BIB_ID
301583
Accession number
MA 347.4
Creator
Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744.
Display Date
[1716 Oct.].
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, probably in 1903.
Description
1 item (5 p.) ; 22.6 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of autograph letters, primarily from Alexander Pope to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and manuscript poems. Items in the collection are described in individual records; see MA 347 for details.
Possible date is from Sherburn's edition of Pope's letters.
The upper right corner of p. 1 is torn away.
Possible date is from Sherburn's edition of Pope's letters.
The upper right corner of p. 1 is torn away.
Provenance
The Earl of Harrowby; sale (London, Sotheby, June 18-20, 1903); purchased by Quaritch; probably purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1903.
Summary
Telling her he "find[s] it necessary to relieve [him]self by writing" even though this is the fourth letter he has sent; asking her to reply to his letters: "For God's sake, Madam, let not my correspondence be like a Traffic with the Grave, from whence there is no Return"; hoping that the "Affairs of the Turks" may "put a stop to [her] farther Progress" [in her travels]; saying that he is "capable ... of following one" he loves "not only to Constantinople, but to those parts of India, where they tell us the Women best like the Ugliest fellows, as the most admirable productions of nature, and look upon Deformities as the Signatures of divine Favour."
Catalog link
Department