Pope was born in London on 21 May 1688 and died at Twickenham on 30 May 1744, aged 56. As a Catholic under the Test Acts he was barred from university, from voting and from public office, and from the age of twelve Pott disease — tuberculosis of the spine — deformed his back and stopped his growth at four feet six inches; he made a living instead as the first English poet to get rich on subscription, largely through his verse translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. Wikipedia notes that he is often quoted in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, with verses such as “damning with faint praise” and “to err is human; to forgive, divine” having entered common parlance.