EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

* * * * *

POPE'S REVISION OF SPENCE'S ESSAY ON THE ODYSSEY.

Spence's almost idolatrous admiration of, and devotion to, Pope, is
evident from the pains he took to preserve every little anecdote of him
that he could elicit from conversation with him, or with those who knew
him. Unfortunately, he had not Boswell's address and talent for
recording gossip, or the _Anecdotes_ would have been a much more racy
book. Spence was certainly an amiable, but I think a very weak man; and
it appears to me that his learning has been overrated. He might indeed
have been well designated as "a fiddle-faddle bit of sterling."

I have the original MS. of the two last Dialogues of the _Essay on the
Odyssey_ as written by Spence, and on the first page is the following
note:--"The two last Evenings corrected by Mr. Pope." On a blank page at
the end, Spence has again written:--"MS. of the two last Evenings
corrected with Mr. Pope's own hand, w'ch serv'd y'e Press, and is so
mark'd as usual by Litchfield."

This will elucidate Malone's note in his copy of the book, which Mr.
Bolton Corney has transcribed. I think the first three dialogues were
published in a little volume before Spence became acquainted with Pope,
and perhaps led to that acquaintance. Their intercourse afterwards might
supply some capital illustrations for a new edition of Mr. Corney's
curious chapter on _Camaraderie Littéraire_. The MS. copy of Spence's
Essay bears frequent marks of Pope's correcting hand by erasure and