DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.

The Head of Mr. POPE to front the Title Page of the Fift Volume:

The Portrait of Mr. POPE to front Page ix. [A 5] of VOL. I.

THE

LIFE

OF

ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ.

ALEX

LEXANDER POPE was born, according to Mr. Spence, in Lombard-street, London, on May 22d, 1688, in the house of his father, who was fo eminent a linen-draper, and traded fo fuccessfully, that he gained a fortune of twenty thoufand pounds. His mother was daughter of William Turner, Efq. of York, two of whofe fons died in the fervice of Charles the Firft, and the other became a general officer in Spain.

The feebleness and delicacy of his conftitution naturally engaged the attention of his parents and relations; and he was still more endeared to them by the uncommon mildness and sweetness of temper, which he displayed in his childhood: And perhaps his father might say, as did the father of Boileau, "This child, if he lives, will never speak ill of any "perfon." His voice, too, was fo marvelloufly melo

dious, that they used to call him the little nightingale. He was taught to read by an aunt that was particularly fond of him, and learnt to write by copying printed books, which he did with exquifite fkill and dexterity. He was placed, at eight years old, under the care of Taverner, a Romish priest, (as his father and mother were rigid Catholics,) who taught him the rudiments of the Greek and Latin languages at the fame time. Perhaps it may be wifhed that, for the promotion of true taste and literature, Greek was always taught in great fchools before Latin, according to a hint of Erafmus. Having made confiderable improvements under Taverner, he was removed to a celebrated feminary of Catholics at Twyford, a pleasant village on the banks of the Itchin near Winchefter; a circumstance that used frequently to be mentioned by the scholars of the neighbouring college, in their youthful compofitions. Having written a lampoon on his mafter at Twyford, one of his first efforts in poetry, he was removed from thence to a school kept near Hyde-park Corner. Before this removal, he had been delighted with a perufal of Ogilby's Homer, and Sandys's Ovid; he frequently fpoke, in the latter part of his life, of the exquifite pleasure which the perufal of these two writers gave him. And having now an opportunity of fometimes frequenting the play-houses, our young bard was fo delighted with theatrical performances, that he turned the chief events of the Iliad into a kind of drama, made