150%. he had put a cipher more, he had come nearer to the truth.*

his death, the printer brought and resigned a complete edition of fifteen hundred copies, which Pope had ordered him to print, and retain in The person of Pope is well known not to have secret. He kept, as was observed, his engage-been formed by the nicest model. He has, in ment to Pope, better than Pope had kept it to his friend; and nothing was known of the transaction, till, upon the death of his employer, he thought himself obliged to deliver the books to the right owner, who with great indignation, made a fire in his yard, and delivered the whole impression to the flames.

Hitherto nothing had been done which was not naturally dictated by resentment of violated faith; resentment more acrimonious, as the violator had been more loved or more trusted. But here the anger might have stopped; the injury wis private; and there was little danger from the example.

his account of the "Little Club," compared him-
self to a spider, and by another is described as
protuberant behind and before. He is said to
have been beautiful in his infancy; but he was
of a constitution originally feeble and weak;
and, as bodies of a tender frame are easily dis-
torted, his deformity was probably in part the
effect of his application. His stature was so
low, that to bring him to a level with common
tables, it was necessary to raise his seat.
his face was not displeasing, and his eyes were
animated and vivid.

But

By natural deformity, or accidental distortion, his vital functions were so much disordered, that his life was a "long disease." His most fre quent assailment was the headache, which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam of coffee, which he very frequently required.

Bolingbroke, however, was not yet satisfied; his thirst of vengeance incited him to blast the memory of the man over whom he had wept in his last struggles; and he employed Mallet, another friend of Pope, to tell the tale to the Most of what can be told concerning his petty public with all its aggravations. Warburton, peculiarities was communicated by a female dowhose heart was warm with his legacy, and mestic of the Earl of Oxford, who knew him tender by the recent separation, thought it pro- perhaps after the middle of life. He was then per for him to interpose; and undertook, not in- so weak as to stand in perpetual need of female dead to vindicate the action, for breach of trust attendance; extremely sensible of cold, so that his always something criminal, but to extenuate he wore a kind of fur doublet, under a shit of a it by an apology. Having advanced, what can- very coarse warm linen with fine sleeves. When not be denied, that moral obliquity is made more he rose, he was invested in bodice made of stiff or less excusable by the motives that produce it, canvass, being scarcely able to hold himself erect, he inquires what evil purpose could have induced till they were laced, and he then put on a flanPope to break his promise. He could not de-nel waistcoat. One side was contracte. His light his vanity by usurping the work, which, though not sold in shops, had been shown to a number more than sufficient to preserve the author's claim; he could not gratify his avarice, for he could not sell his plunder till Bolingbroke was dead; and even then, if the copy was left to another, his fraud would be defeated, and, if left to himself, would be useless.

Warburton therefore supposes, with great appearance of reason, that the irregularity of his conduct proceeded wholly from his zeal for Bolingbroke, who might perhaps have destroyed the pamphlet, which Pope thought it his duty to preserve, even without its author's approbation. To this apology an answer was written in "A Letter to the most Impudent Man living."

legs were so slender, that he enlarged their bulk with three pair of stockings, which were drawn on and off by the maid; for he was not able to dress or undress himself, and neither weat to bed nor rose without help. His weakness made it very difficult for him to be clean.

This account of the difference between Pope and Mr. Allen is not so circumstantial as it was in Johnson's power to have made it The particn ars communicated to him concerning it he was too indolent to commit to writing; the business of this note is to supply his omis

sions.

Upon an invitation in which Mrs. Blount was included, Mr. Pope made a visit to Mr. Allen, at Prior-Park; and having occasion to go to Bristol for a few days, left Mrs.

