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SOLD BY PAYNE, AT THE MEWS-GATE; EGERTON,
WHITEHALL; AND KEARSLEY, FLEET-STREET.

1796.

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PREFACE.

FOR fome time paft I had cherished an agre

able expectation, that the remainder of Pope's works would be configned to my care, after the new edition of his Homer, with continued notes. on both Iliad and Odyffey, should be delivered to the public through my hands. But, in confequence of a previous agreement, unknown to me, privately contracted by Mr. Cadell with Dr. Warton, and the rapidity of the Doctor in a preoccupation of the prefs, this office has devolved upon him; a man, by elegance of tafte and variety of literary information, eminently qualified, beyond all controverfy, to adorn and explain a poet, for delicacy of feeling, for accuracy of judgement, poignancy of wit, urbanity of humour, vivacity of fancy, difcernment of human character, folemnity of pathos, pregnancy of fentiment, rectitude of taste, comprehenfive diction, melodious numbers, and dignified morality, without a rival in antient or modern times. That my rambles, however, in this province, thus intercepted, might not perifh to myself, I

have

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