Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/28



T is with pleasure I hear, that you have procured a correct copy of the, which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a : A Work so requisite, that I cannot think the Author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this Poem.

Such Notes as have occurred to me I herewith send you: You will oblige me by inserting them amongst those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by others; since not only the Author's friends, but even strangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take some care of an Orphan of so much genius and spirit, which its parent seems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended.

It was upon reading some of the abusive papers lately published, that my great regard to a Person, whose Friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater respect to Truth,