not shrink to see how much he has degenerated from his ancestors. After describing a process which contains calculation enough for most people, and which further directs to multiply sixty figures by sixty figures, he adds, "If the curiosity of any gentleman that has leisure would prompt him to undertake to do the logarithms of all prime numbers under 100,000 to 25 or 30 figures, I dare assure him that the facility of this method will invite him thereto; nor can anything more easy be desired. And to encourage him, I here give the logarithms of the first prime numbers under 20 to 60 places. One look at these encouraging rows of figures would be sufficient for any but a calculating boy.

No one who is conversant with the mathematics and their applications can read the life of the mathematicians of the seventeenth century without a strong feeling of respect for the manner in which they overcame obstacles, and of gratitude for the labour which they have saved their successors.

The

brilliancy of later names has, in some degree, eclipsed their fame with the multitude; but no one acquainted with the history of science can forget, how with poor instruments and imperfect processes, they achieved successes, but for which Laplace might have made the first rude attempts towards finding the longitude, and Lagrange might have discovered the law which connects the coefficients of the binomial theorem. But even of these men the same thing may one day be said; and future analysts may wonder how Laplace, with his paltry means of investigation, could account for the phenomenon of the acceleration of the moon's motion; and future astronomers may, should such a sentence as the present ever meet their eyes, be surprised that the observers of the nineteenth century should hold their heads so high above those of the seventeenth.

VOL. III.

K

ALEXANDER POPE was born in London, June 8, 1688. His father was a merchant, of good family, attached to the Roman Catholic religion; and his own childish years were spent, first under the tuition of a priest, then at a Roman Catholic Seminary at Twyford, near Winchester. He taught himself to write by copying printed books, in the execution of which he attained great neatness and exactness. When little more than eight years old he accidentally met with Ogilby's Translation of Homer. The versification is insipid and lifeless; but the stirring events and captivating character of the story so possessed his mind, that Ogilby became a favourite book. When about ten years old he was removed from Twyford to a school at Hyde Park Corner. He had there occasional opportunities of frequenting the theatre; which suggested to him the amusement of turning the chief events in Homer

into a kind of play, composed of a succession of speeches from Ogilby, strung together by verses of his own. In these two schools he seems, instead of advancing, to have lost what he had gained under his first tutor. When twelve years old he went to live with his parents at Binfield, in Windsor Forest. He there became acquainted with the writings of Spenser, Waller, and Dryden. For the latter he conceived the greatest admiration. He saw him once, and commemorates the event in his correspondence, under the words "Virgilium tantum vidi:" but he was too young to have made acquaintance with that master of English verse, who died in 1701. He studied Dryden's works with equal attention and pleasure, adopted them as a model of rhythm, and copied the structure of that author's periods. This was, however, so far from a grovelling imitation, that it enabled him to raise English rhyme to the most perfect melody of which it is capable.

In the retirement of Binfield, Pope laboured successfully to make amends for the loss of past time. At fourteen years of age he had written with some elegance, and at fifteen had attained some knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, to which he soon added French and Italian. In 1704 he began his pastorals, published in 1709, which introduced him, through Wycherley, to the acquaintance of Walsh, who proved a sincere friend to him. That gentleman discovered at once that Pope's talent lay less in striking out new thoughts of his own, than in easy versification, and in improving what he borrowed from the ancients. Among other useful hints, he pointed out that we had several great poets, but that none of them were correct; he therefore admonished him to make that merit his own. The

advice was gratefully received; and Pope's correspondence shows that it was carefully followed. His melodious numbers, so marked a feature of his style, were in a great measure the result of that suggestion.

In the same year, 1704, he wrote the first part of his Windsor Forest:' the whole was not published till 1713. The fault charged on this poem is, that few images are introduced which are not equally applicable to any other sylvan scenery. It was dedicated to Lord Lansdowne, whom he mentions as one of his earliest acquaintance. To those already named, may be added Bolingbroke, Congreve, Garth, Swift, Atterbury, Talbot, Somers, and Sheffield, whose friendship he had gained at sixteen or seventeen years of age. Pope, to his credit be it set down, cultivated friendships not only with the great, but with his brethren among the poets. Wycherley indeed was infected with the weakness of the archbishop in 'Gil Blas,' touching his own compositions, and the young poet was imprudently caustic in his criticism on the old one. Their correspondence was consequently dropped; and though renewed through the mediation of a common friend, it was with no revival of cordiality. But in 1728, some time after Wycherley's death, his poems were republished; and in the following year Pope printed several letters which had passed between them, in vindication of Wycherley's fame as a poet, in answer to certain misrepresentations prefixed to that edition. This quarrel was a trying affair in the outset of Pope's career, and his conduct had been above his years; but young as he was, his talents were now beginning to ripen. His example confirms the truth of Lord Bacon's remark, that personal deformity acts as a spur to that improvement of the

mind, which is most likely to rescue him who is curtailed of his due proportion from a sense of degradation.

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To this early period of Pope's life belong the 'Messiah,' the 'Ode for St. Cecilia's Day,' 'Verses to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady,' and other of Pope's minor pieces, which were collected and published in a small 8vo. volume in 1720. It is stated in a note to Dr. Johnson's Life, that Pope himself was the object of the passion commemorated in the last-mentioned poem. The date of that most brilliant composition, 'Eloisa to Abelard,' is uncertain. The Essay on Criticism' was written in 1709, "A work," says Johnson, "which displays such extent of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with mankind, and such knowledge both of ancient and modern learning, as are not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience." Pope's fame was carried to its height by the Rape of the Lock.' That poem originated in an impertinence offered by Lord Petre to Mrs. Arabella Fermor, which led to a quarrel between their respective families. Both parties were among Pope's acquaintance, and this lively piece was written to produce a reconciliation, in which it succeeded. The universal applause given to the first sketch induced the author to enrich it with the machinery of the Sylphs. In that new dress the two cantos, extended to five, came out in 1712, accompanied by a letter to Mrs. Arabella Fermor, to whom he afterwards addressed another after her marriage, in the spruce and courtly style of Voiture. A sentence or two may be quoted as a sample of the poet's epistolary manner. 'Madam, you are sensible, by this time, how much the tenderness of one man of mèrit is to be preferred to the addresses of a thousand; and by this time, the gentleman you have