sidered to be
a monument worthy of the highest genius, and was so far complimentary to
Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke, however, considered it as an act of gross
treachery. Pope had received the work on condition of keeping it
strictly private, and showing it to only a few friends. Moreover, he
had corrected it, arranged it, and altered or omitted passages according
to his own taste, which naturally did not suit the author's. In 1749
Bolingbroke gave a copy to Mallet for publication, and prefixed an angry
statement to expose the breach of trust of "a man on whom the author
thought he could entirely depend." Warburton rushed to the defence of
Pope and the demolition of Bolingbroke. A savage controversy followed,
which survives only in the title of one of Bolingbroke's pamphlets, A
Familiar Epistle to the most Impudent Man living--a transparent
paraphrase for Warburton. Pope's behaviour is too much of a piece with
previous underhand transactions, but scarcely deserves further
condemnation.

A single touch remains. Pope was buried, by his own directions, in a
vault in Twickenham church, near the monument erected to his parents. It
contained a simple inscription ending with the words "_Parentibus bene
merentibus filius fecit._" To this, as he directed in his will, was to
be added simply "_et sibi_." This was done; but seventeen years
afterwards the clumsy Warburton erected in the same church another
monument to Pope himself, with this stupid inscription. _Poeta
loquitur._

_For one who would not lie buried in Westminster Abbey._

Heroes and kings, your distance keep!
In peace let one poor poet sleep
Who never flatter'd folks like you;
Let Horace blush and Virgil too.

Most of us can tell from experience how grievously our posthumous
ceremonials often jar upon the tenderest feelings of survivors. Pope's
valued friends seem to have done their best to surround the last scene
of his life with painful associations; and Pope, alas! was an
unconscious accomplice. To us of a later generation it is impossible to
close this strange history without a singular mixture of feelings.
Admiration for the extraordinary literary talents, respect for the
energy which, under all disadvantages of health and position, turned
these talents to the best account; love of the real tender-heartedness
which formed the basis of the man's character; pity for the many
sufferings to which his morbid sensitiveness exposed him; contemp