nonsensical cry of those who have written with not half the candour of himself.

I cannot dismiss the subject without one more observation. It has turned out, that, instead of my being a monster of envy and malice, so cautious have I been in bringing charges against Pope, that every accusation which has been examined has, upon discussion, been found to make the more against him. Respecting the bribe, said to be received for suppressing the character of Atossa, for the reason given, I think it due to justice utterly to reject the story; but having been thus pressed, I shall not now conceal, that if a thought could be entertained for a moment that it was true, the idea would be corroborated by the fact, that the character did not appear till after the death of the Duchess of Marlborough. That this character was admitted into the poem when first written may be presumed, because Pope himself says there were "chasms," which could only apply to characters for some particular reasons left out. Nevertheless, I do not believe a story so degrading to him, upon such evidence.

I am much obliged to Mr. Roscoe for not imputing to me fraudulent and deliberate misrepresentations, (of which I am incapable,) or malignant feelings, the existence of which I could not have believed, but from the treatment which I have experienced. My coarsest antagonist is in the

grave; so is every feeling of unkindness. I am sorry that I have ever spoken disrespectfully of Mr. D'Israeli, which was only done under a sense of provocation which I did not deserve. And here I hope to end all that I shall ever have to say on a subject, of which the literary public may well be tired, as I am most heartily tired myself-but I cannot go down to the grave without a wish to have my cause, as far as I am able to effect it," reported " right."

Most assuredly, if I had had any opportunity of correcting some of my notes, or of omitting others, I should ingenuously and manfully have acknowledged those errors or mistakes,

may

Quas aut incuria fudit,

"Aut humana parùm cavit natura."

No opportunity has ever been given me, of retracting any position which subsequent reflection have convinced me was untenable; no courtesy conceded, of explaining, enforcing, or omitting, one iota of what I had written. Every thing that I have said has been submitted to the severest examination that any literary work has, perhaps, ever experienced; and what is the result? I verily believe in my favour-proving that I had no motive, but a regard to truth, in pointing out those qualities, which, upon the maturest consideration, appeared to mark Pope's character as a man,

As a poet, I sought not to depreciate, but to discriminate, and assign to him his proper rank and station in his art, among English poets; below Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton, in the highest order of imaginative or impassioned poetry; but above Dryden, Lucretius, and Horace, in moral and satirical. Inferior to Dryden in lyric sublimity; equal to him in painting characters from real life, (such as are so powerfully delineated in Absalom and Achitophel;) but superior to him in passion-for what ever equalled, or ever will approach, in its kind, the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard? In consequence of the exquisite pathos of this epistle, I have assigned Pope a poetical rank far above Ovid. I have placed him above Horace, in consequence of the perfect finish of his satires and moral poems; but in descriptive poetry, such as Windsor Forest, beneath Cowper or Thomson. I refer to my edition of his Works to prove that I have kept this discrimination essentially in my view.

As to his character as a man, I believe all the elaborate arguments that have been advanced will not, with all his acknowledged excellencies, go very far in shewing that he was neither artful, irritable, of inordinate self-love, affected, nor indecent; and I conclude all that I have been again forced to say, by expressing my decided conviction, that his moral character will be best defended, not by denying those imperfections which are and will

be visible as long as his works remain—which cannot be concealed, and ought not to be palliatedbut by attributing them, as I have done, to physical and moral causes; to his helpless and idolized infancy; to his life, a long disease; to his nourished self-love, and his contracted education. And, after all, when what I have advanced shall be viewed with impartiality, I believe my general estimate is likely to be that which the sober judg ment of ingenuous minds will confirm.

I here conclude; and remain, with unaltered respect and regard to yourself, as a man, a scholar, and christian, though we are of different religious communities,

Yours, most faithfully,

Sept. 24, 1824.

W. L. BOWLES,

LETTER V.

Bath, Sept., 1824.

MY DEAR SIR,

It is by no means my intention or

my wish to become a party in the controversy respecting Mr. Pope and his writings. Yet I must frankly own, that an attentive re-consideration of the documents relative to Curll's surreptitious publication of his letters, and of the circumstances which led to it, combined with the new points of view in which you have, in the preceding letter, placed your arguments on that subject, have excited in my mind, notwithstanding Mr. Roscoe's able defence of Pope, very strong suspicions as to the part which the latter took in that mysterious transaction.

In admiration of Mr. Pope, as a poet, I will yield to no one; though I could have wished most devoutly that he had blotted out from his productions, both in verse and prose, many expressions and passages, either containing indelicate allusions, or language bordering on impiety and profaneness. Juvenile minds, more especially, must be most