In November, 1717, his father died, at the age of seventy-five. In 1733 he lost his mother, whom, in her declining years, he had nursed with the most assiduous tenderness. After her death, at the age of ninety-three, his affections centred in Martha Blount, with whom, and her sister Teresa, his acquaintance had commenced in infancy this friendship continued throughout his life. His attachment to another female, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, terminated more unfortunately; in rejection and scorn on one side, and in anger and revenge on the other. The part of Pope's character which we contemplate with most pain, is his sensitiveness to injury, either real or imagined; yet it is to this disposition that our language is indebted for the finest models of a keen and polished satire. As he was violent in his animosities, so he was ardent and sincere in his affections. The friends in whose conversation he most delighted were, Gay, Swift, Parnell, Jervas the painter, Arbuthnot, Atterbury, Harley, and St. John. He was early introduced to the notice of the great, and continued to mix in their society, without any compromise of integrity or independence with many of those yet more eminent for wit or literature, he was united by the closer bond of sympathy and mutual endearment. No English poet has ever risen from so humble a beginning, to so great personal distinction. He died on the thirtieth of May, 1744, after suffering much from his complaints, yet with so little pain at last, that those about him could not distinguish the time at which he expired. On receiving the last sacraments from the priest, he said, "There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and indeed friendship itself is only a part of virtue." He appears to have been at no time free from some species of bodily weakness or malady, of which a head-ache was the constant symptom. In person he was diminutive and deformed: when a child, he had a pleasing and even beautiful countenance: in more advanced life the best feature was the eye, the lustre of which was remarkable. His bust, by Roubilliac, exhibits an extremely eager and sarcastic expression in the lips, strongly indicative of his character. It may afford subject for reflection, that by a diligent cultivation of one natural talent, seldom much esteemed so long as the possessor of it is living, a puny misshapen and sickly being, unfit for any active employment of life, and rarely quitting the roof of his parents, became a stay to those parents in their old age, the restorer of their fortunes, the pride of their house; courted by the powerful and wealthy; the dread of his enemies; and one of the chief ornaments of his age and country. |