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It seems to have escaped the notice of all Pope's biographers, that when the Marquis Maffei visited Twickenham, in company with Lord Burlington and Dr. Mead, he found the English bard employed on a translation of his _Merope_: yet the public have been in possession of this anecdote about fifty years. The Marquis, in his answer to the celebrated letter addressed to him by Voltaire, says: 'Avendomi Mylord Conte di Burlington, e il Sig. Dottore Mead, l'uno e l'altro talenti rari, ed à quali quant' io debba non posso dire, condotto alla villa del Sig. Pope, ch' è il Voltaire dell Inghilterra, come voi siete il Pope della Francia, quel bravo Poeta mi fece vedere, che lavorava alla versione della mia Tragedia in versi Inglesi: se la terminasse, e che ne sia divenuto, non so.'--_La Merope_, ver. 1745, p. 180. With the fate of this version we are, and probably shall ever remain, unacquainted: it may, however, be safely presumed, that it was never finished to the satisfaction of the translator, and therefore committed to the flames.
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N. & Q., which may possibly elicit valuable information from some of your many correspondents. In the Archbishop of York's questions put to candidates for Holy Orders, Feb. 1850, occurred this Query:
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The Church Catechism ... by whom was the latter part added and put into its present form; and whence is it chiefly derived?