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XXXI.

ALEXANDER POPE.

1688-1744.

ALEXANDER POPE was born in London in 1688. He was the son of a linen-draper who had made some fortune in that trade. In childhood he was noted for the sweetness and gentleness of his temper-qualities which certainly did not distinguish his later years, for the beauty of his voice, and for his manual dexterity in writing. At eight years of age he began Latin and Greek at the same time under a Romish priest named Taverner, his parents being of that persuasion. He was next sent to a Roman Catholic seminary at Twyford, whence he was removed for a lampoon— one of his first efforts in poetry-on his master.

In 1700, when twelve years old, he retired with his father, who, like other Romanists of the time, was attached to the fortunes of James II, to Binfield, in Berkshire. Here, at this early age, he determined to become a poet. To indulge this passion, he left no calling or profession, as so many have done. He was invariably and solely a poet from the beginning of his life to its end. His Ode to Solitude was written when he was twelve, the Pastorals at sixteen, and the Essay on Criticism at twenty. With the money received for the first books of his translation of the Iliad he purchased the villa at Twickenham, which has ever since been associated with his name. Here and in London he lived until the end of his days, at times the foe, but oftener the associate and companion and friend of the wits and men of letters of the day. He suffered through life from physical infirmity and constant ill-health. He died in 1744.

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