facility and elegance. These letters have been all destroyed; but it may gratify the relations and friends of Mr. Rowley, to observe that Cowper has spoken of him repeatedly to other correspondents, in terms of the most cordial esteem. The praise of Cowper is so singularly valuable, from the reserve and the purity of his disposition, that it would almost seem a cruel injury to suppress a particle of it, when deliberately, or even cursorily bestowed. His sensibility was of a generous kind; his perception of excellence was exquisite, and his delight in praising it most liberal, even when he was a stranger to the person he praised. Witness the affectionate warmth and eloquence with which he describes the writings of Beattie! Those letters of Cowper will not be esteemed the least interesting, in which he has expressed his critical opinions on several of his most celebrated contemporaries. Some readers will probably think that his own attachment to the graces of simplicity in composition has rendered him severe to excess in criticising the style of two eminent historians, Robertson and Gibbon.

It is pleasing, however, to discover the genuine sentiment that literary characters of high distinction entertained of other successful candidates for fame, who lived in their days. Cowper, in criticising the popular authors of his own nation, cannot fail to interest an English reader. Indeed the letters of the poet have been honoured with the notice and the applause of foreigners. A polite and liberal scholar of France, deeply versed in our literature, has confessed that he never thought the writers of this country equal to those of his own, in all the excellencies of epistolary composition, till he read the letters of Cowper.

Gratified as I am by a compliment so honourable to my departed friend, I am too zealous an advocate for the literary glory of our country, to admit that the letter-writers of England are collectively inferior in merit to those of any nation in the modern world.

I am aware that some elegant and respectable critics of our island have made this humiliating concession in favour of France. Melmoth and Warton have both expressed their regret that we have not equalled our neighbours, the French, in this branch of literature; but I apprehend a reference to a few remarkable and well-known English letters will be sufficient to vindicate our national honour in this article of taste and refinement.

If we turn to an early season of our epistolary language, we may observe that the letter of Sir Philip Sidney to his sister Lady Pembroke, prefixed as a dedication to his Arcadia, is distinguished by tender elegance and graceful affection. The letters of Essex, the idol and the victim of the imperious and wretched Elizabeth, have been deservedly celebrated for their manly eloquence. At a period still more early, the letter of Ann Boleyn to Henry the Eighth, so justly recommended to public admiration by Addison in the Spectator, displays all the endearing dignity of insulted virtue and impassioned eloquence. I know not any letter in the female writers

of France, distinguished as they are by their epistolary talents, that can be fairly preferred to the pathetic composition of this lovely martyr. The French, indeed, have one celebrated writer of letters, the Marchioness de Sevigné, to whom we can hardly produce any individual as an exact parallel. But the letters of Lady Russel (not to mention those of Queen Mary to King William) may be cited as equalling Madame Sevigné's in tenderness of heart; and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is assuredly a powerful rival to the Marchioness, in all the charms of easy, elegant language, and in vivacity of description. But in the highest charm of epistolary writing, that of gracefully displaying, without disguise or reserve, a most amiable character, and exciting by that display a tender and lively affection in the reader-in this epistolary excellence, Lady Mary is indeed as unequal to Madame Sevigné, as a thistle is inferior to a rose.

Maternal tenderness is the most lovely, the most useful, and the sublimest quality that God has given to mortals. It was the great characteristic of Madame Sevigné, and shows itself so repeatedly in her letters, that it may sometimes prove wearisome to readers not perfectly prepared to sympathize in her predominant feelings; but I question if any tender parent ever felt fatigued in perusing even the excesses of her maternal solicitude. She has herself explained the powerful charm of her own letters, by describing, in the following words, the letters of her daughter::

"Je cherche quelquefois où vous pouvez trouver si précisément tout ce qu'il faut penser et dire; c'est en vérité dans votre cœur ; c'est lui, qui ne manque jamais; et quoique vous ayez voulu dire autrefois à la louange de l'esprit, qui veut contrefaire le cœur, l'esprit manque, il se trompe, il bronche à tout moment; ses allures ne sont point égales, et les gens éclairés par le cœur n'y sauroient être trompés. Aimons donc, ma fille, ce qui vient si naturellement de ce lieu."

