The purpose of the Poet is, as he tells us, to laugh at the little unguarded follies of the female fex. It is therefore without juftice that Dennis charges the Rape of the Lock with the want of a moral, and for that reafon fets it below the Lutrin, which expofes the pride and difcord of the clergy. Perhaps neither Pope nor Boileau has made the world much better than he found it; but if they had both fucceeded, it were easy to tell who would have deserved moft from publick gratitude. The freaks, and humours, and spleen, and vanity of women, as they embroil families in difcord, and fill houses with difquict, do more to obftruct the happiness of life in a year than the ambition of the clergy in many many centuries. It has been well obferved, that the mifery of man proceeds not from any fingle crufh of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations-continually repeated. It is remarked by Dennis likewife, that the machinery is fuperfluous; that, by all the bustle of preternatural operation, the main event is neither haftened nor retarded. To this charge an efficacious anfwer is not eafily made. The fylphs cannot be faid to help or to oppofe, and it must be allowed to imply fome want of art, that their power has not been fufficiently intermingled with the action. Other parts may likewise be charged with want of connection; the game at ombre might be fpared, but if the the Lady had loft her hair while she was intent upon her cards, it might have been inferred that those who are too fond of play will be in danger of neglect-, ing more important interefts. Those perhaps are faults; but what are fuch faults to fo much excellence! The Epiftle of Eloife to Abelard is one of the most happy productions of human wit the fubject is fo judicioufly chofen, that it would be difficult, in turning over the annals of the world, to find another which fo many circumftances concur to recommend. We regularly intereft ourselves most in the fortune of those who moft deferve our notice. Abelard and Eloife were confpicuous in their days for eminence of me rit. The heart naturally loves truth. The adventures and misfortunes of this illuftrious pair are known from undifputed history. Their fate does not leave the mind in hopeless dejection; for they both found quiet and confolation in retirement and piety. So new and fo affecting is their ftory, that it fuperfedes invention, and imagination ranges at full liberty without ftraggling into scenes of fable. The ftory, thus fkilfully adopted, has been diligently improved, Pope has left nothing behind him, which feems more the effect of studious perfeverance and laborious revifal. Here is particularly obfervable the curiofa felicitas, a fruitful foil, and careful cultivation. Here Here is no crudenefs of fenfe, nor afpe rity of language. The fources from which fentiments, which have fo much vigour and efficacy, have been drawn, are fhewn to be the mystick writers by the learned author of the Efay on the Life and Writings of Pope; a book which teaches how the brow of Criticifm may be fmoothed, and how fhe may be enabled, with all her feverity, to attract and to delight. The train of my difquifition has now conducted me to that poetical wonder, the tranflation of the Iliad; a performance which no age or nation can pretend to equal. To the Greeks tranflation was almoft unknown; it was totally unknown |