It is not with any secret Pleasure, that I so frequently animadvert on Mr. Pope as a Critick; but there are Provocations, which a Man can never quite forget.  His Libels have been thrown out with so much Inveteracy, that, not to dispute whether they should come from a Christian, they leave it a Question whether they could come from a Man.  I should be loth to doubt, as Quintus Serenus did in a like Case,

  Sive homo, seu similis turpissima bestia nobis,
  Vulnera dente dedit.

The Indignation, perhaps, for being represented a Blockhead, may be as strong in Us as it is in the Ladies for a Reflexion on their Beauties.  It is certain, I am indebted to Him for some flagrant Civilities; and I shall willingly devote a part of my Life to the honest Endeavour of quitting Scores:  with this Exception however, that I will not return those Civilities in his peculiar Strain, but confine myself, at lead, to the Limits of common Decency.  I shall ever think it better to want Wit, than to want Humanity:  and impartial Posterity may, perhaps, be of my Opinion.

    [Sidenote:  The old Editions faulty, whence.]

But, to return to my Subject; which now calls upon me to inquire into those Causes, to which the Depravations of my Author originally may be assign’d.  We are to consider him as a Writer, of whom no authentic Manuscript was extant; as a Writer, whose Pieces were dispersedly perform’d on the several Stages then in Being.  And it was the Custom of those Days for the Poets to take a Price of the Players for the Pieces They from time to time furnish’d; and thereupon it was suppos’d, they had no farther Right to print them without the Consent of the Players.  As it was the Interest of the Companies to keep their Plays unpublish’d, when any one succeeded, there was a Contest betwixt the Curiosity of the Town, who demanded to see it in Print, and the Policy of the Stagers, who wish’d to secrete it within their own Walls.  Hence, many Pieces were taken down in Short-hand, and imperfectly copied by Ear, from a Representation:  Others were printed from piece-meal Parts, surreptitiously obtain’d from the Theatres, uncorrect, and without the Poet’s Knowledge.  To some of these Causes we owe the train of Blemishes, that deform those Pieces which stole singly into the World in our Author’s Life-time.

There are still other Reasons, which may be suppos’d to have affected the whole Set.  When the Players took upon them to publish his Works intire, every Theatre was ransack’d to supply the Copy; and Parts collected which had gone thro’ as many Changes as Performers, either from Mutilations or Additions made to them.  Hence we derive many Chasms and Incoherences in the Sense and Matter.  Scenes were frequently transposed, and shuffled out of their true Place, to humour the Caprice or suppos’d