GREAT POPULARITY OF POPE. 323 race in every quarter of the globe. His imagery, wit, and sense, his critical rules and moral reflections, have made us rich in expression. His maxims on life and manners form part of our daily speech and involuntary thought; nor have the most profound or acute of our moralists enunciated finer axioms than are to be found in his Essay on Man, or in such of his early verses as the following Men must be taught as if you taught them not, Poetry, like the material world, has undergone a great revolution since the days of Pope. There is no danger of our going back to the artificial style of the early part of the last century, even should such a poet as Pope arise again amongst us. The fountains of passion and imagination have been opened; nature and the old masters, the interpreters of nature, are more closely studied; and there is a higher and juster appreciation of the poet's art and mission as a fellowworker in the cause of humanity and pure intellectual advancement. Our freedom, however, may run to prodigal excess and extravagance unless properly guarded, and it is important to point to one classic standard, limited in design, but unrivalled in execution, in which correctness is combined with poetical vigour and beauty, and the patient toils of genius are seen resulting in works of consummate taste and elegance. APPENDIX. I. THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ. In the name of God, Amen. I, Alexander Pope, of Twickenham, in the county of Middlesex, make this my last Will and Testament. I resign my soul to its Creator in all humble hope of its future happiness, as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good. As to my body, my will is, that it be buried near the monument of my dear parents at Twickenham, with the addition, after the words filius fecit-of these only, et sibi: Qui obiit anno 17—, ætatis -; and that it be carried to the grave by six of the poorest men of the parish, to each of whom I order a suit of grey coarse cloth, as mourning. If I happen to die at any inconvenient distance, let the same be done in any other parish, and the inscription be added on the monument at Twickenham. I hereby make and appoint my particular friends, Allen Lord Bathurst, Hugh Earl of Marchmont, the Honourable William Murray, his Majesty's Solicitor-General, and George Arbuthnot, of the Court of Exchequer, Esq.,1 the survivors or survivor of them, Executors of this my last Will and Testament. But all the manuscript and unprinted papers which I shall leave at my decease, I desire may be delivered to my noble friend, Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, to whose sole care and judgment I commit them, either to be preserved or destroyed; or, in case he shall not survive me, to the abovesaid Earl of Marchmont. Those who in the course of my life have done me all other good offices, will not refuse me this last after my death: I leave them therefore 1 Son of Dr. Arbuthnot. He held a lucrative appointment in the Exchequer Office, and died June 8, 1779, aged 76. this trouble, as a mark of my trust and friendship; only desiring them each to accept of some small memorial of me: That my Lord Bolingbroke will add to his library all the volumes of my works and translations of Homer, bound in red morocco, and the eleven volumes of those of Erasmus: That my Lord Marchmont will take the large-paper edition of Thuanus, by Buckley, and that portrait of Lord Bolingbroke, by Richardson, which he shall prefer: That my Lord Bathurst will find a place for the three statues of the Hercules of Farnese, the Venus of Medicis, and the Apollo in chiaro oscuro, done by Kneller: That Mr. Murray will accept of the marble head of Homer, by Bernini; and of Sir Isaac Newton, by Guelfi: And that Mr. Arbuthnot will take the watch I commonly wore, which the King of Sardinia gave to the late Earl of Peterborough, and he to me on his death-bed,2 together with one of the pictures of Lord Bolingbroke. Item. I desire Mr. Lyttelton to accept of the busts of Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden, in marble, which his royal master the Prince was pleased to give me.3 I give and devise my library of printed books to Ralph Allen, of Widcombe, Esq., and to the Reverend Mr. William Warburton, or the survivor of them (when those belonging to Lord Bolingbroke are taken out, and when Mrs. Martha Blount has chosen threescore out of the number). I also give and bequeath to the said Mr. Warburton the property of all such of my works already printed, as he hath written, or shall write, commentaries or notes upon, and which I have not otherwise disposed of, or alienated, and all the profits which shall arise after my death from such editions as he shall publish without future alterations. Item. In case Ralph Allen, Esq., abovesaid, shall survive me, I order my Executors to pay him the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, being, to the best of my calculation, the amount of what I have received from him, partly for my own and partly for charitable uses. If he refuses to take this himself, I desire him to employ it in a way I am persuaded he will not dislike, to the benefit of the Bath hospital.