No More Learning

Pope's education was short and irregular. He was taught the rudiments of
Latin and Greek by his family priest, attended for a brief period a
school in the country and another in London, and at the early age of
twelve left school altogether, and settling down at his father's house
in the country began to read to his heart's delight. He roamed through
the classic poets, translating passages that pleased him, went up for a
time to London to get lessons in French and Italian, and above all read
with eagerness and attention the works of older English poets,--Spenser,
Waller, and Dryden. He had already, it would seem, determined to become
a poet, and his father, delighted with the clever boy's talent, used to
set him topics, force him to correct his verses over and over, and
finally, when satisfied, dismiss him with the praise, "These are good
rhymes. " He wrote a comedy, a tragedy, an epic poem, all of which he
afterward destroyed and, as he laughingly confessed in later years, he
thought himself "the greatest genius that ever was. "

Pope was not alone, however, in holding a high opinion of his talents.
While still a boy in his teens he was taken up and patronized by a
number of gentlemen, Trumbull, Walsh, and Cromwell, all dabblers in
poetry and criticism. He was introduced to the dramatist Wycherly,
nearly fifty years his senior, and helped to polish some of the old
man's verses. His own works were passed about in manuscript from hand to
hand till one of them came to the eyes of Dryden's old publisher,
Tonson. Tonson wrote Pope a respectful letter asking for the honor of
being allowed to publish them. One may fancy the delight with which the
sixteen-year-old boy received this offer. It is a proof of Pope's
patience as well as his precocity that he delayed three years before
accepting it. It was not till 1709 that his first published verses, the
'Pastorals', a fragment translated from Homer, and a modernized version
of one of the 'Canterbury Tales', appeared in Tonson's 'Miscellany'.

With the publication of the 'Pastorals', Pope embarked upon his life as
a man of letters. They seem to have brought him a certain recognition,
but hardly fame.
That he obtained by his next poem, the 'Essay on
Criticism', which appeared in 1711. It was applauded in the 'Spectator',
and Pope seems about this time to have made the acquaintance of Addison
and the little senate which met in Button's coffee house. His poem the
'Messiah' appeared in the 'Spectator' in May 1712; the first draft of
'The Rape of the Lock' in a poetical miscellany in the same year, and
Addison's request, in 1713, that he compose a prologue for the tragedy
of 'Cato' set the final stamp upon his rank as a poet.

Pope's friendly relations with Addison and his circle were not, however,
long continued. In the year 1713 he gradually drew away from them and
came under the influence of Swift, then at the height of his power in
political and social life. Swift introduced him to the brilliant Tories,
politicians and lovers of letters, Harley, Bolingbroke, and Atterbury,
who were then at the head of affairs. Pope's new friends seem to have
treated him with a deference which he had never experienced before, and
which bound him to them in unbroken affection. Harley used to regret
that Pope's religion rendered him legally incapable of holding a
sinecure office in the government, such as was frequently bestowed in
those days upon men of letters, and Swift jestingly offered the young
poet twenty guineas to become a Protestant. But now, as later, Pope was
firmly resolved not to abandon the faith of his parents for the sake of
worldly advantage. And in order to secure the independence he valued so
highly he resolved to embark upon the great work of his life, the
translation of Homer.

"What led me into that," he told a friend long after, "was purely the
want of money. I had then none; not even to buy books. " It seems that
about this time, 1713, Pope's father had experienced some heavy
financial losses, and the poet, whose receipts in money had so far been
by no means in proportion to the reputation his works had brought him,
now resolved to use that reputation as a means of securing from the
public a sum which would at least keep him for life from poverty or the
necessity of begging for patronage. It is worth noting that Pope was the
first Englishman of letters who threw himself thus boldly upon the
public and earned his living by his pen.

The arrangements for the publication and sale of Pope's translation of
Homer were made with care and pushed on with enthusiasm. He issued in
1713 his proposals for an edition to be published by subscription, and
his friends at once became enthusiastic canvassers.