made choice of is sensible how great is the joy of having all those charms and good qualities which have pleased so many, now applied to please one only. It may be expected, perhaps, that one who has the title of being a wit should say something more polite upon this occasion; but I am really more a well-wisher to your felicity, than a celebrator of your beauty. . . . I hope you will think it but just that a man, who will certainly be spoken of as your admirer after he is dead, may have the happiness, while he is living, to be esteemed, Yours, &c." This letter is sometimes annexed to the poem, and not injudiciously, as it completes the winding-up in the happy marriage of the heroine. In the same year he published his 'Temple of Fame,' which, according to his habitual caution, he had kept two years in his study. It appears from one of his letters, that at that time he had made some progress in translating the Iliad: in 1713 he circulated proposals for publishing his translation by subscription. He had been pressed to this undertaking some time before by several of his friends, and was now encouraged in the design by others. The publication of the first four books, in 1715, gave general satisfaction; and so materially improved the author's finances, that he resolved to come nearer to his friends in the capital. With that view, the small estate at Binfield was sold, and he purchased a house at Twickenham, whither he removed with his father and mother before the end of the year 1715. While employed in the decoration of his seat, he could not forbear doubling his pleasures by boasting of it in his communications with his friends. In a letter to Mr. Blount he says, in his customary tone of gallantry, The young ladies may be assured that I make nothing new in my gardens, without wishing to see them print their fairy steps in every corner of

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them. . . . You'll think I have been very poetical in this description, but it is pretty nearly the truth."

This letter was written in 1725. Warburton tells us that the improvement of his celebrated grotto was the favourite amusement of his declining years: not long before his death, by enlarging and ornamenting it with ores and minerals of the richest and rarest kind, he had made it a most elegant and romantic retirement. But modern taste will scarcely confirm the reverend editor's assertion, that, "the

beauty of his poetic genius, in the disposition and ornaments of those romantic materials, appeared to as much advantage as in any of his best-contrived poems.

Pope's father survived his removal to Twickenham only two years. The old gentleman had sometimes recommended to his son the study of medicine, as the best method of increasing his scanty patrimony. Neglect of pecuniary considerations was not among Pope's weaknesses: he did not indeed engage in the medical profession; but he took other opportunities of pushing his fortune. With this view, he published an edition of his collected poems in 1717; a proceeding as much suggested by profit as by fame. In the like disposition, he undertook a new edition of Shakspeare, which was published in 1721. The execution of it proved the editor's unfitness for the task which he had undertaken. Immediately after the completion of the Iliad, in 1720, Pope engaged, for a considerable sum, to undertake the Odyssey. Only twelve books, however, of the translation proceeded from his own pen; the rest were done by Broome and Fenton under his direction. The work was completed in 1725. The following year was employed, in concert with Swift and Arbuthnot, in the publication of miscellanies, of which the most remarkable is the celebrated 'History of Martinus Scriblerus.' About this time, as he was returning home one day in Lord Bolingbroke's chariot, it was overturned on Chase Bridge, near Twickenham, and thrown with the horses into the river. The glasses being up, Pope was nearly drowned, and was extricated with difficulty from his hazardous situation. He lost the use of two fingers, in consequence of a severe cut from the broken glass.

Having secured an independent fortune, Pope endeavoured to protect his literary fame from all

future attacks, by browbeating every one into silence: this he hoped to accomplish by the poem of the 'Dunciad,' which came out in 4to. in the year 1727. He somewhere says, that the life of an author is a state of warfare: he now showed himself a master in literary tactics, a great captain in offensive as well as defensive war. The poem made its first appearance in Ireland, cautiously, as a masked battery; nor was the triumph completed without the co-operation of an Eugene with this satirical Marlborough in the person of Swift, who furnished some of the materials in his own masterly style of sarcasm. The improved edition was printed in London in 1728. Sir Robert Walpole presented it to the King and Queen, and, probably at the same time, offered to procure the author a pension; but Pope refused this, as he had before, in 1714, rejected a similar proposal from Lord Halifax. In a letter to Swift, written about this time, he expresses his feelings thus: "I was once before displeased at you for complaining to Mr. of my not having a pension; I am so again at your naming it to a certain lord." In 1710 Mr. Craggs had given him a subscription for one hundred pounds in the South Sea Fund; but he made no use of it. These favours must be understood to have been proffered for the purpose of estranging him from his personal friends; and this repeated rejection of them is an honourable proof of steadiness to his attachments.

In 1729, the poet, by Lord Bolingbroke's advice, turned his pen to moral subjects; and, with the assistance of his friend, set to work upon the Essay on Man.' Bolingbroke writes thus to Swift: "Bid Pope talk to you of the work he is about, I hope in good earnest; it is a fine one, and, will be, in his hands, an original." Pope tells the dean, in his next letter, what this work was. "The work Lord

Bolingbroke speaks of with such abundant partiality is a system of ethics, in the Horatian way." In another letter, written probably at the beginning of the following year, we trace the general aim which he at all events wished the public to attribute to this work. "I am just now writing, or rather planning, a book to bring mankind to look upon this life with comfort and pleasure, and put morality in good humour." This subject was well suited to his genius. He found the performance more easy than he had expected, and employed his leisure by following up the design in his Ethic Epistles, which came out separately in the course of the two following years. The fourth, addressed to the Earl of Burlington, did no good to the author's character, in consequence of the violent attack supposed to be made on the Duke of Chandos, a beneficent and esteemed nobleman, under the name of Timon. Pope loudly asserted that in drawing Timon's character he had not the Duke in view: but his denials have not obtained credence; and he has thus incurred the charge of equivocation and falsehood, without exculpating himself from that of ingratitude and wanton insolence. The vexation caused by this business was somewhat softened by the rapid and lucrative sale of the epistle, which very soon went through the press a third time. In a letter to Lord Bolingbroke he says, "Certainly the writer deserved more candour, even in those who knew him not, than to promote a report, which, in regard to that noble person, was impertinent; in regard to me, villanous. I have taken an opportunity of the third edition, to declare his belief not only of my innocence, but of their malignity; of the former of which my heart is as conscious as I fear some of theirs must be of the latter. His humanity feels a concern for the injury done to me, while his great