He tells us that he sought the solace of poesy to beguile his hours of physical suffering. At the age of sixteen he wrote his Pastorals; and two or three years later, his Messiah, and Essay on Criticism. Pope's bodily infirmity caused him to be at times very irascible; and on one occasion his long-tried friend, Bishop Atterbury, in pleasantry, described the poet as Mens curva in corpore curvo.' His Essay on Man is replete with nervous and picturesque passages ;' it is, however, occasionally tinctured with the heresies of his friend Bolingbroke. Subjoined are a few fine passages from his famous Essay on Man: Hope humbly then-with trembling pinions soar; Yet simple nature to his hope has given Where slaves once more their native land behold, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; In justice to the poet, however, we ought to cite his noble couplet on his friend : "How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour! How shined his soul unconquered in the Tower!" · What a grand conception of his is this closing passage:- That, changed through all, and yet in all the same: Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent; Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear : All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All partial evil, universal good. The Rape of the Lock, which Johnson styles "the most airy, ingenious, and delightful of all Pope's compositions," was occasioned by a frolic of gallantry. Here are two passages; one portraying the mysteries of the toilet, and the other the heroine of the story: And now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed, This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white. Now awful beauty puts on all its arms; Fair nymphs and well-dressed youths around her shone, On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. In equal curls, and well conspired to deck And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair. Th' adventurous baron the bright locks admired; The poetry of Pope has been compared to mosaic work,-full of. thoughts familiar to most minds, but draped in elegant metaphor. There is an absence of passion and emotion in his writings; he seldom excites a smile, and as seldom touches the sympathies by pathos. His " His "mellifluence," as Johnson expresses it, has the defect of monotony; but he possessed the faculty of making "sound an echo to the sense" in an eminent degree. Witness these lines : Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. PARNELL'S Hermit, familiar to most readers, and which Pope pronounced "very good," commences thus : Far in a wild, unknown to public view, From youth to age a reverend hermit grew ; |