I might venture to call myself) who has a higher efteem for all the compofitions of Mr. Pope: as indeed I look upon every thing that comes from his hands, with the fame degree of veneration as if it were confecrated by antiquity. Nevertheless, tho I greatly revere his judgment, I cannot absolutely res nounce my own; and fince some have been bold enough to advance, that even the facred writings themselves do not always speak the language of the Spirit; I may have leave to fufpect of the poets what has been afferted of the prophets, and suppose that their pens are not, at all seasons, under the guidance of inspiration. But as there is something extremely ungrateful to the mind, in dwelling upon those little spots that neceffarily attend the luftre of all human merit; you must allow me to join his beauties with his imperfections, and admire with rapture, after having condemned with regret.

i

THERE is a certain modern figure of speech, which the authors of The art of finking in poetry have called the diminishing. This, so far as it relates to words only, confifts in debafing a great idea, by expref

fing it in a term of meaner import. Mr. Pope has himself now and then fallen into this kind of the profound, which he has 'with such uncommon wit and spirit exposed in the writings of others. Thus Agamemnon, addressing himself to Menelaus and Ulyffes, asks,

And can you, chiefs, without a blush furvey Whole troops before you, lab'ring in the fray? B. iv.

So likewise Pandarus, speaking of Diomed, who is performing the utmost efforts of heroism in the field of battle, says,

Some guardian of the skies, Involv'd in clouds, protects him in the fray, V. 235.

BUT what would you think, Euphronius, were you to hear of the " imper"vious foam" and " rough waves of a " brook?" would it not put you in mind of that drole thought of the ingenious Dr. Young, in one of his epistles to our author, where he talks of a puddle in a storm? yet by thus confounding the properties of the highest objects with those of the loweft, Mr.

1

Mr. Pope has turned one of the most pleaf-
ing fimiles in the whole Iliad, into down-
right burlesque :

As when some fimple fwain his cot forfakes,
And wide thro fens an unknown journey takes;
If chance a fwelling brook his passage stay,
And foam impervious cross the wand'rer's

way,

Confus'd be stops, a length of country paft,
Eyes the rough waves, andtir'd, returns at
V. 734

laft.

This swelling brook, however, of Mr. Pope, is in Homer a rapid river, rushing with violence into the fea:

Στηῃ επ' ωκυροῳ ποταμῳ αλαδε προρεοντι.
V. 598.

IT is one of the essential requisites of an epic poem, and indeed every other kind of serious poetry, that the style be raised above common language; as nothing takes off so much from that folemnity of diction, from which the poet ought never to depart, as idioms of a vulgar and familiar caft. Mr. Pope has fometimes neglected this important rule; but most frequently in the

introduction of his speeches. To mention only a few instances :

That done, to Phenix Ajax gave the fign.

Whereas Homer generally prefaces his speeches with a dignity of phrase, that calls up the attention of the reader to what is going to be uttered. Milton has very happily copied his manner in this particular, as in many others; and tho he often falls into a flatness of expreffion, he has never once, I think, committed that error upon occafions of this kind. He usually ushers in his harangues with something characteristical of the speaker, or that points out some remarkable circumstance of his present situation, in the following manner: Satan with bold words

Breaking the horrid filence, thus began,

If you compare the effect which an introduction of this descriptive fort has upon the mind, with those low and unawakening expreffions which I have marked in the lines I just now quoted from our English Iliad ; you will not, perhaps, consider my objection as altogether without foundation.

ALL oppofition of ideas should be carefully avoided in a poem of this kind, as unbecoming the gravity of the heroic Muse. But does not Mr. Pope sometimes facrifice fimplicity to false ornament, and lose the majefty of Homer in the affectations of Ovid? Of this fort a severe critic would, perhaps, esteem his calling an army marching with spears erect, a moving iron wood :

Such and so thick th embattled squadrons stood With Spears erect, a moving iron wood.

There