heart. It has merely served to expose the poet's want of judgment, and to perpetuate the memory of several worthless scribblers, who had otherwise sunk into the oblivion which they so richly merited.

The commencement of the Ethic Epistles, or, as their author has rather improperly termed them, Moral Essays, took place in 1731. The first, addressed to Richard Earl of Burlington, occasioned by his publication of Palladio's Designs, forms the fourth according to the present arrangement, and is immediately subsequent to the Epistle to Lord Bathurst on the Use of Riches, which appeared in 1732. These are preceded, as they now stand in all the editions, by the Epistle to Lord Cobham on the Characters of Men, printed in 1733, and by the Epistle on the Characters of Women, addressed to a Lady, and first published in 1735.

Before these received their completion, however, by the appearance of the last-mentioned Epistle, Pope had introduced to the world, and finished, his Essay on Man; the first and second epistles of which issued from the press in 1732; the third in 1733, and the fourth and last in 1734.

In these celebrated productions, Pope assumes the important character of a didactic and ethic

writer; and to this task he was adequate as far as a sincere love of virtue and morality, and an intimate knowledge of mankind, could qualify him. In theology, metaphysics, and philosophical disquisition, however, he was miserably de ficient; and the Essay on Man, though containing some fine imagery, many brilliant and even. sublime passages, and an admirable brevity and terseness of diction, betrays not only great po verty of argument and ratiocination, but an absolute ignorance of the tendency of his own system and opinions. He perceived not that he was inculcating the dogmata of the Theist and the Fa talist; and, though a believer in revealed religion, that the major part of his poem was irreconcile able with the doctrines of Christianity.

The Ethic Epistles are in almost every respect superior to the Essay on Man. Their delinea tion of character, in which they abound, is full of vivacity and strength, and exhibits a most accurate acquaintance with the manners, the passions, and foibles of both, sexes. The language has the force and compression which distinguish the Essay on Man; the versification is peculiarly rich and harmonious; and the descriptions have a vigour, a warmth, and mellowness of colouring, which point out the maturity of our author's observation and experience.

The most severe and sarcastic of these epistles, and consequently the most exaggerated, is that, "On the Characters of Women." "It is," says Dr. Aikin, addressing a young lady on the subject of poetry, "I believe, generally reckoned more brilliant than correct; more satirical than just. Whilst it assigns to your sex only two ruling passions, the love of pleasure and the love of sway,' it chiefly dwells, in the description of individual characters, upon that mutability and inconstancy of temper which has been usually charged upon the female mind. By thus representing the ends as unworthy, and the means as inconsistent, it conveys the severest possible sarcasm against the sex in general. Woman, it seems, is even at best a contradiction;' and his concluding portrait of the most estimable female character he can conceive, is but an assemblage of contrary qualities 'shaken all together.' Yet this outrageous satire is almost redeemed by the charming picture he has drawn (one would hope from the life) of that perfection of good temper in a woman, which is certainly the prime quality for enjoying and imparting happiness:

Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;
She, who can love a sister's charms, or hear
Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;"

She, who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humour most when she obeys.

"I confess, this delightful portrait is marred by the concluding stroke, Mistress of herself though china fall;' which you may justly despise, as one of those flippant sneers which degrade this poet."*

"The "Imitations of Horace," which form so large a portion of Pope's poetical works, were begun in the year 1733, by the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, imitated in a Dialogue between Alexander Pope of Twickenham in Comm. Midd. Esq. on the one part, and his learned Counsel on the other. This was followed in the year 1736, by the second satire of Horace; and, in 1737, by the sixth epistle of the first book; the second satire of the second book; the first epistle of the first book of epistles; and the first and second epistle of the second book. To these Imitations, and to the Satires of Dr. Donne versified, were, at length, prefixed, as a Prologue, the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, written in 1733, and first printed in 1734; and as an epilogue, Two Dialogues, written in 1738, the whole occu

• Aikin's Letters on English Poetry, p. 94.

pying nearly an entire volume of our author's works.

Few portions of the poetry of Pope have been more popular than these Imitations of Horace, with their accompanying Prologue and Epilogue. Though the satire be often too severe, and too much tinged with party rancour, or private spleen, the allusions are so apt, and the parallel passages so happy, that every reader must feel gratified in comparing the two poets, and in remarking the exquisite art and address of the English satirist, who has never in any instance servilely copied his original, but has merely pursued the train of thought which Horace had suggested; and in so doing has ably filled up the outline which is sometimes but faintly traced on the page of the Roman classic. The Prologue and Epilogue, especially the latter, are still more poignant and keen than the Imitations, to which, perhaps, they were at first, with no great propriety, annexed. With regard to the Epilogue, says Dr. Warton, "every species of sarcasm. and mode of style are alternately employed; ridicule, reasoning, irony, mirth, seriousness, lamentation, laughter, familiar imagery, and high poetical painting.'

In the year 1733, and but a few weeks after Life of Pope, p. 60.