were scarcely ever temporary. He suffered His declaration, that his care for his works coronations and royal marriages to pass without ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. a song; and derived no opportunities from recent His parental attention never abandoned them; events, or any popularity from the accidental what he found amiss in the first edition, he disp sition of his readers. He was never re-silently corrected in those that followed. He duced to the necessity of soliciting the sun to appears to have revised the "Iliad," and feed shine upon a birthday, of calling the Graces and it from some of its imperfections; and the "EsVi tues to a wedding, or of saying what mul- say on Criticism" received many improvements titudes have said before him. When he could pro- after its first appearance. It will seldom be duce nothing new, he was at liberty to be silent. found that he altered without adding clearness, His publications were for the same reason elegance, or vigour. Pope had perhaps the never hasty. He is said to have sent nothing judgment of Dryden; but Dryden certainly to the press till it had lain two years under his wanted the diligence of Pope. inspection; it is at least certain, that he ventured nothing without nice examination. He suffered the tumult of imagination to subside, and the novelties of invention to grow familiar. He knew that the mind is always enamoured of its own productions, and did not trust his first fondness. He consulted his friends, and listened with great willingness to criticism; and, what was of more importance, he consulted himself, and let nothing pass against his own judgment.

He professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liberality; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with his master.

In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Fope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation; and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

ities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The Integrity of understanding and nicety of dis- style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that cornment were not allotted in a less proportion of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden ob to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dry- serves the motions of his own mind; Pope con den's mind was sufficiently shown by the dis- strains his mind to his own rules of composition. mission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejec- Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope tion of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers, is always smooth, uniform, and gentle, DryBut Dryden never desired to apply all the judg-den's page is a natural field, rising into inequal ment that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for, when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude.

Pope was not content to satisfy, he desired to excel; and therefore always endeavoured to do his best; he did not court the candour, but dared the judgment, of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven.

Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred, that of this poctical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said, that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to mulFor this reason he kept his pieces very long tiply his images, and to accumulate all that study in his hands, while he considered and reconsi- might produce, or chance might supply. If the dered them. The only poems which can be sup-flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope posed to have been written with such regard to The times as might hasten their publication, were the two satires of "Thirty-eight;" of which Dodsley told me that they were brought to him by the autho", that they might be fairly copied. Almost every line," he said, "was then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time afterwards to me for the press, with almost every line written twice over a second time."

continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpassea expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.

This parallel will, I hope, when it is well considered, be found just; and if the reader should suspect me, as I suspect myself, of some partial fondness for the memory of Dryden, let him not

too hastily condemn me: for meditation and inquiry may, perhaps, show him the reasonableness of my determination.

splendid; there is great luxuriance of ornaments; the original vision of Chaucer was never denied to be much improved; the allegory is very skil fully continued; the imagery is properly selected, and learnedly displayed; yet, with all this comprehension of excellence, as its scene is laid

THE works of Pope are now to be distinctly examined, not so much with attention to slight faults or petty beauties, as to the general charac-in remote ages, and its sentiments, if the conter and effect of each performance.

cluding paragraph be excepted, have little relation to general manners or common life, it never obtained much notice, but is turned silently over, and seldom quoted or mentioned with either praise or blame.

It seems natural for a young poet to initiate himself by pastorals, which, not professing to imitate real life, require no experience; and, exhibiting only the simple operation of unmin gled passions, admit no subtle reasoning or deep That "The Messiah" excels the "Pollio" is inquiry. Pope's Pastorals are not however com- no great praise, if it be considered from what posed but with close thought; they have refer-original the improvements are derived. ence to the times of the day, the seasons of the The "Verses on the Unfortunate Lady" have year, and the periods of human life. The last, drawn much attention by the illaudable singuthat which turns the attention upon age and larity of treating suicide with respect; and they death, was the Author's favourite. To tell of must be allowed to be written in some parts disappointment and misery, to thicken the dark-with vigorous animation, and in others with ness of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of un- gentle tenderness; nor has Pope produced any certainty, has been always a delicious employ-poem in which the sense predominates more over ment of the poets. His preference was proba- the diction. But the tale is not skilfully told; bly just. I wish, however, that his fondness had it is not easy to discover the character of either not overlooked a line in which the Zephyrs are the Lady or her Guardian. History relates that made to lament in silence. she was about to disparage herself by a marTo charge these Pastorals with want of inven-riage with an inferior; Pope praises her for the flon, is to require what was never intended. The imitations are so ambitiously frequent, that the writer evidently means rather to show his literature than his wit. It is surely sufficient for an author of sixteen, not only to be able to copy the poems of antiquity with judicious selection, but to have obtained sufficient power of language, and skill in metre, to exhibit a series of versification, which had in English poetry no precedent, nor has since had an imitation.

dignity of ambition, and yet condemns the uncle to detestation for his pride; the ambitious love of a niece may be opposed by the interest, malice, or envy, of an uncle, but never by his pride.On such an occasion a poet may be allowed to be obscure, but inconsistency never can be right.*

Pope is laid in imaginary existence: Pope is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden with turbulent delight; Pope hangs upon the ear, and Dryden finds the passes of the mind.

