ciad: Suggested by MacFlecknoe: had a , but was petulant and malignant; contains ies, but marred by grossness of the images. a on Man: Subject not proper for poetryt master of the subject. From the nature of vreme Being he deduces mankind, and questions r mankind is in the wrong place. He very y tells us much that every man knows. The essay edominar,t genius, splendid imagery, seductive sguising penury of knowledge, and vulsentiment. Not a felicitous compositionexamples of unpolished lines, harsh diction, rfectly expressed thoughts, inelegant levity. xii. Characters of Men and Women: Successful speculation upon human life; superior to Boileau's Satire.

xiii. Epistles: Warburton has tried to find a train of thought connecting these Epistles. The best passages are on Good Sense, the End of the Duke of Buckingham, and the poet's own Character.

7. Pope's genius.-Pope possessed in due proportion the qualities which constitute genius: (a) inventive faculty (Rape of the Lock, Essay on Criticism); (b) imagination (Eloisa, Windsor Forest, Epistles); (c) judgment; (d) the colours of language.

8. Characteristics of Pope's verse.-(a) melodious metre, censured for being too uniformly musical; (b) frequent triplets and Alexandrines; (c) few double rhymes, and no expletives; (d) happy combination of words, poetical elegance of phrases (Watts).

9. Letters to Mr. Bridges.

10. Criticism of thirteen Epitaphs,

POPE.

ALEXANDER POPE was born in London, May 22, 1688, of parents whose rank or station was never ascertained: we are informed that they were of gentle blood; that his father was of a family of which the Earl of Downe was the head; and that his mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York, who had likewise three sons, one of whom had the honour of being killed, and the other of dying, in the service of Charles the First; the third was made a general officer in Spain, from whom the sister inherited what sequestrations and forfeitures had left in the family.

This, and this only, is told by Pope; who is more willing, as I have heard observed, to show what his father was not, than what he was. It is allowed that he grew rich by trade; but whether in a shop or on the Exchange was never discovered till Mr. Tyers told, on the authority of Mrs. Racket, that he was a linen-draper in the Strand. Both parents were papists.

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Pope was from his birth of a constitution tender and delicate; but is said to have shown remarkable gentleness and sweetness of disposition. The weakness of his body 20 continued through his life; but the mildness of his mind perhaps ended with his childhood. His voice when he was young was so pleasing, that he was called in fondness the little Nightingale,

Being not sent early to school, he was taught to read by an aunt; and when he was seven or eight years old, became a lover of books. He first learned to write by imitating printed books; a species of penmanship in which he retained great excellence through his whole life, though his ordinary hand was not elegant. When he was about eight, he was placed in Hampshire, under Taverner, a Romish priest, who, by a method very rarely practised, taught him the Greek and Latin rudiments together. He was now first 10 regularly initiated in poetry by the perusal of Ogylby's Homer, and Sandys' Ovid. Ogylby's assistance he never repaid with any praise; but of Sandys he declared, in his notes to the Iliad, that English poetry owed much of its present beauty to his translations. Sandys very rarely attempted original composition.

From the care of Taverner, under whom his proficiency was considerable, he was removed to a school at Twyford, near Winchester, and again to another school about Hydepark Corner; from which he used sometimes to stroll to the 20 play-house; and was so delighted with theatrical exhibitions, that he formed a kind of play from Ogylby's Iliad, with some verses of his own intermixed, which he persuaded his schoolfellows to act, with the addition of his master's gardener, who personated Ajax.

and on

At the two last schools he used to represent himself as having lost part of what Taverner had taught him; his master at Twyford he had already exercised his poetry in a lampoon. Yet under those masters he translated more than a fourth part of the Metamorphoses. If he kept the 30 same proportion in his other exercises, it cannot be thought that his loss was great. He tells of himself, in his poems, that he lisp'd in numbers; and used to say, that he could not remember the time when he began to make verses. In the style of fiction it might have been said of him as of Pindar, that when he lay in his cradle, the bees swarmed

about his mouth.

About the time of the Revolution, his father, who was undoubtedly disappointed by the sudden blast of popish prosperity, quitted his trade, and retired to Binfield in Windsor Forest, with about twenty thousand pounds; for which, being conscientiously determined not to entrust it to the government, he found no better use than that of locking it up in a chest, and taking from it what his expenses required; and his life was long enough to consume a great part of it, before his son came to the inheritance.

To Binfield, Pope was called by his father when he was 10 about twelve years old; and there he had for a few months the assistance of one, Deane, another priest, of whom he learned only to construe a little of Tully's Offices. How Mr. Deane could spend, with a boy who had translated so much of Ovid, some months over a small part of Tully's Offices, it is now vain to enquire. Of a youth so successfully employed, and so conspicuously improved, a minute account must be naturally desired; but curiosity must be contented with confused, imperfect, and sometimes im- X probable intelligence. Pope, finding little advantage from 20 external help, resolved thenceforward to direct himself, and at twelve formed a plan of study, which he completed with little other incitement than the desire of excellence. His primary and principal purpose was to be a poet, with which his father accidentally concurred, by proposing subjects, and obliging him to correct his performances by many revisals; after which the old gentleman, when he was satisfied, would say, these are good rhymes. In his perusal of the English poets, he soon distinguished the versification of Dryden, which he considered as the model to be studied, and was 30 impressed with such veneration for his instructor, that he persuaded some friends to take him to the coffee-house which Dryden frequented, and pleased himself with having seen. him.

Dryden died May 1, 1701, some days before Pope was twelve; so early must he therefore have felt the power of y

harmony, and the zeal of genius. Who does not wish that Dryden could have known the value of the homage that was paid him, and foreseen the greatness of his young admirer?

The earliest of Pope's productions is his Ode on Solitude, written before he was twelve, in which there is nothing more than other forward boys have attained, and which is not equal to Cowley's performances at the same age. His time was now spent wholly in reading and writing. As he read the classics, he amused himself with translating 10 them; and at fourteen made a version of the first book of the Thebais, which, with some revision, he afterwards published. He must have been at this time, if he had no help, a considerable proficient in the Latin tongue.

By Dryden's Fables, which had then been not long published, and were much in the hands of poetical readers, he was tempted to try his own skill in giving Chaucer a more fashionable appearance, and put January and May, and the Prologue of the Wife of Bath, into modern English. He translated likewise, the Epistle of Sappho 20 to Phaon, from Ovid, to complete the version, which was before, imperfect; and wrote some other small pieces, which he afterwards printed. He sometimes imitated the English poets, and professed to have written at fourteer, his poem upon Silence, after Rochester's Nothing. He had now formed his versification, and in the smoothness of his numbers surpassed his original: but this is a small part of his praise; he discovers such acquaintance both with human life and public affairs, as is not easily conceived to have been attainable by a boy of fourteen in Windsor Forest.

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Next year, he was desirous of opening to himself new sources of knowledge, by making himself acquainted with modern languages; and removed for a time to London, that he might study French and Italian, which, as he desired nothing more than to read them, were by diligent application soon despatched. Of Italian learning he does not appear to have ever made much use in his subsequent studies.