POPE'S WORTHIEST ADVERSARY
[MONTAGU, Lady Mary Wortley.]
To the Imitator of the Satire of the second Book of Horace.
London: Printed for J. Roberts … 1733.
Folio, pp. [4], 7, [1], with half-title; woodcut ornament to title, woodcut headpiece and initial; skilful repairs to backfolds, else a fine copy, uncut, in modern boards; very light wear to corners and extremities.
First edition under this title, ‘the most famous of attacks on Pope and perhaps the only one where Pope has found a worthy adversary’ (Guerinot).
Montagu and Pope had once been friends, but by this time relations had gone very sour, and here she mocks Pope for his failure to understand the poem he was imitating, and cruelly dwells on his physical deformity – ‘the emblem of thy crooked mind, / Mark’d on thy back’.
Though not acknowledged by Montagu, it was widely assumed at the time that the work was co-authored by her with Lord Hervey. It was first published as Verses address’d to the Imitator [etc.] … by a Lady. The present ‘rival’ edition, may have originated with Lord Hervey, whose own copy ‘is revised in his hand for a second edition’ (Foxon). There are a number of differences in typography.
Foxon V46; Guerinot pp. 224–6.
