Extract from the Epifle to a Doctor of Divinity (Dr. Sherwin). [The paffages are printed in Italics, to which Pope replies.]

"Guiltless of thought, each Blockhead may compofe
This nothing-meaning Verfe, as well as Profe;
And Pope with juftice of fuch lines may say,
His Lordship "Spins a thousand such a day.”

Such Pope himself might write, who ne'er could think,
He who at crambo plays with pen and ink,
And is call'd Poet, 'cause in rhyme he wrote
What Dacier conftru'd, and what Homer thought.
But in reality this jingler's claim-

A judge of writing would no more admit,
Than cach dull Dictionary's claim to wit,
That nothing gives you at its own expence,
But a few modern words for ancient fenfe.
'Tis thus whate'er Pope writes, he's forc'd to go
To beg a little fenfe, as fchool-boys do:

For all cannot invent who can translate,

No more than those who clothe us can create.
When we fee Celia fhining in brocade,

Who thinks 'tis Hinchcliff all the beauty made?
And Pope in his best works we only find,
The gaudy Hinchcliff of a beauteous mind.
To bid his genius work without that aid,
Would be as much mistaking of his trade,
As 'twould to bid your Hatter make a head;
Since this Mechanic's, like the other's pains,
Are all for dressing other people's brains," &c.

}

I ought to mention, that Mr. Hayley thinks Pope was not the aggreffor in this wretched perfonal bufinefs; and that Lady Mary's Verfes ought to be fuppressed. From all I have read, I am convinced Pope was the aggreffor. Mr. Hayley's chief argument against the fuppofition, is Pope's " ipfe dixit." Valeat quantùm valere poteft; but while Pope's fcandalous couplet remains, I do not see why the "Audi alteram" fhould be denied to the Lady.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS,

BY

GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.

CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS.

Ver. 41.

ESSAY ON MAN.

EPISTLE I. P. II.

-YONDER argent fields above.—

Milton's phrafe, in Par. Loft, iii. 460.

Not in the neighbʼring moon, as some have dream'd;
Those argent fields more likely habitants,
Tranflated faints or middle spirits, hold.

Ver. 43. Of fyftems poffible, if 'tis confeft,

That Wisdom Infinite muft from the beft,
Where all muft full or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree;

Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain,

There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as Man.

"Since infinite wisdom not only eftablished the end, but directed "the means, the fyftem of the univerfe muft neceffarily be the best "of all poffible fyftems."—" It implies no contradiction to say, "that God made a system of creation infinitely wife, and the best of "all poffible fyftems.' "It might be determined in the divine "ideas, that there fhould be a gradation of life and intellect "throughout the univerfe. In this case it was neceffary, that there "should be fome creatures at our pitch of rationality—from the infect up to man. Bolingbroke, Frag. 43 and 44. Compare below ver. 239 to 241.

66

Again in Fragment 49. " If a gradation of animal beings "appeared neceffary or fit-to the fupreme or divine reafon " and intention-; why fhould not we be the creatures we

Ver. 51. Refpecting man, whatever wrong we call,

May, must be right, as relative to all.

"The loweft employments to which legiflators and magiftrates "subject some of the perfons they govern in political focieties, "confidered

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