INTRODUCTION	XXV
exaggeration. Swift may have sent some hints, but he had little
first-hand knowledge of the Grub Street of 1728. Nor had Arbuth-
not much liking for the extremely personal satire in which the
Dunciad abounds; his taste in wit is more likely to have found
expression in the "Virgilius Restauratus," and this piece has, In
fact, been claimed for him with some confidence.1 Of Pope's
other friends, Gay was probably too indolent to contribute much,
and Bolingbroke, like Swift, knew too little about the dunces to
write notes about them. There remain two others to be con-
sidered: William Gleland and Richard Savage.
Cleland was not, as has sometimes been supposed, a complete
phantom; yet the "Letter to the Publisher" which bears his name
has all the marks of Pope's style. It is clear from three letters
which Pope wrote to the Earl of Oxford in July, 1728, that Oxford's
amanuensis was then copying out Gleland's letter and the notes
variorum for the press. Pope, of course, could have hired a
scrivener if he had so wished; his motive in making use of the
Earl's may have been economy, but was more probably secrecy.
If Gleland had really written (and not merely signed) his Letter,
it could surely have gone to the printer in his hand; if Pope wrote
it, he would naturally wish that only some one who was perfectly
discreet should see that it was in his handwriting. * Beyond lending
his name to it, Gleland had probably not much more to do with
writing the Letter than Mrs Anne Dodd had with publishing it.
Richard Savage, on the other hand, had almost certainly a good
deal to do with the Dunciad Variorum. He was at this time on
friendly terms with Pope, and was probably his chief link with
Grub Street. Pope's lofty contempt for the lives of the dunces may
have been largely assumed; but he was bound to rely upon others
for much of his information about them. At all events, it was
London authors." One or two of these may have found their way into the
editions of 1729.
x. E.g. by Lester M. Beattie, John Arbuthnot, p. 984. In the "Advertisement to
the Reader** of 174$* Warburton refers to the notes "written by Mr Gleland,
Dr Arbuthnot, and others." See also Pope's letter to Warburton, Nov. 37,1743
(EG fcc 235)*
a. It should perhaps be added that in the summer of 1728 Pope was writing
with considerable difficulty owing to an accident to his hand when, he was
pitched out of Lord Bolingbroke's coach and cut by flying glass.