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the great room approved? What parties have you had of pleasure? what in the grotto what upon the Thames? I would know how all your hours all pass, you say, and all you do; of which I should question you yet further, but my paper is full and spares you."

In a letter to his friend Mr. Digby, the poet says—

"No ideas you could form in the winter, can make you imagine what Twickenham is in the summer season. Our river glitters beneath an unclouded sun, at the same time that its banks retain the verdure of flowers; our gardens are offering their first nosegays; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily together, are stretching their arms to meet each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour; the birds are paying their thanksgiving songs for the new habitations I have made them; my building rises high enough to attract the eye and curiosity of the passenger from the river, when, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he inquires what house is falling, or what church is rising. So little taste have our common Tritons of Vitruvius; whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may take in reflecting on their streams my Tuscan porticoes, or Ionic pilasters."

His dear friend Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, he invites to Twickenham :

"I hope the advance of the fine season will set you upon your legs, enough to enable you to get into my garden, where I will carry you up a mount, in a point of view to show you the glory of my little kingdom. The situation here is pleasant, and the view rural enough, to humour the most retired, and agree with the most contemplative: good air, solitary groves, and sparing diet, sufficient to make you fancy yourself one of the fathers of the desert."

Even royalty delighted to contribute to the adornment of the poet's favourite retreat, as we learn from a letter written by command of the Prince of Wales:

"DEAR SIR,

"Since my last, I have received his Royal Highness's commands to let you know, that he has a mind to present you with some urns and vases for your garden, and desires you would write me word what number and size would suit you best. You may have six small ones for your laurel circus, or two large ones to terminate points, as you like best. He wants to have your answer soon. Adieu."

His attachment to rural scenes, and the tranquillity of his retreat, is expressed so often, and in such emphatic language, in his letters, that it is impossible to doubt he put upon paper the language of his heart.

"The weather is too fine for any one that loves the country to leave it at this

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season, when every smile of the sun, like the smile of a coy lady, is as dear as it is uncommon; and I am so much in the taste of rural pleasures, that I had rather see the sun, than anything he can show me, except yourself. I despise every fine thing in turn, not excepting your new gown, till I see you dressed in it.

"I am growing fit, I hope, for a better world, of which the light of the sun is but a shadow; for I doubt not but God's works here are what come nearest to his works there; and that a true relish of the beauties of nature is the most easy preparation, and quietest transition to an enjoyment of those of heaven; as, on the contrary, a true town life of hurry, confusion, noise, slander, and detraction, is a sort of apprenticeship to hell and its furies."

As in prose, so in verse, Pope delighted to dwell upon his retreat here

"To virtue only and her friends a friend,

The world beside may murmur and commend.
Know, all the distant din the world can keep
Rolls o'er my grotto and but soothes my sleep.
There my retreat the best companions grace,
Chiefs out of war and statesmen out of place.
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl
THE FEAST OF REASON AND THE FLOW OF SOUL ;
And he *, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines,
Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines,

Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain
Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain."

And again in praise of his grotto :

"Thou who shalt stop where Thames' translucent wave
Shines, a broad mirror, through the shady cave,
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill;
Unpolish'd gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow.
Approach! great nature, studiously behold
And eye the mine without a wish for gold.
Approach! but awful. Lo! the Egerian grot
Where nobly pensive St. John sat and thought,
Where British eighs from dying Wyndham stole,

And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul;

Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,

Who dare to love their country, and be poor."

We are happy in being enabled to state that all fears for the destruction of this classic grot may now be at an end; Pope's estate having fallen into the hands of a possessor worthy of such a hallowed spot, whose inten

* Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, who, with only two hundred horse and nine hundred foot, undertook and accomplished the conquest of Valencia.

tion is to erect a villa upon the original site of that of the poet, in the same style, and as near as may be resembling what it was: it is also the intention of Mr. Young, as we are informed, to repair the now dilapidated grotto, and generally to restore whatever may recall most vividly the associations of this truly classic ground.

This is not merely an object worthy a refined taste and liberal mind, contrasting most favourably with the barbarous desecration of the spot by Lady Howe, but it is a public benefit: not merely the admirers of Pope, but the country, will be indebted to Mr. Young for preserving that which is a national ornament, and ought to have been the subject of national care and preservation.

In any other country than this—even in countries much less advanced in civilisation, the haunt of such an ornament of their literature, such a master of their language, would have been thought worthy national tutelage and public consecration: the little estate hallowed by a thousand classic associations would have been preserved intact: the favourite chamber of the poet, his lamp, his desk, his chair, would have been religiously transmitted with his works to future times.

