finances, that he resolved to come nearer to his friends in the capital. With that view, the small estate at Binfield was sold, and he purchased a house at Twickenham, whither he removed with his father and mother before the end of the year 1715. While employed in the decoration of his seat, he could not forbear doubling his pleasures by boasting of it in his communications with his friends. In a letter to Mr. Blount he says, in his customary tone of gallantry, “The young ladies may be assured that I make nothing new in my gardens, without wishing to see them print their fairy steps in every corner of them.... You’ll think I have been very poetical in this description, but it is pretty nearly the truth.” This letter was written in 1725. Warburton tells us that the improvement of his celebrated grotto was the favourite amusement of his declining years: not long before his death, by enlarging and ornamenting it with ores and minerals of the richest and rarest kind, he had made it a most elegant and romantic retirement. But modern taste will scarcely confirm the reverend editor’s assertion, that “the beauty of his poetic genius, in the disposition and ornaments of those romantic materials, appeared to as much advantage as in any of his best-contrived poems.” Pope’s father survived his removal to Twickenham only two years. The old gentleman had sometimes recommended to his son the study of medicine, as the best method of increasing his scanty patrimony. Neglect of pecuniary considerations was not among Pope’s weaknesses: he did not indeed engage in the medical profession; but he took other opportunities of pushing his fortune. With this view, he published an edition of his collected poems in 1717; a proceeding as much suggested by profit as by fame. In the like disposition, he undertook a new edition of Shakspeare, which was published in 1721. The execution of it proved the editor’s unfitness for the task which he had undertaken. Immediately after the completion of the Iliad, in 1720, Pope engaged, for a considerable sum, to undertake the Odyssey. Only twelve books, however, of the translation proceeded from his own pen: the rest were done by Broome and Fenton under his direction. The work was completed in 1725. The following year was employed, in concert with Swift and Arbuthnot, in the publication of miscellanies, of which the most remarkable is the celebrated ‘History of Martinus Scriblerus.’ About this time, as he was returning home one day in Lord Bolingbroke’s chariot, it was overturned on Chase Bridge, near Twickenham, and thrown with the horses into the river. The glasses being up, Pope was nearly drowned, and was extricated with difficulty from his hazardous situation. He lost the use of two fingers, in consequence of a severe cut from the broken glass.