SOURCE: "Verses Address'd to the Imitator of Horace: A Skirmish between Pope and Some Persons of Rank and Fortune," in Studies in Bibliography, Vol. 30, 1977, pp. 96-119.

In the following excerpt, Grundy discusses the events surrounding the publication of Verses, compares various claims to authorship of the poem, and concludes that it was probably a cooperative effort for Montagu and her close friend Lord Hervey.

Pope's imitations of Horace take as grist to their mill the attacks of those writers rash enough to oppose him. Mr. J. V. Guerinot, cataloguing their attempts, considers only one 'a worthy adversary' to Pope, which caught something of his 'own satiric brilliance'. That one, the Verses Address 'd to the Imitator of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, 1733, has been briefly discussed not only by Guerinot but also by Professor Robert Halsband in his lives of its confederate authors, Lord...