[Footnote 135: It has been admitted by divines, even that some sins do more especially beset particular individuals. Mr. Roscoe enters into a long vindication of Pope's doctrine against the imputations of Dr. Johnson; the most satisfactory parts of which are the refutations drawn from Pope's own essay. The business of reason is shown to be, to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this passion more as friend than foe. Essay on Man, ep. ii. 164. Th' eternal art, educing good from ill, Grafts on this passion our best principle; 'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd: Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd. Ib. ii. 175. As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, On savage stocks inserted learn to bear, The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, Wild nature's vigour working at the root, What crops of wit and honesty appear From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear, &c. Ib. ii. 181. "And thus," concludes Mr. Roscoe, "the injurious consequences which Johnson supposes to be derived from Pope's idea of the ruling passion, are not only obviated, but _that passion_ itself is shown to be conducive to our highest moral improvement." ED.] [Footnote 136: Entitled, Sedition and Defamation displayed. 8vo. 1733. R.] [Footnote 137: Among many manuscripts, letters, &c. relating to Pope, which I have lately seen, is a lampoon in the bible style, of much humour, but irreverent, in which Pope is ridiculed as the son of a _hatter_.] [Footnote 138: On a hint from Warburton. There is, however, reason to think, from the appearance of the house in which Allen was born at Saint Blaise, that he was not of a _low_, but of a _decayed_ family.] [Footnote 139: Since discovered to have been Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester. See the collection of that prelate's Epistolary Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 6. N. This I believe to be an error. Mr. Nichols has ascribed this preface to Atterbury on the authority of Dr. Walter Harte, who, in a manuscript note on a copy of Pope's edition, expresses his surprise that Pope should there have described the former editor as anonymous, as he himself had told Harte fourteen years before his own publication, that this preface was by Atterbury. The explication is probably this; that during that period he had discovered that he had been in a mistake. By a manuscript note in a copy presented by Crynes to the Bodleian library, we are informed that the former editor was Thomas Power, of Trinity college, Cambridge. Power was bred at Westminster, under Busby, and was elected off to Cambridge in the year 1678. He was author of a translation of Milton's Paradise Lost; of which only the first book was published, in 1691. J.B.] [Footnote 140: In 1743.] [Footnote 141: In 1744.] [Footnote 142: Mr. Roscoe, with good reason, doubts the accuracy of this inconsistent and improbable story. See his Life of Pope, 556.] [Footnote 143: Spence.]