The enchanting mother of Madame de Grignan had the tenderest of hearts: the mother of the eccentric traveller Wortley Montagu seems to have had a heart of a very different description, when we consider the manner in which she alludes to the indiscretion of her son, and the legacy of a guinea which she bequeathed to him by her will. The lady, in truth, must have been deplorably deficient in the compassionate virtues of her sex, who could pour forth her spleen, with such unmerciful and disgusting malevolence, on the personal deformity of Pope. It has been suggested, indeed, that the satirical poet was the aggressor, and provoked the indignation of the lady. The respectable writer, who has recently prefixed memoirs of this lady to an elegant edition of her works, has spoken of her with that natural partiality, which an editor is allowed to feel for an author whom he has long contem plated with pleasure; and especially, when that author appears entitled to peculiar regard, as a lady of distinction. In noticing

the quarrel between her ladyship and Pope, he endeavours to throw the odium of that quarrel entirely on the poet; accusing him of meanness, and of absolute falsehood, in the declaration, by which he had positively asserted, that HE WAS NOT THE AGGRESSOR. There are no proofs of his falsehood: on the contrary, there is a strong presumptive proof that his declaration was perfectly sincere; as he had before empowered his friend Lord Peterborough to give the offended lady, in private, a similar assurance. Lord Peterborough was of all men then living, the last person, whom Pope, or any of his friends, could think of engaging

"To lend a lie the confidence of truth."

The letter of Lord Peterborough, in which he relates to Lady Mary his conversation with Pope on this affair, concludes with the following benevolent expressions: "I hope this assurance will prevent your farther mistakes, and any consequences upon so odd a subject."

Such was the moral and religious character of Pope, that his serious protestation ought to be candidly received as decisive evidence, unless some very strong and unquestionable proof could be alleged against it; and the following words in his letter to Lord Hervey form a protestation as clear and unequivocal as language can express:

"In regard to the Right Honourable Lady, your Lordship's friend, I was far from designing a person of her condition by a name so derogatory to her as that of Sappho, a name prostituted to every infamous creature that ever wrote verse or novels. I protest I never applied that name to her, in any verse of mine, public or private, and (I firmly believe) not in any letter or conversation."

The advocate of Lady Mary endeavours to prove the falsity of Pope in his protestation, by adducing passages of his works, in which the name of Sappho must evidently belong to the lady in question but the date of those works, in their first publication, is sufficient to vindicate the veracity of the author. He might apply the name of Sappho to Lady Mary, after she had, in the blindness of anger, taken the name to herself, without lessening the credit due to his earlier protestation. It should also be remembered, that the person, to whom he first applied the name of Sappho, was the unfortunate woman who was tempted by necessity to print the letters of the poet to his early friend Mr. Cromwell; and Pope called her Sappho in compliment to his friend, who had given her the title.

It must, however, be admitted, that the offensive couplet, which so wonderfully excited the wrath of Lady Mary, is a disgrace to the poet, from the insufferable indelicacy of its language. But that he asserted an absolute falsehood, concerning his own intention when he wrote it, nothing but irresistible evidence should induce the. friends of literature to believe. Pope is peculiarly unfortunate in

his two eminent biographers, Johnson and Warton; because each of them had felt the influence of an accidental and personal prejudice against him; which may account for their failing to vindicate his probity with the zeal of truth and affection.

Warton considers him as the aggressor in his quarrel with Lady Mary; yet what is here said on that subject will induce, I trust, every candid reader to credit the express, and opposite, assertion of the poet.

