charities, is faid to have diffufed all thofe bleffings from five hundred a year, Wonders are willingly told, and willingly heard. The truth is, that Kyrl was a man of known integrity, and active benevolence, by whose folicitation the wealthy were perfuaded to pay contributions to his charitable schemes; this influence he obtained by an example of liberality exerted to the utmost extent of his power, and was thus enabled to give more than he had. This account Mr. Victor received from the minifter of the place, and I have preferved it, that the praife of a good man, being made more credible, may be more folid. Narrations of romantick and impracticable virtue will be read with wonder, but that which is unattainable is recommended in vain; that good may be endeavoured, it must be Thewn to be poffible,

This is the only piece in which the author has given a hint of his religion, by ridiculing the ceremony of burning the pope, and by mentioning with fome indignation the infcription on the Monument.

When this poem was first published, the dialogue, having no letters of direction, was perplexed and obfcure. Pope feems to have written with no very dif tinct idea; for he calls that an Epistle to Bathurst, in which Bathurst is introduced as fpeaking.

He afterwards (1734) infcribed to Lord Cobham his Characters of Men, written with clofe attention to the operations of the mind and modifications of life. In this poem he has endeavoured to establish and exemplify his favourite theory of the Ruling Paffion, by which he means an original direction of defire to fome particular object, an innate affection which gives all action a determinate and invariable tendency, and operates upon the whole fyftem of life, either openly, or more

fecretly

fecretly by the intervention of fome accidental or fubordinate propenfion.

Of any paffion, thus innate and irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted. Human characters are by no means conftant; men change by change of place, of fortune, of acquaintance; he who is at one time a lover of pleasure, is at another a lover of money. Those indeed who attain any excellence commonly fpend life in one purfuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms. But to the particular fpecies of excellence men are directed, not by an afcendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, fome early converfation which they heard, or fome accident which excited ardour and emulation.

It must be at least allowed that this ruling Paffion, antecedent to reason and observation, must have an object independent on human contrivance; for there can be no natural defire of artificial good. No man therefore can be born, in the ftrict acceptation, a lover of money; for he may be born where money does not exift: nor can he be born, in a moral fenfe, a lover of his country; for fociety, politically regulated, is a ftate contradistinguished from a state of nature; and any attention to that coalition of interefts which makes the happiness of a country is poffible only to those whom enquiry and reflection have enabled to comprehend it.

This doctrine is in itself pernicious as well as falfe : its tendency is to produce the belief of a kind of moral predeftination, or over-ruling principle which cannot be refifted; he that admits it is prepared to comply with every defire that caprice or opportunity fhall excite, and to flatter himself that he fubmits only to the lawful dominion of Nature, in obeying the refiftless authority of his ruling Paffion.

Pope

Pope has formed his theory with fo little skill, that, in the examples by which he illuftrates and confirms it, he has confounded paffions, appetites, and habits.

To the Characters of Men he added soon after, in an Epiftle fuppofed to have been addreffed to Martha Blount, but which the last edition has taken from her, the Characters of Women. This poem, which was laboured with great diligence, and in the author's opinion with great fuccefs, was neglected at its first publication, as the commentator fuppofes, because the publick was informed, by an advertisment, that it contained no Character drawn from the Life; an affertion which Pope probably did not expect or wish to have been believed, and which he foon gave his readers fufficient reason to diftruft, by telling them, in a note, that the work was imperfect, because part of his fubject was Vice too high to be yet expofed.

The time however foon came, in which it was fafe to difplay the Dutchefs of Marlborough under the name of Atoffa; and her character was inferted with no great honour to the writer's gratitude.

He published from time to time (between 1730 and 1740) Imitations of different poems of Horace, generally with his name, and once as was fufpected without it. What he was upon moral principles afhamed to own, he ought to have fuppreffed. Of thefe pieces it is useless to settle the dates, as they had feldom much relation to the times, and perhaps had been long in his hands.

This mode of imitation, in which the ancients are familiarifed, by adapting their fentiments to modern topicks, by making Horace fay of Shakespeare what he

originally

originally faid of Ennius, and accommodating his fatires on Pantolabus and Nomentanus to the flatterers and prodigals of our own time, was first practifed in the reign of Charles the Second by Oldham and Rochefter, at least I remember no inftances more ancient. It is a kind of middle compofition between tranflation and original defign, which pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable, and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite amufement; for he has carried it further than any former poet.

He published likewise a revival, in smoother num-bers, of Dr. Donne's Satires, which was recommended to him by the Duke of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Oxford. They made no great impreffion on the publick. Pope feems to have known their imbecillity * and therefore fuppreffed them while he was yet contending to rife in reputation, but ventured them when he thought their deficiences more likely to be imputed to Donne than to himself.

The Epiftle to Dr. Arbuthnot, which feems to be derived in its first defign from Boileau's Addrefs à fon Efprit, was published in January 1735, about a month before the death of him to whom it is infcribed. It is to be regretted, that either honour or pleasure should have been miffed by Arbuthnot; a man eftimable for his learning, amiable for his life, and venerable for his piety.

Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profeffion, verfed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a fcholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit, who, in

the

the crowd of life, retained and difcovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.

In this poem Pope feems to reckon with the publick. He vindicates himself from cenfures; and with dignity, rather then arrogance, enforces his own claims to kindness and refpect.

Into this poem are interwoven feveral paragraphs which had been before printed as a fragment, and among them the fatirical lines upon Addison, of which the laft couplet has been twice corrected. It was at firft,

Who would not fmile if fuch a man there be?
Who would not laugh if Addison were he?

Then,

Who would not grieve if such a man there be?
Who would not laugh if Addifon were he?

At laft it is,

Who but muft laugh if fuch a man there be?
Who would not weep if Atticus were he?

He was at this time at open war with Lord Hervey, who had diftinguished himself as a steady adherent to the Ministry; and, being offended with a contemptuous answer to one of his pamphlets, had fummoned Pulteney to a duel. Whether he or Pope made the first attack, perhaps cannot now be eafily known: he had written an invective against Pope, whom he calls Hard as thy heart, and as tby birth cbfcure; and hints that his father was a batter. To this Pope wrote a reply in verfe and profe: the verses are in this poem; and the profe, though it was never fent, is printed

among