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Theobald, Colley Cibber, John Dennis, Richard Bentley, Aaron | scornful, and proceeded to employ his unrivalled powers of Hill and Bernard Lintot, who, in spite of his former relations sophistry in a defence of the orthodoxy of the conflicting and with Pope, was now classed with the piratical Edmund Curll. inconsequent positions adopted in the Essay on Man. Pope The book was published with the greatest precautions. It was was wise enough to accept with all gratitude an ally who was anonymous, and professed to be a reprint of a Dublin edition. so useful a friend and so dangerous an enemy, and from that When the success of the poem was assured, it was republished time onward Warburton was the authorized commentator of in 1729, and a copy was presented to the king by Sir Robert his works. Walpole. Names took the place of initials, and a defence of the satire, written by Pope himself, but signed by his friend William Cleland, was printed as "A letter to the Publisher." Various indexes, notes and particulars of the attacks on Pope made by the different authors satirized were added. To avoid any danger of prosecution, the copyright was assigned to Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurst and Lord Burlington, whose position rendered them practically unassailable. We may admit that personal spite influenced Pope at least as much as disinterested zeal for the honour of literature, but in the dispute as to the comparative strength of these motives, a third is apt to be overlooked that was probably stronger than either. This was an unscrupulous elfish love of fun, and delight in the creations of a humorous imagination. Certainly to represent the Dunciad as the outcome of mere personal spite is to give an exaggerated idea of the malignity of Pope's disposition, and an utterly wrong impression of the character of his satire. He was not, except in rare cases, a morose, savage, indignant satirist, but airy and graceful in his malice, revengeful perhaps and excessively sensitive, but restored to good humour as he thought | over his wrongs by the ludicrous conceptions with which he invested his adversaries. The most unprovoked assault was on Richard Bentley, whom he satirized in the reconstruction and enlargement of the Dunciad made in the last years of his life at the instigation, it is said, of William Warburton. In the earlier editions the place of hero had been occupied by Lewis Theobald, who had ventured to criticize Pope's Shakespeare. In the edition which appeared in Pope's Works (1742), he was dethroned in favour of Colley Cibber, who had just written his Letter from Mr Cibber to Mr Pope inquiring into the motives that might induce him in his satyrical writings to be so frequently fond of Mr Cibber's name (1742). Warburton's name is attached to many new notes, and one of the preliminary dissertations by Ricardus Aristarchus on the hero of the poem seems to be by him.

The four epistles of the Essay on Man (1733) were also intimately connected with passing controversies. They belong to the same intellectual movement with Butler's Analogy-the effort of the 18th century to put religion on a rationa! basis. But Pope was not a thinker like Butler. The subject was suggested to him by Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke, who had returned from exile in 1723, and was a fellow-member of the Scriblerus Club. Bolingbroke is said-and the statement is supported by the contents of his posthumous works-to have furnished most of the arguments. Pope's contribution to the controversy consisted in brilliant epigram and illustration. In this didactic work, as in his Essay on Criticism, he put together on a sufficiently simple plan a series of happy sayings, separately elaborated, picking up the thoughts as he found them in miscellaneous reading and conversation, and trying only to fit them with perfect expression. His readers were too dazzled by the verse to be severely critical of the sense. Pope himself had not comprehended the drift of the arguments he had adopted from Bolingbroke, and was alarmed when he found that his poem was generally interpreted as an apology for the free-thinkers. Warburton is said to have qualified its doctrines as "rank atheism," and asserted that it was put together from the "worst passages of the worst authors." The essay was soon translated into the chief European languages, and in 1737 its orthodoxy was assailed by a Swiss professor, Jean Pierre de Crousaz, in an Examen de l'essay de M. Pope sur l'homme. Warburton now saw fit to revise his opinion of Pope's abilities and principles-for what reason does not appear. In any case he now became as enthusiastic in his praise of Pope's orthodoxy and his genius as he had before been

