Henry Cromwell, a remote cousin of the Protector, is known to other than
minute investigators of contemporary literature by nothing except his
friendship with Pope. He was nearly thirty years older than Pope, and
though heir to an estate in the country, was at this time a gay, though
rather elderly, man about town. Vague intimations are preserved of his
personal appearance. Gay calls him "honest hatless Cromwell with red
breeches;" and Johnson could learn about him the single fact that he
used to ride a-hunting in a tie-wig. The interpretation of these outward
signs may not be very obvious to modern readers; but it is plain from
other indications that he was one of the frequenters of coffee-houses,
aimed at being something of a rake and a wit, was on speaking terms with
Dryden, and familiar with the smaller celebrities of literature, a
regular attendant at theatres, a friend of actresses, and able to
present himself in fashionable circles and devote complimentary verses
to the reigning beauties at the Bath. When he studied the _Spectator_ he
might recognize some of his features reflected in the portrait of Will
Honeycomb. Pope was proud enough for the moment at being taken by the
hand by this elderly buck, though, as Pope himself rose in the literary
scale and could estimate literary reputations more accurately, he
became, it would seem, a little ashamed of his early enthusiasm, and, at
any rate, the friendship dropped. The letters which passed between the
pair during four or five years down to the end of 1711, show Pope in his
earliest manhood.
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