the author of which explains, with perspicuity and force, the improvements introduced by Pope into the philosophical and critical school of poetry, of which Dryden was the eminent and gifted head :-"Pope is the last great writer of that school of poetry, the poetry of the intellect, or rather of the intellect mingled with the fancy, which occupies the period from the Restoration to the close of the eighteenth century. In Dryden's satires and miscellaneous poems we perceive the reasoning poetry brought to perfection, as far as regards vigour of conception and force of expression. In these respects nothing remained to be added. But Pope possessed that quick tact and instinctive discernment, both of the range and the limit of his own powers, and also of the taste of the age, which showed him the solitary direction in which, so far as regarded this philosophic and critical school of poetry, there yet remained an opening for himself. He felt that the qualities of his mind did not fit him to surpass, and scarcely to contend on equal terms with Dryden, so far as regarded grasp or force; but he conceived, that in the way of polish, refinement, grace, and choice of expression, something yet remained to be done, and that that something he was able to afford. Selecting, by a national preference, themes of a moral or didactic rather than a passionate character; adopting the idea, that every thing should be polished to the highest pitch, and that artifice was the fundamental principle of poetry, that artifice, he thought, could hardly be carried too far; and, accordingly, with Pope, we find habitual that attention to words, which is only occasional with Dryden. If in Dryden we perceive a tendency to substitute logic and reflection for feeling; to exhibit pictures of conventional and artificial, rather than of general nature, and to borrow his illustrations much oftener from science and art than from natural objects, this tendency appears still more decided and uniform in Pope, who is pre-eminently the poet of a high intellectual culture and limited poetical sensibilities-the poet who wrought to its last perfection the pure but limited vein which this contemplative, but preceptive style of poetry afforded. After Dryden, nothing more could have been achieved for this style of poetry, save what has been done by Pope; and what he attempted he perfected." From the preceding extracts, which are all of a high critical character, and the compositions of writers distinguished in the art, the diligent student of our poetical literature will not find it difficult to form a correct opinion of the rank which Pope should occupy among the English poets, especially in those departments of poetry in which he has acquired an original and enduring reputation. In describing the characteristics which are peculiar to Pope, and which distinguished him both from his predecessors and followers, Hazlitt has pointed out, with great clearness and beauty of expression, the differ ence between the poet of nature and of art :-" Pope was not then," he observes, "distinguished as a poet of lofty enthusiasm, of strong imagination, with a passionate sense of the beauties of nature, or a deep insight into the workings of the heart; but he was a wit, and a critic, a man of sense, of observation, and the world, with a keen relish for the elegances of art, or of nature when embellished by art, a quick tact for propriety of thought and manners as established by the forms and customs of society, a refined sympathy with the sentiments and habitudes of human life, as he felt them within the little circle of his family and friends. He was, in a word, the poet, not of nature, but of art; and the distinction between the two, as well as I can make out, is this the poet of nature is one who, from the elements of beauty, of power, and of passion in his own breast, sympathises with whatever is beautiful, and grand, and impassioned in nature, in its simple majesty, in its immediate appeal to the senses, to the thoughts and hearts of all men; so that the poet of nature, by the truth, and depth, and harmony of his mind, may be said to hold communion with the very soul of nature; to be identified with and to foreknow and to record the feelings of all men at all times and places, as they are liable to the same impressions; and to exert the same power over the minds of his readers, that nature does. He sees things in their eternal beauty, for he sees them as they are; he feels them in their universal interest, for he feels them as they affect the first principles of his and our common nature. Such was Homer, such was Shakspeare, whose works will last as long as nature, because they are a copy of the indestructible forms and everlasting impulses of nature, swelling out from the bosom as from a perennial spring, or stamped upon the senses by the hand of their Maker. The power of the imagination in them, is the representative power of all nature. It has its centre in the human soul, and makes the circuit of the universe." Mathias, whose eulogy on Dryden we have given in our sketch of that eminent poet, is no less cordial