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to take vengeance with a cudgel. But Pope appeafed him, by changing pious paffion to cordial friendship, and by a note, in which he vehemently difclaims the malignity of meaning imputed to the first expreffion.

Aaron Hill, who was reprefented as diving for the prize, expoftulated with Pope in a manner fo much fuperior to all mean folicitation, that Pope was reduced to sneak and shuffle, fometimes to deny, and sometimes to apologize; he first endeavours to wound, and is then afraid to own that he meant a blow.

The Dunciad, in the complete edition, is addreffed to Dr. Swift: of the notes, part was written by Dr. Arbuthnot; and an apologetical Letter was prefixed, figned by Cleland, but fuppofed to have been written by Pope.

After this general war upon Dulnefs, he seems to have indulged himself awhile in tranquillity; but his fubfequent productions prove that he was not idle. He published (1731) a poem on Tafte, in which he very particularly and severely criticises the house, the furniture, the gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth and little taste. By Timon he was univerfally fuppofed, and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is addreffed, was privately faid, to mean the Duke of Chandos; a man perhaps top much delighted with pomp and fhow, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had confequently the voice of the publick in his favour.

A violent outcry was therefore raised against the ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was faid to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a prefent of a thousand pounds, and who gained the

I

oppor

opportunity of infulting him by the kindness of his

invitation.

The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope publickly denied; but from the reproach which the attack on a character so amiable brought upon him, he tried all means of escaping. The name of Cleland was again employed in an apology, by which no man was satisfied; and he was at laft reduced to shelter his temerity behind diffimulation, and endeavour to make that difbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke, which was anfwered with great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his excufe without believing his profeffions. He faid, that to have ridiculed his tafte, or his buildings, had been an indifferent action in another man; but that in Pope, after the reciprocal kindness that had been exchanged between them, it had been lefs cafily excufed.

Pope, in one of his Letters, complaining of the treatment which his poem had found, owns that fuch criticks can intimidate him, nay almoft perfuade him to write no more, which is a compliment this age deferves. The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous; for the world can easily go on without him, and in a fhort time will ceafe to mifs him. I have heard of an idiot, who used to revenge his vexations by lying all night upon the bridge. There is nothing, fays Juvenal, that a man will not believe in his own favour. Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers in the fyftem of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, thofe who fat round him intreated and implored, and felf-love did not fuffer him to fufpect that they went away and laughed.

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The

The following year deprived him of Gay, a man whom he had known early, and whom he seemed to love with ' more tenderness than any other of his literary friends. Pope was now forty-four years old; an age at which the mind begins less easily to admit new confidence, and the will to grow lefs flexible, and when therefore the departure of an old friend is very acutely felt.

In the next year he loft his mother, not by an unexpected death, for fhe had lafted to the age of ninetythree; but she did not die unlamented. The filial piety. of Pope was in the highest degree amiable and exemplary; his parents had the happiness of living till he was at the fummit of poetical reputation, till he was at eafe in his fortune, and without a rival in his famé, and found no diminution of his refpect or tenderness. Whatever was his pride, to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has, among its foothing and quiet comforts, few things better to give than fuch a fon.

One of the paffages of Pope's life, which feems to deferve fome enquiry, was a publication of Letters between him and many of his friends, which falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious bookfeller of no good fame, were by him printed and fold. This volume containing fome Letters from noblemen, Pope incited a profecution against him in the Houfe of Lords for breach of privilege, and attended himself to ftimulate the refentment of his friends. Curll appeared at the bar, and, knowing himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverencc. He bas, faid Curll, a knack at verfifying, but in profe I think myself a match for him. When the orders of the Houfe were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed; Curll

went

went away triumphant, and Pope was left to feek fome other remedy.

Curll's account was, that one evening a man in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to fale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's epiftolary correfpondence; that he asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorised to use his purchase to his own advantage.

That Curll gave a true account of the transaction, it is reasonable to believe, because no falfhood was ever detected; and when fome years afterwards I mentioned it to Lintot, the fon of Bernard, he declared his opinion to be, that Pope knew better than any body else how Curll obtained the copies, because another parcel was at the fame time fent to himself, for which no price had ever been deinanded, as he made known his refolution not to pay a porter, and confequently not to deal with a nameless agent,

Such care had been taken to make them publick, that they were fent at once to two book fellers; to Curll, who was likely to feize them as a prey; and to Lintot, who might be expected to give Pope information of the feeming injury. Lintot, I believe, did nothing; and Curl did what was expected. That to make them publick was the only purpose may be reasonably fuppofed, because the numbers offered to fale by the private meffengers fhewed that hope of gain could not have been the motive of the impreffion.

It seems that Pope, being defirous of printing his Letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulfion; that

when

when he could complain that his Letters were furrepti tiously published, he might decently and defenfively publish them himself.

Pope's private correfpondence, thus promulgated, filled the nation with praises of his candour, tenderness, and benevolence, the purity of his purposes, and the fidelity of his friendship. There were fome Letters which a very good or a very wife man would wish fuppreffed; but, as they had been already expofed, it was impracticable now to retract them.

From the perufal of thofe Letters, Mr. Allen firft conceived the defire of knowing him; and with so much zeal did he cultivate the friendship which he had newly formed, that when Pope told his purpose of vindicating his own property by a genuine edition, he offered to pay the cost.

This however Pope did not accept; but in time folicited a fubfcription for a Quarto volume, which appeared (1737) I believe, with fufficient profit. In the Preface he tells, that his Letters were repofited in a friend's library, faid to be the Earl of Oxford's, and that the copy thence ftolen was fent to the prefs. The story was doubtless received with different degrees of credit. It may be suspected that the Preface to the Miscellanies was written to prepare the publick for fuch an incident; and to strengthen this opinion, James Worfdale, a painter, who was employed in clandeftine negotiations, but whofe veracity was very doubtful, declared that he was the meffenger who carried, by Pope's direction, the books to Curll.

When they were thus published and avowed, as they had relation to recent facts, and perfons either then living or not yet forgotten, they may be fuppofed to have

found

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