DEAR POPE,

’Too late I see, and confess myself mistaken in relation to the Comedy; yet I do not think, had I followed your advice, and only introduced the mummy, that the absence of the crocodile had saved it.  I can’t help laughing myself (though the vulgar do not consider it was designed to look ridiculous) to think how the poor monster and mummy were dashed at their reception, and when the cry was loudest, I thought that if the thing had been written by another, I should have deemed the town in some measure mistaken; and as to your apprehension that this may do us future injury, do not think of it; the Dr. has a more valuable name than can be hurt by any thing of this nature; and your’s is doubly safe.  I will, if any shame there be, take it all to myself, and indeed I ought, the motion being first mine, and never heartily approved by you.’

Of all our poet’s writings none were read with more general approbation than his Ethic Epistles, or multiplied into more editions.  Mr. Pope who was a perfect oeconomist, secured to himself the profits arising from his own works; he was never subjected to necessity, and therefore was not to be imposed upon by the art or fraud of publishers.

But now approaches the period in which as he himself expressed it, he stood in need of the generous tear he paid,

  Posts themselves must fall like those they sung,
  Deaf the prais’d ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. 
  Ev’n he whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
  Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays.

Mr. Pope who had been always subjected to a variety of bodily infirmities, finding his strength give way, began to think that his days, which had been prolonged past his expectation, were drawing towards a conclusion.  However, he visited the Hot-Wells at Bristol, where for some time there were small hopes of his recovery; but making too free with purges he grew worse, and seemed desirous to draw nearer home.  A dropsy in the breast at last put a period to his life, at the age of 56, on the 30th of May 1744, at his house at Twickenham, where he was interred in the same grave with his father and mother.

Mr. Pope’s behaviour in his last illness has been variously represented to the world:  Some have affirmed that it was timid and peevish; that having been fixed in no particular system of faith, his mind was wavering, and his temper broken and disturb’d.  Others have asserted that he was all chearfulness and resignation to the divine will:  Which of these opinions is true we cannot now determine; but if the former, it must be regretted, that he, who had taught philosophy to others, should himself be destitute of its assistance in the most critical moments of his life.