The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1: Poetry - Volume 1Pope, Alexander
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The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1: Poetry - Volume 1
Pope, Alexander
English poetry -- 18th century
Thus what was printed of the correspondence, and what was not printed,
concur to show that Pope must have been the source from which it was
derived. The history of the circumstances under which the publication
took place will confirm this inference. Pope asserted that the quarto
was "copied from an impression sent from Dublin." There is now proof in
abundance that the Dublin edition, which came out as the seventh volume
of Swift's works, was copied from an impression sent from England. Mr.
Deane Swift, a cousin of his famous namesake, and the son-in-law of Mrs.
Whiteway, informed Mr. Nichols, in 1778, that "he was the only person
then living who could give a full account how Faulkner's seventh volume,
that is, how Swift's and Pope's correspondence came to be, not _first
printed_, but first published in Ireland."[142] The italics are Mr.
Swift's own, and the fact on which he laid such especial emphasis is at
once attested and explained by the statement of Faulkner himself to Dr.
Birch in August, 1749. "Mr. Pope," he said, "sent to Ireland to Dr.
Swift, by Mr. Gerrard, an Irish gentleman, then at Bath, a printed copy
of their letters, with an anonymous letter, which occasioned Dr. Swift
to give Mr. Faulkner leave to reprint them at Dublin, though Mr. Pope's
edition was published first."[143] Faulkner also solicited the sanction
of Pope, and we have the poet's summary of the application, in the
letter he wrote to Mr. Nugent on August 14, 1740: "Last week I received
an account from Faulkner, the Dublin bookseller, that the Dean himself
has given him a collection of letters of his own and mine, and others,
to be printed, and he civilly asks my consent, assuring me the Dean
declares them genuine, and that Mr. Swift, Mrs. Whiteway's son-in-law,
will correct the press, out of his great respect to the Dean and myself.
He says they were collected by some unknown persons, and the copy sent
with a letter importing that it was criminal to suppress such an amiable
picture of the Dean, and his private character appearing in those
letters, and that if he would not publish them in his lifetime others
would after his death." It is manifest from these particulars that
Faulkner was not then aware that Pope himself had sent the
correspondence to Swift, and the conviction was only forced upon his
mind by subsequent events. But the bookseller could not be mistaken on
the point that the letters were handed to him in print. As he later told
Dr. Birch that the Dean had given him leave to reprint them because they
were printed already, so he proclaimed that his volume was a reprint at
the time. He inserted at the end of his _first_ edition the few new
letters which were added in the quarto of 1741, and says that he found
them in the London impression "after he had _reprinted_ the foregoing
sheets." Faulkner had no sort of motive to deceive. Whether the letters
were in type or in manuscript he had equally received them from Swift,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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