"a

interested more perennially successive generations of biographers. His figure is made very lively to us by a great variety of anecdotes. He was not blind to the peculiarities of his own physique; he did not disguise the fact that he had " crazy carcase." He required to be lifted out of bed, and could not stand until he was laced into a sort of armour. Nevertheless he had great, but intermittent vivacity; when he was excited, he justly described himself as "a lively little creature, with long legs and arms; a spider

is no ill emblem of him; he has been taken at a distance for a small windmill." His physical weakness, no doubt, was in great part responsible for a love of intrigue and even of downright trickery, which has made the unravelling of his correspondence an absolutely impossible task. This little brilliant man of letters, who had a host of admirable qualities, was an arch-deceiver and a miracle of half-hypocritical artfulness. For all this, poor man, his memory has been only too cruelly punished, and it behoves an honest reader to-day to think more of what was lovable and enlightened and impressive in the genius of Pope than of his ridiculous affectations and deplorable pettinesses. He was a very great man imprisoned in a little ricketty body which warped and pinched certain members of his mind. Let those who judge him

Teresa Blount

harshly read the account of that long disease, his life, in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

FROM THE "ESSAY ON CRITICISM."

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fired at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise !

So pleased at first the tow'ring Alps we try
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way,
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

POPE

Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various off'rings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glitt'ring spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,

Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy sylphs surround their darling care,
These set the head, and those divide the hair,
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown ;
And Betty's praised for labours not her own.

FROM "THE MESSIAH."

The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murm'ring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:

To leafless shrubs the flow ring palms succeed,

And od❜rous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,

And boys in flow'ry bands the tiger lead;

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.

The smiling infant in his hand shall take

The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongues shall innocently play.
Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy tow'ry head, and lift thy eyes!
See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn ;
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on ev'ry side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barb'rous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend ;

See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,

And heaped with products of Sabæan springs!

For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

203

Drawn without his knowledge while conversing with Mr. Allen at Prior Park

O'erflow thy courts: the Light Himself shall shine

Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine !

The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fixed His word, His saving power remains ;-
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!

POPE

FROM THE "ELEGY ON AN UNFORTUNATE LADY."

What can atone (oh ever-injured shade !)
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rights unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed.
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned :
What though no friends in sable weeds appcar,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polished marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow ;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.

FROM "AN ESSAY ON MAN."

Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way ;

Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depths of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.

To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.

FROM "THE DUNCIAD."

In flowed at once a gay embroidered race,

And tittering pushed the pedants off the place :

Some would have spoken, but the voice was drowned

By the French horn, or by the opening hound.

The first came forwards, with as easy mien,

As if he saw St. James's and the queen.

When thus th' attendant orator began,

"Receive, great empress! thy accomplished son :
Thine from the birth, and sacred from the rod,

A dauntless infant! never scared with God.
The sire saw, one by one, his virtues wake:
The mother begged the blessing of a rake.

205