The Essay on Man was to have formed part of a series of philosophic poems on a systematic plan. The other pieces were to treat of human reason, of the use of learning, wit, education and riches, of civil and ecclesiastical polity, of the character of women, &c. Of the ten epistles of the Moral Essays, the first four, written between 1731 and 1735, are connected with this scheme, which was never executed. There was much bitter, and sometimes unjust, satire in the Moral Essays and the Imitations of Horace. In these epistles and satires, which appeared at intervals, he was often the mouthpiece of his political friends, who were all of them in opposition to Walpole, then at the height of his power, and Pope chose the object of his attacks from among the minister's adherents. Epistle III., "Of the Use of Riches," addressed to Allen Bathurst, Lord Bathurst, in 1732, is a direct attack on Walpole's methods of corruption, and on his financial policy in general; and the two dialogues (1738) known as the "Epilogue to the Satires," professedly a defence of satire, form an eloquent attack on the court. Pope was attached to the prince of Wales's party, and he did not forget to insinuate, what was indeed the truth, that the queen had refused the prince her pardon on her deathbed. The "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot " contains a description of his personal attitude towards the scribblers and is made to serve as a "prologue to the satires." The gross and unpardonable insults bestowed on Lord Hervey and on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the first satire "to Mr Fortescue " provoked angry retaliation from both. The description of Timon's ostentatious villa in Epistle IV., addressed to the earl of Burlington, was generally taken as a picture of Canons, the seat of John Brydges, duke of Chandos, one of Pope's patrons, and caused a great outcry, though in this case Pope seems to have been innocent of express allusion. Epistle II., addressed to Martha Blount, contained the picture of Atossa, which was taken to be a portrait of Sarah Jennings, duchess of Marlborough. One of the worst imputations on Pope's character was that he left this passage to be published when he had in effect received a bribe of £1000 from the duchess of Marlborough for its suppression through the agency of Nathanael Hooke (d. 1763). As the passage eventually stood, it might be applied to Katherine, duchess of Buckingham, a natural daughter of James II. Pope may have altered it with the intention of diverting the satire from the original object. He was scrupulously honest in money matters, and always independent in matters of patronage; but there is some evidence for this discreditable story beyond the gossip of Horace Walpole (Works, ed. P. Cunningham, i. cxliv.), though not sufficient to justify the acceptance it received by some of Pope's biographers. To appreciate fully the point of his allusions requires an intimate acquaintance with the political and social gossip of the time. But apart from their value as a brilliant strongly-coloured picture of the time Pope's satires have a permanent value as literature. It is justly remarked by Mark Pattison' that "these Imitations are among the most original of his writings." The vigour and terseness of the diction is still unsurpassed in English verse. Pope had gained complete mastery over his medium, the heroic couplet, before he used it to express his hatred of the political and social evils which he satirized. The elaborate periphrases and superfluous ornaments of his earlier manner, as exemplified in the Pastorals and the Homer, disappeared; he turned to the uses of verse the ordinary language of conversation, differing from everyday speech only in its exceptional brilliance and point. It is in these satires that his best work must be sought, and by them that his position among English poets must be fixed. It was In his edition of the Satires and Epistles (1866).

not generated, by the social atmosphere.

the Homer chiefly that Wordsworth and Coleridge had in their | dressed," the incessant striving after wit-were fostered eye when they began the polemic against the "poetic diction " of the 18th century, and struck at Pope as the arch-corrupter. They were historically unjust to Pope, who did not originate this diction, but only furnished the most finished examples of it. At the beginning of the 19th century Pope still had an ardent admirer in Byron, whose first satires are written in Pope's couplet. The much abused pseudo-poetic diction in substance consisted in an ambition to "rise above the vulgar style," to dress nature to advantage-a natural ambition when the arbiters of literature were people of fashion. If one compares Pope's "Messiah or "Eloisa to Abelard," or an impassioned passage from the Iliad, with the originals that he paraphrased, one gets a more vivid idea of the consistence of pseudo-poetic diction than could be furnished by pages of analysis. But Pope merely made masterly use of the established diction of his time, which he eventually forsook for a far more direct and vigorous style. A passage from the Guardian, in which Philips was commended as against him, runs: "It is a nice piece of art to raise a proverb above the vulgar style and still keep it easy and unaffected. Thus the old wish, God rest his soul,' is very finely turned:

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"Then gentle Sidney liv'd, the shepherd's friend, Eternal blessings on his shade attend! Pope would have despised so easy a metamorphosis as this at any period in his career, and the work of his coadjutors in the Odyssey may be distinguished by this comparative cheapness of material. Broome's description of the clothes-washing by Nausicaa and her maidens in the sixth book may be compared with the original as a luminous specimen.

Pope's wit had won for him the friendship of many distinguished men, and his small fortune enabled him to meet them on a footing of independence. He paid long visits at many great houses, especially at Stanton Harcourt, the home of his friend Lord Chancellor Harcourt; at Oakley, the seat of Lord Bathurst; and at Prior Park, Bath, where his host was Ralph Allen. With the last named he had a temporary disagreement owing to some slight shown to Martha Blount, but he was reconciled to him before his death.

