Patty for
his reflections on Mrs. Teresa." He is an "agreeable rattle;" the
accomplished rake, drinking with the wits, though above boozing with the
squire, and capable of alleging his drunkenness as an excuse for writing
very questionable letters to ladies.
Pope was too sickly and too serious to indulge long in such youthful
fopperies. He had no fund of high spirits to draw upon, and his
playfulness was too near deadly earnest for the comedy of common life.
He had too much intellect to be a mere fribble, and had not the strong
animal passions of the thorough debauchee. Age came upon him rapidly,
and he had sown his wild oats, such as they were, while still a young
man. Meanwhile his reputation and his circle of acquaintances were
rapidly spreading, and in spite of all his disqualifications for the
coarser forms of conviviality, he took the keenest possible interest in
the life that went on around him. A satirist may not be a pleasant
companion, but he must frequent society; he must be on the watch for his
natural prey; he must describe the gossip of the day, for it is the raw
material from which he spins his finished fabric. Pope, as his writings
show, was an eager recipient of all current rumours, whether they
affected his aristocratic friends or the humble denizens of Grub Street.
Fully to elucidate his poems, a commentator requires to have at his
finger's ends the whole _chronique scandaleuse_ of the day. With such
tastes, it was natural that, as the subscriptions for his Homer began to
pour in, he should be anxious to move nearer the great social centre.
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