The faults of plan and execution in the editions of Warburton, Warton, Bowles, and Roscoe stand out in strong relief, and Mr. Croker resolved, as far as possible, to correct the mistakes, retrench the superfluities, and supply the omissions. Warton and Bowles dismissed a large proportion of the barren, oppressive commentaries of Warburton. Roscoe put back the whole of the bulky excrescence. Most of it had been adopted by Pope, and to relieve the text, without excluding interpretations sanctioned by the poet, Mr. Croker determined to print the pedantic lumber in appendixes. The notes of the other editors rested upon their intrinsic merits, and he intended to sift out the surplusage, and only retain what was pertinent. To curtail is easy. The difficulty was to clear up the many obscurities which remained, and Mr. Croker was anxious to furnish his share of explanation, though he was convinced that numerous contemporary allusions would always baffle curiosity. His chief attention was directed to the satires, and he continued for many years to pursue his investigations, and accumulate materials. His busy life was succeeded by failing health, and he died before he had prepared his notes for the press. The results of his research have luckily all been preserved, for his habit was to write them out in full at the time. He was an acute and eager enquirer into political, personal, and social history, and no man could have been more competent to bring to the surface the under-current of forgotten circumstances. I have kept to the plan sketched out by Mr. Croker. "A commentary," says Johnson, "must arise from the fortuitous discoveries of many men in devious walks of literature," and few poets have had more commentators than Pope. I have borrowed whatever I met with in previous writers that throw light upon his meaning, faults, and beauties, have cast aside what was plainly inapplicable and erroneous, and have done what I could to fill up deficiencies. My own notes will be recognised by the absence of any signature; all other notes throughout the work have the names of their authors attached, even when a note is by the same author as the text. The extracts from Warton are sometimes taken from his Essay, and both in his case and that of Bowles I have occasionally joined together scattered fragments which were connected in their subject. The rest of the arrangements will be understood at a glance.