he should ride daily: he followed the advice, and was soon restored to health.

When the circumstances just related occurred, Pope was about seventeen; and upwards of twenty years after, he repaid the kindness of Southcote, by procuring for him, through the interference of Sir Robert Walpole, the nomination to an abbey in Avignon.

While resident in the Forest, Pope became acquainted with Sir William Trumbull, who had now retired from public life to his native place, Easthamstead, in the neighbourhood of Binfield. He possessed a very cultivated mind; and from the similarity of their tastes, a friendship was speedily formed between the statesman of sixty and the youthful poet, which terminated only with Sir William's death. They were in the habit of reading, conversing on the classics, and riding out together.

By Sir William Trumbull our author was in

1 cc Sir William Trumbull was born at Easthamstead in Berkshire. He was fellow of All Soul's College in Oxford, followed the study of the civil law, and was sent by King Charles the Second Judge Advocate to Tangier, thence Envoy to Florence, Turin, &c. and, in his way back, Envoy Extraordinary to France; from thence sent, by King James the Second, Ambassador to the Ottoman Port. Afterwards he was made Lord of the Treasury, then Secretary of State with the Duke of Shrewsbury, which office he resigned in 1697. He retired to Easthamstead in Windsor Forest, and died in the Place of his Nativity in December 1716, aged 77 years." Ayre's Life of Pope, vol. i. p. 5.

troduced to Wycherley, who was then nearly seventy years of age. Pope was doubtless desirous to court the notice of a man whose comedies had justly raised him to such eminence: and they seem to have conceived a sincere esteem for each other, notwithstanding the disparity of their years. In one of his letters to Wycherley, April 30th, 1705, Pope pleasantly observes; "I know it is the general opinion, that friendship is best contracted betwixt persons of equal age; but I have so much interest to be of another mind, that you must pardon me if I cannot forbear telling you a few notions of mine in opposition to that opinion. In the first place, it is observable that the love we bear to our friends is generally caused by our finding the same dispositions in them which we feel in ourselves. This is but self love at the bottom; whereas the affection betwixt people of different ages cannot well be so, the inclinations of such being commonly various. The friendship of two young men is often occasioned by love of pleasure or voluptuousness; each being desirous for his own sake, of one to assist or encourage him in the course he pursues; as that of two old men is frequently on the score of some profit, lucre, or design upon others. Now, as a young man, who is less acquainted with the ways of the world, has in all probability less of interest; and an old man, who may be weary of himself, has, or should have, less of self-love; so the friendship between them

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.

From an original Picture in the Collection of Her Grace the Dutchess of Dorset

is the more likely to be true, and unmixed with too much self-regard. One may add to this, that such a friendship is of greater use and advantage to both; for the old man will grow gay and agreeable to please the young one, and the young man more discreet and prudent by the help of the old one; so it may prove a cure of those epidemical diseases of age and youth, sourness and madness. I hope you will not need many arguments to convince you of the possibility of this one alone abundantly satisfies me, and convinces to the heart; which is, that young as I am, and old as you are, I am your entirely affectionate, &c." Wycherley, intending to publish a new edition of his Fugitive Poems, entrusted the correction of them to Pope, who continued for several years with the most conscientious boldness to criticise and alter his rugged lines. The task was exceedingly troublesome; especially as Wycherley's memory, in consequence of a fever, had become so defective, that his verses contained numerous repetitions of the same ideas. The freedom of Pope's strictures and emendations appears to have mortified the old man's vanity; and there was

1 66 Wycherley was really angry with me for correcting his verses so much. I was extremely plagued, up and down, for almost two years with them." Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 150. "There were several verses of mine inserted in Mr. Wycherley's Poems, here and there; and particularly in those on Solitude,-On a Life of Business,—and on a Middle Life."-Ibid. p. 198.