In a letter from Pope to Savage, 15 Sept., 1742, Pope writes defensively:
"What mortal would take your play . . . out of your hands, if you could come, and attend it yourself? It was only in defect of that, these offices of the two gentlemen you are so angry at, were offered. What interest but trouble could they have had in it?" (Pope's Correspondence , ed. Sherburn, IV, 418.)