Note 8 — III HOW TO MAKE AN EPIC POEM[11]

A letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The mansion here described is Stanton Harcourt, near the hamlet of Cokethorpe in Oxfordshire. Here the Harcourts had lived since the twelfth century. At the date of Pope's letter, it was the seat of Simon Harcourt, first viscount, but Simon's father, Sir Philip Harcourt, for many years was the last of the family actually to live there, his widow afterward permitting the buildings to fall into the state of decay which Pope describes. In the tower is an upper chamber over the chapel which still bears the name of "Pope's Study." It was there, in 1718, that Pope finished the fifth volume of his translation of Homer. Simon, the first viscount, had taken up his residence at Stanton Harcourt a short time before the date of Pope's letter—that is, about 1715. He frequently had as guests Pope, Swift, Gay and Prior, being himself fond of literary pursuits. Twelve letters written to him by Pope have been preserved among the family papers. Pope, in his letter to Lady Mary, of September 1, 1718, which here follows the one beginning on the previous page, in referring to the mansion uses the words, "which he lent me," indicating that Pope was occupying the mansion at the invitation of Lord Harcourt. Swift and Harcourt sometimes quarreled over political matters, in which Harcourt was prominent. On one occasion Swift called him "Trimming Harcourt."