Fame, and his fault was that he pretended to neglect it. His levity and his fullennefs were only in his Letters; he paffed through common life, fometimes vexed, and fometimes pleafed, with the natural emotions of common men.

His fcorn of the Great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he defpifes; and as falfehood is always in danger of inconfiftency, he makes it his boaft at another time. that he lives among them.

It is evident that his own importance fwells often in his mind. He is afraid of writing, left the clerks of the Poftoffice fhould know his fecrets; he has many enemies; he confiders himself as furrounded by univerfal jealoufy; after Q3

many

many deaths, and many difperfions, two or three of us, fays he, may ftill be brought together, not to plot, but to divert ourfelves, and the world too, if it pleases; and they can live together, and fhew chat friends wits may be, in fpite of all the fools in the world. All this while it was likely that the clerks did not know his hand; he certainly had no more enemies than a publick character like his inevitably excites, and with what degree of friendship the wits might live very few were fo much fools as ever to enquire.

Some part of this pretended difcon tent he learned from Swift, and expreffes it, I think, moft frequently in his correfpondence with him. Swift's resent

ment

ment was unreasonable, but it was finçere; Pope's was the mere mimickry of his friend, a fictitious part which he began to play before it became him. When he was only twenty-five years old, he related that a glut of study and retirement had thrown him on the world, and that there was danger left a glut of the world should throw him back upon study. and retirement. To this Swift answered

with

great propriety, that Pope had not yet either acted or fuffered enough in. the world to have become weary of it.. And, indeed, it must be fome very powerful reason that can drive back to folitude him who has once enjoyed the pleafures of fociety.

In the Letters both of Swift and Pope there appears fuch narrowness of mind, as makes them infenfible of any excellence that has not fome affinity with their own, and confines their efteem and approbation to so small a number, that whoever fhould form his opinion of the age from their reprefentation, would fuppofe them to have lived amidst ignorance and barbarity, unable to find among their contemporaries either virtue or intelligence, and perfecuted by thofe that could not understand them.

When Pope murmurs at the world, when he profeffes contempt of fame, when he fpeaks of riches and poverty, of fuccefs and difappointment, with ncgligent indifference, he certainly docs

not

not express his habitual and fettled fentiments, but either wilfully difguifes his own character, or, what is more likely, invests himself with temporary qualities, and fallies out in the colours of the present moment. His hopes and fears, his joys and forrows, acted ftrongly upon his mind; and if he differed from others, it was not by careleffness; he was irritable and refentful; his malignity to Philips, whom he had first made ridiculous, and then hated for being angry, continued too long. Of his vain defire to make Bentley contemptible, I never heard any adequate reafon. He was fometimes wanton in his attacks; and, before Chandos, Lady Wort