ity of his situation.

Thrown out of the active classes of society from a variety of causes
sufficiently known,[193] concentrating his passions into a solitary
one, his retired life was passed in the contemplation of his own
literary greatness. Reviewing the past, and anticipating the future,
he felt he was creating a new era in our literature, an event which
does not always occur in a century: but eager to secure present
celebrity, with the victory obtained in the open field, he combined
the intrigues of the cabinet: thus, while he was exerting great means,
he practised little artifices. No politician studied to obtain his
purposes by more oblique directions, or with more intricate
stratagems; and Pope was at once the lion and the fox of Machiavel. A
book might be written on the Stratagems of Literature, as Frontinus
has composed one on War, and among its subtilest heroes we might place
this great poet.

To keep his name alive before the public was one of his early plans.
When he published his "Essay on Criticism," anonymously, the young and
impatient poet was mortified with the inertion of public curiosity: he
was almost in despair.[194] Twice, perhaps oftener, Pope attacked
Pope;[195] and he frequently concealed himself under the names of
others, for some particular design. Not to point out his dark familiar
"Scriblerus," always at hand for all purposes, he made use of the
names of several of his friends. When he employed SAVAGE in "a
collection of all the pieces, in verse and prose, published on
occasion of the _Dunciad_," he subscribed his name to an admirable
dedication to Lord Middlesex, where he minutely relates the whole
history of the _Dunciad_, "and the weekly clubs held to consult of
hostilities against the author;" and, for an express introduction to
that work, he used the name of Cleland, to which is added a note,
expressing surprise that the world did not believe that Cleland was
the writer![196] Wanting a pretext for the publication of his
letters, he delighted CURLL by conveying to him some printed
surreptitious copies, who soon discovered that it was but a fairy
treasure which he could not grasp; and Pope, in his own defence, had
soon ready the authentic edition.[197] Some lady observed that Pope
"hardly drank tea without a stratagem!" The female genius easily
detects its own peculiar faculty, when it is exercised with inferior
delicacy.

But his systematic hostility did not proceed with equal impu