Various Readings in the Life of POPE.

’[Somewhat free] sufficiently bold in his criticism.

’All the gay [niceties] varieties of diction.

’Strikes the imagination with far [more] greater force.

’It is [probably] certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen.

’Every sheet enabled him to write the next with [less trouble] more facility.

’No man sympathizes with [vanity, depressed] the sorrows of vanity.

’It had been [criminal] less easily excused.

’When he [threatened to lay down] talked of laying down his pen.

’Society [is so named emphatically in opposition to] politically regulated, is a state contra-distinguished from a state of nature.

’A fictitious life of an [absurd] infatuated scholar.

’A foolish [contempt, disregard,] disesteem of Kings.

’His hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows [were like those of other mortals] acted strongly upon his mind.

’Eager to pursue knowledge and attentive to [accumulate] retain it.

’A mind [excursive] active, ambitious, and adventurous.

’In its [noblest] widest researches still longing to go forward.

’He wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few [neglects] hazards.

’The [reasonableness] justice of my determination.

’A [favourite] delicious employment of the poets.

’More terrifick and more powerful [beings] phantoms perform on the stormy ocean.

’The inventor of [those] this petty [beings] nation.

‘The [mind] heart naturally loves truth.’

In the Life of ADDISON we find an unpleasing account of his having lent Steele a hundred pounds, and ‘reclaimed his loan by an execution[182].’  In the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, the authenticity of this anecdote is denied.  But Mr. Malone has obliged me with the following note concerning it:—­

’Many persons having doubts concerning this fact, I applied to Dr. Johnson to learn on what authority he asserted it.  He told me, he had it from Savage, who lived in intimacy with Steele, and who mentioned, that Steele told him the story with tears in his eyes.—­Ben Victor[183], Dr. Johnson said, likewise informed him of this remarkable transaction, from the relation of Mr. Wilkes[184] the comedian, who was also an intimate of Steele’s.—­Some in defence of Addison, have said, that “the act was done with the good natured view of rousing Steele, and correcting that profusion which always made him necessitous.”—­“If that were the case, (said Johnson,) and that he only wanted to alarm Steele, he would afterwards have returned the money to his friend, which it is not pretended he did.”—­“This too, (he added,) might be retorted by an advocate for Steele, who might alledge, that he did not repay the loan intentionally, merely to see whether Addison would be mean and ungenerous enough to make use of legal process to recover it.  But of such speculations there is no end:  we cannot dive into the hearts of men; but their actions are open to observation[185].”