whether he has placed them before us in all the colours of reality-whether in unfolding the emotions of the mind, he Has made us feel each passion that he feigns,

and has been enabled to associate our sensations with objects that are in themselves the most indifferent, common, or contemptible.

The finest Landscape that Rubens perhaps ever painted, is the representation of a flat and uniform country in a shower of rain, and we equally participate in the feelings of the genuine poet, whether he represent to us the strife of heroes, or a game at ombre, whether he describe the launch of a ship amidst breathless crowds, or a mountain daisy turned up by the plough. In this respect he may truly be said to possess a spark of that attribute, which Pope has so beautifully described as characteristic of the divinity, and to be

As full, as perfect, in a hair, as heart!

It has however been the practice of those who have attempted to depreciate the talents of Pope, to admit that he occasionally exhibited powers which placed him on an equality with the loftiest sons of song. Thus we are informed by one of his critics, that, "in his Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard, he appears on the high ground of the poet of nature," and that "in his Rape of the Lock, where he gives a more poetical employment to the more dignified order of genii, he is equal to Shakespear."* After such passages, and many others of the same kind, which we meet with in the works of his critics, can it be allowed them to state these acknowledged excellences by way of exception only to the general tenor of the author's productions?+

* Mr. Bowles.

"Pope must be judged by the rank in which he stands; amongst those of the French school, not the Italian; among those whose delineations are taken more from manners than nature. When I say that this is his predominant character, I must be insensible to every thing exquisite in poetry, if I did not except instanter, the Epistle of Eloisa, &c." Bowles.

"As well might we deny (as has justly been observed) the strength of Milo, because he carried an ox but once," or assert that Michelagnolo was no sculptor, except in his Moses, and Raffaelle no painter, except in his transfiguration. Surely neither man nor elephant can be an exception to himself.

That the inventive powers of Pope were confined only to a few particular instances is, however, an assertion not founded on fact. Whether we apply that term to the construction of a fable, or continued narrative of imaginary and fictitious events, as in the Rape of the Lock, or the Dunciad, or to the illustration of any subject, whatever its nature may be, by the introduction of appropriate decoration, and beautiful figures of speech, as in his moral and didactic writings, it cannot be denied that Pope has displayed the powers of imagination in a degree which entitles him to rank with the most celebrated poets in any age or country. It may, indeed, be said, that as the principal Epic Poems of which the world so justly boasts, profess to be, and in some degree are founded on historical events, and are consequently a narrative of matter of fact, embellished, indeed, by the genius of the poet; so the allegorical poems of Pope, being founded chiefly on fiction, and introducing beings of a new and fanciful character in poetry, exhibit greater powers of imagination than are required for works of the former description, and entitle him to rank with those authors, who, like Shakespear and Spenser, have pictured out to us the forms of things unseen, and have given to airy nothing

"A local habitation and a name."

If ever any individual was born a poet it was Pope. Indications of this had manifested themselves as early as eight or nine years of age. In his early progress he refused to

be led by the hand through long and thorny ways, but went to the living well and drank. As he approached, the great masters of former ages seem to have unfolded their works to him; and he read and enjoyed them at a time of life when others are employed only in acquiring the rudiments of learning. Such was the facility of his powers, and the quickness of his apprehension, that he extended himself over all subjects, and epic, and satiric, and tragic, and comic, and lyric poetry, were the playthings of his childhood. The perceptions he had of the peculiar manner and style of his predecessors were such, that he reflected them again as from a mirror, and his imitations, whilst they astonish us by their resemblance, convince us that he might have succeeded in any department to which he had chosen to devote his talents. Amongst his earliest favourites were Ovid and Statius, whose ostentatious qualifications naturally attracted his young mind, and when he applied

"The loud Papinian trumpet to his lips,"

he shewed at least how deeply he had imbibed the spirit of his author. In this enchanted land he did not however long remain, but entered with Virgil and with Homer into the true recesses of the Muses, guiding himself by their precepts, and founding himself on their example.

Of English authors those to whom Pope stands the nearest related in genius and poetical character, are Chaucer and Dryden, both of them not only the objects of his warm admiration, but of his avowed and frequent imitation. Chaucer may be said to be, like Pope, a general poet. His excellence was not confined to any particular department. He was qualified

In this respect Chaucer is unrivalled by any of his successors, except Shakespear and Pope, both of whom resemble

him also in that moral and contemplative character which delights in comparing, and illustrating the phenomena of the moral and physical world, and demonstrating that not an incident or a sensation can take place in the one without exciting in the mind a decided sympathy with the other.

It was probably this similarity of taste that induced Pope when young to imitate several of the pieces of Chaucer, and in particular to write his Temple of Fame, one of the noblest, although one of the earliest of his productions. That the hint of this piece is taken from Chaucer's House of Fame, is sufficiently obvious, yet the design is greatly altered, and the descriptions, and many of the particular thoughts, are his own; notwithstanding which, such is the coincidence and happy union of the work with its prototype, that it is almost impossible to distinguish those portions which are originally Pope's, from those for which he has been indebted to Chaucer.

In the establishment of the English language, Chaucer may be said to have laid the foundation of a building which it was the good fortune of Pope to complete. In this point of view they have each their respective merit-a merit in which none of their countrymen can contend with them; but it would be as frivolous to attempt to decide which of them is intitled to the higher praise, as it would to inquire whether Bramante, who laid the foundations of the church of St. Peter at Rome, or Michelagnolo, who raised the cupola, is the greatest architect.

Sir Walter Scott, with somewhat of the partiality of an editor, has, in his Life of Dryden, claimed on several occasions for his author, a place next to Shakespear and Milton, in the series of English poets, and has even ventured to insinuate a doubt whether he is not entitled to a still higher rank. In the opening of his advertisement to the Life, he denominates him "one who may claim at least

the third place, and who has given proofs of greater` versatility of talent than either Shakespear or Milton, though justly placed inferior to them in their peculiar provinces.” And his volume concludes with declaring the name of Dryden to be "second only to those of Milton and of Shakespear." On which of his performances this superiority is supposed to rest, it is not easy to discover. Dismissing his translations, and his dramatic pieces, neither of which can entitle him to so distinguished an honour, what work of original genius has Dryden produced that can compare in fancy, in feeling, in strength, or in dignity, with the Rape of the Lock, the Epistle of Eloisa, the Dunciad, or the Essay on Man? It may be said that the Ode for Music by Dryden, excels that of Pope on the same subject; but admitting this to be the fact, the superiority in a single effort and a short composition, cannot induce us to forget the numerous instances in which the case is reversed, and in which the works of Dryden stand in no degree of competition with those of Pope. On this subject the only decisive judge is the public, and it would not perhaps be too much to assert, that where one person reads Dryden, ten at least read Pope, and that where one line of Dryden is recited by memory, a hundred are repeated from the works of Pope. Nor is this difficult to be accounted for. Such is the continual alloy, such the vulgarity and contaminated taste, which occur in the works of Dryden, that it is scarcely possible to point out a single composition in which examples do not appear, sufficient to take away the appetite of the most voracious reader.

But it will perhaps be said that passages of this kind in the writings of Dryden are amply compensated by others which excel those of his rivals, as much as these confessedly fall below them. If however we may judge from the general opinion on this subject, and the infrequency with which the works of Dryden have been called for by the