Blount behind him. In his absence Mrs. Blount, who was of the Romish persuasion, signified an inclination to go to the popish chapel at Bath, and desired of Mr. Allen the use of his chariot for the purpose; but he being at that time mayor of the city, suggested the impropriety of having his carriage seen at the door of a place of wor ship, to which, as a magistrate. he was at least restrained from giving a sanction, and might be required to suppress, ed this refusal, and told Pope of it at his return, and so and therefore de ired to be excused. Mrs. Blount resentinfected him with her rage, that they both left the house abruptly.t

relation of Pope's love of painting, which differs much An instance of the like negligence may be noted in his from the informat on I gave him on that head. A pict re of Betterton, certainly copied from Kneller, by Pope,‡ Lord Mansfield once showed me at Kenwood-house, adding that it was the only one he ever finished, for that the weakness of his eyes was an obstruction to his use

He brought some reproach upon his own memory by the petulant and contemptuous mention made in his will of Mr. Allen, and an affected repayment of his benefactions. Mrs. Blount, as the known friend and favourite of Pope, had been invited to the house of Allen, where she comported herself with such indecent arrogance, that she parted from Mrs. Allen in a state of irreconcileable dislike, and the door was for ever barred against her. This exclusion she resented with so much bitterness as to refuse any legacy from Pope, unless he left the world with a disavowal of obligation to Allen. Having been long under her dominion, now tottering in the decline of life, and unable to resist the violence of her temper, or, perhaps, with the This is altogether wrong; Pope kept up his friend. preju tice of a lover, persuaded that she had suf-ship with Mr. Allen to the last, as appears by his letters, fered improper treatment, he complied with her de mani, and polluted his will with female resentment. Allen accepted the legacy, which he gave to the hospital at Bath, observing, that Pope was always a bad accountant, and that, if to

of the pencil.-H.

and Mrs. Blount remained in Mr Allen's house some

time after the coolness took place between her and Mrs.
Allen. Allen's conversation with Pope on this subject,
and his letters to Mrs. Blount, all whose quarrels he was
Pope's works-C.
obliged to share, wi'! appear in Mr. Bowles s editio. of

Sec p. 229.

His hair had fallen almost all away; and he used to dine sometimes with Lord Oxford, privately, in a velvet cap. His dress of ceremony was black, with a tiewig, and a little sword. The indulgence and accommodation which his sickness required, had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man. He expected that every thing should give way to his ease or humour; as a child, whose parents will not hear her cry, has an unresisted dominion in the nursery.

C'est que l'enfant toujours est homme, C'est que l'homme est toujours enfant. When he wanted to sleep, he nodded in company;" and once slumbered at his own table while the Prince of Wales was talking of poetry. The reputation which his friendship gave procured him many invitations; but he was a very troublesome inmate. He brought no servant, and had so many wants, that a numerous attendance was scarcely able to supply them. Wherever he was, he left no room for another, because he exacted the attention, and employed the activity of the whole family. His errands were so frequent and frivolous, that the footmen in time avoided and neglected him ; and the Earl of Oxford discharged some of the servants for their resolute refusal of his messages. The maids, when they had reglected their business, alleged that they had been employed by Mr. Pope. One of his constant demands was of coffee in the night, and to the woman that waited on him in his chamber he was very burdensome; but he was careful to recompense her want of sleep; and Lord Oxford's servant declared, that in the house where her business was to answer his call, she would not ask for wages.

He had another fault easily incident to those who, suffering much pain, think themselves en- | titled to whatever pleasures they can snatch. He was too indulgent to his appetite; he loved meat highly seasoned and of strong taste; and, at the intervals of the table, amused himself with biscuits and dry conserves. If he sat down to a variety of dishes, he would oppress his stomach with repletion; and, though he seemed angry when a dram was offered him, did not forbear to drink it. His friends, who knew the avenues to his heart, pampered him with presents of luxury, which he did not suffer to stan neglected. The death of great men is not always proportioned to the lustre of their lives. Hannibal, says Juvenal, did not perish by the javelin or the sword; the slaughters of Cannæ were revenged by a ring. The death of Pope was imputed, by some of his friends, to a silver saucepan, in which it was his delight to heat potted lanpreys.

remotely as something convenient; though, wnen it was procured, he soon made it appear for whose sake it had been recommended. Thus he teased Lord Orrery till he obtained a screen. He practised his arts on such small occasions, that Lady Bolingbroke used to say, in a French phrase, that "he played the politician about cabbages and turnips." His unjustifiable impression of "The Patriot King," as it can be imputed to no particular motive, must have proceeded from his general habit of secrecy and cunning he caught an opportunity of a sly trick, and pleased himself with the thought of outwitting Bolingbroke.

