e was
too indulgent to his appetite: he loved meat highly seasoned and of
strong taste; and at the intervals of the table amused himself with
biscuits and dry conserves. If he sat down to a variety of dishes, he
would oppress his stomach with repletion; and though he seemed angry
when a dram was offered him, did not forbear to drink it. His friends,
who knew the avenues to his heart, pampered him with presents of luxury,
which he did not suffer to stand neglected. The death of great men is
not always proportioned to the lustre of their lives. Hannibal, says
Juvenal, did not perish by the javelin or the sword; the slaughters of
Cannae were revenged by a ring. The death of Pope was imputed, by some
of his friends, to a silver saucepan, in which it was his delight to
heat potted lampreys.

That he loved too well to eat, is certain; but that his sensuality
shortened his life, will not be hastily concluded, when it is
remembered that a conformation so irregular lasted six-and-fifty years,
notwithstanding such pertinacious diligence of study and meditation.

In all his intercourse with mankind, he had great delight in artifice,
and endeavoured to attain all his purposes by indirect and unsuspected
methods. "He hardly drank tea without a stratagem." If, at the house of
his friends, he wanted any accommodation, he was not willing to ask for
it in plain terms, but would mention it remotely as something
convenient; though, when it was procured, he soon made it appear for
whose sake it had been recommended. Thus he teased lord Orrery till he
obtained a screen. He practised his arts on such small occasions, that
lady Bolingbroke used to say, in a French phrase, that "he played the
politician about cabbages and turnips." His unjustifiable impression of
the Patriot King, as it can be imputed to no particular motive, must
have proceeded from his general habit of secrecy and cunning; he caught
an opportunity of a sly trick, and pleased himself with the thought of
outwitting Bolingbroke[146].

In familiar or convivial conversation, it does not appear that he
excelled. He may be said to have resembled Dryden, as being not one that
was distinguished by vivacity in company. It is remarkable, that so near
his time, so much should be known of what he has written, and so little
of what he has said: traditional memory retains no sallies of raillery,
nor sentences of observation; nothing either pointed or solid, either
wise or merry. One apo