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 onlyt. 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.

cessive alterations*, to learn his turns and arts in versification, and to consider the reasons why such and such an alteration † was made.]

My works are now all well laid out. The first division of them contains all I wrote under sixteen, which may be called my Juvenilia; the second my translations from different authors, under the same period; the third my own works since; and the

* Dr. Johnson has done this in his late Life of Pope. M.

† I read only the first page, in which

· Η μυρί' Αχαιοις αλγε εθηκε,

Πολλους δ' ιφθιμες ψυχας αιδι προίαψεν
'Hpwwv-

was thus translated:

That strewed with warriors dead the Phrygian

plain,

And peopled the dark shades with heroes slain.

It now stands thus:

That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain-

and was evidently altered to preserve the sense of the word.

fourth my latter translations* and imitations.-The same.

I was forced to print in little, by other printers beginning to do so from my folios. I will have no more to do with printing myself; and if the world should have a mind to a good edition of all my works, it must be from somebody that may take care of it after my death.-The same.

It is most certain that nobody ever loved money so little as my brother. —Mrs. Racket (of Mr. Pope.)

The accident of the cow was when my brother was about three years old. He was then filling a little cart with stones. The cow struck at him, carried off his hat and feather with her horn, and flung him down on the heap of stones he had been playing with. In the fall he cut himself against one of them in his neck, near the throat.-The same.

The other accident, of his being so like to be killed, when he was overturned in

* Exclusive of the Iliad and Odyssey.