When I have classed POPE, as a Poet, inferior to MILTON and SHAKESPEARE, I must beg to be understood, that I do not consider him in the same file with these Poets, nor in any degree to be ranked with them. Some allowance will be made for the circumstances under which this Answer has been brought out; the instances being adduced on the spur of the occasion, under the anxiety that the considerate and impartial, before they decide, with Lord BYRON, might at least hear alteram partem.

It would be important for the reader to keep in mind one plain distinction, in reading what is here offered. Whatever is picturesque is so far poetical; but all that is" poetical," does not require to be "picturesque." Lord BYRON would never have said, "What painter does not break the sea with a boat," &c. if he had remembered this distinction.

LETTER.

MY LORD,

HORNE TOOKE, if I remember right, began his well-known letter to JUNIUS, in these words: "Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce,-JUNIUS, "WILKES, and FOOTE,-against one poor parson, "are fearful odds." So I might say, Lord BYRON, and my two late assailants,-APOLLO, MIDAS, and PUNCH,-are indeed fearful odds against a country clerk and provincial editor.

But to be more courtly, in approaching your Lordship as a controversialist upon any point, I am well aware of the great talents opposed to me. I have just read your Remarks (addressed to a friend) on my Life of POPE, on the first part of my Vindication in the Pamphleteer, and on my PRINCIPLES of Poetical Criticism,

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which I had called (foolishly, in your Lordship's opinion) INVARIABLE.

I thank you, cordially, for this opportunity of explaining my sentiments, which I know you would not intentionally pervert; for the flattering terms in which you have spoken of me personally; and, most of all, for the honourable and open manner in which you have met the questions on which we are at issue.

The late contest in which I have been involved, with those of a character so opposite, has tended to make this contrast of urbanity and honourable opposition more gratifying. From you, my Lord, I was certain I should not meet coarse and insulting abuse, the foul ribaldry of opprobrious contumely, nor the petty chicanery that purposely keeps out of sight one part of an argument, and wilfully misrepresents another.

Your opposition, as might become a person of so high a station, and of such distinguished genius, exhibits none of those little arts of literary warfare. Your letter is at once argumentative, manly, goodhumoured, and eloquent.

I am afraid, that if those whom I have lately encountered might have thought that " your Lordship would decide the contest at once,”—in short, "hit the nail in the head, and BowLes "in the head also,"-they will be somewhat disappointed.

But, be this as it may, I can say, with great truth, that if it be an honour to have such a character for an opponent, it is a duty incumbent on me to endeavour to shew myself not unworthy, my Lord, of such notice, by meeting your objec tions in the same spirit.

done so.

Your observations, in answer to what I said of parts of POPE's moral character, may be comprised in few words. It was far from my heart to charge him with a "libertine sort of love," on account of the errors or frailties of youth? I disdained in the Life of POPE, to make any allusion to CIBBER's well-known anecdote. It would have been fanatic or hypocritical in me to have When I spoke of his "libertine kind "of love," I alluded to the general tone of his language to Lady MARY, and many of the ladies with whom he corresponded from youth to age. I suppressed, with indignation, the Imitation of HORACE, which I believe he wrote-the most obscene and daring picce of profligacy that ever issued from the press, since the days of CHARLES the Second. I deduced no trait of his character from it, though it was not written when youth and gaiety might, in some measure, have palliated the offence, but when he was forty-two years of age. But though I had no tincture, I hope, in my feelings, of hypocrisy, or fanaticism, I thought it a duty to society to touch on one prominent

feature in his character, which shews itself in his correspondence.

As to the omission of the fact of his benevolence to SAVAGE, it was inadvertence,-culpable, I confess; but JOHNSON, to the best of my recollection, has also passed it over: and if I have spoken of his "general benevolence," I may be pardoned, I hope, for an omission, which, at all events, was not intentional; but on which your Lordship's animadversion I own to be just.

"Should some more sober critic come abroad,
"If wrong, I smile; if right, I kiss the rod,"

Having touched on these points, I advance to meet your Lordship on the ground of those principles of poetical criticism, by which I adventured to estimate POPE's rank and station in his art.

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If I cannot prove those principles invulnerable, even when your Lordship assails them; if I cannot answer all your arguments as plainly and as distinctly as you have adduced them; the appellation “invariable” I shall instantly discard; but saying, -if I fall, it is Æneida dextra.

On the contrary, if meeting any arguments fairly, I turn them against you; if, without avoiding the full force of any, I rebut them satisfactorily; I shall have more reason than ever to think those principles INVARIABLE, which even Lord BYRON cannot overturn.