notice, however, was foon in many mouths; and, if I do not forget or mifapprehend Savage's account, Pope, prétending to decline what was not yet offered, left his house for a time, not, I fuppofe, for any other reafon than left he fhould be thought to ftay at home in expectation of an honour which would not be conferred. He was therefore an

gry at Swift, who reprefents him as refufing the vifits of a Queen, because he knew that what had never been offered, had never been refused.

Befide the general fyftem of morality fuppofed to be contained in the Effay on Man, it was his intention to write dif tinct poems upon the different duties or conditions of life; one of which is the Epiftle

2

Epistle to Lord Bathurst (1733) on the Ufe of Riches, a piece on which he declared great labour to have been beftowed *

Into this poem fome incidents are hiftorically thrown, and fome known characters are introduced, with others of which it is difficult to fay how far they are real or fictitious; but the praise of Kyrl, the Man of Rofs, deferves particular examination, who, after a long and pompous enumeration of his publick works and private charities, is faid to have diffused all thofe bleffings from five hundred a year. Wonders are willingly told, and willingly heard. The truth is, that Kyrl was a man of known

* Spence.

integrity, and active benevolence, by whose folicitation the wealthy were perfuaded to pay contributions to his charitable schemes; this influence he ob tained by an example of liberality exerted to the utmoft extent of his power, and was thus enabled to give.. more than he had. This account Mr. Victor received from the minifter of the place, and I have preferved it, that the praise of a good man being made more credible, may be more folid. Narrations of romantick and impracticable virtue will be read with wonder, but that which is unattainable is reconmended in vain; that good may be endeavoured, it must be fhewn to be pof

fible.

This is the only piece in which the author has given a hint of his religion, by ridiculing the ceremony of burning the pope, and by mentioning with fome indignation the infcription on the Monument.

When this poem was firft published, the dialogue, having no letters of direction, was perplexed and obfcure. Pope feems to have written with no very dif tinct idea; for he calls that an Epistle to Bathurst, in which Bathurst is introduced as fpeaking.

He afterwards (1734) infcribed to Lord Cobham his Characters of Men, written with close attention to the operations of the mind and modifications of life. In this poem he has endea

I

voured

voured to establish and exemplify his favourite theory of the Ruling Paffion, by which he means an original direction of defire to fome particular object, an innate affection which gives all action a determinate and invariable tendency, and operates upon the whole fyftem of life, either openly, or more fecretly by the intervention of fome accidental or fubordinate propenfion.

Of any paffion, thus innate and irrefiftible, the existence may reasonably be doubted. Human characters are by no means conftant; men change by change of place, of fortune, of acquaintance; he who is at one time a lover of pleasure, is at another a lover of money. Thofe indeed who attain any excel