le of years,
were delivered those letters, upon whose backs or envelopes, piously
preserved in the British Museum, the "paper-sparing" poet penned his
daily tale of Homeric translation, completing two more volumes of the
"Iliad" during his sojourn in Mawson's Row. At this time he was
twenty-eight, and may therefore be assumed to be accurately
represented in the portrait painted by Kneller in 1716, and
mezzotinted a year later by Smith. Here he appears as a slight,
delicate young man, wearing a close-fitting vest or tunic, and, in
lieu of a wig, the dressing or "night-cap" which took its place. His
keen, shaven face is already worn by work and ill-health, and
conspicuous for the large and brilliant eyes to which he refers, in
his "Epistle to Arbuthnot," as one of his noticeable features.

Besides the poems already mentioned, he had, in 1715, produced another
imitation of Chaucer, the "Temple of Fame," an effort which has never
taken high rank among his works. But while at Chiswick he published,
in addition to instalments of the "Iliad," two pieces of considerable
merit, although they are scarcely regarded by the critics of this age
with the enthusiasm they excited in Pope's earliest admirers. One is
the celebrated "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady," which
perhaps owes some of its reputation to the difficulty experienced in
identifying the "ever injur'd Shade" intended. She is now understood
to have been a much-persecuted Mrs. Weston, who, although she suffered
many griefs, did not (as her poet implies) put an end to her own life
in consequence. The other, under the title of "Eloisa to Abelard,"
versifies the Latin letters of that distinguished amorist to her
lover. It is impossible to deny to both these works the utmost amount
of artful development and verbal finish. All that skill can do in the
simulation of sincerity Pope has done. "The Epistle of Eloisa," he
tells a correspondent, "grows warm, and begins to have some breathings
of the heart in it, which may make posterity think I was in love."
With all submission, this is precisely the illusion which is absent,
and it is perfectly possible for the most sympathetic reader to peruse
the balanced outpourings of "Fulbert's niece" without the slightest
tendency to that _globus hystericus_ which all persons of sensibility
must desire to experience. Yet it must nevertheless be admitted that
these poems are the best examples of a vein which is not native to
their w