glass of wine together as in a fort of conciliating way; I ftill, I know not what poffeffed me, I hope I am not always fo, wrong-headed enough not to fee myself at all improper, but him fo. Our party ended pretty late at night, and I and my three friends got into our coach to return home, three or four miles off: as foon as got into the coach, I faid, Did you ever know any thing more abfurd than fo and fo? they fell a laughing. Why, faid I, did not you fee it fo? No, fo much the contrary, that I can not conceive a man behaving better on fuch occafion, than our Hoft did. Do you think fo? Certainly. We then talked the thing over, and I plainly faw my error. Said I, I am quite hurt at this, and I must intreat you, no matter the name, to ride over with me to-morrow morning the first thing I do, to offer the beft apology I now can. This was done, and all the reft is feen, and there it is for you noble-minded-men of either kind, and of whatever fort or kind. And this farther I will now add and declare, particularly for the well accompanied fect who call all these things meannefs, that I fcarce know that I ever in my life felt more uneafy in the interval, or more pleased and happy than at the time of effecting my design.

And fo what more? I think very little, ere I take my leave, my everlafting leave, of my reader; I fay everlasting, for I do faithfully promife I never will, during existence, (as to after it 1 engage for nothing) obtrude any printed thoughts of mine on his leifure again, not (if it be faid I shall have very little opportunity for it) if I live to the age of Parr or Jenkins, which is, at least, no where in the world perhaps more likely, if feeling in every refpect now, body and mind, the fame as in the best part of life, can give probability to it. This however, from the little I hear of Montaigne, is exactly him; be it fo; and perhaps too I am a little proud of my existence; (not however too, but that my legs are certainly as yet. not by any means free and released) more especially, as, thank Heaven, I have the grace to be in my theory moft completely a fectary of philofopher Prior's; as I fhall prefently fhew. Prior manifefts the fame way of thinking, in prose as in verfe, which every body may fee, all through his letters, in the collection of thofe of the wits of that age; hardly was the old Roman

more

.

more conftant in the finale of his fpeech, by Delenda eft Carthago, than he was by Vive la bagatelle at the end of his letters. And what did he mean by it? why, that after all your fearch, all your divings, all your refinements, exaltations, every thing the superiority of your nature can carry you to, you must end nearly, if not quite, where you began; learn very little indeed, or, alas! how much worse, learn what you not only can not communicate, but must

continually find thwarted, even as if, when you had got your third and fifth

of your musical chord, and fought for your eighth, you could for ever procure only a feventh or a fixth. Vive la bagatelle then; is it not the best counsel can be given? Prior never could have written his Solomon without thinking; nay, deep thinking: no, nor his Alma neither; for it is not flimsey indeed, you flimfey gentlemen who alfo write in that way. As to writing common verfes, I have faid it before, it is the eafieft thing in the world. It is the fentiment is the thing. Yes then, Prior is my man; he is to my fancy both deep and gentleman-like, and yes, be he, even he, my « guide, "philofopher, and friend:"† nor am I, alas! very fure, but in certain particulars, the calls of excercitation were quite diffimilar between us.

* Let a certain very refpectable gentleman be just asked here, what the querity of gentleman-like? he will probably read this; do then, God bless you, tell us only this; all, all the rest des plus volontiers.

A thing has very lately ftruck me which occafions a note, that much to my regret will still retard my so much defired conclufion, more efpecially as I fee it cannot be a very short one under my pen. It is this, that I reflect on it as not unlikely for fome old favourers of Pope, to stickle fo far for him as to think, maugre any thing I may have had to offer to the contrary, that he is much more worthy of being my guide, philofopher, and friend" for life, than Prior. Those who are of the Johnsonian fect may not unlikely fay this, when the following defcription is given of his character by Johnson on the whole, and notwithstanding all the objections to it we have paffim seen from his pen. I mean this: "Of his intel"lectual character, the constituent and fundamental part was good fenfe; a prompt and intuitive percep"tion of confonance and propriety. He faw immediately, of his own conceptions, what was to be "chofen, and what rejected; and in the works of others, what was to be fhunned, and what copied." Thus much Johnson; and I confefs that I very much agree to it. The mode of defcribing this agrees also very much with what my own would gladly have fallen into, viz. " a prompt and intuitive percep "tion, &c. &c." In confequence too of this, I acknowledge that a great deal of good nay ftrong fenfe, nay good touch or taste, in selecting the best part or point of the object before him, appeared in him. Added to this, I think he had a great deal of imagination, (much as he fcandaloufly, meanly, went after other

people's)

