years he had dipped into a great number of English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek authors. This he did without any design but that of pleasing himself, and got the languages by hunting after the stories in the several poets he read, rather than read the books to get the languages. "I followed," says he, "every where, as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the woods and fields just as they fell in my way, and these five or six years I still look upon as the happiest part of my life.* The writings of Dryden soon, however, attracted his notice, and became the more particular object of his admiration. He attentively examined his style and turn of thought, observed the construction of his periods, and endeavoured to discover the art and mystery of his versification, so superior in richness, variety, and harmony, to all that had preceded it. What the result was, appears in his own writings, where the spirit of his master is combined with his own more correct, condensed, and chastened style.† * Spence's Anec. p. 19. Malone's ed. + "I learned versification wholly from Dryden's works; who had improved it much beyond any of our former poets, and would probably have brought it to perfection, had not he been unhappily obliged to write so often in haste." Pope. Spence's Anec. p, 281. Singer's ed. How finely has Pope characterized his great prototype in his imitation of the first Epistle of the second book of Horace! Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join Imitated From admiring the works of Dryden, he became desirous of seeing their author, for which purpose he prevailed upon a friend to accompany him to town, and introduce him to Will's coffee-house, which Dryden then frequented.* This circumstance must have occurred when Pope was about twelve years of age, as Dryden died in 1700. He has himself referred to it in his first letter to Mr. Wycherley: "It was certainly a great satisfaction to me to hear you, at our very first meeting, doing justice to your dead friend, Mr. Dryden. I was not so happy as to know him. Virgilium tantum vidi. Had I been born early enough, I must have known and loved him, for I have been assured, not only by yourself, but by Mr. Congreve and Sir William Trumbull, that his personal qualities were as amiable as his poetical; notwithstanding the many libellous misrepresentations of them, against which the former of these gentlemen has told me he will one day vindicate him. I suppose those injuries were begun by the violence of party, but Imitated in a still higher strain of poetry, but perhaps not with greater dignity and effect, by Gray: But see where Dryden's less presumptuous car Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder cloth'd and long resounding pace. * Ruffhead, p. 23.-The friend here alluded to was probably Sir Charles Wogan. See a letter from him in Sir Walter Scott's edition of Swift, vol. xviii. p. 21, where he says "I had the honour of bringing Mr. Pope from our retreat in the Forest of Windsor, to dress à la mode, and introduce at Will's coffee-house." VOL. I. C it is no doubt they were continued by envy at his success and fame; and those scribblers who attacked him in his latter times, were only like gnats in a summer evening, which are never very troublesome but in the finest and most glorious season; for his fire, like the sun's, shined clearest towards its setting." How remarkable is it, that the youthful poet, in pouring out this enthusiastic tribute to the memory of his illustrious predecessor, should so nearly have described his own character, and his own fate! His partiality for dramatic subjects seems still to have continued; as his next productions were a comedy, and a tragedy; the latter of which was founded on the story of St. Geneviève. Of the subject of the former, no account has been preserved.* These dramatic pieces were followed by an epic poem, called Alcander, consisting of four books of about one thousand lines each. "Alcander was a prince of Rhodes, driven from his crown by Deucalion, father of Minos. In this poem Alcander displayed all the virtues of suffering, like Ulysses, and all the courage of Æneas. Apollo, as the patron of Rhodes, was his great protector, and Cybele was his great enemy, as being patroness of Deucalion and Crete. She raises a storm against him, as June does against Æneas; he is cast away and swims to shore, as Ulysses did to the island of Phæacia."* Hence it appears that the young poet was desirous of displaying his learning in collecting the beauties of such preceding epic writers as he was acquainted with, and adding to them from the stores of his own imagination. This attempt he afterwards considered in its true light, and thus expressed himself respecting it: "I confess there was a time when I was in love with myself, and my first productions were the children of self-love upon innocence. I had made an epic poem, and panegyrics on all the princes of Europe, and I thought myself the greatest genius that ever was. I cannot but regret these delightful visions of my childhood, which, like the fine colours we see when our eyes are shut, are vanished for ever.‡ It is not however improbable that this poem contained some passages deserving of commendation; as the author, whose judgment respecting his own works seldom failed him, communicated it, many years afterwards, to Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, by whose advice, it has been said, he committed it to the flames. In fact the bishop in one of his letters expresses his approbation of that step, although he seems not to have been previously acquainted with it. "I am not sorry," says * Ruffhead, p. 25. I wrote things, I am ashamed to say how soon-part of an epic poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes, and some of the neighbouring islands, and the poem opened under water, with a description of the court of Neptune.-Spence's Anec. 24. Singer's ed. Spence's Anec. Singer's ed. he," your Alcander is burnt. Had I known your intentions, I would have interceded for the first page, and put it, with your leave, among my curiosities." That Pope retained a partiality for some passages in this early production, is evident from the impression they had left upon his memory, which enabled him to repeat them at times for the amusement of his friends; in consequence of which a few of them have been preserved.* Among these are the following lines, in which the sound is made an echo to the sense: "Shields, helms, and swords, all jangle as they hang, And sound formidinous with angry clang." There are also some couplets, which he afterwards inserted in others of his works, with little or no variation, as in his Essay on Criticism: "Whose honours with increase of ages grow, As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow." And the following in the Dunciad : "As man's meanders to the vital spring, Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring." Other parts of this poem are said to have furnished him with examples of "the art of sinking in poetry," and to have been given there under the title of verses by an anonymous. Whilst he was engaged in reading the English poets, he was accustomed, whenever he met with a passage or story that pleased him more than |