During Pope's boyhood he was an elderly rake about town, having squandered his intellectual as well as his pecuniary resources, but still scribbling bad verses and maxims on the model of Rochefoucauld.

Pope had a very excusable, perhaps we may say creditable, enthusiasm for the acknowledged representatives of literary glory.

Before he was twelve years old he had persuaded some one to take him to Will's, that he might have a sight of the venerable Dryden; and in the first published letter[1] to Wycherley he refers to this brief glimpse, and warmly thanks Wycherley for some conversation about the elder poet.

And thus, when he came to know Wycherley, he was enraptured with the honour.

He followed the great man about, as he tells us, like a dog; and, doubtless, received with profound respect the anecdotes of literary life which fell from the old gentleman's lips.