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old housekeeper, and two or three servants. I have room 

 for all, a heart for all, and (think what you will) a fortune 

 for all." In another letter to Swift, he says, u I wish you 

 had any motive to see this kingdom. I could keep you; for 

 I am rich, that is, I have more than I want. I can afford 

 room for yourself and two servants. I have, indeed, room 

 enough, nothing but myself at home: the kind and hearty 

 housewife is dead! the agreeable and instructive neighbour 

 is gone ! yet my house is enlarged, and the gardens extend 

 and flourish, as knowing nothing of the guests they have 

 lost. I have more fruit trees and kitchen garden than you 

 have any thought of; nay, I have good melons and pine- 

 apples of my own growth.' 5 In a letter to Mr. Allen, he 

 says, " Let me know your day for coming, and I will have 

 every room in my house as warm for you as the owner 

 always would be." Mr. Mathias, in his Pursuits of Litera- 

 ture, (besides expatiating with fond delight, in numerous 

 pages, on the genius of Pope,) thus speaks of him: "Fami- 

 liar with the great, intimate with the polite, graced by the 

 attentions of the fair, admired by the learned, a favourite 

 with the nation, independent in an acquired opulence, the 

 honourable product of his genius, and of his industry; the 

 companion of persons distinguished for their virtue, birth, 

 high fashion, rank, or wit, and resident in the centre of all 

 public information and intelligence; every avenue to know- 

 ledge, and .every mode of observation were open to his 

 curious, prying, piercing, and unwearied intellect."* 



* Sir Joshua Reynolds used to tell the following anecdote relative to Pope . 

 " When Reynolds was a young man, he was present at an auction of very 

 scarce pictures, which attracted a great crowd of connoisseurs and others; 

 when, in the moment of a very interesting piece being put up, Mr. Pope 

 entered the room. All was in an instant, from a scene of confusion and 

 bustle, a dead calm. The auctioneer, as if by instinct, suspended his ham- 

 mer. The audience, to an individual, as if by the same impulse, rose up to 

 receive the poet; and did not resume their seats till he had reached the 

 upper end of the room." A similar 



