poetical than a hog in a high wind? The hog is all nature, the ship is all art, «coarse canvas,» « blue bunting,» and «tall poles;» both are violently acted upon by the wind, tossed here and there, to and fro; and yet nothing but excess of hunger could make me look upon the pig as the more poetical of the two, and then only in the shape of a griskin. Will Mr Bowles tell us that the poetry of an aqueduct consists in the water which it conveys? Let him look on that of Justinian, on those of Rome, Constantinople, Lisbon, and Elvas, or even at the remains of that in Attica. place him? with Dante and the others? No: but, as I have before said, the poet who executes best is the highest, whatever his department, and will ever be so rated in the world's esteem, Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the corner-stone of his glory; without it, his odes would be insufficient for his fame. The depreciation of Pope is partly founded upon a false idea of the dignity of his order of poetry, to which he has partly contributed by the ingenuous boast, That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, He should have written « rose to truth.>> In my mind We are asked, « what makes the venerable towers of Westminster Abbey more poetical, as objects, than the tower for the manufactory of patent shot, surrounded by the same scenery? I will answer-the architecture, Turn Westminster Abbey, or Saint Paul's, into a powder magazine, their poetry, as objects, remains the same; the Parthenon was actually converted into one by the Turks, during Morosini's Venetian siege, and part of it destroyed in consequence. Cromwell's dragoons stalled their steeds in Worcester cathedral; was it less poetical, as an object, than before? Ask a foreigner on his ap-made Socrates the greatest of men? His moral truth— proach to London, what strikes him as the most poetical of the towers before him; he will point out St Paul's and Westminster Abbey, without, perhaps, knowing the names or associations of either, and pass over the « tower for patent shot,» not that, for any thing he knows to the contrary, it might not be the mausoleum of a monarch, or a Waterloo column, or a Trafalgar monument, but because its architecture is obviously inferior. To the question, whether the description of a game of cards be as poetical, supposing the execution of the artists equal, as a description of a walk in a forest?»> it may be answered, that the materials are certainly not equal; but that the artist,» who has rendered the «<game of cards poetical,» is by far the greater of the two. But all this ordering» of poets is purely arbitrary on the part of Mr Bowles. There may or may not be, in fact, different « orders» of poetry, but the poet is always ranked according to his execution, and not according to his branch of the art. bis ethics. What proved Jesus Christ the Son of God hardly less than his miracles? His moral precepts. And if ethics have made a philosopher the first of men and have not been disdained as an adjunct to his gospel by the Deity himself, are we to be told that ethical poetry, or didactic poetry, or by whatever name you term it, whose object is to make men better and wiser, is not the very first order of poetry; and are we to be told this too by one of the priesthood? It requires more mind, more wisdom, more power, than all the << forests» that ever were «< walked» for their «<description,» and all the epics that ever were founded upon fields of battle. The Georgies are indisputably, and, I believe, undisputedly, even a finer poem than the Eneid. Virgil knew this; he did not order them to be burnt. The proper study of mankind is man. It is the fashion of the day to lay great stress upon what they call imagination» and « invention,» the two commonest of qualities: an Irish peasant, with a little Tragedy is one of the highest presumed orders. Hughes has written a tragedy, and a very successful one; Fenton another; and Pope none. Did any man, how-whiskey in his head, will imagine and invent more ever, will even Mr Bowles, himself rank Hughes and Fenton as poets above Pope? Was even Addison (the author of Cato), or Rowe (one of the higher order of dramatists, as far as success goes), or Young, or even Otway and Southerne, ever raised for a moment to the same rank with Pope in the estimation of the reader or the critic, before his death or since? If Mr Bowles will contend for classifications of this kind, let him recollect that descriptive poetry has been ranked as among the lowest branches of the art, and description as a mere ornament, but which should never form « the subject» of a poem. The Italians, with the most poetical language, and the most fastidious taste in Europe, possess now five great poets, they say, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and lastly Alfieri; and whom do they esteem one of the highest of these, and some of them the very highest? Petrarch, the sonneteer it is true that some of his Canzoni are not less esteemed, but not more; who ever dreams of his Latin Africa! : Were Petrarch to be ranked according to the « order» of his compositions, where would the best of sonnets than would furnish forth a modern poem. If Lucretius had not been spoiled by the Epicurean system, we should have had a far superior poem to any now in existence. As mere poetry, it is the first of Latin poems. What then has ruined it? His ethics. Pope has not this defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious. In speaking of artificial objects, I have omitted to touch upon one which I will now mention. Cannon may be presumed to be as highly poetical as art can make her objects. Mr Bowles will, perhaps, tell me that this is because they resemble that grand natural article of sound in heaven, and simile upon carth-thunder. I shall be told triumphantly, that Milton made sad work with his artillery, when he armed his devils therewithal. He did so; and this artificial object must have had much of the sublime to attract his attention for such a conflict. He has made an absurd use of it; but the absurdity consists not in using cannon against the angels of God, but any material weapon. The thunder of the clouds would have been as ridiculous and vain in the hands of the devils, as the «villanous saltpetre:» the angels were as impervious to the one as to the other. The thunderbolts became sublime in the hands of the Almighty, not as such, but because he deigns to use them as a means of repelling the rebel spirits; but no one can attribute their defeat to this grand piece of natural electricity: the Almighty willed, and they fell; his word would have been enough; and Milton is as absurd (and in fact, blasphemous) in putting material lightnings into the hands of the Godhead, as in giving him hands at all. The artillery of the demons was but the first step of his mistake, the thunder the next, and it is a step lower. It would have been fit for Jove, but not for Jehovah. The subject altogether was essentially unpoetical; he has made more of it than another could, but it is beyond him and all men. tation of Milton's style, as burlesque as the «< Splendid And now that we have heard the Catholic'reproached with envy, duplicity, licentiousness, avarice-what was the Calvinist? He attempted the most atrocious of crimes in the Christian code, viz. suicide-and why? Because he was to be examined whether he was fit for an office which he seems to wish to have made a sinecure. His connexion with Mrs Unwin was pure enough, for the old lady was devout, and he was deranged; but why then is the infirm and then elderly Pope to be reproved for his connexion with Martha Blount? Cowper was the almoner of Mrs Throgmorton; but Pope's charities were his own, and they were noble and extensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant. Pope was In a portion of his reply, Mr Bowles asserts that Pope «envied Phillips» because he quizzed his pastorals in the Guardian, in that most admirable model of irony, his paper on the subject. If there was any thing enviable about Phillips, it could hardly be his pastorals. They were despicable, and Pope expressed his contempt. If Mr Fitzgerald published a volume of sonnets, or a «< Spirit of Discovery,» or a « Missionary,» and Mr Bowles wrote in any periodical journal an ironical paper upon them, would this be «envy?» The authors of the «Rejected Addresses» have ridiculed the sixteen or twenty «first living poets» of the day; but do they «envy» them? «Envy» writhes, it don't laugh. The authors of the «Rejected Addresses» may despise some, but they can hardly «envy» any of the persons whom they have parodied; and Pope could have no more envied Phillips than he did Welsted, or Theobalds, or Smedley, or any other given hero of the Dunciad. He could not have envied him, even had he himself not been the greatest poet of his age. Did Mr Ings «envy» Mr Phillips, when he asked him, «how came your Pyrrhus to drive oxen, and say, I am goaded on by contain a simple, household, « indoor," artificial, and ordinary image. love!» This question silenced poor Phillips; but it no more proceeded from <«envy» than did Pope's ridicule. Did he envy Swift? Did he envy Bolingbroke? Did he envy Gay the unparalleled success of his «Beggar's Opera?» We may be answered that these were his friends-true; but does friendship prevent envy! Study the first woman you meet with, or the first scribbler, let Mr Bowles himself (whom I acquit fully of such an odious quality) study some of his own poetical intimates: the most envious man I ever heard of is a Mr Thy needles, once a shining store, I refer Mr Bowles to the stanza, and ask if these three lines about « needles are not worth all the boasted twaddling about trees, so triumphantly re-quoted? and yet in fact what do they convey? A homely collection of images and ideas associated with the darning of stockings, and the bemming of shirts, and the mending of breeches; but will any one deny that they are eminently poetical and pathetic as addressed by Cowper to his nurse? The trash of trees reminds me of a saying of Sheridan's. Soon after the Rejected Address" scene, Byron, did you know that amongst the writers of addresses was