quainted with Mr. Pope, and admired him highly. It was at his house that I first used to see Mr. Pope." It was after his Essay on Criticism was published?"-Oh yes, sir. -I was then a very little girl, my uncle used to say much of him, but I did not attend to it at that time.- "Had he not a great deal of life and vivacity in his conversation then?"—Yes, it was quite surprising.-Mr. Pope used always to speak of his father as the best of men. He was

a merchant that dealt in Hollands; and left off business when King William came in; he was then worth ten thousand pounds, but did not leave so much to his son.—Mrs. Blount.*

Everybody thought Mr. Pope worth a great deal more than he left behind him. What was over, after paying legacies, &c. did not amount to two thousand pounds, (beside the thousand pounds left to her, and mentioned in the will.) He did not know anything of the value of money; and his greatest delight was in doing good offices for his friends. I used to know, by his particular vivacity, and the pleasure that appeared in his face, when he came to town on such errands, or when he was employed on them, which was very often.-You knew his mother, and how good a woman she was.s.—Mrs. B.

I had never read his will; but he mentioned to me the part relating to Mr. Allen, and I advised him to omit it,

* This is the celebrated favourite of Pope, Martha Blount; she is called Mrs. here, though unmarried, according to the custom of that period.- Editor. [Mr. Pope had about three or four thousand pounds from his father, as I have heard him say. He had two or three thousand pounds out on annuities, for his life, with friends. My first acquaintance with him was after he had begun the Iliad.] -Mrs. Blount, from MS. B.

but could not prevail on him to do so. I have a letter of his by me on that subject.-I sent it to Mr. Hooke.— Mrs. B.

:

I have heard him speak of some work of Lord Bolingbroke's, which that lord designed to suppress: he spoke of it as too valuable to the world to be so used; and said he would not suffer it to be lost to it.-She had immediately the same thought relating to that affair, that I had and said "she could take her oath it was done out of his excessive esteem for the writer and his abilities: but what signifies my words, or thoughts of that matter?-Mr. Pope was apt to be duped into too high, or too good an opinion of people, from the goodness of his own heart, and his general humanity.”—Mrs. Blount, May 18, 1749.

[May 27, 1749. I read over the parts of the conversations that related to Mr. Pope's life and character to Mrs. Blount, and had several things confirmed, and some few corrected and altered in the book itself.-Spence.] Speaking of the Allens, she said: "They had often invited me to their house; and as I went to Bristol with Lady [Gerard] for some time, while Mr. Pope was with them, I took that opportunity of paying the visit they had desired.-I soon observed a strangeness of behaviour in them. They used Mr. Pope very rudely; and Mr. Warburton with double complaisance, (to make their ill-usage of the other more apparent ;) me they used very oddly, in a stiff, and overcivil manner.- -I asked Mr. Pope, after I had been there three or four days, whether he had observed their usage of him. He said he had taken no notice of it; but a day or two afterward he said," that the people had got some odd thing or other in their heads."-This oddness continued

(or rather increased) as long as we stayed. Some time after, Mr. Allen came to London; and I asked Mr. Pope whether he had ever inquired into the cause of their behaviour. He had not; and I urged him to clear it up. In urging this, I used the word satisfaction. Mr. Hooke, who was by, took this in the genteel sense of the word, and imagined I would have had Mr. Pope fight Mr. Allen: which I declare was not the least in my thoughts. It was this which Mr. H. gave as the cause of his estrangement from Mrs. Blount, to herself. All she wanted to know was, why they were so used.*-Mrs. B.

* Ruffhead states that, " About a year before Mr. Pope's death, this lady, at the desire of Mr. Pope and Mr. Allen, paid a visit at Prior Park, where she behaved in so arrogant and unbecoming a manner, that it occasioned an irreconcileable breach between her and some part of Mr. Allen's family. As Mr. Pope's extreme friendship and affection for Mrs. Blount made him consult her in all his concerns, so when he was about making his last will, he advised with her on the occasion; and she declared to him, she would not accept the large provision made by it for herself, unless he returned back, by way of legacy, all that he had received of Mr. Allen, on any account: and Mr. Pope, with the greatest reluctance, complied with the infirmity of such a vindictive spirit. -It is certain that Mr. Pope, in this, as in the case of Lord Bolingbroke, deserved pity instead of blame. For though he had the strongest friendship and affection for Mrs. Blount, yet it was of a kind the most innocent and pure, notwithstanding what malignant or mirthful people might suggest to the contrary, either in jest or earnest. But no excuse can be made for Mrs. Blount's abuse of the influence she had over him; or for the indifference and neglect she showed to him throughout his whole last illness." Dr. Warton and Dr. Johnson state the cause of the quarrel to have been, Mr. Allen's refusal to lend Mrs. Blount his coach to carry her to mass at Bath, during his mayoralty.-From the above account, and the letters of Pope to Mrs. Blount on this occasion, it appears most probable that the quarrel lay between Mrs. Allen

T

I have a letter of Lord Bolingbroke's by me, in which he speaks of Mr. Pope as one of the greatest and the best of men. Mrs. B.

and Mrs. Blount. These letters, which throw much light on the mysterious connexion between the poet and his mistress, are printed in the tenth volume of Mr. Bowles's edition.-Though Rope determined on never setting foot more in Mr. Allen's house, he kept up a friendly intercourse to the time of his death, and besides the pettish legacy, left him his library.—“ Mr. Allen accepted the legacy, as Mrs. Blount was the residuary legatee, but gave it to the Bath Hospital; observing, that Pope was always a bad accountant, and that if to one hundred and fifty pounds, he had put a cipher more, he had come near the truth."-Editor.

SUPPLEMENTAL ANECDOTES.

FROM FIRST MEMORANDUM BOOK

FOR 1755.

HE reading of novels and eastern tales, &c. like drinking of drams.-Wine tastes like water after the latter; and the daily occur

rences of life seem quite tasteless and insipid after being deeply engaged in the former.-Spence. The necessity of reading books obvious; for among the Turks, where reading is but little in use, they are obliged to use opiates to make them less sensible of the tedium of listless leisure.-Spence.

The brighter evergreens, which are the shades in summer, are the lights in winter.-How much worse those two forward urns look, than the two next, because they have no foliage to back them.-When the whole plan of a garden is visible at one glance of the eye, it takes away even the hope of variety. Mr. Southcote.

Benevolence is more of a passion, than a virtue in me; and ought to be watched almost as much as a vice; to keep it either from impertinence or impropriety.-Spence.