Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1853-02-10
Pope.


Alexander Pope was born in London, in May,
1858. He was prevented by physical weakness
and deformily from entering upon public life. All
the education he received was given him before
the age of twelve from this time, he lived with
his parents at Bindford in Windsor Forest till
about i725, when he removed with them to
Twckenham and lived there till his death In
l744. His literary effort began very early, (the
Ode on Solitude was written before he reached
twelve) and they were kept up with incessant
activity to the end. His constitutional weak
ness had bad effect upon his character and the
secluson to which it compelled him must have
fostered the failing it occasioned. DR.. Johnson
says, " He was from his birth of constitution
tender and delicate, but is said to have showed
remarkable gen9ness and sweetness of mind.
The weakness of his body continued through
life, but the mildness of his mind perhaps ended
with his childhood" John Dennis, whom he
made his enemy by something in the Essay on
Criticism" published in III describes him about
that time as "a young, short, squad gentleman,
the very bow of the god of Love.'
His father was llnen-draper and Catholic.
He placed his son under one or two Catholic
priests, and afterwards sent hun to school near
Winchester and 10 Ia~... ~as eoou ,uheu
,u..e, /" lolo nc studied f.ol1h and Italian, read
philosophy and almost everything else and ap-
Piled himself to the writing of transatons mi-
taIions and pasorals. He also composed about
this time comedy, a tragedy and an epic poem,
which he wisely destroyed. At l6 he was ac-
quanted with many eminent persons among
Others, with Wycheriy, whose verses he used to
prnne and polish, not always to that old liber-
tines entire satisfaction. Now he became a
ireqnenter of Wills Coffee House, the haunt of
literary men, where he had made the aquintance
of DRYDEN before his death, in l70l. Before he
was "a he had published the Essay on Criti-
cism - and the " Rape of the Lock" In this
latter he attempted to ''augh together" as he
expressed it, Mrs. ArabelIa Fermor and Lord
Pelre, who together with all their families, had
quarreed because his lordshlp had cut Oft
lock of her hair. Between this time and l717,
when he published collected edition of his
works, appeared successvely, the C. Temple of
Fame >" the " E egy on an Unfortunate Lady,
4" w lndsor Forest" written in its woods when he
was quite young the Messiah" first published
in the Spectator, and the "Epste Of Eolse to
Abeard."
In 1913 proposals were issued for publishing
1.-THE translation of the Iiad, four books of which
came out in Ills. This translation occasoned
the quarrel between Pope and Addison. The
Iliad was fns led in 1920, and our poet received
from it no less than f5320 In 1921 he under
took to edit Shakespeare, with no great success.
Theobald, a Shakesperlnn commentator, came
down upon him severely, for which Pope In re-
turn immortaEed him in the Dunciad. The
Odessey was now undertaken, and completed in
1925. Two poets, Broone and Fenton, did IL
books, for which they were not very well paid,
either in fame or money They got $500 between
them, and Pope s28S5
Being now in good circumstances our author
bought place in TwIckenham to which he re.
moved with his parents. In 1887 he and Swift
published their Miscelanies in three volumes.
These were attacked by lampoons from all quar-
ters which called out the "Duncid." His friends
Gay and Atterbury died in 1920, and in the year
after, his mother During the next seven years
he wrote various epstles satires and moral es-
says, dedicated to BoliDgbroke, Arbuthnot and
others. In l742 was published the fourth book
of the Dunciad, by which Colley Cibber, poet
auraate, was offended. Aquarrel followed, and
in new edition of the Dnnciad, published in
the next year, Theobad had to yield to the throne
as king of the Ounces to Colley Cibber.
About this time was issued proclamation
torbiddne Ro nan Catholics to come within ten
miles of London. This kept our poet clesoly at
home, backed, as it was by his illness, which he
styled "a proclamation from the Highest of all
Powers" He sank gradually, and died in
| l744, one year and more before the death of his
friend Swift, who was now living at Dublin in a
state Of idocy. He was buried at Twckenham.
Many letters passed between him and Swift,
of which johnson says, 'they show in them such
uarrowness Of mind that whoever should form
his opinion Of their age, from their representa-
ton, would suppose them to AVE l'Ved among
ignorance and barhari'y, unable to find among
their contemporaries either virtue or intelligence,
and prosecuted by those who could not under
stand ,hem." In wha, other way should we ex-
| nee, correspondence 10 be carried on between
tbe author IF tho " DuBeiad," and him of =" Gal
liver" all ,ht Tale of a Tub"