s,
returned his feeling. In a life so full of bitterness, so harassed by
physical pain, one is glad to think, even whilst admitting that the
suffering was in great part foolish self-torture, and in part inflicted
as a retribution for injuries to others, that some glow of feminine
kindliness might enlighten the dreary stages of his progress through
life. The years left to him after the death of his mother were few and
evil, and it would be hard to grudge him such consolation as he could
receive from the glances of Patty Blount's blue eyes--the eyes which, on
Walpole's testimony, were the last remains of her beauty.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] The same comparison is made by Cibber in a rather unsavoury passage.

[8] It is curious to compare these verses with the original copy
contained in a letter to Aaron Hill. The comparison shows how skilfully
Pope polished his most successful passages.

[9] Pope, after his quarrel, wanted to sink his previous intimacy with
Lady Mary, and printed this letter as addressed by Gay to Fortescue,
adding one to the innumerable mystifications of his correspondence. Mr.
Moy Thomas doubts also whether Lady Mary's answer was really sent at the
assigned date. The contrast of sentiment is equally characteristic in
any case.

[10] Mr. Moy Thomas, in his edition of Lady Mary's letters, considers
this story to be merely an echo of old scandal, and makes a different
conjecture as to the immediate cause of quarrel. His conjecture seems
very improbable to me; but the declaration story is clearly of very
doubtful authenticity.

[11] Another couplet in the second book of the Dunciad about "hapless
Monsieur" and "Lady Maries," was also applied at the time to Lady M. W.
Montagu: and Pope in a later note affects to deny, thus really pointing
the allusion. But the obvious meaning of the whole passage is that
"duchesses and Lady Maries" might be personated by abandoned women,
which would certainly be unpleasant for them, but does not imply any
imputation upon their character. If Lady Mary was really the author of a
"Pop upon Pope"--a story of Pope's supposed whipping in the vein of his
own attack upon Dennis, she already considered him as the author of some
scandal. The line in the Dunciad was taken to allude to a story about a
M. Remond which has been fully cleared up.

[12] The statements as to the date of the acquaintance are
contradictory. Martha told Spence that she first knew Pope as a "very
little girl,