At the time of his death, on 21 May 1790, there were in print only eleven sheets,[3] or eighty-eight pages, of the fourth and final volume, which was scheduled to bring the history of English poetry down to the close of the seventeenth century. For four years after the publication of the third volume in 1781 Warton repeatedly promised to complete the work,[4] and a notice at the end of his edition of Milton's _Minor Poems_ advertised in 1785 the "speedy publication" of the fourth volume. But to his printer Warton evidently sent nothing beyond Section XLVIII. The present continuation was probably written during or shortly after 1782: it contains no reference to any publication after William Hayley's _Essay on Epic Poetry_, which appeared in 1782; and according to Thomas Caldecott, Warton for the last seven years of his life discontinued work upon the _History_.[5]
The notes which Thomas Warton had made for the completion of the _History_ were upon his death commandeered by his brother, Joseph, at that time headmaster of Winchester College. Joseph Warton made some halfhearted efforts to get on with the volume,[6] but neither Winchester nor Wickham, whither he retired in 1793, was a proper place in which to carry on the necessary research. Moreover he was much more interested in editing Pope and Dryden; and securing advantageous contracts to edit these poets whom he knew well, he let the _History_ slide.
Joseph Warton appears, however, to have touched up the present continuation, for a few expansions seem to be in his script rather than in his brother's. It is difficult to be positive in the discrimination of hands here, as Thomas Warton's hand in this manuscript is quite irregular. Pens of varying thicknesses were used; black ink was used for the text and red ink for footnotes, and one note (16) was pencilled. Moreover, certain passages appear to have been written during periods of marked infirmity or haste and are legible only with difficulty if at all. In any case, those additions which were presumably made by Joseph Warton merely expand the original version; they do not alter or modify any of Thomas Warton's statements.
In the text of the present edition the expansions which appear to be in Joseph Warton's hand are placed within parentheses, which were not used for punctuation in the text of the manuscript itself. Because of the difficulties of reproduction, all small capitals have been translated into lover case italics.