VII.

FAMILY OF MR. EDWARD BLOUNT, POPE'S FRIEND.

MR. EDWARD BLOUNT (who has hitherto been strangely confounded with Mr. Michael Blount, of Mapledurham, the brother of Teresa and Martha Blount) was of the Sodington branch of the illustrious family now represented by Sir Edward Blount, Bart. Sir Walter Blount, the zealous Royalist in the time of Charles I., and the second Baronet of the family, after his release from the Tower, seems to have gone down to Blagdon House, parish of Paignton, Devonshire, on a visit to his eldest son, George, afterwards Sir George Blount, who had married Mary, sole daughter and heiress of Sir William Kirkham, of Blagdon, Knight. Here, in all probability, Sir Walter ended his days, for he was buried in Paignton Church, 29th August, 1654.

Sir George Blount had various children:

1. Sir Walter Kirkham Blount, who died without issue at Ghent, in Flanders, May 12, 1717.

2. George (who died in 1732, aged 80) married first to Mary, d. of Henry Earl of Thomond, by whom he had no issue. Secondly, to Constantia, d. of Sir George Cary, of Tor Abbey, Devonshire, by whom he had three sons and five daughters. Two of the sons died in infancy; the third, Edward, succeeded his uncle, Sir Walter Kirkham Blount, as fourth Baronet. Of his five daughters, 1, Constantia, m. Sir John Smyth, of Acton Burnell, in Salop; 2, Mary, m. Mr. Edward Dickenson, of Wrightington, in Lancashire; 3, 4, 5, Anne, Elizabeth, and Catherine, all died at Cambray

unmarried.

3. William Blount. ["Here lyeth the body of William Blount, Esq., Third Sonne of Sir George Blount of Sodding. ton, Baronet, who dyed in the 21 yeare of his age on y 9th of May, 1671."-Inscription on flat stone in the Chancel of Binfield Church.]

4. EDWARD BLOUNT, the friend and correspondent of

FAMILY OF EDWARD BLOUNT.

467

Pope. On the death of Sir George, in 1667, the Devonshire property, acquired by his marriage with the heiress of Kirkham, was settled on his fourth son, Edward, who about the year 1700 married Ann, daughter of Sir John Guise, of Rentcombe, Gloucestershire. Pope dates one of his letters to Mr. Blount from Rentcombe:

"Rentcombe in Gloucestershire, Oct. 3, 1721.

"Your kind letter has overtaken me here; for I have been in and about this country ever since your departure. I am well pleased to date this from a place so well known to Mrs. Blount, where I write as if I were dictated to by her ancestors, whose faces are all upon me. I fear none so much as Sir Christopher Guise, who, being in his shirt, seems as ready to combat me, as her own Sir John was to demolish Duke Lancaster. I dare say your lady will recollect his figure. I looked upon the mansion, walls, and terraces; the plantations, and slopes, which nature has made to command a variety of valleys and rising woods, with a veneration mixed with a pleasure, that represented her to me in those puerile amusements which engaged her so many years ago in this place. I fancied I saw her sober over a sampler, or gay over a jointed baby. I dare say she did one thing more, even in those early times: Remember her Creator in the days of her youth.'"

By this lady Edward Blount had four daughters and no issue male. Pope, in one of his letters to Martha Blount, mentions the marriage of Viscount Dunbar to the daughter of Lord Clifford, and states that one of the agents in the affair was Mr. Edward Blount, "who, it was thought, might have provided for that noble Viscount much better out of his own family." Mr. Blount's family, however, was amply, even nobly, provided for. Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, was married in his lifetime in 1725 to the Hon. Hugh Clifford, who, the death of his father in 1730, became Lord Clifford. Mary, the second daughter, in November, 1727, married the Hon. Edward Howard, who upon the death of his brother in 1732, became Duke of Norfolk. "She graced that high station," says Sir Alexander Croke, "by the beauty and dignity of her person and the splendour of her wit and talents, and died in 1773." Mrs. Edward Blount, widow of the poet's friend, went abroad with her two unmarried daughters and

upon

fixed her residence at Antwerp. In that city, Anne, the third daughter, took the veil in a convent of Ursulines, a religious order instituted chiefly for the education of young ladies. Though a foreigner, she was soon after elected Superior of the house, and by her talents and exertions she rendered the establishment one of the most celebrated convents for education in the Low Countries. She remained in that station till her death in 1779. Henrietta, the fourth daughter, was first married to Peter Proli, Esq., merchant, Antwerp, and after his decease to the Hon. Philip Howard, of Buckenham, Norfolk, younger brother of the above Edward Duke of Norfolk.

Mr. Edward Blount went abroad after the rebellion of 1715-6. He seems to have finally returned in 1723, and taken up his abode in his paternal residence at Blagdon. "I cannot deny," says Pope, "but I have a mixture of envy to you all for loving one another so well, and for enjoying the sweets of that life which can only be tasted by people of good will.

"They from all shades the darkness can exclude,

And from a desert banish solitude.'

