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THE

WORKS

OF

ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ.

VOLUME VII.

CONTAINING THE

FIRST OF HIS LETTERS.

OMH PO

BERLIN,

Printed for FREDRICK NICOLAI Bookfeller.

MDCCLXIV.

AONI

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PREFACE

Of the Publisher of the Surreptitious Edition, 1735.

W Eprefume

Eprefume 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 fo great as theirs. who first feparately publifhed what we have here but collected in a better form and order. As for the letters we have procured to be added, they ferve but to complete, explain, and fometimes fet in a true light, thofe others, which it was not in the writer's, or our power to recall.

This collection hath been owing to several cabinets: fome drawn from thence by accidents, and others (even of thofe to ladies) voluntarily given. It is to one of that fex we are beholden for the whole correspondence with H. C. efq. 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 ferve for an apology for ourselves.

VOL. VII.

To HENRY CROMWELL, Esq.

FTER long a

June 27, 1727.

A great oppreffions fierce, as the many and

great oppreffions I have fighed under have occafioned, one is at a lofs how to begin a letter to fo kind a friend as yourself. But as it was always my refolution, if I muft fink, to do it as decently (that is, as filently) as I could; fo when I found myfelf plunged into unforeseen, and unavoidable ruin, I retreated from the world, and in a manner buried myself in a difmal 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 fince you faw me, fequeftered from company, deprived of my books, and nothing left to converfe with, but the letters of my dead or abfent friends; among which latter I always placed yours and Mr. Pope's in the firft rank. I lent fome of thém indeed to an ingenious perfon, who was fo delighted with the specimen, that he importuned me for afight of the relt, which having obtained, he conveyed them to the prefs, I must not fay

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