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.]

[Footnote 139: Dr. Hawkesworth published a letter from Swift to Pope,
introducing his cousin, Mr. D. Swift, and three more were published by
Mr. D. Swift himself. He does not say by what means he obtained them,
but they form part of a collection of some seventy stray letters
addressed by Swift to thirty or forty different persons, who had
certainly not returned them.]

[Footnote 140: Pope to Lord Oxford, Dec. 14, 1725.]

[Footnote 141: Pope to Lord Oxford, Dec. 14, 1725.]

[Footnote 142: Nichols's "Illustrations of the Literary History of the
Eighteenth Century," Vol. V. p. 379.]

[Footnote 143: Birch MSS. Brit. Mus., quoted in Warton's Pope, Vol. II.
p. 339. When Mr. Gerrard was about to return to Ireland from Bath, Pope
wrote to him, May 17, 1740, to say that he had found another conveyance
for the letter he had intended to send by him to Swift. Mr. Gerrard may
nevertheless have carried over the printed correspondence, which would
not have been openly entrusted to him by Pope, who professed to know
nothing about it. The poet may have thought upon reflection that it
would look less suspicious if his avowed letter and the anonymous parcel
were not transmitted by the same bearer.]

[Footnote 144: Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.]

[Footnote 145: Pope to Mr. Nugent, March 26, 1740, and Mr. Nugent to
Mrs. Whiteway, April 2, 1740.]

[Footnote 146: Pope to Mr. Nugent, August 14, 1740.]

[Footnote 147: Ruffhead's "Life of Pope," p. 469. The letter to Allen
was not published till twenty-five years after Pope's death.]

[Footnote 148: Millar _v._ Taylor, Burrow's Reports, Vol. IV. p. 2397.]

[Footnote 149: "Athenaeum" for Sept. 15, 1860.]

[Footnote 150: "Whereas there is an impression of certain letters
between Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope openly printed in Dublin without Mr.
Pope's consent, and there is reason to think the same hath been, or will
be done clandestinely in London, notice is hereby given that they will
be speedily published with several additional letters, &c., composing
altogether a second volume of his works in prose."--"London Daily Post"
for March 24, 1741, quoted in the "Athenaeum" for September 15, 1860.