indeed commonly right, but has discussed no difficult question.

The next pieces to be considered are the Verses to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady, the Prologue to Cato, and Epilogue to Jane Shore. The first piece he commends. On occasion of the second he digresses, according to his custom, into a learned dissertation on tragedies, and compares the English and French with the Greek stage. He justly censures Cato for want of action and of characters; but scarcely does justice to the sublimity of some speeches and the philosophical exactness in the sentiments. "The simile of mount

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Atlas, and that of the Numidian traveller smothered “in the sands, are indeed in character," says the critic, but sufficiently obvious." The simile of the mountain is indeed common; but that of the traveller I do not remember. That it is obvious is easy to say, and easy to deny. Many things are obvious when they are taught.

He proceeds to criticise the other works of Addison, till the epilogue calls his attention to Rowe, whose character he discusses in the same manner with sufficient freedom and sufficient candour.

The translation of the epistle of Sappho to Phaon is next considered: but Sappho and Ovid are more the subjects of this disquisition than Pope. We shall therefore pass over it to a piece of more importance, the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, which may justly be regarded as one of the works on which the reputation of Pope will stand in future times.

The critic pursues Eloisa through all the changes of passion, produces the passages of her letters to which any allusion is made, and intersperses many agreeable

particulars and incidental relations. There is not much profundity of criticism, because the beauties are sentiments of nature, which the learned and the ignorant feel alike. It is justly remarked by him, that the wish of Eloisa for the happy passage of Abelard into the other world, is formed according to the ideas of mystic devotion.

These are the pieces examined in this volume: whether the remaining part of the work will be one volume or more, perhaps the writer himself cannot yet inform us. This piece is, however, a complete work, so far as it goes; and the writer is of opinion that he has dispatched the chief part of his task: for he ventures to remark, that the reputation of Pope as a poet, among posterity, will be principally founded on his Windsor Forest, Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard; while the facts and characters alluded to in his late writings will be forgotten and unknown, and their poignancy and propriety little relished; for wit and satire are transitory and perishable, but nature and passion are eternal.

He has interspersed some passages of Pope's life, with which most readers will be pleased. When Pope was yet a child, his father, who had been a merchant in London, retired to Binfield. He was taught to read by an aunt; and learned to write without a master, by copying printed books. His father used to order him to make English verses, and would oblige him to cerrect and retouch them over and over, and at last would say, "These are good rhymes.'

At eight years of age, he was committed to one Taverner, a priest, who taught him the rudiments of the Latin and Greek. At this time he met with Ogleby's

Homer, which seized his attention; he fell next upon Sandys's Ovid, and remembered these two translations with pleasure to the end of his life.

About ten, being at school near Hyde Park Corner, he was taken to the play-house, and was so struck with the splendour of the drama, that he formed a kind of play out of Ogleby's Homer, intermixed with verses of his own. He persuaded the head-boys to act this piece, and Ajax was performed by his master's gardener. They were habited according to the pictures in Ogleby. At twelve he retired with his father to Windsor Forest, and formed himself by study in the best English poets.

In this extract it was thought convenient to dwell chiefly upon such observations as relate immediately to Pope, without deviating with the author into incidental inquiries. We intend to kindle, not to extinguish, curiosity, by this slight sketch of a work abounding with curious quotations and pleasing disquisitions. He must be much acquainted with literary history, both of remote and late times, who does not find in this essay many things which he did not know before: and if there be any too learned to be instructed in facts or opinions, he may yet properly read this book as a just specimen of literary moderation.

REPLY

TO A

PAPER IN THE GAZETTEER

OF MAY 26, 1757*.

IT T is observed in the sage Gil Blas, that an exasperated author is not easily pacified. I have, therefore, very little hope of making my peace with the writer of the Eight Days Journey: indeed so little, that I have long deliberated whether I should not rather sit silently down under his displeasure, than aggravate my misfortune by a defence of which my heart forbodes the ill success. Deliberation is often useless. I am afraid that I have at last made the wrong choice; and that I might better have resigned my cause, without a struggle, to time and fortune, since I shall run the hazard of a new offence, by the necessity of asking him, why he is angry.

Distress and terror often discover to us those faults with which we should never have reproached ourselves in a happy state. Yet, dejected as I am, when I review the transaction between me and this writer, I cannot find that I have been deficient in reverence. When his book was first printed, he hints that I procured a sight of it before it was published. How the sight of it was procured I

* From the Literary Magazine, Vol. II. Page 253.

do not now very exactly remember; but if my cu riosity was greater than my prudence, if I laid rash hands on the fatal volume, I have surely suffered like him who burst the box from which evil rushed into the world.

I took it, however, and inspected it as the work of an author not higher than myself; and was confirmed in my opinion, when I found that these letters were not written to be printed. I concluded, however, that though not written to be printed, they were printed to be read, and inserted one of them in the collection of November last. Not many days after I received a note, informing me, that I ought to have waited for a more correct edition. This injunction was obeyed. The edition appeared, and I supposed myself at liberty to tell my thoughts upon it, as upon any other book, upon a royal manifesto, or an act of parliament. But see the fate of ignorant temerity! I now find, but find too late, that instead of a writer whose only power is in his pen, I have irritated an important member of an important corporation; a man who, as he tells us in his letters, puts horses to his chariot.

It was allowed to the disputant of old to yield up the controversy with little resistance to the master of forty legions. Those who know how weakly naked truth can defend her advocates, would forgive me if I should pay the same respect to a Governor of the Foundlings. Yet the consciousness of my own rectitude of intention incites me to ask once again, how I have offended.

There are only three subjects upon which my unlucky pen has happened to venture. Tea; the