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.
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_.
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