on Criticism was written in 1709*, and published in 1711; which is as little time as ever I let any thing of mine lie by me. --Mr. Pope.

The PROFOUND, though written in so ludicrous a way, may be very well worth reading seriously as an Art of Rhetorick. The same.

The Memoirs of Scriblerus have so much of the materials for it ready, that I could complete the first part of it in three or four days.-The same.

I began translating the Iliad in my twenty-fifth year, and it took up that and five more to finish it. Mr. Dryden, though they always talk of his being hurried so much, was as long in translating Virgil. Indeed, he wrote plays and other things in the same period.-The same.

The French translation of my Essay on Man gives the sense very well, and lays it more open; which may be of good service says he showed this Essay to

* See p. 20, where he Walsh in 1706. M.

to Mr. Dobson in any passages where he may find himself obliged to enlarge a little. —Mr.Pope. [About the time this was said, Lord Oxford was very desirous of having the Essay on Man translated into Latin prose. Mr. Dobson had got a great deal of reputation by his translation of Prior's SOLOMON. On my mentioning something of the difficulty that would attend the translation of his Essay, Mr. Pope said, "if any man living could do it, Dobson could." Lord Oxford was to give him a hundred guineas for it. He began upon it, and I think translated all the first epistle; and what I showed of it to Lord Oxford and Mr. Pope was very well ap-1 proved of. It was then that Mr. Benson offered to give the same gentleman a thousand pounds if he would translate Milton's Paradise Lost. He told me of that offer as inclined to close with it if he could; and on my mentioning it to Lord Oxford and Mr. Pope, they readily released him from his first engagement, and so left him at full liberty to enter upon the other.]

C

Mr. Pope's first education was under a priest, and I think his name was Bannister. He set out with the design of teaching him Latin and Greek together. "I was then about eight years old, had learnt to read of an old aunt, and to write by copying printed books. After having been under that priest about a year, I was sent to the seminary at Twyford, and then to a school by Hyde-park-corner; and with the two latter masters lost what little I had got under my first. About twelve I went with my father into the Forest, and there learned for a few months under a fourth priest. This was all the teaching I ever had; and, God knows, it extended a very little way."

Mr. Pope.

When I had done with my priests, I took to reading by myself, for which I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry; and in a few years I had dipped into a great number of the English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. This I did without any design but that of pleasing myself; and got the lan

guages by hunting after the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the books to get the languages. I followed every where as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the woods and fields, just as they fall in his way; and these five or six years I still look upon as the happiest part of my life.—The same.

In these rambles of mine through the poets, when I met with a passage or story that pleased me more than ordinary, I used · to endeavour to imitate it, or translate it into English; and this was the cause of my Imitations, published so long after.The same. [Who mentioned, among the other things he read then, the criticisms of Rapin and Bossu; and this might possibly be what led him to his writing his Essay on Criticism. He used to mention Quintilian too as an old favourite author with him.]

It was while I lived in the Forest that I got so well acquainted with Sir William Trumbull, who loved very much to read and talk of the Classics in his retirement. We used to take a ride out together three

or four days in the week, and at last almost every day. Another of my earliest acquaintance was Walsh: I was with him at his seat in Worcestershire for a good part of the summer of 1705; and showed him my Essay on Criticism in 1706*. Walsh died the year after. I was early acquainted too with Lord Lansdown, Garth, Betterton, and Wycherly, and not long after with St. John.-The same.

The stealing of Miss Bell Fermor's hair was taken too seriously, and caused an estrangement between the two families, though they had lived in great friendship before. A common acquaintance and wellwisher to both desired me to write a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again. It was in this view that I wrote the Rape of the Lock, which was well received, and had its effect in the two families. Nobody but Sir Charles + Brown was angry, and he was so a good deal, and for

In haps this was what he showed Walsh in 1706. M. +"Sir George" written first: that has a line through it, and “Charles" is written over it with a pencil. M.

p. 16, he says it was written first in prose. Per