One of the worst imputations on Pope's character was that he left this passage to be published when he had in effect received a bribe of ii,000 from the duchess of Marlborough for its sup pression through the agency of Nathanael Hooke (d. 1763). As the passage eventually stood, it might be applied to Katherine, duchess of Buckingham, a natural daughter of James II. Pope may have altered it with the intention of diverting the satire from the original object. To appreciate fully the point of his allusions requires an intimate acquaintance with the political and social gossip of the time, but apart from their value as a brilliant strongly-coloured picture of the period, Pope's satires have a permanent value as literature. It is justly remarked by Mark Pattison (in his edition of the Satires and Epistles, i866), that "these Imitations are among the most original of his writings." The vigour and terseness of the diction is still unsurpassed in English verse.
Pope's wit had won for him the friendship of many distinguished men, and his small fortune enabled him to meet them on a foot ing of independence. He paid long visits at many great houses, especially at Stanton Harcourt, the home of his friend Lord Chancellor Harcourt; at Oakley, the seat of Lord Bathurst; and at Prior Park, Bath, where his host was Ralph Allen. He died on May 30, 1744, and was buried in the parish church of Twicken ham. He left the income from his property to Martha Blount till her death, after which it was to go to his half-sister Magdalen Rackett and her children. His unpublished mss. were left at the discretion of Lord Bolingbroke, and his copyrights to Warburton.
If we are to judge Pope fairly there are two features of his times that must be kept steadily in view—the character of polit ical strife in those days and the political relations of men of letters. The age of Queen Anne was pre-eminently an age of intrigue. The Government was almost as unsettled as in the early days of personal monarchy, but it was policy rather than force upon which men depended for keeping their position. Secondly, men of letters were admitted to the inner circles of intrigue as they had never been before and as they have never been since; and Queen Anne's statesmen paid their principal literary cham pions with social privileges and honourable public appointments. Hence men of letters were directly infected by the low political morality of the unsettled time.
Pope's own ruling passion was the love of fame, and he had no scruples where this was concerned. His vanity and his childish love of intrigue are seen at their worst in his petty manoeuvres to secure the publication of his letters during his lifetime. These intricate proceedings were unravelled with great patience and ingenuity by Charles Wentworth Dilke, when the false picture of his relations with his contemporaries which Pope had imposed on the public had been practically accepted for a century. After manipulating his correspondence so as to place his own character in the best light, Pope deposited a copy in the library of Edward, second earl of Oxford, and then had it printed. The sheets were offered to Curll by a person calling himself P.T., who professed a desire to injure Pope, but was no other than Pope himself. The copy was delivered to Curll in 1735 after long negotiations by an agent who called himself R. Smythe, with a few originals to vouch for their authenticity. P.T. had drawn up an advertise ment stating that the book was to contain certain answers from various peers. Curll was summoned before the House of Lords for breach of privilege, but was acquitted, as the letters from peers were not in fact forthcoming. Difficulties then arose between
Curll and P.T., and Pope induced a bookseller named Cooper to publish a Narrative of the Method by which Mr. Pope's Private Letters were procured by Edmund Curll, Bookseller (1735). These preliminaries cleared the way for a show of indignation against piratical publishers and a "genuine" edition of the Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope fol. and 4to).
Unhappily for Pope's reputation, his friend Caryll, who died before the publication, had taken a copy of Pope's letters before returning them. This letter-book came to light in the middle of the i9th century, and showed the freedom which Pope permitted himself in editing. The correspondence with Lord Oxford, pre served at Longleat, afforded further evidence of his tortuous dealings. But against Pope's petulance and "general love of secrecy and cunning" have to be set, in any fair judgment of his character, his exemplary conduct as a son, the affection with which he was regarded in his own circle of intimates, and many well-authenticated instances of genuine and continued kindliness to persons in distress.