XIII. After an illness. The obscurity of a country life 117 XIV. On the same subjects. Concerning Rondeaus - 120 XV. From Mr. Cromwell. On Priam's Speech to Pyr- XVI. Answer to the Same XXI. From Mr. Cromwell. On a passage in Lucan XXII. Answer to the former, with another criticism on XXV. From Mr. Cromwell. On Lucan XXVI. Observations on Crashaw's Poems XI. To Mrs. on the Earl of Oxford's behaviour. XII. Praise of a country life. Concern for the separa- I. From Sir William Trumbull. On occasion of Milton's V. Concerning the Tragedy of Cato VII. Against the violence of parties, and the praise of ge- neral benevolence V. The Hon. J. C. to Mr. Pope concerning Betterton's remains, Rape of the Lock, etc. I. Mr. Steele to Mr. Pope. Of Sir Charles Sedley's Death. The Author's Eclogue on the Messiah 247 PREFACE OF THE PUBLISHER OF THE SURREPTITIOUS EDITION, 1735. WE presume we want no apology to the reader for this publication, but some may be thought needful to Mr. Pope however, he cannot think our offence so great as theirs, who first separately published what we have here but collected in a better form and order. As for the Letters we have procured to be added, they serve but to complete, explain, and sometimes set in a true light, those others, which it was not in the writer's or our power to recall. This collection hath been owing to several cabinets: some drawn from thence by accidents, and others (even of those to Ladies) voluntarily given. It is to one of that ser we are beholden for the whole correspondence between H. C. Esq. which Letters being lent her by that Gentleman, she took the liberty to print; as appears by the following, which we shall give at length, both as it is something curious, and as it may serve for an apology for ourselves. TO HENRY CROMWELL, ESQ. June 27, 1727. AFTER So long a silence as the many and great oppressions I have sighed under have occasioned, one is at a loss how to begin a letter to so kind a friend as yourself. But as it was always my resolution, if I must sink, to do it as decently (that is, as silently) as I could; so when I found myself plunged into unforeseen and unavoidable ruin, I retreated from the world, and in a manner buried myself in a dismal place, where I knew none, and none knew me. In this dull unthinking way, I have protracted a lingering death (for life it cannot be called) ever since you saw me, sequestered from company, deprived of my books, and nothing left to converse with, but the letters of my dead or absent friends; among which latter I always placed yours and Mr. Pope's in the first rank. I lent some of them indeed to an ingenious person, who was so delighted with the specimen, that he importuned me for a sight of the rest, which having obtained, he conveyed them to the press, I must not say altogether with my consent, nor wholly without it. I thought them too good to be lost in oblivion, and had no cause to apprehend the disobliging of any. The Public, viz. all persons of taste and judgment, would be pleased with so agreeable an amusement; Mr. Cromwell could not be angry, since it was but justice to his merit, to publish the solemn and private professions of love, gratitude, and veneration, made him by so celebrated an author; and sincerely Mr. |