.
James's Park, full of reflections of the transitory nature of all human
delights, and giving my thoughts a loose into the contemplation of those
sensations of satisfaction which probably we may taste in the more
exalted company of separate spirits, when we range the starry walks
above." Thus Pope, who on his return to town in September, 1713, after a
week's companionship with Rowe, took a solitary walk by moonlight and
meditated on the transitory nature of human delights, and the happy
intercourse of spirits, was led by the power of association, after
another week spent at Binfield with Rowe in February, 1716, to renew the
solitary walk by moonlight the instant he returned, and indulge in the
old contemplation on the transitory nature of human delights, and the
happy intercourse of separate spirits. What renders more singular the
second moonlight walk is that the date assigned to it was the memorable
season when the Thames was frozen over, and when the quantity of snow
was as unusual as the intensity of the cold. The thaw commenced the day
before the fragile little bard sallied out for his stroll, and he must
indeed have been lost in contemplation "of the starry walks above" not
to have been checked in his moonlight rambles by the deplorable
condition of the walks below. None of the phenomena which were
attracting the attention of the rest of the world,--the breaking up of
the long and terrible winter, the deluge of melting snow, the chilling
atmosphere, the dreary prospect,--received a passing notice from him. He
saw nothing except the moonshine, despite its watery gleam, and thought
of nothing except the spirits in the stars.

In the collection of 1735 there appeared a letter to Digby, which is
dated September 10, 1724, and is compounded from two letters, to Caryll
of November 23 and December 25, 1725. In the letter of November 23, Pope
says to Caryll, "My time has been spent in a trembling attendance upon
death, which has at last seized one of our family,--my poor old nurse."
This sentence was inserted in the letter to Digby, but as the nurse did
not die till November 5, 1725, the information could not have been
communicated to him in September, 1724. The motive of the poet in
altering the dates of his letters when he assigned a fanciful address to
them was probably to adapt the chronology to the circumstances of his
new _dramatis personae_. His earliest letter to Edward Blount is dated
August, 1714, and when he tr