and emphatic in the tribute he pays to the poetic genius of Pope: "The sixth and last of this immortal brotherhood, in the fulness of time, and in the maturity of poetical power, came Pope. All that was wanting to his illustrious predecessor found its consummation in the genius, knowledge, correct sense, and condensation of thought and expression, which distinguish this poet. The tenor of his life was peculiarly favourable to his office. He had first cultivated all the flowery grounds of poetry. He had excelled in description, in pastoral, in the pathetic, and in general criticism; and he had given an English existence in perpetuity to the father of all poetry. Thus honoured, and with these pretensions, he left them all for that excellence, for which the maturity of his talents and his judgment so eminently designed him. Familiar with the great, intimate with the polite, graced by the attentions of the fair, admired by the learned, a favourite with the nation, independent in an acquired opulence, the honourable product of his genius and industry; the companion of persons distinguished for birth, high fashion, rank, wit, or virtue, and resident in the centre of all public information and intelligence; every avenue to knowledge and every mode of observation were open to his curious, prying, piercing, and unwearied intellect. His works are so generally read and studied, that I should not merely fatigue, but I should almost insult you by such a needless disquisition." Leigh Hunt displays his correct appreciation of poetic genius, and his critical acuteness in the subjoined extract, which we take from his charming selections of "Wit and Humour:"- "Besides being an admirable wit and satirist, and a man of the most exquisite good sense Pope was a true poet; and though in all probability the entire nature could never have made him a great one (since the whole man contributes to form the genius, and the very weakness of his organization was in the of it), yet in a different age the boy who wrote the beautiful verses way Blest be the man whose wish and care, would have turned out, I think, a greater poet than he was. He had more sensibility, thought, and faney, than was necessary for the purposes of his school; and he led a sequestered life with his books and his grotto, caring little for the manners he drew, and capable of higher impulses than had been given him by the wits of the time of Charles II. It was unlucky for him (if indeed it did not produce a lucky variety for the reading world) that Dryden came immediately before him. Dryden, a robuster nature, was just great enough to mislead Pope; and French ascendancy completed his fate. Perhaps, after all, nothing better than such a honey and such a sting as this exquisite writer developed, could have been got out of his little delicate pungent nature; and we have every reason to be grateful for what they have done for us. Hundreds of greater pretensions in poetry have not attained to half his fame, nor did they deserve it; for they did not take half his pains. Perhaps they were unable to take them, for want of as good a balance of qualities. Success is generally commensurate with its grounds." In reference to the unhappy contentions which disturbed the serenity of Pope's declining years, Shaw makes a striking remark in the work from which we have already quoted :"Genius," says he, "implies an exquisite degree of sensibility; and it is but just, that when it is perverted to selfish purposes, it should necessarily entail upon its perverter a bitter and inevitable retribution." JOHN GAY. BORN, 1688; Died, 1732. Of manners gentle, of affections mild; With native humour tempering virtuous rage, And uncorrupted e'en among the great; Pope. Ir the subject of this memoir had written nothing but his admirable Fables, which have afforded so rich a fund of instruction and amusement to youth, he would have deserved the rank in which he has been placed among the British poets. He was born in 1688, at Barnstaple, in Devonshire. The family from which he was descended had unquestionable claims to respeetability, though they were in reduced circumstances. His father was a silk mercer, in the city of London, and he apprenticed his son John to the same business, after giving him a liberal education at the free school of Barnstaple. The lad possessed some limited means, independently of his parents, and possessed a taste for literary pursuits. It was a circumstance, therefore, not calculated to occasion surprise, that he should have had a repugnance to trade, and have neglected the laborious duties which it imposed upon him. After a few years his master agreed to cancel his indentures, and permitted him to follow the bent of his inclination, by engaging in literary occupations. Accordingly, in 1711, he published his first work, which was entitled "Rural Sports," and which he dedicated to Pope, then a young poet, like himself. This compliment was gratifying to Pope's feelings. and it led to a close intimacy between them, which was never afterwards interrupted or broken. The subject of this poem was not a novel one, but it is ably |