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THE

POETICAL WORKS

OF

ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:

Printed for J. Walker;

F. C. and J. Rivington; J. Nunn; Cadell and Davies ;
Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; G. and
W. B. Whittaker; J. Richardson; Newman and
Co.; Lackington and Co.; Black, Kingsbury, Par
bury, and Allen; J. Black and Son; Sherwood,
Neely, and Jones; Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy;
J. Robinson; E. Edwards; and B. Reynolds:

By S. Hamilton, Whitefriars.

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THE LIFE

OF

ALEXANDER POPE.

THIS highly distinguished poet was born in London, in the year 1688, where his father was a tradesman, and acquired considerable property, with which he retired to a purchase he had made at Binfield, in Windsor Forest.

Our poet, being from his infancy of a sickly habit, was educated mostly at home; and his father being a rigid catholic, and attached to the cause of James II., very naturally imparted to his son those principles of religion and politics which he retained throughout life. His son began early to read, and he had scarcely perused some of the English poets before he courted the muse, and exhibited such specimens of versification and fancy as are rarely found at his tender age. His Pastorals were shown in manuscript to sir William Turnbull, in the year 1704; and Wycherley, Walsh, and others, were proud to encourage so promising a genius. He soon after began his Windsor Forest, which, it is said, he used to compose under a beech-tree, on which lady Gower carved these words:

Here Pope sang.'

During her life the letters were cut new every three or four years, but they have since been suffered to. decay.

As his poems became circulated, his acquaintance was courted by the most distinguished cha

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