welcome visitor, Lady Augusta Volney, while Miss Beresford proceeded to faithfully discharge the important commission with which she had been entrusted. On her way, indeed, she could not forbear recalling to mind the extreme perturbation and hurry that was visible in the Countess's manner in giving the paper, but imputing her agitation merely to an apprehension, lest their prohibited intercourse might be observed, she did not suffer her mind to dwell on the circumstance. When, however, she waited on her worthy colleague, Levison, he enquired, with some surprise, how her Ladyship had raised the sum, which, but a few hours since, she had sincerely protested she knew not where to look for; and on learning that it had been drawn by an order from the Earl on Howard's, observed, laughingly, that he hoped her Ladyship had not unsexed for the occasion, and forgotten to sign her Christian name. Miss Beresford repelled the insinuation with scorn; and Levison, having apologized for what he had said, by declaring that the words were spoken only in jest, returned the note of hand which the Countess had given him as a kind of security, and having written an acquittal in full of all demands on her Ladyship, took an affectionate farewell of his fair accomplice in villany, who expressed great regret at the necessity of his flight. (To be concluded in the next.) HOPELESS LOVE. I. THAT silent, touching, drooping eye, II. Hope may the captive's chains relieve; III. Of all the ills the feeling mind, In this sad pilgrimage may find, Those strike the most, the deepest move, That wound the breast with Hopeless Love. IV. Pain, sickness, poverty, and care, R. E. ESSAY ON POPE'S ART OF CRITICISM. The poet censures the Alexandrine verse, which was too generally adopt ed by the writers of poetry in his day: A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. 356-357. of contempt." He and Pope were once friends; but they quarrelled at a time when the poetical world seemed to be up in arms, and continually contending in a manner disgraceful to their charac ter. In this affair, however, Pope appears to have been the aggressor. Lord Hervey was opposed to him in politics, being a zealous partizan of Sir Robert Walpole. He also wrote many able pamphlets in support of administration; and his speeches in parliament were uniformly in favour of government; which circumstances were of themselves sufficiently offensive to Pope. But what particularly excited our author's indignation, against Lord Hervey, was his being concerned with Lady Mary Wortley Montague in some Verses to the Imitator of Horace; and in a poetical epistle to Dr. Sherwin, entitled An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity, from a Nobleman at Hampton Court; containing some severe remarks in reply to Pope's first attack. This drew from Pope that celebrated prose letter, which has been considered the master-piece of invective, and superior to the character of Sporus already quoted. His enmity also vented itself in petty sarcasms and sly insinuations, which he never failed to introduce when an oppportunity offered. Thus in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, (verse 16) he alludes to Lord Hervey as the "rhyming peer ;" and in verse 588 of the present Essay, as the "honourable fool." The Song by a Person of Quality, written in the year 1733, was intended as a burlesque on the poetical productions of this nobleman: but these, however ridiculed by Pope,§ A verse containing twelve syllables, so called from Alexander of Paris, a French author of the twelfth century, who introduced it into a poem on Alexander the Great. † Prologue to the Satires. 305-333. Warton's Edit. of Pope's Works, Vol. III. pag. 339. § The lines are weak, another's pleas'd to say, Imit. of Horace. B. H. Sat. 1. v. 6. Also in the Epistle to Arbuthnot,-149, 150. Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, But were his verses vile, his whisper base, Eur. Mag. Vol. 81, June 1822. 3 Z were in general easy and elegant, and sufficiently satirical to make that poet feel.-Lord Hervey likewise wrote some epistles in the manner of Ovid; the best of which are those of Monimia to Philocles, Flora to Pompey, Arisbe to Marius, (taken from Fontenelle) and Roxana to Usbeck, (from the Lettres Persannes of Montesquieu). The reader will find them in the fourth volume of Dodsley's Collection of Poems. Appius reddens at each word you speak, And stares tremendous, with a threat'ning eye, Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry. 585-587. "This picture," says Warton, "was probably intended for, and indeed was taken to himself by one John Dennis, a furious old critic by profession; who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this poem and its author, in a manner perfectly lunatic." His fierce hostility to Pope was first excited by some passages in it, which this redoubted critic applied to himself, and never forgave; but pursued their author through life with bitter invectives against every work he published. His indignation was still further excited by a pamphlet, entitled, the Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris, concerning the strange and deplorable Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis, written by Pope to gratify Addison in revenge for the severe strictures, which Dennis had passed on the tragedy of Cato. Pope's officious zeal on this occasion, however, failed in its object, as it only served still more to exasperate the critic, without tending to conciliate the poet. Pope also placed Dennis with Gildon in the Dunciad†; an honour, of which he does not appear to be particularly solicitous. "Both he and Gildon," says a contemporarywriter, "had good abilities, but they became the public scorn by a mistake of their talents. They would need turn critics of their own country writers (just as Aristotle and Longinus did of theirs) and discourse upon the beauties and defects of composition. Whereas, had they confined their efforts to verbal criticism on the learned languages, their acuteness and industry might have raised them a name equal to the most famous of the scholiasts." It has excited some surprize that Dennis should have been mentioned only twice, and that so slightly, in the Dunciad, but the fact is, that he was looked upon with some esteem by Pope for having attempted no disguise, and for having candidly prefixed his name to all his productions. He was also at that time far advanced in years, and was on that account probably regarded with some degree of compassion by the incensed bard. It should be mentioned to Pope's honour, that he wrote a prologue to a play which was represented for the benefit of Dennis, in 1733, a short time before his death, when he was blind, old, and in great distress, in which Pope speaks in the most favourable terms of Dennis's abilities as a critic, an author, and a man of letters: The principal of these were Critical and Satirical Reflections on a late Rhapsody, called an Essay on Criticism; Remarks on the Translation of Homer, with two letters concerning the Windsor Forest and Temple of Fame; Observations on the Dunciad and Rape of the Lock; A true Character of Mr. Pope and his Writings, in a Letter to a Friend; and Pope Alexander's Supremacy and Infallibility examined.—See also the catalogue of the many other abusive pamphlets written against Pope, before and after the publication of the Dunciad, and prefixed to that poem in the various editions of his works. + Dunciad, I. 106; II. 239; III. 173—176. Notes to the Dunciad, book III. Scriblerus. eritic, and a friend to learning, he certainly has a claim to our attention. And, indeed, he was not ill qualified for sustaining that highly important character, Some of his earlier literary performances are distinguished by great critical sagacity and good sense. Of these, the best are, his Remarks on Sir Richard Blackmore's epic poem, entitled, Prince Arthur; the Essay on Taste in Poetry, and the Causes of its Dege neracy; the Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry; the Grounds of Criticism in Poetry, intended as a sequel to the preceding; and Letters on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare. All these contain many just and ingenious observations, and respectively contributed to raise his reputation.-It was not till after the publication of the Spectator, in which he imagined himself to be attacked, that he gave way to his indignant feelings, and published that ill-judged and virulent abuse which characterized his Remarks on Addison's Cato, and on Pope's Essay on Criticism, and Rape of the Lock. He was provoked, it seems, by Sir Richard Steele neglecting to mention his works favourably in the Spectator, according to his promise; and conceiving himself alluded to in some of its early passages, he entered into a furious controversy with Addison, Steele, and Pope, who were the original conductors of the work. Learning and Rome alike in empire grew, And arts still follow'd where her eagles flew ; From the same foes both felt at last their And the same age saw learning fall and "Literature and the arts," observes Warton, "which flourished to so great a degree about the time of Augustus, gradually felt a decline after that period from many concurrent causes; from the vast extent of the Roman empire, and its consequent despotism, which crushed every noble effort of the human mind; from the military government, which rendered life and property precarious, and from the irruptions of the barbarous nations, which were occasioned and facilitated by the state of things. In fact, the empire was overgrown, and became too large to support its own weight." This increase of dominion, therefore, induced its governors to exercise tyranny and injustice in order to make new conquests, or to preserve those which they had already gained; and as the extension of the empire necessarily caused a division of its force, by drawing off its chief supports, it became an easy prey to foreign invaders. "At its fall," says Lord Shaftes-bury, "the arts and sciences, which the Romans had so successfully cultivated, likewise fell into decay. No sooner had they begun to emerge from their roughness and barbarism, and learn of Greece to form their heroes, orators, and poets on a right model, than, by their unjust attempt upon the liberty of the world, they justly lost their own. With that, they lost not only their force of eloquence, but