I THOUGHT it more equitable, as well as more convincing, to quote at large the words of this admirable critic, whose work is one of the most valuable that his elegant nation hath produced, than to adopt, as some have done with small variations, his opinion, without acknowledging the debt. An apology would be neceffary for this digreffion, if it was not my profeffed defign in this Effay, to expatiate into fuch occafional difquifitions, as naturally arife from the subject; it has however kept us too long from furveying a valuable literary curiofity, I mean the earliest production of POPE, written when he was not twelve years old, his ODE ON SOLItude.

THE first sketches of fuch an artist ought highly to be prized. Different geniuses unfold themselves at different periods of life. In some minds the ore is a long time in ripening. Not only inclination, but opportunity and encouragement, a proper subject, or a proper patron, influence the exertion or the fuppreffion of genius. These ftanzas on Solitude, are a strong inftance of that contemplative

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plative and moral turn, which was the diftinguishing characteristic of our poet's mind. An ode of Cowley which he produced at the age of thirteen years, is of the fame cast, and perhaps not in the leaft inferiour to this of РОРЕ. The voluminous Lopez de Vega, is commonly, but I fear incredibly, reported by the Spaniards, to have composed verses when he was five years old; and Torquato Taffo, the fecond of the Italian poets, for that wonderful original Dante is the firft, is faid to have recited poems and orations of his own writing, when he was seven. It is however certain, which is more extraordinary, that he produced his Rinaldo in his eighteenth year, no bad precursor to the Gierufalemma Liberata, and no fmall effort of that genius, which was in due time to fhew, how fine an epic poem the Italian language, notwithstanding the vulgar imputation of effeminacy, was capable of fupporting.

*It is a certain fact, that S. Bononcini compofed and performed an opera, when he was but nine years old.

THOSE

THOSE who are fond of biographical anecdotes, which are fome of the most amusive and inftructive parts of hiftory, will be perhaps pleased with the following particulars in the life of POPE. He frequently declared, that the time of his beginning to write verses, was fo very early in his life, that he could scarcely recall it to his memory. When he was yet a child, his father, who had been a merchant in London, and retired to Binfield with about twenty thousand pounds, would frequently order him to make English verses. It seems he was difficult to be pleased, and would make the lad correct them again and again. When at last he approved them, he took great pleasure in perufing them, and would fay," these are good RHYMES." These early praises of a tender and refpected parent, cooperating with the natural inclination of the fon, might poffibly be the causes that fixed our young bard in a resolution of becoming eminent in this art. He was taught to read very early by an aunt; and of his own indefatigable industry learned to write,

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by copying printed books, which he executed with great neatness and accuracy. When he was eight years old, he was put under the direction of one Taverner, a priest, who taught him the rudiments of the latin and greek tongues together. About this time he accidentally met with Ogilby's tranflation of Homer, which, notwithstanding the deadness and infipidity of the verfification, arrested his attention by the force of the ftory. The Ovid of Sandys fell next in his way; and it is faid, that the raptures thefe tranflations gave him were fo ftrong, that he spoke of them with pleasure to the period of his life. About ten, being now at school at Hide-park corner, whither he went from a popish seminary at Twiford, near Winchester, he was carried fometimes to the playhouse; and being ftruck, we may imagine, with theatrical representations, he turned the chief events into a kind of play, made up of a number of speeches from Ogilby's tranflation, connected with verfes of his own. He persuaded the upper boys to act this piece, which, from its

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curiofity, one would have been glad to have beheld. The master's gardener represented

the character of Ajax; and the actors were dreffed after the pictures of his favourite Ogilby, far the best part of that book, as they were defigned and engraved by artists of note. At twelve, he retired with his father into Windfor-Foreft; and it was there he first perused the writings of Waller, of Spenfer, and of Dryden. Spenfer is faid to have made a poet of Cowley; that Ogilby should give our author his firft poetic pleasures, is a remarkable circumftance. On the first fight of Dryden he abandoned the rest, having now found an author, whofe caft was exactly congenial with his own. His works therefore he ftudied with equal pleasure and attention: he placed them before his eyes as a model; of which more will be faid in the course of thefe papers. He copied not only his harmonious verfification, but the very turns of his periods. It was hence he was enabled to give to rhyme all the harmony of which it is capable.

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