* 2" He ordered on his death-bed his watch to be given me (that which had accompanied him in all his travels) with this reason, that I might have something every day to put me in mind of him. It was a present to him from the King of Sicily, whose arms and insignia are engraved on the inner case. On the outer, I have put this inscription: Victor Amadeus, Rex Siciliæ, Dux Sabaudiæ, &c. & c., Carolo Mordaunt, Comiti de Peterborough, D.D., Car. Mor. Com. de Pet. Alexandro Pope moriens legavit, 1735.”— Pope to Swift. 3 Lyttelton was then Secretary to the Prince of Wales. In 1744 he was appointed a Lord of the Treasury in the Coalition Ministry, known as the "Broad-bottom Administration." * "As Mr. Pope's extreme friendship and affection for Mrs. Blount made him consult her in all his concerns, so, when he was about making his last Will, he advised with I give and devise to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Magdalen Rackett, the sum of Three hundred pounds; and to her sons, Henry and Robert Rackett, one hundred pounds each. I also release, and give to her, all my right and interest in and upon a bond of Five hundred pounds, due to me from her son Michael. I also give her the family pictures of my father, mother, and aunts, and the diamond ring my mother wore, and her golden watch. I give to Erasmus Lewis, her on the occasion; and she declared to him, she would not accept the large provision made by it for herself, unless he returned back, by way of legacy, all that he had received of Mr. Allen, on any account; and Mr. Pope, with the utmost reluctance, complied with the infirmity of such a vindictive spirit."-Ruffhead's Life of Pope. Martha Blount gave a very different account of this matter to Spence. "I had never read his Will," she said; "but he mentioned to me the part relating to Mr. Allen, and I advised him to omit it, but could not prevail on him to do so. I have a letter of his by me on that subject. I sent it to Mr. Hooke." According to Ruffhead, Mr. Allen accepted the legacy, as Mrs. Blount was the residuary legatee, but gave it to the Bath Hospital; observing, that Pope was always a bad accountant, and that if to £150 he had put a cipher more, he had come nearer the truth. Mr. Allen was immensely rich, having acquired most of his wealth by a contract with the Government for the crossroad letters, which he enjoyed for forty-four years. He left Warburton £5000, and Mrs. Warburton (niece of Ralph Allen) £5000, besides £10,000 which she had on her marriage. To the Bath Hospital he left £1000, and another £1000 to be distributed by his widow in charity. To William Pitt, Lord Chatham, he gave a legacy of £1000. His estate appears to have amounted to about £67,000, exclusive of landed property of the value of £3600 per annum. Fielding, while engaged in writing Tom Jones, lived very much at Tiverton, in the neighbourhood of Widcombe, or Prior Park, and dined every day at Allen's table. On the death of the novelist, in 1754, his widow and four children were all generously provided for by Allen, who left them by his Will an annuity of £100 each. This fortunate and truly munificent man died, at his seat of Prior Park, June 29, 1764. 5 We have not found any trace of the Rackett family after Pope's decease. In the poet's correspondence with Fortescue, allusion is made to a Chancery suit in which Mrs. Rackett was engaged. "I find by the enclosed," he says, "that there must be more money, somewhere to be found, of my sister's affair; for the principal sum was £1700, besides interest; and as I understand no part of the principal ever was paid, I therefore beg you to cause enquiry to be speedily made of Mr. Thurston the Master in Chancery." Among Pope's Homer MSS. in the British Museum is the following note, addressed to Pope's mother by Mrs. Rackett: "DEAR MOTHER,-The somer coming on and ye roads good putts me in hopes I shall see you soon att Staines. Mr. Morris is goeing, and I shall have an emty room at your servis, and another for my brother, if he will oblidg me with his good company. Mrs. Doune comes not this somer. I shall be alone all somer if my mother, Rackett, and you don't come to see me. All here joine in real love and service. From, Dear Mother, your dutyfull Daur. "Apll ye 19." "M. RACKETT. Ladies at that time-even young ladies of rank-spelt very indifferently. The following note, addressed to Pope by his aged mother, is worse in this respect than the usual run of female epistles; but it illustrates the motherly affection and piety of the excellent old lady : "Tuesday, 12 o'clock. "MY DEARE,-A letter from your sister yust now is come and gone, Mr. Mannock and Charls Rackitt, to take his leve of us, but being nothing in it doe not send it. He will not faile to cole here on Friday morning, and take ceare to cearrie itt to Mr. Thomas Doncaster. He shall dine wone day with Mrs Dune, in Ducke-street; but the day will be unsirton, soe I thinck you had better to send itt to me. He will not faile |