Pope omitted passages dealing only indirectly with Shakespeare, or expressing opinions with which he disagreed. He also placed the details of Shakespeare’s later years (pp. 21-3) immediately after the account of his relationship with Ben Jonson (p. 9), so that the biography might form a complete portion by itself. With the exception of an occasional word, nothing occurs in the emended edition which is not to be found somewhere in the first. A seventh and supplementary volume containing the Poems was added in 1710. It included Charles Gildon’s _Remarks_ on the Plays and Poems and his _Essay on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage in Greece, Rome, and England_. John Dennis. John Dennis’s three letters “on the genius and writings of Shakespear” (February 1710-11) were published together in 1712 under the title _An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespear_. The volume contained also two letters on the 40th and 47th numbers of the _Spectator_. All were reprinted in Dennis’s _Original Letters, Familiar, Moral and Critical_, 2 vols., 1721. The Dedication is to George Granville, then Secretary at War. “To whom,” says Dennis, “can an Essay upon the Genius and Writings of Shakespear be so properly address’d, as to him who best understands Shakespear, and who has most improv’d him? I would not give this just encomium to the _Jew of Venice_, if I were not convinc’d, from a long experience of the penetration and force of your judgment, that no exaltation can make you asham’d of your former noble art.” In 1693 Dennis had published the _Impartial Critick_, a reply to Rymer’s _Short View of Tragedy_; but there is little about Shakespeare in its five dialogues, their main purpose being to show the absurdity of Rymer’s plea for adopting the Greek methods in the English drama. Dennis had, however, great respect for Rymer’s ability. In the first letter to the _Spectator_ he says that Rymer “will always pass with impartial posterity for a most learned, a most judicious, and a most useful critick”; and in the _Characters and Conduct of Sir John Edgar_ he says that “there was a great deal of good and just criticism” in the _Short View_. In 1702 he brought out a “corrected” version of the _Merry Wives_ with the title of the _Comical Gallant or the Amours of Sir John Falstaffe_. The adaptation of _Coriolanus_, which was the occasion of the _Letters_ given in this volume, appeared as the _Invader of his country, or the Fatal Resentment_. It was produced at Drury Lane in November, 1719, but ran for only three nights. It was published in 1720. An account of it will be found in Genest’s _English Stage_, iii. 2-5. It is the subject of Dennis’s letter to Steele of 26th March, 1719 (see Steele’s _Theatre_, ed. Nichols, 1791, ii. pp. 542, etc.). Alexander Pope. Pope’s edition of Shakespeare was published by Tonson in six quarto volumes. The first appeared in 1725, as the title-page shows; all the others are dated “1723.”