under the influence of Bolingbroke. His last, and in some
respects best, works were his _Imitations of Horace_, _pub._ between 1733
and 1739, and the fourth book of _The Dunciad_ (1742), already mentioned.
A naturally delicate constitution, a deformed body, extreme
sensitiveness, over-excitement, and overwork did not promise a long life,
and P. _d._ on May 30, 1744, aged 56.

His position as a poet has been the subject of much contention among
critics, and on the whole is lower than that assigned him by his
contemporaries and immediate successors. Of the higher poetic qualities,
imagination, sympathy, insight, and pathos, he had no great share; but
for the work which in his original writings, as distinguished from
translations, he set himself to do, his equipment was supreme, and the
medium which he used--the heroic couplet--he brought to the highest
technical perfection of which it is capable. He wrote for his own age,
and in temper and intellectual and spiritual outlook, such as it was, he
exactly reflected and interpreted it. In the forging of condensed,
pointed, and sparkling maxims of life and criticism he has no equal, and
in painting a portrait Dryden alone is his rival; while in the _Rape of
the Lock_ he has produced the best mock-heroic poem in existence. Almost
no author except Shakespeare is so often quoted. His extreme vanity and
sensitiveness to criticism made him often vindictive, unjust, and
venomous. They led him also into frequent quarrels, and lost him many
friends, including Lady M. Wortley Montagu, and along with a strong
tendency to finesse and stratagem, of which the circumstances attending
the publication of his literary correspondence is the chief instance,
make his character on the whole an unamiable one. On the other hand, he
was often generous; he retained the friendship of such men as Swift and
Arbuthnot, and he was a most dutiful and affectionate son.

SUMMARY.--_B._ 1688, _ed._ at various Romanist schools, introduced to
Wycherley 1704, _pub._ _Pastorals_ 1709, _Essay on Criticism_ 1711, _Rape
of the Lock_ 1714, _Windsor Forest_ and _Temple of Fame_ 1713,
translation of _Iliad_ 1715-20, _Odyssey_ 1725-26, _coll._ _Works_ 1717,
buys villa at Twickenham 1718, _pub._ ed. of _Shakespeare_ 1725,
_Miscellanies_ 1727-28, _Dunciad_ 1728 (fourth book 1742), _Epistles_
1731-35, _Essay on Man_ 1733, _Imitations of Horace_ 1733-39, _d._ 1744.

The best ed. of the _Works_ is that of Elwin and Courthope,