again. It is evident that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication in the rules of it. ALEXANDER POPE. In 1737, Pope published, by subscription, a volume of letters between himself and his literary friends. Part of the collection had been previously issued by Curll, a notorious publisher of that day, to whom Pope had, by the agency of other parties, conveyed an edition privately printed. Having, in his assumed character of purveyor of the letters, induced Curll to advertise the collection as containing letters of certain noblemen, the publisher was summoned to the House of Lords for breach of privilege. The volume, however, being examined, it was found that there was not a single letter from any nobleman in the collection, and Curll was dismissed. Pope had thus secured publicity to the publication, and as the letters, he said, had not only been surreptitiously printed-stolen from private repositories—but altered and interpolated, he appeared justified in issuing a prospectus for a genuine edition. In reality, there was little or no difference between the editions, Pope having prepared both, and neither can be regarded as containing actual correspondence. Swift, however, had retained the letters addressed to himself; the original letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu also existed, and the early correspondence of Pope with Henry Cromwell had previously come into the possession of Curll, and was published. Additions were afterwards made to the collection from other sources, and thus we have a large body of the actual letters written by the wits of the Anne and first Georgian periods. The experiment was new to the public. Pope's epistolary excellence,' says Johnson, had an open field; he had no English rival, living or dead.' The letters of Lord Bacon, Strafford, and other statesmen, had been published, but they descended little into the details of familiar life. Sprat suppressed the correspondence of Cowley, under the impression, finely expressed by an old writer, that private letters are commonly of too tender a composition to thrive out of the bosom in which they were first planted; and the correspondence of Pope was the first attempt to interest the public in the sentiments and opinions of literary men, and the expression of private friendship. As literature was the business of Pope's life, and composition his first and favourite pursuit, he wrote always with a view to admiration and fame. He knew that if his letters to his friends did not come before the public in a printed shape, they would be privately circulated, and might affect his reputation with those he was ambitious of pleasing. Hence he seems always to have written with care. His letters are generally too elaborate and artificial to have been the spontaneous effusions of private confidence. Many of them are beautiful in thought and imagery, and evince a taste for picturesque scenery and description that it is to be regretted the poet did not oftener indulge. Others, as the exquisite one describing a journey to Oxford, in company with Bernard Lintot, possess a fine vein of comic humour and observation. Swift was inferior to Pope as a letter-writer, but he discloses more of his real character. He loved Pope as much as he could any man, and the picture of their friendship, disclosed in their correspondence, is honourable to both. They had both risen to eminence by their own talents; they had mingled with the great and illustrious; had exchanged with each other in private their common feelings and sentiments; had partaken of the vicissitudes of public affairs; seen their friends decay and die off; and in their old age, mourned over the evils and afflictions incident to the decline of life. Pope's affection soothed the jealous irritability and misanthropy of Swift, and survived the melancholy calamity which rendered his friend one of the most pitiable and affecting objects among mankind. On Sickness and Death. TO SIR RICHARD STEELE.-July 15, 1712. You formerly observed to me that nothing made a more ridiculous figure in a man's life than the disparity we often find in him sick and well; thus, one of an unfortunate constitution is perpetually exhibiting a miserable example of the weakness of his mind, and of his body, in their turns. I have had frequent opportunities of late to consider myself in these different views, and, I hope, have received some advantage by it, if what Waller says be true, that The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made. Then surely sickness, contributing no less than old age to the shaking down this scaffolding of the body, may discover the inward structure more plainly. Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state, and inspires us with the thoughts of a and divines. It gives so warning a concussion to those future, better than a thousand volumes of philosophers props of our vanity, our strength and youth, that we think of fortifying ourselves within, when there is so little dependence upon our outworks. Youth at the very best is but a betrayer of human life in a gentler and smoother manner than age: it is like a stream that nourishes a plant upon a bank, and causes it to flourish and blossom to the sight, but at the same time is undermining it at the root in secret. My youth has dealt more fairly and openly with me; it has afforded several prospects of my danger, and given me an advantage not very common to young men, that the attractions of the where most people end, with a full conviction of the world have not dazzled me very much; and I begin, emptiness of all sorts of ambition, and the unsatisfactory nature of all human pleasures. When a smart fit of sickness tells me this scurvy tenement of my body will fall in a little time, I am even as unconcerned as was