He died on the 30th of May 1744, and he was buried in the parish church of Twickenham. He left the income from his property to Martha Blount till her death, after which it was to go to his half-sister Magdalen Rackett and her children. His unpublished MSS. were left at the discretion of Lord Bolingbroke, and his copyrights to Warburton.

Pope's own ruling passion was the love of fame, and he had no scruples where this was concerned. His vanity and his childish love of intrigue are seen at their worst in his petty manœuvres to secure the publication of his letters during his lifetime. These intricate proceedings were unravelled with great patience and ingenuity by Charles Wentworth Dilke, when the false picture of his relations with his contemporaries which Pope had imposed on the public had been practically accepted for a century. Elizabeth Thomas, the mistress of Henry Cromwell, had sold Pope's early letters to Henry Cromwell to the bookseller Curll for ten guineas. These were published in Curll's Miscellanea in 1726 (dated 1727), and had considerable success. This surreptitious publication seems to have suggested to Pope the desirability of publishing his own correspondence, which he immediately began to collect from various friends on the plea of preventing a similar clandestine transaction. The publication by Wycherley's executors of a posthumous volume of the dramatist's prose and verse furnished Pope with an excuse for the appearance of his own correspondence with Wycherley, which was accompanied by a series of unnecessary deceptions. After manipulating his correspondence so as to place his own character in the best light, he deposited a copy in the library of Edward, second earl of Oxford, and then he had it printed. The sheets were offered to Curll by a person calling himself P.T., who professed a desire to injure Pope, but was no other than Pope himself. The copy was delivered to Curll in 1735 after long negotiations by an agent who called himself R. Smythe, with a few originals to vouch for their authenticity. P. T. had drawn up an advertisement stating that the book was to contain answers from various peers. Curll was summoned before the House of Lords for breach of privilege, but was acquitted, as the letters from peers were not in fact forthcoming. Difficulties then arose between Curll and P. T., and Pope induced a bookseller named Cooper to publish a Narrative of the Method by which Mr Pope's Private Letters were procured by Edmund Curll, Bookseller (1735). These preliminaries cleared the way for a show of indignation against piratical publishers and a "genuine' edition of the Letters of Mr Alexander Pope (1737, fol. and 4to). Unhappily for Pope's reputation, his friend Caryll, who died before the publication, had taken a copy of Pope's letters before returning them. This letter-book came to light in the middle of the 19th century, and showed the freedom which Pope permitted himself in editing. The correspondence with Lord Oxford, preserved at Longleat, afforded further evidence of his tortuous dealings. The methods he employed to secure his correspondence with Swift were even more discreditable. The proceedings can only be explained as the measures of a desperate man whose maladies seem to have engendered a passion for trickery. They are related in detail by Elwin in the introduction to vol. i. of Pope's Works. A man who is said to have "played the politician about cabbages and turnips," and who "hardly drank tea without a stratagem," was not likely to be straightforward in a matter in which his ruling passion was concerned. Against Pope's petulance and "general love of secrecy and cunning" have to be set, in any fair judgment of his character, his exemplary conduct as a son, the affection with which he was regarded in his own circle of intimates, and many well-authenticated instances of genuine and continued kindliness to persons in distress.

If we are to judge Pope, whether as a man or as a poet, with human fairness, and not merely by comparison with standards of abstract perfection, there are two features of his times that must be kept steadily in view-the character of political strife in those days and the political relations of men of letters. As long as the succession to the Crown was doubtful, and political failure might mean loss of property, banishment or death, politicians, playing for higher stakes, played more fiercely and unscrupulously than in modern days, and there was no controlling force of public opinion to keep them within the bounds of common honesty. Hence the age of Queen Anne is preeminently an age of intrigue. The government was almost as unsettled as in the early days of personal monarchy, and there was this difference-that it was policy rather than force upon which men depended for keeping their position. Secondly, men of letters were admitted to the inner circles of intrigue as they had never been before and as they have never been since. A generation later Walpole defied them, and paid the rougher BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Various collected editions of Pope's Works instruments that he considered sufficient for his purpose in appeared during his lifetime, and in 1751 an edition in nine volumes solid coin of the realm; but Queen Anne's statesmen, whether was published by a syndicate of booksellers" with the commentaries from difference of tastes or difference of policy, paid their prin- liberally. By his notes he wilfully misrepresented the meaning of of Mr Warburton." Warburton interpreted his editorial rights very cipal literary champions with social privileges and honourable the allusions in the satires, and made them more agreeable to his public appointments. Hence men of letters were directly in- friends and to the court, while he made opportunities for the gratififected by the low political morality of the unsettled time. And cation of his own spite against various individuals. Joseph Warton's the character of their poetry also suffered. The most promi-edition in 1797 added to the mass of commentary without giving much new elucidation to the allusions of the text, which even Swift, nent defects of the age-the lack of high and sustained with his exceptional facilities, had found obscure. In 1769-1807 an imagination, the genteel liking for "nature to advantage edition was issued which included Owen Ruffhead's Life of Alexander

