was imputed by some of his friends, says Johnson, to
"a silver saucepan in which it was his delight to eat potted lampreys."
He would always get up for dinner, in spite of headache, when told that
this delicacy was provided. Yet, as Johnson also observes, the excesses
cannot have been very great, as they did not sooner cut short so fragile
an existence. "Two bites and a sup more than your stint," says Swift,
"will cost you more than others pay for a regular debauch."

At home, indeed, he appears to have been generally abstemious. Probably
the habits of his parents' little household were very simple; and Pope,
like Swift, knew the value of independence well enough to be
systematically economical. Swift, indeed, had a more generous heart, and
a lordly indifference to making money by his writings, which Pope, who
owed his fortune chiefly to his Homer, did not attempt to rival. Swift
alludes in his letters to an anecdote, which we may hope does not
represent his habitual practice. Pope, it appears, was entertaining a
couple of friends, and when four glasses had been consumed from a pint,
retired, saying, "Gentlemen I leave you to your wine." I tell that story
to everybody, says Swift, "in commendation of Mr. Pope's
abstemiousness;" but he tells it, one may guess, with something of a
rueful countenance. At times, however, it seems that Pope could give a
"splendid dinner," and show no want of the "skill and elegance which
such performances require." Pope, in fact, seems to have shown a
combination of qualities which is not uncommon, though sometimes called
inconsistent. He valued money, as a man values it who has been poor and
feels it essential to his comfort to be fairly beyond the reach of want,
and was accordingly pretty sharp at making a bargain with a publisher or
in arranging terms with a collaborator. But he could also be liberal on
occasion. Johnson says that his whole income amounted to about 800_l._ a
year, out of which he professed himself able to assign 100_l._ to
charity; and though the figures are doubtful, and all Pope's statements
about his own proceedings liable to suspicion, he appears to have been
often generous in helping the distressed with money, as well as with
advice or recommendations to his powerful friends. Pope, by his
infirmities and his talents, belonged to the dependent class of mankind.
He was in no sense capable of standing firmly upon his own legs. He had
a longing, sometimes pathetic and som