Whitbread himself?" I answered by an enquiry of what sort of an address he bad made. Of that, replied Sheridan, I remember little, ex in 1812, I met Sheridan. In the course of dinner, be said, Lord describe it? Like a poulterer," answered Sheridan: it was green, and yellow, and red, and blue: he did not let us off for a single feather. And just such as this poulierer's account of a phoenix, is Cowper's stick-picker's detail of a wood, with all its petty minutiæ of this, that, and the other. poet, and a high one; besides it is an universal passion.cept that there was a phoenix in it. A phoenix!! Well, how did he Goldsmith envied not only the puppets for their dancing, and broke his shins in the attempt at rivalry, but was seriously angry because two pretty women received more attention than he did. This is envy; but where does Pope show a sign of the passion? In that case, Dryden envied the hero of his Mac Flecknoe. Bowles compares, when and where he can, Pope with Cowper (the same Cowper whom, in his edition of Pope, he laughs at for his attachment to an old woman, Mrs Unwin: search and you will find it; I remember the passage, though not the page); in particular he requotes Cowper's Dutch delineation of a wood, drawn up like a seedsman's catalogue,' with an affected imi I will submit to Mr Bowles's own judgment a passage from another poem of Cowper's, to be compared with the same writer's Sylvan Sampler. In the lines to Mary, One more poetical instance of the power of art, and even its supeFiority over nature, in poetry, and I have done:-the bust of Antinous! Is there any thing in nature like this marble, excepting the Venus? Can there be more poetry gathered into existence than in is in no respect derived from nature, nor from any association of moral that wonderful creation of perfect beauty? But the poetry of this bast exaltedness; for what is there in common with moral nature and the male minion of Adrian? The very execution is not natural, but supernatural, or rather super-artificial, for nature has never done so much. Away, then, with this cant about nature and invariable principles of poetry! A great artist will make a block of stone as sublime as a mountain, and a good poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits the forests of America. It is the business and the proof of a poet to give the lie to the proverb, and sometimes to make a silken purse out of a sow's ear; and to conclude with another homely proverb, a good workman will not find fault with his tools." the tolerant yet steady adherent of the most bigoted of sects; and Cowper the most bigoted and despondent sectary that ever anticipated damnation to himself or others. Is this harsh? I know it is, and I do not assert it as my opinion of Cowper personally, but to show what might be said, with just as great an appearance of truth and candour, as all the odium which has been accumulated upon Pope in similar speculations. Cowper was a good man, and lived at a fortunate time for his works. Mr Bowles, apparently not relying entirely upon his own arguments, has, in person or by proxy, brought forward the names of Southey and Moore. Mr Southey « agrees entirely with Mr Bowles in his invariable principles of poetry.» The least that Mr Bowles can do in return is to approve the « invariable principles of Mr Southey. I should have thought that the word «invariable» might have stuck in Southey's throat, like Macbeth's «Amen!» I am sure it did in mine, and I am not the least consistent of the two, at least as a voter. Moore (et tu Brute!) also approves, and a Mr J. Scott. There is a letter also of two lines from a gentleman in asterisks, who it seems, is a poet of «<the highest rank»-who can this be? not my friend, Sir Walter, surely. Campbell it can't be; Rogers it won't be. You have hit the nail in the head, and **** [Pope, I presume] on the head also.. I remain, yours, affectionately. (Four Asterisks.) And in asterisks let him remain. Whoever this person will not. You, Sir, know how far I am sincere, and I shall not presume to say that Pope is as high a poet as Shakspeare and Milton, though his enemy, Warton, places him immediately under them. I would no more say this than I would assert in the mosque may be, he deserves, for such a judgment of Midas, (once Saint Sophia's), that Socrates was a greater man than Mahomet. But if I say that he is very near them, it is no more than has been asserted of Burns, who is supposed that the nail» which Mr Bowles has hit in the head» should be driven through his own cars; I am sure that they are long enough. The attention of the poetical populace of the present day to obtain an ostracism against Pope is as easily accounted for as the Athenian's shell against Aristides; they are tired of hearing him always called «the Just.» They are also fighting for life; for if he maintains his station, they will reach their own falling. They have raised a mosque by the side of a Grecian temple of the purest architecture; and, more barbarous than the barbarians from whose practice I have borrowed the figure, they are not contented