Note 9 — THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

One of Pope's favourite topics is contempt for his own poetry. For this, if it had been real, he would deserve no commendation; and in this he was certainly not sincere, for his value of himself was sufficiently observed; and of what could he be proud but of his poetry? He writes, he says, when "he has just nothing else to do;" yet Swift complains that he was never at leisure for conversation, because he "had always some poetical scheme in his head." It was punctually required that his writing-box should be set upon his bed before he rose; and Lord Oxford's domestic related that in the dreadful winter of 1740, she was called from her bed by him four times in one night to supply him with paper lest he should lose a thought.—Dr. Johnson.