" I tell that story
to everybody, says Swift, "in commendation of Mr. Pope's
abstemiousness;" but he tells it, one may guess, with something of a
rueful countenance. At times, however, it seems that Pope could give a
"splendid dinner," and show no want of the "skill and elegance which
such performances require." Pope, in fact, seems to have shown a
combination of qualities which is not uncommon, though sometimes called
inconsistent. He valued money, as a man values it who has been poor and
feels it essential to his comfort to be fairly beyond the reach of want,
and was accordingly pretty sharp at making a bargain with a publisher or
in arranging terms with a collaborator. But he could also be liberal on
occasion. Johnson says that his whole income amounted to about 800_l._ a
year, out of which he professed himself able to assign 100_l._ to
charity; and though the figures are doubtful, and all Pope's statements
about his own proceedings liable to suspicion, he appears to have been
often generous in helping the distressed with money, as well as with
advice or recommendations to his powerful friends. Pope, by his
infirmities and his talents, belonged to the dependent class of mankind.
He was in no sense capable of standing firmly upon his own legs. He had
a longing, sometimes pathetic and sometimes humiliating, for the
applause of his fellows and the sympathy of friends. With feelings so
morbidly sensitive, and with such a lamentable incapacity for
straightforward openness in any relation of life, he was naturally a
dangerous companion.
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