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AND WRITINGS OF POPE.

339

ROID HT MO YAREG Ar this call of a fifter in misfortune, who had been vifited with a fad fimilitude of griefs with her own, Eloifa breaks out in a Þeligious transport, silem klon

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I come, I come! prepare your roseate bow’rs, 1 Cœleftial palms, and ever-blooming flow'rs; 19 Thither where sinners may have reft I go! -410 Ə She then calls on Abelard, to pay her the last fad offices; and to be prefent with her în the article of death;d'blic} Is

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See my lips tremble, and my eyeballs roll

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And then a circumstance of perfonal fondnefs intervenes,

Suck my last breath, and catch the flying foul 15 But the instantly Corrects herfelf, and would have her Abelard attend her at thefe laft folemn moments, only as a devout priest, and not as a fond lover. The image, in which the reprefents him coming to administet extreme unction, is ftriking and picturesque; VINE QU Ah, no-in facred veftments mayft thou stand, The hallow'd taper * trembling in thy hand,

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The words printed in Italics ought to be looked on as particularly larly beautiful. sv edi zabno meso bad ledt soraq s

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Prefent

Prefent the grofs before my lifted eye,
Teach me at once, and learn of

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of me, to die! She adds, that it will be fome confolation to behold him once more, tho' even in the agonies of death,

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Ah then! thy once-lov'd Eloifa fee!
It will be then no crime to gaze on me!

Which laft line I could never read without great emotion; it is at once fo pathetic, and fo artfully points back to the whole train and nature of their misfortunes. The circumstances, fhe wishes may attend the death of Abelard, are poetically imagined, and are alfo agreeable to the notions of myftic devotion. The death of St. Jerome is finely painted by DOMENICHINO, with fuch attendant particulars.

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In trance ecftatic may thy pangs be drown'd †, Bright clouds defcend, and angels watch thee round, From opening skies may ftreaming glories fhine, And faints embrace thee with a love like mine. May one kind grave unite each hapless name, 241776 And graft my love immortal on thy fame!

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This with was fulfilled. The body of Abelard, who died twenty years before Eloifa, was

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t. V. 340.

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fent to Eloifa, who interred it in the monaftery of the Paraclete, and it was accompanied with a very extraordinary form of Abfolution, from the famous Peter de Clugny, "Ego Petrus Cluniacenfis abbas, qui Petrum Abelardum in monachum Cluniacenfem recepi, & corpus ejus furtim delatum Heloiffe Abbatiffæ, & monialibus Paracleti conceffi, auctoritate omnipotentis Dei, & omnium fanctorum, abfolvo eum, pro officio, ab omnibus peccatis fuis*."-" Eloisa herself, fays Vigneul Marville, follicited for this abfolution, and Peter de Clugny willingly granted it on what it could be founded, I leave to our learned theologifts to determine. In certain ages, opinions have prevailed, for which no folid reason can be given." When Eloifa died in 1163, fhe was interred by the fide of her beloved husband: I muft not forget to mention, for the fake of thofe who are fond cf modern miracles, that when the was put into the grave, Abelard ftretched out his arms to receive her, and closely embraced her.

Epift. Abel. & Heloiff. p. 238.

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Melanges, T. ii. p. 55.
ELOISA,

5101.30 25AITIAN QUA ELOISA, at the conclufion of the EPISTLE to which we are how atfiv'âs is judicioufly represented as gradually fettling into atranki quility of mind, and feemingly reconciled to hef fate. She can bear to fpeale of their being Buried together, without violent emotions? Two lovers are introduced as vifiting their celebrated tombs, and the behaviour of thefe ftrangers is finely imagined: yas fumis to 』v。 1 houbo grew veit tedi If ever chance two wand'ring lovers brings, To Paraclete's white walls and filver fprings of * O'er the pale marble fhall they join their heads, I And drink the falling tears each other sheds Then fadly fay, with mutual pity mov'd, Oh! may we never love as thefe have lov'd? o sbdw VISAGENS 01 THE poet adds, fill farther, what impref fions a view of their fepulchre would make

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even on a spectator lefs interested than these two lovers; and how it could affect his mind, even in the midst of the most folemn acts of religion;

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From the full quire when loud Hofannas rife And fwell the pomp of dreadful facrifice, Amid that fcene, if fome relenting eyes Glance on the stone where our cold relics I lie, Devotion's felf fhallofteal a thought from heav'n, One human tear fhall drop and be forgiven! Bishore- medgaidood to exub adT † 310796. • V.353.

WITH

13 90 to non si te AoI WT this last line, at first it appears, that the poem fhould have ended; for the eight additional verses *, concerning fome poet, that haply might arife to fing their misfor tune, are languid and flat, and diminish the pathos of the foregoing fentiments. They might stand it should feem for the conclufion of almost any story, were we not informed, that they were added by the Poet in allusion to his own cafe, and the ftate of his own mind. For I am well informed, that what determined him in the choice of the subject of this epiftle, was the retreat of that lady into a nunnery, whofe death he had lately fo pathetically lamented, in a foregoing Elegy, and for whom he had conceived a violent paffion. She was first beloved by a noblemant, an intimate friend of POPE, and, on p

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his deferting her, retired into France; when?

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And fure if fate fome future bard shall join
In fad fimilitude of grief to mine,
Condearn'd whole years in abfence to deplore in
And image charms he muft behold no more;
Such if there be, who loves fo long, fo well;
"Let him our fad, our tender ftory tell no spust
n'vsTherwell fung wors will footh my penfive ghost;I
He best can paint 'em, who can feel 'em
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The duke of Buckingham-Sheffield.

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