critics could not have been very acute who did not detect Pope's "fine
Roman hand" in every sentence of this brilliant but most unsatisfactory
and shallow performance.

In the same year died dear, simple-minded Gay, who found in Pope a
sincere mourner, and an elegant elegiast; and on the 7th of June 1733,
expired good old Mrs Pope, at the age of ninety-four. Pope, who had
always been a dutiful son, erected an obelisk in his own grounds to her
memory, with a simple but striking inscription in Latin. During this
year, he published the third part of the "Essay on Man," an epistle to
Lord Cobham, On the Knowledge and Characters of Man, and an Imitation of
the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace. In this last, he attacks,
in the most brutal style, his former love Lady Mary W. Montague, who
replied in a piece of coarse cleverness, entitled, "Verses to the
Imitator of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace,"--verses in
which she was assisted by Lord Harvey, another of Pope's victims. He
wrote, but was prudent enough to suppress, an ironical reply.

In 1734 appeared his very clever and highly-finished epistle to Dr
Arbuthnot (now entitled the "Prologue to the Satires"), who was then
languishing toward death. Arbuthnot, from his deathbed, solemnly advised
Pope to regulate his satire, and seems to have been afraid of his
personal safety from his numerous foes. Pope replied in a manly but
self-defensive style. He is said about this time to have in his walks
carried arms, and had a large dog as his protector; but none of the
dunces had courage enough to assail him. Dennis, who was no dunce, might
have ventured on it--but he had become miserably infirm, poor, and
blind; and Pope had heaped coals of fire on his head, by contributing a
Prologue to a play which was acted for his behoof.