he should ride daily: he followed the advice, and was soon restored to health.

When the circumstances just related occurred, Pope was about seventeen; and upwards of twenty years after, he repaid the kindness of Southcote, by procuring for him, through the interference of Sir Robert Walpole, the nomination to an abbey in Avignon.

He

While resident in the Forest, Pope became acquainted with Sir William Trumbull, who had now retired from public life to his native place, Easthamstead, in the neighbourhood of Binfield. possessed a very cultivated mind; and from the similarity of their tastes, a friendship was speedily formed between the statesman of sixty and the youthful poet, which terminated only with Sir William's death. They were in the habit of reading, conversing on the classics, and riding out together.

By Sir William Trumbull our author was in

1 "Sir William Trumbull was born at Easthamstead in Berkshire. He was fellow of All Soul's College in Oxford, followed the study of the civil law, and was sent by King Charles the Second Judge Advocate to Tangier, thence Envoy to Florence, Turin, &c. and, in his way back, Envoy Extraordinary to France; from thence sent, by King James the Second, Ambassador to the Ottoman Port. Afterwards he was made Lord of the Treasury, then Secretary of State with the Duke of Shrewsbury, which office he resigned in 1697. He retired to Easthamstead in Windsor Forest, and died in the Place of his Nativity in December 1716, aged 77 years." Ayre's Life of Pope, vol. i. p. 5.

troduced to Wycherley, who was then nearly seventy years of age. Pope was doubtless desirous to court the notice of a man whose comedies had justly raised him to such eminence: and they seem to have conceived a sincere esteem for each other, notwithstanding the disparity of their years. In one of his letters to Wycherley, April 30th, 1705, Pope pleasantly observes; "I know it is the general opinion, that friendship is best contracted betwixt persons of equal age; but I have so much interest to be of another mind, that you must pardon me if I cannot forbear telling you a few notions of mine in opposition to that opinion. In the first place, it is observable that the love we bear to our friends is generally caused by our finding the same dispositions in them which we feel in ourselves. This is but self love at the bottom; whereas the affection betwixt people of different ages cannot well be so, the inclinations of such being commonly various. The friendship of two young men is often occasioned by love of pleasure or voluptuousness; each being desirous for his own sake, of one to assist or encourage him in the course he pursues; as that of two old men is frequently on the score of some profit, lucre, or design upon others. Now, as a young man, who is less acquainted with the ways of the world, has in all probability less of interest; and an old man, who may be weary of himself, has, or should have, less of self-love; so the friendship between them

Is the more likely to be true, and unmixed with too much self-regard. One may add to this, that such a friendship is of greater use and advantage to both; for the old man will grow gay and agreeable to please the young one, and the young man more discreet and prudent by the help of the old one; so it may prove a cure of those epidemical diseases of age and youth, sourness and madness. I hope you will not need many arguments to convince you of the possibility of this: one alone abundantly satisfies me, and convinces to the heart; which is, that young as I am, and old as you are, I am your entirely affectionate, &c." Wycherley, intending to publish a new edition of his Fugitive Poems, entrusted the correction of them to Pope, who continued for several years with the most conscientious boldness to criticise and alter his rugged lines. The task was exceedingly troublesome; especially as Wycherley's memory, in consequence of a fever, had become so defective, that his verses contained numerous repetitions of the same ideas. The freedom of Pope's strictures and emendations appears to have mortified the old man's vanity; and there was

1 c Wycherley was really angry with me for correcting his verses so much. I was extremely plagued, up and down, for almost two years with them." Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 150. There were several verses of mine inserted in Mr. Wycherley's Poems, here and there; and particularly in those on Solitude,-On a Life of Business,—and on a Middle Life."-Ibid, p. 198.

not wanting some ill-disposed person to "insinuate malicious untruths of him to Wycherley."1 A coldness, at last, took place between them. "I hope," says Pope in a letter to Mr. Cromwell, Oct. 28th, 1710, "it will be no offence to give my most hearty service to Mr. Wycherley, though I perceive by his last to me, I am not to trouble him with my letters, since he there told me he was going instantly out of town, and till his return was my servant, etc. I guess by yours he is yet with you, and beg you to do what you may with all truth and honour, that is, assure him I have ever borne all the respect and kindness imaginable to him. I do not know to this hour what it is that has estranged him from me; but this I know, that he may for the future be more safely my friend, since no invitation of his shall ever more make me so free with him. I could not have thought any man so very cautious and suspicious, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed, to believe nobody, may be a maxim of safety, but not so much of honesty. There is but one way I know of conversing safely with all men; that is, not by concealing what we say or do, but by saying or doing nothing that deserves to be concealed, and I can truly boast this comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his jealousy, which is become his nature, and shall never be his enemy whatsoever he says of me.' In this affair Pope appears.

'Letter from Pope to Cromwell, Oct. 19th, 1709.

to have been entirely free from blame. He still paid occasional visits to Wycherley, went to see him on his death-bed in 1715, and ever spoke of him in terms of kindness and respect.

Another of those friends with whom Pope's talents brought him into connection, was Mr. Walsh, of Abberley in Worcestershire, the author of various verses which the good-nature of editors has admitted into collections of the British Poets. He was regarded by Dryden as the best critic in England; and he was certainly an elegant and accomplished scholar, possessing a considerable knowledge of the Italian poets, at a period when those delightful writers were neglected by his countrymen. In 1705, having received from Wycherley a copy of Pope's unpublished Pastorals, he was so struck by their beauty, that he thought it was "not flattery at all to say, that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age," and requested Wycherley to make him acquainted with our poet. Ere long, Pope had to reckon Walsh among the kindest of his friends, and spent part of the summer of 1705 at his seat in Worcestershire. "He used to encourage me much," said Pope to Spence, “and used to tell me, that there was one way left of excelling; for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and desired me to make that my study and aim.”1 Walsh died in 1708;

1 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 280.