on,
and that of its execution, are not in its favour. These
volumes were written within six months of the decease of
our poet; have no publisher's name; and yet the author,
whoever he was, took out "a patent, under his majesty's royal
signet," for securing the copyright. This Ayre is so
obscure an author, though a translator of Tasso's "Aminta,"
that he seems to have escaped even the minor chronicles of
literature. At the time of its publication there appeared
"Remarks on Squire Ayre's Memoirs of Pope." The writer
pretends he has discovered him to be only one of the
renowned Edmund Curll's "squires," who, about that time, had
created an order of literary squires, ready to tramp at
the funeral of every great personage with his life. The
"Remarker" then addresses Curll, and insinuates he speaks
from personal knowledge of the man:--"You have an adversaria
of title-pages of your own contrivance, and which your authors
are to write books to. Among what you call _the occasional,
or black list_, I have seen Memoirs of Dean Swift, Pope,
&c." Curll, indeed, was then sending forth many pseudo
squires, with lives of "Congreve," "Mrs. Oldfield," &c.; all
which contained some curious particulars, picked up in
coffee-houses, conversations, or pamphlets of the day. This
William Ayre I accept as "a squire of low degree," but a real
personage. As for this interview, Ayre was certainly
incompetent to the invention of a single stroke of the
conversations detailed: where he obtained all these
interesting particulars, I have not discovered. Johnson
alludes to this interview, states some of its results, but
refers to no other authority than floating rumours.

[235] The line stood originally, and nearly literally copied from
Isaiah--

"He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes;"

which Steele retouched, as it now stands--

"From every face he wipes off every tear."

Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks,
has too much of modern quaintness. The difficulty of choice
lies between that naked simplicity which scarcely affects, and
those strokes of art which are too apparent.

[236] The last line of Addison's tragedy rea