As will be gathered from the above, Spence's own selection is still unpublished, and is supposed to remain in the possession of the Newcastle family. But as Malone extracted all of it that he thought worth keeping, and as Singer printed the materials on which it was based, it is not likely that its publication now, even if it were found to be practicable, would be of material interest, except to show what Spence personally regarded as deserving of preservation. With respect to the 'Anecdotes' themselves, there can be little doubt that, whatever their subsequent extension may have been, they originated in Spence's acquaintanceship with Pope; and that their first purpose was the bringing together of such dispersed data as might serve for the basis of his biography. (So much, in fact, Spence told Warburton when they were returning from Twickenham after Pope's death; and then, like the courteous, amiable 'silver penny' that he was, surrendered all his memoranda to his more pretentious companion, in whose subsequent 'Life,' for Ruffhead's 'Life of Pope' is really Warburton's, nearly every anecdote of value is derived from Spence.) From collecting Popiana to collecting _ana_ of Pope's contemporaries, would be a natural step; and it would be but a step farther to add, from time to time, such supplementary notes or _impressions de voyage_ as presented themselves, even if they had no special connection with the primary matter, which is Pope and Pope's doings. Indeed, in Singer's opinion, Spence's 'Anecdotes' already contain, not only 'a complete though brief autobiography' of the poet, but also 'the most exact record of his opinions on important topics,'--a record which is 'probably the more genuine and undisguised, because not premeditated, but elicited by the impulse of the moment.' This, as far as it relates to Pope's views on abstract literary questions, is no doubt true; but 'genuine,' 'undisguised,' and 'unpremeditated' are scarcely the epithets which modern criticism has taught us to apply to some, at least, of Pope's utterances concerning his contemporaries; and in these respects we are more exactly informed than the Oxford Professor of Poetry. Take, for instance, the well-known Wycherley correspondence. 'People have pitied you extremely,' says sympathetic Mr. Spence, who professes to speak _verbatim_, 'on reading your letters to Wycherley [i.e., the correspondence which Pope had printed]; surely 'twas a very difficult thing for you to keep well with him!' And thereupon Mr. Pope, of Twickenham and Parnassus, replies that 'it was the most difficult thing in the world;' that he was 'extremely plagued up and down, for almost two years,' with Wycherley's verses; that Wycherley was really angry at having them so much corrected; that his memory was entirely gone,--and so forth. * All of which Mr. Spence confidingly transfers to his tablets. But thanks to the publication by Mr. Courthope in 1889, from