The "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" was undertaken at the desire of Steele. In this the author is generally confessed to have miscarried; yet he has miscarried only as compared with DryThe design of "Windsor Forest" is evidently den, for he has far outgone other competitors.derived from "Cooper's Hill," with some atten- Dryden's plan is better chosen; history will tion to Waller's poem on "The Park;" but always take stronger hold of the attention than Pope cannot be denied to excel his masters in fable: the passions excited by Dryden are the variety and elegance, and the art of interchang-pleasures and pains of real life; the scene of ing description, narrative, and morality. The objection made by Dennis is the want of plan, of a regular subordination of parts terminating in the principal and original design. There is this want in most descriptive poems, because, Both the odes want the essential constituent as the scenes which they must exhibit succes- of metrical compositions, the stated recurrence sively are all subsisting at the same time, the of settled numbers. It may be alleged that Pinoder in which they are shown must by necessity dar is said by Horace to have written numeris be arbitrary, and more is not to be expected from lege solutis; but, as no such lax performances the last part than from the first. The attention, have been transmitted to us, the meaning of that therefore, which cannot be detained by sus-expression cannot be fixed; and perhaps the like pease, must be exrite 1 by diversity, such as his poen offers to its reader.

return might properly be made to a modern Pindarist, as Mr. Cobb received from. Bentley, who, when he found his criticisms upon a Greck Exercise, which Cobb had presented, refuted one after another by Pindar's authority, cried

But the desire of diversity may be too much in lulged; the parts of " Windsor Forest" which deserve icast praise are those which were added to enliven the stillness of the scene, the appearance of Father Thames and the transformation *The account hereinbefore given of this lady and het of Lordona. Addison had, in his "Campaign," catastrophe, cited by Joh: son from Ruffhead with a kid deriled the rivers that "rise from their oozy of acquiescence in the truth, the eof, seems no other than bls" to tell stories of heroes; aud it is there- I have in my possession a letter to Dr. Johnson contain might have been extracted from the ver es themselves. for strange that Pope should adopt a fictioning the name of the lady; and a reference to a gent eman not only unnatural bit lately censured. The well known in the literary world for her histo y. story of Lo loan is told with sweetness; but a I have seen; and, from a memorandum of some particu. new metamorphosis is a ready and puerile expe- quality, he informs me, that the unfortune te lady's nimis lars to the purpose, communicated to him by a lady of dient, nothing is easier than to tell how a flower was Withinbury, corrupt y pronounced Winbury: that was once a blooming virgin, or a rock an obdu-she was in love with Pope, and would have married him: rate tyrant.

The Temple of Fame" has, as Steele warmly declared, "a thousand beauties." Every part is

that her guardian, though she was deformed i person looking upon such a match as beneath her, sent her to a convent and that a noose, and not a sword, put an end to her life.-H.

out at last "Pindar was a bold fellow, but thou art an impudent one."

If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the first stanza consists of sounds, well chosen indeed, but only sounds.

The second consists of hyperbolical commonplaces, easily to be found, and perhaps without much difficulty to be as well expressed.

ideas of pursuit and flight are too plain to be made plainer; and a god, and the daughter of a god, are not represented much to their advantage by a hare and dog. The simile of the Alps has ro useless parts, vet affords a striking picture by itself; it makes the foregoing position better understood, and enables it to take faster hold on the attention; it assists the apprehension, and elevates the fancy.

In the third, however, there are numbers, images, harmony, and vigour, not unworthy the Let me likewise dwell a little on the cele antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this-brated paragraph, in which it is directed that but every part cannot be the best. "the sound should seem an echo to the sense;" a precept which Pope is allowed to have observed beyond any other English poet.

The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, can be found: the poet however faithfully attends us: we have all that can be performed by elegance of diction, or sweetness of versification; but what can form avail without better matter? The last stanza recurs again to commonplaces. The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end with the same fault; the comparison of each is literal on one side, and metaphorical on the other.

