The

genius, should have treated his visitor with rudeness. lady of the mansion had probably looked askance on Miss Blount, and the deportment of the latter was by no means conciliatory. The storm, however, soon blew over. Pope and Allen were again friends, and Warburton was reinstated in his friendly and confidential office of critical adviser and commentator.

The preparation of a complete, correct, and annotated edition of his works was the latest care and anxiety of the poet. Warburton revised the Preface and Essay prefixed to Homer, and supplied comments and notes to the different poems. The Essay on Man and Essay on Criticism, with Warburton's commentaries, were published in a quarto volume in 1743, "in the same paper and character to be bound up with the Dunciad," and the rest of the author's original poems were announced as in preparation. Pope was lavish of compliments to his coadjutor. "You have," he wrote, "not only monthly, but weekly of late, loaded me with favours of that kind which are most acceptable to veteran authors; those garlands which a commentator weaves to hang about the poet, and which are flowers both of his own gathering and painting too-not blossoms springing from the dry author. Warburton wandered far in quest of these editorial flowers, and sometimes gathered thistles!

He explored the recesses of his curious and multifarious erudition, brought forward paradoxes to illustrate doubtful and to obscure obvious truths, and he racked his invention to find analogies which were visible only through his "critical telescope." The poet writes again on the same subject, conscious that his increasing weakness rendered it necessary to work while it was yet day:

"Whatever little respites I have had from the daily care of my malady have been employed in revising the papers "On the Use of

5 In one of the letters of Lady Hervey to the Countess of Suffolk there is an allusion to Miss Blount, couched in the form of a medical allegory: "I am sorry our poor little friend was forced to go to the Bath for so unpleasant a distemper; for I am informed it was to get rid of some proud flesh that is grown to his side and makes him extremely uneasy. It is thought it will prove a mortification."

POPE REVISES HIS EPISTLES.

381

Riches," which I would have ready for your last revise against you come to town, that they may be begun while you are here. I own the late encroachments upon my constitution make me willing to see the end of all further care about me or my works. I would rest for the one in a full resignation of my being to be disposed of by the Father of all mercy; and for the other (though indeed a trifle, yet a trifle may be some example), I would commit them to the candour of a sensible and reflecting judge, rather than to the malice of every short-sighted and malevolent critic, or inadvertent and censorious reader. And no hand can set them in so good a light, or so well turn their best side to the day, as your own. This obliges me to confess I have for some months thought myself going, and that not slowly, down the hill-the rather as every attempt of the physicians, and still the last medicines more forcible in their nature, have utterly failed to serve me. I was at last, about seven days ago, taken with so violent a fit at Battersea, that my friends Lord M. and Lord B. sent for present help to the surgeon; whose bleeding me, I am persuaded, saved my life, by the instantaneous effect it had; and which has continued so much to amend me, that I have passed five days without oppression."

While at Battersea he addressed a note to his printer, Bowyer, in Whitefriars, which illustrates his unwearied care and anxiety, even in his last days, with respect to his works. The original is in the British Museum :

"Nov. 3 (1743).

"I am for a few days at Battersea, at Lord Marchmont's, whither I've left orders with the waterman to bring me everything from you. I doubt not you'll be upon the watch, or set any other, in case of any piracy of the Dunciad, to inform me, who shall be ready to prosecute. As to the little edition, they have still not separated it aright. The second volume must (as the title you'll see implies) contain the fourth book, as well as the memoirs and index. Pray close your account with Mrs. Cooper of the octavo's second volume (no more of which should now be sold), and make all that remain correspond with the present edition, ready to be republished, as we shall find occasion, the two together. And let me know when you have vended 500 of the quarto. I thank you for all your care, and shall be ever your affect. humble servant, A. POPE."

In his latter years, when rowed up and down the river, Pope usually sat in a sedan chair, in which he was carried to the boat; and so late as 1813 an aged boatman on the

Thames ("Old Horne") survived to talk of "Mr. Pope," whom, when a boy, he had often seen, and well remembered.

On the 12th of December, 1743, the poet made his will. (See Appendix.) A sum of 1000l. was left to Martha Blount, with all his household effects, and the residue of his estate after debts and legacies were paid. The produce of the latter being invested in proper securities, and paid half yearly to Miss Blount, was to descend on her death to Mrs. Rackett and her family. To this lady he devised a sum of 3001, and a bond of 500l., due by one of her sons; and to two other sons he left 1007. each. To his sister he also left the family pictures and other memorials, of which the final destination is not known. The amount of Pope's fortune seems to have been under 50007.

Short visits to Battersea were still occasionally indulged in. To Bolingbroke and Marchmont he writes:

Sunday night, Twickenham. "MY DEAR LORDS,-Yes, I would see you as long as I can see you, and then shut my eyes upon the world as a thing worth seeing no longer. If your charity would take up a small bird that is half dead of the frost, and set it a-chirping for half an hour, I will jump into my cage, and put myself into your hands to-morrow at any hour you send. Two horses will be enough to draw me (and so would two dogs if you had them), but even the fly upon the chariot-wheel required some bigger animal than itself to set it a-going. Quadrigis petimus bene vivere is literally true when one cannot get into good company without horses; and such is my case. I am faithfully to you both a most cordial, entire servant, A. POPE.”6

When the frost had broken up, a new difficulty to locomotion occurred. The authority of a royal proclamation now prescribed limits to the declining poet's excursions. The threatened invasion of England by the French, accompanied by the young Pretender, caused a general alarm throughout the kingdom, and all Roman Catholics were prohibited from appearing within ten miles of London. The enemy was actually seen off our coast; there was a fleet of fifteen ships of the line and five frigates; and some transports, containing

6 Marchmont Papers, vol. ii. p. 291.