Alexander Pope was the archetypal writer of the neoclassical period in Europe. In his amazing career, Pope set the paradigm for poetry and the moral and philosophical reasoning that defined his age.

From Jonathan Swift’s Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,

In Pope I cannot read a line,
But with a sigh I wish it mine;
When he can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six,
It gives me such a jealous fit,
I cry, ‘Pox take him and his wit!’

All through his life, Pope tolerated lingering headaches, asthma, and other symptoms that conjured, in his expressions, “this long disease, my life.”