another parcel was at the same time sent to himself, for which no price had ever been demanded, as he made known his resolution not to pay a porter, and consequently not to deal with a nameless agent.

"Such care had been taken to make them public, that they were sent at once to two booksellers; to Curll, who was likely to seize them as a prey; and to Lintot, who might be expected to give Pope information of the seeming injury. Lintot, I believe, did nothing, and Curll did what was expected. That to make them public was the only purpose, may be reasonably supposed, because the numbers offered to sale by the private messengers, shewed that hope of gain could not have been the motive of the impression.

"It seems that Pope, being desirous of printing his Letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion; that when he could complain his Letters were surreptitiously published, he might decently and defensively publish them himself.

"Pope's private correspondence, thus promulgated, filled the nation with praise of his candour, tenderness, and benevolence, the purity of his purpose, and the fidelity of his friendship. There were some Letters which a very good, or a very wise man would wish suppressed; but, as they had been already exposed, it was impossible now to retract them."

In the various sorts of composition in which the English have excelled, we have perhaps the least

claim to excellence in the article of Letters of our celebrated countrymen. The best in this Collection, are of Swift and Arbuthnot, of Peterborough and Trumbal, as written from the heart, and in an easy, familiar style. Those of Bolingbroke are in the form of dissertations; and those of Pope himself, like the elegant and studied Epistles of Pliny and Balsac. All of them are over-crowded with professions of integrity and disinterestedness, with trite reflections on contentment and retirement; a disdain of greatness and courts; a contempt of fame; and an affected strain of common-place morality. They seem to be chiefly valuable for some literary particulars incidentally mentioned.

Being now, in the year 1738, closely connected with the most able opposers of the Ministry and the Court, he wrote the Two Dialogues that took their title from the year in which they were composed, and which are, perhaps, all things considered, some of the strongest Satires ever written in any age or any country. Every species of sarcasm and mode of style are here alternately employed; ridicule, reasoning, irony, mirth, seriousness, lamentation, laughter, familiar imagery, and high poetical painting. Many persons in power were highly provoked, but the name of Pope prevented a prosecution, for what Paxton wished to have called a libel. But about the same time, Paul Whitehead, a very inferior poet, publishing Manners, gave an opportunity for repressing what was thought too great a liberty of the press. He left in his poem a very unguarded line,

"And Sherlock's shop and Henley's are the same."

For this line, the Bishop of Salisbury summoned Whitehead to appear before the House of Lords. As he could not be found, his printer, Dodsley, was taken and conveyed, as he himself informed me, to a spunging-house in the Butcher-row, under the custody of a messenger, which cost him seventy pounds. The next morning the neighbouring street was crowded with the carriages of some of the first noblemen and gentlemen, who came to offer him their services, and to be his bail. Among the rest, he told me, were Lord Chesterfield, Lord Marchmont, Lord Granville, Lord Bathurst, Lord Essex, Mr. Lyttelton, Mr. Pulteney, &c. &c. His prosecution was intended as a hint to Pope, and he understood it as such; and did not publish a Third Dialogue, which he certainly had designed to do; part of it now first appears in this edition *.

Ceasing from politics, Pope amused himself, in 1740, in republishing Selecta Carmina Italorum; but he took no notice of the edition from which he borrowed his collection, called, Anthologia, printed in

About this time he was honoured with the favour and friendship of Frederic Prince of Wales, who was then in opposition to the Court. And Mr. Glover told me, that being with Mr. Pope at Twickenham, soon after he had published Leonidas, the Prince, attended by Mr. Lyttelton, one evening paid them a visit; the latter privately desired Pope and Glover, that they would join with him in dissuading the Prince to ride a vicious horse he was fond of; and among other things urged on the subject, Pope said with earnestness to the Prince, "I hope, Sir, the people of England will not be made miserable by a second horse!" alluding to the accident that befel King William. "I think," added Pope, whispering afterward to Mr. Glover, "this speech was pretty well for me!"

London in 12mo. 1684, with a most judicious preface, and one of the best pieces of modern latinity, falsely ascribed to Atterbury; which he omitted, I think, very improperly. What he added was a very indifferent Poem of Aonius Palearius, De Immortalitate Animis, in Three Books; when he might have enriched his Collection by many more Pieces of Vida, Ant. Flaminius, Cotta, Sannazarius, Politianus, Molza, and the Strozzi, and a number of more exquisite morsels than those which he has inserted, if he had consulted the ten volumes of the Carmina Illustrium Poetarum, printed at Florence 1720, and Carmina Quinque Poetarum, Flor. 1720.

In the year 1742, he was unfortunately persuaded, by Dr. Warburton, to write the Fourth Book of the Dunciad; which I cannot forbear considering as an injudicious and incongruous addition to that Poem, for reasons assigned in the notes to it; as I also do the degrading Tibbald, 1743, from being the Hero of that Poem, and substituting Cibber in his place, for reasons also there assigned. What provocations he might have received from Cibber, is a thing entirely out of the question; the matter to be considered is, whether Cibber was a Hero proper, or not, for the Dunciad. It is to be lamented, that, in this instance, our Author's indignation got the better of what he possessed in an eminent degree, his judg

5

Very inferior to Mr. Hawkins Brown's Latin Poem on this subject. A. Palearius was burnt as a heretic.

The Fourth Book of the Dunciad, said Shenstone, is doubtless Mr. Pope's dotage, roũ Aiòs évúπvia; flat in the whole, and including, with several tolerable lines, a number of weak, obscure, and even punning ones. Letter 13.

ment; and that the last effort of his genius, which might have been employed on subjects so much higher, and more important, should be wasted in expressing this resentment. After all, the chief fault of the Dunciad, in its last state, is the violence and the vehemence of its satire, and the excessive height to which it is carried; and which may, therefore, be justly compared to that marvellous column of boiling water near Mount Hecla, thrown upwards, above ninety feet, by the force of a subterraneous fire.

Pope is said to have planned, at different times, three Works that he did not finish. One was, a Translation of Passages of Greek Poets of different Ages, as Specimens of their different Manners. Another, was the History of the Rise and Progress of Poetry in England, which he divided into six different Schools: 1. The School of Provence; 2. of Chaucer; 3. of Petrarch; 4. of Dante; 5. of Spenser, and Translators from Italian; 6. of Donne. The other and third Work, was no less than an Epic Poem, the subject of which was Brutus, grandson of Æneas who, after many adventures and obstacles, establishes a form of government of the best kind imaginable, in Great Britain. Brutus was to be assisted by Guardian Angels in his attempt, and opposed by a set of Evil Beings. The Plan which he had drawn up for this work, will be given at length in a subsequent Volume. He intended to have written it in Blank Verse; a circumstance worth the consideration of the defenders of rhyme. It is remarkable, that the very first Poem, any thing like an Epic Poem, that appeared in France, was on this identical subject