Torbay is a paradise, and a storm is but an amusement to such people. If you drink tea upon a promontory that overhangs the sea, it is preferable to an assembly; and the whistling of the wind better music to contented and loving minds, than the opera to spleenful, ambitious, diseased, distasteful, and distracted souls which this world affords." The mansionhouse of Blagdon, as we learn from Sir A Croke's work, was situated at the foot of a hill which obstructed all view from it, but at a small distance, on the top of the hill, stood a summer-house, which commanded a view of the beautiful harbour of Torbay. This spot was, no doubt, the tea-table promontory. Mr. Blount died in London, July 28, 1726, and his estate of Blagdon was sold for the benefit of his widow and daughters. Another portion of the Devonshire property, the manor of East Cornworthy, was sold by Mrs. Blount, in 1739, to William Chalwiche, Esq., for 25007. İ (Communicated by Dr. Oliver, Exeter, from the deed of sale.) This lady is described as a person of uncommon talents and

acquirements. The Countess of Pomfret met her at Antwerp in 1741, and gives an interesting account of her sentiments and mode of life. She remained the rest of her life in the neighbourhood of Antwerp, and died July 16, 1752. Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Blount are preserved at Thorndon Hall, Essex, the seat of Lord Petre.

VIII.

LIST OF POPE'S WORKS.

WE subjoin a list-the most complete we have been able to form of Pope's separate publications, with their respec

tive dates:

1709. In Tonson's Miscellany, part vi., January and May, from Chaucer; the Epistle of Sarpedon, from the 12th and 16th Books of Homer; and the Pastorals.

1711. Essay on Criticism (Anonymous). London: W. Lewis. 1712. In Lintot's Miscellany-The First Book of Statius's Thebais; the Fable of Vertumnus and Pomona, from the 14th Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses; to a Young Lady with the Works of Voiture; on Silence; to the author of a Poem entitled "Successio;" and the Rape of the Lock (first draft of the poem, without author's name or dedication).

In Spectator, Nov. 10, The Messiah. 1713. Windsor Forest. London: B. Lintot.

وو

Ode for Music on St. Cecilia's Day. Do.

Prologue to Addison's Cato, published in the Guardian, and with the Tragedy.

Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris, concerning the strange and deplorable Frenzy of J. D. (John Dennis-Anonymous.) Lintot.

Eight papers in the Guardian. Nos. 4, 11, 40, 61, 78, 91, 92, 173.

1714. The Rape of the Lock, with Additions. (Enlarged to five cantos, with machinery and dedication.) Lintot.

وو

In "Poetical Miscellanies" by Steele, The Wife of Bath, from
Chaucer; the Arrival of Ulysses at Ithaca, part of the 13th
Book of the Odyssey; and the Gardens of Alcinoüs, part of
7th Book.

Tonson.

1715. The Temple of Fame. Lintot.

33

A Key to the Lock, or a Treatise proving beyond all contradiction the dangerous tendency of a late poem entitled "The Rape of the Lock" to Government Religion. By Esdras Bar nevelt, Apoth. J. Roberts.

Translation of the Iliad, vol. i., containing the four first books, with Preface, Essay, and Observations. Lintot. 1716. Second Vol. of the Iliad.

A Full and True Account of a horrid and barbarous Revenge
by Poison on the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll, Bookseller,
with a Faithful copy of his last Will and Testament. Publish'd
by an Eye Witness. J. Roberts, &c.
Epistle to Jervas. Lintot.

The Worms. A Satire. J. Roberts.
1717. Third vol. of the Iliad.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope. Lintot. (A very handsome vol., both in folio and quarto, printed by Bowyer for Lintot. The Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard first appeared in this collection.)

1718-20. Fourth, fifth, and sixth vols. of the Iliad.

1721. Verses on Mr. Addison's Dialogues on Medals, first printed in Tickell's edit. of Addison's Works.

1722. Select Works of Parnell, inscribed in Poetical Epistle to the

Earl of Oxford.

1725. Edition of Shakespear. Six vols. 4to. Tonson.
Translation of the Odyssey, vols. i., ii., and iii. Lintot.

1726

دو

وو

vols. iv. and v.

Do.

Mr. Pope's Familiar Letters to Henry Cromwell, Esq. Curll's
Miscellanea.

1727. Miscellanies by Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. Two vols.

Motte.

1728. Miscellanies, vol. iii., entitled "The Last Volume."
The Dunciad, an Heroic Poem in Three Books.

رو

Dublin

printed. London: reprinted for A. Dodd. (No earlier edition has been found.)

1729. The Dunciad, with Notes Variorum, &c., 4to and 8vo. Lawton Gilliver.

Letters to Wycherley, Wycherley's Works, vol. ii. J. Roberts. (No copy of this work has been found, but it was advertised and is referred to by Pope.)

1731. Of Taste. An Epistle to the Right Hon. Richard Earl of Burlington, occasioned by his publishing Palladio's Designs of the Baths, Arches, Theatres, &c., of Ancient Rome. L. Gilliver. (The title of this epistle was afterwards altered to "Of False Taste ;" and again to "Of the Use of Riches.")

*