with their own grotesque edifice, unless they destroy the prior and purely beautiful fabric which preceded, and which shames them and theirs for ever and ever. I shall be told that amongst those I have been (or it may be still am) conspicuoustrue, and I am ashamed of it. I have been amongst the builders of this Babel, attended by a confusion of tongues, but never amongst the envious destroyers of the classic temple of our predecessor. I have loved and honoured the fame and name of that illustrious To rival all but Shakspeare's name below. So I say nothing against this opinion. But of what «order,» according to the poetical aristocracy, are Burns's poems? These are his opus magnum, «Tam O'Shanter,» a tale; the «Cotter's Saturday Night,» a descriptive sketch; some others in the same style; the rest are songs. much for the rank of his productions; the rank of Burns is the very first of his art. Of Pope I have expressed my opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect which the present attempts at poetry have had upon our literature. If any great national or natural convulsion could or should overwhelm your country, in such sort as to sweep Great Britain from the kingdoms of the earth, and leave only that, after all the most living of human things, a dead language, to be studied and read, and imitated by the wise of future and far generations upon foreign shores; if your literature should become the learning of mankind, divested of party cabals, temporary fashions, and national pride and prejudice; an Englishman, anxious that the posterity of strangers should know that there had been such a thing as a British Epic and Tragedy, might wish for the preservation of Shakspeare and Milton ; but the surviving world would snatch Pope from the wreck, and let the rest sink with the people. He is the moral poet of all civilization, and, as such, let us hope that he will one day be the national poct of mankind. He is the only poet that never shocks; the only poet whose faultlessness has been made his reproach. Cast your There are those who will believe this, and those who eye over his productions; consider their extent, and and unrivalled man, far more than my own paltry renown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of << schools>> and upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even surpass him. Sooner than a single leaf should be torn from his laurel, it were better that all which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever written, should Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row, Post scriptum.-Long as this letter has grown, I find it necessary to append a postscript,-if possible, a short one. Mr Bowles denies that he has accused Pope of a sordid money-getting passion;» but he adds «<if I had ever done so, I should be glad to find any testimony that might show me he was not so.»> This testimony he may find, to his heart's content, in Spence and elsewhere. First, there is Martha Blount, who, Mr Bowles charitably says, «probably thought he did not save enough for her as legatee.» Whatever she thought upon this point, her words are in Pope's favour. Then there is Alderman Barber; see Spence's Anecdotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax, when he proposed a pension; his behaviour to Craggs and to Addison upon like occasions; and his own two lines And, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive, have a better memory for his own faults? They are but the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitted from his catalogue are essential to the justice due to a man. Mr Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of authorship. There is a plaintive dedication to Mr Gifford, in which he is made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterly. Mr Southey, it seems, « the most able and eloquent writer in that Review,» approves of Mr Bowles's publication. Now, it seems to me the more impartial, that, notwithstanding that the great writer of the Quarterly entertains opinions opposite to the able article on Spence, nevertheless that essay was permitted to appear. Is a review to be devoted to the opinions of any one man? Must it not vary according to circumstances, and according to the subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must take the sweets and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so long a standing as Mr Bowles might have become accustomed to such incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. I have been reviewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr Bowles, and have had as pleasant things said, and some as unpleasant, as could well be pronounced. In the review of « The Fall of Jerusalem,» it is stated that I have devoted my powers, etc. to the worst parts of manicheism," which, being interpreted, means that I worship the devil. Now, I have neither written a reply, nor complained to Gifford. I believe that I observed in a written when princes would have been proud to pen-letter to you, that I thought «< that the critic might have sion, and peers to promote him, and when the whole praised Milman without finding it necessary to abuse army of dunces were in array against him, and would me;» but did I not add at the same time, or soon after have been but too happy to deprive him of this boast (apropos, of the note in the book of Travels), that I of independence. But there is something a little more would not, if it were even in my power, have a single serious in Mr Bowles's declaration, that he « would have line cancelled on my account in that nor in any other spoken» of his «noble generosity to the outcast, Richard | publication?