Note 9 — III HOW TO MAKE AN EPIC POEM[11]
Reading edition
A letter dated September 1, 1718, and addrest to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was then living in Turkey. Pope and she afterward (about 1722) quarreled bitterly. Leslie Stephen, discussing the matter, says "the extreme bitterness with which Pope ever afterward assailed her can be explained most plausibly, and least to his discredit, upon the assumption that his extravagant expressions of gallantry covered some real passion." If this be a true inference, his passion "was probably converted into antipathy by the contempt with which she received his declaration."