"Mr. Larkin, Senior--He has been my acquaintance for Twenty years, and the first printer I had in London. He formerly writ a _Vision of Heaven_, &c. (which contains many nice and curious thoughts), and has lately published an ingenious _Essay on the noble Art and Mystery of Printing_. Mr. Larkin is my _alter ego_, or rather my very self in a better edition."
The book itself was first published about 1690, and went through many editions in the early part of the last century.
_Pope's Translations or Imitations of Horace_ (Vol. i., p. 230.; Vol. iv., pp. 58. 122.).--I am much obliged to MR. CROSSLEY for having corrected the error (for which I cannot account) in the _title_ of the pamphlet in question, which was certainly not by "_the author of the Critical History of England_," and certainly was by Dennis, as is marked by Pope's own hand in the copy now before me. As MR. CROSSLEY puts hypothetically the correctness of my quotation, I subjoin the whole passages.
"After having been for fifteen years as it were an imitator, he has made no proficiency. His first imitations, though bad, are rather better than the succeeding, and this last Imitation of HORACE the most execrable of them all."--P. 7.
"An extravagant libel, ridiculously called an imitation of Horace."--P. 11.
"Of all these libellers the present Imitator is the most impudent and incorrigible."--P. 15.
MR. CROSSLEY says he has a fragment of the "Imitation of the second satire of the first book of Horace," published by Curll in 1716. This, which I never saw, nor before heard of, would solve the difficulty; and I respectfully request MR. CROSSLEY to favour us with a transcript of the title-page, which is the more desirable, because all Pope's biographers, and indeed _he himself_ (to Spence), have attributed his first imitation of Horace to a _much_ later date, certainly subsequent to 1723. The imitation, therefore, of that satire of Horace, printed in 1716 by Curll, is valuable as to Pope's history, and great curiosity and as MR. CROSSLEY states that _Lady Mary_ is not mentioned in that edition, I am curious to know how Pope managed the _rhyme_ now made by _her name_.
MR. CROSSLEY adds that this imitation was reproduced in "folio, printed by J. Boreman about 1734, with some alterations from the former edition." Would it be trespassing too much on your space and his kindness, to request him to give us a few specimens of the alterations, particularly the "change of _initials_" which MR. CROSSLEY mentions. MR. CROSSLEY seems to think that this poem was not reprinted after the folio in 1734, till it appeared in a supplement to Cooper's edition in 1756. This is a mistake. It was published by Pope himself, with his other imitations of Horace, in the collection of his works by Dodsley in 1738; and though only entitled "_in the manner of Mr. Pope_,", excited very natural surprise and disgust. His having deliberately embodied it in the general collection of his works, is Warton's only excuse for having reproduced it.