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move into, or near the capital. With this view, he purchased a houfe at Twickenham, which to this day is confidered as a valuable monument of his tafte and improvements. His father furvived the change only two years, dying suddenly, after a very healthy life, at the age of feventy-five. As a Papift, he could not purchase on real fecurity; and adhering to King James's intereft, he made it a point not to lend to the New Government; fo that, though he had been worth near twenty thousand pounds, he left his fon with so confined a fortune, that one false ftep would have been fatal to his finances. In 1717, he published a collection of all the poetical pieces he had written before, and proceeding in the fpirit of acquifition, gave a new edition of Shakespeare in 1721, which difcovered that he had confulted his fortune, in the undertaking, more than his fame. The Iliad being finished, he engaged, upon the fame plan, to undertake the Odyley. The conditions to Lintot were the fame, except that, inftead of 1200. he had but 600. for the copy. Mr. Broome and Mr. Fenton had, about this time, entered into a defign of tranflating the Odyssey; which, on Pope's commencing the fame work, they declined, and parted with the unfinished scheme of their joint labours for 500£. In 1726, our Poet was employed, with Dean Swift and Dr. Arbuthnot, in printing feveral volumes of Miscellanies, and about the fame time narrowly efcaped lofing his life as he was returning home in a friend's chariot, which, on paffing a bridge, was overturned.

overturned into the river. The glaffes were up, and he unable to break them; but by the affiftance.. of the postillion, he was taken out and carried to the bank, though, by a wound from a fragment of the glafs, he loft the ufe of two of his fingers. In the year 1727, the Dunciad appeared in quarto. He had borne the infults of his enemies for ten years, while he had ftudiously refigned all fecond ary concerns to cultivate the Mufes; and at length, having afcended the top of Parnaffus, fell upon his yielding foes with irrefiftible affault. This poem ... made its first appearance in Ireland, and engaged. Dean Swift to become our Author's fecond, under whofe aufpices it was re-publifhed at London in: 1728. Sir Robert Walpole prefented an edition tó the King and Queen, and at the fame time offered: to procure Mr. Pope a penfion, which he refused with the fame spirit as he had a former offer of the kind, made to him by Lord Halifax. His let ters on that fubject are to be met with in his works.. This fame year, by the advice of Lord Bolingbroke,”, he turned his pen to fubjects of morality, and formed the first outlines of his Effay on Man. In the courfe of the two following years, his Ethic Epiftles made their appearance. The clamour raifed: against one of these put him upon writing fatires, wherein he ventured to attack the characters of many perfons of very elevated rank. His fuppofed reflections on the Duke of Chandos incurred the difpleasure of the Court; and, though he used every endeavour to refcue his Poems from their fup

pofed

posed infinuations, he failed of entire fuccefs. Lord Hervey and Lady Mary Wortley Montague, whom he pointedly ridiculed under the names of Lord Fanny, and Sappho, used every species of influence with the King and Queen to ruin him. This in a very comprehenfive letter he much re grets, and inveighs with great acrimony against their unmerited ill-ufage. In the year 1739, he entertained fome thoughts of undertaking an Epic Poem, which however proved abortive. In the interim, feveral of his familiar letters having ftolen into public without his privacy, he published a genuine collection of them in 1737. About this time he became acquainted with the late Bishop of Gloucester (Dr. Warburton) whose commentary on the Essay on Man was published with it in 1740. At the follicitation of his Lordship, he added a fourth book to the Dunciad, and about the fame time declined accepting the degree of Doctor of Laws, offered him by the University of Oxford. Dr. Warburton confented to the compliment of Doctor of Divinity; though, when the congregation met for the purpose, the grace paffed in the negative. In the year 1743, the whole poem of the Dunciad came out, as a fpecimen of a more correct edition of his works, which he had then refolved to give the public. From an inveterate enmity conceived against Mr. Cibber, now Laureat, our Bard promoted him to the throne of Dullnefs. Various puerile offences have been named as the cause of their animofity, which fubfifted

with

with fuch irreconcileable oppofition, as to intereft future ages in the admiration of Cibber's patience,, and Pope's revenge. This eminent and incomparable writer had all his life been fubject to an habitual head-ach; and that hereditary complaint was now greatly increased by a dropfy in his breaft, under which he expired May the 30th, 1744, in the fifty-fixth year of his age. His body was depofited, pursuant to his own requeft, in the fame vault. with those of his parents, to whofe memory he had erected a monument, with an inscription written by himself. Not long before his death, he made his will, in which he conftituted Mifs Blount, with whom he was faid to have been fincerely in love, his teftamentary heir during her life; and among other legacies he bequeathed to Dr. Warburton the property of all fuch of his works, already printed, as he had written, or fhould write commentaries upon, and had not otherwife been alienated, with this condition, that they were published without future alteration. This very learned and judicious Critic promifed a Life of Mr. Pope, and by feveral advertisements engaged that its execution should be confiftent with candor and impartiality. The propofal was left unfulfilled. Sufficient amends.. have been made, however, for the omiffion, by Dr. Warton's Effay, which remains at present the most correct and invaluable record of our Author's principles and tafte. Lord Orrery fays of him," that, "if we may judge him by his works, his chief "aim was to be efteemed a Man of Virtue." His

letters

letters are all written in that ftyle. With regard to his religious prejudices, perhaps a bigoted devotion to the tenets of his parents influenced him to remain within the pale of the Romish church. Dr. Atterbury endeavoured more than once to convert him, without fuccefs. The notions he had embraced, arofe not from the consciousness that they were juft, but rather were efteemed inviolable from an hereditary obfervance of them. He re gulated their tendency no farther than innocence permitted, and in a letter to M. Racine, vindicates his faith from having received any infection from the principles of Spinoza or Leibnitz.

I

The failings of humanity fell to Mr. Pope's fhare, not lefs abundantly than an impartial hiftorian will acknowledge. From ill health he contracted a degree of petulance, which in the inftant of his diforder he was unable to correct. This discovered itself moft frequently in his behaviour to domeftics: yet his honour and generofity thought themfelves constrained, till he obliterated the unkindness by a difplay of ample munificence. When the repait was ended, he ufually withdrew from table, leaving his friends for the feclufion of study, or the indulgence of an afternoon's nap. The dignity of a Royal Guest made the alternative one day impoffible; and the fomniferous habit he had contracted, gaining an afcendancy, he dozed, with unintentional neglect, while the Prince was largely expatiating on the fublime of Epic Poetry. Mr. Pope's

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