where they were calculated to produce the best effect. There was an elegant collation ready; and, while Pope talked of
"His humble roof, and poet's fare,"
he had neglected nothing that could please his assembled guests. To Lady Marchmont he was the most interesting object of all, though all his petits soins were addressed to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who received them with that encouraging coquetry born of flattered vanity.
Flattery is like champagne, it soon gets into the head; but in Pope's flattery there was too much of the heart. Long after hours of neglect and mortification dearly atoned for that morning's pleasant delusion. There is something in genius for which fate demands severe atonement. In some things Pope's was an exception to the general lot. He dwelt in that "lettered ease" to which his own taste gave refinement; his talents pined in no long obscurity, but early reached their just appreciation; his friends were those whose friendship
