religious hope and resignation gives an elevation and dignity to
disappointed love, which images merely natural cannot bestow. The
gloom of a convent strikes the imagination with far greater force
than the solitude of a grove. This piece was, however, not much his
favourite in his later years, though I never heard upon what
principle he slighted it.

In the next year (1713) he published "Windsor Forest," of which part
was, as he relates, written at sixteen, about the same time as his
Pastorals, and the latter part was added afterwards. Where the
addition begins we are not told. The lines relating to the peace
confess their own date. It is dedicated to Lord Lansdowne, who was
then in high reputation and influence among the Tories; and it is
said that the conclusion of the poem gave great pain to Addison,
both as a poet and a politician. Reports like this are often spread
with boldness very disproportionate to their evidence. Why should
Addison receive any particular disturbance from the last lines of
"Windsor Forest"? If contrariety of opinion could poison a
politician, he could not live a day; and, as a poet, he must have
felt Pope's force of genius much more from many other parts of his
works. The pain that Addison might feel it is not likely that he
would confess; and it is certain that he so well suppressed his
discontent that Pope now thought himself his favourite, for, having
been consulted in the revisal of "Cato" he introduced it by a
prologue; and, when Dennis published his remarks, undertook, not
indeed to vindicate, but to revenge his friend, by a "Narrative of
the Frenzy of John Dennis."

There is reason to believe that Addison gave no encouragement to
this disingenuous hostility, for, says Pope, in a letter to him,