harsh and indelicate fatire in this epiftle *; but as it is a much more pleafing office to display beauties, than to detect blemishes, let it fuffice to have made these few facrifices to impartiality, and let us turn our eyes to the following exquifite portrait of prudence without fympathy. "Yet Cloe fure was form'd without a spot."-"Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot, "With ev'ry pleafing, ev'ry prudent part, "Say, what can Cloe want?-She wants a "Heart. "She speaks, behaves, and acts just as the "ought; "But never, never, reach'd one gen'rous Thought. "Virtue fhe finds too painful an endeavour, "Content to dwell in Decencies for ever. "So very reasonable, fo unmov'd, "As never yet, to love, or to be lov'd. "She, while her Lover pants upon her breaft, "Can mark the figures on an Indian cheft: "Or when the fees her Friend in deep despair, "Obferves how much a Chintz exceeds Mo"hair." *We here and there too meet with inftances of faulty verfification. For inftance, fpeaking of the difficulty of female inconfiftencies, he says— "How should equal colours do the knack? The fimile here is extremely juft and beautiful: but the phrase of do the knack is low, and unworthy the pen of fo great a genius. This is This is inimitably characteristical. penned with the true ease and spirit of polite fatire. This is, ridentem dicere verum. Our author proceeds with great accuracy to remark, that though the particular characters of women are, as he has fhewn, more various than that of men, yet the general characteristic of the fofter sex is more uniform, as to the ruling paffion. "In Men, we various Ruling Paffions find; "In Women, two almoft divide the kind; "Thofe, only fix'd, they first or last obey, "The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway." 66 Hence, his friend and commentator obferves with his wonted acutenefs, we see the perpetual neceffity that women lie under of disguising their ruling paffion, which is not the cafe in men. Now the variety of arts employed to this purpose, must needs draw them into infinite contradictions, even in those actions from whence their general and obvious character is denominated. Having established thefe, as the two ruling paffions in the fex, the poet goes on to fhew how unfuccefsful they are in the pursuit of these objects of their defires, which he finely illuftrates: first, as to Power---Having observed, in the preceding line, that every lady would be queen for life, he adds "Yet mark the fate of a whole Sex of Queens! "Pow'r all their end, but Beauty all the means: "In Youth they conquer, with fo wild a rage, "As leaves them scarce a fubject in their Age: "For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam; "No thought of peace or happiness at home. "But Wisdom's triumph is well-tim'd Re"treat, "As hard a fcience to the Fair as Great! "Beauties, like Tyrants, old and friendless grown, "Yet hate repofe, and dread to be alone, "Worn out in public, weary ev'ry eye, "Nor leave one figh behind them when they "die." Good fenfe, ftrong fatire, and fine poetry are happily combined in this paffage: there is great merit likewife in the following fimile, which illuftrates the miferable fate which attends the fex in their unfuccefsful purfuit of Pleafure. "Pleasures the fex, as children Birds, pursue, "Still out of reach, but never out of view; "Sure, if they catch, to fpoil the Toy at "moft, "To covet flying, and regret when loft *.” Mr. * Beautiful, however, as this fimile is, impartiality obliges me to own that I give the preference to Dr. Young's on the fame fubject, which he thus illuftrates "Pleafures Mr. POPE having expofed the fruitless purfuit of the two ruling paffions which govern the fex, breaks out into the following pathetic lamentation, which is infinitely affecting. "See how the World its Veterans rewards! "A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards; "Fair to no purpose, artful to no end, "Young without Lovers, old without a Friend; "A Fop their Paffion, but their Prize a Sot, "Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot!" Alas! there is not a public affembly, or a private rout, but what affords too many melancholy examples of this moving and incomparable defcription. The poet, towards the conclufion of the effay, turns from the feverity of fatire, to friendly admonition, in the following beautiful apoftrophe. "Ah! Friend! to dazzle let the Vain defign; "To raife the Thought, and touch the Heart "be thine! "Pleasures are few, and fewer we, enjoy, "If feiz'd at laft, compute your mighty gains, This fimile is finely conceived, and every word is happily chofen to fuftain the comparifon, which moft aptly illuftrates the fugacious nature of pleasure, our vain efforts to feize it, and its baneful effects, when feized. "That "That Charm shall grow, while what fatigues "the Ring, "Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded "thing: "So when the Sun's broad beam has tir'd "the fight, "All mild afcends the Moon's more fober light, "Serene in Virgin Modefty fhe fhines, “And unobserv'd the glaring Orb declines." Nothing can be more poetical than this imagery, nor more artfully conducted. Every epithet is nicely appropriated to heighten the figure, and embellish the verse *. * Though nothing can be more delightful to the imagination, than the above paffage in Mr. POPE, yet the following lines of Dr. Young's, perhaps, will be thought to approach nearer to the heart. "Ah! why fo vain, tho' blooming in thy fpring, The reader will obferve, that there is the fame moral turn of fentiment, and that in fact the fame precept is inculcated in both. But in Mr. POPE, the fplendor of the imagery fo dazzles the imagination, that it diverts the precept from the heart. |