While we lament the desecration of the poet's abiding-place, and express our disapprobation of the more than Gothic barbarism of her who was the agent, we may at the same time express our gratification that an individual is found willing to repair, as far as it can be repaired, our national loss, and who will restore whatever there may be connected with Pope capable of restoration.

The great success of his Homer-not the less gratifying to Pope because pecuniary independence accompanied the plaudits of the public-may be said to have established him for life at his favourite retreat, and to have afforded him the means of sustaining a position in life more substantial, respectable and honourable, than perhaps ever was the lot of poet, born to no patrimony, before.

His Odyssey, in the translation whereof he was assisted by Fenton and Broome, was his next publication of importance: notwithstanding the sums he was obliged to pay to his literary assistants-to Broome five hundred, and to Fenton three hundred pounds, this work produced Pope a considerable sum of money. Indeed, it may be remarked as one among many illustrations of the compatibility of genius with common sense, that Pope well

knew the value of, and had a proper regard for money: he knew the contempt which pursues through life the man, especially if he be a man of mind, who is destitute of this, the only solid merit, the only acknowledged respectability: although never sordid, Pope was ever careful of his money, or, in other words, of his liberty: poverty, he knew, was but another name for slavery all the world over.

It was probably with a view still further to augment his income that he undertook an edition of Shakspeare: in this he failed, as might have been expected: a mind such as that of Pope, employed upon verbal criticism and minute analysis, must revolt from its occupation, and must needs work against the grain: although Hercules did not refuse the distaff, it is more than probable that he never became an accomplished spinner.

It is much to be regretted that Pope descended to wage an unworthy war with the small fry of pamphleteers and poetasters of his day; this has been a weakness of the greatest minds, and yet there is not a foible more unworthy those who study to be immortal. Like most schemes of revenge, it altogether defeats its own object: the Dunciad has conferred immortality upon men whose libels on the poet are forgotten, and whose existence would have alike sunk into oblivion if the poet had not damned them o everlasting fame; besides, there is always something humiliating in contemplating a man like Pope enraged with antagonists every way unworthy his indignation. No doubt, the proud position he commanded in the world of letters exasperated the numerous fry of minor poets: the society in which he moved, and of which he was the pride and ornament, must have regretted the irritation which provoked the Dunciad: the most cruel revenge Pope could have taken upon his persecutors would have been to have preserved a perfect silence. Who does not smile, when a Hercules sallies forth, armed with his club, to be revenged on a swarm of gnats, which the next shower will wash from the face of the earth, as if they had never existed?

The town, however, is delighted with quarrels in which they have no more to do than to laugh and look on, and the Dunciad was hailed with rapture. On the day the book was first vended, a crowd of authors besieged the shop: entreaties, advices, threats of law and battery-―nay, cries of treason, were all employed to hinder the coming out of the Dunciad. On the other side, the booksellers and hawkers made as great an effort to procure it.

What could a few poor authors do against so great a majority as the public? There was no stopping a torrent with a finger, so out it came.

"Many ludicrous circumstances attended it. The Dunces (for by this name they were called) held weekly clubs, to consult of hostilities against the author. One wrote a letter to a great minister, assuring him Mr. Pope was the greatest enemy the government had; another bought his image in clay, to execute him in effigy; with which sort of satisfaction the gentlemen were a little comforted.

"Some false editions of the book having an owl in their frontispiece, the true one, to distinguish it, fixed in its stead an ass laden with authors. Then, another surreptitious one being printed, with the same ass, the new edition returned for distinction to the owl again. Hence arose a great contest of booksellers against booksellers, and of advertisements against advertisements; some recommending the edition of the owl, and others the edition of the ass; by which names they came to be distinguished, to the great honour also of the gentlemen of the Dunciad."

We have not space further to pursue the poetical career of this great man. His Epistle to Lord Burlington, that to Lord Bathurst on the Use of Riches, his Essay on Man, his Epistle to Lord Cobham, and the fourth and last book of the Dunciad, appeared in succession, in the order above mentioned.

About the year 1744 his health began visibly to decline: he suffered severely from headaches and rheumatic pains, and was affected with difficulty of breathing, the result, as was supposed, of effusion into the chest. He had frequent deliriums; and, recovering from one of those, Spence the poet, who sate by his bedside, heard and recorded those memorable words, "I am so certain of the soul being immortal, that I seem to feel it within me, as it were, by intuition."

Having expressed his firm belief in the certainty of a future state, it will be thought only consonant with his professions that he should have received with humility and fervour the sacraments of his church. Lord Bolingbroke is said to have expressed great disgust with the poet for having died in the faith and hope of a Christian, being probably chagrined that his lessons of infidelity should have produced so little effect. On the evening of the last day of May 1744, this great, good, and amiable man expired in peace, having attained the age of fifty-six years, and was buried in the church of Twickenham.

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