Born to London in 1688, died in 1744; his father a linen
draper, converted to the Catholic faith; not regularly
educated, owing to his frail and sickly body; began to write
in boyhood, and before he was seventeen had met the leading
literary men of London; his "Essay on Criticism," published
in 1711, translation of Homer in 1720 and 1725, "Essay on
Man," in 1732-34.
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