Death does not feem to have taken Pope by furprize. When it came upon him, and he thought he was dying of a hundred good fymptoms," he only perceived that he was deprived of the power of thinking. If I am not mistaken, he had fome time before complained, that he had been under an inability of thought for a whole day. Hooke, the Roman Hiftorian, and a Roman Catholic (whofe ancestor came over with the Duke of Monmouth, and was a prifoner at Sedgemoor) was at hand to recommend a priest to him, from the example of his father, in articulo mortis. A nobleman, who has been mentioned as Pope's neighbour, afked Mr. Hooke, if Pope died a Roman Catholic? "He died, faid this attendant, in the form of one;" an answer that was received as a jefuitical one but it is certain, that Popery had our dying poet all to herfelf. Two lines of his, almoft copied from Cowley on Crafhaw, charitably pronounce mercy to men of every religion, provided it is not a religion without morality:

"For

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"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong, whofe life is in the right." The display of the last quotation, carries the writer back, to obferve, that Dr. Hurd and the Adventurer produce a number of Pope's imitations. "One fees, fays the philofophical critic, that Pope's view, is to furpafs his original, which, it is faid, was always his way when he imitated." The Adventurer, who, if I do not judge amifs, is the learned, claffic Scholar at Winchester, mentions also, with applause, the intention of a Frenchman to compile a treatise "concerning things that have been faid but once;" which he remarks would be contained in a very small pamphlet. Mr. Lockman, whofe laborious application obtained for him the languages, and who was a tranflator for half a century, had once thoughts, as he faid, of compofing a treatife on Literary Thefts. If this offspring of the pen had not been one of the poft nati, too much of this unoriginal Rhapsody must have found a place there. Lockman, though not praised by Pope, had a portion of his efteem. He dedicated a translation

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lation of a Latin Oration, written by Porée, the Jefuit, in praise of dramatic poetry, to him. By the by, Pope had often the frankincenfe of dedications to regale himself with, to fay nothing of complimentary verses, from the greater and leffer poets. Hooke de dicates his first volume of the Roman History to him, which, he fays, was "like hanging out a fign with a great name at the bottom of it, to catch the traveller as he goes by." Though Lockman was by no means the best poet in England, he was fomething more, and better, he was one of the honeftest men in it. Though called the Lamb among his firft literary friends, he had the spirit to reply, to a person who spoke rudely of his poetry, and who had a mark fet upon him by Pope, "Thank God! my name is not at full length in the Dunciad!" It were pity that he who compofed fo many lives in the General Dictionary, should not have one in the Biographia. Thus much is due to one of the firft acquaintances this writer was bleffed with.To return to Pope, with whom the pen fet out, He did not refift converfion, when it

was

was attempted by Atterbury (who was not banished for being a papist); nor was he offended when it was mentioned jocularly by others. Nay, I believe, he speaks of his religion with fome pleasantry; and says, in one of his letters to Lord Halifax, after the Acceffion," that he is in the high road to be compleatly ruined, for that he was both a poet and a papift." He gently put by all difputations on religious topics.

"So we believe, because we fo are bred," is a verfe from a Catholic poet, and furely may be transcribed by a Proteftant. Least of all did Pope affect to make a profelyte. He lived and died a member of the church of Rome, but not of the court of Rome; in the distinction of Digby, Lord Bristol, of the last century. Though he had not left his house at Twickenham, in complaifance to the proclamation, and retired to a more decent distance from the capital, juft before the breaking-out of the laft rebellion, Power would never have laid her perfecuting talons upon him. Marcellus ordered the life of Archimedes to

be

be fpared; though he had defended Syracuse against him: Peritus in arte non debet mori.

Alexander, when he was facking Thebes, fuch was his regard for Pindar, made no war with his defcendents, and fpared even the house he lived in. What must Pope have been (if a compliment were always truth) whofe "meanest talent was his wit," according to the line of Swift? He intended, as well as pretended, to be "to virtue only and her friends a friend :" neither a flave to the Big-endians nor the Little-endians: one who claimed the title of an honest man, whom in the most beautiful fentence derived from an expreffion of Plato, he thus characterises,

An honeft man's the nobleft work of God." Happy would it be for every one, who quotes this boasted apophthegm, and it is the fashion to quote it, to write it on the heart as well as on the memory!

Sir William Trumbull feems to have given Pope the first hint of tranflating the Iliad. He declares to him his opinion of his abilities for that work, from the fpecimens he had already published. He praises the Rape of

the