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by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum.4 The whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits; the men in frieze, and the women in riding-hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken possession of the Hall-house and the whole estate. When my old master saw him a little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several legacies and the gifts of charity, which he told him he had left as quit-rents 5 upon the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved, and shows great kindness to the old house-dog that you know my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He has never joyed himself since; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This is all from, honored sir, your most sorrowful servant,

EDWARD BISCUIT.

P. S.-My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book, which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in his name."

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew opening the book, found it to be a collection of acts of parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points which he had disputed with Sir Roger the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's writing burst into tears, and put the book in his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club.

5. Sickness the plague, which prevailed at Dantzic in 1709.
6. Hackney-coach = a coach kept for hire.

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7. Jointure an estate settled on a wife, and which she is to enjoy

after her husband's decease.

8. Virginia = a common name for tobacco in Addison's time.

9. Trophies representations in marble of a pile of arms taken from a vanquished enemy.

10. Sir Cloudesley Shovel.—The visitors passed by his monument. A distinguished British admiral, commander-in-chief of the British fleets. Returning to England in 1707, his ship struck on the rocks near Scilly and sank with all on board. The body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel was found next day, and buried in Westminster Abbey.

11. Richard Busby was for fifty-five years, from 1640 to 1695, headmaster of Westminster School. It has been said that he "bred up the greatest number of learned scholars that ever adorned any age or nation." He was equally noted for his learning, assiduity, and application of the birch. 12. Little chapel, etc. = the chapel of St. Edmund. In cathedrals, chapels are usually annexed in the recesses on the sides of the aisles. 13. Historian the guide who shows visitors through the Abbey.

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14. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was born in 1550 and died in 1612. In 1608 he was made Lord High Treasurer. A man of immense energy and far-reaching sagacity - the best minister of his time, but cold, selfish, and unscrupulous.

15. Martyr, etc. - This is described as "an elaborate statue of Elizabeth Russell of the Bedford family-foolishly shown for many years as the lady who died by the prick of a needle." Goldsmith characterizes the story as one of a hundred lies that the guide tells without blushing.

16. Coronation chairs = two chairs in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor used at the coronation of the sovereigns of Great Britain. The more ancient of the two contains the famous "Stone of Scone," on which the kings of Scotland were crowned. The stone was brought to England by Edward I. in 1304. The other coronation chair was placed in the Abbey in the reign of William and Mary.

17. Forfeit, that is, for sitting in the chair.

18. Trepanned = ensnared, caught.

trapan. From Fr. trappe, a trap.

Another form of the verb is

19. Will Wimble is described in one of the Coverley papers as "younger brother to a baronet. . . . He is now between forty and fifty, but being bred to no business, and born to no estate, he generally lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his game. He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in the country, and is very famous for finding out a hare," etc. He was a neighbor and friend of Sir Roger.

20. Edward III. was born in 1312 and died in 1376. He gained many victories, including that of Crecy. During his reign many salutary laws were enacted, and art and literature flourished. The Black Prince was

his son.

21. Edward the Confessor, king of the Anglo-Saxons, was born in 1004 and died in 1066, the year of the Conquest.

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22. The evil a scrofulous disease known as "king's evil." It was formerly believed that the touch of a king would cure it.

23. Henry IV. was born in 1366 and died in 1413, after a troubled reign of fourteen years.

24. The monument in question was that of Henry V., the hero of Agincourt. He was born in 1388 and died in 1422. The head of the effigy, which was of silver, was stolen at the time of the Protestant Reformation.

IV.

1. Captain Sentry was Sir Roger's nephew and heir.

2. The widow lady captivated Sir Roger in his early manhood. A full account of the circumstances will be found in the Spectator No. 113. Elsewhere Sir Roger says: "When I reflect upon this woman, I do not know whether in the main I am the worse for having loved her; whenever she is recalled to my imagination, my youth returns, and I feel a forgotten warmth in my veins. This affliction in my life has streaked all my conduct with a softness, of which I should otherwise have been incapable."

3. Frieze

4. Quorum

a coarse woollen cloth with a nap on one side.
justice-court.

5. Quit-rent: != a rent reserved in grants of land, by the payment of which the tenant is quieted or quit from all other service.

ALEXANDER POPE.

THE greatest literary character of this period is Alexander Pope. In his life we find much to admire and much to condemn; but we cannot deny him the tribute of greatness. With his spiteful temper and habitual artifice we can have no sympathy; but we recognize in him the power of an indomitable will supported by genius and directed to a single object.

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He triumphed over the most adverse circumstances. lowly birth cut him off from social position; his Roman Catholic faith brought political ostracism; and a dwarfed, sickly, deformed body excluded him from the vocations in which wealth and fame are usually acquired. Yet, in spite of this combination of hostile circumstances, he achieved the highest literary distinction, attracted to him the most eminent men of his day, and associated on terms of equality with the proudest nobility.

Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688, the memorable year of the Revolution. His father, a Roman Catholic, was a linen merchant; and shortly after the poet's birth, he retired with a competent fortune to a small estate at Binfield in Windsor Forest.

Though delicate and deformed, the future poet is represented as having been a sweet-tempered child; and his voice was so agreeable that he was playfully called the "little nightingale." Excluded from the public schools on account of his father's faith, he passed successively under the tuition of three or four Roman priests, from whom he learned the rudiments of Latin and Greek. In after years he thought it no disadvantage that his education had been irregular; for, as he observed, he read the classic authors, not for the words, but for the sense.

At the age of twelve he formed a plan of study for himself, and plunged into the delights of miscellaneous reading with such ardor that he came near putting an end to his life. While dipping into philosophy, theology, and history, he delighted most in poetry and criticism; and either in the original or in translations (for he read what was easiest), he familiarized himself with the leading poets and critics of ancient and modern times. But in the strict sense of the term he never became a scholar. Seeing all other avenues of life closed to him, he early resolved to devote himself to poetry, to which no doubt he felt the intuitive impulse of genius. He showed remarkable precocity in rhyme. In his own language,

"As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

He was encouraged in his early attempts by his father, who assigned him subjects, required frequent revisions, and ended with the encouragement, "These are good rhymes." Before venturing before the public as an author, he served a long and remarkable apprenticeship to poetry. Whenever a passage in any foreign author pleased him, he turned it into English verse. Before the age of fifteen he composed an epic of four thousand lines, in which he endeavored, in different passages, to imitate the beauties of Milton, Cowley, Spenser, Statius, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Claudian. "My first taking to imitating," he says, was not out of vanity, but humility. I saw how defective my own things were, and endeavored to mend my manner by copying good strokes from others."

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Among English authors he fixed upon Dryden as his model, for whom he felt so great a veneration that he persuaded some friends to take him to the coffee-house frequented by that distinguished poet. "Who does not wish," asks Johnson, “that Dryden could have known the value of the homage that was paid him, and foreseen the greatness of his young admirer?”

His earliest patron, if such he may be called, was Sir William Trumbull, who, after serving as ambassador at Constanti

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