fidelity to his country, not less in civil life than in the field; and Dr. King introduced him, in his Templum Libertatis, as a principal figure, under the name of Varius; a long and languid work, that certainly leaned more to Republicanism than to Jacobitism, though King was commonly, and as I think, from my knowledge of him at that period of his life, falsely reckoned a Jacobite; for he was for ever ridiculing, as I well remember, the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. But it was the cant of that time, and the art of the Minister and his adherents, to stigmatize every man that dared to oppose his measures with that odious and contemptible name.

Cobham, in his retirement from the court and business, employed himself in making and beautifying the celebrated gardens at Stowe, of which Lord Peterborough says to Pope, on his visiting them, "I went thither to see what I had seen, and was sure to like. I had the idea of those gardens so fixed in my imagination by many descriptions, that nothing surprised me; immensity and Vanbrugh appear in the whole, and in every part. I confess the stately Saccharissa at Stowe; but am content with my little Amoret:" meaning Bevis Mount, near Southampton.

Lord Cobham wrote two Letters to Pope on occasion of this Epistle, which are so full of good sense, that they ought to be brought forward, and inserted in this place, as they are not found in the collection of our Author's Letters.

"Stowe, Nov. 1, 1733.

"THOUGH I have not modesty enough not to be pleased with your extraordinary compliment, I have

wit enough to know how little I deserve it. You know all mankind are putting themselves upon the world for more than they are worth, and their friends are daily helping the deceit. But I am afraid I shall not pass for an absolute patriot; however, I have the honour of having received a public testimony of your esteem and friendship, and am as proud of it as I could be of any advantage which could happen to me. As I remember, when I saw the Brouillion of this Epistle, it was perplexed; you have now made it the contrary, and, I think, it is the clearest and the cleanest of all you have wrote. Don't you Don't think you have bestowed too many lines on the old Letcher? The instance itself is but ordinary, and I think should be shortened or changed. Thank you; and believe me to be most sincerely yours,

"COBHAM."

"Stowe, Nov. 8, 1733.

"I LIKE your Letcher better now 'tis shorter; and the Glutton is a very good Epigram. But they are both appetites, that from nature we indulge, as well for her ends as our pleasure. A Cardinal, in his way of pleasure, would have been a better instance. What do you think of an old Lady dressing her silver locks with pink, and ordering her coffin to be lined with white quilted satin, with gold fringes? Or Counsellor Vernon, retiring to enjoy himself with five thousand a year which he had got, and returning back to Chancery to get a little more, when he could not speak so loud as to be heard? or a Judge turned out coming again to the bar?-I mean that a passion

or habit, that has not a natural foundation, falls in better with your subject, than any of our natural wants; which in some degree we cannot avoid pursuing to the last; and if a man has spirits or appetite enough to take a bit of either kind at parting, you may condemn him, but you would be proud to imitate him.

"I congratulate you upon the fine weather. 'Tis a strange thing that people of condition, and men of parts, must enjoy it in common with the rest of the world. But now I think on't, their pursuits are generally after points of so great importance, that they do not enjoy it at all. I won't trouble you any longer, but with the assurance of what I hope you are perfectly convinced of, that I am most sincerely yours,

"COBHAM."

The first specimen of our Author's happy and judicious Imitations of Horace, was given, 1733, folio, with this title, "The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, imitated in a Dialogue between Alexander Pope of Twickenham, in Comm. Midd. Esq. on the one part, and his learned Council on the other." A minute detail of the beauties and blemishes of this Imitation is given in the succeeding Notes of this Edition. And I will only observe, that, perhaps, it may deserve consideration, whether the best manner of imitating the Satires and Epistles of Horace, which approach so near to comedy and to common conversation, would not be to adopt the familiar blank verse, which my lamented friend, Mr. Col

man, has so very successfully employed in his Terence; a sort of verse no more resembling that of Milton, than the Hexameters of Homer resemble those of Theocritus. I cannot forbear adding, that Mr. Christopher Pitt has imitated the Seventh Satire of Horace, Book II. the Nineteenth Epistle of Book II. the Fourth Epistle, Book I. and the Tenth and Eighteenth of Book I. with a freedom and a facility of versification truly Horatian.

A death of such consequence as that of a fond mother to so affectionate a son as was our Author, must not be omitted to be here mentioned; which happened this year. Nothing can be more interesting and affecting than the request he made to his friend Mr. Richardson, the painter, to come to Twickenham, and take a sketch of his mother just after she was dead, June 20, 1733: "It would afford," says he, "the finest image of a Saint expired, that ever painting drew."

It was in the year 1734, that the fine Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot was, according to the first edition in folio, first printed. Afterward it underwent two material alterations; it was entitled, improperly and fantastically enough, A Prologue to the Satires; and its form was changed into that of a Dialogue, in which a man possessed of so much wit, humour, literature, science, and taste, as was Arbuthnot, makes a very indifferent figure, and says little indeed. Pope in this Epistle, for so I shall continue to call it, has succeeded in what Cowley calls a nice and difficult task, to speak of himself with dignity and grace.

It is evident he had Boileau in his eye, who has given an interesting picture of his father, family, and fortunes, and even of his own person and manners.

Libre dans ses discours, mais pourtant toujours sage,
Assez foible de corps, assez doux de visage;

Ni petit, ni trop grand, tres-peu voluptueux,

Ami de la vertu plutôt que vertueux.-EPITRE X. 89.

But no passage in Boileau equals the pathetic tenderness with which our Author speaks of his attention to his aged mother.

This was succeeded, 1735, by the Epistle on the Characters of Women, in an Advertisement to which, he asserted, but in truth was not believed, that no one character was drawn from the life. Here again he may claim a manifest superiority over the Tenth Satire of Boileau, on the same subject: a subject that had been handled by Young, eight years before, and though not indeed in a style so close, correct, and nervous as that of our Author, but with many playful and truly Horatian strokes of a delicate raillery and ridicule, gently touching the foibles of the sex, with a more cautious and tender hand. As general and vague criticism is useless, I shall venture to hint, that the portraits in Young, of Zantippe; of Delia, the chariot-driver; of Daphne, the critic; of Lemira, the sick lady; of the Female Philosopher; of the Theologist; of the Languid Lady; of Thalestris, the swearer; of Lyce, the old beauty; of Alicia, the sloven; of the Female Atheist; and the Female Gamester; are all of them drawn with truth and spirit, and will not suffer by being compared with the portraits exhibited by Pope. And the Introductions to these Satires, par