:

In fimiliar or convivial conversation, it does not appear that he excelled. He may be said to have resembled Dryden, as being not one that was distinguished by vivacity in company. It is remarkable, that so near his time, so much should be known of what he has written, and so little of what he has said: traditional memory retains no sallies of raillery, nor sentences of observation; nothing either pointed or solid, either wise or merry. One apophthegm only stands upon record. When an objection, raised against his inscription for Shakspeare, was defended by the authority of "Patrick," he replied—“ hørresco referens"-that "he would allow the publisher of a dictionary to know the meaning of a single word, but not of two words put toge ther."

He was fretful and easily displeased, and alowed himself to be capriciously resentful. He would sometimes leave Lord Cxford silently, no one could tell why, and was to be courted back by more letters and messages than the footmen were willing to carry. The table was indeed in fested by Lady Mary Wortley, who was the friend of Lady Oxford, and who, knowing his peevishness, could by no entreaties be restrained from contradicting him, till their disputes were sharpened to such asperity, that one or the other quitted the house.

He sometimes condescended to be jocular with servants or inferiors; but by no merriment, either of others or his own, was he ever seen excited to laughter.

Of his domestic character, frugality was a part eminently remarkable. Having determined not to be dependent, he determined not to be in want, and therefore wisely and magnanimously rejected all temptations to expense unsuitable to his fortune. This general care must be universally approved: but it sometimes appeared in petty artifices of parsimony, such as the practice of writing his compositions on the back of letters, as may be seen in the remaining copy of the “ Iliad,” by which perhaps in five years five shillings were saved; or in a niggardly recep tion of his friends, and scantiness of entertain ment, as, when he had two guests in his house, he would set at supper a single pint upon the table; and, having himself taken two small glasses, would retire, and say, "Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine." Yet he tells his In all his intercourse with mankind, he had friends, that "he has a heart for all, a house for great delight in artifice, and endeavoured to at-all, and, whatever they may think, a fortune for tain all his purposes by indirect and unsuspected all." methods. "He hardly drank tea without a He sometimes, however, made a splendid din stratagem." If, at the house of his friends, hener, and is said to have wanted no part of the wanted any accommodation, he was not willing skill or elegance which such performances reto ask for it in plain terms, but would mention it quire. That this magnificence should be often

That he loved too well to eat is certain; but that his sensuality shortened his life will not be hastily concluded, when it is remembered that a conformation so irregular lasted six-and-fifty years, notwithstanding such pertinacious diligence of study and meditation.

a

displayed, that obstinate prudence with which he | of children. Very few can boast of hearts which conducted his affairs would not permit, for his they dare lay open to themselves, and of which, revenne, certain and casual, amounted only to by whatever accident exposed, they do not shun about eight hundred pounds a year, of which distinct and continued view; and, certainly, however he declares himself able to assign one what we hide from ourselves we do not show to hundred to charity.* our friends. There is, indeed, no transaction which offers stronger temptation to fallacy and sophistication than epistolary intercourse. In the eagerness of conversation the first emotions of the mind often burst out before they are considered; in the tumult of business, interest and passion have their genuine effect; but a friendly letter is a calm and deliberate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely no man sits down to depreciate by

Of this fortune, which, as it arose from public approbation, was very honourably obtained, his imagination seems to have been too full: it would be hard to find a man, so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money. In his letters and his poems, his garden and his grotto, his quincunx and his vines, or some hints of his opulence, are always to be found. The great topic of his ridicule is poverty; the crimes with which he re-design his own character. proaches his antagonists are their debts, their habitation in the Mint, and their want of a dinner. He seems to be of an opinion, not very uncommon in the world, that to want money is to want every thing.

Next to the pleasure of contemplating his possessions, seems to be that of enumerating the men of high rank with whom he was acquainted, and whose notice he loudly proclaims not to have been obtained by any practices of meanness or servility; a boast which was never denied to be true, and to which very few poets have ever aspired. Pope never set his genius to sale, he never flattered those whom he did not love, or praised those whom he did not esteem. Savage, however, remarked, that he began a little to relax his dignity, when he wrote a distich for his "Highness's dog."

