of Brutus arriving in England. It was written by Eustache, or rather Wace, in the reign of Louis the Seventh, who ascended the throne 1137, the husband of Eleanora, married, after a divorce, to our Henry the Second. The Author called it, Le Roman de Brut. Every piece of poetry was, at that time, denominated a Romance. The Latin language ceased to be commonly spoken in France about the ninth century; and was succeeded by what was called the Romance-tongue, a mixture of the language of the Franks and of bad Latin.

And now, about the year 1744, his health and strength began visibly to decline. Besides his constant headachs, and severe rheumatic pains, he had been afflicted, for five years, with an asthma, which was suspected to be occasioned by a dropsy on the breast, and which, not the skill of the many able physicians, who were always ready and eager to attend him, could relieve. In the month of May 1744, he evidently grew worse and more infirm. He had frequent deliriums; and as Dodsley told me, with tears in his eyes, Pope asked him one day, as he sat by his bed-side, "What great arm is that I see coming out of the wall?" Recovering another day from one of these deliriums, he said to Spence, "I am so certain of the Soul's being immortal, that I seem to feel it within me, as it were by intuition." Mrs. Martha Blount' unfeelingly neglected him in

7 Mr. Swinburne, the traveller, who was her relation, informs me, that she died in 1762, at her house in Berkeley-square, Piccadilly, where he frequently visited her, and much gratified him by promising to leave him all the MSS, she had in ber possession,

his last illness, and coming one day to his house, inquired of the amiable Lord Marchmont, who had constantly attended him with friendship and affection, "What, is he not dead yet?" Very different was the behaviour of Bolingbroke, who, as Spence related to me, standing, in one of his last interviews with Pope, behind his chair, and looking earnestly down upon him, repeated several times, interrupted with sobs, "O great God, what is man! I never knew a person that had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a warmer benevolence for all mankind!" It was Mr. Hooke, a bigoted papist, a quietist, a friend of Ramsay, and disciple of Fenelon, who persuaded Pope to be attended by a priest, that he might die like his father and mother; an argument that had much weight with so dutiful a son. And such was the fervour of his devotion, that, as Chiselden, the surgeon, who was present, related to Dr. Hoadly, he exerted all his strength to throw himself out of his bed, that he might receive the last sacraments kneeling on the floor. A few hours after the priest retired, Bolingbroke came over from Battersea, and expressed great indignation at this transaction. It was in the evening of the thirtieth day of May 1744,

but she died without a will, and the MSS. were never recovered. He tells me, she was a little, neat, fair, prim, old woman, easy and gay in her manner and conversation, but seemed not to possess any extraordinary talents. Her eldest sister Teresa had uncommon wit and abilities.

• When Mr. Hooke asked him, Whether he would not die as his father and mother had done, and whether he should not send for a priest? he answered, "I do not suppose it to be essential, but it will look right, and I thank you for putting me in mind of it."

that he had the happiness of dying with the greatest tranquillity, aged fifty-six years.

He was interred at Twickenham, near his father and mother; and the Bishop of Gloucester erected a monument to his memory, with the following inscription:

"ALEXANDRO POPE, H. M.
GUL. Episcopus Glocestriensis,
Amicitia Causa,

Fac. cur. 1761.
Poeta loquitur.

"For one, who would not be buried in Westminster

Let Virgil blush, and Horace too!"

His death, though it might have been expected, was not lamented by any of his contemporary Poets, till Mr. Mason made amends by his Museus.

Considering the debility, deformity, and distortion of his bodily frame, it is rather wonderful he lived so long. He was protuberant both before and behind; and he compared himself, in his humorous account of the club of little men, to a spider. He was so very feeble and weak, as not to be able to dress or undress himself without assistance; and so susceptible of cold, that he was not only wrapped up in fur and flannel, but was also obliged to wear boddice made of stiff canvass, closely laced about him. We must not wonder, or be disgusted, that he had much of the irritability,

peevishness, and fretfulness of a constant valetudinarian.

In the intervals of sickness and headach, with which he was so frequently afflicted, he too much indulged his appetite, and was too fond of a variety of dishes highly seasoned, and of the most poignant flavour; with which, when his stomach was oppressed, he had recourse to strong liquors and drams. His conversation was not remarkably brilliant or pleasant, and no sallies of his wit or humour are recorded. It is observable, that he never was seen to laugh heartily. It is unpleasant to hear it said, that, in the common intercourse of life, he delighted in petty stratagems and idle artifices, in procuring what he wanted, without plainly and directly mentioning the thing. So that "he played the politician," said Lady Bolingbroke, "about cabbages and turnips."

But whatever might be the imperfections of our great Poet's person or temper, yet the vigour, force, and activity of his mind were almost unparalleled. His whole life, and every hour of it, in sickness and in health, was devoted solely, and with unremitting diligence, to cultivate that one art in which he had determined to excel. Many other Poets have been unavoidably immersed in business, in wars, in politics, and diverted from their favourite bias and pursuits. Of Pope it might truly and solely be said, Versus amat, hoc studet unum. His whole thoughts, time, and talents, were spent on his Works alone: which Works, if we dispassionately and carefully review, we shall find, that the largest portion of them, for he attempted nothing of the epic or dramatic, is

of the didactic, moral, and satiric kind; and, consequently, not of the most poetic species of Poetry. There is nothing in so sublime a style as the Bard of Gray. This is a matter of fact, not of reasoning; and means to point out, what Pope has actually done, not what, if he had put out his full strength, he was capable of doing. No man can possibly think, or can hint, that the Author of the Rape of the Lock, and the Eloisa, wanted imagination, or sensibility, or pathetic; but he certainly did not so often indulge and exert those talents, nor give so many proofs of them, as he did of strong sense and judgment. This turn of mind led him to admire French models; he studied Boileau attentively; formed himself upon him, as Milton formed himself upon the Grecian and Italian Sons of Fancy. He stuck to describing modern manners; but these manners, because they are familiar, uniform, artificial, and polished, are, for these four reasons, in their very nature unfit for any lofty effort of the Muse. He gradually became one of the most correct, even, and exact Poets that ever wrote; but yet with force and spirit, finishing his pieces with a patience, a care, and assiduity, that no business nor avocation ever interrupted; so that if he does not frequently ravish and transport his reader, like his Master Dryden, yet he does not so often disgust him, like Dryden, with unexpected inequalities and absurd improprieties. He is never above or below his subject. Whatever poetical enthusiasm he actually possessed, he withheld and suppressed. The perusal of him, in most of his pieces, affects not our minds with such strong emo