Having finished a discussion which from its nature will be dull to many, and from its length will be wearisome to all, I turn to speak of the present edition of the Correspondence. The last edition published in the lifetime of Pope comprised, according to Mr. Croker's calculation, 354 letters. These, Mr. Croker states, were increased by Warburton to 384, by Warton to 502, by Bowles to 644, and by Roscoe to 708, or exactly double the number that were included in the last edition of the poet. The present edition will contain more new letters than were collected by Warburton, Warton, Bowles, and Roscoe combined, and many of them are of immeasurably greater importance in determining the character and conduct of Pope than any which have previously appeared. There are others among them which, under ordinary circumstances, would be too trivial to be printed; but particulars, which are separately insignificant, have assisted in dispelling some of the mystery or exposing some of the deceptions in which it was the poet's pleasure to involve his life, and as nobody can pronounce with certainty what facts may be of service to future inquirers, I have thought it better to add a few superfluous pages than to run the risk of rejecting materials which may prove useful hereafter. I have, in like manner, admitted letters which had a biographical value, although they were neither written by Pope nor to him. Second-hand statements cannot supply the place of authentic documents, and to have dissociated the subsidiary from the main correspondence would have frequently deprived both of the increased importance they derive from being read in connection. In Pope's own, and every succeeding edition, the letters are divided into groups. The arrangement of the entire collection in one consecutive chronological series is, in his case, neither desirable nor possible. It is not desirable because a unity of subject often runs through his intercourse with particular persons, and the interposition of the topics upon which he touched with other friends, far from presenting a connected view of his thoughts and actions, would reduce the whole to a medley of disjointed fragments. It is not possible because many of his letters are undated, and, though we can frequently determine their place in each class, there are no means of settling their order when all the letters of doubtful date are thrown together. In numerous instances the year in which they were written can at most be discovered, and the attempt to fix their precedency within that period would be attended with as much uncertainty as if they were shuffled like a pack of cards.