" Yet he was
apparently a kind master. His servants lived with him till they became
friends, and he took care to pay so well the unfortunate servant whose
sleep was broken by his calls, that she said that she would want no
wages in a family where she had to wait upon Mr. Pope. Another form of
self-indulgence was more injurious to himself. He pampered his appetite
with highly seasoned dishes, and liked to receive delicacies from his
friends. His death was imputed by some of his friends, says Johnson, to
"a silver saucepan in which it was his delight to eat potted lampreys."
He would always get up for dinner, in spite of headache, when told that
this delicacy was provided. Yet, as Johnson also observes, the excesses
cannot have been very great, as they did not sooner cut short so fragile
an existence. "Two bites and a sup more than your stint," says Swift,
"will cost you more than others pay for a regular debauch."
At home, indeed, he appears to have been generally abstemious. Probably
the habits of his parents' little household were very simple; and Pope,
like Swift, knew the value of independence well enough to be
systematically economical. Swift, indeed, had a more generous heart, and
a lordly indifference to making money by his writings, which Pope, who
owed his fortune chiefly to his Homer, did not attempt to rival. Swift
alludes in his letters to an anecdote, which we may hope does not
represent his habitual practice. Pope, it appears, was entertaining a
couple of friends, and when four glasses had been consumed from a pint,
retired, saying, "Gentlemen I leave you to your wine.
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