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gant expreffion, as when he accommodates his diction to the wonderful multiplicity of Homer's sentiments and descriptions.

Poetical expreffion includes found as well as meaning; Mufick, says Dryden, is inarticulate poetry; among the excellences of Pope, therefore, must be mentioned the melody of his metre. By perufing the works of Dryden, he discovered the most perfect fabrick of English verse, and habituated himself to that only which he found the best; in confequence of which restraint, his poetry has been cenfured as too uniformly musical, and as glutting the ear with unvaried sweetness. Isuspect this objection to be the cant of those who judge by principles rather than perception: and who would even themselves have lefs pleasure in his works, if he had tried to relieve attention by studied discords, or affected to break his lines and vary his pauses.

But though he was thus careful of his verfification, he did not opprefs his powers with fuperfluous rigour. He feems to have thought with Boileau, that the practice of writing might be refined till the difficulty fhould

fhould overbalance the advantage. The conftruction of his language is not always strictly grammatical; with thofe rhymes which prefcription had conjoined he contented himself, without regard to Swift's remonstrances, though there was no ftriking confonance; nor was he careful to vary very his terminations, or to refuse admiffion at a small distance to the fame rhymes.

To Swift's edict for the exclufion of Alexandrines and Triplets he paid little regard; he admitted them, but, in the opinion of Fenton, too rarely; he uses them more liberally in his tranftation than his poems.

He has a few double rhymes; and always, I think, unsuccessfully, except once in the Rape of the Lock.

Expletives he very early ejected from his verfes; but he now and then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the fix first lines of the Iliad might lofe two fyllables with very little diminution of the meaning; and fometimes, after all his art and labour, one verfe feems to be made

for

for the fake of another. In his latter productions the diction is fometimes vitiated by French idioms, with which Bolingbroke had perhaps infected him.

I have been told that the couplet by which he declared his own ear to be most gratified was this:

Lo, where Maotis fleeps, and hardly flows The freezing Tanais through a waste of fnows.

But the reason of this preference I cannot difcover.

It is remarked by Watts, that there is scarcely a happy combination of words, or a phrase poetically elegant in the English language, which Pope has not inferted into his verfion of Homer. How he obtained poffeffion of fo many beauties of fpeech, it were defirable to know. That he gleaned from authors, obfcure as well as eminent, what he thought brilliant or useful, and preserved it all in a regular collection, is not unlikely. When, in his last years, Hall's Satires were fhewn him, he wish'd that he had seen them fooner.

New

New fentiments and new images others may produce; but to attempt any further improvement of verfification will be dangerous. Art and diligence have now done their best, and what shall be added will be the effort of tedious toil and needlefs curiosity.

After all this, it is furely fuperfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, Whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by asking in return, If Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To circumfcribe poetry by a definition will only fhew the narrowness of the definer, though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look round upon the present time, and back upon the past; let us enquire to whom the voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the pretenfions of Pope will be no more difputed. Had he given the world only his verfion, the name of poet must have been allowed him: if the writer of the Iliad were to class his fucceffors, he would affign a very high place to his tranflator, without requiring any other evidence of Genius.

THE

The following Letter, of which the original is in the hands of Lord Hardwicke, was communicated to me by the kindness of Mr. Jodrell.

"To Mr. BRIDGES, at the Bishop of "London's at Fulham.

"SIR,

"The favour of your Letter, with your Remarks, can never be enough acknowledged; and the speed, with which you difcharged fo troublefome a tafk, doubles the obligation.

"I must own, you have pleafed me very much by the commendations fo ill bestowed upon me; but, I affure you, much more by the frankness of your cenfure, which I ought to take the more kindly of the two, as it is more advantageous to a fcribbler to be improved in his judgment than to be foothed in his vanity. The greater part of those deviations VOL. IV.

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