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her, to find out the real cause of her indifference. Her correspondence with her lover was soon discovered, and when urged upon that topic, she had too much truth and honour to deny it. The uncle, finding that she would make no efforts to disengage her affection, after a little time forced her abroad, where she was received with a ceremony due to her quality, but restricted from the conversation of every one but the spies of this severe guardian, so that it was impossible for her lover even to have a letter delivered into her hands. She languished in this place a considerable time, bore an infinite deal of sickness, and was overwhelmed with the profoundest sorrow. Nature being wearied out with continual distress, and being driven at last to despair, the unfortunate lady, as Mr. Pope justly calls her, put an end to her own life, having bribed a maid-servant to procure her a sword. She was found upon the ground weltering in her blood. The severity of the laws of the place, where this fair unfortunate perished, denied her christian burial, and she was interred without solemnity, or even any attendants to perform the last offices of the dead, except some young people of the neighbourhood, who saw her put into common ground, and strewed the grave with flowers.

The poet, in the elegy, takes occasion to mingle with the tears of sorrow, just reproaches upon her cruel uncle, who drove her to this violation.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou base betrayer of a brother's blood!
See on those ruby lips the trembling breath,
Those cheeks now fading at the blast of death;
Lifeless the breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.

The conclusion of this elegy is irresistibly affecting.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, Which once had beauty, titles, wealth and fame; How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee;

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

No poem of our author's more deservedly obtained him reputation than his Essay on Criticism. Mr. Addison, in his Spectator, No. 259, has celebrated it with such profuse terms of admiration, that it is really astonishing to find the same man endeavouring afterwards to diminish that fame he had contributed to raise so high.

"The Art of Criticism," says he, "which was pub "lished some months ago, is a master-piece in its

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"kind.

The observations follow one another, like "those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that me“thodical regularity which would have been requisite "in a prose writer. They are some of them uncom66 mon, but such as the reader must assent to when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity with which they are delivered. As for those “which are the most known, and the most received,

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they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustra"ted with such apt allusions, that they have in them "all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who

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was before acquainted with them, still more con"vinced of their truth and solidity. And here give 66 me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so "well enlarged upon in the preface to his works, that "wit and fine writing do not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that 66 are known an agreeable turn. It is impossible for

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us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make "observations in criticism, morality, or any art and "science, which have not been touched upon by "others. We have little else left us but to represent "the common sense of mankind in more strong, more "beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader "examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but "few precepts in it which he may not meet with in "Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by

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"all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing and applying them, not his invention of "them, is what we are chiefly to admire.

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Longinus, in his Reflections, has given us the "same kind of sublime which he observes in the seve

"ral passages which occasioned them. I cannot but "take notice that our English author has, after the

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same manner, exemplified several of his precepts "in the very precepts themselves." He then produces some instances of a particular kind of beauty in the numbers, and concludes with saying, "That we "have three poems in our tongue of the same nature, "and each a master-piece in its kind; the Essay on "Translated Verse, the Essay on the Art of Poetry, "and the Essay on Criticism."

Addison and Pope were now at the head of poetry and criticism; and both in such a state of elevation, that, like the two rivals in the Roman state, one could no longer bear an equal, nor the other a superior. Of the gradual abatement of kindness between friends, the beginning is often scarcely discernible by themselves, and the process is continued by petty provocations, and incivilities sometimes peevishly returned, and sometimes contemptuously neglected, which would escape all attention but that of pride, and drop from any memory but that of resentment. That the quarrel of these two wits should be minutely deduced

is not to be expected; however, we shall mention such circumstances as are the most material.

The author of Mist's Journal positively asserts, "that Mr. Addison raised Pope from obscurity, ob"tained him the acquaintance and friendship of "the whole body of our nobility, and transferred his "powerful influence with those great men to this "rising bard, who frequently levied, by that means, "unusual contributions on the public."

When this charge of ingratitude and dishonour was published against Mr. Pope, to acquit himself of it, he called upon any nobleman whose friendship, or any one gentleman whose subscription, Mr. Addison had procured to our author, to stand forth and declare it, that truth might appear. But the whole libel was proved a malicious story by many persons of distinction, who, several years before Mr. Addison's decease, approved those verses denominated a libel, but which were, it is said, a friendly rebuke, sent privately in our author's own hand, to Mr. Addison himself, and never made public till by Curl, in his Miscellanies, 12mo. 1727. The lines, indeed, are elegantly satirical, and, in the opinion of many unprejudiced judges, who had opportunities of knowing the character of Mr. Addison, are no ill representation of him. Speaking of the poetical triflers of the times, who had declared against him, he makes a sudden transition to Addison.

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