He afterwards adopted another arrangement, and published in 1743 a volume containing the Essay on Man' and the Essay on Criticism,' the former of which, as we see, was already printed. This was probably done out of eagerness to see what the public would think of the new edition, for he writes again on 12 January, 1743, before the publication of the volume : "I go on softly to prepare ye great edition of my things with yr notes I determined to have published a small number of that Essay [on Man] and of ye other on Criticism, ere now as a sample of ye rest; but Bowyer advised to delay; though I now see I was not in the wrong.' It seems impossible to construe these expressions in any other sense than as conveying a desire for the speedy publication of the edition containing the character of Atossa, and Spence records a circumstance which renders this presumption almost a certainty. "Here am I, like Socrates, distributing my morality among my friends, just as I am dying.'-P. [This was said on his sending about some of his Ethic Epistles, as presents about three weeks before we lost him.]" 2 These Ethic Epistles' must have been either the volume containing the four Epistles, referred to by Bolingbroke in his letter to Marchmont, or the Essay on Man' with Warburton's Commentary, which had been published in 1743, and which was described on the title page as The First Book of the Ethic Epistles.' It is unlikely that Spence would have spoken of a volume, which contained both the Essay on Man' and the Essay on Criticism,' by the mere descriptive title of Ethic Epistles, which would have been applicable only to the former poem. On the other hand, his description suits the edition of the four Epistles, now known as the Moral Essays, which are specially called the Ethic Epistles by Pope in his correspondence with Warburton, which had been published with that title in earlier editions of his works, and which were now apparently printed in a volume by themselves. Besides, Pope would have been more likely to distribute copies of a volume which had not yet appeared, than of one which had lost its first novelty. It may appear surprising that, if the Ethic Epistles' mentioned by Spence were the same edition as that containing the character of Atossa, Pope should not have given a copy to Bolingbroke, who did not discover the existence of the book till after his friend's death, but Bolingbroke and War burton were on bad terms, and the poet may have thought that the former would not have been pleased with the gift. On the whole I think it is a fair inference from Spence's statement that Pope actually gave away on his MS. correspondence between Warburton and Pope in British Museum. 2 Spence's Anecdotes, p. 364. death-bed some copies of the volume containing the character of Atossa. In forming our judgment on this matter, we have then to consider in the first place the obviously malignant 'spirit in which the story of the bribe was first circulated, and the unfriendliness of the witness by whom it is partially confirmed; we must further remember that the Duchess of Portland's entry in her note-book was made after the rumour started in the folio sheet in 1746 had spread in society, and that it is not only inconsistent with the story which she seems to have told Warton, but is also improbable in itself; and lastly we must ask whether it is credible that, if a man, with Pope's extreme caution and love of fame, had received £1000 for the specific purpose of suppressing a particular satire, he would have dared to publish it while the person who had paid him to suppress it was still alive, or even after her death, while any witnesses of the bargain survived to denounce his perfidy. Taking all these points into consideration, I think it is not unreasonable to conclude that, if Pope received £1000 from the Duchess of Marlborough, he did not receive it expressly for suppressing the character of Atossa. There remains the question whether the story of the payment of the £1000 can be in any way explained. Mr. Dilke, who has investigated it more thoroughly than any previous enquirer, is inclined to discredit it entirely as a scandalous report. He thinks that the tale of the bribe may have arisen from the reward of £5000 which Ruffhead says Hooke the historian received from the Duchess for writing the 'Account of her Conduct;' for Ruffhead tells us-and he is confirmed in his account by the Marchmont Papers-that Hooke was recommended to the Duchess by Pope. As for the character of Atossa, Mr. Dilke is of opinion that it was meant for the Duchess of Buckingham, and that therefore both parts of the story about the bribe fall to the ground.' The Satisfactory as it would be to adopt this conclusion, it scarcely appears to account sufficiently for all the facts of the case. evidence for the payment of the £1000 coming from so many different quarters-the Duchess of Portland, Mr. Rose's foot-note, and the folio sheet of 1746-is too formidable to be disposed of as a rumour founded on the Duchess's payment to Hooke, especially when it is considered in connection with Bolingbroke's letter to Marchmont. Nor will Mr. Dilke's view of Bolingbroke's evidence as to the original of the character itself bear examination. He says: 'Bolingbroke found the four Epistles, and in them the character of Atossa; and he jumped at once to the conclusion that it was meant for the Duchess of Marlborough. This was mere conjecture, a hasty assumption. Bolingbroke had no time for consideration or 1 'Papers of a Critic,' pp. 226-233, and 269-287. enquiry, for Pope was buried on the 5th of June, and Bolingbroke was at Calais on the 18th. Bolingbroke, be it remembered, at the time of Pope's special intimacy with the Duchess of Buckinghamshire-from 1721 to 1725-was in exile or abroad, and Pope's intercourse with the Duchess had ceased for fifteen years before he died. Bolingbroke, therefore, knew nothing about Pope's intimate relations with the Duchess of Buckinghamshire, and the very application of the Duchess of Marlborough suggested her as the subject. Yet, though under the influence of that suggestion, Bolingbroke was perplexed by the want of likeness. "Is it worth while," he asks of Marchmont, "to suppress the edition, or should her Grace's friends say, as they may from several strokes in it, that it was not intended to be her character." The weak point of this theory is that it assumes Bolingbroke to have had no previous knowledge of the character. He came upon it, Mr. Dilke thinks, among Pope's