ING in his Tom Jones, (comic writers are not here included,) have shewn a profound knowledge of man; and many portraits of ADDISON may be compared with the most finished touches of LA BRUYERE. But the Epistles we are now entering upon will place the matter beyond a dispute; for the French can boast of no author who has so much exhausted the science of morals, as POPE has in these five Epistles. They, indeed, contain all that is solid and valuable in the abovementioned French writers, of whom our author was remarkably fond. But, whatever observations he has borrowed from them, he has made his own by the dexterity of his application. 1. Men may be read, as well as books, too much.* : We Study life," cry the unlettered men of the world but that world cannot be known merely by that study alone. The dread of pedantry is a characteristic folly of the present age. adopted it from the French, without considering the reasons that give rise to it among that people. The religious, and particularly the Jesuits, perceiving * Ep. i. ver. 10. ceiving that a taste for learning began widely to diffuse itself among the laity, could find no surer method of repressing it, than by treating the learned character as ridiculous. This ridicule was carried so far, that, to mention one instance out of ten thousand, the publisher of La Rochefoucault's Maxims makes a grave apology in form, for quoting Seneca in Latin. 2. At half mankind, when gen'rous Manly raves, The character alluded to is the principal one in the Plain Dealer of Wycherly, a comedy taken from the Misanthrope of Moliere, but much inferior to the original. Alcestes has not that bitterness of spirit, and has much more humanity and honour than Manly. Writers transfuse their own characters into their works: Wycherly was a vain and profligate libertine; Moliere was beloved for his candour, sweetness of temper, and integrity. It is remarkable that the French did not relish this incomparable comedy for the three first representations. The strokes of its satire were * Ver. 57. were too subtle and delicate to be felt by the generality of the audience, who expected only the gross diversion of laughing; so that at the fourth time of its being acted, the author was forced to add to it one of his coarsest farces: but Boileau, in the mean time, affirmed, that it was the capital work of their stage, and that the people would one time be induced to think so. 3. Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise.* For who could imagine that LOCKE was fond of romances; that NEWTON once studied astrology; that Roger ASCHAM, and Dr. WHITBY, were devoted lovers of cock-fighting; that Dr. CLARKE valued himself for his agility, and frequently amused himself in a private room of his house, in leaping over the tables and chairs; and that our author himself was a great epicure? When he spent a summer with a certain nobleman, he was accustomed to lie whole days in bed on account of his head-achs, but would at any time rise with alacrity, when his servant informed him there were stewed lampreys for dinner. On the * Ver. 69. the eve of an important battle, the Duke of MARLBOROUGH was heard chiding his servant for having been so extravagant as to light four candles in his tent when Prince Eugene came to confer with him! ELIZABETH was a coquette; and BACON received a bribe. Dr. BUSBY had a violent passion for the stage; it was excited in him by the applauses he received in acting the Royal Slave before the King at Christ-Church; and he declared, that if the rebellion had not broke out, he had certainly engaged himself as an actor. LUTHER was so immoderately passionate, that he sometimes boxed MELANCTHON's ears; and MELANCTHON himself was a believer in judicial astrology, and an interpreter of dreams. RICHLIEU and MAZARIN were so superstitious as to employ and pension MORIN, a pretender to astrology, who cast the nativities of these two able politicians. Nor was TACITUS himself, who generally appears superior to superstition, untainted with this folly, as may appear from the twentysecond chapter of the sixth book of his annals. Men of great genius have been somewhere compared to the pillar of fire that conducted theIsraelites, 2 Israelites, which frequently turned a cloudy side towards the spectator. 4. See the same man, in vigour, in the gout; Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.* The unexpected inequalities of our minds and tempers are here exhibited in a lively manner, and with a perfect knowledge of nature. I cannot forbear placing before the reader, Tully's portrait of Catiline, whose inconsistencies and varieties of conduct are thus enumerated: "Utebatur hominibus improbis multis, et quidem optimis se viris deditum esse simulabat; erant apud illum illecebræ libidinum multæ erant etiam industriæ quidam stimuli ac laboris; flagrabant libidinis vitia apud illum: vigebant etiam studia rei militaris: neque ego unquam fuisse tale monstrum in terris ullum puto, tam ex contrariis diversisque inter se pugnantibus naturæ studiis, cupiditatibus que conflatum. Quis clarioribus viris quodam * Ver. 71. |