dition of
Pope--the notes in which are chiefly drawn from the Essay--was published
in 1797. The Life by Johnson appeared in 1781; it is admirable in many
ways; but Johnson had taken the least possible trouble in ascertaining
facts. Both Warton and Johnson had before them the manuscript
collections of Joseph Spence, who had known Pope personally during the
last twenty years of his life, and wanted nothing but literary ability
to have become an efficient Boswell. Spence's anecdotes, which were not
published till 1820, give the best obtainable information upon many
points, especially in regard to Pope's childhood. This ends the list of
biographers who were in any sense contemporary with Pope. Their
statements must be checked and supplemented by the poet's own letters,
and innumerable references to him in the literature of the time. In 1806
appeared the edition of Pope by Bowles, with a life prefixed. Bowles
expressed an unfavourable opinion of many points in Pope's character,
and some remarks by Campbell, in his specimens of English poets, led to
a controversy (1819-1826) in which Bowles defended his views against
Campbell, Byron, Roscoe, and others, and which incidentally cleared up
some disputed questions. Roscoe, the author of the Life of Leo X.,
published his edition of Pope in 1824. A life is contained in the first
volume, but it is a feeble performance; and the notes, many of them
directed against Bowles, are of little value. A more complete biography
was published by R. Carruthers (with an edition of the works), in 1854.
The second, and much improved, edition appeared in 1857, and is still
the most convenient life of Pope, though Mr. Carruthers was not fully
acquainted with the last results of some recent investigations, which
have thrown a new light upon the poet's career.

The writer who took the lead in these inquiries was the late Mr. Dilke.
Mr. Dilke published the results of his investigations (which were partly
guided by the discovery of a previously unpublished correspondence
between Pope and his friend Caryll), in the _Athenaeum_ and _Notes and
Queries_, at various intervals, from 1854 to 1860. His contributions to
the subject have been collated in the first volume of the _Papers of a
Critic_, edited by his grandson, the present Sir Charles W. Dilke, in
1875. Meanwhile Mr. Croker had been making an extensive collection of
materials for an exhaustive edition of Pope's works, in which he was to
be assisted by