Pope (1769), inspired by Warburton. The notes of many com- | U.S.V., in charge of the district of Missouri, which by vigorous mentators, with some letters and a memoir, were included in the Works of Alexander Pope, edited by W. L. Bowles (10 vols., 1806). campaigning against guerrilla bands and severe administration of His Poetical Works were edited by Alexander Dyce (1856); by R. the civil population he quickly reduced to order. In 1862, along Carruthers (1858) for Bohn's Library; by A. W. Ward (Globe Edition, with the gunboat flotilla (commanded by Commodore A. H. 1869), &c. Materials for a definitive edition were collected by John Foote) on the Mississippi, Pope obtained a great success by the Wilson Croker, and formed the basis of what has become the standard version, The Works of Alexander Pope (10 vols., 1871-1898), including capture of the defences of New Madrid and Island No. 10, with unpublished letters and other new material, with introduction and nearly 7000 prisoners. Pope subsequently joined Halleck, and in notes by W. Elwin and W. J. Courthope. The life of Pope in command of the Army of the Mississippi took part in the siege of vol. v. was contributed by Professor Courthope. The chief original Corinth. He was now a major-general U.S.V. The repuauthority besides Pope's correspondence and Ruffhead's Life is tation he had thus gained as an energetic leader quickly Joseph Spence's Anecdotes, published by S. W. Singer in 1820. Samuel Johnson gives a good estimate of Pope in his Lives of the placed him in a high command, to which he proved to be quite Poets. The best modern lives are that by Professor Courthope, unequal. The Army of Virginia," as his new forces were already mentioned; and Alexander Pope, by Sir L. Stephen, in the styled, had but a brief career. At the very outset of his Virginian English Men of Letters series (1880). See also George Paston, Mr Pope: His Life and Times (1909). The first check to the admiration campaign Pope, by a most ill-advised order, in which he conthat prevailed during Pope's lifetime was given by the publication of trasted the performances of the Western troops with the failures Joseph Warton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (vol. i., of the troops in Virginia, forfeited the confidence of his officers 1757; vol. ii., 1782). Warton had a sincere appreciation of Pope's and men. The feeling of the Army of the Potomac (which was work, but he began the reaction which culminated with the ordered to his support) was equally hostile, and the short operaromantic writers of the beginning of the 19th century, and set the fashion of an undue disparagement of Pope's genius as a poet with tions culminated in the disastrous defeat of the second battle of enduring effects on popular opinion. Thomas Campbell's criticism Bull Run. Pope was still sanguine and ready for another trial of in his Specimens of the British Poets provoked a controversy to which strength, but he was soon compelled to realize the impossibility William Hazlitt, Byron and W. L. Bowles contributed. For a of retrieving his position, and resigned the command. Bitter discussion of Pope's position as one of the great men of letters in the 18th century who emancipated themselves from patronage, see controversy arose over these events. Halleck, the general-inA. Beljame, Le Public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre au dix- chief, was by no means free from blame, but the public odium huitième siècle (1881); a section of Isaac D'Israeli's. Quarrels of chiefly fell upon generals McClellan and Fitz-John Porter, against Authors is devoted to Pope's literary animosities; and most impor- whom Pope, while admitting his own mistakes, made grave tant contributions to many vexed questions in the biography of Pope, especially the publication of his letters, were made by C. W. charges. Pope was not again employed in the Civil War, but in Dilke in Notes and Queries and the Athenaeum. These articles command of the Department of the North-West he showed his were reprinted by his grandson, Sir Charles Dilke, in 1875, as The former skill and vigour in dealing with Indian risings. In 1865 Papers of a Critic. (W. M.; M. BR.) he was made brevet major-general U.S.A. (having become brigadier-general on his appointment to the Army of Virginia), and he subsequently was in charge of various military districts and departments until his retirement in 1886. In 1882 he was promoted to the full rank of major-general U.S.A. General Pope died at Sandusky, Ohio, on the 23rd of September 1892.

