e amplified
and finished passages derived from them; but this is an amusement which
the reader can contrive for himself. I have extracted the most material
notes.

This fragment is a companion-piece to the engraved fac-simile of a page
of Pope's Homer, in this volume.

That fac-simile, a minutely perfect copy of the manuscript, was not
given to show the autograph of Pope,--a practice which has since so
generally prevailed,--but to exhibit to the eye of the student the
fervour and the diligence required in every work of genius. This could
only be done by showing the state of the manuscript itself, with all its
erasures, and even its half-formed lines; nor could this effect be
produced by giving only some of the corrections, which Johnson had
already, in printed characters. My notion has been approved of, because
it was comprehended by writers of genius: yet this fac-simile has been
considered as nothing more than an autograph by those literary
blockheads, who, without taste and imagination, intruding into the
province of literature, find themselves as awkward as a once popular
divine, in his "Christian Life," assures us certain sinners would in
paradise,--like "pigs in a drawing-room."

POPE.

Nothing occasional. No haste. No rivals. No compulsion.
Practised only one form of verse. Facility from use. Emulated
former pieces. Cooper's-hill. Dryden's ode. Affected to disdain
flattery. _Not happy in his selection of patrons_. _Cobham,
Bolingbroke_.[260] _Cibber's abuse will be better to him than
a dose of hartshorn_. Poems long delayed. Satire and praise
late, alluding to something past. He had always some poetical
plan in his head.[261] Echo to the sense. Would not constrain
himself too much. Felicities of language. Watts.[262] Luxury of
language. _Motives to study; want of health, want of money;
helps to study; some small patrimony_. _Prudent and frugal_;
pint of wine.

LETTERS.

Amiable disposition--but he gives his own character.
_Elaborate. Think what to say--say what one thinks. Letter on
sickness to Steele_. _On Solitude. Ostentatious benevolence.
Professions of sincerity_. _Neglect of fame. Indifference about
everything_. _Sometimes gay and airy, sometimes sober and
grave_. _Too proud of living among the great_. Probably forward
to make acquaintance. _No literary man ever talked so much of
his for