Copy 1, Volume 1

The works of Alexander Pope, esq. with notes and illustrations by himself and others. To which are added a new life of the author, an estimate of his poetical character and writings, and occasional remarks / by William Roscoe. Esq.

  • Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Alexander Pope, esq. with notes and illustrations by himself and others. To which are added a new life of the author, an estimate of his poetical character and writings, and occasional remarks / by William Roscoe. Esq. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    troversy ; and whilst he is too indolent to in- vestigate the truth of the numerous imputa- tions that have been cast on the moral cha- racter of Pope, unjustly attributes to his phi- losophical doctrines the most unfounded and dangerous consequences. Those subjects re- specting Pope which seem to have attracted his more particular inquiry, are such as relate to his personal defects and infirmities, the weakness of his constitution, and the irritabi- lity of his temper. Whoever wishes to be acquainted with these, need resort to no other source. We may there be informed of the economy of his dressing-room, to the minut- — est particulars; and of his “petty peculiari- ties,” as communicated by a female domestic of the Earl of Oxford, “ who knew him per- _ haps after the middle of life,” and shal! doubt- less be gratified to find (what it will be diffi- cult to meet with elsewhere), “that the in-— dulgence and accommodation which his sick- ness required, had taught him all the unpleas- ing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary. man.” It must also be observed, that the work of Johnson, like those before adverted to, is in a great part occupied in criticisms on the poetry of Pope, in which it is scarcely necessary to observe, that amongst much un-