This harmony of language seemed to Pope and to his patrons the chief aim
of the poet, and to make it still more tuneful and melodious was the
purpose of his life.
BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE.--Pope was the son of a respectable linen-draper, who
had achieved a competency and retired to enjoy it. The mother of the poet
must have been a good one, to have retained the ardent and eulogistic
affection of her son to the close of her life, as she did. This attachment
is a marked feature in his biography, and at last finds vent in her
epitaph, in which he calls her "_mater optima, mulierum amantissima_."
Pope was a sickly, dwarfed, precocious child. His early studies in Latin
and Greek were conducted by priests of the Roman Catholic Church, to which
his parents belonged; but he soon took his education into his own hands.
Alone and unaided he pursued his classical studies, and made good progress
in French and German.
Of his early rhyming powers he says:
"I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."
At the age of twelve, he was taken to Will's Coffee-house, to see the
great Dryden, upon whom, as a model, he had already determined to fashion
himself.
Pages:
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400