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poetical, that I could not forbear inferting the whole paffage. Mr. Pope was remarkable for the tenderness of his behaviour towards his mother; many of his letters abound with peculiar inftances of his affection for her.

Monf. Rouffeau has an original and admirable observation on filial duty.

Il y a des occafions où un fils qui manque de respect à fon frere, peut, en quelque forte, être excufé: mais fi, dans quelque occafion que ce fût, un enfant étoit affez dénaturé pour en manquer à fa mere, a celle qui l'a Forté dans fon fein, qui l'a nourri de fon lait, qui, durant des années, s'eft oubliée elle-même pour ne s'occuper que de iui, on devroit se hâter d'étouffer ce miférable, comme un monftre indigne de voir le jour. Les meres, dit-on, gâtent leurs

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enfans. En cela, fans doute, elles on tort; mais moins de tort que vous, peutêtre, qui les dépravez. La mere veut que fon enfant foit heureux, qu'il le foit dès à préfent. En cela elle a raison: quand elle fe trompe fur les moyens, il faut l'éclairer. L'ambition, l'avarice, la tyrannie, la fauffe prévoyance des peres, leur négligence, leur dure infenfibilité, font cent fois plus funeftes aux enfans que l'aveugle tendreffe de meres, Emile, Tome I. p. 4.

1. What like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,

With arms, and George and Brunswick crow'd the verfe,

Rend with tremendous found your ears afunder,

With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbufs and thunder*?

Satire i. verfe 23.

This fatire on Blackmore has great humour, and is extremely juft. Surely Mr. Locke difcovered great want of täfte in poetry, when he declared it his opinion, that Sir Richard was as much fuperior to all other poets, as the eagle foared above the wren. Dryden fays, he writ to the rumbling of his coach's wheels." Pope fpeaks of him thus in the Dunciad,

But far o'er all, fonorous Blackmore's frain;
Walls, fteeples, skies, bray back to him again.
In Tot'nam fields, the Brethren, with amaze,
Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze;
Long Chanc'ry-lane retentive rolls the found,
And courts to courts return it round and round ;
Thames wafts it thence to Rufus' roaring hall,
And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl.
All hail him victor in both gifts of fong,
Who fings fo loudly, and who fings fo long .

Dunciad, B. ii. v. 259.

Black

Blackmore wrote no less than fix epic poems, Prince Arthur, King Arthur, Eliza, Alfred, the Redeemer, and Job; befides thefe, he compofed the whole book of Pfalms, the Creation, Nature of Man, and many more, all void of any poetic fire, languid, profaic, and almoft buried in oblivion. The Creation was the best poem he wrote, but Addison has praised it far more than it deferves. He fays †, that the depths of philofophy are there, enlivened with all the charms of poetry; but it would puzzle the most penetrating critic to discover any charms of poetry in fo tedious a poem. Dr. Drake fatirized him with great poignancy in

the following lines :

By nature form'd, by want a pedant made, Blackmore at firft fet up the whipping trade;

+ Spec. No. 339.

Next

Next quack commenc'd: then fierce with pride he swore,

That tooth-ach, gout, and corns should be no

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In vain his drugs as well as birch he tried;
His boys grew blockheads, and his patients died.

Blackmore was weak enough to abuse Pope, and by that means procured himfelf a place amongst his refpectable brethren in the Dunciad.

2. Peace is my dear delight-not Fleury's more But touch me, and no minister so fore. Whoe'er offends, at fome unlucky time Slides into verfe, and hitches in a rhyme; Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the fad burthen of fome merry fong'

These lines are very beautiful, and superior to those of Horace +. No poet

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