She was herself of a noble family, or there can be

no meaning in the line,

"That once had honour, virtue, titles, fame *."

Under the idea here fuggefted, a greater propriety given to the verse, which otherwise appears so tame and common place,

"'Tis all thou art, and all the PROUD fhall be.”

It fufficiently appears from Pope's letter, that the was of a wild and romantic difpofition. She left her friends and country, and commenced a fentimental purfuit after the object in which her ambition and enthusiastic caprice had centered. Having alienated her relations by her wayward conduct, and being difappointed in the hopes fhe had formed, fhe retired voluntarily to a convent.

Warton afferts that he was "forced" into a nunnery. This is exprefsly contrary to what Pope himfelf fays, in a letter to her: "If you are refolved in revenge to rob the world of fo much example as you

દ

may afford it, I believe your defign to be in vain; "for, in a monaftery, your devotions cannot carry you "so far towards the next world, as to make this lose "fight of you."

Part of this letter, as it ftands in Curll's edition, Pope in his acknowledged edition has fuppreffed; it is fin-.

VOL. I.

It is faid, her name was Winfberry.

b

gular,

gular, that it conveys an idea very nearly of what has been before mentioned. The paffage which Pope, on fecond thoughts, fuppreffed,is this

After the words (" past its power to injure them,") add, "Therefore if you take it into favour upon its again repentance, and continue in it, you would be fo far from leading what is commonly called an unfettled life, (or what you with too much unjust severity call a vagabond life,) that the wife would only look upon you as a prince in progrefs, who travels to gain the affections he has not," &c.

However this may be, her fate at least is well known, and it is most probable that incipient lunacy was the cause of her perverted feelings, and untimely

end.

The fame year (1711) he produced the poem, which at once placed him higher than any modern writer, and exceeded every thing of the kind that had appeared in the republic of letters. In the Rape of the Lock, to the mellifluence which diftinguished his pastorals, to the "carminis artem," (the moft confummate fkill of verfification in its kind,) he added what might before have been denied to him, the powers of the happiest INVENTION: here were no images and sentiments borrowed and diluted, if I may fo fay, from Virgil : all was new and fanciful. He ftood upon his own ground; and whilft he placed at an immenfe distance those who had before fucceeded in the Mock-Heroic, (Boileau and Garth,) claimed the highest praise the

moft fuccessful poet could boast: for the machinery (it matters not from what fource taken) was fo appropriate, fo beautifully interwoven, and fo poetical, that the fhafts of Dennis, when he afterwards attacked it, fevere and acute as he was, dropt impotent.

Let me be here indulged in fpeaking fomewhat more particularly of this extraordinary man. At the time of the first appearance of Pope as a poet, he had long been confidered as the most learned critic of the age. In his youth he had affociated with the first characters, particularly Congreve, &c.

He had correfponded once with Dryden, who seems to bear the most willing teftimony to his acquirements and talents. Even after the declared hoftility of Pope, those who most favoured the cause of the rifing bard, did not speak with difrefpect of the veteran critic.

Dennis, no doubt, considered, that the ground which the young candidate for fame had gained, himself loft ; and an additional fting was, therefore, given to his severity.

The Rape of the Lock appeared first in two books, without the machinery of the Sylphs. When this was fo fuccessfully added, Dennis wrote fome obfervations, which however he forbore to publish at the time.

It may be proper here to mention, the cause why they appeared fo long afterwards. In 1721, Dennis growing old and diftreffed, published his correfpondence with different eminer.t characters, by fub'cription.

b. 2

scription. Pope, fearful of his refentment, became a fubfcriber, and fent him the following Letter:

SIR,

May 3, 1721.

"I called to receive the two books of your letters from Mr. Congreve, and have left with him the little money I was in your debt. I look upon myfelf to be much more fo, for the omiffions you have been pleafed to make in these letters in my favour, and SINCERELY JOIN WITH YOU in the defire, that not the LEAST TRACES may remain of that difference between us, which indeed I am SORRY FOR. You may therefore believe me, without either ceremony or falfeness, SIR, &c.

"A. POPE."

Yet, after this protestation, without any fresh pro vocation from Dennis, he introduced him into the Dunciad. The criticism Dennis had written on the Rape of the Lock was not published till this unmerited and wanton attack. I have thought it neceffary to mention the circumftance in this place; and as Johnson has given an extract from the Criticism on " the Effay," perhaps the reader will not be difpleased to hear fomething of what was advanced by the formidable affailant against the Sylphs.

"The machines which appear in this poem, are "infinitely lefs confiderable than the human perfonages, which is without precedent. Nothing can "be fo contemptible as the perfons, or fo foolish as

66

"the

the understanding of thefe hobgoblins. Ariel's fpeech, "for the first thirty lines, is one continued imper“tinence; for, if what he says is true, he tells them "nothing but what they knew as well as himself be"fore when he comes at length to the point, he is "full as impertinent as he was in his ramble before; "for after he had talked to them of black omens and "dire difafters that threaten his heroines, thefe by "turns dwindle to the breaking a piece of china, the "staining of a petticoat, the lofing a necklace, a fan, or a bottle of fal volatile.

"That which makes this speech more ridiculous is "the place where it is fpoken, and that is upon the "fails and cordage of Belinda's barge; which is cer"tainly taken from the Two Kings of Brentford, "defcending in clouds, and finging in the ftyle of "our modern spirits:

"I King.-O ftay, for you need not as yet go aftray, "The tide, like a friend, has brought ships in the way, "And on their high ropes we will play

This is fufficient to fhew how little criticism can effect, when it is not founded on truth.

But a more formidable adverfary, according to Pope's fancy, now appeared against his rifing fame: this

In Profe e Poefie del Sig. Al. Ant. Conti, ver. 1756, t, 2,

there is a tranflation of the Rape of the Lock, which begins thus: