rank or station was never ascertained: we are informed that they
were of "gentle blood;" that his father was of a family of which the
Earl of Downe was the head, and that his mother was the daughter of
William Turner, Esquire, of York, who had likewise three sons, one
of whom had the honour of being killed, and the other of dying, in
the service of Charles the First; the third was made a general
officer in Spain, from whom the sister inherited what sequestrations
and forfeitures had left in the family. This, and this only, is
told by Pope, who is more willing, as I have heard observed, to show
what his father was not, than what he was. It is allowed that he
grew rich by trade; but whether in a shop or on the Exchange was
never discovered till Mr. Tyers told, on the authority of Mrs.
Racket, that he was a linendraper in the Strand. Both parents were
Papists.

Pope was from his birth of a constitution tender and delicate, but
is said to have shown remarkable gentleness and sweetness of
disposition. The weakness of his body continued through his life,
but the mildness of his mind perhaps ended with his childhood. His
voice when he was young was so pleasing, that he was called in
fondness "The Little Nightingale."

Being not sent early to school, he was taught to read by an aunt;
and, when he was seven or eight years old, became a lover of books.
He first learned to write by imitating printed books, a species of
penmanship in which he retained great excellence through his whole
life, though his ordinary hand was not elegant. When he was about
eight he was placed in Hampshire, under Taverner, a Romish priest,
who, by a method very rarely practised, taught him the Greek and
Latin rudiments together. He was now first regularly initiated in