restoration of their religion had been totally destroyed by the
Revolution of 1688. During all Pope's lifetime they were a sect at once
feared, hated, and oppressed by the severest laws. They were excluded
from the schools and universities, they were burdened with double taxes,
and forbidden to acquire real estate. All public careers were closed to
them, and their property and even their persons were in times of
excitement at the mercy of informers. In the last year of Pope's life a
proclamation was issued forbidding Catholics to come within ten miles of
London, and Pope himself, in spite of his influential friends, thought
it wise to comply with this edict. A fierce outburst of persecution
often evokes in the persecuted some of the noblest qualities of human
nature; but a long-continued and crushing tyranny that extends to all
the details of daily life is only too likely to have the most
unfortunate results on those who are subjected to it. And as a matter of
fact we find that the well-to-do Catholics of Pope's day lived in an
atmosphere of disaffection, political intrigue, and evasion of the law,
most unfavorable for the development of that frank, courageous, and
patriotic spirit for the lack of which Pope himself has so often been
made the object of reproach.

In a well-known passage of the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot', Pope has spoken
of his life as one long disease. He was in fact a humpbacked dwarf, not
over four feet six inches in height, with long, spider-like legs and
arms. He was subject to violent headaches, and his face was lined and
contracted with the marks of suffering. In youth he so completely ruined
his health by perpetual studies that his life was despaired of, and only
the most careful treatment saved him from an early death. Toward the
close of his life he became so weak that he could neither dress nor
undress without assistance. He had to be laced up in stiff stays in
order to sit erect, and wore a fur doublet and three pairs of stockings