hen, therefore, the departure of an old friend is
very acutely felt.

In the next year he lost his mother, not by an unexpected death, for she
had lasted to the age of ninety-three; but she did not die unlamented.
The filial piety of Pope was in the highest degree amiable and
exemplary; his parents had the happiness of living till he was at the
summit of poetical reputation, till he was at ease in his fortune, and
without a rival in his fame, and found no diminution of his respect or
tenderness. Whatever was his pride, to them he was obedient; and
whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has, among
its soothing and quiet comforts, few things better to give than such a
son.

One of the passages of Pope's life, which seems to deserve some inquiry,
was a publication of letters between him and many of his friends, which
falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious bookseller of no good fame,
were by him printed and sold. This volume containing some letters from
noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in the house of lords
for a breach of privilege, and attended himself to stimulate the
resentment of his friends. Curll appeared at the bar, and, knowing
himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverence.
"He has," said Curll, "a knack at versifying, but in prose I think
myself a match for him." When the orders of the house were examined,
none of them appeared to have been infringed; Curll went away
triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy.

Curll's account was, that one evening a man in a clergy-man's gown, but
with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed
volumes, which he found to be Pope's Epistolary Correspondence; that he
asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and
thought himself authorised to use his purchase to his own advantage.

That Curll gave a true account of the transaction it is reasonable to
believe, because no falsehood was ever detected[130] and when, some
years afterwards, I mentioned it to Lintot, the son of Bernard, he
declared his opinion to be, that Pope knew better than any body else how
Curll obtained the copies, because another parcel was at the same time
sent to himself, for which no price had ever been demanded, as he made
known his resolution not to pay a porter, and consequently not to deal
with a nameless agent.

Such care had been taken to make them publick, that they were sent at
on