POPE, ALEXANDER (1763-1835), Irish actor and painter, was born in Cork, and was educated to follow his father's profession of miniature painting. He continued to paint miniatures and exhibit them at the Royal Academy as late as 1821; but at an early date he took the stage, first appearing in London as Oroonoko in 1785 at Covent Garden. He remained at this theatre almost continuously for nearly twenty years, then at the Haymarket until his retirement, playing leading parts, chiefly tragic. He was particularly esteemed as Othello and Henry VIII. He died on the 22nd of March 1835. Pope was thrice married. His first wife, Elizabeth Pope (c. 17441797), a favourite English actress of great versatility, was billed before her marriage as Miss Younge. His second wife, Maria Ann Pope (1775-1803), also a popular actress, was a member of an Irish family named Campion. His third wife, Clara Maria Pope (d. 1838), was the widow of the artist Francis Wheatley, and herself a skilful painter of figures and of flowers.

POPE, JANE (1742-1818), English actress, daughter of a London theatrical wig-maker, who began playing in a Lilliputian company for Garrick in 1756. From this she speedily developed into soubrette rôles. She was Mrs Candour in The School for Scandal at its first presentation (1777), and thereafter she had many important parts confided to her. She was the life-long friend of Mrs Clive, and erected the monument at Twickenham to the latter's memory. She was not only an admirable actress, but a woman of blameless life, and was praised by all the literary critics of her day-unused to such a combination. She died on the 30th of July 1818.

POPE, JOHN (1822-1892), American soldier, was the son of Nathaniel Pope (1784-1850), U.S. judge for the district of Illinois, and was born at Louisville, Kentucky, on the 16th of March 1822. He graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1842 and was assigned to the engineers. He served in the Mexican War, receiving the brevets of 1st lieutenant and captain for his conduct at Monterey and Buena Vista. Subsequently he was engaged in engineering and exploring work, mainly in New Mexico, and in surveying the route for a Pacific railroad. He was commissioned captain in 1856. He was actively opposed to the Buchanan administration, and a speech which he made in connexion with the presidential campaign of 1860 caused him to be summoned before a court-martial. Early in the Civil War he was placed, as a brigadier-general

He was the author of various works and papers, including railway reports (Pacific Railroad Reports vol. iii.) and The Campaign of Virginia (Washington, 1865).*

POPE, SIR THOMAS (c. 1507–1559), founder of Trinity College, Oxford, was born at Deddington, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, probably in 1507, for he was about sixteen years old when his father, a yeoman farmer, died in 1523. He was educated at Banbury school and Eton College, and entered the court of chancery. He there found a friend and patron in the lordchancellor Thomas Audley. As clerk of briefs in the star chamber, warden of the mint (1534-1536), clerk of the Crown in chancery (1537), and second officer and treasurer of the court for the settlement of the confiscated property of the smaller religious foundations, he obtained wealth and influence. In this last office he was superseded in 1541, but from 1547 to 1553 he was again employed as fourth officer. He himself won by grant or purchase a considerable share in the spoils, for nearly thirty manors, which came sooner or later into his possession, were originally church property. He could have rode," said Aubrey, "in his owne lands from Cogges (by Witney) to Banbury, about 18 miles." In 1537 he was knighted. The religious changes made by Edward VI. were repugnant to him, but at the beginning of Mary's reign he became a member of the privy council. In 1556 he was sent to reside as guardian in Elizabeth's house. As early as 1555 he had begun to arrange for the endowment of a college at Oxford, for which he bought the site and buildings of Durham College, the Oxford house of the abbey of Durham, from Dr George Owen and William Martyn. He received a royal charter for the establishment and endowment of a college of the "Holy and Undivided Trinity on the 8th of March 1556. The foundation provided for a president, twelve fellows and eight scholars, with a schoolhouse at Hooknorton. The number of scholars was subsequently increased to twelve, the schoolhouse being given up. On the 28th of March the members of the college were put in possession of the site, and they were formally admitted on the 29th of May 1556. Pope died at Clerkenwell on the 29th of January 1559, and was buried at St Stephen's.

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Walbrook; but his remains were subsequently removed to Trinity College, where his widow erected a semi-Gothic alabaster monument to his memory. He was three times married, but teft no children. Much of his property was left to charitable and religious foundations, and the bulk of his Oxfordshire estates passed to the family of his brother, John Pope of Wroxton, and his descendants, the viscounts Dillon and the earls of Guilford and barons North.

The life, by H. E. D. Blakiston, in the Dict. Nat. Biog., corrects many errors in Thomas Warton's Life of Sir Thomas Pope (1772). Further notices by the same authority are in his Trinity College (1898), in the College Histories" Series, and in the English Historical Review (April, 1896).

