I have mentioned at the several places where their contributions are inserted, the numerous persons to whose liberality Mr. Croker and myself have been obliged for materials and assistance. The services rendered by Mr. Dilke require to be noticed here. Until he published his articles in the Athenæum little had been added to our knowledge of Pope since Johnson produced his masterly Life. The truths which Mr. Dilke established, and the errors he dissipated, were not more important than the change he gave to the former superficial investigations. His rigid scrutiny became the standard for every subsequent inquirer. He loved his studies for their own sake, and never did a man of letters work less for personal ends. He at once placed at my disposal his Caryll correspondence, which he had carefully annotated, and the explanation of all its obscure allusions are due to him. He supplied me with a multitude of letters which were widely scattered through books and periodicals, and collated others with the originals in the British Museum and Bodleian Library. Large masses of the letters are undated, or dated falsely, and he was at the labour of fixing dates which sometimes appeared to defy conjecture. He lent me his rare editions, was unwearied in answering questions, in solving difficulties, in revising proofs, and in communicating, without reserve, his stores of information. He was then suffering from a long and painful illness, and he died when only the first volume of correspondence was printed, or I should have had his generous and invaluable aid to the end. Mr. Bowles remarked in the course of the skirmish of pamphlets he provoked, that the editorship of Pope's works had been to no one a bed of roses. For the larger part of the discomforts his commentators may have endured, Pope himself was responsible. His mysteries, his double-dealings, his falsifications, and his quarrels have rendered half the acts of his life a fertile theme for debate. None of the angry controversialists who mingled fifty years ago in the fray had prepared properly for the contest, and the insolence and assumption, the virulence and the dogmatism, were commonly greatest with the persons whose acquaintance with the subject was the least. The intemperate, and usually ignorant warfare, left nearly all the vexed questions in confusion, and it is only in recent years that a new generation of dispassionate students have begun to replace the blunders of sciolism by facts. In the many battles yet to be fought over Pope there will be this advantage which will be certain to produce solid results, that the critic will be in possession of the materials for judgment, and will not have to write without knowledge of his cause. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, Vol. iii. p. 368.] [Footnote 2: Marchmont Papers, Vol. ii. p. 335.] [Footnote 3: Nichols, Lit. Anec. Vol. ii. p. 165.] [Footnote 4: Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. iii. p. 72.]