to degrade him, the supposed meanness of his origin was not unfrequently mentioned. To this subject Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Lord Hervey have condescended to allude in their verses to the Imitator of Horace :

"Whilst none thy crabbed numbers can endure,
Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure."

Respecting which we shall not perhaps greatly err, if we judge of the candour of the last line, by the justice of the first.

It may be proper to attend to what Pope has himself said to Lord Hervey in reply to these lines:

"As to the obscurity of my birth, I am sorry to be obliged to such a presumption, as to name my family in the same leaf with your lordship's; but my father had the honour, in one instance, to resemble you, for he was a younger brother. He did not think it indeed a happiness to bury his elder brother, though he had one who wanted some of those good qualities which yours possessed."-" As to my father, I could assure you, my lord, that he was no mechanic, neither a hatter, nor, what might please your lordship yet better, a cobbler, but in truth, of a very tolerable family; and my mother of an ancient one; as well born and educated as that lady whom your lordship made choice of to be the mother of your own children;* whose merit, beauty, and vivacity, if

* Mary Lepel, daughter of General Nicholas Lepel, Maid of Honour to Caroline, Princess of Wales, and a woman of great beauty and uncommon accomplishments. She lived till the year

transmitted to your posterity, will be a better present than even the noble blood they derive only from you: a mother on whom I never was obliged so far to reflect, as to say, she spoiled me;* and a father who never found himself obliged to say, that he disapproved my conduct. In a word, my lord, I think it enough that my parents, such as they were, never cost me a blush; and that their son, such as he is, never cost them a tear."+

Dismissing these acrimonious contests, it may be sufficient to observe, that Alexander Pope, the father of the poet, having engaged in the business of a linen-merchant in Lombard-street, acquired thereby an independent property, that he retired first to Kensington and afterwards to Binfield, in Windsor Forest, where he had purchased a house and about twenty acres of land, and where he resided until he removed to his son's house at Twickenham, a short time before his death. His character is drawn by his son in the following lines:

Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,

Nor marrying discord in a noble wife;
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his age;
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,

Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.

Unlearn'd

1768. Since her death, a collection of some of her letters has been published, which do honour both to her talents and her heart. * Alluding to what Lord Hervey has said of himself in another attack upon Pope, intitled, An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity. + Letter to a Noble Lord.

In the deed by which his estate at Kensington, when sold, was conveyed, he is intitled Alexander Pope, merchant, of Kensington. Bowles's Life of Pope, p. 18.

Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language but the language of the heart;
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance and by exercise;
His life, tho' long, to sickness pass'd unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.
Prol. to the Satires.

Alexander Pope, the Son, the most harmonious, correct, and popular of English poets, was born in Lombard-street, on the twenty-first day of May, in the year of the revolution, 1688.* From his earliest infancy he was of a weak and delicate frame of body, and although he lived somewhat beyond the middle period of life, he never enjoyed a vigorous and uninterrupted state of health; insomuch that he has himself denominated it "a

long disease." In his person he resembled his father, who is said to have been crooked. His constitution he probably derived from his mother, who was much afflicted with head-aches; circumstances to which he has alluded in some lines rejected by him from the Prologue to his Satires:

"But, friend, this shape, which you and Curll admire,
Came, not from Ammon's son, but from my Sire:
And for my head, if you'll the truth excuse,
I had it from my Mother, not the muse :
Happy, if he in whom these frailties join'd,
Had heir'd as well the virtues of the mind!"

The infirm state of his health rendered him peculiarly dependant on the kindness and assistance of others, and united with a temper which is said

* Ruffhead's Life of Pope, p. 10. Spence's Anec. p. 259. Singer's ed. But Johnson and Warton place it on the 22d of that month.

to have been remarkably mild and engaging, undoubtedly contributed to endear him to his parents and friends.* "The weakness of his body," says Johnson, "continued through life; but the mildness of his mind perhaps ended with his childhood." This can scarcely be truly said of a person whose attention was uniformly devoted to the tenderest domestic duties, to which he has alluded in lines never to be forgotten:

"Me let the tender office long engage,

To rock the cradle of reposing age;

With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath,

Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death;
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,

And keep at least one parent from the sky."

Prol. to the Satires.

Nor can such a remark justly be applied to one, whose warm attachment and affectionate devotion to his friends, amongst whom were some of the noblest and best, of both sexes, of the age in which he lived, formed the most distinguishing feature of his character.

Most persons can relate some dangers of their youth, from which they have escaped with difficulty. An accident which happened to Pope, when young, had nearly deprived the world of the pleasure his writings have afforded. A cow that was

* A picture was painted of him when he was about ten years of age, in which his face was round, plump, pretty, and of a fresh complexion; but the perpetual application he fell into about two years afterwards probably changed his features and injured his constitution. This picture was once in the possession of Jervas, who painted in it a branch of laurel. Spence's Anec. p. 26. Singer's ed.

driven by the place where he was at play, struck at him with her horns, beat him down, and wounded him in the throat, but without any further alarming consequences.

For his earliest instructions in reading he was indebted to an aunt, probably a sister of his mother. His voice was so melodious, that he was called "the little nightingale.' At seven or eight years of age, he had acquired an uncommon relish for reading, and he learned to write by imitating print; an art which he retained through life, and practised with great correctness. His usual handwriting exhibited also some indications of its origin, and though formal, was distinct and legible ; characteristics, the acquisition of which, as it is in the power of every one to attain them, ought to be considered as a kind of moral duty.

When eight years old, he was placed under the tuition of the family priest, whose name was Banister, from whom he acquired the rudiments of Greek and Latin, which he began to study together, as is said to have been customary in the schools of the Jesuits, and which he thought a good method.‡

* Spence's Anec. p. 5. Singer's ed.

+ I had learned very early to read, and delighted extremely in it; and taught myself to write, very early too, by copying from printed books; with which I used to divert myself, as other children do, with scrawling out pictures. Spence's Anec. p. 283. Singer's ed.

Ruffhead, Johnson, Warton, and Bowles, have all given to Pope's first instructor the name of Taverner, but he is repeatedly