mother, and for whose picture he asked and thanked Richardson in one of the most delightful letters that ever were penned,*—and the wonderful Kneller, who bragged more, spelt worse, and painted better than any artist of his day.† 5 It is affecting to note, through Pope's correspondence, the marked way in which his friends, the greatest, the most famous, and wittiest men of the time-generals and statesmen, philosophers and divines-all have a kind word and a kind o thought for the good simple old mother, whom Pope tended so affectionately. Those men would have scarcely valued her, but that they knew how much he loved her, and that they pleased him by thinking of her. If his early letters to women are 15 *To Mr. Richardson. "TWICKENHAM, June 10, 1733 As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hoped that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this for the very reason, which possibly might hinder 20 you coming, that my poor mother is dead. I thank God her death was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that 25 ever painting drew; and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could come and sketch it for me. I am sure, if there be no very prevalent obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this; and I hope to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow 30 morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written this-I could not (at this time) have written at all. Adieu! May you die as happily! Yours," &c. "Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his 35 rephew, a Guinea trader, came in. Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, you have the honour of seeing the two greatest men in the world.' 'I don't know how great you may be,' said the Guinea man, but I don't like your looks: I have often bought a man much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas.'" 40 -DR. WARBURTON, Spence's Anecdotes. affected and insincere, whenever he speaks about this onė, it is with a childish tenderness and an almost sacred simplicity. In 1713, when young Mr. Pope had, by a series of the most astonishing victories 5 and dazzling achievements, seized the crown of poetry, and the town was in an uproar of admiration, or hostility, for the young chief; when Pope was issuing his famous decrees for the translation. of the "Iliad "; when Dennis and the lower critics 10 were hooting and assailing him; when Addison and the gentlemen of his court were sneering with sickening hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the young conqueror; when Pope, in a fever of victory, and genius, and hope, and anger, was struggling 15 through the crowd of shouting friends and furious. detractors to his temple of Fame, his old mother writes from the country, "My deare," says she"my deare, there's Mr. Blount, of Mapel Durom, dead the same day that Mr. Inglefield died. Your 20 sister is well; but your brother is sick. My service. to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to hear from you, and that you are well, which is my daily prayer; and this with my blessing." The triumph marches by, and the car of the young con25 queror, the hero of a hundred brilliant victories: the fond mother sits in the quiet cottage at home and says, I send you my daily prayers, and I bless you, my deare." 66 In our estimate of Pope's character, let us al30 ways take into account that constant tenderness and fidelity of affection which pervaded and sanctified his life, and never forget that maternal bene diction.* It accompanied him always: his life seems purified by those artless and heartfelt prayers. And he seems to have received and deserved the fond attachment of the other members of his family. It is not a little touching to read in 5 Spence of the enthusiastic admiration with which his half-sister regarded him, and the simple anecdote by which she illustrates her love. "I think no man was ever so little fond of money." Mrs. Rackett says about her brother, "I think my 10 brother when he was young read more books than any man in the world; " and she falls to telling stories of his schooldays, and the manner in which his master at Twyford ill-used him. "I don't think my brother knew what fear was," she continues; 15 and the accounts of Pope's friends bear out this character for courage. When he had exasperated the dunces, and threats of violence and personal assault were brought to him, the dauntless little champion never for one instant allowed fear to 20 disturb him, or condescended to take any guard in his daily walks except occasionally his faithful dog to bear him company. "I had rather die at once,' said the gallant little cripple, "than live in fear of those rascals.” As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot *Swift's mention of him as one "whose filial piety excels Whatever Grecian story tells," 25 is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better 30 use than he ever intended it for, à propos of this subject. He charitably sneers, in one of his letters, at Spence's "fondling an old mother-in imitation of Pope !" asked and enjoyed for himself-a euthanasia-a beautiful end. A perfect benevolence, affection, serenity hallowed the departure of that high soul. Even in the very hallucinations of his brain, and 5 weaknesses of his delirium, there was something almost sacred. Spence describes him in his last days, looking up and with a rapt gaze as if something had suddenly passed before him. "He said to me, 'What's that?' pointing into the air with a very 10 steady regard, and then looked down and said, with a smile of the greatest softness, ''Twas a vision!'" He laughed scarcely ever, but his companions describe his countenance as often illuminated by a peculiar sweet smile. 15 When," said Spence,* the kind anecdotist whom Johnson despised-" when I was telling Lord Bolingbroke that Mr. Pope, on every catching and recovery of his mind, was always saying something kindly of his present or absent friends; 20 and that this was so surprising, as it seemed to me as if humanity had outlasted understanding, Lord Bolingbroke said, 'It has so,' and then added, 'I never in my life knew a man who had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a more general 25 friendship for mankind. I have known him these thirty years, and value myself more for that man's love than- Here," Spence says, "St. John Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. He was a short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow of 30 New College, Oxford, a clergyman, and professor of poetry. He was a friend of Thomson's, whose reputation he aided. He published an Essay on the Odyssey in 1726, which introduced him to Pope. Everybody liked him. His Anecdotes were placed, while still in MS., at the service of Johnson and also of Malone. They were published by Mr. 35 Singer in 1820. sunk his head and lost his voice in tears." The sob which finishes the epitaph is finer than words. It is the cloak thrown over the father's face in the famous Greek picture, which hides the grief and heightens it. a 5 In Johnson's "Life of Pope" you will find described, with rather a malicious minuteness, some of the personal habits and infirmities of the great little Pope. His body was crooked, he was so short that it was necessary to raise his chair in order to 10 place him on a level with other people at table.* He was sewed up in a buckram suit every morning, and required a nurse like a child. His contemporaries reviled these misfortunes with strange acrimony, and made his poor deformed 15 person the butt for many a bolt of heavy wit. The facetious Mr. Dennis, in speaking of him, says, "If you take the first letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and last letters of his surname, you have A. P. E." Pope catalogues, at 20 the end of the "Dunciad," with a rueful precision, other pretty names, besides Ape, which Dennis called him. That great critic pronounced Mr. Pope a little ass, a fool, a coward, a Papist, and therefore a hater of Scripture, and so forth. It must be 25 remembered that the pillory was a flourishing and "that long * He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through disease, my life." But not only was he so feeble as is implied in his use of the buckram," but "it now appears," says Mr. Peter Cunningham, "from his unpublished letters that, like Lord Hervey, 30 he had recourse to ass's milk for the preservation of his health." It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage that he alludes when he says "Let Sporus tremble !-A. What, that thing of silk 35 |