that honest Hibernian, who, being in bed in the great storm some years ago, and told the house would tumble over his head, made answer: 'What care I for the house? I am only a lodger.' I fancy it is the best time to die when one is in the best humour; and so excessively weak as I now am, I may say with conscience, that I am not at all uneasy at the thought that many men, whom I never had any esteem for, are likely to enjoy this world after me. When I reflect what an inconsiderable little atom every single man is, with respect to the whole creation, methinks it is a shame to be concerned at the removal of such a trivial animal as I am. morning after my exit, the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green, the world will proceed in its old course, people will laugh as heartily, and marry as fast as they were The used to do. The memory of man-as it is elegantly expressed in the Book of Wisdom-passeth away as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but one day. There are reasons enough, in the fourth chapter of the same book, to make any young man contented with the prospect of death. For honourable age is not that which standeth in length of time, or is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the gray hair to man, and an unspotted life is old age. He was taken away speedily, lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul,' &c.—I am your, &c. Pope in Oxford. TO MRS MARTHA BLOUNT.-1716.—A genuine letter slightly altered. † Nothing could have more of that melancholy which once used to please me, than my last day's journey; for, after having passed through my favourite woods in the forest, with a thousand reveries of past pleasures, I rid over hanging hills, whose tops were edged with groves, and whose feet watered with winding rivers, listening to the falls of cataracts below, and the murmuring of the winds above; the gloomy verdure of Stonor succeeded to these, and then the shades of the evening overtook me. The moon rose in the clearest sky I ever saw, by whose solemn light I paced on slowly, without company, or any interruption to the range of my thoughts. About a mile before I reached Oxford, all the bells tolled in different notes; the clocks of every college answered one another, and sounded forth-some in a deeper, some a softer tone-that it was eleven at night. All this was no ill preparation to the life I have led since among those old walls, venerable galleries, stone porticos, studious walks, and solitary scenes of the university. I wanted nothing but a black gown and a salary, to be as mere a book-worm as any there. I conformed myself to the college-hours, was rolled up in books, lay in one of the most ancient, dusky parts of the university, and was as dead to the world as any hermit of the desert. If anything was alive or awake in me, it was a little vanity, such as even those good men used to entertain, when the monks of their own order extolled their piety and abstraction. For I found myself received with a sort of respect, which this idle part of mankind, the learned, pay to their own species; who are as considerable here, as the busy, the gay, and the ambitious are in your world. Death of Two Lovers by Lightning. TO LADY MARY Wortley Montagu.—September 1 (1717).. I have a mind to fill the rest of this paper with an accident that happened just under my eyes, and has made a great impression upon me. I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common It is important to remember that Pope, when he wrote in this manner, was only twenty-four-that is, if we assume the letter to have been actually sent to Steele, which we very much doubt. It seems to be merely a literary essay-part of the fabricated correspondence. ↑ Martha Blount was the Stella of Pope. Her elder sister Teresa, was his first favourite, but Martha gained the ascendency, and retained it till the death of the poet. They were of an old Catholic family, the Blounts of Mapledurham, near Reading. Gay has described the sisters as 'the fair-haired Martha, and Teresa brown;' and a picture in the family mansion, by Jervas, represents them as gathering flowers. Pope's father died at Chiswick in 1717, and the poet wrote to Martha: My poor father died last night. Believe, since I don't forget you at this moment, I never shall.' And he never did. He took the warmest interest in all her affairs, and left her the bulk of his fortune. Martha (who was two years younger than her illustrious friend) survived till July 12, 1763. The house of Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. Here Pope translated part of the Iliad. He describes the house (though with many fanciful additions) in the subsequent letter, in a style which recalls the grave humour of Addison, and foreshadows the Bracebridge Hall of Washington Irving. field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers, as constant as ever were found in romance, beneath a spreading beech. The name of the one-let it sound as it will-was John Hewet; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man about five-andtwenty; Sarah, a brown woman of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah; when 'she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood; for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding-clothes; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers to her complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed-it was on the last of July-a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out of breath, sunk on a haycock, and John-who never separated from her-sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together to secure her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another: those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay: they first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair-John with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discolouring on their bodies, only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave, where my Lord Harcourt, at my request, has erected a monument over them. Of the following epitaphs which I made, the critics have chosen the godly one: I like neither, but wish you had been in England to have done this office better: I think it was what you could not have refused me on so moving an occasion. When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire, Think not, by rigorous judgment seized, Live well, and fear no sudden fate: When God calls virtue to the grave, Alike 'tis justice, soon or late, Mercy alike to kill or save. Virtue unmoved can hear the call, And face the flash that melts the ball. Upon the whole, I cannot think these people unhappy. The greatest happiness, next to living as they would have done, was to die as they did. The greatest honour people of this low degree could have, was to be remembered on a little monument; unless you will give them another-that of being honoured with a tear from the finest eyes in the world. I know you have tenderness; you must have it; it is the very emanation of good sense and virtue: the finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest. Description of an Ancient English Country-seat. TO LADY MARY WORTLEY Montagu. DEAR MADAM-'Tis not possible to express the least part of the joy your return gives me; time only and experience will convince you how very sincere it is. I excessively long to meet you, to say so much, so very much to you, that I believe I shall say nothing. I have given orders to be sent for the first minute of your arrival-which I beg you will let them know at Mr Jervas's. I am fourscore miles from London, a short journey compared to that I so often thought at least of undertaking, rather than die without seeing you again. Though the place I am in is such as I would not quit for the town, if I did not value you more than any, nay everybody else there; and you will be convinced how little the town has engaged my affections in your absence from it, when you know what a place this is which I prefer to it; I shall therefore describe it to you at large, as the true picture of a genuine ancient country-seat. You must expect nothing regular in my description of a house that seems to be built before rules were in fashion: the whole is so disjointed, and the parts so detached from each other, and yet so joining again, one cannot tell how, that-in a poetical fit-you would imagine it had been a village in Amphion's time, where twenty cottages had taken a dance together, were all out, and stood still in amazement ever since. A stranger would be grievously disappointed who should ever think to get into this house the right way. One would expect, after entering through the porch, to be let into the hall; alas! nothing less, you find yourself in a brewhouse. From the parlour you think to step into the drawing-room; but, upon opening the iron-nailed door, you are convinced, by a flight of birds about your ears, and a cloud of dust in your eyes, that it is the pigeonhouse. On each side our porch are two chimneys, that wear their greens on the outside, which would do as well within, for whenever we make a fire, we let the smoke out of the windows. Over the parlour window hangs a sloping balcony, which time has turned to a very convenient penthouse. The top is crowned with a very venerable tower, so like that of the church just by, that the jackdaws build in it as if it were the true steeple. windows being everywhere broken, make it so convenient a place to dry poppies and mustard seed in, that the room is appropriated to that use. Next this parlour lies, as I said before, the pigeonhouse, by the side of which runs an entry that leads, on one hand and t'other, into a bed-chamber, a buttery, and a small hole called the chaplain's study. Then follow a brew-house, a little green and gilt parlour, and the great stairs, under which is the dairy. A little further on the right, the servants' hall; and by the side of it, up six steps, the old lady's closet, which has a lattice into the said hall, that, while she said her prayers, she might cast an eye on the men and maids. There are upon this ground floor in all twenty-four apartments, hard to be distinguished by particular names; among which I must not forget a chamber that has in it a large antiquity of timber, which seems to have been either a bedstead or a cider-press. Our best room above is very long and low, of the exact proportion of a bandbox; it has hangings of the finest work in the world; those, I mean, which Arachne spins out of her own bowels: indeed, the roof is so decayed, that after a favourable shower of rain, we may, with God's blessing, expect a crop of mushrooms between the chinks of the floors. All this upper story has for many years had no other inhabitants than certain rats, whose very age renders them worthy of this venerable mansion, for the very rats of this ancient seat are gray. Since these have not quitted it, we hope at least this house may stand during the small remainder of days these poor animals have to live, who are now too infirm to remove to another: they have still a small subsistence left them in the few remaining books of the library. I had never seen half what I have described, but for an old starched gray-headed steward, who is as much an antiquity as any in the place, and looks like an old family picture walked out of its frame. He failed not, as we passed from room to room, to relate several memoirs of the family; but his observations were particularly curious in the cellar: he shewed where stood the triple rows of butts of sack, and where were ranged the bottles of tent for toasts in the morning: he pointed to the stands that supported the iron-hooped hogsheads of strong beer; then stepping to a corner, he lugged out The great hall is high and spacious, flanked with long the tattered fragment of an unframed picture: This,' tables, images of ancient hospitality; ornamented with says he, with tears in his eyes, was poor Sir Thomas, monstrous horns, about twenty broken pikes, and a once master of all the drink I told you of: he had two matchlock musket or two, which they say were used in sons (poor young masters!) that never arrived to the the civil wars. Here is one vast arched window, beauti-age of his beer; they both fell ill in this very cellar, fully darkened with divers scutcheons of painted glass. and never went out upon their own legs.' He could not There seems to be great propriety in this old manner of pass by a broken bottle without taking it up to shew us blazoning upon glass, ancient families being like ancient the arms of the family on it. He then led me up the windows, in the course of generations seldom free from tower, by dark winding stone steps, which landed us cracks. One shining pane bears date 1286. The youth- into several little rooms, one above another; one of ful face of Dame Elinor owes more to this single piece these was nailed up, and my guide whispered to me than to all the glasses she ever consulted in her life. the occasion of it. It seems the course of this noble Who can say after this that glass is frail, when it is not blood was a little interrupted about two centuries ago half so perishable as human beauty or glory? For in by a freak of the Lady Frances, who was here taken another pane you see the memory of a knight preserved, with a neighbouring prior; ever since which the room whose marble nose is mouldered from his monument has been made up, and branded with the name of in the church adjoining. And yet, must not one sigh the adultery-chamber. The ghost of Lady Frances is to reflect, that the most authentic record of so ancient a supposed to walk here some prying maids of the family should lie at the mercy of every boy that throws family formerly reported that they saw a lady in a a stone? In this hall, in former days, have dined fardingale through the keyhole; but this matter was gartered knights and courtly dames, with ushers, sewers, hushed up, and the servants forbid to talk of it. and seneschals; and yet it was but the other night that an owl flew in hither, and mistook it for a barn. This hall lets you up (and down) over a very high threshold, into the parlour. It is furnished with historical tapestry, whose marginal fringes do confess the moisture of the air. The other contents of this room are a broken-bellied virginal, a couple of crippled velvet chairs, with two or three mildewed pictures of mouldy ancestors, who look as dismally as if they came fresh from hell with all their brimstone about 'em. These are carefully set at the further corner: for the I must needs have tired you with this long letter; but what engaged me in the description was a generous principle to preserve the memory of a thing that must itself soon fall to ruin; nay, perhaps, some part of it before this reaches your hands: indeed, I owe this old house the same sort of gratitude that we do to an old friend that harbours us in his declining condition, nay, even in his last extremities. I have found this an excellent place for retirement and study, where no one who passes by can dream there is an inhabitant, and even anybody that would visit me dares not venture under my roof. I am, with the greatest sincerity and passion for your fame as well as happiness, your, &c. You will not wonder I have translated a great deal of Homer in this retreat; any one that sees it will own I could not have chosen a fitter or more likely place to converse with the dead. As soon as I return to the living, it shall be to converse with the best of them. I hope, therefore, very speedily to tell you in person how sincerely and unalterably I am, madam, your most faith-interest. ful, obliged, and obedient servant. I beg Mr Wortley to believe me his most humble servant. Pope to Bishop Atterbury, in the Tower. May 17, 1723. Once more I write to you, as I promised, and this once, I fear, will be the last! The curtain will soon be drawn between my friend and me, and nothing left but to wish you a long good-night. May you enjoy a state of repose in this life not unlike that sleep of the soul which some have believed is to succeed it, where we lie utterly forgetful of that world from which we are gone, and ripening for that to which we are to go. If you retain any memory of the past, let it only image to you what has pleased you best; sometimes present a dream of an absent friend, or bring you back an agreeable conversation. But, upon the whole, I hope you will think less of the time past than of the future, as the former has been less kind to you than the latter infallibly will be. Do not envy the world your studies; they will tend to the benefit of men against whom you can have no complaint; I mean of all posterity: and, perhaps, at your time of life, nothing else is worth your care. What is every year of a wise man's life but a censure or critic on the past? Those whose date is the shortest, live long enough to laugh at one half of it; the boy despises the infant; the man, the boy; the philosopher, both; and the Christian, all. You may now begin to think your manhood was too much a puerility, and you will never suffer your age to be but a second infancy. The toys and baubles of your childhood are hardly now more below you, than those toys of our riper and our declining years, the drums and rattles of ambition, and the dirt and bubbles of avarice. At this time, when you are cut off from a little society, and made a citizen of the world at large, you should bend your talents, not to serve a party or a few, but all mankind. Your genius should mount above that mist in which its participation and neighbourhood with earth long involved it; to shine abroad, and to heaven, ought to be the business and the glory of your present situation. Remember it was at such a time that the greatest lights of antiquity dazzled and blazed the most, in their retreat, in their exile, or in their death. But why do I talk of dazzling or blazing ?-it was then that they did good, that they gave light, and that they became guides to mankind. Those aims alone are worthy of spirits truly great, and such I therefore hope will be yours. Resentment, indeed, may remain, perhaps cannot be quite extinguished in the noblest minds; but revenge never will harbour there. Higher principles than those of the first, and better principles than those of the latter, will infallibly influence men whose thoughts and whose hearts are enlarged, and cause them to prefer the whole to any part of mankind, especially to so small a part as one's single self. Believe me, my lord, I look upon you as a spirit entered into another life, as one just upon the edge of immortality, where the passions and affections must be much more exalted, and where you ought to despise all little views and all mean retrospects. Nothing is worth your looking back; and, therefore, look forward, and make, as you can, the world look after you. But take care that it be not with pity, but with esteem and admiration. The bishop went into exile the following month. Pope was one of the authors of the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, where he has lavished much wit on subjects which are now mostly of little He has ridiculed Burnet's History of his Own Times with infinite humour in Memoirs of P. P., Clerk of this Parish; and he contributed several papers to the Guardian. His prose works contain also a collection of Thoughts on Various Subjects, a few of which are here subjoined: There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal whatsoever, in which the most ignorant were not the most violent; for a bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead. However, such instruments are necessary to politicians; and perhaps it may be with states as with clocks, which must have some dead-weight hanging at them, to help and regulate the motion of the finer and more useful parts. When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings. He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain one. Get your enemies to read your works, in order to mend them: for your friend is so much your second self, that he will judge too like you. There is nothing wanting to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day. A short and certain way to obtain the character of a reasonable and wise man is, whenever any one tells you his opinion, to comply with him. The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence. A very few pounds a year would ease that man of the scandal of avarice. A Recipe to make an Epic Poem.-From the 'Guardian.” It is no small pleasure to me, who am zealous in the interests of learning, to think I may have the honour of leading the town into a very new and uncommon road of criticism. As that kind of literature is at present carried on, it consists only in a knowledge of mechanic rules which contribute to the structure of different sorts of poetry; as the receipts of good housewives do to the making puddings of flour, oranges, plums, or any other ingredients. It would, methinks, make these my instructions more easily intelligible to ordinary readers, if I discoursed of these matters in the style in which ladies, learned in economics, dictate to their pupils for the improvement of the kitchen and larder. I shall begin with Epic Poetry, because the critics agree it is the greatest work human nature is capable of. For the Fable.-'Take out of any old poem, historybook, romance, or legend-for instance, Geoffrey of Monmouth, or Don Belianis of Greece-those parts of story which afford most scope for long descriptions: put these pieces together, and throw all the adventures you fancy into one tale. Then take a hero whom you may choose for the sound of his name, and put him into the midst of these adventures: there let him work for twelve hours; at the end of which, you may take him out ready prepared to conquer or to marry; it being necessary that the conclusion of an Epic Poem be fortunate.' To make an Episode.-'Take any remaining adventure of our former collection, in which you could no way involve your hero; or any unfortunate accident that was too good to be thrown away; and it will be of use, applied to any other person who may be lost and evaporate in the course of the work, without the least damage to the composition.' For the Moral and Allegory.-'These you may by the dictionary commonly printed at the end of extract out of the Fable afterwards at your leisure. Be Chaucer.' sure you strain them sufficiently.' For the Manners.-'For those of the hero, take all the best qualities you can find in all the celebrated heroes of antiquity; if they will not be reduced to a consistency, lay them all on a heap upon him. But be sure they are qualities which your patron would be thought to have; and to prevent any mistake which the world may be subject to, select from the alphabet those capital letters that compose his name, and set them at the head of a dedication before your poem. However, do not absolutely observe the exact quantity of these virtues, it not being determined whether or no it be necessary for the hero of a poem to be an honest man. For the under characters, gather them from Homer and Virgil, and change the name as occasion serves.' For the Machines.