er Pope was a London merchant, a devout Catholic,
and not improbably a convert to Catholicism. His mother was one of
seventeen children of William Turner, of York; one of her sisters was
the wife of Cooper, the well-known portrait-painter. Mrs. Cooper was the
poet's godmother; she died when he was five years old, leaving to her
sister, Mrs. Pope, a "grinding-stone and muller," and their mother's
"picture in limning;" and to her nephew, the little Alexander, all her
"books, pictures, and medals set in gold or otherwise."

In after-life the poet made some progress in acquiring the art of
painting; and the bequest suggests the possibility that the precocious
child had already given some indications of artistic taste. Affectionate
eyes were certainly on the watch for any symptoms of developing talent.
Pope was born on May 21st, 1688--the _annus mirabilis_ which introduced
a new political era in England, and was fatal to the hopes of ardent
Catholics. About the same time, partly, perhaps, in consequence of the
catastrophe, Pope's father retired from business, and settled at
Binfield--a village two miles from Wokingham and nine from Windsor. It
is near Bracknell, one of Shelley's brief perching places, and in such a
region as poets might love, if poetic praises of rustic seclusion are to
be taken seriously. To the east were the "forests and green retreats" of
Windsor, and the wild heaths of Bagshot, Chobham and Aldershot stretched
for miles to the South. Some twelve miles off in that direction, one may
remark, lay Moor Park, where the sturdy pedestrian, Swift, was living
with Sir W. Temple during great part of Pope's childhood; but it does
not appear that his walks ever took him to Pope's neighbourhood, nor did
he see, till some years later, the lad with whom he was to form one of
the most famous of literary friendships. The little household was
presumably a very quiet one, and remained fixed at Binfield for
twenty-seven years, till the son had grown to manhood and celebrity.
From the earliest period he seems to have been a domestic idol. He was
not an only child, for he had a half-sister by his father's side, who
must have been considerably older than himself, as her mother died nine
years before the poet's birth. But he was the only child of his mother,
and his parents concentrated upon him an affection which he returned
with touching ardour and persistence. They were both forty-six in the
year of his birth. He inherited hea