Alexander Pope was born on 21 May 1688 in London. His father was a cloth merchant living in London, both his parents were Catholic. It was a time of intense anti-Catholic sentiment in England, and at one point Alexander's family was forced to move to comply with a statute that prohibited Catholics from living within ten miles of London or Westminster. They moved to Binfield Berkshire, where Pope's early education was influenced by his Catholicism. Catholic schools were illegal but in some places they were allowed to survive. Before moving to Binfield, Pope spent a year at Twofold, where he wrote "a satire on some of his master's faults", which led to him being whipped and beaten until he fell ill. Then once again he was taken away from his family. Alexander went to study with Thomas Deane, a convert to Catholicism who lost his position at Oxford due to his religious beliefs. After the Pope family moved to Bin Field, Alexander became self-taught. Pope's disease, apparently tuberculosis of bone, became apparent when he was about twelve years old. Later in Pope's life, Sir Joshua Reynolds described him as "about four feet six in height; very hunchbacked and deformed. Pope was also afflicted with constant headaches, sometimes so severe that he could scarcely see the paper on which he wrote, frequent violent pains in the bones and shortness of breath in the muscular joints, the increasing inability to ride or even walk for physical exercise, William Wycherley, impressed by some of Pope's early poems, introduced him to the fashionable literary circles of London in 1704. Public attention came with the publication of Pastorals in 1709. The Rape of the Lock helped secure Pope's reputation as one of the leading poets of the age. Pope moved to Twickenham in 1717 and received virtually all visitors there , attacked his literary contemporaries although notable exceptions were Swift and Gay, with whom he had close friendships and continued to publish poetry. He died on 21 May 1744 in Twickenham Village. He wrote a poem entitled Essay of a Man in 1733-1734) The Pope examined the human condition against a Miltonic and cosmic background. Although Pope's perspective is far above our daily lives and does not hide his vast knowledge, the dramatic work suggests that humanity is part of nature and the diversity of living forms: every beast, every insect, happy in own life..