If the poet had said that Cassius had run his fist To return once more to the sea. Let any one through the rent of the mantle, it would have had look on the long wall of Malamocco, which curbs more of Mr. Bowles's "nature" to help it; but the the Adriatic, and pronounce between the sea and artificial dagger is more poetical than any natural its master. Surely that Roman work, (I mean hand without it. In the sublime of sacred poetry, Roman in conception and performance,) which says "Who is this that cometh from Edom? with dyed to the ocean, "thus far shalt thou come, and no garments from Bozrah?" Would "the comer be further," and is obeyed, is not less sublime and poetical without his "dyed garments?" which strike poetical than the angry waves which vainly break and startle the spectator, and identify the approach- beneath it.

ing object.

Mr. Bowles makes the chief part of a ship's

The mother of Sisera is represented listening for poesy depend on the "wind:" then why is a ship the "wheels of his chariot." Solomon, in his Song, under sail more poetical than a hog in a high compares the nose of his beloved to a "tower,' wind? The hog is all nature, the ship is all art, which to us appears an Eastern exaggeration. If " coarse canvas, "blue bunting," and " tall he had said, that her statue was like that of "a poles;" both are violently acted upon by the wind, tower," it would have been as poetical as if he had tossed here and there, to and fro; and yet nothing compared her to a tree. but excessive hunger could make me look upon the pig as the more poetical of the two, and then only in the shape of a griskin.

"The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex."

is an instance of an artificial image to express a moral superiority. But Solomon, it is probable, did not compare his beloved's nose to a "tower on account of its length, but of its symmetry; and, making allowance for Eastern hyperbole and the difficulty of finding a discreet image for a female nose in nature, it is perhaps as good a figure as any

Will Mr. Bowles tell us that the poetry of an aqueduct consists in the water which it conveys? Let him look on that of Justinian, on those of Rome, Constantinople, Lisbon, and Elvas, or even at the remains of that in Africa.

We are asked "what makes the venerable towers of Westminster Abbey more poetical, as objects, other. than the tower for the manufactory of patent shot. Art is not inferior to nature for poetical purposes. surrounded by the same scenery?" I will answerWhat makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble the architecture. Turn Westminster Abbey, or object of view than the same mass of mob? Their Saint Paul's, into a powder magazine, their poetry, arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and as objects, remains the same; the Parthenon was artificial symmetry of their position and movements. actually converted into one by the Turks, during A Highlander's plaid, a Mussulman's turban, and a Morosini's Venetian siege, and part of it destroyed Roman toga, are more poetical than the tattooed or in consequence. Cromwell's dragoons stalled their untattooed buttocks of a New Sandwich savage, steeds in Worcester Cathedral; was it less poetical, although they were described by William Words- as an object, than before? Ask a foreigner on his worth himself like the " idiot in his glory." approach to London, what strikes him as the most

I have seen as many mountains as most men, and poetical of the towers before him; he will point out more fleets than the generality of landsmen: and, St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, without, perto my mind, a large convoy, with a few sail of the haps, knowing the names or associations of either, line to conduct them, is as noble and as poetical a and pass over the "tower for patent shot," not prospect as all that inanimate nature can produce. that, for any thing he knows to the contrary, it I prefer the "mast of some great admiral," with might not be the mausoleum of a monarch, or a all its tackle, to the Scotch fir or the Alpine tannen, Waterloo column, or a Trafalgar monument, but and think that more poetry has been made out of it. because its architecture is obviously inferior. In what does the infinite superiority of "Falconer's To the question, "whether the description of a Shipwreck," over all other shipwrecks, consist? In game of cards be as poetical, supposing the execu his admirable application of the terms of his art; tion of the artists equal, as a descrition of a walk in a poet-sailor's description of the sailor's fate. in a forest?" it may be answered, that the materi These very terms, by his application, make the als are certainly not equal; but that "the artist," strength and reality of his poem. Why? because who has rendered the "game of cards poetical," is he was a poet, and in the hands of a poet art will by far the greater of the two. But all this "ordernot be found less ornamental than nature. It is ing" of poets is purely arbitrary on the part of Mr. precisely in general nature, and in stepping out of Bowles. There may or may not be, in fact, different his element, that Falconer fails; where he digresses "orders" of poetry, but the poet is always ranked to speak of ancient Greece, and "such branches of according to his execution, and not according to his learning."

