Of all her Dears she never slander'd one,
But cares not if a thousand are undone.
Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead?
She bids her footman put it in her head.
Chloe is prudent !-Would you too be wise,

Then never break your heart when Chloe dies."

Having thus attempted to do justice to Pope's powers of satire, I must not omit to mention what I consider to be another of his felicities almost of an opposite character, though I have perceived with pleasure since I noted this topic, that I have been anticipated in the same line of remark by the late Mr. Hazlitt; I say with pleasure, because that ingenious person was one of the guides and favourites of a school the most opposed in theory and practice to that of Pope; I allude to the extreme tact, skill, and delicacy with which he conveys a compliment, and frequently embodies in one pregnant line or couplet a complete panegyric of the character he wishes to distinguish. Let me instance this by a few examples. Sometimes the compliment appears merely to be thrown out almost as it were by chance to illustrate his meaning. So of the Duke of Chandos, whom at another time he is supposed to have intended to ridicule under the character of Timon"Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight."

Then of Lord Cornbury

"Would ye be blest? despise low joys, low gains,
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains."

Of General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia

"One driv'n by strong benevolence of soul

Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole.”

These have reference to manly virtues; sometimes there is the same oblique reference to female claims;

"Hence Beauty, waking all her tints, supplies

An angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes."

At other times the eulogium is more direct. Take that fine application to Lord Cobham of the effect of man's ruling passion, developing itself in death, which he has been pursuing through a number of instances, the man of pleasure, the miser, the glutton, the courtier, the coquette, all, for the most part, under circumstances derogatory to the pride of human nature, when he thus sums them up

"And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death;
Such, in these moments, as in all the past,

" Oh, save my country, Heav'n !' shall be your last.”

How beautiful is the couplet to Dr. Arbuthnot, his physician and friend

"Friend of my life! which did not you prolong,

The world had wanted many an idle song."

How ingenious that to the famous Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, on being desired to write some lines in an album with his pencil

"Accept a miracle instead of wit,

See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ."

How happy is the allusion to Lord Peterborough, who made a brilliant campaign in Spain within a wonderfully short time. He represents him as assisting to lay out his grounds

"And he whose lightning pierced th' Iberian lines

Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines,

Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain,
Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain."

He always speaks of Murray, the great Lord Mansfield, with pride and affection. It is true that one of the worst lines he ever wrote is about him, the second in this couplet

"Graced as thou art with all the power of words,

So known, so honoured, at the House of Lords."

An instance how much delicacy it requires to introduce with effect familiar names and things; sometimes it tells with great force; here it is disastrously prosaic; we almost forgive it, however, when he turns from the Palace of Westminster to the Abbey opposite

"Where Murray, long enough his country's pride,

Shall be no more than Tully, or than Hyde."

He again alludes to the aptitude for poetical composition which Murray had exhibited, and also to the talent for epigram which he assumes that the great orator Pulteney would have displayed if he had not been engrossed by politics.

"How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast;

How many Martials were in Pulteney lost."

These were for the most part his political friends, but when he mentions Sir Robert Walpole, to whom his friends, more than himself, were virulently opposed, how respectful and tender is the reproach, how adroit and insinuating the praise— "Seen him I have, but in his happier hour, Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power, Seen him, uncumbered with a venal tribe,

Smile without art, and win without a bribe."

I might adduce many other instances; I might quote at full length the noble epistle to Lord Oxford, but I will sum up this topic with that striking passage in which, while he enumerates the persons who encouraged and fostered his earlier productions, he presents us with a gallery of illustrious portraits, sometimes conveys by a single word an insight into their whole character, and concludes the distinguished catalogue with the name of that St. John whom he uniformly regarded with feelings little short of idolatry, and which, however misplaced and ill-grounded, have even in themselves something of the poetical attribute

"But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth, inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured, my lays.

(Observe how the gentle and amiable Congreve "loved," and the caustic and cynical Swift" endured.")

The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield, read,
E'en mitred Rochester would nod the head,

(said to have been the ordinary symptom of Bishop Atterbury being pleased; then comes the swelling climax,)

And St. John's self, great Dryden's friend before,

With open arms received one Poet more.
Happy the studies, when by these approved,
Happier the author, when by these beloved."

I feel that I ought not entirely to omit all mention of the long satiric poem of the Dunciad, upon which Pope evidently bestowed much care and labour; but it is throughout disfigured by great ill-nature, and by a pervading run of unpleasant

and unsavoury images. There is much spirit in the account of the young highborn Dunce, who makes, what is called, the Grand Tour

"Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too ;"

and tells how he

"Judicious drank, and, greatly daring, dined." There is a luscious kind of burlesque softness in these lines, "To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines, Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines; To isles of fragrance, lily-silvered vales, Diffusing languor in the panting gales;

To lands of singing and of dancing slaves,

Love-whispering woods, and lute resounding waves."

