ls Swift that
he hid himself in bed. Although he sneers at Lord Hervey for taking
asses' milk he tried that remedy himself, and he frequently needed
medical aid. In his early days he was strong enough to ride on
horseback, but in later life his weakness was so great that he was in
constant need of help. M. Taine, whose criticism of Pope needs to be
read with caution, indulges in an exaggerated description of his bodily
condition, observing that when arrived at maturity he appeared no longer
capable of existing, and styling him 'a nervous abortion.' The poet's
condition was sad enough as told by Dr. Johnson, without amplifying it
as M. Taine has done. 'One side was contracted. His legs were so slender
that he enlarged their bulk with three pairs of stockings, which were
drawn on and off by the maid; for he was not able to dress or undress
himself, and neither went to bed nor rose without help. His weakness
made it very difficult for him to be clean.' After this forlorn
description of the poet's state it is a little grotesque to read that
his dress of ceremony was black, with a tie-wig and a little sword. A
distorted body often holds a generous and untainted soul. This was not
the case with Pope, and the sympathy he stood in so large a need of
himself, was seldom given to others.

In the spring of 1744 it became evident that the end was approaching.
Three weeks before his death he distributed the _Moral Epistles_ among
his friends, saying: 'Here I am, like Socrates, dispensing my morality
amongst my friends just as I am dying.' He died peacefully on May 30th,
1744, and was buried in Twickenham Church near the monument erected to
his parents.

Pope's standing among his country's poets has been the source of much
controversy. There have been critics who deny to him the name of a poet,
while others place him in the first rank. In his own century there was
comparatively little difference of opinion with regard to his merits.
Chesterfield gave him the warmest praise; Swift, Addison, and Warburton
ranked him with the peers of song; Johnson, whose discriminative
criticism reaches perhaps its highest level in his _Life of Pope_, in
reply to the question which had been asked, even in his day, whether
Pope was a poet? asks in return, 'If Pope be not a poet, where is poetry
to be found?' and adds that 'to circumscribe poetry by a definition will
only show the narrowness of the definer, though a definition which shall
exclude Pope