degree.

He laid aside his epick poem, perhaps without much loss to mankind; for
his hero was Brutus the Trojan, who, according to a ridiculous fiction,
established a colony in Britain. The subject, therefore, was of the
fabulous age: the actors were a race upon whom imagination has been
exhausted, and attention wearied, and to whom the mind will not easily
be recalled, when it is invited in blank verse, which Pope had adopted
with great imprudence, and, I think, without due consideration of the
nature of our language. The sketch is, at least in part, preserved by
Ruffhead; by which it appears that Pope was thoughtless enough to model
the names of his heroes with terminations not consistent with the time
or country in which he places them.

He lingered through the next year; but perceived himself, as he
expresses it, "going down the hill." He had, for at least five years,
been afflicted with an asthma, and other disorders, which his physicians
were unable to relieve. Towards the end of his life he consulted Dr.
Thomson, a man who had, by large promises, and free censures of the
common practice of physick, forced himself up into sudden reputation.
Thomson declared his distemper to be a dropsy, and evacuated part of the
water by tincture of jalap; but confessed that his belly did not
subside. Thomson had many enemies, and Pope was persuaded to dismiss
him.

While he was yet capable of amusement and conversation, as he was one
day sitting in the air with lord Bolingbroke and lord Marchmont, he saw
his favourite Martha Blount at the bottom of the terrace, and asked lord
Bolingbroke to go and hand her up. Bolingbroke, not liking his errand,
crossed his legs and sat still; but lord Marchmont, who was younger and
less captious, waited on the lady, who, when he came to her, asked,
"What, is he not dead yet[142]?" She is said to have neglected him, with
shameful unkindness, in the latter time of his decay; yet, of the little
which he had to leave she had a very great part. Their acquaintance
began early; the life of each was pictured on the other's mind; their
conversation, therefore, was endearing, for when they met, there was an
immediate coalition of congenial notions. Perhaps he considered her
unwillingness to approach the chamber of sickness as female weakness, or
human frailty; perhaps he was conscious to himself of peevishness and
impatience, or, though he was offended by her inattention, might yet
consider her merit a