with one
repartee of Pope, of which Johnson was not informed. Johnson, after
justly censuring him for having 'nursed in his mind a foolish dis-esteem
of Kings,' tells us, 'yet a little regard shewn him by the Prince of
Wales melted his obduracy; and he had not much to say when he was asked
by his Royal Highness, _how he could love a Prince, while he disliked
Kings_[176]?' The answer which Pope made, was, 'The young lion is
harmless, and even playful; but when his claws are full grown he becomes
cruel, dreadful, and mischievous.'

But although we have no collection of Pope's sayings, it is not
therefore to be concluded, that he was not agreeable in social
intercourse; for Johnson has been heard to say, that 'the happiest
conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a
general effect of pleasing impression.' The late Lord Somerville[177],
who saw much both of great and brilliant life, told me, that he had
dined in company with Pope, and that after dinner the _little man_, as
he called him, drank his bottle of Burgundy, and was exceedingly gay and
entertaining.

I cannot withhold from my great friend a censure of at least culpable
inattention, to a nobleman, who, it has been shewn[178], behaved to him
with uncommon politeness. He says, 'Except Lord Bathurst, none of Pope's
noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his
intimacy with them known to posterity[179].' This will not apply to Lord
Mansfield, who was not ennobled in Pope's life-time; but Johnson should
have recollected, that Lord Marchmont was one of those noble friends. He
includes his Lordship along with Lord Bolingbroke, in a charge of
neglect of the papers which Pope left by his will; when, in truth, as I
myself pointed out to him, before he wrote that poet's life, the papers
were 'committed to _the sole care and judgement_ of Lord Bolingbroke,
unless he (Lord Bolingbroke) shall not survive me;' so that Lord
Marchmont had no concern whatever with them[180]. After the first
edition of the _Lives_, Mr. Malone, whose love of justice is equal to
his accuracy, made, in my hearing, the same remark to Johnson; yet he
omitted to correct the erroneous statement[181]. These particulars I
mention, in the belief that there was only forgetfulness in my friend;
but I owe this much to the Earl of Marchmont's reputation, who, were
there no other memorials, will be immortalised by that line of Pope, in
the verses on his Grotto: