1. Life in public and in solitude, a letter to Steele.

You have obliged me with a very kind letter, by which I find you shift the scenes of your life from the town to the country, and enjoy that mixed state which wise men both delight in, and are qualified for. Methinks the moralists and philosophers have generally run too much into extremes in commending entirely either solitude, or public life. In the former, men for the most part grow useless by too much rest, and in the latter are destroyed by too much precipitation; as waters lying still, putrify, and are good for nothing, and running violently on do but the more mischief in their passage to others, and are swallowed up and lost the sooner themselves. Those indeed who can be useful to all states, should be like gentle streams, that not only glide through lonely valleys and forests amidst the flocks and the shepherds, but visit populous towns in their course, and are at once of ornament and service to them. But there are another sort of people who seem designed for solitude, such, I mean, as have more to hide than to show. As for my own part, I am one of those of whom Seneca says, Tam umbratiles sunt, ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est. men, like some pictures, are fitter for a corner than a full light; and I believe, such as have a natural bent to solitude (to carry on the former similitude) are like waters, which may be forced into fountains, and exalted into a great height, may make a noble figure and a louder noise, but after all they would run more smoothly, quietly, and plentifully, in their own natural course upon the ground. The consideration of this would make me very well contented with the possession only of that Quiet which Cowley calls the companion of Obscurity. But whoever has the Muses too for his

Some

companions, can never be idle enough, to be uneasy. Thus, Sir, you see, I would flatter myself into a good opinion of my own way of living. Plutarch just now told me, that 'tis in human life as in a game at tables, where a man may wish for the highest cast, but, if his chance be otherwise, he is e'en to play it as well as he can, and to make the best of it.

2. Homer and Virgil (from the Preface to the Iliad).

NOTHING is more absurd or endless, than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an opposition of particular passages in them, and forming a judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and distinguishing excellence of each: it is in that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty, and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgment. Not that we are to think Homer wanted judgment, because Virgil had it in a more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted invention, because Homer possessed a larger share of it: each of these great authors had more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity, Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty: Homer scatters with a generous profusion, Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence: Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate: Homer,

boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Aeneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action; disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation.

XXXII.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

1689-1762.

LADY MARY PIERREPOINT was born, in 1689, at Thoresby, in Nottinghamshire. Her father, the younger brother of the Earl of Kingston, became, in 1715, by creation, Duke, by the same title. As a child, she was much neglected, but her love of books stood her in place of a regular education. She taught herself Latin, and read widely if not well. In 1712, she married Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, who had long been attached to her. He was a man of great ability and cultivation, and in 1716 was appointed Ambassador to the Porte. Lady Mary accompanied him, and her impressions of the country, at that period so little known to English travellers, are recorded in the celebrated series of letters, which constitute her chief claim to literary reputation. In 1739, she left England, and did not return until her husband's death, in 1761. In the following year she died.

Lady Mary was at one time the intimate friend of Pope, and it is believed that her kindness induced the poet, on some occasions, to forget his usual prudence, in his relations with her. The friendship was succeeded by a violent quarrel, and for many years Pope pursued his former ally with malignant animosity. Horace Walpole has also assailed her reputation with all the wit and venom which his practised pen could command. Daring, imprudent, and reckless as Lady Mary was, there seems no adequate reason for the attacks to which she was subjected. The circumstances under which she left England and separated from her husband, were perhaps sufficient ground

for much that has been said of her. But of these circumstances posterity knows little. The introduction of inoculation into England was, perhaps, a doubtful national benefit, but Lady Mary is at least entitled to the praise of moral courage for allowing the experiment to be tried on her own son. Her literary fame has perhaps been exaggerated. The Letters from Turkey are full of brilliancy, sparkle, and vivacity, but they fail to impress a generation familiar with productions of a higher tone. The style of Lady Mary is entirely her own. Less artificial than Walpole's, more sustained than Cowper's, her letters resemble Lord Byron's more nearly, perhaps, than do those of any other English writer. There are touches of polished wit worthy of Addison or Steele-descriptive passages of the rarest felicity-shrewd apophthegms recalling familiar sayings in greater authors, scattered abundantly throughout the Letters during Mr. Montagu's Embassy to Constantinople.

1.

Adrianople (from a Letter to Mr. Pope).

I AM at this present moment writing in a house situated on the banks of the Hebrus, which runs under my chamber window. My garden is all full of cypress trees, upon the branches of which several couple of true turtles are saying soft things to one another from morning till night. How naturally do boughs and vows come into my mind at this minute! and must not you confess, to my praise, that 'tis more than an ordinary discretion that can resist the wicked suggestions of poetry, in a place where truth, for once, furnishes all the ideas of pastoral. The summer is already

far advanced in this part of the world; and for some miles round Adrianople, the whole ground is laid out in gardens, and the banks of the rivers are set with rows of fruit-trees, under which all the most considerable Turks divert themselves every evening; not with walking, that is not one of