'perhaps I should be much better pleased if I were told you called me "your little friend," than if you complimented me with the title of "a great genius," or "an eminent hand," as Jacob [Tonson] does all his authors.'
Steele's genial reply produced from Pope, as final result of the above letter to the
Spectator
, one of the most popular of his short pieces. Steele wrote (Dec. 4):
'This is to deSir e of you that you would please to make an ode as of a cheerful dying spirit; that is to say, the Emperor Adrian's "animula vagula," put into two or three stanzas for music. If you will comply with this, and send me word so, you will very particularly oblige Richard Steele.'
This was written two days before the appearance of the last number of his
Spectator
. Pope answered,
'I do not send you word I will do, but have already done the thing you deSir e of me,'
and sent his poem of three stanzas, called