MEMOIR OF POPE.1 BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE. "L'Art quelquefois frivole, et quelquefois divin, VOLTAIRE. ALEXANDER POPE was born in Lombard Street London, on the 21st, or, according to some an thorities, on the 22d of May, 1688. His father, who having been placed in youth with a merchant at Lisbon, had become a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, was an eminent linen-draper: the paternal grandfather of the poet was a clergyman of the Church of England, settled in Hampshire. His mother, who had been formerly married to a Mr. Rackett, was the daughter of William Turner, Esq. of York. An only child of very delicate and sickly frame, In this Memoir, I have attempted little more than to throw together, within certain limits, all the most important particulars which are to be found concerning Pope in the writings of Ayre, Ruffhead, Spence, Johnson, Warton, Bowles, Roscoe, and others. To the Life of our author by Mr. Roscoe I am particularly indebted. 2 In the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Pope says that his |