A

LEXANDER POPE was born in London,

May 22, 1688, of parents whofe rank or station was never afcertained: we are informed that they were of gentle blood; that his father was of a family of which the Earl of Downe was the head, and that his mother was the daughter of William Turner, Efquire, of York, who had likewife three fons, one of whom had the honour of being killed, and the other of dying, in the fervice of Charles the Firft; the third was made a general officer in Spain, from whom the fifter inherited what fequeftrations and forfeitures had left in the family.

This, and this only, is told by Pope; who is more willing, as I have heard obferved, to fhew what his father was not, than what he was. It is allowed that he grew rich by trade; but whether in a fhop or on the Exchange was never difcovered, till Mr. Tyers told, on the authority of Mrs. Racket, that he was a linen-draper in the Strand. Both parents were

papists.

VOL. IV.

B

Pope

Pope was from his birth of a conftitution tender and delicate; but is faid to have fhewn remarkable gentlenefs and sweetness of difpofition. The weakness of his body continued through his life; but the mildness of his mind perhaps ended with his childhood. His voice, when he was young, was fo pleafing, that he was called in fondnefs the little Nightingale.

Being not fent early to school, he was taught to read by an aunt; and when he was seven or eight years old, became a lover of books. He first learned to write by imitating printed books; a fpecies of penmanship in which he retained great excellence through his whole life, though his ordinary hand was not elegant.

When he was about eight, he was placed in Hampshire under Taverner, a Romish priest, who, by thod very rarely practifed, taught him the Greek and Latin rudiments together. He was now firft regularly initiated in poetry by the perufal of Ogylby's Homer, and Sandys's Ovid: Ogylby's affistance he never repaid with any praife; but of Sandys he declared, in his notes to the Iliad, that English poetry owed much of its present beauty to his tranflations. Sandys very rarely attempted original compofition.

From the care of Taverner, under whom his proficiency was confiderable, he was removed to a school at Twyford near Winchester, and again to another school about Hyde-park Corner; from which he used fometimes to stroll to the playhouse, and was fo de

*This weakness was fo great, that he conftantly wore stays, as I have been affured by a waterman at Twickenham, who, in lifting him into his boat, had often felt them. His method of taking the air on the water, was to have a fedan chair in the boat, in which he fat with the glaffes down.

lighted

lighted with theatrical exhibitions, that he formed a kind of play from Ogylby's Iliad, with fome verses of his own intermixed, which he perfuaded his fchoolfellows to act, with the addition of his master's gardener, who perfonated Ajax.

At the two last schools he used to represent himfelf as having loft part of what Taverner had taught him, and on his mafter at Twyford he had already exercifed his poetry in a lampoon. Yet under those mafters he tranflated more than a fourth part of the Metamorphofes. If he kept the fame proportion in his other exercises, it cannot be thoughit that his lofs was great.

He tells of himself, in his poems, that he lifp'd in numbers; and used to say that he could not remember the time when he began to make verfes. In the style of fiction it might have been faid of him as of Pindar, that, when he lay in his cradle, the bees fwarmed about his mouth.

About the time of the Revolution, his father, who was undoubtedly difappointed by the fudden blaft of popish profperity, quitted his trade, and retired to Binfield in Windfor Foreft, with about twenty thou fand pounds; for which, being confcientiously determined not to entrust it to the government, he found no better use than that of locking it up in a cheft, and taking from it what his expences required; and his life was long enough to confume a great part of it, before his fon came to the inheritance.

To Binfield Pope was called by his father when he was about twelve years old; and there he had for a few months the affiftance of one Deane, another priest, of whom he learned only to conftrue a little of Tully's Of

fices. How Mr. Deane could fpend, with a boy who had tranflated fo much of Ovid, fome months over a fmall part of Tully's Offices, it is now vain to enquire.

Of a youth fo fuccefsfully employed, and fo confpicuoufly improved, a minute account must be naturally defired; but curiofity must be contented with confused, imperfect, and fometimes improbable intelligence. Pope, finding little advantage from external help, refolved thenceforward to direct himself, and at twelve formed a plan of study which he completed with little other incitement than the defire of excellence.

His primary and principal purpofe was to be a poet, with which his father accidentally concurred, by propofing fubjects, and obliging him to correct his performances by many revifals; after which the old gentleman, when he was fatisfied, would fay, thefe are good rhymes.

In his perufal of the English poets he foon diftinguished the versification of Dryden, which he confidered as the model to be ftudied, and was impreffed with fuch veneration for his inftructer, that he perfuaded fome friends to take him to the coffee-house which Dryden frequented, and pleafed himself with having feen him.

Dryden died May 1, 1701, fome days before Pope was twelve; fo early must he therefore have felt the power of harmony, and the zeal of genius. Who does not wish that Dryden could have known the value of the homage that was paid him, and forefeen the greatness of his young admirer?