Pope? Pope lived in the public eye from his youth upwards; he had all the dunces of his own time for his enemies, and, I am sorry to say, some, who have not the apology of dulness for detraction, since his death; and yet to what do all their accumulated hints and charges amount?-to an equivocal liaison with Martha Blount, which might arise as much from his infirmities as from his passions; to a hopeless flirtation with Lady Mary W. Montagu; to a story of Cibber's; and to two or three coarse passages in his works. Who could come forth clearer from an invidious inquest on a life of fiftysix years? Why are we to be officiously reminded of such passages in his letters, provided that they exist. Is Mr Bowles aware to what such rummaging among <«<letters» and «< stories» might lead? I have myself seen a collection of letters of another eminent, nay, preeminent, deceased poet, so abominably gross, and elaborately coarse, that I do not believe that they could be paralleled in our language. What is more strange, is, that some of these are couched as postscripts to his serious and sentimental letters, to which are tacked either a piece of prose, or some verses, of the most hyperbolical indecency. He himself says, that if «< obscenity (using a much coarser word) be the sin against the Holy Ghost, he most certainly cannot be saved.» These letters are in existence, and have been seen by many besides myself; but would his editor have been <«< candid» in even alluding to them? Nothing would have even provoked me, an indifferent spectator, to allude to them, but this further attempt at the depreiation of Pope.

What should we say to an editor of Addison, who cited the following passage from Walpole's letters to George Montagu? «Dr Young has published a new book, etc. Mr Addison sent for the young Earl of Warwick, as he was dying, to show him in what peace a Christian could die; unluckily he died of brandy: nothing makes a Christian die in peace like being maudlin! but don't say this in Gath where you are.» Suppose the editor introduced it with this preface: «One circumstance is mentioned by Horace Walpole, which, if true, was indeed flagitious. Walpole informs Montagu that Addison sent for the young Earl of Warwick, when dying, to show him in what peace a Christian could die; but unluckily he died drunk, etc. etc.»> Now, although there might occur on the subsequent, or on the same page, a faint show of disbelief, seasoned with the expression of << the same candour» (the same exactly as throughout the book), I should say that this editor was either foolish or false to his trust; such a story ought not to have been admitted, except for one brief mark of crushing indignation, unless it were completely proved. Why the words « if true?» that «<if» is not a peace-maker. Why talk of << Cibber's testimony» to his licentiousness; to what does this amount? that Pope when very young was once decoyed by some nobleman and the player to a house of carnal recreation. Mr Bowles was not always a clergyman; and when he was a very young man, was he never seduced into as much? If I were in the humour for story-telling, and relating little anecdotes, I could tell a much better story of Mr Bowles than Cibber's, up on much better authority, viz. that of Mr Bowles him

self.

It was not related by him in my presence, but in that of a third person, whom Mr Bowles names oftener than once in the course of his replies. This gentleman related it to me as a humorous and witty anecdote; and so it was, whatever its other characteristics might be. But should I, for a youthful frolic, brand Mr Bowles with a «libertine sort of love,» or with <«< licentiousness?» is he the less now a pious or a good man, for not having always been a priest? No such thing; I am willing to believe him a good man, almost as good a man as Pope, but no better.

"

The truth is, that in these days the grand primum mobile» of England is cant; cant political, cant poetical, cant religious, cant moral; but always cant, multiplied through all the varieties of life. It is the fashion, and while it lasts will be too powerful for those who can only exist by taking the tone of the time. I say cant, because it is a thing of words, without the smallest influence upon human actions; the English being no wiser, no better, and much poorer, and more divided amongst themselves, as well as far less moral, than they were before the prevalence of this verbal decorum. This hysterical horror of poor Pope's not very well ascertained, and never fully proved amours (for even Cibber owns that he prevented the somewhat perilous adventure in which Pope was embarking), sounds very virtuous in a controversial pamphlet; but all men of the world who know what life is, or at least what it was to them in their youth, must laugh at such a ludicrous foundation of the charge of « a libertine sort of love; while the more serious will look upon those who bring

forward such charges upon an insulated fact, as fanatics or hypocrites, perhaps both. The two are sometimes compounded in a happy mixture.

Mr Octavius Gilchrist speaks rather irreverently of a << second tumbler of hot white-wine negus.>> What does he mean? Is there any harm in negus? or is it the worse for being hot? or does Mr Bowles drink negus? I had a better opinion of him. I hoped that whatever wine he drank was neat; or at least, that like the ordinary in Jonathan Wild, «he preferred punch, the rather as there was nothing against it in scripture.>> I should be sorry to believe that Mr Bowles was fond of negus; it is such a «‹ candid » liquor, so like a wishywashy compromise between the passion for wine and the propriety of water. But different writers have divers tastes. Judge Blackstone composed his «< Coinmentaries>> (he was a poet too in his youth) with a bottle of port before him. Addison's conversation was not good for much till he had taken a similar dose. Perhaps the prescription of these two great men was not inferior to the very different one of a soi-disant poet of this day, who, after wandering amongst the hills, returns, goes to bed, and dictates his verses, being fed by a bystander with bread and butter during the opera

tion.

I now come to Mr Bowles's «invariable principles of poetry.» These Mr Bowles and some of his correspondents pronounce « unanswerable;» and they are << unanswered,» at least by Campbell, who seems to have been astounded by the title. The sultan of the time being, offered to ally himself to a king of France, because

<«he hated the word league;» which proves that the Padishan understood French. Mr Campbell has no need of my alliance, nor shall I presume to offer it; but I do hate that word « invariable.» What is there of human, be it poetry, philosophy, wit, wisdom, science, power, glory, mind, matter, life, or death, which is «< invariable?» Of course I put things divine out of the question. Of all arrogant baptisms of a book, this title to a pamphlet appears the most complacently conceited. It is Mr Campbell's part to answer the contents of this performance, and especially to vindicate his own «Ship,» which Mr Bowles most triumphantly proclaims to have struck to his very first fire.

Quoth he, there was a Ship;

Now let me go, thou gray-hair'd loon,

Or my staff shall make thee skip..

It is no affair of mine, but having once begun (certainly not by my own wish, but called upon by the frequent recurrence to my name in the pamphlets), I am like an Irishman in a <«<row,» « any body's customer.»> therefore say a word or two on the << Ship:>>

༥

I shall

Mr Bowles asserts that Campbell's «Ship of the Line,>> derives all its poetry not from «art,» but from «nature.» << Take away the waves, the winds, the sun, etc. etc. one will become a stripe of blue bunting; and the other a piece of coarse canvas on three tall poles.» Very true; take away the << waves,» « the winds,» and there will be no ship at all, not only for poetical, but for any other purpose; and take away « the sun,» and we must read Mr Bowles's pamphlet by candle-light. But the «poetry» of the «Ship» does not depend on «the waves,>>