ABSTRACT
A steady stream of visitors began arriving at Twickenham as soon as word spread that Alexander Pope was dying. Pope's friends and his other physicians were dubious about the treatment he was getting which as David Mallet said, 'evacuated him into absolute inanition.' Pope still had good days during his last illness when his pulse steadied and the fever went down. As it happened, several of those who hovered lamenting over Pope when he was dying did not care for him on unalterable principles. Mallet would join Bolingbroke in his campaign against the dead poet after the surreptitious edition of the Patriot King was discovered. Orrery, to whom Pope had given Bounce, was piqued because he left him no other memento. Pope had never been a rich man, not in comparison with the aristocrats or eminent lawyers and doctors who became his friends, not even compared with some of his fellow writers.
