Pope had now completed the last great work, by which he was to take his place at the head of his age: all before him promised long enjoyment; the storm of criticism was dying away; and while the obscure names of Dennis, Theobald, and Hill were rapidly subsiding into the silence from which nothing but Pope's witty scorn could have raised them, the force, poignancy, and poetic beauty of the Dunciad' had begun to combine all feelings in praise. But the fluctuations of human enjoyment are proverbial; and he was to feel how imperfectly the highest fame can protect the heart from the common chances of human nature. 1732 he lost his friend Gay, a man whom he could not much respect for extent of knowlege or understanding; but who seems, by his gentleness of disposition and unruffled temper, to have fully supplied to the tetchy and sensitive spirit of Pope the rather delicate office of a familiar friend.

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Within a few months after, he was to be visited by another affliction, in the shape of his mother's death: this did not strike him, like the death of Gay, with the force of a sudden calamity, for she had reached the great age of ninety-four: but Pope's irritability against mankind in general only concentrated his affections with increased vividness on those around him. He uniformly speaks

of his immediate friends with more than the ardor of friendship, and of his parents with more than filial piety. On this new trial of his feelings, he writes to Richardson the painter, in language of eloquent sorrow:-'I hoped that this day would have brought you hither, and this for the very reason that might hinder your coming; my poor mother is dead. I thank God, her death was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet on her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it: it would afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painting drew; and it would be the greatest obligation that even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if would come and sketch it for me. * I hope to see you this evening as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. * I know you love me, or I could not have written this: I could not, at this time, have written at all. Adieu: may you die as happily.'

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He buried this estimable woman and beloved parent at Twickenham, in the same vault with her husband; and raised to her memory in his grounds an obelisk, with the tender and graceful inscription

AH, EDITHA!

MATRUM OPTUMA !

MULIERUM AMANTISSIMA!

VALE!

The death of Arbuthnot made the next blank in the diminishing circle of the poet's friends: this excellent man died in February, 1735, distinguished for literature, wit, and sincerity of character, among the ablest and honestest men of his time. One of his last letters to Pope, July 17, 1734, exhibits at once the good sense and pious confidence of his life: As for you, my good friend, I think, since our first acquaintance, there have not been any of those little suspicions or jealousies that often affect the sincerest friendships. * I make it

my last request that you will continue that noble disdain and abhorrence of vice, which you seem naturally endued with.' He then adverts delicately to Pope's unsparing lash,- but still with a due regard to your own safety; and study more to reform than to chastise.' Arbuthnot was then languishing at Hampstead of a mortal disease. A recovery in my case, and at my age,' he adds, "is impossible: the kindest wish of my friends is euthanasia. Living or dying, I shall always be yours,' &c.

Pope answers with a natural and generous deference to this dying friendship: and after a long defence of the openness of his satire, concludes:

As your approbation, being the testimony of a sound head and an honest heart, does greatly confirm me therein, I wish you may live to see the effect it may hereafter have on me in something more deserving of that approbation: but if it be the will of God (which I know will also be yours) that we must separate, I hope it will be better for you than it can be for me: you are fitter to live or die than any man I know. Adieu, my dear friend; and may God preserve your life easy, or make your death happy.'

In the October of this year he lost another friend, of a less intimate order, but of talents and renown which reflected honor on all with whom he was connected: this was the earl of Peterborough, a singular compound of humor and elegance, eccentricity and judgment, of the idlest frivolities and the most manly bravery. Pope now, whether to alleviate his griefs, or to make up for the time given to their indulgence, returned to his old employment with vigorous determination. The first and second epistles of the Essay on Man' had been published in 1732; and the third epistle, with the first satire of the second book of Horace, in 1733; the fourth epistle appeared in the present year, with the second satire, the Characters of Women,' the second volume of the miscellaneous works, in

quarto and folio, with the 'Satires of Donne.' He had also advanced far in the project of his 'Moral Epistles.'

He had been hitherto remarkable for dependence on the strength of his faculties; but either the mortality which had struck him so closely in the persons of his friends, or the solitude that followed, or the intense labor of this year, or all together operating on his mind, began to startle him with doubts of the continuance of his poetic ability. Of the Moral Essays,' he says, But, alas, the task is great, and non sum qualis eram : my understanding, indeed, such as it is, is rather extended than diminished: I see things more in the whole; more consistent, and more clearly deduced from, and related to, each other: but what I gain on the side of philosophy, I lose on the side of poetry: the flowers are gone, when the fruits begin to ripen; and the fruits, perhaps, will never ripen perfectly.'

A transaction occurred at this period which seriously tended to disturb Pope's quiet, and has long involved his personal character;-the publication of his letters, by Curll, the bookseller. Johnson's narrative, always strongly engaging the reader by its poignancy and power, has arraigned Pope of disingenuousness; but later and calmer researches have done justice to an illus