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Baynes and Son, Paternoster Row; Smith, Elder, and Co. Cornhill; J. Bain, Mews' Gate; William Mason, Pickett Street; T. Lester, Finsbury Place; J. Arnould, Spring Gardens; M. Iley, Somerset Street; R. Baynes, Paternoster Row; J. Hearne, Strand; J. F. Setchel, King Street; W. Booth, Duke Street; E. Wheatley, Leicester Square; R. Hoffman, Strand; H. Steel, Tower Hill; P. Wright, Broad Street; Henry Motley, Derby, M. Keene, J. Cumming, C. P. Archer, and R. M. Tims, Dublin and H. S. Baynes, Edinburgh.

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Printed by J. F. DovE, St. John's Square.

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MEMOIRS

OF

ALEXANDER POPE.

ALEXANDER POPE was born in London, May 22, 1688, of parents whose rank or station was never ascertained. He was from his birth of a constitution tender and delicate; but is said to have shewn remarkable gentleness and sweetness of disposition. When he was about eight, he was placed in Hampshire, under Taverner, a Romish priest, who taught him the Greek and Latin rudiments together. He was now first regularly initiated in poetry by the perusal of " Ogilby's Homer" and "Sandys' Ovid."

The earliest of Pope's productions is his "Ode on Solitude," written before he was twelve, in which there is nothing more than other forward boys have attained, and which is not equal to Cowley's performances at the same age. His time was now wholly spent in reading and writ. ing. As he read the classics, he amused himself with translating them; and at fourteen made a version of the first book of "The Thebais," which, with some revision, he afterward published. He must have been at this time, if he had no help, a considerable proficient in the Latin tongue.

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