gentleman, in a moment of frolic, had cut off a lock of hair from the abundant tresses of a lady with whom he was intimately acquainted. The lady resented this liberty so much that the friendship between two families was interrupted; and it was suggested to the poet that he might laugh the parties out of their ill-humour by writing a ludicrous poem on the incident. It is doubtful whether the poem had the desired effect, but it added greatly to the poet's reputation.

The poems which Pope had hitherto published had not added much to his income. The allowance which his father made him, though liberal, was not large; and his religion prevented him accepting any civil employment. It is true that on two occasions he had the offer of a pension, but he was too independent to accept the offer. He determined, however, to appeal to the public, and with this object in view he proposed to bring out a translation of Homer, to be published by subscription. This expedient was not altogether new to the English public, it had been adopted in the publication of Dryden's Virgil, and had been tried again with great success when the Tatlers were collected into volumes. Swift, with whom Pope had now become acquainted, exerted himself energetically in obtaining subscriptions; but a coolness had sprung up between Pope and Addison, which seems to have arisen from a little jealousy on the part of the latter.

The translation of the Iliad was begun in 1712 and finished in 1718. At first the poet was somewhat oppressed with the task he had undertaken, but gradually he became more familiar with his work, and was at length able to translate fifty lines in a day. The translation was published in parts as it was ready. The first volume appeared in 1715, and an additional volume appeared each year until the work was complete. The concluding volumes, the fifth and sixth, did not appear until 1720, when they were accompanied with a dedication to the poet Congreve. Pope received altogether for his translation more than £5000, the largest sum which one work had as yet produced in England. This success

induced him, a year or two later, to undertake the translation of Homer's other poem, the Odyssey, and with the assistance of one or two contemporary poets he was able to bring it out in 1725. Though these

works were eminently successful in a pecuniary point of view, they did not add materially to Pope's fame as a poet. The translation is smooth and musical, but is not faithful to the original, to which it is totally unlike both in style and character.

In 1715, Pope induced his father to sell the estate at Binfield and remove nearer to the metropolis, and he himself was enabled, by the improvement in his pecuniary resources, to purchase the lease of a house and grounds at Twickenham, about four miles from London, to which he removed with his father and mother, and where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. The taste with which he laid out his grounds-five acres in all—is said to have had a marked effect upon the improvement of English landscape gardening, and to have aided materially in banishing the stiff formal Dutch style.

While the translation of Homer was being published, Pope issued, in 1717, a collected edition of his works which contained, among other new or unpublished pieces, the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, the most impassioned and pathetic of all his poems. When he had completed the Iliad, and before undertaking the Odyssey, he accepted a commission to edit the plays of Shakespeare. This was his only literary failure, and he seems to have failed more through carelessness than want of power. Theobald, a man of no great attainments, but of considerable industry, brought out another edition of the inmortal poet, and much to the delight of Pope's envious critics, pointed out all the mistakes and omissions that had been made. Theobald was afterwards punished by being made the hero of the Dunciad.

In 1727, Pope joined with Swift, who was then in England, in publishing three volumes of Miscellanies, in which, among other things, he inserted the Memoirs of a

Parish Clerke, in ridicule of Bishop Burnet's history, and a Debate upon Black and White Horses. In the following year he published his Dunciad, in which he endeavoured to cover with contempt all the writers by whom he had been assailed. The hero of the poem, as we have mentioned, was Theobald, his rival as a Shakesperian critic. The war with the "Dunces" went on for several years. The writers who had been attacked held weekly clubs to arrange hostilities against the author; one of them wrote a letter to a great minister-probably Sir Robert Walpole-assuring him that Pope was the greatest enemy the government had; and another brought his image in clay that he might execute him in effigy. In a subsequent issue of the satire, published in 1742, Colley Cibber, the poet laureate, was put in the place of Theobald, and he still holds that post of doubtful honour.

Among the other important works which he produced were the Essay on Man, the first part of which appeared in 1733, and the Imitations of Horace, which came out from time to time between 1730 and 1740, and which are among the happiest and most popular of his compositions. For the last four or five years of his life, Pope was troubled with asthma and other disorders, which his physicians were unable to relieve, and he was rendered more wretched by the attacks of those writers whom his Dunciad had provoked. It is said that after the appearance of the edition in 1742, Cibber retaliated by a pamphlet which Pope declared "would be as good as a dose of hartshorn to him," but his words belied his feelings, and he suffered keenly from the attacks though he strove to conceal his anguish. In May 1744, his death was approaching; he complained of being unable to think, and of seeing things as through a curtain; occasionally he was delirious. He died, however, so calmly on the evening of the 30th, that his attendants did not know the exact hour of his decease. He was buried in the middle aisle of Twickenham Church, near his father and mother, and a monument was erected to him by his friend Warburton, bishop of Gloucester.

Pope was deformed in person, and had a protuberance both before and behind. One side of his body was contracted, and his legs were so slender that he always wore three pairs of stockings to increase their bulk. He was so short that a high chair was necessary to place him on a level with the rest of the company at table. But he had a refined and thoughtful countenance, with bright eyes and a large forehead. He was a constant invalid, and we ought therefore to make allowance for his irritable temper. He was frequently afflicted with violent headaches, and was so sensitive to cold, that he constantly wore a fur doublet under a shirt of very coarse warm linen with fine sleeves. But though of a peevish disposition, he had a warm heart. He was an affectionate son and an attached friend. "I never in my life," said Lord Bolingbroke, "knew a man that had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or more general friendship for mankind."

There is great difference of opinion with respect to Pope's character as a poet: while some would give him a rank in our literature second only to Dryden and the four greater poets, others would deny to him the very name of poet. It all depends upon our definition of the word. Pope has certainly not the creative imagination which characterises some of our great writers, but it must be a very narrow definition of poetry which excludes the Rape of the Lock, the Epistle of Eloisa, and the Essay on Man; and if we admit these, then the smoothness of the versification, the terseness of the language, the keen wit, subtle humour, and brilliant satire, inust place him in a high rank in our literature.

JAMES THOMSON.-1700-1748.

JAMES THOMSON, the author of the Seasons, was born at Ednam, near Kelso, on the 11th Sept. 1700. His father was minister of the parish, and had a family of nine children. A neighbouring minister, noticing some signs of genius in the future poet, lent him books and assisted him in his studies. At the age of twelve he entered the grammar school at Jedburgh, but he does not appear to have distinguished himself by his attainments. He was however, even at this early age, fond of writing poetry, but on every New Year's Day he threw into the fire the productions of the previous twelve months.

It was the wish of Thomson's friends that he should become a minister, he therefore entered the university of Edinburgh at the age of fifteen. He had not resided there two years when his father died, and his widowed mother, having raised what money she could on a small property which belonged to her, removed with her family to Edinburgh, and lived to see her son grow famous. James entered the divinity hall in 1719, and prosecuted his theological studies for the usual term of four years. Professor Hamilton, who then filled the chair of divinity, gave as a subject for an exercise the explanation of the 104th Psalm. Thomson produced a paraphrase and illustration of the subject as was required, but his language was so highly poetical and his style so figurative that the audience were astonished. The professor carefully pointed out the merits of the performance, but, turning to Thomson, suggested that if he intended to become a minister, he must learn to speak in a style intelligible to an ordinary congregation.

This rebuke is said to have checked his desire of taking orders, and he resolved to cultivate poetry. With this end in view he set out for London, where he arrived in the spring of 1725. He had letters of introduction to several people of consequence, which, for greater security, Le tied in his handkerchief: "but as he passed along the