'While all its throats the gallery extends And all the thunder of the pit ascends, Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep Howl to the roarings of the northern deep.' Pope, as we have said, became a partisan, and so had his hands full of ready-made quarrels; but his period was certainly one that demanded a satirist. Perhaps most periods do; but I am content to repeat, his did. Satire like Pope's is essentially modish, and requires a restricted range. Were anyone desirous of satirizing humanity at large I should advise him to check his noble rage, and, at all events, to begin with his next-door neighbour, who is almost certain to resent it, which humanity will not do. This was Pope's method. It was a corrupt set amongst whom he moved. The gambling in the South Sea stock had been prodigious, and high and low, married and single, town and country, Protestant and Catholic, Whig and Tory, took part in it. One _could_ gamble in that stock. The mania began in February 1720, and by the end of May the price of 100 pounds stock was up to 340 pounds. In July and August it was 950 pounds, and even touched, 1,000 pounds. In the middle of September it was down to 590 pounds, and before the end of the year it had dropped to 125 pounds. Pope himself bought stock when it stood so low as 104 pounds, but he had never the courage to sell, and consequently lost, according to his own account, half his worldly possessions. The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, also bought stock, but he sold--as did his Most Gracious Majesty the King--at 1,000 pounds. The age was also a scandalous, ill-living age, and Pope, who was a most confirmed gossip and tale-bearer, picked up all that was going. The details of every lawsuit of a personal character were at his finger-ends. Whoever starved a sister, or forged a will, or saved his candle-ends, made a fortune dishonestly, or lost one disgracefully, or was reported to do so, be he citizen or courtier, noble duke or plump alderman, Mr. Pope was sure to know all about it, and as likely as not to put it into his next satire. Living, as the poet did, within easy distance of London, he always turned up in a crisis as regularly as a porpoise in a storm, so at least writes a noble friend. This sort of thing naturally led to quarrels, and the shocking incompleteness of this lecture stands demonstrated by the fact that, though I have almost done, I have as yet said nothing abort Pope's quarrels, which is nearly as bad as writing about St. Paul and leaving out his journeys. Pope's quarrels are celebrated. His quarrel with Mr. Addison, culminating in the celebrated description, almost every line of which is now part and parcel of the English language; his quarrel with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whom he satirized in the most brutal lines ever written by man of woman; his quarrel with Lord Hervey; his quarrel with the celebrated Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, ought not to be