In Dyer's Grongar Hill, upon which his fame rests, the very appearance of Nature herself is moralized into an artificial image:

"Thus is Nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay,
To disperse our cares away."

And here also we have the telescope, the misuse of which, from Milton, has rendered Mr. Bowles so triumphant over Mr. Campbell:

"So we mistake the future's face,

Eyed through Hope's deluding glass,"

And here a word, en passant, to Mr. Campbell:

"As you summits, soft and fair,
Clad in colors of the air,
Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear,
Still we tread the same coarse way-
The present's still a cloudy day."

Is not this the original of the far-famed,

""Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue?"

branch of the art.

Tragedy is one of the highest presumed orders Hughes has written a tragedy, and a very successful one; Fenton another; and Pope none. Did any man, however,-will even Mr. Bowles himself rank Hughes and Fenton as poets above Pope? Was even Addison, (the author of Cato,) or Rowe (one of the highest order of dramatists, as far as success goes), or Young, or even Otway and Southerne, ever raised for a moment to the same rank with Pope in the estimation of the reader or the critic, before his death or since? If Mr. Bowles will contend for classifications of this kind, let him recollect that descriptive poetry has been ranked as among the lowest branches of the art, and description as a mere ornament, but which should never form "the subject" of a poem. The Italians, with the most poetical language, and the most fastidious taste in Europe, possess now five great poets, they say, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and lastly Alfieri; and whom do they esteem one of the highest of these, and some of them the very highest? Petrarch, the sonnetteer: it is true that some of his Canzoni are not less esteemed, but not more; who ever dreams of his Latin Africa?

Were Petrarch to be ranked according to the The artillery of the demons was but the first step "order" of his compositions, where would the best of his mistake, the thunder the next, and it is a of sonnets place him? with Dante and the others? step lower. It would have been fit for Jove, but No: but, as I have before said, the poet who ex- not for Jehovah. The subject altogether was ecutes best is the highest, whatever his department, essentially unpoetical; he has made more of it and will ever be so rated in the world's esteem. than another could, but it is beyond him and all Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as men.

he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand

In a portion of his reply, Mr. Bowles asserts that higher; it is the corner-stone of his glory; without Pope envied Phillips," because he quizzed his it, his odes would be insufficient for his fame. The pastorals in the Guardian, in that most admirable depreciation of Pope is partly founded upon a false model of irony, his paper on the subject. If there idea of the dignity of his order of poetry, to which was any thing enviable about Phillips, it could he has partly contributed by the ingenuous boast,

"That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moralized his song."

of the 66

66

hardly be his pastorals. They were despicable, and Pope expressed his contempt. If Mr. Fitzgerald published a volume of sonnets, or a "Spirit of He should have written "rose to truth." In my wrote in any periodical journal an ironical paper Discovery," or a "Missionary," and Mr. Bowles mind, the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly objects must be moral upon them, would this be "envy?" The authors truth. Religion does not make a part of my subRejected Addresses" have ridiculed the ject; it is something beyond human powers, and sixteen or twenty "first living poets" of the day; has failed in all human hands, except Milton's and don't laugh. The authors of the "Rejected Adbut do they "envy" them? "Envy" writhes, it Dante's, and even Dante's powers are involved in dresses" the delineation of human passions, though in may despise some, but they can hardly supernatural circumstances. What made Socrates envy" any of the persons whom they have parothe greatest of men? His moral truth-his ethics. died; and Pope could have no more envied Phillips What proved Jesus Christ the Son of God hardly than he did Welsted, or Theobalds, or Smedly, or less than his miracles? His moral precepts. And any other given hero of the Dunciad. He could if ethics have made a philosopher the first of men, not have envied him, even had he himself not been and have not been disdained as an adjunct to his the greatest poet of his age. Did Mr. Ings "envy" Mr. Phillips, when he asked him, "how came your gospel by the Deity himself, are we to be told that ethical poetry or didactic poetry, or by whatever Pyrrhus to drive oxen, and say, I am goaded on by love?" name you term it, whose object is to make men This question silenced poor Phillips; but better and wiser, is not the very first order of it no more proceeded from "envy" than did Pope's poetry? and are we to be told this too by one of the ridicule. Did he envy Swift? Did he envy Bolingpriesthood? It requires more mind, more wisdom, of his "Beggars' Opera?" We may be answered broke? Did he envy Gay the unparalleled success more power, than all the "forests" that ever were "walked" for their "description," and all the that these were his friends-true; but does friendepics that ever were founded upon fields of battle. ship prevent envy? Study the first woman you The Georgics are indisputably, and, I believe, undisputedly, even a finer poem than the Eneid. Virgil knew this; he did not order them to be burnt.

