falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent aston-sweetness; but a new metamorphosis is a ready and ishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.

puerile expedicnt; nothing is easier than to tell how a flower was once a blooming virgin, or a rock an obdurate tyrant.

This parallel will, I hope, when it is well considered, be found just; and if the reader should suspect me, as I suspect myself, of some partial fond- The Temple of Fame,' has, as Steele warmly ness for the memory of Dryden, let him not too declared, "a thousand beauties." Every part is hastily condemn me; for meditation and inquiry splendid; there is a great luxuriance of ornaments; may, perhaps, show him the reasonableness of my the original vision of Chaucer was never denied to determination. be much improved, the allegory is very skilfully continued, the imagery is properly selected, and

The works of Pope are now to be distinctly ex-learnedly displayed: yet, with all this comprehenamined, not so much with attention to slight faults, sion of excellence, as its scene is laid in remote or petty beauties, as to the general character and ages, and its sentiments, if the concluding paraeffect of each performance. graph be excepted, have little relation to general

It seems natural for a young poet to initiate him- manners or common life, it never obtained much self by Pastorals, which not professing to imitate notice, but is turned silently over, and seldom real life, require no experience; and exhibiting quoted or mentioned with either praise or blame. only the simple operation of unmingled passions, That the Messiah' excels the 'Pollio' is no admit no subtile reasoning or deep inquiry. Pope's great praise, if it be considered from what original 'Pastorals' are not, however, composed but with the improvements are derived.

close thought; they have reference to the times of The Verses on the unfortunate Lady' have the day, the seasons of the year, and the periods drawn much attention by the illaudable singularity of human life. The last, that which turns the at- of treating suicide with respect; and they must be tention upon age and death, was the author's fa- allowed to be written in some parts with vigorous vourite. To tell of disappointment and misery, to animation, and in some others with gentle tenderthicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the ness, nor has Pope produced any poem in which labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a deli- the sense predominates more over the diction. But cious employment of the poets. His preference the tale is not skilfully told; it is not easy to diswas probably just. I wish, however, that his fond-cover the character of either the Lady or her ness had not overlooked a line in which the Ze-Guardian. History relates that she was about to phyrs are made to lament in silence. disparage herself by a marriage to an inferior; Pope

To charge these Pastorals with want of inven- praises her for the dignity of ambition, and yet tion, is to require what was never intended. The condemns the uncle to detestation for his pride; the imitations are so ambitiously frequent, that the ambitious love of a niece may be opposed by the inwriter evidently means rather to show his litera-terest, malice, or envy of an uncle, but never by ture than his wit. It is surely sufficient for an au- his pride. On such an occasion a poet may be althor of sixteen, not only to be able to copy the lowed to be obscure, but inconsistency never can be poems of antiquity with judicious selection, but to right.* have obtained sufficient power of language, and skill in metre, to exhibit a series of versification, which had in English poetry no precedent, nor has since had an imitation.

The Ode for St. Cecilia's day' was undertaken at the desire of Steele; in this the author is generally confessed to have miscarried, yet has miscar ried only as compared with Dryden; for he has far The design of Windsor Forest' is evidently de- outgone other competitors. Dryden's plan is betrived from 'Cooper's Hill,' with some attention to ter chosen; history will always take stronger hold Waller's poem on 'The Park;' but Pope cannot be of the attention than fable: the passions excited by denied to excel his masters in variety and ele-Dryden are the pleasures and pains of real life; the gance, and the art of interchanging description, scene of Pope is laid in imaginary existence. Pope narrative, and morality. The objection made by is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden with turDennis is the want of plan, of a regular subordina-bulent delight; Pope hangs upon the ear, and Drytion of parts terminating in the principal and origi- den finds the passes of the mind. nal design. There is this want in most descriptive Both the odes want the essential constituent of poems, because as the scenes, which they must ex-metrical compositions, the stated recurrence of hibit successively, are all subsisting at the same settled numbers: it may be alleged, that Pindar is time, the order in which they are shown must by said by Horace to have written numeris lege solunecessity be arbitrary, and more is not to be ex- tis: but as no such lax performances have been pected from the last part than from the first. The transmitted to us, the meaning of that expression attention, therefore, which cannot be detained by cannot be fixed; and perhaps the like return might suspense, must be excited by diversity, such as his poem offers to its reader.

