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 authority thinks inferior to Dryden's, but his Epistle of Eloise to Abelard he ranks as one of the most happy productions of human wit. For seductive eloquence and splendor of imagery, his Essay on Man is unequaled; but stripped of their ornaments, the sentiments will be found common-*places and the diction bombastic. His epistolary writings, composed, doubtless, with a view to publication, attest the care and elegance of his pen, but are too full of that affectation and ambition, with which he himself confesses his early letters to have been vitiated.

Vanity and affectation were principal features in the character of Pope; like Byron, he pretended a hatred of the world, whilst his highest pleasure consisted in pleasing those who lived in it; and his egotism is sufficiently manifest in the contempt with which he treated all excellence in others that had not some affinity with his own. One of his boasts was, that he never obtained the notice of one titled acquaintance by adulation or servility; and Johnson, in confirming this, says, that he never flattered those whom he did not love or praised those whom he did not esteem. An exception to this, however, appears in his conduct towards Lord Hervey and Lady Wortley Montagu, in a memoir of whom he will be found apologizing in a strain of meanness and hypocrisy commensurate with the grossness and vindictiveness of his previous abuse. But though sometimes violent in his attacks and mean in his retreat, he was warm and constant in his friendships; and his social qualities, says Johnson, exhibit a perpetual and unclouded effulgence of general benevolence. Though his fortune was far from splendid, he assisted Dodsley with £100 to open a shop, and of the subscription of £40 a-year that he raised for Savage, £20 were paid by himself.

In his domestic concerns, he was frugal almost to parsimoniousness; in proof of which, it is said, that he used to write his compositions on the backs of letters; and after a scanty entertainment to two of his guests, would place a single pint of wine, with two small glasses, upon the table, and say, 'Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine.' He, however, would sometimes give a splendid dinner to a party of his friends, and is said himself to have been so great an epicure, that his heart was often won by a present of some luxury for his table. He used constantly to call for coffee in the night, when it is not probable he took much sleep, if the story of Lord Oxford's domestic be true, that she was called from her bed, by him, four times in one night, to supply him with paper, lest he should lose a thought. He did not excel in conversation; and it was said no merriment of others, or of his own, excited him to laughter. There appears to have been a certain littleness and artifice in his intercourse with mankind, particularly with regard to trifles, which made Lady Bolingbroke say that 'he played the politician about cabbages and turnips.' In his person, he was so much beneath the middle stature, that, to bring him to a level with common tables, it was necessary to raise his seat; his countenance was, upon the whole, prepossessing, and his eyes were animated and expressive. His physical debility continued throughout his life; to conceal the tenuity of his legs, he wore three pairs of stockings; and being unable to dress or undress himself, could neither retire to rest, nor rise, without assistance.

An important feature in his private history, is his intimacy with Martha Blount, the daughter of a Catholic gentleman, near Reading, who is said to have been his intimate confidant and companion through life. She pos