Johnson, in noticing Pope's vindication of himself, in his letter to Lord Hervey, says, that "to a cool reader of the present time it exhibits nothing but tedious malignity." The critic's censure on this remarkable composition is a striking proof of his own malevolent prejudice against Pope. A friend to the poet would have justly observed, that his letter to Lord Hervey is one of the most acute, the most highly polished, and triumphant invectives that resentment ever drew from a man of genius and virtue, provoked to the utmost by the grossest indignity. It is in miniature, what the oration of Demosthenes concerning the crown appears on a larger scale; a personal defence, animated by conscious integrity, and flaming with proud contempt of an adversary, who was not destitute of abilities, but was overwhelmed in his furious attack upon a man of superior powers, and was lacerated by the shafts of eloquence, sharpened by indignation. The triumph of Pope was indeed as complete as language could render it. But triumphs of this nature deserve perhaps to be considered rather as subjects of regret, than as sources of real glory. If the most eminent departed authors could revisit the human scene, after residing in a purer sphere, and revise their own productions, they would probably annihilate all the virulent invectives, which the intemperance of human passions has so abundantly produced.

Among the pitiable infelicities in the frame of Pope, we may justly reckon the irritability of his temper; and it was an additional misfortune to him, that some of his friends whom he most esteemed, excited him to such an exercise of his talents as had a tendency to increase his constitutional infirmity. Atterbury, who, after perusing his character of Addison, exhorted him to persevere in the thorny path of satire, would have better consulted both the happiness and the renown of his friend, had he endeavoured to lead his ductile spirit into a sublimer sphere of literary ambition.

But to speak of Pope as a writer of letters. In this character, as in that of a poet, he has had the ill-fortune to suffer by hasty and indiscriminate censure. It has been a fashion to say, the letters of Pope are stiff and affected. Even Cowper has spoken of them in such terms of general condemnation, as, I am confident, his candid spirit would have corrected, had he been led to reflect and expatiate on the subject; for in truth, though many letters of Pope have the disgusting defects of formality and affectation, there are several, in which he makes a near approach to that excellence, that delightful

assemblage of ease, freedom, and dignity, which enchants the reader in the epistolary language of my departed friend. The letters of Pope are valuable in many points of view. They exhibit extraordinary specimens of mental power, and a contemplative spirit in very early youth. They show the progress of a tender, powerful, and irritable mind, in its acquaintance with polished life, the delights it enjoyed, the vexations it endured, the infirmities it contracted, and the virtues it exerted, in a long career of memorable enmities, and of friendships more worthy of unfading remembrance. He has passed himself so just and manly a censure on his juvenile affectation of epistolary wit, that on this point he is entitled to mercy from the severest of critics. It is not so easy to excuse him for the excess of his flattery. Yet on this article a friendly admirer of the author may find something to allege in his behalf. Among the most offensive of his letters, we may reckon those to Lady Mary peculiarly disgusting, from their very gross, and very awkward adulation. But even this may be pardonable, if we allow, what appears very probable, that Pope was so fascinated by the beauty and attractions of this accomplished lady, that he was absolutely in love with her, though not conscious of his passion. For the credit of both it may be wished, that all traces of their intimacy, and of their quarrel, could be utterly forgotten; and the more so, because, with all their imperfections, each has displayed such a high degree of literary excellence, that the happier writings of both must be admired as long as the language of England exists.

Lady Mary deserves to live in the grateful remembrance of her country as the first English teacher and patroness of inoculation. She has probably rescued many thousands of fair faces from the ravages of a deforming distemper. She would indeed have been still more entitled to perpetual benediction, had she been able to accomplish as much (by example or precept) toward diminishing the barbarous influence of those mental distempers, envy, hatred, and malice: but instead of banishing them from her own spirit, she has exhibited, in writing against Pope, a portentous offspring of their execrable power. It would be a signal and a happy compliment to the literary reputation of this memorable lady, if her noble descendants would direct, that the bitter verses to which I allude should be rejected from the future editions of her works. Her outrageous acrimony would then be gradually forgotten, as all who justly regard her memory must wish it to be. The verses in question may be rejected with the greater propriety, as they are said to have been partly composed by her associate, Lord Hervey. Let the peer and the poet (Hervey and Pope) show themselves alternately mangling each other, with equal virulence, though with different abilities: but let not a lady, so truly admirable in many points of view, be exhibited to all generations, as brandishing the scalping knife of satirical malignity! Her more temperate writings