properly be made to a modern Pindarist, as Mr. Cobb received from Bentley, who, when he found his criticisms upon a Greek Exercise, which Cobb

But the desire of diversity may be too much indulged; the parts of Windsor Forest' which deserve least praise, are those which were added to There was a letter in the possession of Dr. Johnson, enliven the stillness of the scene, the appearance containing the name of the Lady; and a reference to a genof Father Thames, and the transformation of Lo-leman well known in the literary world for her history dona. Addison had in his 'Campaign' derided the this gentleman by a lady of quality, it appears, that the unFrom a memorandum of some particulars communicated to Rivers that "rise from their oozy beds" to tell fortunate lady's name was Withinbury; that she was in stories of heroes; and it is therefore strange that love with Pope, and would have married him; that her guarPope should adopt a fiction not only unnatural but such a match as beneath her, sent her to a convent; and dian, though she was deformed in person, looking upon lately censured. The story of Lodona is told with that by a noose, and not a sword, her life was terminated.

had presented, refuted one after another by Pin-ter Daphne, is likened to a greyhound chasing a dar's authority, cried out at last, Pindar was a¦a hare, there is nothing gained; the ideas of pursuit bold fellow, but thou art an impudent one.”

If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the first stanza consists of sounds well chosen indeed, but only sounds.

and flight are too plan to be made plainer; and a god and the daughter of a god are not represented much to their advantage by a hare and dog. The simile of the Alps has no useless parts, yet affords The second consists of hyperbolical common- a striking picture by itself; it makes the foregoing places, easily to be found, and perhaps without position better understood, and enables it to take much difficulty to be as well expressed. faster hold on the attention: it assists the appre

In the third, however, there are numbers, ima-hension, and elevates the fancy. ges, harmony, and vigour, not unworthy the an- Let me likewise dwell a little on the celebrated tagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this-but paragraph, in which it is directed that "the sound every part cannot be the best. (should seem an echo to the sense;" a precept which Pope is allowed to have observed beyond any other Faglish poet.

The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, can be found: This notion of representative metre, and the the poet, however, faithfully attends us: we have desire of discovering frequent adaptations of the all that can be performed by elegance of diction, or sound to the sense, have produced, in my opinion, sweetness of versification; but what can form avail many wild conceits and imaginary beauties. All without better matter? that can furnish this representation are the sounds The last stanza recurs again to common-places. of the words considered singly, and the time in The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that which they are pronounced. Every language of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end has some words framed to exhibit the noises with the same fault; the comparison of each is literal on one side, and metaphorical on the other. Poets do not always express their own thoughts: Pope with all this labour in the praise of Music, was ignorant of its principles, and insensible of its effects.

One of his greatest, though of his earliest works, is the Essay on Criticism,' which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it; he that delights himself with observing that such powers may be soon attained, cannot but grieve to think that life was ever after at a

stand.

To mention the particular beauties of the Essay would be unprofitably tedious; but I cannot forbear to observe, that the comparison of a student's progress in the sciences with the journey of a traveller in the Alps, is perhaps the best that English poetry can show. A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clear view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity, but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it. In didactic poetry, of which the great purpose is instruction, a simile may be praised which illus-. trates, though it does not ennoble; in heroics, that may be admitted which ennobles, though it does not illustrate. That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleasing image: for a simile is said to be a short episode. To this antiquity was so attentive, that circumstances were sometimes added, which, having no parallels, served only to fill the imagination, and produced what Perrault ludicrously called, "comparisons with a long tail." In their similies the greatest writers have sometimes failed; the ship-race, compared with the chariot-race, is neither illustrated nor aggrandised; land and water make all the difference: when Apollo, running af-1

which they express, as thump, rattle, growl, hiss. These, however, are but few, and the poet cannot make them more, nor can they be of any use but when sound is to be mentioned. The time of pronunciation was in the dactylic measures of the learned languages capable of considerable variety; but that variety could be accommodated only to motion or duration; and different degrees of motion were perhaps expressed by verses rapid or slow, without much attention of the writer, when the image had full possession of his fancy; but our language having little flexibility, our verses can differ very little in their cadence. The fancied resemblances, I fear, arise sometimes merely from the ambiguity of words; there is supposed to be some relation between a soft line and soft couch, or between hard syllables and hard fortune.

