a long time. He could not bear that Sir Plume should talk nothing but nonsense. Copies of it got about, and it was like to be printed, on which I published the first draught of it (without the Machinery) in a Miscellany of Tonson's*. The Machinery was added afterwards, to make it look a little more considerable; and the scheme of adding it was much liked and approved of by several of my friends, and particularly by Dr. Garth; who, as he was one of the best men in the world, was very fond of it.-The same. I have been assured, by a most intimate friend of Mr. Pope's, that "the peer in the Rape of the Lock was Lord Petre; the person who desired Mr. Pope to write it old Mr. Caryl of Sussex; and that what is said of Sir Charles Brown in it was the very picture of the man."]

My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712. I liked him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond

*This is a mistake, either of Mr. Pope or Mr. Spence it was published in a Miscellany of Lintot's. M.

of his conversation. 'Twas soon after that Mr. Addison advised me not to be content with the applause of half the nation, used to talk much and often to me of moderation in parties, and used to blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of a party He encouraged me in my design of translating the Iliad, which was begun that year, and finished in 1718.-The same.

man.

When I was very young I wrote something towards a tragedy*, and afterwards an entire one. The latter was built on a very moving story in the Legend of St. Genevieve. After I had got acquainted with the town, I resolved never to write any thing for the stage, though I was solicited by some of my friends to do so, and particularly by Betterton, who (among other things) would have had me turn my early epic poem into a tragedy. I had taken such strong resolutions against any

* Perhaps this was only that tissue of speeches collected by him from Ogilby's Homer, and joined toge→ ther by some verses of his own, which he got his schoolfellows to act whilst he was at the little seminary by Hyde-park-corner.

thing of that kind from seeing how much every body that did write for the stage was obliged to subject themselves to the players and the town. The same.

The Deucalion in that epic poem was a second Deucalion, not the husband of Pyrrha. I had flung all my learning into

it, as indeed Milton has done too much in mectin

his Paradise Lost, The Bishop of Ro

い

chester, not many years ago, advised me

to burn it. I saw his advice was well

grounded, and followed it, though not without some regret.-The same.

How very strange and inconclusive does the reasoning of Tully and Plato often appear to us, and particularly that of the latter in his Phædo. Is there not something like a fashion in reasoning? I believe there may, a good deal; but, with all that, there certainly is not any of the ancients who reasons so well as Mr. Locke.-The same.

In my first setting out, I never read any art of logic or rhetoric. I met with Locke: he was quite insipid to me. I read Sir William Temple's Essays too then; but,

whenever there was any thing political in them, I had no manner of feeling for it. -The same. [Those five or six years, from about thirteen to twenty, were all poetical: he was then diverting himself wholly in wandering through the poets. and the better sort of critics, who showedand set off the beauties in the former.]

The little copy of verses on Ditton and Whiston, in the third volume of the Miscellanies, was written by Gay; that on Dennis by myself; and the Origin of the Sciences from the Monkeys in Ethiopia, by me, Dean Parnelle, and Dr. Arbuthnot.The same.

The Scriblerus Club consisted of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Parnelle, and Gay.The same.

Lord Lansdown insisted on my publishing my Windsor Forest, and the motto* shows it.-The same.

Mr. Pope was born in the city of London, in Lombard-street, at the house which is now Mr. Morgan's, an apothecary.Mr. Hooke.

* Non injussa cano.

There is no one study that is not capable of delighting us after a little application to it. How true, even in so dry a thing as Antiquities? Yes, I have experienced that myself. I once got deep into Grævius, and was taken greatly with it; so far, as to write a treatise in Latin, collected from the writers in Grævius, on the old buildings in Rome. It is now in Lord Oxford's hands, and has been so these fifteen years. -Mr. Pope.

My brother was whipped and ill used at Twyford school for his Satire on his Master, and taken from thence on that account. -Mrs. Racket* (of Mr. Pope).

all

I never saw him laugh very heartily in

my life.-Mrs. R. (of the same.) This is odd enough; because she was with him so much in all the first part of his life, when he is said by persons most intimate with him to have been excessively gay and

* Mrs. Racket was probably the wife of Mr. Racket, a son of Mrs. Pope, by a first husband, before she married Mr. Pope, the father. She was, I think, above forty when Pope was born.

M.