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The Letters of Pope to Atterbur when in the Tower of London
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2010
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page 3 note a If any reader should still think this term too harsh, let him say how otherwise the following passage can be characterised: “To be quiet, and live to myself, with the few, the very few, friends I like, is the point, the single point, I now aim at; though I know the generality of the world, who are unacquainted with my intentions and views, think the very reverse of this character belongs to me.” Letter to Pope, April 6,1722, written by Atterbury just one week before his letter or message to the Earl of Mar, in which we intimated the resumption of correspondence with “Mr. Hacket” (i. e. the Earl of Oxford,) as a step of no small consequence to the Pretender's service. See The Stuart Papers, 1847, i. 65
page 3 note b There are two letters of Pope to Gay which bear the date of the 11th Sept. 1722. That which is printed in the edition of 1737, as Letter CLIII. at p. 248, commencing, “I think it obliging,” had been originally published in the 8vo. of 1735, (vol. i. p. 201) without a date. The other, which is that here quoted, commencing, “I thank you,” is the one really written on the 11th Sept. 1722, which date it bears in the 8vo. It has there some passages relative to the Duchess “of M.,” and “ladies in and about Richmond,”the Mrs, Blounts, Mrs. Pulteney, and Dr. Arbuthnot, which are not preserved in the edition of 1737, and have never been restored since. Among the other alterations, in the passages above quoted the expression “the Doctor if he has not dined,“and the words “they may love him and think of him as well,” are suppressed.
page 4 note a The Right Hon. James Craggs, Secretary of State, died Feb. 16, 1720; and Pope wrote the poetical epitaph placed on his monument in Westminster Abbey.
page 5 note a “Atterbury,” says Dr. Johnson, “had honestly recommended to him the study of the Popish controversy, in hope of his conversion; to which Pope answered in a manner that cannot much recommend his principles, or his judgment. [See his Letter to Atterbury, dated Nov. 20, 1717.] In questions and projects of learning they agreed much better. At their last interview at the Tower, Atterbury presented him with a Bible.”(See hereafter, p. 16.)
page 5 note b The four last lines were not printed with the letter when Pope first gave it to the world, in 1737.
page 6 note a Published by Pope with his own letters, in 1737.
page 6 note b The Bishop's confinement was extremely rigorous, “Even his son-in-law Mr. Morice was not permitted to speak to him in any nearer mode than standing in an area, whilst the Bishop looked out of a two pair of stairs window.” Advertisement to Atterbury's Correspondence, 1783.
page 7 note a In order to shew these variations completely, the whole letter is added below from Pope's Letters (as first edited by himself) in quarto, 1737.
page 7 note b Here Pope alludes to his mother.
page 9 note a Upon this passage it was remarked by Bishop Warburton. “Clarendon indeed wrote his best works in his banishment; but the best of Bacon's were written before his disgrace, and the best of Tully's after his return from exile.”
page 11 note a Dr. Arbuthnot. The whole of this last passage of the letter has not been before published.
page 12 note a State Trials, edit. Howell, 1812, vol. xvi. col. 572.
page 12 note b Spence's Anecdotes, edit. Singer, p. 156.
page 12 note c Howell's State Trials, 8vo. 1812, vol. xvi. col. 584.
page 13 note a Pope remarked to Spence, “The Bishop of Rochester's speech, as it is printed, could not be as he spoke it. I was there all the while. Both the Bishop and myself minded the time, when he began, and when he left off. He was two hours in speaking it, and as it is printed you can't well be above an hour reading it.—‘Was there not an Act of Parliament read in the midst of it ?’—No, I don't remember that there was: but he was indulged to sit down for two or three minutes to rest himself a little between the speaking.” The speech was printed from a short-hand copy made for the use of Mr. Wearg, one of the King's counsel, soon after made solicitor-general for his exertions on this occasion.(Note in Spence's Anecdotes, p. 157.) With that edition the speech as printed in the State Trials corresponds: but among the Bishop's papers were found two MS. copies so far different, that Mr. Nichols printed both of them in his Atterbury Correspondence, one in vol. iv. p. 383 (edit. 1783), and the other in vol. v. p. 365, the latter being in the Bishop's own handwriting, and supposed to contain his latest corrections.
