His friendships were keen and his hostilities more
than proportionally bitter. We see his fragile figure, glancing rapidly
from one hospitable circle to another, but always standing a little
apart; now paying court to some conspicuous wit, or philosopher, or
statesman, or beauty; now taking deadly offence for some utterly
inexplicable reason; writhing with agony under clumsy blows which a
robuster nature would have met with contemptuous laughter; racking his
wits to contrive exquisite compliments, and suddenly exploding in sheer
Billingsgate; making a mountain of every mole-hill in his pilgrimage;
always preoccupied with his last literary project, and yet finding time
for innumerable intrigues; for carrying out schemes of vengeance for
wounded vanity, and for introducing himself into every quarrel that was
going on around him. In all his multifarious schemes and occupations he
found it convenient to cover himself by elaborate mystifications, and
was as anxious (it would seem) to deceive posterity as to impose upon
contemporaries; and hence it is as difficult clearly to disentangle the
twisted threads of his complex history as to give an intelligible
picture of the result of the investigation. The publication of the
Iliad, however, marks a kind of central point in his history. Pope has
reached independence, and become the acknowledged head of the literary
world; and it will be convenient here to take a brief survey of his
position, before following out two or three different series of events,
which can scarcely be given in chronological order.
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