man, has so very successfully employed in his Terence; a sort of verse no more resembling that of Milton, than the Hexameters of Homer resemble those of Theocritus. I cannot forbear adding, that Mr. Christopher Pitt has imitated the Seventh Satire of Horace, Book II. the Nineteenth Epistle of Book II. the Fourth Epistle, Book I. and the Tenth and Eighteenth of Book I. with a freedom and a facility of versification truly Horatian.

A death of such consequence as that of a fond mother to so affectionate a son as was our Author, must not be omitted to be here mentioned; which happened this year. Nothing can be more interesting and affecting than the request he made to his friend Mr. Richardson, the painter, to come to Twickenham, and take a sketch of his mother just after she was dead, June 20, 1733: "It would afford," says he," the finest image of a Saint expired, that ever painting drew."

It was in the year 1734, that the fine Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot was, according to the first edition in folio, first printed. Afterward it underwent two material alterations; it was entitled, improperly and fantastically enough, A Prologue to the Satires; and its form was changed into that of a Dialogue, in which a man possessed of so much wit, humour, literature, science, and taste, as was Arbuthnot, makes a very indifferent figure, and says little indeed. Pope in this Epistle, for so I shall continue to call it, has succeeded in what Cowley calls a nice and difficult task, to speak of himself with dignity and grace.

It is evident he had Boileau in his eye, who has given an interesting picture of his father, family, and fortunes, and even of his own person and manners.

Libre dans ses discours, mais pourtant toujours sage,
Assez foible de corps, assez doux de visage;

Ni petit, ni trop grand, tres-peu voluptueux,

Ami de la vertu plutôt que vertueux.-EPITRE X. 89.

But no passage in Boileau equals the pathetic tenderness with which our Author speaks of his attention to his aged mother.

This was succeeded, 1735, by the Epistle on the Characters of Women, in an Advertisement to which, he asserted, but in truth was not believed, that no one character was drawn from the life. Here again he may claim a manifest superiority over the Tenth Satire of Boileau, on the same subject: a subject that had been handled by Young, eight years before, and though not indeed in a style so close, correct, and nervous as that of our Author, but with many playful and truly Horatian strokes of a delicate raillery and ridicule, gently touching the foibles of the sex, with a more cautious and tender hand. As general and vague criticism is useless, I shall venture to hint, that the portraits in Young, of Zantippe; of Delia, the chariot-driver; of Daphne, the critic; of Lemira, the sick lady; of the Female Philosopher; of the Theologist; of the Languid Lady; of Thalestris, the swearer; of Lyce, the old beauty; of Alicia, the sloven; of the Female Atheist; and the Female Gamester; are all of them drawn with truth and spirit, and will not suffer by being compared with the portraits exhibited by Pope. And the Introductions to these Satires, par

ticularly the Address to the Incomparable Lady Betty Germain, are, perhaps, as elegant and well-turned as any thing in our language. After reading these Pieces, so full of a knowledge of the world, and discriminations of characters, one is totally at a loss to know what Pope could mean by saying, that though Young was a man of genius, yet that he wanted com

mon sense.

There was always a friendship betwixt our Author and Young; though Harte assured me, that Pope took amiss the pressing Letter Young conscientiously wrote to him; which Letter Harte had seen, urging Pope to write something on the side of Revelation, in order to take off the impressions of those doctrines which the Essay on Man seemed to convey. To this Young alludes in the conclusion of his First Night Thoughts, a work in which, says Johnson, "he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and every odour. In the whole, there is a magnificence, like that ascribed to Chinese Plantations; the magnificence of vast extent, and endless diversity." This eloquent eulogium makes amends for the unfriendly and uncandid Life prefixed to it. Johnson adds, " He had forgotten to mention the Revenge, till a friend reminded him of it." So little did he value dramatic poetry.

Though he did not put his name to the loose Imitation of the Second Satire of Horace, entitled, "Sober Advice from Horace to the Young Gentlemen about Town," printed 1736, yet was he indisputably the

Author of it; and suffered his friend Dodsley to publish it as such, in one edition in 12mo.; and is in plain terms charged with it by Bolingbroke, in one

of his Letters.

No less than four of his Imitations of Horace appeared 1737, which, by the artful accommodations of modern sentiments to ancient, by judicious applications of similar characters, and happy parallels, are become some of the most pleasing and popular of all his Works, especially to readers of years and experience. These are, the Sixth Epistle of the First Book of Horace to Mr. Murray (to whom he also addressed an Imitation of the Ode to Venus); the Second Satire of the Second Book to Mr. Bethel; the First Epistle of the First Book of Epistles to Lord Bolingbroke; the First Epistle of the Second Book to the King; the Second Epistle of this Book to Colonel Dormer. Of these Imitations, that to the King, Lord Bolingbroke, and Mr. Murray afterward Lord Mansfield, are the best; and that to Mr. Bethel the feeblest. The Epistle to Augustus, at first read and understood, by some superficial courtiers, as a compliment to George II. as soon as the bitter and sarcastic irony in it was discovered, gave great offence.

Mr. Allen of Bath, having long desired our Author to publish a Collection of his Letters, from which, he said, a perfect system of morals might be extracted, offered to be at the cost of a publication of them. Pope refused this offer; but in the year 1737, published an edition of them in quarto, by a large subscription; and a second volume, with the Memoirs of Scriblerus, 1741. I think it proper to give an ac

count of the manner in which this correspondence was procured, in the words of Dr. Johnson.

"One of the passages of Pope's Life, which seems to deserve some inquiry, was a publication of Letters between him and his friends, which falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious bookseller of no good fame, were by him printed and sold. This volume containing some Letters from Noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in the House of Lords for breach of privilege, and attended himself to stimulate the resentment of his friends. Curll appeared at the bar, and, knowing himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverence. He has, said Curll, a knack of versifying, but in prose I think myself a match for him. When the orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed; Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy.

"Curll's account was, that one evening a man in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's Epistolary Correspondence; that he asked no name, and was told none; but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorized to use this purchase to his own advantage.

"That Curll gave a true account of the transaction, it is reasonable to believe, because no falsehood was ever detected; and when some years afterward I mentioned it to Lintot, the son of Bernard, he declared his opinion to be, that Pope knew better than any body else how Curll obtained the copies, because