THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE

VOL. I.

With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes

by THE REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN

M.DCCC.LVI.





LIFE OF ALEXANDER POPE


Alexander Pope was born in Lombard Street, London, on the 21st of May
1688--the year of the Revolution. His father was a linen-merchant, in
thriving circumstances, and said to have noble blood in his veins. His
mother was Edith or Editha Turner, daughter of William Turner, Esq., of
York. Mr Carruthers, in his excellent Life of the Poet, mentions that
there was an Alexander Pope, a clergyman, in the remote parish of Reay,
in Caithness, who rode all the way to Twickenham to pay his great
namesake a visit, and was presented by him with a copy of the
subscription edition of the "Odyssey," in five volumes quarto, which is
still preserved by his descendants. Pope's father had made about L10,000
by trade; but being a Roman Catholic, and fond of a country life, he
retired from business shortly after the Revolution, at the early age of
forty-six. He resided first at Kensington, and then in Binfield, in the