The fierce hoftilities of Dennis against Pope, began from fome paffages in this Effay, which this redoubted critic applied to himself, and never forgave; but purfued our Author, through life, in bitter invectives against every work he gradually published. Old Mr. Lewis, the bookfeller in Ruffel-ftreet, who printed the first edition of this Effay in quarto, without Pope's name, informed me, that it lay many days in his fhop, unnoticed and unread; and that, piqued with this neglect, the Author came one day, and packed up and directed twenty copies to several great men; among whom he could recollect none but Lord Lansdowne and the Duke of Buckingham; and that in confequence of these presents, and his name being known, the book began to be called for. This Effay, it is faid, was first written in profe, according to the precept of Vida, in his firft book, and the practice of Racine, who was accuftomed to draw out in plain profe, not only the fubject of each of the five acts, but of every fcene and every fpeech, that he might fee the conduct and coherence of the whole at one view, and would then fay, "My Tragedy is "finifhed."

The Meffiah appeared firft in the Spectator, 1712, with a warm recommendation by Steele. Nothing can be added to the juft and univerfal approbation with which it was received and read. It raised the highest expectations of what the Author was capable of performing.

He

He was not fo happy in his Ode* on St. Cecilia's Day; which, in respect both of fubject and execution, is fo manifestly inferior to that unrivalled one of his mas ter, Dryden; but which, Dr. Johnson, by a strange perverfity of judgment, pronounces to contain nothing equal to the first bombaft ftanza of his Ode on Killegrew. Pope's Ode, many years after it was written, was set to mufic by Dr. Greene, as were the two Choruffes to the tragedy of Brutus, by Bononcini, part of which were written by the Duke of Buckingham. Mr. Galliard fet to mufic the Chorus of Julius Cafar, entirely written by His Grace. This appears from a letter now before me, from Mr. Galliard to Mr. Duncombe. ·

It was at Steele's defire† that he wrote that beautiful little Ode, The Dying Chriftian to his Soul, to be set to mufic. But it was not quite candid and open in our Author to tell Steele, that he would fee he had not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment

* Irregular Odes, of which this is one, seem now to be univerfally exploded: Dr. Brown has, however, remarked, "that the return of the fame measure, in the Strophe, Antistrophe, and Epode, of the ancient Greek Ode, was the natural consequence of its union with the Dance. But this union being irrecoverably loft, the unvaried measure of the Ode becomes, at beft, an unmeaning thing; and indeed is an abfurd one, as it deprives the Poet of that variety of measure, which often gives a great energy to the compofition, by the incidental and fudden intervention of an abrupt or lengthened verfification."

In general, our Author's subjects, which is a happy circumftance for a poet, were chofen by himself.

fragment of Sappho in his head; and totally to fuppress the name of Flatman, whofe Ode he not only imitated, but copied fome lines of it verbatim.

If we knew the hiftory of that most unfortunate Lady, who is the subject of the sweet and pathetic Elegy, and could relate it at large, it might give us an opportunity of enlivening thefe Memoirs, with what the Life of a retired Poet muft unavoidably want, fome interesting event. No fuch does the Life of our Author afford, who was in no public ftation nor employment, as were Milton, Prior, and Addison; and who spent most of his time among his papers and books. All that can now be learnt of this Lady, is to be found in the notes on this Elegy; and is therefore not repeated in this place. A very different fcene, and a Lady in another fort of fituation, appeared, in his next poem, where all was gaiety and gallantry. Lord Petre, in a frolic, carried rather beyond the bounds of delicacy and good-breeding, having cut off a favourite lock of Mrs. Arabella Fermor's hair, his rudeness, as it was called, was refented, and occafioned a ferious rupture betwixt the two families. Mr. Caryl, a friend to both parties, defired Mr. Pope to write a piece of raillery on this inviting fubject, which might appease their refentment. The Rape of the Lock, therefore, that moft delicious poem, in which SATIRE wears the ceftus of VENUS, was produced in a fortnight, and appeared, 1711, in only two cantos, in a Mifcellany of Lintot. Finding it

received

received with juft and universal applaufe, he in the next year enlarged it into five cantos; and, by the happiest art and judgment imaginable, enriched it with the beautiful machinery of the Sylphs, a set of invisible beings whom he accidentally faw mentioned, as conftant attendants, and as interested agents, in the affairs of the Ladies, not only in the Comte de Gabalis, but also in fome of Madame de Sevigné's Letters. Into what a mass of exquifite poetry has he raised and expanded fo flight a hint! and placed the Rape of the Lock, by this happy insertion and addition, above all other Mock Heroic Poems whatever ! Addison, to whom he communicated his intention of introducing this new fpecies of machinery, did not certainly conceive the felicity and the propriety with which it would be executed; and, for that reason, and not from envy and jealousy, may be candidly fuppofed to have diffuaded him from the attempt. It would have been as unfortunate for him to have followed the advice of Addison on this occafion, as it would have been for La Fontaine and Boileau to have listened to Patru, when he perfuaded the one not to attempt to write his Fables, and the other his Art of Poetry. Dennis, fome years after, attacked this invulnerable compofition, with equal impotence and ill-nature, endeavouring to fhew that the intertexture of the machinery was fuperfluous. It is remarkable that he had introduced guardian fpirits as attendants on the fa

vourites

vourites of Heaven, in his Temple of Fame, as he informs Steele in a letter on this fubject; which fpirits he afterwards judiciously omitted. It appears by this letter to Steele, dated November 16, 1712, that he first communicated to him at that time, The Temple of Fame, though he had written it two years before. Steele affures him, it contained "a thousand thou"fand beauties;" many of which are specified in the notes of this edition, and therefore need not be here repeated. The defcriptive powers of Pope are much more visible and ftrong in this poem, than in the next that is to be mentioned in the order of time; the Windfor Foreft*; the first part of which was written, indeed, 1704, but the whole was not finished and published till 1713: a poem evidently written in imitation of Cooper's Hill, and as evidently fuperior to it. Denham is a writer that has been extolled far beyond his merits. Nothing can be colder and more profaïc, for inftance, than the manner in which he has spoken of the diftant profpect of London and St. Paul's, and also of Edward the Third; both fine subjects for poetry. The Claremont of Garth was also another imitation of Cooper's Hill, and unworthy the Author of the Difpenfary; it contains an unnatural mixture of wit, pleasantry, and fatire, with rural defcription. But Thomson has carried defcriptive poetry

to

* I have a peculiar pleasure in mentioning another excellent defcriptive piece, The Needwood Forest of Mr. Mundy.