printed papers, and 'jumped at once to the conclusion' that it was meant for the Duchess of Marlborough. But it is evident, from Bolingbroke's expressions in his letter, that both he and Marchmont knew of the existence of the character, and believed it to be the portrait of that Duchess. There was no perplexity' in his mind as to the original of the picture; he merely suggested to Marchmont that the want of resemblance in the portrait to the Duchess, in certain particulars, might enable them to say that she was not the person intended. Moreover, Bolingbroke, as we see from Pope's letter to Swift, announcing the completion of the 'Characters of Women,' had seen the poem in its original form, when there is good reason to suppose that it contained the lines on Atossa. We must take it, then, as an indisputable fact, that Bolingbroke, who had every opportunity of knowing Pope's original intention in writing the character, was firmly persuaded that Atossa was meant as a satire on the Duchess of Marlborough. Warburton was equally well qualified to speak to Pope's intentions, and he testifies to the same effect. Read his character of the Duchess of Marlborough to her "-so Spence reports Warburton— "as that of the Duchess of Buckingham, but she spoke of it afterwards, and said she knew very well whom he meant." Whether it was Pope or Warburton who read the character to the Duchess is uncertain from the fragmentary entry in Spence's note-book, but if the Duchess of Portland's story is to be trusted, it must have been the former. In any case, however, it was with Warburton, as with Bolingbroke, an unquestionable fact that the lines on Atossa were originally meant for the Duchess of Marlborough. There is yet another witness, Ann Arbuthnot, daughter of Dr. Arbuthnot, and sister of George Arbuthnot, one of Pope's executors. 1 Spence's Anecdotes, p. 364. The poet appears to have had a great friendship for her, for she was one of the six persons to whom he left £5 to be laid out in a memorial of him, and he bequeathed her £200 on the death of Martha Blount. Ann Arbuthnot told Spence in 1744: "In the Satire on Women there was a character of the old Duchess of Marlborough under the name of Orsini [Orsina? ], written before Mr. Pope was so familiar with her, and very severe." Her knowledge of the character must of course have been derived from Pope's MS., and her evidence seems to show that Pope changed the name from Orsini (or Orsina) to Atossa, for of course there can only have been one portrait of the Duchess in the Characters of Women,' and that, as we know from Bolingbroke, was Atossa. We may take therefore these facts to be established: 1st, that Pope received £1000 from the Duchess of Marlborough; 2nd, that the character of Atossa was meant for the Duchess of Marlborough ; 3rd, that Pope intended to publish the character of Atossa during the lifetime of the Duchess. What we have now to do is to try to discover a set of conditions, under which the publication of the character of Atossa would appear to Bolingbroke, knowing as he did of the payment of £1000, discreditable to Pope, and yet would appear to Pope's own conscience not absolutely inexcusable, and to his intellect in no way dangerous. Bolingbroke says in his letter to Marchmont: "If he could be excused for writing the character of Atossa formerly, there is no excuse for his design of publishing it after he had received the favour you and I know." And Lord Marchmont's evidence shows that this favour was £1000. The question therefore is under what circumstances Pope is likely to have received this money from the Duchess. Now it appears probable that there were negociations between Pope and the Duchess or her friends as early as 1735. After that year, Pope actually removed from his works many sarcastic allusions to the Marlborough family, which had formerly appeared in them. In the edition of his letters published in 1735, and pretended to be surreptitious, Blenheim was ridiculed, together with the characters of the Duke and Duchess. But in the small authorised edition of 1737 the letter in question was suppressed. Pope had also written satirically to a lady, with reference to the camp in Hyde Park, about the new regiments with new clothes and furniture (far exceeding the late cloth and linen designed by his Grace for the soldiery).' This sentence is omitted in the quarto edition of 1737. In the quarto edition of the poems published in 1735, Pope inserted an Appendix, containing variations from the earlier editions of the separately published poems. In this occurs the following note: 1 Spence's Anecdotes, p. 364. 'Epistles, Book the Second. 6 66 Triumphant leaders, &c." Epistle I., v. 146. These four verses having been misconstrued, contrary to the author's meaning, they are suppressed in as many copies as he could recall.' As the verses in question appear in the quarto edition to which this note is appended, and in all the subsequent editions published during Pope's lifetime, we must infer from this note that he had parted with the property in the verses, as part of his collective works, and could only make the alteration in the separate folio editions. The note however shows that at this date (1735) for some reason Pope was anxious to call in his satires on Marlborough. A still more interesting fact remains. Though Pope, before his death, prepared for publication the character of Atossa, he completely suppressed a character which he had written of the Duke of Marlborough. Among the papers of Warburton which Mr. Croker received from the Rev. F. Kilvert, of Bath, editor of Bishop Hurd's Remains, there is a page which was evidently intended to form part of the quarto edition of the poems published in 1735. From the facsimile of the page, which is inserted at the beginning of the present volume, it will be seen that it contains vv. 279-298 of the Fourth Epistle of theEssay on Man,' and that it would have formed p. 69 of the quarto volume. The actual page in the quarto edition, which corresponds in other respects with the cancelled page, is 71; it seems probable therefore that the latter is part of the proof of the quarto edition, and that the difference in pagination may be accounted for by supposing one of the title pages with a blank reverse, which appears in the published edition, to have been omitted in the proof. On this page Pope had written the following lines, which he evidently intended to introduce into the body of the poein : * * In hearts of Kings or arms of Queens who lay |