"temper would never admit of a settled "friendship between us: and, to con

vince me of what he had faid, affured "me, that Addifon had encouraged "Gildon to publifh thofe fcandals, and "had given him ten guineas after they were published. The next day, while "I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a Letter to Mr. Addifon, to

let him know that I was not unac"quainted with this behaviour of his ; "that if I was to speak feverely of him,

in return for it, it fhould be in fuch "a dirty way, that I fhould rather tell him, himself, fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it fhould be fomething in the "following manner: I then adjoined "the

"the firft fketch of what has fince been

called my fatire on Addifon. Mr. "Addifon ufed me very civilly ever after."

The verfes on Addifon, when they were fent to Atterbury, were confidered by him as the most excellent of Pope's performances; and the writer was advifed, fince he knew where his ftrength lay, not to fuffer it to remain unemployed.

This year (1715) being, by the fubfcription, enabled to live more by choice, having perfuaded his father to fell their eftate at Binfield, he purchased, I think only for his life, that houfe at Twickenham to which his refidence afterwards procured fo much celebration, and re

moved thither with his father and mo

ther.

Here he planted the vines and the quincunx which his verfes mention; and being under the neceffity of making a fubterraneous paffage to a garden on the other fide of the road, he adorned it with foffile bodies, and dignified it with the title of a grotto; a place of filence and retreat, from which he endeavoured to perfuade his friends and himself that cares and paffions could be excluded.

A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure of an Englishman, who has more frequent need to folicit than exclude the fun; but Pope's excavation was requifite as an entrance to his den, and, as fome men try to be proud

gar

of

of their defects, he extracted an ornament from an inconvenience, and vanity produced a grotto where neceffity enforced a paffage. It may be frequently remarked of the ftudious and fpeculative, that they are proud of trifles, and that their amufements feem frivolous and childish; whether it be that men confcious of great reputation think them felves above the reach of cenfure, and fafe in the admiffion of negligent indulgences, or that mankind expect from elevated genius an uniformity of greatnefs, and watch its degradation with malicious. wonder; like him who having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, fhould lament that the ever defcended to a perch.

While the volumes of his Homer were annually published, he collected his former works (1717) into one quarto volume, to which he prefixed a Preface, written with great fpritelinefs and elegance, which was afterwards reprinted, with fome paffages fubjoined that he at first -omitted; other marginal additions of the fame kind he made in the later editions Waller remarks, that

3

of his poems. poets lofe half their praife, because the reader knows not what they have blotted. Pope's voracity of fame taught him the art of obtaining the accumulated honour both of what he had published, and of what he had fuppreffed.

In this year his father died fuddenly, in his feventy-fifth year, having paffed twenty