in these very lines, and addressed them to our provisor, who was not a little surprised to find that I could write such good poetry in the language of Thomson. I must confess that these were the only English verses I ever composed in my life.

I also made a pilgrimage to Pope's residence. I reached Twickenham by an agreeable walk along the banks of the Thames, where at every step the eye is greeted by a succession of varied prospects and elegant structures. So many splendid buildings may perhaps be displeasing to the lovers of wild or purely rural scenery; but one is soon reminded that among these villas once arose the residence of Pope, the poet of civilization. There he modernized the sublime muse of Homer, for whose simple dignity he indeed occasionally substitutes the meretricious graces of a coquette. There, too, Pope applied the language of poetry to philosophy, and composed satires and epistles, such as Horace would have written, had he lived at the court of Queen Anne.

In 1807, Baroness Howe pulled down Pope's villa, and built in its stead a residence better suited to a lady of rank, and no doubt infinitely more comfortable. How many things do the English sacrifice for that favourite adjective! The famous grotto,, which Pope himself adorned with shells and minerals, has been almost entirely stripped by the pilgrims of his genius. The weeping willow, which the poet planted with his own hands, is dead, and another bends its branches over the remains of the withered trunk. Further on,

in a more retired part of the grounds, is the obelisk which Pope erected to the memory of his mother. The best work he ever wrote could not have afforded me so much pleasure as the sight of this monument of filial affection. Happy the son who can deposit a wreath of laurel on the grave of the parent whom he has rendered proud and happy by his well earned fame!

Lord Byron observes that hypocrisy is the moral malady of England: moral, literary, and religious hypocrisy, &c. This is a subject upon which I shall enter more at length when I have seen more of London society. At present I may, in a few words, touch upon the literary and moral hypocrisy which prevails among the detractors of Pope. I shall not here advert to his poetic merit, a subject which it will be interesting to discuss when I come to consider the various phases of English literature. But the man and the author have been attacked with one voice. Cant is an absolute inquisition, and must have its victims.—— Pope, who was a dutiful and affectionate son, a generous and disinterested friend, a man of susceptible feeling, it is true, but who was a stranger to envy, has been cited before the tribunal of scandal as an ungrateful, jealous, sordid, and licentious being. The Reverend Mr. Bowles has magnified his merest foibles into crimes. The unjust insinuations and criticisms of Pope's Editor are contrived with jesuitical art, by which means he obtains a reputation for candour, while he vents calumny on the name of the greatest lite

t

rary genius of the reign of Queen Anne. Lord Byron is not the only one who has characterized by its real name the affected virtue of the Reverend critic; but it is evident that among the avengers of the sacred ashes of Pope, there are some who will not venture to make an open attack on an enemy who screens himself behind so specious a mask.

The anecdotes collected by Spence in the society of Pope, which have been recently published, have unfolded the private life of the author of the Rape of the Lock. They explain, in a way favourable to the poet, several facts, which have been perverted by Mr. Bowles. His resentment against Lady Mary Wortley Montague, were certainly in some measure justified by the disdain of that inconsistent woman, who departed from the proper sphere of her sex, to endeavour to play an important part in literature and politics.

Pope, who, as it has been observed, was not made for love, was weak enough to fancy that love might be made for him-an error, certainly, excusable in a poet. His passion for Lady Mary Montague embittered his youth, and the indifference of Martha Blount rendered him miserable in mature life. The soul of Rousseau is poured forth in his Julie. If Pope had never been in love, he would not have been so eloquent an interpreter of the complaints of Heloisa. Some effusions of his muse, which he suppressed after he recovered from the dream of his silly hopes, have been found. He presumed to speak to Lady

Mary Montague about the supposed sympathy of their souls, and he timidly asked her whether she could overlook a body which nature had used unkindly. At these words a loud burst of laughter betrayed the cruel disdain of the woman whose mind alone he had captivated.

Receive, Madame, &c.

LETTER XXI.

TO M. DUDRENEC.

WHEN we read in the different critical works, and the inimitable letters of Horace Walpole, the description of the ancient manors which he visited; when we recal his admiration for the picturesque, and frequently sublime, effect of those towers, battlements, chapels, arches, &c. of which he composes pictures, alike remarkable for general grandeur and finished detail,—we naturally expect to find at Strawberry Hill a monument of the imposing architecture of the middle ages. But the castle, though a model of taste and elegance, may more properly be called a gothic building in miniature. It is the villa of a wealthy man of the world, rather than the manor of a feudal baron. Thus, too, in the Castle of Otranto, the style betrays the artifice of the pretended translator of

that imitation of the recitals of past time. I should prefer more simplicity and less correctness.

Strawberry Hill is situated on the banks of the Thames, at about a mile and a half from Twickenham. The apartments are fitted up and furnished in a style corresponding with the exterior of the building; the ceilings, niches, and all the details of the architecture are imitated from the picturesque decorations of cathedrals, abbeys, and other gothic edifices. Horace Walpole has been reproached for a certain degree of meanness towards artists; but the pictures and treasures of antiquity, which adorn Strawberry, would be worthy of a royal gallery. In his calculations there appears to have been less of absolute avarice than of that amateur mania, which by turns finds its gratification in paying at a dear and a cheap rate for objects of art or curiosity. I know a bibliomaniac baron who was as proud of having picked up, on one of the quays, a famous edition of a book with a remarkable fault, for the sum of ten sous, as for having purchased at a sale a bible of 1400, for fifty Louis.

Lord Byron, who, though a professed democrat, had occasionally his little aristocratic fits, has sought to avenge the memory of Horace Walpole, in the preface to the Doge of Venice, and he quotes him as a model of the true gentleman.— Under this title, the author of the Castle of Otranto appears decked out in foreign graces; and, certainly. the urbanity of the English aristocracy is still a mere imitation of Parisian grace. You will