for a wife. Being tender of her interests, and knowing that she is less indebted to fortune than I, I told him, 't was what he could never have thought of, if it had not been his misfortune to be blind, and what I could never think of, while I had eyes to see both her and myself."

This is one of those rare occasions in which the most artificial turn of language, if gracefully put, is not unsuitable to the greatest depth of feeling, the speaker being taxed, as it were, to use his utmost address, both for his own sake and the lady's. We speak of "deformity" in reference to Pope's figure, since, undoubtedly, the term is properly applied; and one of the greatest compliments that can be paid his memory (which may be sincerely done), is to think that a woman could really have loved him. But he had wit, fancy, sensibility, fame, and the "finest eyes in the world ;" and he would have worshipped her with so much gratitude, and filled her moments with so much intellectual entertainment, that we can believe a woman to have been very capable of a serious passion for him, especially if she was a very good and clever woman. As to minor faults of shape, even of his own sort, we take them to be nothing whatsoever in the way of such love. We have seen them embodying the finest minds and most generous hearts; and believe, indeed, that a woman is in luck who has the wit to discern their lovability; for it begets her a like affection, and shows that her own nature is worthy of it.

This volume of Letters is the one that was occasioned by the surreptitious collection published by Curll. It contains the correspondence with Walsh, Wycherley, Trumbal, and Cromwell, those to "Several Ladies," to Edward Blount, and Gay, &c. The style is generally artificial, sometimes provokingly so, as in the answer to Sir William Trumbal's hearty and natural congratulations on the "Rape of the Lock." It vexes one to see so fine a poet make such an owl of himself with his laboured deprecations of flattery (of which there was none), and self-exaltations above the love of fame. The honest old statesman (a delightful character by the way, and not so rare as inexperience fancies it) must have smiled at the unconscious insincerity of his little great friend. "Unconscious" we say, for it is a mistake to conclude that an insincerity of this kind may not have a great deal of truth in it, as regards the writer's own mind and intentions; and Pope, at the time, had not lived long enough to become aware of his weakness in this respect; perhaps never did. On the other hand, there are abundant proofs in these Letters of the best kind of sincerity, and of the most exquisite good sense. Pope's heart and purse (which he could moderately afford) were ever open to his friends, let his assertions to that effect be taken by a shallow and envious cunning in as much evidence to the contrary as it pleases. He was manifestly kind to every body in every respect, except when they provoked his wit and self-love a

little too far; and then only, or chiefly, as it affected him publicly. He had little tricks of management, we dare say; that must be an indulgence conceded to his little crazy body, and his fear of being jostled aside by robuster exaction; and we will not swear that he was never disingenuous before those whom he had attacked. That may have been partly owing to his very kindness, uneasy at seeing the great pain which he had given; for his satire was bred in him by reading satire (Horace, Boileau, and others); and it was doubtless more bent on being admired for its wit than feared for its severity, exquisitely severe though he could be, and pleased as a man of so feeble a body must have been at seeing his pen so formidable. He fondly loved his friends. We see by this book, that before he was six and twenty, he had painted Swift's portrait (for he dabbled in oil painting) three times; and he was always wishing Gay to come and live with him, doubtless at his expense. He said on one of these occasions, "Talk not of expenses; Homer (that is, his translation) will support his children." And when Gay was in a bad state of health, and might be thought in want of a better air, Pope told him he would go with him to the south of France; a journey which, for so infirm and habitual a homester, would have been little less, than if an invalid nowadays should propose to go and live with his friend in South America.

There are some passages in this volume so curi

VOL. II.

D

ously applicable to the state of things now existing among us,* that we are tempted to quote one or two of them :

"I am sure (says he) if all Whigs and all Tories had the spirit of one Roman Catholic I know (his friend Edward Blount, to whom he is writing), it would be well for all Roman Catholics; and if all Roman Catholics had always had that spirit, it had been well for all others, and we had never been charged with so wicked a spirit as that of persecution."

Again, in a letter to Craggs,

"I took occasion to mention the superstition of some ages after the subversion of the Roman empire, which is too manifest a truth to be denied, and does in no sort reflect upon the present professors of our faith (he was himself a Catholic) who are free from it. Our silence in these points may, with some reason, make our adversaries think we allow and persist in those bigotries, which yet, in reality, all good and sensible men despise, though they are persuaded not to speak against them; I cannot tell why, since now it is no way the interest even of the worst of our priesthood, as it might have been then, to have them smothered in silence."

Let the above be the answer to those who pretend to think that the Catholics are still as ignorant and bigoted as they were in the days of Queen Mary !as though such enlightened Catholics as Pope, and such revolting ones as Mary herself, had never assisted to bring them to a better way of thinking. For the exquisite good sense we have spoken of,

* 1838.

take the following passage, which is a masterpiece :

"Nothing hinders the constant agreement of people who live together but mere vanity: a secret insisting upon what they think their dignity or merit, and inward expectation of such an over-measure of deference and regard as answers to their own extravagant false scale, and which nobody can pay, because none but themselves can tell readily to what pitch it amounts.”

Thousands of houses would be happy to-morrow if this passage were written in letters of gold over the mantel-piece, and the offenders could have the courage to apply it to themselves.

We shall conclude this article with an observation or two, occasioned by a rondeau in the volume, not otherwise very mentionable. The first is, that in its time, and till lately, it was almost the only rondeau, we believe, existing in the language, certainly the only one that had attracted notice; secondly, that it does not obey the laws of construction laid down by the example of Marot, and pleasantly set forth of late in a publication on "Rondeaulx," (pray pronounce the word in good honest old French, with the eaulx, like the beating up of eggs for a pudding); third, that owing to the lesser animal spirits prevailing in this country, the larger form of the rondeau is not soon likely to obtain; fourth, that in a smaller and more off-hand shape it seems to us deserving of revival, and extremely well calculated to give effect to such an impulse as naturally inclines us to the repetition of