POPE ESSAY ON EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY ALFRED S. WEST, M.A. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS PREFACE. AMPLE MPLE acknowledgment must be made at the outset of my obligations to the monumental edition of Pope's Works, begun a quarter-of-a-century ago by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin and completed within the last few years by Professor Courthope. Mr Elwin's variorum notes upon the Essay on Criticism have been of the greatest service to me in the preparation of my own, and of the wide learning and sound judgment, conspicuously displayed in Mr Courthope's Life of Pope, I have availed myself freely both in the Notes and in the Introductory sections of this book. Of the numerous works of reference to which I am indebted, justice requires that I should mention two in particular, viz., the Century Dictionary and Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature. In tracing the meanings of words, illustrating their uses, and supplying their etymologies, I have repeatedly borrowed materials from the Century Dictionary with no sparing hand. The Essay on Criticism is an excellent book, not indeed for children, but for pupils who are fitted by their age and education to read it with intelligent interest. In the hands of a competent teacher it will prove an instrument for stimulating a zest for questions of literary history, philology, |
