my dear,” replied old John, “if you do become a book let it be an almanack, for then I shall change you every year.”—(Mr. Horace Walpole.)
After Pope had written some bitter verses on Lady M. W. Montague, he told a friend of his that he should soon have ample revenge upon her, for that he had set her down in black and white, and should soon publish what he had written. “Be so good as to tell the little gentleman,” was the reply, “that I am not at all afraid of him; for if he sets me down in black and white, as he calls it, most assuredly I will have him set down in black and blue.”—(The same. )
The line in the Bathos,
was taken by Pope from his own Alexander.—(The same, from Lord Harvey.)
The imagery in the Messiah was derived from an old fabulous story relative to the celebrated cliff at , the seat of Mr. Wortley Montague, in Yorkshire.—(The same.)
Patty Blount was red-faced, fat, and by no means pretty. Mr. Walpole remembered her walking to Mr. Bethell’s, in Arlington Street, after Pope’s death, with her petticoats tucked up like a sempstress. She was the decided mistress of Pope, yet visited by respectable people.—(The same.)
Lord Radnor, who lived at Twickenham, and is one of the subscribing witnesses to Pope’s will, was
