"plexed; you have now made it the contrary, and, "I think, it is the cleareft and the cleaneft of all you have wrote. Don't you think you have be❝ftowed too many lines on the old Letcher? The " instance itself is but ordinary, and I think should "be fhortened or changed. Thank you; and be« lieve me to be most fincerely yours, "COBHAM." "Stowe, Nov. 8, 1733. "I LIKE your Letcher better now 'tis fhorter; and the Glutton is a very good Epigram. But they "are both appetites, that from nature we indulge, as well for her ends as our pleasure. A Cardinal, "in his way of pleasure, would have been a better "instance. What do you think of an old Lady "dreffing her filver locks with pink, and ordering "her coffin to be lined with white quilted fattin, with gold fringes? Or Counsellor Vernon, retiring to enjoy himself with five thousand a year which he had got, and returning back to Chancery to get a little more, when he could not speak fo loud as "to be heard? or a Judge turned out coming again ❝to the bar?--I mean that a paffion or habit, that "has not a natural foundation, falls in better with your fubject, than any of our natural wants; which " in fome degree we cannot avoid pursuing to the "last; and if a man has spirits or appetite enough "to take a bit of either kind at parting, you may " condemn " condemn him, but you would be proud to imitate << him. cr "I congratulate you upon the fine weather. 'Tis "a ftrange thing that people of condition, and men "of parts, must enjoy it in common with the rest of "the world. But now I think on't, their pursuits "are generally after points of fo great importance, "that they do not enjoy it at all. I won't trouble you any longer, but with the affurance of what I hope you are perfectly convinced of, that I am "moft fincerely yours, "COBHAM." The first fpecimen of our Author's happy and judicious Imitations of Horace, was given, 1733, folio, with this title, "The First Satire of the Second "Book of Horace, imitated in a Dialogue between "Alexander Pope of Twickenham, in Comm. "Midd. Efq, on the one part, and his learned "Council on the other." A minute detail of the beauties and blemishes of this Imitation is given in the fucceeding Notes of this Edition. And I will here only obferve, that, perhaps, it may deserve confideration, whether the best manner of imitating the Satires and Epiftles of Horace, which approach fo near to comedy and to common converfation, would not be to adopt the familiar blank verfe, which my lamented friend, Mr. Colman, has fo very fuccefsfully employed in his Terence; a fort of verse no more more refembling that of Milton, than the Hexameters of Homer refemble thofe of Theocritus. I cannot forbear adding, that Mr. Chriftopher Pitt has imitated the Seventh Satire of Horace, Book II. the Nineteenth Epiftle of Book II. the Fourth Epistle, Book I. and the Tenth and Eighteenth of Book I. with a freedom and a facility of verfification truly Horatian. A death of fuch confequence as that of a fond mother to fo affectionate a fon as was our Author, must not be omitted to be here mentioned; which hap pened this year. Nothing can be more interesting and affecting than the request he made to his friend Mr. Richardfon, the painter, to come to Twicken, ham, and take a sketch of his mother just after she was dead, June 20, 1733: "It would afford (fays "he) the fineft image of a Saint expired, that ever "painting drew." It was in the year 1734, that the fine Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot was, according to the first edition in folio, first printed. Afterwards it underwent two material alterations; it was intitled, improperly and fantastically enough, A Prologue to the Satires; and its form was changed into that of a Dialogue, in which a man poffeffed of fo much wit, humour, literature, fcience, and taste, as was Arbuthnot, makes a very indifferent figure, and fays little indeed. Pope in this Epiftle, for fo I fhall continue to call it, has fucceeded in what Cowley calls a nice and difficult task, to fpeak of himself with dignity and grace. It is evident he had Boileau in his eye, who has given an interesting picture of his father, family, and fortunes, and even of his own perfon and manners. Libre dans fes discours, mais pourtant toujours fage, EPITRE X. 89. But no paffage in Boileau equals the pathetic tenderness with which our Author speaks of his attention to his aged mother. This was fucceeded, 1735, by the Epiftle on the Characters of Women, in an Advertisement to which, he afferted, but in truth was not believed, that no one character was drawn from the life. Here again he may claim a manifeft fuperiority over the Tenth Satire of Boileau, on the fame fubject: a subject that had been handled by Young, eight years before, and ́ though not indeed in a style so close, correct, and nervous as that of our Author, but with many playful and truly Horatian ftrokes of a delicate raillery and ridicule, gently touching the foibles of the sex, with a more cautious and tender hand. As general and vague criticism is useless, I shall venture to hint, that the portraits in Young, of Zantippe; of Delia, the chariot-driver; of Daphne, the critic; of Lemira, the fick lady; of the Female Philofopher; of the Theologift; of the Languid Lady; of Thaleftris, the fwearer; of Lyce, the old beauty; of Alicia, the floven; Roven; of the Female Atheift; and the Female Gamefter; are all of them drawn with truth and spirit, and will not fuffer by being compared with the portraits exhibited by Pope. And the Introductions to these Satires, particularly the Address to the Incomparable Lady Betty Germain, are, perhaps, as elegant and well-turned as any thing in our language. After reading these Pieces, fo full of a knowledge of the world, and difcriminations of characters, one is totally at a loss to know what Pope could mean by faying, that though Young was a man of genius, yet that he wanted common sense. There was always a friendship betwixt our Author and Young; though Harte affured me, that Pope took amifs the preffing Letter Young confcientiously. wrote to him; which Letter Harte had feen, urging Pope to write something on the fide of Revelation, in order to take off the impreffions of thofe doctrines which the Effay on Man seemed to convey. To this Young alludes in the conclufion of his First Night Thoughts, a work in which, fays Johnson, " he has " exhibited a very wide difplay of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and ftriking al❝lufions, a wilderness of thought, in which the "fertility of fancy fcatters flowers of every hue and every odour. In the whole, there is a magnificence, ❝ like that ascribed to Chinese Plantations; the mag❝nificence of vaft extent, and endless diverfity." This eloquent eulogium makes amends for the un friendly |