Before I conclude, let me however be permitted to add, that I hope myreader will make what allowance he can for defects that undoubtedly I overlook,

people's) or at least much feeling and fufceptibility, even up to the pathetic, as well as the indignatory. But all this may belong to, and I think did in him belong to, what I pretty minutely entered upon a good way back, in regard to single understandings and double ones, if I could be allowed so to express myself. If I happen to have any fuperior perfon to read this, he will probably recollect and advert to the paffage I allude to ; and to any common reader it matters not one way or the other. To be more explicit it appears to me from numberless traits in Pope's writings, that he had not that comprehenfive logical and truly manly understanding, that feeks, nay naturally goes to, things that take in many different parts, and must hang, or be connected together. And confequently not to fhrink from contradiction, as fuch truly manly understanding does. And need I go to illuftrate this, (as my own opinion at least) after all I have hazarded and exposed to view on the Effay on Man? I fay manliness; and furely all this belongs most to men and not to women; who, it will be allowed, do not greatly deal in fyllogifm.I beg pardon, Ladies; and do affure you I mean not to detract from your excellencies; I naturally love them too well to do it. Your perfections and ours are continually in abfolute contrast, and should they not be fo? No; I have continually heard and read that women's intellectual powers are the fame as men's; and the only difference the education: one hears and reads of much nonfenfe in the world, but I think in nothing of the world, more than on this subject; and would you have, the object of your love and the companion of it, fight at the head of armies? Rather does not, what would difgrace you, endear your love to you, when, frightened at a poor cow in the field, fhe flies to your arms for that protection you so feelingly give her, and even the more from not wanting it? Would you have her fo learned that the talks to you like a book? I once knew a female who always faid inftead of I am afraid, I am afeard, and would not have corrected her for the universe. Would you have your mistress a great algebraift, mathematician, aftronomer, and fo forth? Can the be either? Should the? when did you ever fee any woman either, while numbers of men, even fhepherds in the fields, have been one or the other. Nay, you, of the firft formed whift-players, have you, or had you ever, a woman among you with minds strong enough to reach its difficulties? But fay, if by fome accident of nature a woman reaches one of these abftrufe manly sciences, do you love her the better for it? rather do you not abhor her; drive her from, not take her to your arms? Let me not however broach all this without joining to it, that I hope I had extenfion enough of taste not only in theory, but practice and feeling, not to have imagined, quite in apathy, my own two contrasted portraits (I hope it is allowable to produce them here fince my own, and in proof of it) of Camilla and Chlora; but as to the diftinction between the two fexes (as also my own) I hope it may be allowable also to say it is attempted much more at large in the old fraternal book of maxims.

One word more however here as to the beloved fex; more especially as it is not only in favour of their perfons, but of their understandings, as fuperior to ours; I mean, in this; that we continually see, that while the man talks and reasons most excellently, and the woman, perhaps not at all fo, nay the contrary, and so as for the male companion continually to take up and correct the female, she has a hundred times his judgment and difcernment in practice; and perhaps proves it where he knows little of the matter. This

reminds

look, from the entire failure of that delicious fenfation in the act itself, as well as utility; I mean a communion with an intelligent mind, who could

dive

reminds me of a former sentence, which though between men, is not methinks unanalagous here, it is this: "Some men talk sensibly and act foolishly; fome talk foolishly and act fenfibly: the first laugh at the "laft, and the laft cheat the firft."-Far have I gone from my subject, but when to fuch company, can it be regretted?

As to Pope then, I fay he was not capacious; and for me, I defire no fuch "guide, philosopher, and friend." Pray hear what follows; which while by Johnson confidered as trifling, nay and by his other annotators too, quite astonished me when I read it. Hear Johnson's own words, they are these, viz.