POPE-JOAN, a round game of cards, named after a legendary female Pope of the 9th century. An ordinary pack is used, from which the eight of diamonds has been removed, and a special round board in the form of eight compartments, named respectively Pope-Joan, Matrimony, Intrigue, Ace, King, Queen, Knave and Game (King, Queen and Knave are sometimes omitted). Each player-any number can play-contributes a stake, of which one counter is put into the divisions Ace, King, Queen, Knave and Game, two into Matrimony and Intrigue, and the rest into Pope-Joan. This is called "dressing the board." The cards are dealt round, with an extra hand for "stops," i.e. cards which stop, by their absence, the completion of a suit; thus the absence of the nine of spades stops the playing of the ten. The last card is turned up for trumps. Cards in excess may be dealt to "stops," or an agreed number may be left for the purpose, so that all players may have an equal number of cards. If an honour or "Pope " (nine of diamonds) is turned up, the dealer takes the counters in the compartment so marked. Sometimes the turning-up of Pope settles the hand, the dealer taking the whole pool. The Ace is the lowest card, the King the highest. The player on the dealer's left plays a card and names it; the player who has the next highest then plays it, till a stop is played, i.e. a card of which no one holds the next highest. All Kings are of course stops, also the seven of diamonds; also the cards next below the dealt stops, and the cards next below the played cards. After a stop the played cards are turned over, and the player of the stop (the card last played) leads again. The player who gets rid of all his cards first takes the counters in "Game," and receives a counter from each player for every card left in his hand, except from the player who may hold Pope but has not played it. The player of Ace, King, Queen or Knave of trumps takes the counters from that compartment. If King and Queen of trumps are in one hand, the holder takes the counters in "Matrimony "; if a Queen and Knave, those in "Intrigue "; if | all three, those in the two compartments; if they are in different hands these counters are sometimes divided. Unclaimed stakes are left for the next pool. Pope is sometimes considered a universal" stop.'

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POPERINGHE, an ancient town of West Flanders, 12 m. W. of Ypres. Pop. (1904), 11,680. It contains a fine church of the 11th century, dedicated to St Betin. In the 14th century it promised to become one of the principal communes in Flanders; but having incurred the resentment of Ypres on a matter of trade rivalry it was attacked and captured by the citizens of that place, who reduced it to a very subordinate position. There are extensive hop gardens, bleaching grounds and tanneries in the neighbourhood of the town.

POPHAM, SIR HOME RIGGS (1762-1820), British admiral, was the son of Stephen Popham, consul at Tetuan, and was his mother's twenty-first child. He entered the navy in 1778, and served with the flag of Rodney till the end of the war. In 1783 he was promoted lieutenant, and was for a time engaged on survey service on the coast of Africa. Between 1787 and 1793 he was engaged in a curious series of adventures of a commercial nature in the Eastern Sea-sailing first for the Imperial Ostend Company, and then in a vessel which he purchased and in part | loaded himself. During this time he took several surveys and rendered some services to the East India Company, which were officially acknowledged; but in 1793 his ship was seized, partly

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on the ground that he was carrying contraband and partly because he was infringing the East India Company's monopoly. His loss was put at £70,000, and he was entangled in litigation. In 1805 he obtained compensation to the amount of £25,000. The case was a hard one, for he was undoubtedly sailing with the knowledge of officials in India. While this dispute was going on Popham had resumed his career as a naval officer. He served with the army under the duke of York in Flanders as superintendent of Inland Navigation " and won his confidence. The protection of the duke was exercised with so much effect that Popham was promoted commander in 1794 and post captain in 1795. He was now engaged for years in co-operating in a naval capacity with the troops of Great Britain and her allies. In the Red Sea he was engaged in transporting the Indian troops employed in the expulsion of the French from Egypt. His bills for the repair of his ship at Calcutta were made the excuse for an attack on him and for charging him with the amount. It was just the time of the general reform of the dockyards, and there was much suspicion in the air. It was also the case that St Vincent did not like Popham, and that Benjamin Tucker (1762-1829), secretary to the admiralty, who had been the admiral's secretary, was his creature and sycophant. Popham was not the man to be snuffed out without an effort. He brought his case before Parliament, and was able to prove that there had been, if not deliberate dishonesty, at least the very grossest carelessness on the part of his assailants. In 1806 he co-operated with Sir David Baird in the occupation of the Cape. He then persuaded the authorities that, as the Spanish Colonies were discontented, it would be easy to promote a rising in Buenos Ayres. The attempt was made with Popham's squadron and 1400 soldiers; but the Spanish colonists, though discontented, were not disposed to accept British help, which would in all probability have been made an excuse for establishing dominion. They rose on the soldiers who landed, and took them prisoners. Popham was recalled, and censured by a court martial for leaving his station; but the City of London presented him with a sword of honour for his endeavours to "open new markets," and the sentence did him no harm. He held other commands in connexion with the movements of troops, was promoted rear admiral in 1814, and made K.C.B. in 1815. He died at Cheltenham on the 10th of September 1820, leaving a large family. Popham was one of the most scientific seamen of his time. He did much useful survey work, and was the author of the code of signals adopted by the admiralty in 1803 and used for many years.