The following advertisement, dated June 22,1723, is from The True Briton of that time, and was inserted by Jonah Bowyer, who was the publisher of Atterbury's Sermons: “Whereas there is this Day published, A Pamphlet, Intituled, The Speech (&c). Printed for A. Moore, near S. Paul's, This is to give Notice, that the same is surreptitiously printed, without the Knowledge or Consent of the Bishop, or any of his Friends; and besides that it is spurious, it is very imperfect; several intire Paragraphs being omitted, and many others vilely mangled; as any Person that heard his Lordship speak, will readily observe. But the Publick may, in due Time, expect an Authentick and Correct Copy of his Lordship's Speech, and of the Proceedings against him.” Notwithstanding the estimation in which this Defence has been generally held for eloquence and pathos, it disappointed Mr. Hallam, who remarked, “Atterbury's own speech is certainly below his fame, especially his peroration.” (Constitutional History of England, iii. 337.)
page 14 note a The variations from the Woolley MS. are but few. They are indicated in the following notes.
page 14 note b By the act of pains and penalties it was made felony to correspond with the Bishop after the 25th of June.
page 14 note c As publislied, that ancient eloquence.
page 14 note d will in MS. Cole, have in Woolley MS.
page 15 note a Hitherto misprinted tear.
page 15 note b Pope's inscription in the Bible, presently inserted, gives the date of the 17th of June: on the 18th the Bishop departed. It appears from Bishop Newton that Atterbury's friends had free access to take leave of him. He says that “After the Westminster election in 1723 was over, some of the King's scholars [of whom Newton was then Captain]thought it a proper piece of respect to wait on their late Dean in the Tower, as every body had then free admittance to see and take leave of him: and, among other things which he said to them, he applied to himself those lines of Milton, as he did likewise [see before, p. 7,] in a letter to Mr. Pope—
The world is all before me where to choose My place of rest, and Providence my guide.”
(Life and Anecdotes of Thomas Newton, D.D. Bishop of Bristol, written by himself, and prefixed to his Works, 4to. 1782, vol. i. p. 14.)
page 16 note a “At parting, he presented Pope with a Bible, and said, with a disingenuousness of which no man who had studied the Bible to much purpose would have been guilty, ‘If ever you hear that I have any dealings with the Pretender, I give you leave to say that my punishment is just.’ Pope at this time really believed the Bishop to be an injured man. Arbuthnot seems to have been of the same opinion.”—(Memoirs of Atterbury, written by Lord Macaulay, in the Encyclopedia Britannica.) The statement here made rests on the authority of Bishop Newton, whose words are: “When he took his last leave of Mr. Pope, he told him he would allow him to say his sentence was just if he ever found he had any concerns with the Pretender's family in his exile. But, notwithstanding this, as Bishop Warburton informs us (see Pope's Letters,) Mr. Pope was convinced before the Bishop's death that during his banishment he was in the intrigues of the Pretender.” (Newton's Life and Anecdotes, p. 14.)
page 16 note b Particularly in a long letter from the Rev. Samuel Badcock to Mr. Nichols, printed in Atterbury's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 79; second edition, vol. ii. p. 271; and in the Works of Pope, edit. Warton, viii. 129, edit. Bowles, viii. 154, edit. Roacoo, vol. ix. p. 238. See also the last Life of Pope, by Mr. Robert Carruthers, (second edit. 1857, p. 213,) where it is remarked, “An anecdote has been related, on the alleged authority of Pope, tending to prove that Atterbury himself was nearly all his life a sceptic. This is incredible. He was aspiring, turbulent, and faithless as a politician, and not without dissimulation and hypocrisy in private life; but his whole career, his published writings, and correspondence, are opposed to the idea that he disbelieved the faith he preached and professed.”
page 17 note a Mary Allen, the niece of Ralph, was the second wife of Cornwallis first Viscount Hawarden, the grandfather of the present Viscount.
page 18 note a Warton's Pope, viii. 128, followed by Bowles and Roscoe. By Warburton it is dated May only: he following the edition of Pope's Works printed for T. Cooper, London, 1737.
page 18 note b Following the Atterbury Correspondence. This second letter was known only to Roscoe, and not to the previous editors of Pope's Works.
page 18 note c “I was there all the while.” See the note before, in p. 13.
page 18 note d This, observed Bishop Newton, “was most excellent advice;” and “it is much to be lamented that this advice was no better followed, that such talents and faculties were no better employed, and that he was still dealing in politics, instead of writing some work of genius and learning, of which he was very capable. He wrote only two or three little pieces, his Essay on the Character of lapis in Virgil; his Vindication of Dr. Aldrich, Dr.Smalridge, and himself from the charge of interpolating Lord Clarendon's History; and little or nothing besides, but a few criticisms on some French authors.”
page 20 note a This letter does not appear to be extant.
page 20 note b Nichols's Atterbury Correspondence, vol. i. p. xii. Pope had formerly presented to the Bishop an edition of Homer, printed at Paris in 1554; and the Bishop's inscription in it is printed ibid. iii. 518.