Pope's Atossa was a portrait which would fit either lady, though it would be naturally applied to the most famous.

It seems certain also that Pope had received some favours (possibly the 1000_l._ on some occasion unknown) from the Duchess of Marlborough, which was felt by his friends to make any attack upon her unjustifiable.

We can scarcely believe that there should have been a direct compact of the kind described.

If Pope had been a person of duly sensitive conscience he would have suppressed his work.

But to suppress anything that he had written, and especially a passage so carefully laboured, was always agony to him.