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(says Vigneul Marville) solicited for this absolution, and Peter de Clugny willingly granted it on what it could be founded, I leave to our learned theologists to determine. In certain

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ages, opinions have prevailed, for which no solid reason can be given." When Eloisa died in 1163, she was interred by the side of her beloved husband. I must not forget to mention, for the sake of those who are fond of modern miracles, that when she was put into the grave, Abelard stretched out his arms to receive her, and closely embraced her.

Eloisa, at the conclusion of the EPISTLE to which we are now arrived, is judiciously represented as gradually settling into a tranquillity of mind, and seemingly reconciled to her fate. She can bear to speak of their being buried together, without violent emotions. Two lovers are introduced as visiting their celebrated tombs, and the behaviour of these strangers is finely imagined :

If ever chance two wand'ring lovers brings,
To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs,

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O'er the pale marble shall they join their heads,
And drink the falling tears each other sheds ;
Then sadly say, with mutual pity mov'd,
Oh! may we never love as these have lov'd!

The poet adds, still farther, what impressions a view of their sepulchre would make even on a spectator less interested than these two lovers ; and how it could affect his mind, even in the midst of the most solemn acts of religion:

From the full quire when loud Hosannas rise,*
And swell the pomp of dreadful sacrifice,
Amid that scene, if some relenting eye

Glance on the stone where our cold relics lie,
Devotion's self shall steal a thought from heav'n,
One human tear shall drop-and be forgiven!

With this last line, at first it appears, that the poem should have ended; for the eight additional verses,† concerning some poet that haply might arise

* Ver. 353.

And sure if fate some future bard shall join
In sad similitude of grief to mine,
Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more;
Such if there be, who loves so long, so well,
Let him our sad, our tender story tell!
The well-sung woes will sooth my pensive ghost;
He best can paint 'em, who can feel 'em most.

arise to sing their misfortune, are languid and flat, and diminish the pathos of the foregoing sentiments. They might stand, it should seem, for the conclusion of almost any story, were we not informed, that they were added by the Poet in allusion to his own case, and the state of his own mind. For I am well informed, that what determined him in the choice of the subject of this epistle, was the retreat of that lady into a nunnery, whose death he had lately so pathetically lamented in a foregoing Elegy, and for whom he had conceived a violent passion. She was first beloved by a nobleman,* an intimate friend of POPE, and, on his deserting her, retired into France; when, before she had made her last vows in the convent to which she had retreated, she put an end to her unfortunate life. The recollection of this circumstance will add a beauty and a pathos to many passages in the poem, and will confirm the doctrine delivered above, concerning the choice of subject.

This EPISTLE is, on the whole, one of the most highly finished, and certainly the most interesting,

The Duke of Buckingham-Sheffield.

teresting, of the pieces of our author; and, to

gether with the ELEGY to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, is the only instance of the Pathetic POPE has given us. I think one may venture to remark, that the reputation of POPE, as a Poet, among posterity, will be principally owing to his WINDSOR FOREST, his RAPE OF THE LOCK, and his ELOISA TO ABELARD; whilst the facts and characters alluded to and exposed in his later writings, will be forgotten and unknown, and their poignancy and propriety little relished. For WIT and SATIRE are transitory and perishable, but NATURE and PASSION are eternal.

SECTION

SECTION VII.

OF THE TEMPLE OF FAME, FROM CHAUCER.

FEW disquisitions are more amusing, or per

haps more instructive, than those which relate to the rise and gradual increase of literature in any kingdom: And among the various species of literature, the origin and progress of poetry, however shallow reasoners may despise it, is a subject of no small utility. For the manners and customs, the different ways of thinking and of living, the favourite passions, pursuits, and pleasures, of men, appear in no writings so strongly marked, as in the works of the poets in their respective ages; so that in these compositions, the historian, the moralist, the politician, and the philosopher, may each of them meet with abundant matter for reflection and observation.

Poetry

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