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POPIANA.

You know there is nothing certain about him (we had been speaking of Homer's blindness.) That life attributed to Herodotus, was scarcely written by that historian; and all the rest have guessed out circumstances for a life for him, from his own writings. I collected every thing that was said of him that was worth notice, and classed it; and then Archdeacon Parnell wrote the essay on his life, which is prefixed to the Iliad. 'Tis still stiff, and was written much stiffer. As it is, I think verily it cost me more pains in the correcting than the writing of it would have done.-Mr. Pope.

What Paterculus says of Homer's not being blind, might be said by him only for

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the turn of it. This book is a flimsy thing, and yet nine in ten that read it, will be pleased with it.-The same.

After my reading the Persian Tales (and I had been reading Dryden's Fables just before them) I had some thoughts of writing a Persian Fable; in which I should have given full loose to description and imagination. It would have been a very wild thing, if I had executed it, but might not have been entertaining.-The same.

It might be a very pretty subject for any good genius that way, to write American pastorals; or rather pastorals adapted to several of the ruder nations, as well as the Americans. I once had a thought of writing such, and talked it over with Gay, but other things came in my way and took me off from it.-The same.

If I am a good poet (for in truth I do not know whether I am or not, but if I should be a good poet) there is one thing I value myself upon, and which can scarce be said of any of our good poets; and that is-That I have never flattered any man, nor ever

received any thing of any man for my

verses.-The same.

The things that I have written fastest have always pleased most. I wrote the Essay on Criticism fast, for I had digested all the matter in prose before I began upon it in verse. The Rape of the Lock was written fast: all the machinery, you know, was added afterwards; and the making that, and what was published before, hit so well together, is, I think, one of the greatest proofs of judgment, of any thing I ever did. I wrote most of the Iliad fast, a great deal of it on journeys, from the little pocket Homer on that shelf there; and often forty or fifty verses on a morning in bed.-The same.

The Dunciad cost me as much pains as any thing I ever wrote.-The same.

In the Moral Poem I had written an address to our Saviour, imitated from Lucretius's compliment to Epicurus; but omitted it by the advice of Dean Berkley. One of our priests, who are more narrow than yours, made a less sensible objection to the

Epistle on Happiness: he was very angry that there was nothing said in it of our eternal happiness hereafter; though my subject was expressly to treat only of the state of man here.-The same.

The four first Epistles are the scale for all the rest of the work, and were much the most difficult part of it. I do not know whether I shall go on with the Epistles on Government or that on Education.-The same. [He spoke a little warmer as to the use of it; but more coldly as to the execution.]

I have omitted a character (though I thought it one of the best I had ever written) of a very great man, who had every thing from without to make him happy, and yet was very miserable, from the want of virtue in his own heart.-The same. [It seems to have been that of the Duke of Marlborough. He did not say who; but mentioned Julius Cæsar, and the late King of Sardinia, as instances of a like kind.]

Lord Bolingbroke will be more known to

posterity as a writer and philosopher, than as a statesman. He has several things that he will scarce publish, and a good deal that he will.—The same. [He at the same time spoke very highly of his Dissertation on the English History, and that on Parties, and called him absolutely "the best writer of the age." He mentioned then, and at several other times, how much, or rather how wholly he himself was obliged to him for the thoughts and reasonings in his Moral Work; and once in particular said, that beside their frequent talking over that subject together, he had received, I think, seven or eight sheets from Lord Bolingbroke, in relation to it (as I apprehend, by way of letters) both to direct the plan in general, and to apply the matter for the particular epistles.]

I wrote the law case of the black and white horses with the help of a lawyer: [and by what he added it seemed to be the late Master of the Rolls, Fortescue.] Dr. Arbuthnot was the sole writer of John Bull, and so was Gay of the Beggar's

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