Walpole, Horatio, first Baron Walpole of Wolterton
"Original Letter from Horace Walpole, Esq. Brother of Sir Robert
Walpole, and Afterwards Lord Walpole of Wolterton, To Mr. Dodington,
Afterwards Lord Melcombe." (32.368) Dated from "Paris,
May 19, 1726." The letter is D295 in The Complete
Works of Voltaire, the Correspondence and Related Documents, ed.
Theodore Besterman (Geneva, 1968), I. 301n., where the only text listed
is in vol. X of the 1824 Works of Alexander Pope, ed.
William
Roscoe. Now William Lisle Bowles wrote the note in which the letter is
quoted in his edition of The Works of Alexander Pope in Verse and
Prose, 10 vols., 1806, IX. 152n., but he gives no source. His text,
followed by Besterman, differs somewhat from that in the
EM.
I give line references to Besterman's text and his reading first: l. 1, pieces
/ verses; ll. 1-2, success here / success; l. 3, Henry IV /
Henry
the Fourth; l. 4, persecution / fanaticks; ll. 8-9, where more properly /
better; l. 9, view
and / view of; l. 10, 50 / om.; l. 11, truth and affection;
[blank] and esteem; l. 12, obedient and most humble servant / obedt.
&
hble Servt. Horace Walpole's letter to the first Duke of Newcastle follows
the letter to Dodington in Besterman; he signs himself "yr
Grace's most
faithful & most Obedt humble servant," hardly
throwing much light
on which of the two texts of the letter to Dodington is to be prefered, at
least as far as the signature is concerned.