sequence of which was corporal chastiser youthful satirist was sent to another sch by a Mr. Deane, first at Mary-le-bone, a wards at Hyde Park Corner. He had occasional opportunity of attending the t and so much was he fascinated by the ances of the stage, that he composed founded on certain events in the Iliad, of speeches from Ogilby's translation, st gether with verses of his own. It was p the upper boys of the school, with the a of the master's gardener, who acted Aja costume was taken from the prints in O

P

So great had been his father's success that, having acquired the sum of nearl thousand pounds, he had retired from first to Kensington, and next to Binfield sor Forest. At the latter place he had about twenty acres of land, and a sma with a row of elms 3 before the windo fortune, however, gradually suffered a siderable diminution; for he was sub 1 Ruffhead says: "While he was at school Park Corner, the attention paid to his conduct wa that he was suffered to frequent the playhouse in with the greater boys."-Life of Pope, p. 13.

2 So Pope's biographers state; but perhaps Mart account of the old gentleman's circumstances is truth: "He was a merchant that dealt in Holl left off business when King William came in: h worth ten thousand pounds, but did not leave so son."-Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 357.

3 Some of them were yet standing in 1806: se Life of Pope, p. xx.

ment, the

ool, kept
nd after-

now an

heatres;1
perform-
a drama

made up
trung to-
played by
assistance
ax: their

Ogilby.

in trade, ly twenty business, in Windpurchased all house Ows. His very con

jected to near Hyde as so remiss,

n company

ha Blount's = nearer the lands; and he was then much to his

ee Bowles's

66

the restrictions imposed on Roman Catholics; and, deeming it a point of conscience not to lend his money to the new government, he lived upon the principal. Our poet, soon after he had reached his twelfth year, was taken to reside with his parents at Binfield. There he was put under the tuition of another priest; but, at the end of a few months, he formed the resolution of educating himself. He accordingly pursued his own plan of study with the most unremitting perseverance. My next period," he tells Spence, was in Windsor Forest, where I sat down with an earnest desire of reading; and applied as constantly as I possibly could to it for some years. I was between twelve and thirteen when I first went thither, and continued in this close pursuit of pleasure and languages till nineteen or twenty. Considering how very little I had when I came from school, I think I may be said to have taught myself Latin, as well as French or Greek; and in all three my chief way of getting them was by translation."1 Again, "I went through all the best critics; almost all the English, French, and Latin poets, of any name: the minor poets, Homer, and some of the greater Greek poets in the original; and Tasso and Ariosto in translations."?

Among the English poets, Spenser, Waller, and Dryden, were his favourites. None of them, however, excited so much of his admiration as the last mentioned writer, whose genius was akin 1 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 270. 2 Ibid. 279.

to his own. The works of that gre therefore studied with minute attention, from them the niceties of versificati about twelve years of age, he procur to carry him to town, and introduce h Coffee-house, which Dryden then that he might have the satisfaction o the author whom he had proposed to a model. 1

So young was Pope when he writing verses, that he informs us,

"I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers c Unlike the Roman bard, from whom imitated, he had not to lament the m having an anti-poetical father. On t the elder Pope encouraged him in h pursuit, and frequently suggested the exercise of his talents. "He was pre in being pleased," said Mrs. Pope, often to send him back to new turn the are not good rhymes;' for that was m word for verses."2

Though Dodsley had seen several prior date, the Ode to Solitude, wri he was twelve years of age, is the

1 "Mr. Harte informed me that Dryden shilling for translating, when a boy, the stor and Thisbe."-Warton's Life of Pope, p. xiii. 2 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 8. Having a vacant space here, I will fill Ode on Solitude, which I found yesterday by g

66

Pope's pieces which we possess. Lines To the Author of a Poem entitled Successio,1i. e. Elkanah Settle, whose temporary reputation had disturbed Dryden's peace of mind,-was one of his next productions. About the same time he composed a comedy, the subject of which is not recorded, and a tragedy on a story in the legend of St. Genevieve. He also wrote four books of an epic poem called Alcander, each consisting of about a thousand lines. "My epic," he told Spence, was about two years in hand (from thirteen to fifteen). Alcander was a prince, driven from his throne by Deucalion, father of Minos, and some other princes. It was better planned than Blackmore's Prince Arthur; but as slavish an imitation of the ancients. Alcander showed all the virtue of suffering, like Ulysses; and of courage, like Æneas, or Achilles. Apollo, as the patron of Rhodes, was his great defender; and Cybele, as the patroness of Deucalion and Crete, his great enemy. She raises a storm

and which I find by the date was written when I was not twelve years old."-Letter of Pope to Cromwell, July 17th, 1709.

1 These lines, rejected by Pope from the collection of his works, first appeared in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. By several Hands, published by Lintot, of which, though I have never met with an earlier edition than that of 1712, there is said to have been an impression dated 1711. From this address to Settle, Pope transferred two similes, slightly altered, into the Dunciad: Warburton says it was written at the age of fourteen.

2 According to Ruffhead, these two plays were composed between his thirteenth and fifteenth year.-Life of Pope, p. 23.

against him in the first book, as Juno do Eneas; and he is cast away and swim just as Ulysses does to the island of P Again, "I wrote things, I'm ashame how soon. Part of an epic poem wh twelve. The scene of it lay in Rhodes, of the neighbouring islands; and the poo under water with a description of the Neptune." A few lines of this juvenil have been preserved:

"Shields, helms, and swords, all jangle as th And sound formidinous with angry clang." "Whose honours with increase of ages grow, As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow."

As man's meanders to the vital spring,

Roll all their tides, then back their circles bri

Some of its verses he is said to have us amples of the art of sinking in poetr treatise of Martinus Scriblerus on tha By Betterton,5 the actor, with whom he

He appears to have regarded Betterton and esteem; and after his death published, und a version into modern English of Chaucer's Pr one of his Tales, which, as was related by Mr. believed to have been the performance of Pop Fenton, who made him a gay offer of five pounds show them in the hand of Betterton."

Johnson's Lif