method to interest posterity. He felt that Boileau's satires
on bad authors are liked only in the degree the objects
alluded to are known. But he loved too much the subject for
its own sake. He abused the powers genius had conferred on
him, as other imperial sovereigns have done. It is said that
he kept the whole kingdom in awe of him. In "the frenzy and
prodigality of vanity," he exclaimed--

"--------Yes, I am proud to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me!"

Tacitus Gordon said of him, that Pope seemed to persuade the
nation that all genius and ability were confined to him and
his friends.

[193] Pope, in his energetic Letter to Lord HERVEY, that "masterpiece
of invective," says Warton, which Tyers tells us he kept long
back from publishing, at the desire of Queen Caroline, who was
fearful her counsellor would become insignificant in the
public esteem, and at last in her own, such was the power his
genius exercised;--has pointed out one of these causes. It
describes himself as "a private person under penal laws, and
many other disadvantages, not for want of honesty or
conscience; yet it is by these alone I have hitherto lived
_excluded from all posts of profit or trust_. I can interfere
with the views of no man."

[194] The first publisher of the "Essay on Criticism" must have been
a Mr. Lewis, a Catholic bookseller in Covent-garden; for,
from a descendant of this Lewis, I heard that Pope, after
publication, came every day, persecuting with anxious
inquiries the cold impenetrable bookseller, who, as the poem
lay uncalled for, saw nothing but vexatious importunities
in a troublesome youth. One day, Pope, after nearly a
month's publication, entered, and in despair tied up a
number of the poems, which he addressed to several who had a
reputation in town, as judges of poetry. The scheme
succeeded, and the poem, having reached its proper circle,
soon got into request.

[195] He was the author of "The Key to the Lock," written to show that
"The Rape of the Lock" was a political poem, designed to
ridicule the Barrier Treaty; [so called from the arrangement
made at the Peace of Utrecht between the ministers of Great