-Of course, I reserve to myself the priSavage, and other instances of a compassionate and vilege of response when necessary. Mr Bowles seems in generous heart, « had they occurred to his recollection a whimsical state about the article on Spence. You when he wrote.» What is it come to this? Does know very well that I am not in your confidence, nor Mr Bowles sit down to write a minute and laboured life in that of the conductor of the journal. The moment and edition of a great poet? Does he anatomize his I saw that article, I was morally certain that I knew the character, moral and poetical? Does he present us author << by his style.» You will tell me that I do not with his faults and with his foibles? Does he sneer at know him: that is all as it should be; keep the secret, his feelings, and doubt of his sincerity? Does he unfold so shall I, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. his vanity and duplicity? and then omit the good qua- He is not the person whom Mr Bowles denounces. Mr lities which might, in part, have «covered this multi- Bowles's extreme sensibility reminds me of a circumtude of sins?»> and then plead that « they did not occur stance which occurred on board of a frigate, in which to his recollection?» Is this the frame of mind and of I was a passenger and guest of the captain's, for a conmemory with which the illustrious dead are to be ap- siderable time. The surgeon on board, a very gentleproached? If Mr Bowles, who must have had access to manly young man, and remarkably able in his profesall the means of refreshing his memory, did not recol- sion, wore a wig. Upon this ornament he was extremely lect these facts, he is unfit for his task; but if he did tenacious. As naval jests are sometimes a little rough, recollect, and omit them, I know not what he is fit his brother-officers made occasional allusions to this for, but I know what would be fit for him. Is the plea delicate appendage to the doctor's person. One day a of <<not recollecting» such prominent facts to be ad- young lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discusmitted? Mr Bowles has been at a public school, and, as sion, said, « Suppose, now, doctor, I should take off I have been publicly educated also, I can sympathise your hat.»> Sir,» replied the doctor, « I shall talk no with his predilection. When we were in the third form longer with you; you grow scurrilous.» He would not even, had we pleaded on the Monday morning, that we even admit so near an approach as to the hat which had not brought up the Saturday's exercise because protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches « we had forgotten it,» what would have been the re- Mr Bowles's laurels, even in his outside capacity of an ply? And is an excuse, which would not be pardoned editor, « they grow scurrilous.» You say that you are to a schoolboy, to pass current in a matter which so about to prepare an edition of Pope; you cannot do nearly concerns the fame of the first poet of his age, if better for your own credit as a publisher, nor for the not of his country? If Mr Bowles so readily forgets the redemption of Pope from Mr Bowles, and of the public virtues of others, why complain so grievously that others taste from rapid degeneracy. A Fragment. June 17, 1816. duct of my intended journey. It was my secret wish that he might be prevailed on to accompany me: it was also a probable hope, founded upon the shadowy rest In the year 17-, having for some time determined on a journey through countries not hitherto much frequented by travellers, I set out, accompanied by a friendlessness which I had observed in him, and to which the whom I shall designate by the name of Augustus Darvell. He was a few years my elder, and a man of considerable fortune and ancient family-advantages which an extensive capacity prevented him alike from undervaluing or overrating. Some peculiar circumstances in his private history had rendered him to me an object of attention, of interest, and even of regard, which neither the reserve of his manners, nor occasional indications of an inquietude at times nearly approaching to alienation of mind, could extinguish. animation which he appeared to feel on such subjects, and his apparent indifference to all by which he was more immediately surrounded, gave fresh strength. This wish I first hinted, and then expressed : his answer, though I had partly expected it, gave me all the pleasure of surprise-he consented; and, after the requisite arrangements, we commenced our voyages. After