eling
seems to come to the surface. For a time the superincumbent masses of
hypocrisy vanish. In speaking of his mother or his pursuits he forgets
to wear his mask. He feels a genuine enthusiasm about his friends; he
believes with almost pathetic earnestness in the amazing talents of
Bolingbroke, and the patriotic devotion of the younger men who are
rising up to overthrow the corruptions of Walpole; he takes the
affectation of his friends as seriously as a simple-minded man who has
never fairly realized the possibility of deliberate hypocrisy; and he
utters sentiments about human life and its objects which, if a little
tainted with commonplace, have yet a certain ring of sincerity and, as
we may believe, were really sincere for the time. At such moments we
seem to see the man behind the veil--the really loveable nature which
could know as well as simulate feeling. And, indeed, it is this quality
which makes Pope endurable. He was--if we must speak bluntly--a liar and
a hypocrite; but the foundation of his character was not selfish or
grovelling. On the contrary, no man could be more warmly affectionate or
more exquisitely sensitive to many noble emotions. The misfortune was
that his constitutional infirmities, acted upon by unfavourable
conditions, developed his craving for applause and his fear of censure,
till certain morbid tendencies in him assumed proportions which,
compared to the same weaknesses in ordinary mankind, are as the growth
of plants in a tropical forest to their stunted representatives in the
North.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] The evidence by which the statements in this chapter are supported
is fully set forth in Mr. Elwin's edition of Pope's Works, Vol. I., and
in the notes to the Orrery Correspondence in the third volume of
letters.

[15] This is proved by a note referring to "the present edition of the
posthumous works of Mr. Wycherley," which, by an oversight, was allowed
to remain in the Curll volume.

[16] These expressions come from two letters of Pope to Lord Orrery in
March, 1737, and may not accurately reproduce his statements to Swift;
but they probably represent approximately what he had said.

[17] It is said that the son objected to allow his wife to meet his
father's mistress.

[18] See Elwin's edition of Pope's Correspondence, iii., 399, note.

[19] Pope's Works, vol. i. p. cxxi.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ESSAY ON MAN.

It is a relief to turn from this miserable record of Pope's