His admiration of the great seems to have increased in the advance of life. He passed over peers and statesmen to inscribe his "Iliad" to Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the praise had been complete, had his friend's virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was chosen for so great an honour, it is not now possible to know; there is no trace in literary history of any particular intimacy between them. The name of Congreve appears in the letters among those of his other friends, but without any observable distinction or consequence.

Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom can a man so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by him whose kindness he desires to gain or keep! Even in writing to the world there is less constraint; the author is not confronted with his reader, and takes his chance of approbation among the different dispositions of mankind; but a letter is addressed to a single mind, of which the prejudices and partialities are known; and must therefore please, if not by favouring them, by forbearing to oppose them.

To charge those favourable representations, which men give of their own minds, with the guilt of hypocritical falsehood, would show more severity than knowledge. The writer commonly believes himself. Almost every man's thoughts, while they are general, are right; and most hearts are pure while temptation is away. It is easy to awaken generous sentiments in privacy; to despise death when there is no danger; to glow with benevolence when there is nothing to be given. While such ideas are formed, they are felt; and self-love does not suspect the gleam of virtue to be the meteor of fancy.

If the letters of Pope are considered merely as compositions, they seem to be premeditated and artificial. It is one thing to write, because there is something which the mind wishes to discharge; and another, to solicit the imagination, because ceremony or vanity require something to be written. Pope confesses his early letters to be

To his latter works, however, he took care to annex names dignified with titles, but was not very happy in his choice; for, except Lord Ba-vitiated with affectation and ambition: to know thurst, none of his noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to posterity: he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke.

Of his social qualities, if an estimate be made from his letters, an opinion too favourable cannot easily be formed: they exhibit a perpetual and unclouded effulgence of general benevolence and particular fondness. There is nothing but liberality, gratitude, constancy, and tenderness. It has been so long said as to be commonly believed, thit the true characters of men may be found in their letters, and that he who writes to his friend lys his heurt open before him. But the truth is, that such were the simple friendships of the Golden Age, and are now the friendships only

• Part of it arose from an annuity of two hundred poan is a year, which he had purchased either of the Late Duke of Buckinghamshire, or the Dutchess his mother, an! which was charged on some estate of that fanity. Ses p. 231] The deed by which it was granted was some years in my custody.-IL

whether he disentangled himself from these perverters of epistolary integrity, his book and his life must be set in comparison.

One of his favourite topics is contempt of his own poetry. For this, if it had been real, he would deserve no commendation: and in this he was certainly not sincere, for his high value of himself was sufficiently observed; and of what could he be proud but of his poetry? He writes, he says, when "he has just nothing else to do;" yet Swift complains that he was never at leisure for conversation, because he had "always some poetical scheme in his head." It was punctually required that his writing-box should be set upon his bed before he rose; and Lord Oxford's domestic related, that in the dreadful winter of forty, she was called from her bed by him four times in one night, to supply him with paper, lest he should lose a thought.

He pretends insensibility to censure and criticism, though it was observed by all who knew him that every pamphlet disturbed his quiet, and that his extreme irritability laid him open to

perpetual vexation; but he wished to despise his critics, and therefore hoped that he did despise them.

to solitude him who has once enjoyed the pleasures of society.

In the Letters both of Swift and Pope there As he happened to live in two reigns when the appears such narrowness of mind, as makes them court paid little attention to poetry, he nursed in insensible of any excellence that has not some his mind a foolish disesteem of kings, and pro-affinity with their own, and confines their es claims that "he never sees courts." Yet a little teem and approbation to so small a number, that 1egard shown him by the Prince of Wales melt-whoever should form his opinion of the age ed his obduracy; and he had not much to say, when he was asked by his Royal Highness, "how he could love a prince while he disliked kings ?"

from their representation, would suppose them to have lived amidst ignorance and barbarity, unable to find among their contemporaries either virtue or intelligence, and persecuted by those that could not understand them.

