In the subterranean passage this verse appears; adulatory it must be confessed:—­

    ’The humble roof, the garden’s scanty line,
     Ill suit the genius of the bard divine;
     But fancy now assumes a fairer scope,
     And Stanhope’s plans unfold the soul of Pope.’

It should have been Stanhope’s ’gold,’—­a metal which was not so abundant, nor indeed so much wanted in Pope’s time as in our own.  Let us picture to ourselves the poet as a host.

As the barge is moored close to the low steps which lead up from the river to the villa, a diminutive figure, then in its prime, (if prime it ever had), is seen moving impatiently forward.  By that young-old face, with its large lucid speaking eyes that light it up, as does a rushlight in a cavern—­by that twisted figure with its emaciated legs—­by the large, sensible mouth, the pointed, marked, well-defined nose—­by the wig, or hair pushed off in masses from the broad forehead and falling behind in tresses—­by the dress, that loose, single-breasted black coat—­by the cambric band and plaited shirt, without a frill, but fine and white, for the poor poet has taken infinite pains that day in self-adornment—­by the delicate ruffle on that large thin hand, and still more by the clear, most musical voice which is heard welcoming his royal and noble guests, as he stands bowing low to the Princess Caroline, and bending to kiss hands—­by that voice which gained him more especially the name of the little nightingale—­is Pope at once recognized, and Pope in the perfection of his days, in the very zenith of his fame.

One would gladly have been a sprite to listen from some twig of that then stripling willow which the poet had planted with his own hand, to talk of those who chatted for a while under its shade, before they went in-doors to an elegant dinner at the usual hour of twelve.  How delightful to hear, unseen, the repartees of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who comes down, it is natural to conclude, from her villa near to that of Pope.  How fine a study might one not draw of the fine gentleman and the wit in Lord Hervey, as he is commanded by the gentle Princess Caroline to sit on her right hand; but his heart is across the table, with Lady Mary!  How amusing to observe the dainty but not sumptuous repast contrived with Pope’s exquisite taste, but regulated by his habitual economy—­for his late father, a worthy Jacobite hatter, erst in the Strand, disdained to invest the fortune he had amassed, from the extensive sale of cocked-hats, in the Funds, over which an Hanoverian stranger ruled; but had lived on his capital of L20,000 (as spendthrifts do, without either moral, religious, or political reasons), as long as it lasted him; yet he was no spendthrift.  Let us look, therefore, with a liberal eye, noting, as we stand, how that fortune, in league with nature, who made the poet crooked, had maimed two of his fingers, such time as, passing a bridge, the poor little poet was overturned into the river, and he would have been drowned, had not the postilion broken the coach window and dragged the tiny body through the aperture.  We mark, however, that he generally contrives to hide this defect, as he would fain have hidden every other, from the lynx eyes of Lady Mary, who knows him, however, thoroughly, and reads every line of that poor little heart of his, enamoured of her as it was.