etimes humiliating, for the
applause of his fellows and the sympathy of friends. With feelings so
morbidly sensitive, and with such a lamentable incapacity for
straightforward openness in any relation of life, he was naturally a
dangerous companion. He might be brooding over some fancied injury or
neglect, and meditating revenge, when he appeared to be on good terms;
when really desiring to do a service to a friend, he might adopt some
tortuous means for obtaining his ends, which would convert the service
into an injury; and, if he had once become alienated, the past
friendship would be remembered by him as involving a kind of
humiliation, and therefore supplying additional keenness to his
resentment. And yet it is plain that throughout life he was always
anxious to lean upon some stronger nature; to have a sturdy supporter
whom he was too apt to turn into an accomplice; or at least to have some
good-natured, easy-going companion, in whose society he might find
repose for his tortured nerves. And therefore, though the story of his
friendships is unfortunately intertwined with the story of bitter
quarrels and indefensible acts of treachery, it also reveals a touching
desire for the kind of consolation which would be most valuable to one
so accessible to the pettiest stings of his enemies. He had many warm
friends, moreover, who, by good fortune or the exercise of unusual
prudence, never excited his wrath, and whom he repaid by genuine
affection. Some of these friendships have become famous, and will be
best noticed in connexion with passages in his future career. It will be
sufficient if I here notice a few names, in order to show that a
complete picture of Pope's life, if it could now be produced, would
include many figures of which we only catch occasional glimpses.

Pope, as I have said, though most closely connected with the Tories and
Jacobites, disclaimed any close party connexion, and had some relations
with the Whigs. Some courtesies even passed between him and the great
Sir Robert Walpole, whose interest in literature was a vanishing
quantity, and whose bitterest enemies were Pope's greatest friends.
Walpole, however, as we have seen, asked for preferment for Pope's old
friend, and Pope repaid him with more than one compliment. Thus, in the
Epilogue to the Satires, he says,--

Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power.
Seen him, encumber'd with the vena