on,

altogether with my confent, nor wholly without it. I thought them too good to be loft in obliviand had no cause to apprehend the disobliging of any. The public, viz. all perfons of tafte and judgment, would be pleafed with fo agreeable an amusement; Mr. Cromwell could not be angry, fince it was but justice to his merit to publish the folemn and private profeffions of love, gratitu de, and veneration, made him by fo celebrated an author; and fincerly Mr. Pope ought not to refent the publication, fince the early pregnancy of his genius was no difhonour to his character. And yet had either of you been asked, common modesty would have obliged you to refuse, what you would not be difpleafed with, if done without your knowledge. And befides, to end all difpute, you had been pleafed to make me a free gift of them, to do what I pleased with them; and every one knows, that the perfon to whom a letter is addressed, has the fame right to dispose of it, as he has of goods purchafed with his money. I doubt not but your generofity and honour will do me the right, of owning by a line that I came honestly by them. I flatter myself, in a few months I fhall again be visible to the world; and whenever thro' good providence that turn fhall happen, I shall joyfully acquaint you with it,

P. S. A Letter, Sir, directed to Mrs. Tho mas, to be left at my houfe, will be fafely tranf

mitted to her, by

Yours, &c.

E. CURLL

To MR.

MR. POPE.

WH

Epfom, July 6, 1727.

HEN thefe letters were first printed, I wondered how Curll could come by them, and could not but laugh at the pompous title; fince whatever you wrote to me was humour and familiar raillery. As foon as I came from Epfom, I heard you had been to fee me, and I writ you a fhort letter from Will's, that I longed to fee you. Mr. D--s, about that time charged me with giving them to a mistress, which I pofitively denied: not in the leaft, at that time, thinking of it; but fome time after, finding in the News papers Letters from Lady Packington, Lady Chudleigh, and Mr. Norris to the fame Sappho

or E. T. I began to fear that I was guilty. I have never seen thefe Letters of Curll's, nor would go to his fhop about them: I have not feen this Sappho alias E. T. thefe feven years. Her writing, That I gave her'em, to do what I would with 'em, is ftraining the point too far. I thought not of it, nor do I think she did then; but fevere neceffity which catches hold of a twig, has produced all this; which has lain hid, and forgot, by me fo many years. Curll fent me a letter laft week, defiring a pofitive answer about this matter, but finding I would give him,none, he went to E. T. and writ a postscript in her long romantick letter, to direct my anfwer to his houfe; but they not expecting an answer, fent a young man to me, whofe name, it feems, is Pattifon. I told him I should not write any thing, but I believed it might be fo as she writ in her letter. I am extremely concerned that my former indifcretion in putting them into the hands of this Preticufe, fhould have given you fo much difturbance: for the last thing I fhould do would be to disoblige you, for whom I have ever preserved the greatest efteem, and shall ever be, Sir,

Your faithful Friend, and

moft humble Servant, HENRY CROMWELL.

To MR.

POPE.

Aug. 1, 1727..

HO' I writ my long narrative from Epfom

THO

'till I was tired, yet was I not fatisfied; left any doubt should reft upon your mind. I could not make proteftations of my innocence of a grie vous crime; but I was impatient till-k came to own, that I might send you thofe Letters, as a clear evidence that I was a perfect ftranger to all their proceeding. Should I have protested against it, after the printing, it might have been taken for an attempt to decry his purchafe; and as the little exception you have taken has ferved him to play his game upon us for these two years, a new incident from me might enable him to play it on for two more. The great value fhe exprefles for all you write, and her paffion for having thein, I believe, was what prevailed upon me to let her keep them. By the interval of twelve years at-leaft, from her poffeffion to the time of printing them, tis manifeft, that I had not the leaft ground to apprehend fuch a defign: but as people in great ftraits, bring forth their hoards of old gold and moft yalued jewels; fo Sappho had recourfe to her

hid

hid treasure of Letters, and played off not only your's to me, but all those to herself (as the lady's laft ftake) into the prefs As for me, I hope, when you fhall cooly confider the many thousand inftances of our being deluded by the females, fince that great Original of Adam by Eve, you will have a more favourable thought of the undefigning error of

Your faithful Friend,

and humble Servant,

HENRY CROMWELL.

Now Should our apology for this publication be as ill received, as the lady's feems to have been by the gentlemen concerned; we shall at least have Her Comfort, of being thanked by the rest of the world. Nor has Mr. P. himself any great caufe to think it much offence to his modefty, or reflection on his judgment; when we take care to inform the public, that there are few Letters of his in this collection, which were not written under twenty years of age: on the other hand, we doubt not the reader will be much more furprized to find, at that early period, fo much variety of style, affecting fentiment, and juftness of criticifm, in pieces which must have been writ in hafte, very few perhaps ever reviewed, and none intended for the eye of the public.