Poets do not always express their own thoughts; Pope, with all this labour in the praise of Music, was ignorant of its principles, and insensible of its effects.

One of his greatest, though of his earliest works, is the "Essay on Criticism;" which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself with observing that such powers may be soon attained, cannot but grieve to think that life was ever at a stand.

This notion of representative metre, and the desire of discovering frequent adaptations of the sound to the sense, have produced, in my opinion, many wild conceits and imaginary beauties. All that can furnish this representation are the sounds of the words considered singly, and the time in which they are pronounced.Every language has some words framed to exhibit the noises which they express, as thump, rattle, growl, hiss. These, however, are but few, and the poet cannot make them more, nor can they be of any use but when sound is to be mentioned. The time of pronunciation was in the dactylic measures of the learned languages capable of considerable variety; but that variety could be accommodated only to motion or duration, and different degrees of motion were perhaps expressed by verses rapid or slow, without much attention of the writer, when the image had full possession of his fancy; but our language having little flexibility, our verses can differ very little in their cadence. The fancied resemblances, I fear, arise sometimes merely from the ambiguity of words; there is supposed to be some relation between a soft line and a soft couch, or between hard syllables and hard fortune.

Motion, however, may be in some sort exem plified; and yet it may be suspected that, in To mention the particular beauties of the Es- such resemblances, the mind often governs the say would be unprofitably tedious; but I cannot ear, and the sounds are estimated by their meanforbear to observe, that the comparison of a stu-ing. One of their most successful attempts has dent's progress in the sciences with the journey been to describe the labour of Sisyphus: of a traveller in the Alps, is perhaps the best With many a weary step, and many a groen, that English poetry can show. A simile, to be Up a high hill he leaves a huge round stone; perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the The huge round toe resulting with a bound, subject; must show it to the understanding in a Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground. clearer view, and display it to the fancy with Who does not perceive the stone to move slowly greater dignity; but either of these qualities may upward, and roll violently back? But set the be sufficient to recommend it. In didactic poe- same numbers to another sense: try, of which the great purpose is instruction, a While many a merry tale, and many a song, sinile may be praised which illustrates, though Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road leng. it does not ennoble; in heroics, that may be ad- The ro gh road then returning in a round, mitted which ennobles, though it does not illus- Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground. trate. That it may be complete it is required to We have now surely lost much of the delay, and exhibit, independently of its references, a pleas-much of the rapidity. ing image; for a simile is said to be a short epiFode. To this antiquity was so attentive, that circumstances were sometimes added, which, having no parallels, served only to fill the ima-poet who tells us, that gination, and produced what Perrault ludicrously called "comparisons with a long tail." In their similes the greatest writers have sometimes failed; the ship-race, compared with the chariotrace, is neither illustrated nor aggrandized; land and water make all the difference: when Apollo, running after Daphne, is likened to a greyhound chasing a hare, there is nothing gained; the

But, to show how little the greatest master of numbers can fix the principles of representative harmony, it will be sufficient to remark that the

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, an! the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main:
when he had enjoyed for about thirty years the
praise of Camilla's lightness of foct, he tried
another experiment upon sound and time, and
produced this memorable triplet:

POPE

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Here at the swiftness of the rapid race, and
the march of slow-paced majesty, exhibited by
the same poet in the same sequence of syllables,
except that the exact prosodist will find the line
of swiftness by one tine longer than that of tar-
diness.

Beauties of this kind are commonly fancied;
and, when real, are technical and nugatory, not
to be rejected, and not to be solicited.

To the praises which have been accumulated
on "The Rape of the Lock," by readers of
every class, from the critic to the waiting-maid,
it is difficult to make any addition. Of that
which is universally allowed to be the most
attractive of all ludicrous compositions, let it
rather be now inquired from what sources the
power of pleasing is derived.

Dr. Warburton, who excelled in critical per-
spicacity, has remarked, that the preternatural
agents are very happily adapted to the purposes
of the poem. The heathen deities can no longer
gain attention; we should have turned away
from a contest between Venus and Diana. The
employment of allegorical persons always ex-
cites conviction of its own absurdity; they may
produce effects, but cannot conduct actions:
when the phantom is put in motion, it dissolves:
thus Discord may raise a mutiny; but Discord
cannot conduct a march, nor besiege a town.-
Pope brought into view a new race of beings,
with powers and passions proportionate to their
operation. The Sylphs and Gnomes act at the
toilet and the tea-table, what more terrific and
more powerful phantoms perform on the stormy
ocean or the field of battle; they give their pro-
per help, and do their proper mischief.

