¹ These four letters appeared in The St. James's Journal, now extremely rare, on the following dates:—Thursday, Nov. 15 (No. xxix, pp. 172, 173); Thursday, Nov. 22 (No. xxx, p. 178); Saturday, Dec. 8 (No. xxxiii, p. 197); and Saturday, Dec. 15, 1722 (No. xxxiv, p. 201).

² In response to A Defence of Sir Fopling Flutter, John Dennis, 1722, in which Dennis answers an old paper of Steele's in Spectator 65, declaring that even at that early date Steele had written to prepare the way for his fine gentleman of The Conscious Lovers. Dennis's Remarks on a Play called The Conscious Lovers, a Comedy, and The Censor Censur'd in a Dialogue between Sir Dicky Marplot and Jack Freeman did not appear until 1723, and after these letters.

³ Apparently a mistaken (intentional or unintentional) reference to The Conscious Lovers, really based on the Andria. Steele had sentimentalized the Heautontimoureumenos in Spectator, No. 502.

⁴ Steele. The italics are always those of the author.

⁵ Three of Cibber's sentimental comedies; the first is more commonly known as Love's Last Shift. They appeared in 1696, 1708, and 1704.

⁶ There are no other letters in the Journal concerned with these matters.

⁷ These lines are printed in this their original from in Pope's Works, Elwin and Courthope, Vol. v. Corrigneda, p. 445. For their final form, see Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, lines 151-214.

⁸ Although Mr. G. Aitken pointed out in The Academy (Feb. 9, 1889) that this famous satire had appeared first in print in this journal on Dec. 15, 1722, the old error started by Pope and revised by Curll (The Curliad. London, 1729, p. 12) to the effect in its final form that it had appeared first in Cythereia, 1723, is still repeated in such authoritative works as Professor Lounsbury's The Text of Shakespeare (N. Y. 1906, p. 300) and The Cambridge History of English Literature (1913, Vol. ix, iii, p. 87). Mr. Courthope's reasoning based on revisions in the various versions is also invalidated (Pope's Works, Elwin and Courthope, iii, pp. 231 ff. See also v, p. 445).

⁹ See The Life of Richard Steele, G. Aitken, London, 1880, ii, p. 284.

¹⁰ Courthope, iii, p. 231.

¹¹ In defense of himself, Pope laid the blame for the first publication of these verses upon Curll (1727), who retorted that they had already appeared in 1723 (Curliad as above). It seems inconceivable that this attack on Addison from Button's could have remained unknown to Pope, or the publication of his verses, if piratical, have been forgotten. If they were published without his connivance, here was his complete exoneration; if not, he had every reason to ignore this 1722 edition.

¹² It is hard to imagine Pope writing this fable, but conceivable in an assumed part. At all events, Dennis in his Reflections, Critical and Satyrical, upon a late Rhapsody called an Essay upon Criticism (1711) had called Pope “a hunch-baeked toad.” That was not too long before for Pope to remember and retort,—“ Toad in your teeth, Mr. Dennis.”

¹³ “short-fac'd” may have been a fairly common epithet for Steele, but it does not seem to occur in that pamphlet by Dennis which Townly is answering. He is therefore introducing a gratuitous sneer into what purports to be a defense. Only in the later The Censor Censur'd (1723) does the expression “Mr. Short-Face” occur, and there but once (p. 4). In the earlier pamphlet, it is always, “Sir Richard,” or “the facetious Knight.”

¹⁴ The irony is apparent. As to Pope's attitude toward the King, in Remarks upon Mr. Pope's Translation of Homer, Dennis had called Pope an enemy of his King, Country, and Religion. Sir Leslie Stephen in his life of Pope observes (p. 85), “Pope's references to his Sovereign were not complimentary.”

¹⁵ Compare Pope's conduct relative to a travesty of one of the Psalms the publication of which he tried to disown. Lounsbury, The Text of Shakespeare, pp. 204-205.

¹⁶ At a considerably later period these verses demanded a defense. Curliad as before.

¹⁷ Guardian, No. 40.

¹⁸ Ibid.