I have got fifty or sixty of Mr. Pope's letters by me. You shall see what a goddess he made of me in them, though he makes such a devil of me in his writings afterwards, without any reason that I know of.-The same. [Several of them were on common subjects, and one in particular was that odd description of his house, which is printed* as sent to the Duke of Buckingham; which may show that it was one of his favourite letters, as he sent it to several of his friends.]

I got a third person to ask Mr. Pope why he had left off visiting me: he answered, negligently, that he went as often as he used to do. I then got Dr. Arbuthnot to ask him what Lady M. had done to him? He said that Lady M. and Lord H. had pressed him once together (and I do not remember that we were ever together with him in our lives) to write a satire on some certain persons; that he refused it, and that this had occasioned the breach between us.-The same.

* Mr. Pope's Letters, the 121st in the quarto edition.

"Do not you really think so, sir?”— "I think, madam, that he writes verses very well."—" Yes, he writes verses so well, that he is in danger of bringing even good verses into disrepute," [" from his all tune and no meaning," as she explained it afterwards.]—The same.

"Leave him as soon as you can (says Mr. Addison* to me), he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appetite to satire."-The same. (Spoken in relation to her acquaintance with Mr. Pope.)

Yes, that satire was written in Addison's lifetime."-The same. (Spoken of Mr. Pope's verses to Addison.)

When I had filled up this epistle, begun

* I have long endeavoured in vain to ascertain the time when Lady M. W. Montagu and Pope quarrelled. This seems to fix it at some period between 1716, when Pope sent his verses on Addison to him in MS. (see p. 10) and 1719, when that writer died. This advice was probably given while he was smarting under those verses. M.

by Swift, I sent it to the Doctor, and thought I had hit his style exactly; for it was familiar, lively, and with odd rhymes. The Doctor had a very different opinion of it, and did not think it at all a right imitation of his style.-Mr. Pope.

Mr. Pope was born on the 21st of May, 1688. His first education was extremely loose and disconcerted. He began Latin and Greek together (which is the way in schools of the Jesuits, and which he seemed to think a good way) under Bannister, their family priest, and who was living (says he) not two years ago at Sir Harry Titchburne's. He then learned his accidence at Twyford, where he wrote a satire on some faults of his master. Then he was a little while at Mr. Dean's seminary at Mary-le-bone, and some time under the same after he removed to Hyde-parkcorner. After this he taught himself both Greek and Latin. "I did not follow the grammar, but rather hunted in the authors for a syntax of my own; and then began

D

translating any parts that pleased me, particularly in the best Greek and Latin poets, and by that means formed my taste; which I think verily about sixteen was very near as good as it is now.-The same.

I should certainly have written an epic poem, if I had not engaged in the translation of Homer.-The same.

I always was particularly struck with that passage in Homer, where he makes Priam's grief for the loss of Hector break out into anger against his attendants and sons; and could never read it without weeping for the distress of that unfortunate old prince.-The same. [He read it then, and was interrupted by his tears*.]

I have often seen him weep, in reading very tender and melancholy passages.Mrs. B. [Blount.]

If I may judge myself, I think the travelling governor's speech one of the best

* Iliad, xxiv. 291 to 330. His tears began to flow so early as at that verse—

"Am I the only object of despair ?"

things in my new additions to the Dunciad*.-The same.

Those two lines on Alsop and Friend have more of satire than of compliment in them, though I find they are generally mistaken for the latter only t. It goes on Horace's old method of telling a friend. some less fault, while you are commending him; and which indeed is the best way of doing so. I scarce meet with any body that understands delicacy.-The same.

When I was looking on his foul copy of the Iliad, and observing how very much it was corrected and interlined, he said, "I believe you will find, upon inquiry, that those parts which have been the most corrected read the easiest."-The same. [What a useful study might it be for a poet, in those parts that are changed, to compare what was writ first with the suc

*The fourth book.

Let Friend affect to speak as Terence spoke,

And Alsop never but like Horace joke.

Dunciad, iv. 224.

Ridenti Flaccus amico, &c. PERS.