Pope is said, by an objector, not to have been
the inventor of this petty nation; a charge which
might, with more justice, have been brought
against the author of the "Iliad," who doubtless
adopted the religious system of his country; for
what is there but the names of his agents, which
Pope has not invented? Has he not assigned
them characters and operations never heard of
before? Has he not, at least, given them their
first poetical existence? If this is not sufficient
to denominate his work original, nothing origi-
nal ever can be written.

In this work are exhibited, in a very high degree, the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new. A race of aerial people, never heard of before, is presented to us in manner so clear and easy, that the reader seeks for no further information, but immediately mingles with his new acquaintance, adopts their interests, and attends their pursuits; loves a Sylph, and detests a Gnome.

That familiar things are made new, every paragraph will prove. The subject of the poem is an event below the common incidents of common life; nothing real is introduced that is not scen so often as to be no longer regarded; yet the whole detail of a female day is here brought before us, invested with so much art of decoration, that, though nothing is disguised, every thing is striking, and we feel all the appetite of curiosity for that from which we have a thousand times turned fastidiously away.

The purpose of the poet is, as he tells us, to
laugh at "the little unguarded follies of the fe-
male sex." It is therefore without justice that
Dennis charges "The Rape of the Lock" with
the want of a moral, and for that reason sets it
below the "Lutrin," which exposes the pride
and discord of the clergy. Perhaps neither Pope
than he found it; but if they had both succeeded,
nor Boileau has made the world much better
it were easy to tell who would have deserved
humours, and spleen, and vanity, of women, as
most from public gratitude. The freaks, and
they embroil families in discord, and fill houses
with disquiet, do more to obstruct the happiness
of life in a year than the ambition of the clergy
in many centuries. It has been well observed,
that the misery of man proceeds not from any
single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small
vexations continually repeated.

It is remarked by Dennis, likewise, that the
machinery is superfluous; that, by all the bustle
of preternatural operation, the main event is
neither hastened nor retarded. To this charge
an efficacious answer is not easily made. The
Sylphs cannot be said to help or to oppose; and
it must be allowed to imply some want of art,
that their power has not been sufficiently inter-
mingled with the action. Other parts may like-
wise be charged with want of connexion; the
game at ombre might be spared; but, if the lady
had lost her hair while she was intent upon her
cards, it might have been inferred, that those
who are too fond of play will be in danger of
neglecting more important interests. Those per-
haps are faults; but what are such faults to so
much excellence!

The Epistle of Eloise to Abelard is one of the
ject is so judiciously chosen, that it would be
most happy productions of human wit: the sub-
difficult, in turning over the annals of the world,
to find another which so many circumstances
concur to recommend. We regularly interest
ourselves most in the fortune of those who most
deserve our notice. Abelard and Eloise were
conspicuous in their days for eminence of merit.
The heart naturally loves truth. The adven-
tures and misfortunes of this illustrious pair are
known from undisputed history. Their fate does
not leave the mind in hopeless dejection; for
ment and piety. So new and so affecting is their
they both found quiet and consolation in retire-
story, that it supersedes invention; and imagi
nation ranges at full liberty without straggling
into scenes of fable.

The story thus skilfully adopted, has been diligently improved. Pope has left nothing behind him which seems more the effect of studious perseverance and laborious revisal. Here is particularly observable the curiosa felicitas, a crudeness of sense, nor asperity of language. fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here is no

The sources from which sentiments which have so much vigour and efficacy have been drawn are shown to be the mystic writers, by the learned author of the "Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope;" a book which teaches how the brow of Criticism may be smoothed, and how she may be enabled, with all her severity, to attract and to delight.

The train of my disquisition has now conduct the "Iliad," a performance which no age or na ed me to that poetical wonder, the translation of

tion can pretend to equal. To the Greeks trans- | consideration must be had of the nature of out lation was almost unknown; it was totally un-language, the form of our metre, and, above all, known to the inhabitants of Greece. They had of the change which two thousand years have no recourse to the barbarians for poetical beau- made in the modes of life and the habits of ties, but sought for every thing in Homer, where, thought. Virgil wrote in a language of the same indeed, there is but little which they might not general fabric with that of Homer, in verses of find. the same measure, and in an age nearer to Homer's time by eighteen hundred years; yet he found, even then, the state of the world so much altered, and the demand for elegance so much increased, that mere nature would be endured no longer; and perhaps in the multitude of borrowed passages, very few can be shown which he has not embellished.

