affection, and left to her
nearly the whole of his fortune. His biographers have indulged in
discussions--surely superfluous--as to the morality of the connexion.
There is no question of seduction, or of tampering with the affections
of an innocent woman. Pope was but too clearly disqualified from acting
the part of Lothario. There was not in his case any Vanessa to give a
tragic turn to the connexion, which, otherwise, resembled Swift's
connexion with Stella. Miss Blount, from all that appears, was quite
capable of taking care of herself, and had she wished for marriage, need
only have intimated her commands to her lover. It is probable enough
that the relations between them led to very unpleasant scenes in her
family; but she did not suffer otherwise in accepting Pope's attentions.
The probability seems to be that the friendship had become imperceptibly
closer, and that what began as an idle affectation of gallantry was
slowly changed into a devoted attachment, but not until Pope's health
was so broken that marriage would then, if not always, have appeared to
be a mockery.

Poets have a bad reputation as husbands. Strong passions and keen
sensibilities may easily disqualify a man for domestic tranquillity, and
prompt a revolt against rules essential to social welfare. Pope, like
other poets from Shakspeare to Shelley, was unfortunate in his love
affairs; but his ill-fortune took a characteristic shape. He was not
carried away, like Byron and Burns, by overpowering passions. Rather
the emotional power which lay in his nature was prevented from
displaying itself by his physical infirmities, and his strange
trickiness and morbid irritability. A man who could not make tea without
a stratagem, could hardly be a downright lover. We may imagine that he
would at once make advances and retract them; that he would be
intolerably touchy and suspicious; that every coolness would be
interpreted as a deliberate insult, and that the slightest hint would be
enough to set his jealousy in a flame. A woman would feel that, whatever
his genius and his genuine kindliness, one thing was impossible with
him--that is, a real confidence in his sincerity; and, therefore, on the
whole, it may, perhaps, be reckoned as a piece of good fortune for the
most wayward and excitable of sane mankind, that if he never fully
gained the most essential condition of all human happiness, he yet
formed a deep and lasting attachment to a woman who, more or les