_Pope and Flatman_ (Vol. iv., p. 210.).--E. V. has entirely overlooked
the very material circumstance that Flatman's poem was cited in your
periodical (Vol. iv., p. 132.) from a book published in 1688,
twenty-four years before the date he assigns to the composition of
Pope's ode. Flatman died 8th December, 1688, and Pope was born 22d May,
1688; so that he was little more than six months old at the time of
Flatman's death. I have now before me the 4th edition of Flatman's
_Poems and Songs_, London, 8vo., 1686; "A Thought of Death" occurs at p.
55.