Motion, however, may be in some sort exemplified: and yet it may be suspected that in such resemblances the mind often governs the ear, and the sounds are estimated by their meaning. One of their most successful attempts has been to describe the labour of Sysiphus:

With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground

Who does not perceive the stone to move slowly
upward, and roll violently back? But set the same
numbers to another sense:

While many a merry tale, and many a song,

Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long.
The rough road then, returning in a round,
Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground.
We have now surely lost much of the delay, and
much of the rapidity.

But to show how little the greatest master of numbers can fix the principles of representative harmony, it will be sufficient to remark that the poet, who tells us, that,

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main:

when he had enjoyed for about thirty years the all the appetite of curiosity for that from which praise of Camilla's lightness of foot, he tried ano-we have a thousand times turned fastidiously away. ther experiment upon sound and time, and produced this memorable triplet;

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full resounding line, The long majestic inarch, and energy divine. Here are the swiftness of the rapid race, and the march of slow-paced majesty, exhibited by the same poet in the same sequence of syllables, except that the exact prosodist will find the line of swiftness by one time longer than that of tardiness. Beauties of this kind are commonly fancied; and, when real, are technical and nugatory, not to be rejected, and not to be solicited.

To the praises which have been accumulated on the Rape of the Lock' by readers of every class, from the critic to the waiting-maid, it is difficult to make any addition. Of that which is universally allowed to be the most attractive of all ludicrous compositions, let it rather be now inquired from what sources the power of pleasing is derived.

The purpose of the poet is, as he tells us, to laugh at "the little unguarded follies of the female sex." It is therefore without justice that Dennis charges the Rape of the Lock,' with the want of a moral, and for that reason sets it below the 'Lutrin,' which exposes the pride and discord of the clergy. Perhaps neither Pope nor Boileau has made the world much better than they found it; but if they had both succeeded, it were easy to tell who would have deserved most from public gratitude. The freaks, and humours, and spleen, and vanity of women, as they embroil families in discord, and fill houses with disquiet, do more to obstruct the happiness of life in a year than the ambition of the clergy in many centuries. It has been well observed, that the misery of man proceeds not from any single rush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.

It is remarked by Dennis likewise that the machinery is superfluous; that, by all the bustle of preturnatural operation, the main event is neither Dr. Warburton, who excelled in critical perspi- hastened nor retarded. To this charge an efficacacity, has remarked, that the preturnatural agents cious answer is not easily made. The Sylphs canare very happily adapted to the purposes of the not be said to help or to oppose; and it must be allowpoem. The Heathen deities can no longer gain at-ed to imply some want of art, that their power has tention: we should have turned away from the con- not been sufficiently intermingled with the action. test between Venus and Diana. The employment Other parts may likewise be charged with want of of allegorical persons always excites conviction of connection: the game at ombre might be spared; its own absurdity: they may produce effects, but but, if the Lady had lost her hair while she was cannot conduct actions: when the phantom is put in intent upon her cards, it might have been inferred motion, it dissolves: thus Discord may raise a mu- that those who are too fond of play will be in dantiny; but Discord cannot conduct a march, nor be-ger of neglecting more important interests. Those siege a town. Pope brought in view a new race perhaps are faults; but what are such faults to much of beings, with powers and passions proportionate excellence! to their operation. The Sylphs and Gnomes act, The Epistle of 'Eloise to Abelard' is one of the at the toilet and the tea-table, what more terrific most happy productions of human wit: the subject and more powerful phantoms perform on the stormy is so judiciously chosen, that it would be difficult, ocean, or the field of battle; they give their proper in turning over the annals of the world, to find anohelp, and do their proper mischief. ther which so many circumstances concur to recom