POPHAM, SIR JOHN (c. 1531-1607), English judge, was born at Huntworth, in Somerset, about 1531. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and called to the bar at the Middle Temple. Concerning his early life little is known, but he was probably a member of the parliament of 1558. He was recorder of Bristol, and represented that city in parliament in 1571 and from 1572 to 1583. He was elected Speaker in 1580, and in 1581 became attorney-general, a post which he occupied until his appointment as lord chief justice in 1592. He presided at the trials of Sir Walter Raleigh and Guy Fawkes. Towards the end of his life Popham took a great interest in colonization, and was instrumental in procuring patents for the London and Plymouth companies for the colonization of Virginia. Popham was an advocate, too, of transportation abroad as a means of punishing rogues and vagabonds. His experiment in that direction, the Popham colony, an expedition under the leadership of his brother George (c. 1550-1608), had, however, but a brief career in its settlement (1607) on the Kennebec river. Popham died on the 10th of June 1607, and was buried at Wellington, Somerset. See Foss, Lives of the Judges; J. Winsor, History of America, vol. iii.

POPILIA (or POPILLIA), VIA, the name of two ancient roads in Italy. (1) A highroad running from the Via Appia at Capua to Regium, a distance of 321 m. right along the length of the peninsula, and the main road through the interior of the country, not along the coast. It was built in 159 B.C. by the censor M. Popilius Laenias or in 132 B.C. by the consul P. Popilius. (2) A

highroad from Ariminum to Aquileia along the Adriatic coast. | frequently with slender petioles vertically flattened. Many of It no doubt originally came into use when Aquileia was founded the species attain a large size, and all are of very rapid growth. as a frontier fortress of Italy in 181 B.C., and Polybius gives the The poplars are almost entirely confined to the north temperate distance correctly as 178 m. In 132 it was reconstructed (munila) zone, but a few approach or even pass its northern limit, and they by the consul P. Popilius, one of whose milestones has been are widely distributed within that area; they show, like the found near Atria. It ran along the shore strip (Lido) from Ari-willows, a partiality for moist ground and often line the river-sides minum to Ravenna (33 m.), where it was usual in imperial times in otherwise treeless districts. There are about twenty species, for travellers to take ship and go by canal to Altinum (q.v.), but the number cannot be very accurately defined-several, and there resume their journey by road, though we find the usually regarded as distinct, being probably merely variable stations right through on the Tabula Peutingeriana, and Narses forms of the same type, and the ease with which the trees intermarched in 552 from Aquileia to Ravenna. (T. As.) cross has led to the appearance of many hybrids. All yield a POPINJAY (O. Fr. papegai, or popingay, onomatopoeic, soft, easily-worked timber, which, though very perishable when original), an old name for a parrot. Except in its transferred exposed to weather, possesses sufficient durability when kept sense of a dressed-up, vain or conceited, empty-headed person, dry to give the trees a certain economic value. Many of the the word is now only used historically of a representation or species are used for paper-making. image of a parrot swinging from a high pole and used as a mark for archery or shooting matches. This shooting at the popinjay (see ARCHERY) was formerly a favourite sport. Popinjay is still the proper heraldic term for a parrot as a bearing or charge.