even their style and language itself; and from the period when despotism became fully established, not a statue, picture, or medal, nor a tolerable piece of architecture, appeared." The Essay on Criticism, according to Warton, was first written in prose, although he adduces no very strong proof in support of this assertion. There is certainly some probability of its correctness, as it is well known that Pope wrote the Essay on Man from the plan drawn by his friend Lord Bolingbroke. But whether true or not, it has been the subject of frequent and just admiration, that a person so young as the author was when he wrote this work, should have produced a poem which displays such quick insight into human nature, such perfect knowledge of life and manners, such accurate observations on men and books, and such correctness and true taste. He has likewise shewn great skill in the conduct of the poem ;-the outline is clear and unbroken, the arguments bold and vigorous, the rules plain and precise; and, although on a trite subject, in many places original; the remarks naturally introduced, and the illustrations so diversified and so well chosen, as to form an entire whole. It abounds also in many excellent metaphors most appositely applied, and in figurative language most happily and elegantly expressed. "In short," to use the words of a late able writer, "if we attentively examine this poem, and observe the regularity of its plan, the masterly * Advice to an Author, vol. I. page 148. 12mo. edition. arrangement of its various parts, the penetration into human nature which it exhibits, and the compass of learning so conspicuous throughout, we cannot but acknowledge it to be one of Pope's best productions." In the course of the work, however, he has borrowed many images and ideas from the works of other authors. Thus the beautiful lines on the memory and on the warmth of the imagination (56-59) quoted in a former part of this Essay, were suggested by a passage in Locke's Essay on the Understanding; the remarks on inequality of style (175-178) by Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse; and those on the mutability of the English language (476--483) by some verses in Waller's poem on English verse. The story of the interview be tween the Knight of La Mancha and the Scholar (267-284) is taken from the second part of Don Quixote, origi nally written by Don Alonzo de Avellanada, and afterwards re-modelled by Le Sage. (Book III. chap. 10.) The simile of the Alps (225-232) is, as we have before observed, taken from corresponding passages in Silius Italicus and Drummond; the enumeration of the faults in poetical composition (344 --357) from the first Satire of Persius and other works; the examples of an accommodation of the sound to the sense (364-372) from Vida's Poetics; and the elegant verses on the art of painting (484---493) from Dryden's Ode to Sir Godfrey Kneller. The following lines are borrowed from Boileau's Art of Poetry: Pride, malice, folly, against Dryden rose, In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaus.* 458 459. L'ignorance et l'erreur a ses naissantes pieces, En habits de marquis, en robes de comtesses, Venoient pour diffamer son chef d'œuvre nouveau. So also are the following: No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd, Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's church-yard; rue, H n'est Temple si saint, des Anges respecté, Jui soit contre sa muse un lieu de surèté.† "These lines," says Warton, "allude to the impertinence of a French poet, named Du Perrier; who, finding Boileau one day at church, insisted upon repeating to him an ode, during the elevation of the host, and desired his opinion, whether or no it was in the manner of Without this, the pleaMalherbe. santry of the satire would be overlooked." The last verses of the Essay on Criticism also bear a strong resemblance to the conclusion of Boileau's poem :Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame; Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame; Averse alike to flatter, or offend ; Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend-741-744. Censeur un peu facheux, mais souvent necessaire, Plus enclin a blamer, que sçavant a bien faire. From Boileau's poem Pope has also borrowed many other observations. ing remarkable fact." In so polished I conclude this Essay with the follow a nation, after criticism has been much studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very extraordinary work appeared? This was visibly the case in Greece, in Rome, and in France, after Aristotle, Horace, and Boileau, had written their respective Arts of Poetry, In our own country, the rules of the drama, for instance, were never more completely understood than at present, yet how few interesting, though faultless tragedies, have been produced.-So much better is judgment than execution."+ D. F. * Alluding to Milbourne, Sheffield, and Blackmore; the first of whom attacked the profligacy, and the latter the bombast, of some of Dryden's plays. Milbourn also wrote some severe remarks on his translation of Virgil; and Blackmore traduced him in his "Satire upon Wit." + Chant IV. Warton's Essay on Pope. vol. 1. page 209. |