His

He very frequently professes contempt of the world, and represents himself as locking on When Pope murmurs at the world, when he mankind, sometimes with gay indifference, as professes contempt of fame, when he speaks of on emmets of a hillock, below his serious atten-riches and poverty, of success and disappoint. tion, and sometimes with gloomy indignation, as on monsters more worthy of hatred than of pity. These were dispositions apparently counterfeited. How could he despise those whom he lived by pleasing, and on whose approbation his esteem of himself was superstructed? Why should he hate those to whose favour he owed his honour and his ease? Of things that terminate in human life, the world is the proper judge; to despise i's sentence, if it were possible, is not just; and if it were just, is not possible. Pope was far enough from this unreasonable temper: he was sufficiently a fool to fame, and his fault was that he pretended to neglect it. His levity and his sullenness were only in his letters; he passed through common life, sometimes vexed, and sometimes pleased, with the natural emotions of common men.

His scorn of the great is too often repeated to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises; and as falsehood is always in danger of inconsistency, he makes it his boast at another time that he lives among them.

ment, with negligent indifference, he certainly
does not express his habitual and settled senti
ments, but either wilfully disguises his own
character, or, what is more likely, invests him-
self with temporary qualities, and sallies out
in the colours of the present moment.
hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, acted
strongly upon his mind; and, if he differed
from others, it was not by carelessness; he was
iritable and resentful. His malignity to Fhilips,
whom he had first made ridiculous, and then
hated for being angry, continued too long. Gí
his vain desire to make Bentley contemptible, I
never heard any adequate reason.
He was
sometimes wanton in his attacks; and before
Chandos, Lady Wortley, and Hill, was mean in
his retreat.

The virtues which seem to have had most of his affection were liberality and fidelity of friendship, in which it does not appear that he was other than he describes himself. His for tune did not suffer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but he assisted Dodsley with a It is evident that his own importance swells hundred pounds, that he might open a shop; and often in his mind. He is afraid of writing, lest of the subscription of forty pounds a year that the clerks at the Post-office should know his se- he raised for Savage, twenty were paid by him crets; he has many enemies; he considers himself. He was accused of loving money; but self as surrounded by universal jealousy; "af-his love was eagerness to gain, not solicitude to ter many deaths, and many dispersions, two or three of us," says he, "may still be brought In the duties of friendship he was zealous and together, not to plot, but to divert ourselves, constant; his early maturity of mind commonly and the world to, if it pleases;" and they can united him with men older than himself, and, live together, and “show what friends wits may therefore, without attaining any considerable be, in spite of all the fools in the world." All length of life, he saw many companions of his this while it was likely that the clerks did not youth sink into the grave; but it does not ap know his hand; he certainly had no more ene-pear that he lost a single friend by coldness or mies than a public character like his inevitably excites; and with what degree of friendship the wits might live, very few were so much fools as ever to inquire.

Some part of this pretended discontent he learned from Swift, and expresses it, I think, most frequently in his correspondence with him. Swift's resentment was unreasonable, but it was sincere; Pope's was the mere mimicry of his friend, a fictitious part which he began to play before it became him. When he was only twenty-five years old, he related that "a glut of study and retirement had thrown him on the world," and that there was danger lest "a glut of the world should throw him back upon study and re irement." To this Swift answered with great proprie y, that Pope had not yet acted or suffered enough in the world to have become weary of it. And, indeed, it must have been some very powerful reason that can drive back

keep it.

by injury; those who loved him once, continued their kindness. His ungrateful mention of Ailen in his will was the effect of his adherence to one whom he had known much longer, and whom he naturally loved with greater fondness. His violation of the trust reposed in him by Bolingbroke could have no motive inconsistent with the warmest affection; he either thought the action so near to indifferent that he forgot it, or so laudable that he expected his friend to approve it.

It was reported, with such confidence as almost to enforce belief, that in the papers intrusted to his executors was found a defamatory life of Swift, which he had prepared as an instrument of vengeance, to be used if any provecation should be ever given. About this I inquired of the Earl of Marchmont, who assured me that no such piece was among his remains.

The religion in which he lived and died wes

church of Rome, to which, in his ce with Racine, he professes himadherent. That he was not scruus in some part of his life, is known and indecent applications of senfrom the Scriptures; a mode of which a good man dreads for its prood a witty man disdains for its easilgarity. But to whatever levities he etrayed, it does not appear that his were ever corrupted, or that he ever elief of revelation. The positions -transmitted from Bolingbroke he seems ve understood, and was pleased with an tion that made them orthodox.