—'Take of deities, male and female, as many as you can use; separate them into two equal parts, and keep Jupiter in the middle. Let Juno put him in a ferment, and Venus mollify him. Remember on all occasions to make use of volatile Mercury. If you have need of devils, draw them out of Milton's Paradise, and extract your spirits from Tasso. The use of these machines is evident; for since no Epic Poem can possibly subsist without them, the wisest way is to reserve them for your greatest necessities. When you cannot extricate your hero by any human means, or yourself by your own wits, seek relief from Heaven, and the gods will do your business very readily. This is according to the direct prescription of Horace in his Art of Poetry: Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus That is to say, a poet should never call upon the gods for their assistance, but when he is in great perplexity.' For the Descriptions.-For a Tempest.- Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster, and Boreas, and cast them together into one verse: add to these, of rain, lightning, and of thunder (the loudest you can), quantum sufficit. Mix your clouds and billows well together until they foam, and thicken your description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your tempest well in your head before you set it a-blowing.' For a Battle. Pick a large quantity of images and descriptions from Homer's Iliads, with a spice or two of Virgil; and if there remain any overplus, you may lay them by for a skirmish. Season it well with similes, and it will make an excellent battle.' For Burning a Town. If such a description be necessary, because it is certain there is one in Virgil, Old Troy is ready burnt to your hands. But if you fear that would be thought borrowed, a chapter or two of the Theory of the Conflagration, well circumstanced, and done into verse, will be a good succedaneum.' As for Similes and Metaphors, they may be found all over the creation; the most ignorant may gather them; but the danger is in applying them. For this, advise with your bookseller. For the Language.-(I mean the diction.) 'Here it will do well to be an imitator of Milton, for you will find it easier to imitate him in this than any; thing else. Hebraisms and Grecisms are to be found in him, without the trouble of learning the languages. I knew a painter, who, like our poet, had no genius, make his daubings to be thought originals by setting them in the smoke. You may, in the same manner, give the venerable air of antiquity to your piece, by darkening it up and down with Old English. With this you may be easily furnished upon any occasion I must not conclude without cautioning all writers without genius in one material point; which is, never to be afraid of having too much fire in their works. I should advise rather to take their warmest thoughts, and spread them abroad upon paper, for they are observed to cool before they are read." DR JOHN ARBUTHNOT. DR JOHN ARBUTHNOT, the friend of Pope, Swift, Gay, and Prior, was associated with his brother-wits in some of the humorous productions of the day, called forth chiefly by political events. They were all Tories, and keenly interested in the success of their party. Arbuthnot was born in 1667 at a place of the same name in Kincardineshire, son of a nonjuring clergyman. He was educated at the university of Aberdeen; and having studied medicine, repaired to London, where he became known as an author and a wit. He wrote an Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge, and an Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning (1700). Happening to be at Epsom when Prince George was taken ill there, Arbuthnot was called upon to prescribe, and treated the case so successfully that he was made the prince's regular physician. In 1709, he was appointed physician in ordinary to the queen. The satirical Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus, published in Pope's works, was chiefly, if not wholly, written by Arbuthnot. The design of this work, as stated by Pope, is to ridicule all the false tastes in learning, under the character of a man of capacity, who had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously in each. Cervantes was the model of the witty authors; with success, the fine humanity and imagination but though they may have copied his grave irony of the Spanish novelist are wholly wanting in Scriblerus. It is highly probable, however, that the character of Cornelius Scriblerus suggested to Sterne the idea of Walter Shandy. His oddities and absurdities about the education of his sonin describing which Arbuthnot evinces his extensive and curious learning-are fully equal to Sterne. Useful hints are thrown out amidst the ridicule and pedantry of Scriblerus; and what are now termed object-lessons in some schools, may have been derived from such ludicrous passages as the following: 'The old gentleman so contrived it, to make everything contribute to the improvement of his knowledge, even to his very dress. He invented for him a geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some hints of that science, and likewise some knowledge of the commerce of different nations. He had a French hat with an African feather, Holland shirts and Flanders lace, English cloth lined with Indian silk; his gloves were Italian, and his shoes were Spanish. He was made to observe this, and daily catechised thereupon, which his father was wont to call travelling at home." He never gave him a fig or an orange, but he obliged him to give an account from what country it came. 66 A more complete and durable monument of the wit and humour of Arbuthnot is his History of John Bull, published in 1712, and designed to ridicule the Duke of Marlborough, and render |