FOOTNOTES:
[24] Spence, pp. 16, 48, 137, 315.
[25] To take an obviously uncertain test, I find that in Bartlett's
dictionary of familiar quotations, Shakspeare fills 70 pages; Milton,
23; Pope, 18; Wordsworth, 16; and Byron, 15. The rest are nowhere.
[26] Roscoe's attempt at a denial was conclusively answered by Bowles in
one of his pamphlets.
[27] On this subject Mr. Dilke's _Papers of a Critic_.
CHAPTER IX.
THE END.
The last satires were published in 1738. Six years of life still
remained to Pope; his intellectual powers were still vigorous, and his
pleasure in their exercise had not ceased. The only fruit, however, of
his labours during this period was the fourth book of the Dunciad. He
spent much time upon bringing out new editions of his works, and upon
the various intrigues connected with the Swift correspondence. But his
health was beginning to fail. The ricketty framework was giving way, and
failing to answer the demands of the fretful and excitable brain. In the
spring of 1744 the poet was visibly breaking up; he suffered from
dropsical asthma, and seems to have made matters worse by putting
himself in the hands of a notorious quack--a Dr. Thomson. The end was
evidently near as he completed his fifty-sixth year. Friends, old and
new, were often in attendance. Above all, Bolingbroke, the venerated
friend of thirty years' standing; Patty Blount, the woman whom he loved
best; and the excellent Spence, who preserved some of the last words of
the dying man.
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