Pope is said, by an objector, not to have been mend. We regularly interest ourselves most in the inventor of this petty nation; a charge which the fortune of those who most deserve our notice. might with more justice have been brought against Abelard and Eloise were conspicuous in their days the author of the 'Iliad,' who doubtless adopted for eminence of merit. The heart naturally loves the religious system of his country; for what is truth. The adventures and misfortunes of this there, but the names of his agents, which Pope has illustrious pair are known from undisputed history. not invented? Has he not assigned them charac- Their fate does not leave the mind in hopeless deters and operations never heard of before? Has he jection; for they both found quiet and consolation not at least, given them their first poetical ex- in retirement and piety. So new and so affecting istence? If this is not sufficient to denominate his is their story, that it supersedes invention; and work original, nothing original can ever be written. imagination ranges at full liberty without straggling In this work are exhibited, in a very high de- into scenes of fable. gree, the two most engaging powers of an author. The story, thus skilfully adopted, has been diliNew things are made familiar, and familiar things gently improved. Pope has left nothing behind are made new. A race of aerial people, never him, which seems the effect of more studious perheard of before, is presented to us in a manner so severance and laborious revisal. Here is particuclear and easy, that the reader seeks for no further larly observable the curiosa felicitas, a fruitful soil information, but immediately mingles with his new and careful cultivation. Here is no crudeness of acquaintance, adopts their interests, and attends sense, nor asperity of language. their pursuits, loves a Sylph, and detests a Gnome. The sources from which sentiments, which have That familiar things are made new, every pa- so much vigour and efficacy, have been drawn, are ragraph will prove. The subject of the poem is an shown to be the mystic writers, by the learned auevent below the common incidents of common life; thor of the Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope;' nothing real is introduced that is not seen so often a book which teaches how the brow of Criticism as to be no longer regarded; yet the whole detail may be smoothed, and how she may be enabled, of a female day is here brought before us, invested with all her severity, to attract and to delight. with so much art of decoration, that though nothing The train of my disquisition has now conducted is disguised, every thing is striking, and we feel me to that poetical wonder, the translation of the

E

'Iliad,' a performance which no age or nation can of life and the habits of thought. Virgil wrote in pretend to equal. To the Greeks translation was a language of the same general fabric with that of almost unknown; it was totally unknown to the in- Homer, in verses of the same measure, and in an habitants of Greece. They had no recourse to the age nearer to Homer's time by eighteen hundrea Barbarians for poetical beauties, but sought for years: yet he found, even then, the state of the every thing in Homer, where, indeed, there is but world so much altered, and the demand for elegance little tha they might not find. so much increased, that mere nature would be en

There is a time when nations, emerging from bar

The Italians have been very diligent translators; dured no longer; and perhaps in the multitude of but I can hear of no version, unless perhaps Angui- borrowed passages, very few can be shown which lara's Ovid may be excepted, which is read with he had not embellished. eagerness. The Iliad of Salvini every reader may discover to be punctiliously exact; but it seems to barity, and falling into regular subordination, gain be the work of a linguist skilfully pedantic; and his countrymen, the proper judges of its power to please, reject it with disgust.

leisure to grow wise, and feel the shame of ignorance and the craving pain of unsatisfied curiosity. To this hunger of the mind plain sense is grateful; Their predecessors the Romans, have left some that which fills the void removes uneasiness, and specimens of translation behind them, and that em- to be free from pain awhile is pleasure; but repleployment must have had some credit in which tion generates fastidiousness; a saturated intellect Tully and Germanicus engaged; but, unless we sup- soon becomes luxurious, and knowledge finds no pose, what is perhaps true, that the plays of Terence willing reception till it is recommended by artificial were versions of Menander, nothing translated diction. Thus it will be found, in the progress of seems ever to have risen to high reputation. The learning, that in all nations the first writers are French, in the meridian hour of their learning, simple, and that every age improves in elegance.— were very laudably industrious to enrich their own One refinement always makes way for another; language with the wisdom of the ancients; but found and what was expedient to Virgil was necessary to themselves reduced, by whatever necessity, to Pope. turn the Greek and Roman poetry into prose. Whoever could read an author, could translate him. From such rivals little can be feared.

