eman's gone," said the
lively youth of eighty-nine to the remaining guests, "let's crack the
other bottle." Bathurst delighted in planting, and Pope in giving him
advice, and in discussing the opening of vistas and erection of temples,
and the poet was apt to be vexed when his advice was not taken.

Another friend, even more restless and comet-like in his appearances,
was the famous Peterborough, the man who had seen more kings and
postilions than any one in Europe; of whom Walsh injudiciously remarked
that he had too much wit to be entrusted with the command of an army;
and whose victories soon after the unlucky remark had been made, were so
brilliant as to resemble strategical epigrams. Pope seems to have been
dazzled by the amazing vivacity of the man, and has left a curious
description of his last days. Pope found him on the eve of the voyage in
which he died, sick of an agonizing disease, crying out for pain at
night, fainting away twice in the morning, lying like a dead man for a
time, and in the intervals of pain giving a dinner to ten people,
laughing, talking, declaiming against the corruption of the times,
giving directions to his workmen, and insisting upon going to sea in a
yacht without preparations for landing anywhere in particular. Pope
seems to have been specially attracted by such men, with intellects as
restless as his own, but with infinitely more vitality to stand the
consequent wear and tear.

We should be better pleased if we could restore a vivid image of the
inner circle upon which his happiness most intimately depended. In one
relation of life Pope's conduct was not only blameless, but thoroughly
loveable. He was, it is plain, the best of sons. Even here, it is true,
he is a little too consciously virtuous. Yet when he speaks of his
father and mother there are tears in his voice, and it is impossible not
to recognize genuine warmth of heart.

Me let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and soothe the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky![8]

Such verses are a spring in the desert, a gush of the true feeling,
which contrasts with the strained and factitious sentiment in his
earlier rhetoric, and almost forces us to love the writer. Could Pope
have preserved that higher mood, he would have held our affections