"The proper study of mankind is man."

himself (whom I acquit fully of such an odious meet with, or the first scribbler, let Mr. Bowles quality) study some of his own poetical intimates: the most envious man I ever heard of is a poet, and a high one; besides it is an universal passion. It is the fashion of the day to lay great stress Goldsmith envied not only the puppets for their upon what they call "imagination" and "inven- dancing, and broke his shins in the attempt at tion," the two commonest of qualities: an Irish rivalry, but was seriously angry because two pretty peasant, with a little whiskey in his head, will woman received more attention than he did. This imagine and invent more than would furnish forth is envy; but where does Pope show a sign of the a modern poem. If Lucretius had not been spoiled passion? In that case, Dryden envied the hero of by the Epicurean system, we should have had a far his Mac Flecknoe. Mr. Bowles compares, when superior poem to any now in existence. As mere and where he can, Pope with Cowper, (the same poetry, it is the first of Latin poems. What then Cowper whom, in his edition of Pope, he laughs at has ruined it? His ethics. Pope has not this for his attachment to an old woman, Mrs. Unwin: defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry is glo- search and you will find it; I remember the pasrious. In speaking of artificial objects, I have sage, though not the page,) in particular he reomitted to touch upon one which I will now quotes Cowper's Dutch delineation of a wood, drawn mention. Cannon may be presumed to be as highly up like a seedman's catalogue, with an affected poetical as art can make her objects. Mr. Bowles

⚫ I will submit to Mr. Bowles's own judgment a passage from another poem

lines to Mary,

"Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,
My Mary,"

will, perhaps, tell me that this is because they resemble that grand natural article of sound in of Cowper's, to be compared with the same writer's Sylvan Sampler. In the heaven, and simile upon earth-thunder. I shall be told triumphantly, that Milton made sad work with his artillery, when he armed his devils therewithal. He did so; and this artificial object must have had much of the sublime to attract his atten- contain a simple, household, "indoor," artificial, and ordinary image. 1 tion for such a conflict. He has made an absurd refer Mr. Bowles to the stanza, and ask if these three lines about "needies" use of it; but the absurdity consists not in using are not worth all the boasted twaddling about trees, so triumphantly re cannon against the angels of God, but any material quoted? and yet in fact what do they convey? A homely collection weapon. The thunder of the clouds would have images and ideas associated with the darning of stockings, and the hemming been as ridiculous and vain in the hands of the of shirts, and the mending of breeches; but will any one deny that they are devils, as the "villanous saltpetre:" the angels eminently poetical and pathetic as addressed by Cowper to his nurse? The were as impervious to the one as to the other. The jected Address" scene, in 1812, I met Sheridan. In the course of dinner he thunderbolts became sublime in the hands of the aid, "Lord Byron, did you know that among the writers of addresses was Almighty, not as such, but because he deigns to Whitbread himself?" I answered by an inquiry of what sort of an address use them as a means of repelling the rebel spirits; he had made. "Of that," replied Sheridan, "I remember little, except but no one can attribute their defeat to this grand that there was a phanis in it." "A phoenix!! Well, how did he describe piece of natural electricity: the Almighty willed, ?" "Like a poulterer," answered Sheridan: "It was green, and yellow, and they fell; his word would have been enough; and red, and blue: he did not let us off for a single feather." And just such and Milton is as absurd (and in fact, blasphemous) wood, with all its petty minutie of this, that, and the other. in putting material lightnings into the hands of the Godhead as in giving him hands at all.

