any other of the kind, to which it might fairly be compared, such as the Epistles of Ovid, Propertius, Tibullus, (I will not mention Drayton, and POPE's numerous subsequent Imitations ;) but when this transcendent poem is compared with those which will bear the comparison, I shall not be deemed as giving reluctant praise, when I declare my conviction of its being infinitely superior to every thing of the kind, ancient or modern.

"In this poem, therefore, POPE appears on the high ground of the Poet of Nature; but this certainly is not his general character. In the particular instance of this poem, how distinguished and superior does he stand! It is sufficient that nothing of the kind* has ever been produced equal to it, for pathos, painting, and melody."

Before I proceed, it will save myself and your Lordship some trouble, if I request you to remember, in casting your eye on this portion of the estimate of POPE's poetical character, four material points.

1st. I speak not of NATURE GENERALLY, but of images SUBLIME or BEAUTIFUL in Nature ;t and if

* Of the kind. I beg these words may be remembered.

+ But I am told that there being no one image in art or nature more sublime or beautiful, poetically, than another, a consummate poet, like POPE, in execution, could make a “hog in a high "wind," grunting, probably, and with his tail erect, as sublime and beautiful in poetry, as the horses of ACHILLES in HOMER. I will only observe, that neither HOMER himself, nor his translator, could make a "silk purse of à sow's ear!”

your Lordship had only kept this circumstance in recollection, you would have seen, that your pleasant pictures of "the Hog in the high wind," the footman's livery, the Paddington Canal, and the pigsties, the horse-pond, the slop-basin, or ANY OTHER vessel, can avail you little in your position; for natural as these images might be, they are neither "sublime or beautiful;" and, notwithstanding the pleasantry and wit with which they are associated in your Lordship's imagination,

"It grieves me much, the clerk might say again,
"Who WRITES SO WELL, should ever WRITE IN VAIN."

2d. You will observe, that I mean by images taken from what is sublime and beautiful in nature, those not confined to the manners of any one period, but extended to Nature in general, and the passions in all ages.

3dly. You will observe, that, in speaking of the subject and execution of a poem, I do not pass over the execution; for otherwise, BLACKMORE would be a greater poet than POPE:-and if your Lordship had remembered this point, you would not have supposed I could ever consider FENTON, or any other tragedian of the kind, as great a poet as POPE, though FENTON wrote a middling tragedy, and POPE satires, &c.

And, 4thly. You will observe, that in execution I think no poet was ever superior to POPE;

though your Lordship thinks the execution all, and I do not, for reasons which will be given.

I now beg to place before you what follows, requesting you to observe that I most freely admit POPE's unquestioned rank in the pathetic part of poetry, concerning which my concluding remark* was," In the particular instance of this poem, "how distinguished and SUPERIOR does he stand. "It is sufficient that nothing of the kind ever "has been produced EQUAL TO IT for PATHOS, "PAINTING, and MELODY!"

To the first part I called Mr. CAMPBELL's particular attention before; but I am certain many mistakes would be prevented, if any opposer of another's opinion would only take the trouble to do him the justice of impartially examining what those opinions are. I therefore think it necessary, before I meet Lord BYRON, to shew where his most effective strokes seem to hit the hardest, and where they are wasted, not on my theory, but on the winds. I must hope, therefore, the reader will a little farther follow me.

* But this poem, unquestionably so unique and exquisite, can only entitle the author to the highest place among those who have written poems of the same kind-above OVID, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, &c.; but surely not above, or in the same file, with the Poet of PARADISE LOST, or Shakespeare. I have ranked POPE before Dryden, so far from ever saying or thinking him no great Poet.

After the word "melody" my observations on POPE's poetical character proceed as follow:

*

"From this exquisite performance, which seems to stand as the boundary between the poetry derived from the great and primary feelings of Nature, and that derived from Art, to Satire, whose subject wholly concerns existing manners, the transition is easy. Nevertheless, as POPE has chosen to write Satires and Epistles, they must be compared, not as WARTON has, I think, injudiciously done with pieces of higher poetry, but only with things of the same kind. To say that the beginning of one of POPE's Satires is not poetical; to say that you cannot find in it, if the words are transposed, the " disjecti membra poeta," is not criticism. The province of Satire is totally wide; its career is in artificial life; and therefore to say that satire is not poetry, is to say an epigram is not an elegy. POPE has written satires; that is, confined himself chiefly, as a poet, to those subjects with which, as it has been seen, he was most conversant; subjects taken from living man, from habits and manners, more than from imagination and passions.

"The career, therefore, which he opened to himself was in the second order in poetry; but it was a line pursued by HORACE, JUVENAL, DRYDEN, BOILEAU; and if in that line he stand the highest, upon these grounds we might fairly say, with JOHNSON, it is 'superfluous to ask whether POPE were a poet.'

"From the poetry, which, while it deals in local manners, exhibits also, as far as the subject would

I have taken the liberty, having no other opportunity, of correcting a few passages.

admit, the most exquisite embellishments of fancy, such as the machinery* of the Rape of the Lock, we may proceed to those subjects which are didactic.

"The abstract philosophical view is first presented, as in the Essay on Man. The ground of such a poem is philosophy, not poetry: the poetry is only the colouring, if I may say so; and to the colouring the eye is chiefly attentive. We hardly think of the philosophy, whether it be good or bad; whether it be profound or specious; whether it evince deep thinking or exhibit only in new and pompous array the babble of the 'Nurse.' Scarcely any one, till a controversy was raised, thought of the doctrines; but a thousand must have been warmed by the pictures, the addresses, the sublime interspersions of description, and the nice and harmonious precision of every word, and of almost every line. Whether, as a system of philosophy, it inculcated fate or not, who would pause to inquire? but every eye read a thousand times, and every lip, perhaps, repeated, "Lo the poor Indian!" &c. "The Lamb thy riot," &c. "Oh Happiness," &c.

and many other passages.

"All these illustrative and secondary images are painted from the source of genuine poetry—from NATURE, not from ART. They therefore, independent of powers displayed in the versification, raise the Essay on Man, considered in the abstract, into genuine poetry, although the poetical part is subservient to the philosophical.

* In a note to this poem, the reason is given why POPE's airy spirits are inferior to SHAKESPEARE'S in poetical beauty.