One of the most distinguishing excellencies of Pope is the vividness which he imparts to all the pictures he presents to the mind, and which he attains by always making use of the very most appropriate terms which the matter admits. This, in conjunction with his wonderful power of compression, which he has probably carried further than any one before or since, gives a terseness and completeness to all he says, in which he is unrivalled. As instances of this perfect picture painting, I would refer you, as I must not indefinitely indulge in long citations, to the descriptions, all in the same Epistle on Riches, of the Miser's House, the Man of Ross's charities, and of the death of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham:

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,

The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock bed, but repair'd with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,

Great Villiers lies-alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!"

If any should object that this is all very finished and elaborate, but it is very minute-only miniature painting after all, what do you say to this one couplet on the operations of the Deity?

"Builds life on death, on change duration founds,

And gives the eternal wheels to know their rounds."

I would beg any of the detractors of Pope to furnish me with another couple of lines from any author whatever, which encloses so much sublimity of meaning within such compressed limits, and such precise terms.

I must cite another passage, in which he ventures on the same exalted theme, with somewhat more enlargement; it would be impossible, however, for you to hear it, and bring against it any charge of diffuseness:

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;

That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,

Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.

(There is a couplet indeed.)

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,

As the rapt seraph that adores and burns :

To Him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all.”

Let me invite your attention to the few following lines on the apportionment of separate instincts or qualities to different animals, and be good enough to observe how the single words clench the whole argument. They are as descriptive as the bars of Haydn's music in the oratorio of the Creation :

"What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;

Of smell, the headlong lioness between,

And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood;
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine,

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."

What a couplet again is that! It is only about a spider; but I guarantee its immortality.

If I set down the Terse, the Accurate, the Complete, the pungency of the Satiric point, the felicity of the well-turned Compliment, as the distinctive features of Pope's poetical excellence, it should not escape us that there are occasions when he reaches a high degree of moral energy and ardor. I have purposely excluded from our present consideration all scrutiny and dissection of Pope's real inner character. I am aware, that, taking it in the most favourable light, it can only be regarded as formed of mixed and imperfect elements; but I cannot refuse to myself the belief that when the Poet speaks in such strains as these, they in some degree reflect and embody the spirit of the Man. I quote from his animated description of the triumph of vice :

"Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more;
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless;
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And her's the Gospel is, and her's the laws;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,

Old England's genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragg'd in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground!"

And, again with more special reference to himself,
"Ask you what provocation I have had?
The strong antipathy of good to bad.
When truth or virtue an affront endures,

Th' affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours.
Yes, I am proud, I must be proud to see,

Men not afraid of God, afraid of me :

Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,

Yet touch'd and sham'd by ridicule alone.
O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence,
Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence !
To all but heav'n-directed hands deny'd,

The muse may give thee, but the gods must guide :
Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honest zeal ;
To rouse the watchmen of the public weal,

To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,
And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.
Let envy howl, while heav'n's whole chorus sings,
And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
Let flatt'ry sick'ning see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies :

Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,

And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine."

My limits, more than my materials, warn me that I must desist. As, however, with reference to the single object which I have all along had in view, I think it more politic that I should let the words of Pope, rather than my own, leave the last echoes on your ear, I should like to conclude this address with his own concluding lines to perhaps the most important and highly-wrought of his poems, the " Essay on Man." They appear to me calculated to leave an appropriate impression of that orderly and graceful muse, whose attractions I have, feebly I know and inadequately, but with the honesty and warmth of a thorough sincerity, endeavoured to place before you; if I mistake not, you will trace in them, as in his works at large, the same perfect propriety of expression, the same refined simplicity of idea, the same chastened felicity of imagery, all animated and warmed by that feeling of devotion for Bolingbroke, which pervaded his poetry and his life:

"Come then, my friend! my genius! come along ;
Oh master of the poet, and the song!

And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends,

To man's low passions, or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe ;
Correct with spirit, elegant with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.

Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame ;
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,

Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose

Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,

Shall then this verse to future age pretend

Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend,—
That urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For wit's false mirror held up nature's light;
Show'd erring pride, whatever is, is right;
That reason, passion, answer one great aim;
That true self-love and social are the same;
That virtue only makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is ourselves to know."

Gentlemen of the jury, that is my case.