journeying through various countries of the south of Europe, our attention was turned towards the East, according to our original destination; and it was in my progress through those regions that the incident occurred upon which will turn what I may have to relate. The constitution of Darvell, which must, from his appearance, have been in early life more than usually robust, had been for some time gradually giving way, without the intervention of any apparent disease: he had neither cough nor hectic, yet he became daily more enfeebled: his habits were temperate, and he neither declined nor complained of fatigue, yet he was evidently wasting away he became more and more silent and sleepless, and at length so seriously altered, that my alarm grew proportionate to what I conceived to be his danger. We had determined, on cur arrival at Smyrna, on an excursion to the ruins of Ephesus and Sardis, from which I endeavoured to dissuade him, in his present state of indisposition-but in vain: there appeared to be an oppression on his mind, and a solemnity in his manner, which ill corresponded with his eagerness to proceed on what I regarded as a mere party of pleasure, little suited to a valetudinarian; but I opposed him no longer --and in a few days we set off together, accompanied only by a serrugee and a single janizary. I was yet young in life, which I had begun early; but my intimacy with him was of a recent date; we had been educated at the same schools and university, but his progress through these had preceded mine, and he had been deeply initiated into what is called the world, while I was yet in my noviciate. While thus engaged, I had heard much both of his past and present life; and, although in these accounts there were many and irreconcilable contradictions, I could still gather from the whole that he was a being of no common order, and one who, whatever pains he might take to avoid remark, would still be remarkable. I had cultivated his acquaintance subsequently, and endeavoured to obtain his friendship, but this last appeared to be unattainable; whatever affections he might have possessed seemed now, some to have been extinguished, and others to be concentred that his feelings were acute, I had sufficient opportunities of observing; for, although he could control, he could not altogether disguise them: still he had a power of giving to one passion the appearance of another, in such a manner that it was difficult to define the nature of what was working within him; and the expressions of his features would vary so rapidly, though slightly, that it was useless to trace them to their sources. We had passed half-way towards the remains of EpheIt was evident that he was a prey to some cureless dis- sus, leaving behind us the more fertile environs of quiet; but whether it arose from ambition, love, re- Smyrna, and were entering upon that wild and temorse, grief, from one or all of these, or merely from nantless track through the marshes and defiles which a morbid temperament akin to disease, I could not dis- lead to the few huts yet lingering over the broken cocover: there were circumstances alleged which might|lumns of Diana-the rootless walls of expelled Christiahave justified the application to each of these causes; nity, and the still more recent but complete desolation of but, as I have before said, these were so contradictory abandoned mosques-when the sudden and rapid illand contradicted, that none could be fixed upon withness of my companion obliged us to halt at a Turkish accuracy. Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil : I know not how this may be, but in him there certainly was the one, though I could not ascertain the extent of the other-and felt loth, as far as regarded himself, to believe in its existMy advances were received with sufficient coldness; but I was young, and not easily discouraged, and at length succeeded in obtaining, to a certain degree, that common-place intercourse and moderate confidence of common and every-day concerns, created and cemented by similarity of pursuit and frequency of meeting, which is called intimacy, or friendship, according to the ideas of him who uses those words to express them. Darvell had already travelled extensively, and to him I had applied for information with regard to the con ence. cemetery, the turbaned tombstones of which were the sole indication that human life had ever been a sojourner in this wilderness. The only caravansera we had seen was left some hours behind us; not a vestige of a town or even cottage, was within sight or hope, and this « city of the dead» appeared to be the sole refuge for my unfortunate friend, who seemed on the verge of becoming the last of its inhabitants. In this situation, I looked round for a place where he might most conveniently repose:-contrary to the usual aspect of Mahometan burial grounds, the cypresses were in this few in number, and these thinly scattered over its extent: the tombstones were mostly fallen, and worn with age: upon one of the most considerable of these, and beneath one of the most spreading trees |