There can be no reasonable doubt that Alexander is the Poet's father; and it is worth observation that this is a list of "merchants" properly so called--persons engaged in the higher walks of commerce. The number of the names is about 1770. Hence we must infer that the Poet's father was not, at that time at least, pursuing any low or mean occupation, but one in which in those days it was not unusual to place the younger sons of gentry, and sometimes even of the nobility of the land. He was then, or very soon after, married, not to the mother of his celebrated son, but to a former wife, whose name was Magdalen, but whose surname is at present unknown. This is a recent discovery of some one whose curiosity has led him to consult the register of St. Benet Fink, the parish in which part of Broad Street is situated, where this entry was found:--"1679, August 12. bur. Magdalen, wife of Alexander Pope." She left him one child, a daughter named Magdalen, afterwards Mrs. Racket, whose sons were the Poet's heirs. The next event (after another period marked by no incidents with which we are acquainted) is his marriage with Edith Turner, his second wife. This may be presumed to have taken place in 1686 or 1687, the only child, the Poet, having been born in May or June, 1688. Authorities differ respecting the day, and also the place, one naming Lombard Street, another Cheapside. The father had, therefore, changed his residence, but was still living among the trading aristocracy, and we have no reason to believe that he had receded from his original position of a London merchant. He acquired some additional property, perhaps considerable, with his wife Edith. She seems to have been the favourite of her brother, the "general officer in Spain," whatever that phrase may denote,--for Pope says, she inherited from him what remained of the fortunes of the family, and it must have been from him that the elder Alexander Pope acquired the valuable interest he possessed in the manor of Ruston, near Scarborough. They were both of mature age at their marriage. Fixing the time in 1686, he would be, according to his monumental inscription, forty-five, and she forty-four. This change in his position had doubtless something to do with his retirement from business very soon after the Revolution,--perhaps as much as his disgust at the political change which had taken place, or his love of retirement, the motives usually assigned for the step he took. He did not immediately establish himself in his retreat at Binfield, for Mr. Roscoe in his Life of the Poet informs us, that he lived for a while at Kensington. No long interval, however, appears to have elapsed between his final departure from London, and his settlement on a small estate which he bought at Binfield, which is on Windsor Forest, two or three miles from the town of Wokingham.