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peculiarly fweet and engaging; thefe circumftances, no doubt, contributed to endear him to his parents, for, as on the one hand, the mildness and fuavity of his difpofition attracted their love, fo on the other hand, the imbecility of his frame, excited a tender commiferation; and thus both co-operated to increafe and confirm their parental affection.

It was probably owing to their tenderness for him, that it was late before he was fent to school, having in his childhood been taught to read by an aunt. By the time he was seven or eight years old, he is faid to have taken uncommon delight in reading: and it is remarkable that he learnt to write by imitating print, which he copied with great correctness and exactnefs.

When he attained his eighth year, he was placed under the private tuition of one Taverner, a priest *, who lived fomewhere in Hampfhire; from him he learned the rudiments of the Latin and Greek tongues, and he made a very confiderable progress under the care of this inftructor.

At this very early age, he discovered the bent of his genius. About that time, he chanced to meet with Ogilby's tranflation of

* His family was of the Romish religion, in which he himself was educated, and conftantly profeffed: but an occafion will occur hereafter to fpeak more particularly of his religious principles.

Homer,

Homer, and was fo fmitten with the fubject, that he read it with great avidity and delight; being then, too young to be difgufted, by the poverty and infipidity of the verfion. He foon after took Sandys's Ovid in hand, and the agreeable impreffions he received from thefe indifferent tranflations, were fo powerful, that he ever after continued to speak of them with pleasure.

He did not remain long, however, under the tuition of the priest; he was sent from him, in a little time, to a private school at Twiford near Winchefter. Neither did he continue there any confiderable time; for in about a year he was removed from thence to a fçhool near HydePark Corner, being then about ten years of age. At these schools, he made no proficiency, but rather loft, under these two laft negligent mafters, what he had acquired under the former. He was himself fo fenfible of the infufficiency of his mafter at Twiford, that, among his earliest pieces, he wrote a very juft fatire, exposing the failings and defects he had discovered in him.

In the course of his fchool exercises however, he tranflated above one fourth of Ovid's Metamorphofis, befides detached pieces here and there. The tranflation of the Thebaid of Statius, was likewise among the productions of his childhood, but finding the verses, on a review of them, better than he expected, he gave it fome correction in his riper years, and put it

into the form wherein it is now printed in the octavo edition.

While he was at the school near Hyde-Park Corner, the attention paid to his conduct was fo remifs, that he was fuffered to frequent the playhouse in company with the greater boys. At his years, and with his caft of genius, it is eafy to conceive that the novelty of theatrical representation, must have made a more than ordinary impreffion on his mind. He was fo forcibly fmitten with the charms of the drama, that he was difpofed to imitation, and applied himself to turn the chief tranfactions of the Iliad into a kind of play, compofed of a number of speeches from Ogilby's tranflation, tacked together with verfes of his own.

By his early abilities and winning difpofition, he had acquired fuch influence among his school-fellows, that he perfuaded fome of the upper boys to take parts in a representation of this juvenile piece, and he prevailed on the mafter's gardener to act the character of Ajax. The dreffes of the actors were all modelled after the fashion of the prints in his favourite Ogilby, which, as fome have remarked, formed the chief merit of that book, they having been defigned and engraved by artists of note.

At the age of twelve, he went to refide at Binfield, in Windfor-Foreft, with his father, who had retired thither from business about the time of the

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revolution: and, having converted all his effects into money, he is faid to have brought with him into the country, near 20,000 /. Being a papist, he could not veft his money on real fecurity; and as he adhered to the intereft of James, he deemed it a point of conscience not to lend it to the new government. He therefore locked up this fum in his cheft, and lived upon the principal, till by that time his fon came to the fucceffion, a great part of it was confumed. To this mistaken pertinacity, our bard, fpeaking of his father, alludes in the following lines, in his Epiftle to Dr. Arbuthnot:

"For right hereditary tax'd and fin'd,

"He ftuck to poverty, with peace of mind."

Soon after our author was, for a few months, placed under the tuition of another priest, one Deane, from whofe inftructions however, he received very little benefit, having made no farther progrefs under him, than that of being able to conftrue a little of Tully's Offices.

Our poet was often heard to say, that he could never follow any thing which he did not pursue with pleafure: and his masters either wanted fagacity to discover the bent of his genius, or talents to adapt their inftructions accordingly, fo as to render his ftudies an amufe ment to him. Finding that he profited fo little under their tuition, he formed a noble refolution, at this early period of life, of becoming his own master, and he began to cultivate his

talents

talents with unwearied fedulity. The method of study which he prescribed to himself for this purpose, was the reading of the claffic writers, more especially of the poets, to whom he applied with great eagernefs and enthusiasm.

It is in our early years, that the true bent of genius is difcovered. It then acts fpontaneously, nay in fome, as has been intimated, it is fo powerful as even to act against oppofition. Mr. POPE's paffion for poetry was fo ftrong, that he often declared he began to write verfes earlier in life than he could call to memory; and he says, in his Epiftle to Dr. Arbuthnot:

"I lifp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.'

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When he was yet a child, his father would frequently fet him to make English verfes, and, though no poet, was nevertheless fo very difficult to be pleased, that he would make his fon correct them again and again. When they were to his mind, he took pleasure in perusing them, and would fay, "These are good rhymes." It has been well obferved, that the early praises of a tender and refpected parent, co-operating with the powerful bias of natural inclination in the fon, might fix our young bard in his ambition to become eminent in this art.

It seems, however, that his father had fometimes recommended to him the study of phyfic*, but

* Letter 8th, to Cromwell.

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