"The subsequent editions of the first epiftles exhibited two memorable corrections; at first, the poet " and his friend

"But having afterwards discovered (Jolinson adds) or been fhewn, that the truth which fubfifted in spite "of reafon could not be very clear, he fubftituted

"And spite of pride, in erring reafon's fpite."

This is the account Johnfon gives of the philofopher's proceedings, and the commencing circumstances of this Effay which has occupied half Europe fo long. The man who conceives it, who we are told had his discoveries in his head eight years, and was two years in writing and confidering his Philofophical Poem, had all along confidered it, given it forth, as an account of man and his state below, but for which he had no plan; and thus went forth the first edition; but on the fecond we fee it was with a plan. Need I comment on all this, as indeed of the second alteration about reafon and not reafon?

I have faid it before, that I never was more astonished than when I faw all this; but my chief aftonishment is at the no-astonishment of the rest of the world, and the annotators at the head of it; for all that Johnson says to it all is this, viz. "To fuch overfights will the most vigorous mind [will it Dr.? then we have poor minds indeed, ] be liable, when it is employed at once upon argument and poetry."

I will fay nothing even to all this; it is really tiresome and disgusting. But does it not authorize me to fay in my hiftory of man, that he feems to want fome correction; and let me hope it then here to my country,

among

dive with you if you dived, or rife with you if you rofe; or accompany you through nature's more level, while still delicious, walks of gentler rifings or defcents; and is not communication and participation, in all, even improvement, even addition in all? I do not know, that in the number I have at all communicated with, (and from felf-diffidence I have communicated with many)

among other improvements. In other manly researches, and where putting things together was wanting, Pope was really an infant. He fays of Garth, who was a reputed free-thinker, and a worthy man, that Garth was a good Chriflian without knowing it; and this was a favourite faying with him of Digby and two or three more, making a good man and a good Christian synonymous. By this rule a Mahometan may be a good Chriftian. I had more to say, but am tired. I only add-Have I wronged Pope; and do, world of taste, apreciate him (all of you!) hereafter. Apreciate here then the criticised and the critic, and say is there adequateness between them; and is this too no way national? Sure it is.. I wish to see and to leave my country complete; fuperior in every thing; legiflation, manners, morals, literature, every thing. Nor can I forbear, as a means and a vehicle of the latter, even lamenting the distance from it in our language. I have latterly laid by my fcruple in more than one inftance in coining a word, where I found it much wanted; I made, before that, ufe of one, because so much wanted, that went much against me as a very awkward one, or to illuftrate it by its fellow a very untafly one; for I mean the word tafty, which, if a word, is quite a vulgar one. Yet why not have tafly from tafte, as well as gladly from glad, and twenty others? How many words with quite contrary meanings! But that I do not so much object to; though very much to seeing the fame given to numberless fhades or degrees of the idea it goes to; and hus made fynonymous instead of distinctive. What an encouragement to lax sense, and oh how much worse, to fophiftry? Strongly have I in my eye a famous writer and speaker who would be ftrangely stopped in both in his career, if this were not fo. There is a delightful little French book called Synonymes François, that is even witty, or at least ingenious, if not eloquent, in its illuftrations and examples on fo dry a subject. Could Mr Croft adopt nothing of this? then our orthography is most unaccountable; to mention only two or three examples of the given power of letters, through, brought, cough, enough; here, there; then qwear, tear, or near; then bear, care, fear, war, far, with an et-cetera there is no end to, not to mention the accentuation, totally vague, irregular, and unfixed; to me it feems utterly impoffible for a foreigner to learn our language by rule.

t

But more than all this, are our writers, as writers, apreciated? I think not. And it is feen how often I have dared to think so, through my defultory work. Had Addifon, Steel, Swift, and even Shakespeare himself come in difcuffion before me, I should have dared the fame; and I hope not condemnably, since ever most entirely given as my own private opinion only. I wish fome abler judge, and further authority, were fairly to revife them all, as ftandard of national taste.

Yet hear this too (impartial reader, critic, and judge) Pope, quite confonant to this notion of worthy Garth, and the others being good Chriftians, tells us, as both a politician and religionist, this; (he all the while being, I have not the minutest doubt, (why should I?) a moft fincere Catholic,) viz.

"For