trash of trees reminds me of a saying of Sheridan's. Soon after the "Re

as this poulterer's account of a phoenix, is Cowper's stick-picker's detail of a

One more poetical instance of the power of art, and even its superiority over nature, in poetry, and I have done :-the brat of Antinous! Is the

imitation of Milton's style, as burlesque as the person may be, he deserves for such a judgment of Splendid Shilling." These two writers (for Cow-Midas, that "the nail" which Mr. Bowles has hit per is no poet) come into comparison in one great in the head should be driven through his own ears; work-the translation of Homer. Now, with all the I am sure that they are long enough. great, and manifest, and manifold, and reproved, and The attention of the poetical populace of the presacknowledged, and uncontroverted faults of Pope's ent day to obtain an ostracism against Pope is as translation, and all the scholarship, and pains, and easily accounted for as the Athenian's shell against time, and trouble, and blank verse of the other, Aristides; they are tired of hearing him always who can ever read Cowper? and who will ever lay called "the Just." They are also fighting for life; down Pope, unless for the original? Pope's was for if he maintains his station, they will reach their "not Homer, it was Spondanus; but Cowper's is own falling. They have raised a mosque by the not Homer, either, it is not even Cowper. As a side of a Grecian temple of the purest architecture; child I first read Pope's Homer with a rapture and, more barbarous than the barbarians from whose which no subsequent work could ever offord; and practice I have borrowed the figure, they are not chlidren are not the worst judges of their language. contented with their own grotesque edifice, unless As a boy I read Homer in the original, as we have they destroy the prior and purely beautiful fabric all done, some of us by force, and a few by favor; which preceded, and which shames them and theirs under which description I come is nothing to the for ever and ever. I shall be told that amongst purpose, it is enough that I read him. As a man I those I have been (or it may be still am) conspicuhave tried to read Cowper's version, and I found it ous-true, and I am ashamed of it. I have been impossible. Has any human reader ever succeeded? among the builders of this Babel, attended by a con And now that we have heard the Catholic re- fusion of tongues, but never among the envious proached with envy, duplicity, licentiousness, destroyers of the classic temple of our predecessor. avarice-what was the Calvinist? He attempted I have loved and honored the fame and name of that the most atrocious of crimes in the Christian code, illustrious and unrivalled man, far more than my viz., suicide-and why? Because he was to be own paltry renown, and the trashy gingle of the examined whether he was fit for an office which he crowd of "schools and upstarts, who pretend to seems to wish to have made a sinecure. His con- rival, or even surpass him. Sooner than a single nexion with Mrs. Unwin was pure enough, for the leaf should be torn from his laurel, it were better old lady was devout, and he was deranged; but that all which these men, and I, as one of their set, why then is the infirm and then elderly Pope to be have ever written, should reproved for his connexion with Martha Blount?| Cowper was the almoner of Mrs. Throgmorton; but Pope's charities were his own, and they were noble and extensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant. There are those who will believe this, and those Pope was the tolerant yet steady adherent of the who will not. You, sir, know how far I am sinmost bigoted of sects; and Cowper the most bigoted cere, and whether my opinion, not only in the short and despondent sectary that ever anticipated dam-work intended for publication, and in private letters nation to himself or others. Is this harsh? I which can never be published, has or has not been know it is, and I do not assert it as my opinion of the same. I look upon this as the declining age of Cowper personally, but to show what might be said, English poetry; no regard for others, no selfish with just as great an appearance of truth and feeling can prevent me from seeing this, and excandor, as all the odium which has been accumu-pressing the truth. There can be no worse sign for lated upon Pope in similar speculations. Cowper the taste of the times than the depreciation of Pope. was a good man, and lived at a fortunate time for It would be better to receive for proof Mr. Cobbet's rough but strong attack upon Shakspeare and MilMr. Bowles, apparently not relying entirely upon dermining of the reputation of the most perfect of ton, than to allow this smooth and "candid " unhis own arguments, has, in person or by proxy, brought forward the names of Southey and Moore. our poets and the purest of our moralists. Of his Mr. Southey "agrees entirely with Mr. Bowles in power in the passions, in description, in the mockhis invariable principles of poetry." The least that heroic, I leave others to descant. I take him on Mr. Bowles can do in return is to approve the his strong ground, as an ethical poet: in the former "invariable principles of Mr. Southey.' I should none excel, in the mock-heroic and the ethical none

his works.

"Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row,
Refringe the rails of Bedlam or Soho !"

have thought that the word "invariable" might equal him; and, in my mind, the latter is the highhave stuck in Southey's throat, like Macbeth's est of all poetry, because it does that in verse, "Amen!" I am sure it did in mine, and I am not which the greatest of men have wished to accom the least consistent of the two, at least as a voter.plish in prose. If the essence of poetry must be a Moore (et tu Brute!) also approves, and a Mr. J. Scott. There is a letter also of two lines from a gentleman in asterisks, who, it seems, is a poet of "the highest rank "-who can this be? not my friend, Sir Walter, surely. Campbell it can't be Rogers it won't be.

"You have hit the nail in the head, and *** [Pope, I presume) on the bead also." I remain, yours, affectionately, (Four Asterisks.)

And in asterisks let him remain. Whoever this

any thing in marble like this marble, excepting the Venus? Can there be more poetry gathered into existence than in that wonderful creation of perfect beauty? But the poetry of this bust is in no respect derived from nature, nor

from any association of moral exaltedness; for what is there in common with moral nature and the male minion of Adrian? The very execution is not

lie, throw it to the dogs, or banish it from your republic, as Plato would have done. He who can reconcile poetry with truth and wisdom, is the only true "poet" in its real sense; "the maker," "the creator"-why must this mean the "liar," the feigner," "the tale-teller?" A man may make and create better things than these.

I shall not presume to say that Pope is as high a poet as Shakspeare and Milton, though his enemy, Warton, places him immediately under them. I would no more say this than I would assert in the mosque, (once St. Sophia's,) that Socrates was a greater man than Mahomet. But if I say that he is very near them, it is no more than has been asserted of Burns, who is supposed

"To rival all but Shakspeare's name below."

natural, but supernatural, or rather super-artificial, for nature has never I say nothing against this opinion. But of what

don: so much.

Away, then, with this cant about nature and "invariable principles of po

etry!" A great artist will make a block of stone as sublime as a mountain,

and a good poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits

the forests of America. It is the business and the proof of a poet to give the

lie to the proverb, and sometimes to "make a silken purse out of a sou
r;" and to conclude with another homely proverb, "a good workman

will not find fault with his wols."

"order," according to the poetical aristocracy, are Burns's poems? These are his opus magnum,

So much for the

Tam O'Shanter," a tale; the "Cotter's Saturday Night," a descriptive sketch; some others in the same style; the rest are songs. rank of his productions; the rank of Burns is the very first of his art. Of Pope I have expressed my

opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect which the and, as I have been publicly educated also, I can present attempts at poetry have had upon our lite- sympathize with his predilection. When we were rature. If any great national or natural convulsion in the third form even, had we pleaded on the Moncould or should overwhelm your country, in such day morning, that we had not brought up the Satsort as to sweep Great Britain from the kingdoms of urday's exercise because "we had forgotten it," the earth, and leave only that, after all the most what would have been the reply? And is an excuse, living of human things, a dead language, to be which would not be pardoned to a schoolboy, to pass studied and read, and imitated, by the wise of fu- current in a matter which so nearly concerns the ture and far generations upon foreign shores; if fame of the first poet of his age, if not of his counyour literature should become the learning of man- try? If Mr. Bowles so readily forgets the virtues of kind, divested of party cabals, temporary fashions, others, why complain so grievously that others have and national pride and prejudice; an Englishman, a better memory for his own faults? They are but anxious that the posterity of strangers should know the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitthat there had been such a thing as a British Epic ted from his catalogue are essential to the justice and Tragedy, might wish for the preservation of due to a man.

Shakspeare and Milton; but the surviving world Mr. Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible would snatch Pope from the wreck, and let the rest beyond the privilege of authorship. There is a sink with the people. He is the moral poet of all plaintive dedication to Mr. Gifford, in which he is civilization, and, as such, let us hope that he will made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterone day be the national poet of mankind. He is ly. Mr. Southey, it seems, "the most able and elothe only poet that never shocks; the only poet quent writer in that Review," approves of Mr. whose faultlessness has been made his reproach. Bowles's publication. Now, it seems to me the Cast your eye over his productions; consider their more impartial, that notwithstanding that the great extent, and contemplate their variety:-pastoral, writer of the Quarterly entertains opinions opposite passion, mock-heroic, translation, satire, ethics, to the able article on Spence, nevertheless that essay all excellent, and often perfect. If his great charm was permitted to appear. Is a review to be devoted be his melody, how comes it that foreigners adore to the opinions of any one man? Must it not vary him even in their diluted translation? But I according to circumstances, and according to the have made this letter too long. Give my compli- subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must ments to Mr. Bowles.

not so."

