It cannot however be concealed that, by his own confeffion, he was the aggreffor; for nobody believes that the letters in the Bathos were placed at random; and it may be difcovered that, when he thinks himfelf concealed, he indulges the common vanity of common men, and triumphs in thofe diftinétions which he had affected to defpife. He is proud that his book was prefented to the King and Queen by the right honourable Sir Robert Walpole; he is proud that they had read it before; he is proud that the edition was taken off by the nobility and perfons of the firft diftinction.

The edition of which he fpeaks was, I believe, that which, by telling in the text the names and in the notes the characters of thofe whom he had fatirifed, was made intelligible and diverting. The criticks had now declared their approbation of the plan, and the common reader began to like it without fear; thofe who were frangers to petty literature, and therefore unable to decypher initials, and blanks, had now names and perions brought within their view; and delighted in the vifible effect of thofe fhafts of malice, which they had hitherto contemplated, as thot into the air.

Dennis, upon the freth provocation now given him, renewed the enmity, which had for a time been appeafed by mutual civilities; and publifhed remarks, which he had till then fuppreffed, upon the Rape of the Lock. Many more grumbled in fecret, or vented their relentment in the newfpapers by epigrams or invec

tives.

Ducket, indeed, being mentioned as loving Burnet with picus palion, pretended that his moral character was injured, and for fome time declared his refolution

to

to take vengeance with a cudgel, But Pope appeased him, by changing pious paffion to cordial friendship, and by a note, in which he vehemently difclaims the malignity of meaning imputed to the first expref-fion.

Aaron Hill, who was reprefented as diving for the prize, expoftulated with Pope in a manner fo much fuperior to all mean folicitation, that Pope was reduced to sneak and fhuffle, fometimes to deny, and fometimes to apologize; he firft endeavours to wound, and is then afraid to own that he meant a blow.

The Dunciad, in the complete edition, is addreffed to Dr. Swift: of the notes, part was written by Dr. Arbuthnot; and an apologetical Letter was prefixed, figned by Cleland, but fuppofed to have been written by Pope.

After this general war upon Dulnefs, he feems to have indulged himself awhile in tranquillity; but his subsequent productions prove that he was not idle. He published (1731) a poem on Tafte, in which he very particularly and severely criticises the house, the furniture, the gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth and little tafte. By Timon he was univerfally supposed, and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is addreffed, was privately faid, to mean the Duke of Chandos; a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and fhow, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had confequently the yoice of the publick in his favour.

A violent outcry was therefore raised against the ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was faid to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a prefent of a thousand pounds, and who gained the oppor

opportunity of infulting him by the kindness of his

invitation.

The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope publickly denied; but from the reproach which the attack on a character fo amiable brought upon him, he tried all means of escaping. The name of Cleland was again employed in an apology, by which no man was fatisfied; and he was at laft reduced to shelter his temerity behind diffimulation, and endeavour to make that disbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke, which was anfwered with great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his excufe without believing his profeffions. He faid, that to have ridiculed his tafte, or his buildings, had been an indifferent action in another man; but that in Pope, after the reciprocal kindness that had been exchanged between them, it had been lefs eafily excufed.

Pope, in one of his Letters, complaining of the treatment which his poem had found, owns that fuch criticks can intimidate him, nay almost perfuade him to write no more, which is a compliment this age deferves. The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous; for the world can easily go on without him, and in a fhort time will ceafe to mifs him. I have heard of an idiot, who used to revenge his vexations by lying all night upon the bridge. There is nothing, fays Juvenal, that a man will not believe in his own favour. Pope had been flattered till he thought himfelf one of the moving powers in the fyftem of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, thofe who fat round him intreated and implored, and felf-love did not fuffer him to fufpect that they went away and laughed.

The following year deprived him of Gay, a man whom he had known early, and whom he seemed to love with more tenderness than any other of his literary friends. Pope was now forty-four years old; an age at which the mind begins lefs eafily to admit new confidence, and the will to grow lefs flexible, and when therefore the departure of an old friend is very acutely felt.

In the next year he loft his mother, not by an unexpected death, for she had lafted to the age of ninetythree; but fhe did not die unlamented. The filial piety of Pope was in the highest degree amiable and exemplary; his parents had the happiness of living till he was at the fuminit of poetical reputation, till he was at eafe in his fortune, and without a rival in his fame, and found no diminution of his respect or tendernefs. Whatever was his pride, to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has, among its foothing and quiet comforts, few things better to give than fuch a fon.

One of the paffages of Pope's life, which feems to deferve fome enquiry, was a publication of Letters between him and many of his friends, which falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious bookfeller of no good fame, were by him printed and fold. This volume containing fome Letters from noblemen, Pope Incited a prosecution against him in the Houfe of Lords for breach of privilege, and attended himself to ftimulate the refentment of his friends. Curll appeared at the bar, and, knowing himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverencc. He has, faid Curll, a knack at verfifying, but in profe I think myself a match for him. When the orders of the Houfe were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed; Curll

went away triumphant, and Pope was left to feek fome other remedy.

Curll's account was, that one evening a man in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to fale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's epiftolary correspondence; that he afked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorised to use his purchase to his own advantage.

That Curll gave a true account of the transaction, it is reasonable to believe, because no falfhood was ever detected; and when fome years afterwards I mentioned it to Lintot, the son of Bernard, he declared his opinion to be, that Pope knew better than any body elfe how Curll obtained the copies, becaufe another parcel was at the fame time fent to himself, for which no price had ever been demanded, as he made known his refolution not to pay a porter, and confequently not to deal with a nameless agent.

Such care had been taken to make them publick, that they were fent at once to two bookfellers; to Curll, who was likely to feize them as a prey; and to Lintot, who might be expected to give Pope information of the feeming injury. Lintot, I believe, did nothing; and Curll did what was expected. That to make them publick was the only purpofe may be reasonably fuppofed, becaufe the numbers offered to fale by the private meffengers fhewed that hope of gain could not have been the motive of the impreffion.

It seems that Pope, being defiroys of printing his Letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulfion; that

when