The Age of Pope. John Dennis

and neither went to bed nor rose without help. His weakness made it very difficult for him to be clean.' After this forlorn description of the poet's state it is a little grotesque to read that his dress of ceremony was black, with a tie-wig and a little sword. A distorted body often holds a generous and untainted soul. This was not the case with Pope, and the sympathy he stood in so large a need of himself, was seldom given to others.

      1

      M. Sainte-Beuve, the greatest of French critics, frankly acknowledges his indebtedness to Boileau, whom he styles Louis the Fourteenth's 'Contrôleur Général du Parnasse.' 'S'il m'est permis de parler pour moi-même,' he writes, 'Boileau est un des hommes qui m'ont le plus occupé depuis

1

M. Sainte-Beuve, the greatest of French critics, frankly acknowledges his indebtedness to Boileau, whom he styles Louis the Fourteenth's 'Contrôleur Général du Parnasse.' 'S'il m'est permis de parler pour moi-même,' he writes, 'Boileau est un des hommes qui m'ont le plus occupé depuis que je fais de la critique, et avec qui j'ai le plus vécu en idée.' —Causeries du Lundi, tome sixième, p. 495.

2

Lecky's England, vol. i. p. 373.

3

The epithet is used in the Preface to the First Edition of Waller's Posthumous Poems, which Mr. Gosse believes was written by Atterbury, and he considers that this is the original occurrence of the phrase. —From Shakespeare to Pope, p. 248.

4

Messrs. Besant and Rice's novel, The Chaplain of the Fleet, gives a vivid picture of the life led in the Fleet, and also of the period.

5

Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, vol. ii. p. 55.

6

Lecky's England, vol. i. p. 479.

7

Shaftesbury's Characteristics, vol. i. p. 270.

8

Spectator, No. 126.

9

Lecky's England, vol. i. p. 522.

10

According to Hallam the thirty years which followed the Treaty of Utrecht 'was the most prosperous season that England had ever experienced.' —Const. Hist. ii. 464.

11

Some qualification may be made to these statements. Pope took pleasure in landscape gardening on the English plan, as opposed to the formality of the French and Dutch systems, and the design of the Prince of Wales's garden is said to have been copied from the poet's at Twickenham.

12

Elwin and Courthope's Pope, vol. ii. p. 160.

13

See the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

14

Elwin and Courthope's Pope, vol. v., p. 195.

15

'Lady Mary,' says Byron, 'was greatly to blame in that quarrel for having encouraged Pope… She should have remembered her own line,

'"He comes too near who comes to be denied."'

16

Studies in English Literature, p. 47. —Stanford.

17

Quin (1693-1766) was the famous actor, and Patterson was Thomson's deputy in the surveyor-generalship of the Leeward Isles, and ultimately his successor.

18

The Earl of Peterborough, the meteor-like brilliancy of whose actions forms one of the most striking chapters in the history of his time.

19

Life of Pope, p. 216.

20

'Pope and Swift,' says Dr. Johnson, 'had an unnatural delight in ideas physically impure, such as every other tongue utters with unwillingness, and of which every ear shrinks from the mention.'

21

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

22

No doubt many distinguished foreigners who appreciated the beauty of the poem had read it in the original.

23

Stephen's Pope, p. 163.

24

Lectures on Art, p. 70, Oxford.