against him in the first book, as Juno does against Æneas; and he is cast away and swims ashore, just as Ulysses does to the island of Phœacia."1 Again, "I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an epic poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay in Rhodes, and some of the neighbouring islands; and the poem opened under water with a description of the court of Neptune." A few lines of this juvenile attempt have been preserved :

"Shields, helms, and swords, all jangle as they hang, And sound formidinous with angry clang."

"Whose honours with increase of ages grow,

As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow."3 "As man's meanders to the vital spring,

994

Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring."

Some of its verses he is said to have used as examples of the art of sinking in poetry," in the treatise of Martinus Scriblerus on that subject. By Betterton,5 the actor, with whom he was well

'Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 279.

2 Ibid. p. 24.

3 Inserted in the Essay on Criticism.

4 Inserted in the Dunciad.

5" He appears to have regarded Betterton with kindness and esteem; and after his death published, under his name, a version into modern English of Chaucer's Prologues, and one of his Tales, which, as was related by Mr. Harte, were believed to have been the performance of Pope himself by Fenton, who made him a gay offer of five pounds, if he would show them in the hand of Betterton."

Johnson's Life of Pope.

acquainted, he was at one time solicited to turn his epic into a tragedy; but he had determined to write nothing for the stage, having observed how much dramatic authors were obliged to court both the players and the town.1 The comedy and tragedy abovementioned, as well as Alcander, were committed to the flames: the last piece was destroyed by the advice of Atterbury; not without a feeling of regret on the part of the author, who had preserved the manuscript for many years.

Among the productions of his early youth may be also noticed the translation of The First Book of Statius his Thebais, the rifacimenti of two of Chaucer's pieces, the version of Ovid's Epistle from Sappho to Phaon, Imitations of English Poets, a translation of "above one quarter of the Metamorphoses,"3 &c. To the same period is to be attributed a version of Cicero's treatise De Senectute.

When about fifteen he resolved to visit London, in order to acquire a greater knowledge of the French and Italian languages, which he had be

1 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 197.

2 Ibid. p. 198.

3 Ibid. P. 278.

4 A

copy of this version was in the library of Lord Oxford. suppose it was about the same time that he produced another prose piece, mentioned by him to Spence," a treatise in Latin, collected from the writers in Grævius, on the Old Buildings in Rome. It is now in Lord Oxford's hands, and has been so these fifteen years."

Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 204.

gun to study. His family, aware that the weakness of his constitution would not admit of his travelling on the continent, considered it as "a wildish sort of resolution," and "could not see any reason for it:"1 but Pope was not to be diverted from his purpose.

His Pastorals, though not published till several years after, were composed at the age of sixteen, as well as a portion of his Windsor Forest.

By the unceasing assiduity with which Pope had carried on his literary pursuits, his health was now seriously injured; and after consulting several physicians without deriving benefit from their prescriptions, he made up his mind to strive no longer against his malady, but calmly to wait the approach of death. He accordingly wrote letters to some of his most intimate friends, bidding them a last farewell: one was addressed to the Abbé Southcote, in London. Immediately on receiving the melancholy epistle, the Abbé went to Dr. Ratcliffe; explained to him the case of the poet; and having got from him full directions, carried them down to Windsor Forest.2 What the doctor chiefly ordered was, that Pope should relax in his application to study, and that

1 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 25.

2 In Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 7, it is expressly said that the Abbé carried down the Doctor's directions "to Mr. Pope in Windsor Forest." According to Ruffhead, Pope was then a hundred miles from London." Life, p. 508. Mr. Roscoe says, " he was then at a friend's house, a hundred miles from London."-Life, p. 26.

"

he should ride daily: he followed the advice, and was soon restored to health.

When the circumstances just related occurred, Pope was about seventeen; and upwards of twenty years after, he repaid the kindness of Southcote, by procuring for him, through the interference of Sir Robert Walpole, the nomination to an abbey in Avignon.

While resident in the Forest, Pope became acquainted with Sir William Trumbull, who had now retired from public life to his native place, Easthamstead, in the neighbourhood of Binfield.1 He possessed a very cultivated mind; and from the similarity of their tastes, a friendship was speedily formed between the statesman of sixty and the youthful poet, which terminated only with Sir William's death. They were in the habit of reading, conversing on the classics, and riding out together.

By Sir William Trumbull our author was in

1 "Sir William Trumbull was born at Easthamstead in Berkshire. He was fellow of All Soul's College in Oxford, followed the study of the civil law, and was sent by King Charles the Second Judge Advocate to Tangier, thence Envoy to Florence, Turin, &c. and, in his way back, Envoy Extraordinary to France; from thence sent, by King James the Second, Ambassador to the Ottoman Port. Afterwards he was made Lord of the Treasury, then Secretary of State with the Duke of Shrewsbury, which office he resigned in 1697. He retired to Easthamstead in Windsor Forest, and died in the Place of his Nativity in December 1716, aged 77 years." Ayre's Life of Pope, vol. i. p. 5.

troduced to Wycherley, who was then nearly seventy years of age. Pope was doubtless desirous to court the notice of a man whose comedies had justly raised him to such eminence: and they seem to have conceived a sincere esteem for each other, notwithstanding the disparity of their years. In one of his letters to Wycherley, April 30th, 1705, Pope pleasantly observes; "I know it is the general opinion, that friendship is best contracted betwixt persons of equal age; but I have so much interest to be of another mind, that you must pardon me if I cannot forbear telling you a few notions of mine in opposition to that opinion. In the first place, it is observable that the love we bear to our friends is generally caused by our finding the same dispositions in them which we feel in ourselves. This is but self love at the bottom; whereas the affection betwixt people of different ages cannot well be so, the inclinations of such being commonly various. The friendship of two young men is often occasioned by love of pleasure or voluptuousness; each being desirous for his own sake, of one to assist or encourage him in the course he pursues; as that of two old men is frequently on the score of some profit, lucre, or design upon others. Now, as a young man, who is less acquainted with the ways of the world, has in all probability less of interest; and an old man, who may be weary of himself, has, or should have, less of self-love; so the friendship between them

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