Our author's life becomes now little else than a record of multiplying
labours and increasing infirmities. In 1734 appeared the fourth part of
the "Essay on Man," and the Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace.
In 1735 were issued his "Characters of Women: An Epistle to a Lady"
(Martha Blount). In this appears his famous character of Atossa--the
Duchess of Marlborough. It is said--we fear too truly--that these lines
being shewn to her Grace, as a character of the Duchess of Buckingham,
she recognised in them her own likeness, and bribed Pope with a thousand
pounds to suppress it. He did so religiously--as long as she was
alive--and then published it! In the same year he printed a second
volume of his "Miscellaneous Works," in folio and quarto, uniform with
the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," including a versification of the Satires of
Donne; also, anonymously, a production disgraceful to his memory,
entitled, "Sober Advice from Horace to the Young Gentlemen about Town,"
in which he commits many gross indecorums of language, and annexes the
name of the great Bentley to several indecent notes. It is said that
Bentley, when he read the pamphlet, cried, "'Tis an impudent dog, but I
talked against his Homer, and the _portentous cub never forgives_."

The "Essay on Man" and the "Moral Epistles" were designed to be parts of
a great system of ethics, which Pope had long revolved in his mind, and
wished to incarnate in poetry. At this time occurred the strange,
mysterious circumstances connected with the publication of his letters.
It seems that, in 1729, Pope had recalled from his correspondents the
letters he had written them, of many of which he had kept no copies. He
was induced to this by the fact, that after Henry Cromwell's death, his
mistress, Mrs Thomas, who was in indigent circumstances, had sold the
letters which had passed between Pope and her keeper, to Curll the
bookseller, who had published them without scruple. When Pope obtained
his correspondence, he, according to his own statement, burned a great