ions,
appetites, and habits.

To the Characters of Men, he added soon after, in an epistle supposed to
have been addressed to Martha Blount, but which the last edition has
taken from her, the Characters of Women. This poem, which was laboured
with great diligence, and in the author's opinion with great success,
was neglected at its first publication, as the commentator supposes,
because the publick was informed, by an advertisement, that it contained
"no character drawn from the life;" an assertion which Pope probably did
not expect or wish to have been believed, and which he soon gave his
readers sufficient reason to distrust, by telling them, in a note, that
the work was imperfect, because part of his subject was "vice too high"
to be yet exposed.

The time, however, soon came, in which it was safe to display the
dutchess of Marlborough under the name of Atossa; and her character was
inserted with no great honour to the writer's gratitude.

He published, from time to time, between 1730 and 1740, imitations of
different poems of Horace, generally with his name, and once, as was
suspected, without it. What he was upon moral principles ashamed to own,
he ought to have suppressed. Of these pieces it is useless to settle the
dates, as they had seldom much relation to the times, and, perhaps, had
been long in his hands.

This mode of imitation, in which the ancients are familiarized, by
adapting their sentiments to modern topicks, by making Horace say of
Shakespeare what he originally said of Ennius, and accommodating his
satires on Pantolabus and Nomentanus to the flatterers and prodigals of
our own time, was first practised in the reign of Charles the second, by
Oldham and Rochester, at least I remember no instances more ancient. It
is a kind of middle composition between translation and original design,
which pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable, and the
parallels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite amusement; for
he has carried it farther than any former poet.

He published, likewise, a revival, in smoother numbers, of Dr. Donne's
satires, which was recommended to him by the duke of Shrewsbury and the
earl of Oxford. They made no great impression on the publick. Pope seems
to have known their imbecility, and, therefore, suppressed them while he
was yet contending to rise in reputation, but ventured them when he
thought their deficiencies more likely to be imputed to Donne than to
himself