highest of its kind, and which no other Poet could perhaps altogether have done so well, is furely very high praise. The excellence is Pope's own, the inferiority is in the subject; no one underStood better that excellent rule of Horace: Sumite materiam veftris, qui fcribitis æquam 1 ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY*. WHAT beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? 'Tis she!-but why that bleeding bosom gor'd, Why dimly gleams the visionary sword! NOTES. Oh * See the Duke of Buckingham's Verses to a Lady designing to retire into a Monastery, compared with Mr. Pope's Letters to several Ladies, p. 206. quarto Edition. She seems to be the same person whose unfortunate death is the subject of this poem. POPE. VER. I. What beck'ning ghost,] "What gentle ghost besprent with April dew, BEN JOHNSON. The cruelties of her relations, the defolation of the family, the being deprived of the rites of fepulture, the circumstance of dying in a country remote from her relations, are all touched with great tenderness and pathos, particularly the four lines from the 51ft: By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd; Which lines may remind one of that exquisite stroke in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, who, among other afflicting circumstances, had not near him any σύντροφον ὄμμα. ver. 171. The true cause of the excellence of this Elegy is, that the occafion of it was real; so true is the maxim, that nature is more powerful than fancy; and Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, NOTES. 5 10 15 20 Like and that we can always feel more than we can imagine; and that the most artful fiction must give way to truth, for this Lady was beloved by Pope. After many and wide enquiries, I have been informed that her name was Wainsbury; and that (which is a, fingular circumstance) she was as ill-shaped and deformed as our author. Her death was not by a sword, but, what would less bear to be told poetically, she hanged herself. Johnfon has too feverely censured this Elegy, when he says, "that it has drawn much attention by the illaudable fingularity, of treating fuicide with respect;" and, " that poetry has not often been worse employed, than in dignifying the amorous fury of a raving girl." She feems to have been driven to this desperate act by the violence and cruelty of her uncle and guardian, who forced her to a convent abroad; and to which circumstance Pope alludes in one of his letters. WARTON. "To VER. 6. to love too well?] Steevens quotes Crafhaw, love too well." It is surely an expression sufficiently common. Like Eastern Kings a lazy state they keep, From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die) Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky. As into air the purer spirits flow, 25 And fep'rate from their kindred dregs below; So flew the foul to its congenial place, But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, Thou, mean deferter of thy brother's blood! See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, These cheeks now fading at the blast of death; Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before, And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball, 30 35 Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall : On all the line a fudden vengeance waits, And frequent herses shall befiege your gates; (While the long fun'rals blacken all the way) Lo! these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd, And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield. 40 Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! NOTES. VER. 41. Lo! these were they,] Iliad. ix. 749. That |