Yours ever, very truly,

BYRON.

take the sweets and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so long a standing as Mr. Bowles might have become accustomed to such incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. I have been reviewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr. Bowles, and have had as pleasant things

To J. Murray, Esq. Post scriptum.-Long as this letter has grown, I find it necessary to append a postscript,-if possible, a short one. Mr. Bowles denies that he has said, and some as unpleasant, as could well be proaccused Pope of "a sordid money-getting passion;"nounced. In the review of "The Fall of Jerusabut he adds "if I had ever done so, I should be glad lem," it is stated that I have devoted "my powers, to find any testimoy that might show me he was etc., to the worst parts of manicheism," which, being This testimony he may find to his heart's interpreted, means that I worship the devil. Now, content in Spence and elsewhere. First, there is I have neither written a reply, nor complained to Martha Blount, who, Mr. Bowles charitably says, Gifford. I believe that I observed in a letter to you, "probably thought he did not save enough for her that I thought "that the critic might have praised as legatee." Whatever she thought upon this point, Milman without finding it necessary to abuse me; her words are in Pope's favor. Then there is Alder- but I did not add at the same time, or soon after, man Barber-see Spence's Anecdotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax, when he proposed a pension; his behavior to Craggs and to Addison upon like occasions; and his own two lines

"And, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive,

Indebted to no prince or peer alive-"

(apropos, of the note in the book of travels,) that I would not, if it were even in my power, have a single line cancelled on my account in that or in any other publication? Of course, I reserve to myself the privilege of response when necessary. Mr. Bowles seems in a whimsical state about the article on Spence. You know very well that I am not in written when princes would have been proud to your confidence, nor in that of the conductor of the pension, and peers to promote him, and when the journal. The moment I saw that article, I was whole army of dunces were in array against him, morally certain that I knew the author "by his and would have been but too happy to deprive him style." You will tell me that I do not know him: of this boast of independence. But there is some- that is all as it should be: keep the secret; so shall thing a little more serious in Mr. Bowles's declara- I, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. He is tion, that he "would have spoken" of his "noble not the person whom Mr. Bowles denounces. Mr. generosity to the outcast, Richard Savage," and Bowles's extreme sensibility reminds me of a cirother instances of a compassionate and generous cumstance which occurred on board of a frigate, in heart, "had they occurred to his recollection when which I was a passenger and guest of the captain's he wrote." What is it come to this? Does Mr. for a considerable time. The surgeon on board, a Bowles sit down to write a minute and labored life very gentlemanly young man, and remarkably able and edition of a great poet? Does he anatomize in his profession, wore a wig. Upon this ornament his character, moral and political? Does he present he was extremely tenacious. Ás naval jests are us with his faults and with his foibles? Does he sometimes a little rough, his brother officers made sneer at his feelings, and doubt of his sincerity? occasional allusions to this delicate appendage to Does he unfold his vanity and duplicity? and then the doctor's person. One day a young lieutenant, omit the good qualities which might, in part, have in the course of a facetious discussion, said, "Sup"covered this multitude of sins? and then plead pose, now, doctor, I should take off your hat." that "they did not occur to his recollection?" Is Sir," replied the doctor, "I shall talk no longer this the frame of mind and of memory with which with you; you grow scurrilous." He would not the illustrious dead are to be reproached? If Mr. even admit so near an approach as to the hat which Bowles, who must have had access to all the means protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches of refreshing his memory, did not recollect these Mr. Bowles's laurels, even in his outside capacity of facts, he is unfit for his task; but if he did recollect, an editor, "they grow scurrilous.” You say that and omit them, I know not what he is fit for, but I you are about to prepare an edition of Pope; you know what would be fit for him. Is the plea of cannot do better for your own credit as a publisher, "not recollecting "such prominent facts to be ad- nor for the redemption of Pope from Mr. Bowles. mitted? Mr. Bowles has been at a public school, and of the public taste from rapid degeneracy.

1.

