SATIRE I.-Book II.-To MR. FORTESCUE II.-Book II.-To MR. BETHEL EPISTLE I.-Book I.-To LORD BOLINGBROKE VI.-BOOK I.-To MR. MURRAY ALEXANDER POPE. ALEXANDER, the only child of Alexander Pope, by Editha, daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York, was born in Lombard-street, London, on the twenty-first of May, 1688. His father, having amassed a fortune of about twenty thousand pounds by his business as a linen-draper, retired to Binfield, in Windsor Forest; and being a Roman Catholic, and therefore, as it is said, unwilling to trust the government with his money, spent the greater part of it before his death. At the age of eight, Pope was placed under the care of a priest, in Hampshire, and instructed at once in the rudiments of Greek and Latin: from thence he was removed to a school at Twyford, near Winchester; and afterwards to one in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park Corner. Being a weak and sickly child, he passed most of his time in reading, and in making verses, a propensity in which he was encouraged by his father. Ogilby's "Homer" and Sandys's "Ovid" were amongst his favourite books. Of his earliest attempts at verse, the "Ode on Solitude" only remains. He had the good sense to destroy the rest. Spence tells us that Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Pope's great favourites, in the order they are named, in his first reading, and till he was about twelve years old. He says himself, that he learned versification from Dryden. In his youthful poem of "Alcander," he imitated every poet-Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statius, Virgil, Homer. In a few years he had dipped into a great number of the English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. "This I did," he says, "without any design except to amuse myself and got the languages by hunting after the stories in the several poets. I read-rather than read the books—to get the languages. I followed everywhere as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the woods and fields, just as they fell in his way. These five or six years I looked upon as the happiest in my life." 66 When near London, he went to the playhouses; and, in imitation of what he saw there, formed a drama out of the 'Iliad," to be represented by his schoolfellows. At Will's Coffee-House he had a sight of Dryden, a yet greater curiosity to him than the actors. At sixteen he wrote his "Pastorals," which were not printed till 1709, when they appeared in a poetical Miscellany. In that year his “Essay on Criticism" was composed; and two years after, the " Rape of the Lock," which was also published in a miscellany, and at first consisted of only three hundred and fifty lines; but being afterwards embellished with the machinery, was extended to more than double the length. The fancy and elegance of this work placed him at the head of all his poetical competitors. In 1713 he completed "Windsor Forest," which had been begun at the age of sixteen; and, relying on the high reputation he had obtained, put forth proposals for a subscription to an English version of the "Iliad." His imitations of Chaucer, and translations from the Latin poets, |