The Italians have been very diligent translators; but I can hear of no version, unless perhaps Anguilara's Ovid may be excepted, which is read with eagerness. The "Iliad" of Salvini every reader may discover to be punctiliously exact; but it seems to be the work of a linguist skilfully pedantic; and his countrymen, the proper judges of its power to please, reject it with disgust.

Their predecessors, the Romans, have left some specimens of translations behind them, and that employment must have had some credit in which Tully and Germanicus engaged; but, unless we suppose, what is perhaps true, that the plays of Terence were versions of Menander, nothing translated seems ever to have risen to high reputation. The French, in the meridian hour of their learning, were very laudably industrious to enrich their own language with the wisdom of the ancients; but found themselves reduced, by whatever necessity, to turn the Greek and Roman poetry into prose. Whoever could read an author could translate him. From such rivals little can be feared.

There is a time when nations, emerging from barbarity, and falling into regular subordination, gain leisure to grow wise, and feel the shame of ignorance and the craving pain of unsatisfied curiosity. To this hunger of the mind plain sense is grateful; that which fills the void removes uneasiness, and to be free from pain for a while is pleasure; but repletion generates fastidiousness; a saturated intellect soon becomes luxurious, and knowledge finds no willing reception till it is recommended by artificial dic tion. Thus it will be found, in the progress of learning, that in all nations the first writers are simple, and that every age improves in elegance. One refinement always makes way for another; and what was expedient to Virgil was necessary to Pope.

The chief help of Pope in this arduous under- I suppose many readers of the English "Iliad," taking was drawn from the versions of Dryden. when they have been touched with some unexVirgil had borrowed much of his imagery from pected beauty of the lighter kind, have tried to Homer, and part of the debt was now paid by enjoy it in the original, where, alas! it was not his translator. Pope searched the pages of to be found. Homer doubtless owes to his transDryden for happy combinations of heroic dic-lator many Ovidian graces not exactly suitable tion; but it will not be denied that he added to his character; but to have added can be no much to what he found. He cultivated our lan- great crime, if nothing be taken away. Elegance guage with so much diligence and art, that he is surely to be desired, if it be not gained at the has left in his Homer a treasure of poetical ele-expense of dignity. A hero would wish to be gances to posterity. His version may be said loved, as well as to be reverenced. to have tuned the English tongue; for since its To a thousand cavils one answer is sufficient; appearance no writer, however deficient in other the purpose of a writer is to be read, and the cripowers, has wanted melody. Such a series of ticism which would destroy the power of pleas lines, so elaborately corrected, and so sweetlying must be blown aside. Pope wrote for his modulated, took possession of the public ear; the vulgar was enamoured of the poem, and the learned wondered at the translation.

own age and his own nation: he knew that it was necessary to colour the images and point the sentiments of his author; he therefore made him graceful, but lost him some of his sub

But, in the most general applause, discordant voices will always be heard. It has been object-limity. ed by some, who wish to be numbered among The copious notes with which the version is the sons of learning, that Pope's version of accompanied, and by which it is recommended Homer is not Homerical; that it exhibits no re-to many readers, though they were undoubtedly semblance of the original and characteristic man- written to swell the volumes, ought not to pass ner of the Father of Poetry, as it wants his without praise: commentaries which attract the awful simplicity, his artless grandeur, his un-reader by the pleasure of perusal have not often affected majesty. This cannot be totally denied; appeared; the notes of others are read to clear but it must be remembered, that necessitas quod difficulties, those of Pope to vary entertainment. cogit defn lit; that may be lawfully done which It has however been objected with sufficient cannot be forborne. Time and place will always reason, that there is in the commentary too much enforce regvd. In estimating this translation, of unseasonable levity and affected gayety; that Bentley was one of these. He and Pope, soon after too many appeals are made to the ladies, and the the publication of Homer, met at Dr. Mead's at dinner; case which is so carefully preserved is sometimes when Pope, desirous of his opinion of the translation, ad the case of a trifler. Every at has its terms, dressed him thus: "Dr. Bentley, I ordered my book and every kind of instruction its proper style; seller to send you your books; I hope you received them." the gravity of common critics may be tedious, Bentley, who had purposely avoided saying any thing about Homer, pretended not to understand him and but is less despicable than childish merriment. asked, “Books! books! what books? —“My Homer," r plied Pope, which you did me the honour to subscribe for."-" Oh," said Bentley, "ay, now I recollect-your must not call it Horner H.

I anslation it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you

Of the "Odyssey" nothing remains to be ob served; the same general praise may be given to both translations, and a particular examination of either would require a large volume.