I suppose many readers of the English Iliad,' when they have been touched with some unexpect ed beauty of the lighter kind, have tried to enjoy The chief help of Pope in this audacious under- it in the original, where, alas! it was not to be taking was drawn from the versions of Dryden. found. Homer doubtless owes to his translator Virgil had borrowed much of his imagery from Ho- many Ovidian graces not exactly suitable to his mer, and part of the debt was now paid by his character; but to have added can be no great crime, translator. Pope searched the pages of Dryden for if nothing be taken away. Elegance is surely to be happy combination of heroic diction; but it will not desired, if it be not gained at the expense of dignibe denied, that he added much to what he found. ty. A hero would wish to be loved, as well as to He cultivated our language with so much diligence be reverenced.

and art, that he has left in his 'Homer' a treasure To a thousand cavils one answer is sufficient; the of poetical elegances to posterity. His version purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism may be said to have tuned the English tongue; for which would destroy the power of pleasing must since its appearance, no writer, however deficient be blown aside. Pope wrote for his own age and in other powers, has wanted melody. Such a series his own nation: he knew that it was necessary to of lines, so elaborately corrected, and so sweetly colour the images, and point the sentiments of his modulated, took possession of the public ear: the author; he therefore made him graceful, but lost vulgar were enamoured of the poem, and the learn- him some of his sublimity. ed wondered at the translation.

the pleasure of perusal have not often appeared; the notes of others are read to clear difficulties, those of Pope to vary entertainment.

The copious notes with which the version is acBut in the most general applause discordant voice companied, and by which it is recommended to will always be heard. It has been objected by many readers, though they were undoubtedly writ some, who wished to be numbered among the sons ten to swell the volumes, ought not to pass without of learning, that Pope's version of Homer is not praise; commentaries which attract the reader by Homerical: that it exhibits no resemblance of the original and characteristic manner of the Father of poetry, as it wants his artless grandeur, his unaffected majesty. This cannot be totally denied; It has however been objected, with sufficient reabut it must be remembered that necessitas quod son, that there is in the commentary too much of cogit defendit; "that may be lawfully done which unseasonable levity and affected gaiety; that too cannot be forborne." Time and place will always many appeals are made to the Ladies, and the enforce regard. In estimating this translation, con- ease which is so carefully preserved is sometimes sideration must be had of the nature of our language, the ease of a trifler. Every art has its terms, and the form of our metre, and, above all, the change every kind of instruction its proper style; the which two thousand years have made in the modes gravity of common erities may be tedious, but is less despicable than childish merriment.

* Bentley was one of these. Pope, desirous of his opin- Of the 'Odyssey' nothing remains to be observed: ion of the translation, addressed him thus: "Dr. Bent-the same general praise may be given to both transley, I ordered my bookseller to send you your books, Ilations, and a particular examination of either would hope you received them." Bentley pretended not to un

derstand him, and asked, "Books! books! what books?" require a large volume. The notes were written My Homer," replied Pope, which you did me the by Broome, who endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, honour to subscribe for."—" Oh," said Bentley, "ay, now

I recollect-your translation:-it is a pretty poem, Mr. to imitate his master.

Pope; but you must not call it Homer."

