Binfield lies near Wokingham, and about two miles north of Cæsar's camp, a pleasant village, surrounded with handsome houses, and in the midst of the tract called the Royal Hunt. The house in which Pope's father, and Pope too, resided, till he went to Twickenham, is a small, neat brick house, on the side of the London road. Within about half a mile of this house, and within a retired part of the forest, on the edge of a common, is the spot where, it is said, Pope used to compose many of his verses; on a large tree are inscribed, in capital letters, the words, _Here Pope sung_: this sentence used to be annually refreshed at the expense of a lady of Wokingham. There used also to be a seat under this tree, but that has long disappeared; the fact is, however, that tradition likes to fix on some particular spot, and especially some tree, as a particular object of a poet's attachment; it is a palpable affair, and satisfies the ordinary mind; but Pope, no doubt, especially when planning and working out his poem of Windsor Forest, used to ramble all through these scenes, and they may all be considered as associated with his memory and genius. Of the town life of Pope we find but few traces, considering the well-known times, and the personages among whom he moved. Where his settled lodgings were I find no exact mention; he was sometimes at friends' houses, or at that of Jervas, the painter, which was probably near St. James's Park; as when Mr. Blount writes to Pope, in 1716, endeavoring to persuade him to make a journey to the Continent with him, he exhorts him to leave "laziness and the elms of St. James's Park." Now this summer Jervas was on a visit to Swift in Ireland, and during his absence Pope made use of his house as his town sojourn; it was exactly at the crisis of Pope's removal from Binfield to Twickenham, and no doubt was a great convenience to him till his own house was fully ready for him. His description of this house, in a letter to Jervas, will be well remembered by the readers of his letters: "As to your inquiry about your house, when I came within the walls, they put me in mind of those of Carthage, where you find, like the wandering Trojan, 'Animum picturâ pascit inani;'