your enemies if you had any," Pope returned.

The other poet evinced an awkward comminglement of consternation and
pity. "It appears that when this storm arose--why, Mistress Drew was
with a young man of the neighborhood--a John Hewet----" Gay was
speaking with unaccustomed rapidity.

"Hughes, I think," Pope interrupted, equably.

"Perhaps--I am not sure. They sought shelter under a haycock. You
will remember that first crash of thunder, as if the heavens were in
demolishment? My friend, the reapers who had been laboring in the
fields--who had been driven to such protection as the trees or hedges
afforded----"

"Get on!" a shrill voice cried; "for God's love, man, get on!" Mr.
Pope had risen. This pallid shaken wisp was not in appearance the
great Mr. Pope whose ingenuity had enabled Homeric warriors to excel in
the genteel.

"They first saw a little smoke. . . . They found this Hughes with one
arm about the neck of Mistress Drew, and the other held over her face,
as if to screen her from the lightning. They were both"--and here Gay
hesitated. "They were both dead," he amended.

Pope turned abruptly. Nakedness is of necessity uncouth, he held,
whether it be the body or the soul that is unveiled. Mr. Pope went
toward a window which he opened, and he stood thus looking out for a
brief while.

"So she is dead," he said. "It is very strange. So many rare
felicities of curve and color, so much of purity and kindliness and
valor and mirth, extinguished as one snuffs a candle! Well! I am
sorry she is dead, for the child had a talent for living and got such
joy out of it. . . . Hers was a lovely happy life, but it was sterile.
Already nothing remains of her but dead flesh which must be huddled out
of sight. I shall not perish thus entirely, I believe. Men will
remember me. Truly a mighty foundation for pride! when the utmost I
can hope for is but to be read in one island, and to be thrown aside at
the end of one age. Indeed, I am not even sure of that much. I print,
and print, and print. And when I collect my verses into books, I am
altogether uncertain whether to took upon myself as a man building a
monument, or burying the dead. It sometimes seems to me that each
publication is but a solemn funeral of many wasted years. For I have
given all to the verse-making. Granted that the sacrifice avails to
rescue my name from oblivion, what will it profit me when I am dead and
care no more for men's