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Of the European kinds one of the most important and best marked forms is the white poplar or abele, P. alba, a tree of large size, with rounded spreading head and curved branches, which, like the trunk, are covered with a greyish white bark, becoming much furrowed on old stems. The leaves are ovate POPLAR, an eastern metropolitan borough of London, or nearly round in general outline, but with deeply waved, England, bounded N. by Hackney, S. by the river Thames, and more or less lobed and indented margins and cordate base; W. by Stepney and Bethnal Green, and extending E. to the the upper side is of a dark green tint, but the lower surface is boundary of the county of London. Pop. (1901), 168,822. clothed with a dense white down, which likewise covers the The river Lea, which the eastern boundary generally follows, is young shoots-giving, with the bark, a hoary aspect to the whole believed to have been crossed towards the north of the modern tree. As in all poplars, the catkins expand in early spring, long borough by a Roman road, the existence of which is recalled by before the leaves unfold; the ovaries bear four linear stigma lobes; the district-name of Old Ford; while Bow (formerly Stratford- the capsules ripen in May. A nearly related form, which may le-Bow or Stratford-atte-Bowe) was so named from the "bow " be regarded as a sub-species, canescens, the grey poplar of the or arched bridge which took the place of the ford in the time of nurseryman, is distinguished from the true abcle by its smaller, Henry II. South of these districts lies Bromley; in the south- less deeply cut leaves, which are grey on the upper side, but not east the borough includes Blackwall; and a deep southward bend so hoary beneath as those of P. alba; the pistil has eight stigma of the Thames here embraces the Isle of Dogs. Poplar falls lobes. Both trees occasionally attain a height of 90 ft. or more, within the great area commonly associated with a poor and but rarely continue to form sound timber beyond the first halfdensely crowded population under the name of the " East End." century of growth, though the trunk will sometimes endure for It is a district of narrow, squalid streets and mean houses, among a hundred and fifty years. The wood is very white, and, from which, however, the march of modern improvement may be seen its soft and even grain, is employed by turners and toy-makers, in the erection of model dwellings, mission houses and churches, while, being tough and little liable to split, it is also serviceable and various public buildings. In the north a part of Victoria for the construction of packing cases, the lining of carts and Park is included. In Blackwall and the Isle of Dogs streets waggons, and many similar purposes; when thoroughly seasoned give place to the extensive East and West India Docks (opened it makes good flooring planks, but shrinks much in drying, in 1806) and Millwall Dock, with shipbuilding, engineering, weighing about 58 lb per cubic foot when green, but only 33 Ib chemical and other works along the river. Blackwall has been when dry. The white poplar is an ornamental tree, from its a shipping centre from early times. From the south of the graceful though somewhat irregular growth and its dense Isle of Dogs (the portion called Cubitt Town) a tunnel for foot-hoary foliage; it has, however, the disadvantage of throwing up passengers (1902) connects with Greenwich on the opposite numerous suckers for some yards around the trunk. shore of the Thames, and lower down the river is the fine Blackwall tunnel, carrying a wide roadway, completed by the London County Council in 1897 at a cost, inclusive of incidental expenses, of £1,383,502. Among institutions the Poplar Accidents Hospital may be mentioned. Near the East India Docks is the settlement of St Frideswide, supported by Christ Church, Oxford. In Canning Town, which continues this district of poverty across the Lea, and so outside the county of London, are Mansfield House, founded from Mansfield College, Oxford; and a Women's Settlement, especially notable for its medical work. The metropolitan borough of Poplar includes the Bow and Bromley and the Poplar divisions of the Tower Hamlets parliamentary borough, each returning one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 7 aldermen and 42 councillors. Area, 2327-7 acres.

POPLAR (Lat. Populus), the name of a small group of catkinbearing trees belonging to the order Salicaceae. The catkins of the poplars differ from those of the nearly allied willows in the presence of a rudimentary perianth, of obliquely cup-shaped form, within the toothed bracteal scales; the male flowers contain from eight to thirty stamens; the fertile bear a onecelled (nearly divided) ovary, surmounted by the deeply cleft stigmas; the two-valved capsule contains several seeds, each furnished with a long tuft of silky or cotton-like hairs. The leaves are broader than in most willows, and are generally either deltoid or ovate in shape, often cordate at the base, and

The grey and white poplars are usually multiplied by long cuttings; the growth is so rapid in a moist loamy soil that, according to Loudon, cuttings 9 ft. in length, planted beside a stream, formed in twelve years trunks 10 in. in diameter. Both these allied forms occur throughout central and southern Europe, but, though now abundant in England, it is doubtful whether they are there indigenous. P. alba suffers much from the ravages of wood-eating larvae, and also from fungoid growths, especially where the branches have been removed by pruning or accident.

P. nigra, the black poplar, is a tree of large growth, with dark, deeply-furrowed bark on the trunk, and ash-coloured branches; the smooth deltoid leaves, serrated regularly on the margin, are of the deep green tint which has given name to the tree; the petioles, slightly compressed, are only about half the length of the leaves. The black poplar is common in central and southern Europe and in some of the adjacent parts of Asia, but, though abundantly planted in Britain, is not there indigenous. The wood is of a yellowish tint. In former days this was the prevalent poplar in Britain, and the timber was employed for the purposes to which that of other species is applied, but has been superseded by P. monilifera and its varieties; it probably furnished the poplar wood of the Romans, which, from its lightness and soft tough grain, was in esteem for shield-making; in continental Europe it is still in some request; the bark, in Russia, is used for tanning leather, while in Kamchatka it is sometimes

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