'He told me, as a real friend, that a pension of three hundred pounds a year was at my service ; and that, as he had the management of the secret-service money in his hands, he could pay me such a pension yearly, without any one's knowing that I had it. I declined even this : but thanked Mr. Craggs for the heartiness and sincerity of his friendship, told him that I did not much like a pension any way; but that since he had so much goodness toward me, if I should want money, I would come to him for a hundred pounds, or even for five hundred, if my wants ran so high.' —Pope, in Spence's Anecdotes.
Pope being himself the only authority for this story, it must be received with great suspicion, as being very probably an invention on the part of the poet for the display of his own magnanimity.