view of Pope's moral obliquities, and in the discussion on the
principles of poetry he reduced the whole of his adversaries to silence.
He and Hazlitt were the only persons among the disputants, eminent or
obscure, who showed any real comprehension of the subject.

The next edition of Pope, justly considered by Mr. Croker to be the
worst, came out in 1824, and was superintended by Roscoe, the author of
the Life of Lorenzo de Medici, and Leo X. He barely contributed a single
illustrative note, his criticisms are platitudes, and his vindications
of Pope a tissue of blunders. He was misled by his credulous faith in
his hero, by the rashness with which he imposed his own guesses for
facts, and above all by his want of penetration and research. His
half-knowledge was worse than ignorance. A few of his multitudinous
errors were exposed by Bowles whom he had attacked. Roscoe replied in a
feeble, disingenuous pamphlet, which drew from Bowles his taunting and
crushing retort, Lessons in Criticism to William Roscoe, Esq. This ended
the Pope controversy.

The faults of plan and execution in the editions of Warburton, Warton,
Bowles, and Roscoe stand out in strong relief, and Mr. Croker resolved,
as far as possible, to correct the mistakes, retrench the
superfluities, and supply the omissions. Warton and Bowles dismissed a
large proportion of the barren, oppressive commentaries of Warburton.
Roscoe put back the whole of the bulky excrescence. Most of it had been
adopted by Pope, and to relieve the text, without excluding
interpretations sanctioned by the poet, Mr. Croker determined to print
the pedantic lumber in appendixes. The notes of the other editors rested
upon their intrinsic merits, and he intended to sift out the surplusage,
and only retain what was pertinent. To curtail is easy. The difficulty
was to clear up the many obscurities which remained, and Mr. Croker was
anxious to furnish his share of explanation, though he was convinced
that numerous contemporary allusions would always baffle curiosity. His
chief attention was directed to the satires, and he continued for many
years to pursue his investigations, and accumulate materials. His busy
life was succeeded by failing health, and he died before he had prepared
his notes for the press. The results of his research have luckily all
been preserved, for his habit was to write them out in full at the time.
He was an acute and eager enquirer into political, personal, and soci