ssador
at Constantinople. Clever Lady Mary, however, entirely declined to be
subjugated by the pathetic fallacy, and sent back a matter-of-fact
epitaph for John Hewet and Sarah Drew, which, though it wound up with
a compliment to her correspondent, can hardly have gratified him. But
there is one letter of this time the sincerity of which is undoubted.
It is Pope's announcement to Martha Blount of his father's death. "My
poor Father dyed last night," it says. "Believe, since I don't forget
you this moment, I never shall. A. Pope." The antithetical touch shows
how art had become a second nature with the writer; but his attachment
and devotion to his parents is not one of the disputed points in his
story.

Alexander Pope the elder died in October, 1717. Not very long after,
the poet moved with his mother to a little villa, or "villakin" as
Swift called it, on the banks of the Thames at Twickenham, close to
the grotesque Gothic jumble known as Radnor House. At Twickenham or,
as he called it, "Twitnam," Pope continued to reside until his death,
his permanent house-mates being his old nurse, Mary Beach, to whom
there is a tablet on the outer wall of Twickenham Church, and his
mother, who survived her husband until 1733, only preceding her famous
son by eleven years. Pope tended her with exemplary care--a care
rendered daily more imperative by her increasing infirmities. Many
references to her occur in his correspondence, and the sedulous
inquiries made by his friends as to her health are earnest of her
son's unwearied solicitude. One or two of the old lady's simple,
homely letters to him have been preserved, with their fond messages
and faulty spelling. Now and then, it is recorded, he would gratify
her by setting her to transcribe his "Homer," an assistance of which
the advantages must have been debatable.

Many friends came and went at the pleasant little villa by the Thames,
"flanked by its two Courts" of Hampton and Kew, and often, no doubt,
the London stage, starting from the Chequers in Piccadilly, brought to
it guests bearing names familiar in the annals of the time. There are
three of his intimates who cannot be neglected in any record, however
brief. When Lady Mary came back to England she took up her residence
at Twickenham, and the hitherto epistolary adoration of the poet
became a practical fact. According to a story popularized by the
pencil of Frith, Pope at length so far forgot himself as to make a
declarati