"Tears fuch as tender fathers fhed, "My son shall have MANKIND HIS FRIEND." The grief which that fon felt, cannot be stronger conveyed than by a note, here published, which he fent at the time to Martha Blount. My poor father died last night. Believe, fince I don't forget you this moment, I never fhall. "A. POPE." The shades of his elegant retirement, after the death of his father, became gradually more interesting, from the acceffion of the splendid and refpectable connexions the immediate vicinity afforded. Lord Burlington, whose house at Chifwick, now in poffeffion of the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Harvey wittily characterised as "too little to live in, and too large to hang upon a watch," refided not farther than fix miles from Twickenham. The manner in which Pope, in the plenitude of fame, now paffed his time, is described in a letter to Teresa Blount : "I heartily with many times you led the fame courfe of life which I here partly enjoy and partly regret, for I am not a day without what they call elegant company. I have not din'd but at great entertainments these ten days, in pleasant villas about the Thames, My poor Father dyed A Pope / LVIII Thames, whose banks are far more populous than London, through the neighbourhood of Hampton Court." Dated 1716. Parfons Green, Fulham, was the refidence of the celebrated Earl of Peterborough, the conqueror of Spain, who, after his return from his embaffy to the King of Sicily, now enjoyed the leifure of a retired private gentleman. Pope fays, "He whose thunder thinn'd the Iberian lines, "Now forms my quincunx, and now prunes my vines." Nor can a more pleafing trait be recorded in the life of a foldier and eminent public character, than that which exhibits him, after gloriously sustaining in arms abroad the caufe of his country, partaking of the quietude and friendship, and overlooking the rural improvements, of a man of letters. Among his more intimate affociates at this time, may be mentioned Jervas, the painter, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Dr. Arbuthnot, and a gentleman then well known, but of whom no more now is recorded, than that he was familiarly called "Duke Disney," who generally was of the party in their excurfions. Their mode of fetting out on one of their journies, is not unpleasantly defcribed by Jervas :— "On Thursday next (God willing) Dr. A. Duke "Difney, and C. Jervas, rendezvous at Hyde-Park "Corner about noon, and proceed to Mr. Hill's at "Eggam, to lodge there on Friday, and to meet Mr. "Pope upon the road, to proceed together to Lord "Stowel's, "Stowel's, and there alfo to lodge: The next "Saturday, to Sir William Wyndham's. A fhirt and "cravat is all you must think of in this new scheme; "and you must have a shorter and less bridle sent "down on Saturday, &c. The tailor shall be chastised "if 'tis real negligence on his part, but if 'tis only vapours, you must beg pardon *." Among the ladies, Pope might reckon a familiar acquaintance with the maids of honour to the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline; the beautiful Mary Bellenden, Mifs Lepel, (afterwards married to his inveterate enemy Lord Harvey,) Mifs Griffin, and Mifs Howe: To the laft of whom, he wrote the lines on Prudery, ending with "That rails at dear Lepel and you." Pope was not entirely occupied with his friends, his garden, and with the formation of his grotto: he was ftill bufied in the tranflation of Homer, the first volume of which had been printed in 1715. The rest was published year by year. As the account of the progress and conclufion of this celebrated work is so amply detailed by Johnson, I proceed to parts of Pope's life lefs noticed by his biographers in general. He now, 1717, collected, in one quarto volume, what he had written, with the addition of the exquifite Epiftle * This may appear trifling, but my object is to give a nearer view of his habits, &c. |