Pope lost his mother two years, two months, and a few days after the date of this letter.  Three days after her death he entreated Richardson, the painter, to take a sketch of her face, as she lay in her coffin:  and for this purpose Pope somewhat delayed her interment.  “I thank God,” he says, “her death was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, nor even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it.  It would afford the finest image of a saint expired, that ever painting drew, and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever bestow upon a friend if you would come and sketch it for me.”  The writer adds, “I shall hope to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded.”

On the small obelisk in the garden, erected by Pope to the memory of his mother, he placed the following simple and pathetic inscription.

    AH!  EDITHA! 
    MATRUM OPTIMA! 
    MULIERUM AMANTISSIMA! 
    VALE!

I wonder that any one could have had the heart to remove or to destroy so interesting a memorial.

It is said that Pope planted his celebrated weeping willow at Twickenham with his own hands, and that it was the first of its particular species introduced into England.  Happening to be with Lady Suffolk when she received a parcel from Spain, he observed that it was bound with green twigs which looked as if they might vegetate.  “Perhaps,” said he, “these may produce something that we have not yet in England.”  He tried a cutting, and it succeeded.  The tree was removed by some person as barbarous as the reverend gentleman who cut down Shakespeare’s Mulberry Tree.  The Willow was destroyed for the same reason, as the Mulberry Tree—­because the owner was annoyed at persons asking to see it.  The Weeping Willow

    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,[013]

has had its interest with people in general much increased by its association with the history of Napoleon in the Island of St. Helena.  The tree whose boughs seemed to hang so fondly over his remains has now its scions in all parts of the world.  Few travellers visited the tomb without taking a small cutting of the Napoleon Willow for cultivation in their own land.  Slips of the Willow at Twickenham, like those of the Willow at St. Helena, have also found their way into many countries.  In 1789 the Empress of Russia had some of them planted in her garden at St. Petersburgh.

Mr. Loudon tells us that there is an old oak in Binfield Wood, Windsor Forest, which is called Pope’s Oak, and which bears the inscription “HERE POPE SANG:"[014] but according to general tradition it was a beech tree, under which Pope wrote his “Windsor Forest.”  It is said that as that tree was decayed, Lady Gower had the inscription alluded to carved upon another tree near it.  Perhaps the substituted tree was an oak.