rs after to Spence, Sir William
was not acquainted with, for they were transcribed from
Spence's papers by Johnson, after Blackstone had written.
[This is fully in accordance with his previous conduct, as he
described it to Spence; on the first notification of the Earl
of Warwick's news, "the next day when I was heated with what I
had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know
that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that
if I was to speak severely of him, in return for it, it should
not be in such a dirty way; and that I should rather tell
himself freely of his faults, and allow his good qualities;
and that it should be something in the following manner: I
then adjoined the first sketch of what has since been called
my Satire on Addison. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever
after, and never did me any injustice that I know of from that
time to his death, which was about three years after."]

[232] That Addison did occasionally divert Pope's friends from him,
appears from the advice which Lady Mary Wortley Montague says
he gave to her--"Leave him as soon as you can, he will
certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an
appetite to satire." Malone thinks this may have been said
under the irritation produced by the verses on Addison, which
Pope sent to him, as described above. Pope's love of satire,
and unflinching use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison's
nervous dislike to it.--ED.

[233] From Lord Egmont's MS. Collections.--See the "Addenda Kippis's
Biographia Britannica."

[234] The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable
interview I have hitherto only traced to "Memoirs of the
Life and Writings of A. Pope, Esq., by William Ayre, Esq.,"
1745, vol. i. p. 100. This work comes in a very suspicious
form; it is a huddled compilation, yet contains some
curious matters; and pretends, in the title-page, to be
occasionally drawn from "original MSS. and the testimonies
of persons of honour." He declares, in the preface, that he
and his friends "had means and some helps which were never
public." He sometimes appeals to several noble friends of
Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publicati