To assist these powers, he is said to have had great strength and exactness of memory. That which he had heard or read was not easily lost; and he had before him not only what his own meditation suggested, but what he had found in other writers that might be accommodated to his present purpose.

These benefits of nature he improved by incessant and unwearied diligence; he had recourse to every source of in elligence, and lost no opportunity of information; he consulted the living as well as the dead; he read his compositions to his friends, and was never contented with mediocrity when excellence could be at tained. He considered poetry as the business of his life; and, however he might seem to lament his occupation, he followed it with constancy; to make verses was his first labour, and to mend them was his last.

From his attention to poetry he was never diIf conversation offered any thing that could be improved, he committed it to paper; if a thought, or perhaps an expression more happy than was common, rose to his mind, he was care ful to write it; an independent distich was preserved for an opportunity of insertion; and some little fragments have been found containing lines, or parts of lines, to be wrought upon at some other time.

of such exalted superiority, and so leration, would naturally have all his cies observed and aggravated; those not deny that he was excellent, would find that he was not perfect. s it may be imputed to the unwilling-verted. which the same man is allowed to posny advantages, that his learning has preciated. He certainly was, in his fe, a man of great literary curiosity; hen he wrote his "Essay on Criticism," his age, a very wide acquaintance with When he entered into the living world, "s to have happened to him, as to many - that he was less attentive to dead masters; died in the academy of Paracelsus, and the universe his favourite volume. He red his notions fresh from reality, not from opies of authors, but the originals of nature. here is no reason to believe that literature lost his esteem; he always professed to love ung; and Dobson, who spent some time at house translating his "Essay on Man," "n I asked him what learning he found him Dossess, answered, "More than I expected." frequent references to history, his allusions various kinds of knowledge, and his images ected from art and nature, with his observas on the operations of the mind and the des of life, show an intelligence perpetually the wing, excursive, vigorous, and diligent, ger to pursue knowledge, and attentive to rein it.

From this curiosity arose the desire of travelng, to which he alludes in his verses to Jervas, and which, though he never found an opportunity to gratify it, did not leave him till his life declined.

Of his intellectual character, the constituent and fundamental principle was good sense, a prompt and intuitive perception of consonance and propriety. He saw immediately, of his own conceptions, what was to be chosen, and what to be rejected; and, in the works of others, what was to be shunned, and what was to be copied.

He was one of those few whose labour is their pleasure: he was never elevated to negli gence, nor wearied to impatience; he never passed a fauit unamended by indifference, nor quitted it by despair. He laboured his works, first to gain reputation, and afterwards to keep it.

Of composition there are different methods. Some employ at once memory and inventior, and, with little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish large masses by continued meditation, and write their productions only when, in their own opinion, they have completed them. It is related of Virgil, that his custom was to pour out a great number of verses in the moming, and pass the day in retrenching exuberances, and correcting inaccuracies. The method of Pope, as may be collected from his transla tion, was to write his first thoughts in his first words, and gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, and refine them.

With such faculties, and such dispositions, le excelled every other writer in poetical prudence: he wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few hazards. He used almost always the same fabric of verse: and, indeed, by those few essays which he made of any other, he did not enlarge his reputation. Of this uniformity the certain consequence was readiness and dexterity. By perpetual practice, language had, in his mind, a systematical arrangement; having always the same use for words, he had words so selected and combined as to be ready at his call. This increase of facility he confessed himself to have perceived in the progress of his transla tion.

Bat good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which manages its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collec:s few materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains supremacy. Pope had likewise ge- But what was yet of more importance, his nius; a mind active, ambitious, and adventur- effusions were always voluntary, and his subpas, always investigating, always aspiring; injects chosen by himself. His independence seits widest searches still longing to go forward, cured him from drudging at a task, and labour in its highest flights still wishing to be higher; ing upon a barren topic; he never exchanged always imagining something greater than it praise for money, nor opened a shop condo knows, always endeavouring more than it can do.lence or congratulation. His poems, uzrefore,