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was accufed of loving money, but his love was eager nefs to gain, not folicitude to keep it.

In the duties of friendship he was zealous and conftant: his early maturity of mind commonly united him with men older than himself; and therefore, without attaining any confiderable length of life, he faw many companions of his youth fink into the grave; but it does not appear that he lost a single friend by coldnefs or by injury; those who loved him once, continued their kindnefs. His ungrateful mention of Allen, in his will, was the effect of his adherence to one whom he had known much longer, and whom he naturally loved with greater fondnefs. His violation of the truft repofed in him by Bolingbroke could have no motive inconfiftent with the warmest affection; he either thought the action fo near to indifferent that he forgot it, or fo laudable that he expected his friend to ap prove it.

It was reported, with fuch confidence as almoft to enforce belief, that in the papers intrusted to his executors was found a defamatory Life of Swift, which he had prepared as an inftrument of vengeance, to be ufed if any provocation should be ever given. About this I enquired of the Earl of Marchmont, who affured me that no fuch piece was among his remains.

The religion in which he lived and died was that of the Church of Rome, to which in his correfpondence, with Racine he profeffes himself a fincere adherent. That he was not fcrupulously pious in fome part of his life, is known by many idle and indecent applications of fentences taken from the Scriptures; a mode of merriment which a good man dreads for its profane nefs, and a witty man difdains for its eafinefs and

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vulgarity. But to whatever levities he has been betrayed, it does not appear that his principles were ever corrupted, or that he ever loft his belief of Revelation. The pofitions which he tranfinitted from Bolingbroke. he feems not to have understood, and was pleased with an interpretation that made them orthodox,

A man of fuch exalted fuperiority, and fo little moderation, would naturally have all his delinquences obferved and aggravated: those who could not deny that he was excellent, would rejoice to find that he was not perfect.

Perhaps it may be imputed to the unwillingness with which the fame man is allowed to poffefs many, advantages, that his learning has been depreciated. He certainly was in his early life a man of great literary curiosity; and when he wrote his Essay on Criticism had, for his age, a very wide acquaintance with books. When he entered into the living world, it seems to have happened to him as to many others, that he was lefs attentive to dead masters; he studied in the academy of Paracelfus, and made the universe his favourite volume. He gathered his notions fresh from reality, not from the copies of authors, but the originals of Nature. Yet there is no reason to believe that literature ever loft his esteem; he always profeffed to love reading; and Dobfon, who spent fome time at his house tranflating his Efay on Man, when I asked him what learning he found him to poffefs, answered, More than I expected. His frequent references to hiftory, his allufions to various kinds of knowledge, and his images felected from art and nature, with his obfervations on the operations of the mind and the modes of life, fhew an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excur

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five, vigorous, and diligent, eager to pursue know, ledge, and attentive to retain it.

From this curiofity arofe the defire of travelling, ta which he alludes in his verfes to Jervas, and which, though he never found an opportunity to gratify it, did not leave him till his life declined.

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· Of his intellectual character, the conftituent and fundamental principle was Good Senfe, a prompt and intuitive perception of confonance and propriety. He faw immediately, of his own conceptions, what was to be chofen, and what to be rejected; and, in the works of others, what was to be fhunned, and what was to be copied.

But good fenfe alone is a fedate and quiefcent quality, which manages its poffeffions well, but does not increase them; it collects few materials for its own operations, and preferves fafety, but never gains fupremacy. Pope had likewise genius; a mind active, ambitious, and adventurous, always investigating, always afpiring; in its wideft fearches ftill longing to go forward, in its highest flights ftill wishing to be higher; always imagining fomething greater than it knows, always endeavouring more than it can do.

To affift thefe powers, he is faid to have had great ftrength and exactness of memory. That which he had heard or read was not eafily loft; and he had before him not only what his own meditations fuggested, but what he had found in other writers, that might be accommodated to his prefent purpose.

Thefe benefits of nature he improved by inceffant and unwearied diligence; he had recourfe to every fource of intelligence, and loft no opportunity of information; he confulted the living as well as the dead; he read his

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compofitions to his friends, and was never content with mediocrity when excellence could be attained. He confidered poetry as the business of his life; and, however he might feem to lament his occupation, he followed it with conftancy; to make verfes was his firft labour, and to mend them was his laft.

From his attention to poetry he was never diverted. If converfation offered any thing that could be improved, he committed it to paper; if a thought, or perhaps an expreffion more happy than was common, rofe to his mind, he was careful to write it; an independent diftich was preserved for an opportunity of infertion; and fome little fragments have been found containing lines, or parts of lines, to be wrought upon at fome other time.

He was one of those few whose labour is their pleafure: he was never elevated to negligence, nor wearied to impatience; he never paffed a fault unamended by indifference, nor quitted it by despair. He laboured his works first to gain reputation, and afterwards to keep it.

Of compofition there are different methods. Some employ at once memory and invention, and, with little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish large maffes by continued meditation, and write their productions only when, in their own opinion, they have completed them. It is related of Virgil, that his cuftom was to pour out a great number of verfes in the morning, and pass the day in retrenching exuberances and correcting inaccuracies. The method of Pope, as may be collected from his tranflation, was to write his first thoughts in his first words, and gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, and refine them.

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With fuch faculties, and fuch difpofitions, he ex celled every other writer in poetical prudence; he wrote. in such a manner as might expose him to few hazards.. He used almost always the fame fabric of verfe; and, indeed, by those few effays which he made of any other, he did not enlarge his reputation. Of this uniformity the certain confequence was readiness and dexterity. By perpetual practice, language had in his mind a fyftematical arrangement; having always the fame ufe for words, he had words fo felected and combined as to be ready at his call. This increase of facility he confeffed himself to have perceived in the progrefs of his translation.

But what was yet of more importance, his effufions were always voluntary, and his fubjects chofen by himfelf. His independence fecured him from drudging at a task, and labouring upon a barren topick: he never exchanged praife for money, nor opened a shop of condolence or congratulation. His poems, therefore, were scarce ever temporary. He fuffered coronations and royal marriages to pafs without a fong, and derived no opportunities from recent events, nor any popularity from the accidental difpofition of his readers. He was never reduced to the neceffity of soliciting the fun to shine upon a birth-day, of calling the Graces and Virtues to a wedding, or of faying what. multitudes have faid before him. When he could produce nothing new, he was at liberty to be filent.

His publications were for the fame reafon never hafty. He is faid to have fent nothing to the press till it had lain two years under his inspection: it is at leaft certain, that he ventured nothing without nice examination. He fuffered the tumult of imagination

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