an eye up to the ftudy-window of Mr. Addison, from whence his genius first ́displayed itself. A leaf of bays transmitted from the tomb of Virgil, at Naples, and preferved in the desk upon which this Effay is written, would alone be fufficient to prevent the Roman Poet from fading on the memory. Sed carmina major imago. Let Pope inform my reader of his removal from Binfield to Twickenham, from a letter of Dec. 2, 1718. "The history of my tranfplantation and settlement, which you requeft, would require a volume, were 1 to enumerate the many projects, difficulties, viciffitudes, and various fates, attending that important part of my life: much more, fhould I defcribe the many draughts, elevations, profiles, perspectives, &c. of every palace and garden proposed; intended, and happily raised, by the strength of that faculty, wherein all great geniuses excel, Imagination. At laft, the Gods have fixed me on the borders of the Thames, in the diftricts of Richmond and Twickenham. It is here I have paffed an entire year of my life. One, that has once been a poet, was degraded degraded to a tranflator, and at last, through mere dulnefs, is turned to an architect." Ruffhead acquaints us, that Pope intended his villa for Mr. Murray, now Earl of Mansfield, upon the eafieft terms. Let the traveller continue to visit the reputed birth-house of our immortal Shakspeare. I have no defire to injure popular belief, nor future jubilees at Stratford, nor a fcene of theatrical reprefentation. But, an Oxford friend, old, learned, and orthodox enough for a mitre, (of Maudlin's learned grove) affured me, that converfing many years ago with the minifter of the town, who, from his own retrofpective knowledge, and his best inquiries, which included more than an hundred years, was able to give fome account, induced him to conclude, that the wrong house was pitched upon for the birth-place of our great dramatic poet. Should it be asked, if this is a proof against a received opinion? I think not let it then be treated, as hearfay of hearfay, and afford an opportunity of ridiculing this fort of evidence in the humorous lines of Prior, in his Turtle and Sparrow, an honest Rook Told it a Snipe, who told a Steer, Who told it thofe, who told it her. To return from this digreffion. When Dryden left off the poetical trade, Pope took it up. Dr. Beattie, in his Effay on Poetry and Mufic, balances the merits of Dryden and Pope allows more originality to Dryden, but thinks the profeffed, happy, imitative powers of Pope put him upon a level. This critic afferts, that Pope's numbers are fweet, but elaborate; and our fenfe of their energy is in fome degree interrupted by an attention to the art difplayed in their contexture and that his ftyle may be thought to have lefs fimplicity, lefs vivacity, and lefs of the purity of the mother tongue; but that it is at the fame time more uniformly elevated, and less debafed by vulgarifm, than that of his great master. Pope was not, like Dryden, the fervant of a Tonfon. But his integrity received a blow from an boneft printer, after his death. He never was in a hurry to publifh, nor, as he describes a diftreffed poet, to print, before before term ends, Oblig'd by hunger, and request of friends. In the opinion of a good judge, the elegant tranflator of Pliny and Cicero's Letters, and the author of thofe of Fitzosborne, from which laft performance the following quotation is made, "Mr. Pope feems to have raised our numbers to the highest possible perfection of ftrength and harmony: and, I fear, all the praise that the beft fucceeding poets can expect, as to their verfification, will be, that they have happily imitated his manner." And in another place he obferves, in our poet's commendation, that what has been faid of a celebrated French tranflator may be applied to Mr. Pope, that "it is doubtful, whether the dead or the living are most oblig. ed to him." May it not be affirmed as truly of Pope's poetry, as of Dryden's by Congreve, that, "take his verfes, and diveft them of their rhimes, disjoint their numbers, tranfpofe their expreffions, make what arrangement and difpofition you please of his words, yet shall there eternally be poetry, and fomething which will be found incapable of being D 2 re refolved into abfolute profe?" Shenstone "In Pope I cannot read a line Our poetry, which was drawn by the leffer have |