Of the Dunciad' the hint is confessedly taken

from Dryden's Mac Flecnoe;' but the plan is so and place, and wrong place, it had been vain to ask enlarged and diversified as justly to claim the Pope, who probably had never asked himself. praise of an original, and affords the best specimen Having exalted himself into the chair of wisdom, that has yet appeared of personal satire ludicrously he tells us much that every man knows, and much pompous. that he does not know himself; that we see but That the design was moral, whatever the author little, and that the order of the universe is beyond might tell either his readers or himself, I am not our comprehension; an opinion not very uncommon; convinced. The first motive was the desire of re-and that there is a chain of subordinate beings venging the contempt with which Theobald had" from infinite to nothing," of which himself and treated his 'Shakspeare,' and regaining the honour his readers are equally ignorant. But he gives us which he had lost, by crushing his opponent. Theo- one comfort, which without his help he supposes bald was not of bulk enough to fill a poem, and unattainable, in the position " that though we are therefore it was necessary to find other enemies fools, yet God is wise." with other names, at whose expense he might di-] This Essay affords an egregious instance of the vert the public. predominance of genius, the dazzling splendour of In this design there was petulance and malignity imagery, and the seductive powers of cloquence. enough; but I cannot think it very criminal. An Never was penury of knowledge and vulgarity of author places himself uncalled before the tribunal sentiment so happily disguised. The reader feels of Criticism, and solicits fame at the hazard of dis- his mind full, though he learns nothing; and, when grace. Dulness or deformity are not culpable in he meets it in its new array, no longer knows the themselves, but may be very justly reproached talk of his mother and his nurse. When these when they pretend to the honour of wit or the in-wonder-working sounds sink into sense, and the fluence of beauty. If bad writers were to pass doctrine of the Essay, disrobed of its ornaments, is without reprehension, what should restrain them? left to the powers of its naked excellence, what impune diem consumpserit ingens Telephus; and shall we discover? That we are, in comparison apon bad writers only will censure have much with our Creator, very weak and ignorant; that we effect. The satire, which brought Theobald and do not uphold the chain of existence; and that we Moore into contempt, dropped impotently from Bentley, like the javelin of Priam.

could not make one another with more skill than
we are made. We may learn yet more: that the
arts of human life were copied from the instinctive
operations of other animals; that, if the world be
made for man, it may be said that man was made
for geese.
To these profound principles of natural

All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment; he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor. The beauties of this poem are well known; its knowledge are added some moral instructions chief fault is the grossness of its images. Pope and equally new; that self-interest well understood, Swift had an unnatural delight in ideas physically will produce sccial concord; that men are mutual impure, such as every tongue utters with unwil- gainers by mutual benefits; that evil is sometimes lingness, and of which every ear shrinks from the balanced by good; that human advantages are unmention. stable and fallacious, of uncertain duration and But even this fault, offensive as it is, may be for-doubtful effect; that our true honour is, not to have given for the excellence of other passages; such as a great part, but to act it well; that virtue only is the formation and dissolution of Moore, the account our own; and that happiness is always in our power. of the Traveller, the misfortune of the Florist, and Surely a man of no very comprehensive search the crowded thoughts and stately numbers which may venture to say that he has heard all this bedignify the concluding paragraph. fore; but it was never till now recommended by The alterations which have been made in the such a blaze of embellishments, or such sweetness * Dunciad,' not always for the better, require that of melody. The vigorous contraction of some it should be published, as in the present collection, thoughts, the luxuriant amplification of others, the with all its variations. incidental illustrations, and sometimes the dignity,

The Essay on Man' was a work of great labour sometimes the softness of the verses, enchain phiand long consideration, but certainly not the hap-losophy, suspend criticism, and oppress judgment piest of Pope's performances. The subject is per- by overpowering pleasure. haps not very proper for poetry, and the poet was This is true of many paragraphs; yet, if I had not sufficiently master of his subject; metaphysical undertaken to exemplify Pope's felicity of compomorality was to him a new study; he was proud of sition before a rigid critic, I should not select the his acquisitions, and, supposing himself master of Essay on Man;' for it contains more lines unsucgreat secrets, was in haste to teach what he had cessfully laboured, more harshness of diction, more not learned. Thus he tells us, in the first epistle, thoughts imperfectly expressed, more levity withthat from the nature of the Supreme Being may be out elegance, and more heaviness without strength, deduced an order of beings such as mankind, be- than will easily be found in all his other works. cause Infinite Excellence can do only what is best. The Characters of Men and Women' are the He finds out that these beings must be "some- product of diligent speculation upon human life; where;" and that "all the question is, whether much labour has been bestowed upon them, and man be in a wrong place." Surely if, according to Pope very seldom laboured in vain. That his exthe poet's Leibnitian reasoning, we may infer that cellence may be properly estimated, I recommend man ought to be, only because he is, we may allow a comparison of his Characters of Women,' with •hat his place is the right place, because he has it. Boileau's Satire; it will then be seen with how Supreme Wisdom is not less infallible in disposing much more perspicacity female nature is investihan in creating. But what is meant by somewhere gated, and female excellence selected; and he