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

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 man. He encouraged me in my design of translating the Iliad, which was begun that year, and finished in 1718.-The same.

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 together 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 his Paradise Lost. The Bishop of Rochester, 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,