NOTES.

once Dryden, and since Walter Scott; now Cor. neille, and now Racine; now Crebillon, now Vol taire. The Homerists and Virgilians in France disputed for half a century. Not fifty years ago the Italians neglected Dante-Bettinelli reproved Monti for reading "that barbarian;" at present they Of these there is one ranked with the others for adore him. Shakspeare and Milton have had their his SONNETS, and two for compositions which be-rise, and they will have their decline. Already they long to no class at all! Where is Dante? His have more than once fluctuated, as must be the poem is not an epic; then what is it? He himself case with all the dramatists and poets of a living calls it a "divine comedy;" and why? This is language. This does not depend upon their merits, more than all his thousand commentators have been but upon the ordinary vicissitudes of human opinable to explain. Ariosto's is not an epic poem; and ions. Schlegel and Madame de Staël have enif poets are to be classed according to the genus of deavored also to reduce poetry to tico systems, clas their poetry, where is he to be placed? Of these sical and romantic. The effect is only beginning. five, Tasso and Alfieri only come within Aristotle's arrangement, and Mr. Bowles's class-book. But

The Italians, with the most poetical language, and the most fastidious taste in Europe, possess now five great poets, they say, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and lastly Alfieri. Page 1042.

2.

the whole position is false. Poets are classed by I shall not presume to say that Pope is as high a the power of their performance, and not according poet as Shakspeare and Milton, though his enemy, to its rank in a gradus. In the contrary case, the Warton, places him immediately under them. forgotten epic poets of all countries would rank

Page 1044. above Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, Burns, Gray, Dry- If the opinions cited by Mr. Bowles, of Dr. Johnden, and the highest names of various countries. son against Pope, are to be taken as decisive auMr. Bowles's title of "invariable principles of po-thority, they will also hold good against Gray, Miletry," is, perhaps, the most arrogant ever prefixed ton, Swift, Thomson, and Dryden in that case to a volume. So far are the principles of poetry what becomes of Gray's poetical and Milton's moral from being "invariable," that they never were nor character? even of Milton's poetical character, or, never will be settled. These "principles mean indeed, of English poetry in general? for Johnson nothing more than the predilections of a particular strips many a leaf from every laurel. Still Johnage; and every age has its own, and a different from son's is the finest critical work extant, and can its predecessor. It is now Homer and now Virgil; never be read without instruction and delight.

OBSERVATIONS UPON "OBSERVATIONS." A SECOND LETTER TO JOHN MURRAY, ESQ.

ON THE REV. W. L. BOWLES'S STRICTURES ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF POPE.

DEAR SIR,

Ravenna, March 25, 1821.

&c.; and that he is the more persuaded of this by the "exaggerations of his opponents." This is all IN the further "Observations" of Mr. Bowles, in very well, and highly natural and sincere. Nobody rejoinder to the charges brought against his edition ever expected that either Mr. Bowles or any other of Pope, it is to be regretted that he has lost his author, would be convinced of human fallibility in temper. Whatever the language of his antagonists their own persons. But it is nothing to the purpose may have been, I fear that his replies have afforded for it is not what Mr. Bowles thinks, but what is more pleasure to them than to the public. That Mr. to be thought of Pope-that is the question. It is Bowles should not be pleased is natural, whether what he has asserted or insinuated against a name right or wrong; but a temperate defence would which is the patrimony of posterity, that is to be have answered his purpose in the former case-and, tried; and Mr. Bowles, as a party, can be no judge. in the latter, no defence, however violent, can tend The more he is persuaded, the better for himself, if to any thing but his discomfiture. I have read over it give him any pleasure; but he can only persuade this third pamphlet, which you have been so oblig- others by the proofs brought out in his defence. ing as to send me, and shall venture a few observa- After these prefatory remarks of "conviction," tions, in addition to those upon the previous &c., Mr. Bowles proceeds to Mr. Gilchrist; whom controversy. he charges with "slang" and "slander," besides a

Mr. Bowles sets out with repeating his "confirmed small subsidiary indictment of "abuse, ignorance, sonviction," that "what he said of the moral part malice," and so forth. Mr. Gilchrist has, indeed, of Pope's character, was, generally speaking, true; shown some anger; but it is an honest indignation, and that the principles of poetical criticism which which rises up in defence of the illustrious dead. It he has laid down are invariable and invulnerable," is a generous rage which interposes between our