ELE GY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY *. W 5 HAT beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light fhade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? 'Tis fhe;-but why that bleeding bofom gor'd, Why dimly gleams the vifionary fword! Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart, To act a Lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die? NOTES. Why * See the Duke of Buckingham's verfes to a Lady designing to retire into a monaftery, compared with Mr. Pope's Letters to feveral Ladies, p. 206. quarto Edition. She feems to be the fame person whose unfortunate death is the fubject of this poem. P. VER. 1. What beck'ning ghoft,] Who does not, by this ftriking abruptness, imagine, with the poet, that he suddenly beholds the phantom of his murdered friend? He might, perhaps, have a paffage of Ben Jonfon in his head, in an elegy on the Marchionefs of Winchester, which opens thus; "What gentle ghoft befprent with April dew, Hails me fo folemnly to yonder yew? And beck'ning wooes me?". The Why bade ye elfe, ye Pow'rs! her soul aspire Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; NOTES. 15 20 Like The cruelties of her relations, the defolation of the family, the being deprived of the rights 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 51st. By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd; Which lines may remind one of that exquifite ftroke in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, who, among other afflicting circumftances, had not near him any clopov upa. ver. 171. The true caufe of the excellence of this elegy is, that the occafion of it was real; fo true is the maxim, that nature is more powerful than fancy; 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) fhe was as ill-shaped and deformed as our author. Her death was not by a fword, but, what would lefs bear to be told poetically, fhe hanged herself. too feverely cenfured this elegy, when he fays, drawn much attention by the illaudable fingularity, of treating fuicide with refpect ;" and, "that poetry has not often been worfe employed, than in dignifying the amorous fury of a raving girl." She feems to have been driven to this defperate act by the violence and cruelty of her uncle and guardian, who forced her to a convent abroad; and to which circumftance Pope alludes in one of his letters. Johnson has "that it has Like Eastern Kings a lazy ftate they keep, And, clofe confin'd to their own palace, fleep. From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die) 5 As into air the purer fpirits flow, And sep❜rate from their kindred dregs below; Nor left one virtue to redeem her Race. But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, These cheeks now fading at the blast of death; 25 30 35 Thus fhall your wives, and thus your children fall: The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! 40 So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow 45 What can atone (oh ever-injur'd shade!) VOL. I. Ꮓ No No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghoft, or grac'd thy mournful bier. By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, To midnight dances, and the public fhow? NOTES. 51 55 бо Yet VER. 59. What tho' no weeping Loves, &c.] "This beautiful little Elegy had gained the unanimous admiration of all men of tafte. When a critic comes-But hold; to give his obfervation fair play, let us first analize the Poem. The Ghoft of the injured perfon appears to excite the Poet to revenge her wrongs. He deferibes her Character-execrates the author of her misfortunesexpatiates on the severity of her fate-the rites of fepulture denied her in a foreign land: Then follows, "What tho' no weeping Loves thy ashes grace," &c. "Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flowers be dreft," &c. Can any thing be more naturally pathetic? Yet the Critic tells us, he can give no quarter to this part of the poem, which is eminently, he fays, difcordant with the fubject, and not the language of the heart. But when he tells us, that it is to be afcribed to imitation, copying indifcreetly what has been faid by others, [Elements of Crit. vol. ii. p. 182.] his criticism begins to fmell furiously of old John Dennis. Well might our Poet's last wish be to commit his writings to the candour of a sensible and reflecting judge, rather than to the malice of every short-fighted and malevolent critic." W. |