No. 4

4, 11, 40, 61, 78, 91, 92, and 173. is a very ingenious attack on the flattery of dedications, which at this time were most absurdly fulsom, nor can the best of POPE's contemporaries be excused from the blame of the meanest adulation, which degrades the client without raising the patron. STEELE had treated this subject in No. 177 of the TATLER, but if we exa→ mine his dedications we shall find here another instance of his principles being more correct than his practice. Dr. JOHNSON appears to have been the first who gave dignity to this species of composition.

Nos. 11, 91, and 92, are specimens of such elegant humour as we might expect from the author of the inimitable " Rape of the Lock;" and perhaps there are few satires in the language superior to the receipt for an Epic poem in No. 78. In that part of the receipt which directs the making of a tempest, the technicals of the poet and the apothecary are blended together with uncommon felicity. This paper was incorporated afterwards in the "Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus." No. 61, on cruelty to the brute creation, is one of those pleas for humanity which cannot be too highly praised, or too often read; the same subject has been ably and variously handled by succeeding Essayists, and it is hoped not without effect.-POPE's last paper, No. 173, on gardening, concludes with a list of evergreens, very much in the manner of ADDISON. This paper will be found somewhat altered in our Author's works, for what reason does not appear, for the alteration is by no means an improvement.

His paper on Pastorals, No. 40, requires more particular notice, from the singular nature of it, and the circumstances which attended it. In this he draws an ironical comparison between his own Pastorals and those of PHILIPS, and it is "a composition," says JOHNSON, "of artifice, criticism, and literature, to which nothing equal will easily be found." It is indeed a trick of uncommon ingenuity, and although ADDISON perceived its drift at once, STEELE was so completely deceived as to keep it back for some time lest POPE' should he offended. It created, however, an irreparable breach of friendship between PHILIPS and POPE.

As POPE excelled in prose, as well as in poetry, and possessed a rich fund of humour, it is to be regretted that he contributed so little to those valuable works which were now putting vice and folly out of countenance. But one reason appears to have been, that, like some other writers, he was afraid to commit himself in the GUARDIAN, lest he should be known to assist STEELE, whose passion for politics made a connection with him at this time not very agreeable, especially to one whose connections lay among men of opposite principles. In a letter to ADDISON, POPE expresses his sorrow to find it had "taken air” that he had any hand in these papers, because he wrote so very few as neither to deserve the credit of such a report with some people, nor the disrepute of it with others. "An honest Jacobite," he adds,

66

spoke to me the sense, or nonsense, of the weak part of his party very fairly, that the good people took it ill of me that I writ with STEELE, though

upon never so indifferent subjects." In a subsequent part of this letter, he gives a curious specimen of confidence and secrecy among authors and publishers. "I can't imagine whence it comes to pass that the few GUARDIANS I have written are so generally known for mine; that in particular which you mention I never discovered to any man but the publisher, till very lately; yet almost every body told me of it.' "As to his (STEELE'S) taking a more politic turn, I cannot any way enter into that secret, nor have I been let into it, any more than into the rest of his politics. Though 'tis said, he will take into these papers also several subjects of the politer kind, as before: But I assure you, as to myself, I have quite done with them for the future. The little I have done, and the great respect I bear Mr. STEELE as a man of wit, has rendered me a suspected Whig to some of the violent; but (as old DRYDEN said before me) 'tis not the violent I desire to please."*

No. 149, a very ingenious paper on dress, is ascribed to GAY, the poet, on the authority of "The Publisher to the Reader;" yet the Annotators observe that it has been reprinted as POPE'S in the latter editions of POPE's works, but is not to be found in WARBURTON's edition, in octavo, 1751. Common as this topic had become with

*Letters to and from Mr. ADDISON, Letter 13. POPE'S Works, Edit. 1766, vol. 7. POPE's character for humour® would have been sufficiently established if he had written no more than the letter to Lord BURLINGTON in that volume, in which he gives a dialogue with LINTOT, the Bookseller.

the ESSAYISTS, there is much novelty in this paper, and more serious truth than the lovers of dress will perhaps discover, or allow. GAY knew something of dress, for he had been apprenticed to a silk-mercer, but "how long he continued behind the counter, or with what degree of softness and dexterity he received and accommodated the ladies, as he probably took no delight in telling it, is not known."* The introductory paragraph to POPE'S Obsequium Catholicon is ascribed to GAY, I know not upon what authority. The "Publisher" goes farther, and ascribes the whole letter to him, which however has been always printed in POPE's works. The Annotators think that it might have been the joint production of POPE and GAY, communicated in GAY's handwriting, with which it can hardly be supposed that STEELE was unacquainted. But this opinion is founded on the assumption that STEELE wrote the "Publisher to the Reader," which from this circumstance alone seems a little improbable.

A short letter entitled "More roarings of the Lion," is supposed to have been written by Mr. LAWRENCE EUSDEN, of Cambridge, who has a poetical version in No. 127, and another in No. 164. This gentleman was afterwards Poet Laureat, but is not allowed to hold a very high rank among the favourites of the Muses.

No. 36, a very ingenious defence of punning, is assigned on the authority of Dr. ZACHARY PEARCE, bishop of Rochester, to Dr. THOMAS

JOHNSON's Life of GAY.

1

BIRCH, Chancellor of Worcester, and Prebendary of that Cathedral. Of this gentleman I know of no memoirs that are extant.*

*

The translation of the parting discourse of Cyrus to his friends, and a letter on the conduct of the Pharisees, are attributed on good authority to Dr. WILLIAM WOTTON, a writer of considerable learning, and prodigious memory. Mr. NICHOLS has given some memoirs of him in that elaborate and useful collection of biographical matter, "The Anecdotes of Bowyer."

note :

No. 130, on the speculative and active classes of mankind, was written by the Rev. DEANE BARTELETT. STEELE, in his apology, quotes two passages from it, with the following marginal "This most reasonable and amiable light in which the clergy are here placed comes from that modest and good man the Rev. Mr. BARTELETT."-Mr. BARTELETT was of Merton College, where he took his degree of M. A. July 5, 1693. STEELE was of the same college, and there probably became acquainted with him.

The papers contributed to the GUARDIAN by BUDGEL and HUGHES have been already noticed in the Preface to the Spectator. Dr. Z. PEARCE was the author of the humourous letter in No. 121, signed Ned Mum.

No. 125, on the spring, which at least merits the epithet "pretty," is assigned to Mr. THOMAS TICKELL, a writer who has been supposed to contribute much more to the SPECTATORS and

In NASH's Worcestershire he is called WILLIAM BIRCH, with the date 1719 appended.