the ravages of a deforming distemper; she would indeed have been still more entitled to perpetual benediction, had she been able to accomplish as much (by example or precept) towards. diminishing the barbarous influence of those mental distempers, envy, hatred, and malice; but instead of banishing them from her own spirit, she has exhibited, in writing against Pope, a portentous offspring of their execrable power.- -It would be a signal and a happy compliment to the literary reputation of this memorable lady, if her noble descendants would direct that the bitter verses, to which I allude, should be rejected from the future editions of her works. Her outrageous acrimony would then be gradually forgotten, as all who justly regard her memory must wish it to be. The verses in question may be rejected with the greater propriety, as they are said to have been partly composed by her associate, Lord Hervey. Let the peer and the poet (Hervey and Pope) shew themselves alternately mangling each other with equal virulence, though with different abilities, but let not a lady, so truly admirable in many points of view, be exhibited to all generations, as brandishing the scalping-knife of satirical malignity! Her more temperate writings exhibit infinitely too much of that contemptuous and malevolent spirit which she was apt to display against several illustrious authors of her own time—a failing for which she has been censured with great justice and eloquence by a female writer of the present age, who may be regarded as greatly superior to Lady Mary not only in the graceful virtues most suited to her sex, but in her poetical talents. The candid, elegant, and animated bio ́grapher of Richardson (Mrs. Barbou) has admirably vindicated

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the mental dignity of that enchanting moralist against the sarcastic detraction of Lady Mary.

Even

But let us return to the Letters of Pope! If they have sunk in the estimation of the public, there certainly was a time, when they contributed not a little to his renown. his unfriendly biographer, Johnson, says on this subject-"Pope's private correspondence, thus promulgated, filled the nation "with praises of his candour, tenderness, and benevolence, the "purity of his purposes, and the fidelity of his friendship.”

This is probably the truth, though the Doctor seems to contradict himself in the course of a few pages, and says, with remarkable inconsistency, in speaking of the Letters published by Pope.- "The book never became much the subject of "conversation. Some read it, as a contemporary history, and "some perhaps, as a model of epistolary language. But those, "who read it, did not talk of it. Not much therefore was added "by it to fame or envy."

If the surrepitious edition of Pope's Letters produced such a striking effect in the poet's favour, as the Doctor at first asserted, it is very improbable, that Pope's authentic publication of his own. correspondence should be so litttle regarded. There is also great improbability in the Doctor's conjecture, that Pope himself, with a very mean artifice, contrived the first clandestine appearance of his own Letters. Had he previously wished to print them, he might have pleaded the precedent of Howel's Letters, a popular book of our own country, and of merit sufficient to attract the notice and applause of foreigners; for the learned Morhof, in his History of Literature, expresses a wish

that Howel's Letters may be translated into Latin or German. If Pope wished for higher authority, among the poets of other nations, he might have found such an authority in the elder Tasso, who in writing to his friend, Claudio Tolomei, praises him with enthusiastic admiration, for having published one of the earliest collections of familar Letters in the Italian language, which the poet considers as worthy of being regarded as models; and in friendly emulation of which, he avows a design of imparting to the world, two books of his own private Letters,

It is but just however to observe, on the other side, that Erasmus, a favourite author in the estimation of Pope, has said in one of his Letters, that he would by no means advise any writer to publish his own Letters, in his life time:-" Nulli velim autor esse, ut ipse vivus edat." The mild Erasmus confesses he wanted courage himself, for such a display of his talents; and declares, he wondered that St. Barnard not only published Letters of his own, but Letters, in which he had not scrupled to stigmatize the names of many.

But to return once more to the Letters of Pope!" His epistolary excellence, (says Johnson) had an open field; he had no English rival living or dead." The biographer, before he made this remark, enumerated a few English writers of Lettèrs, who had preceded Pope; but he forgot Sir William Temple, whose celebrated Letter to Lady Essex, on the death of her daughter, is a master-piece of tender reproof, and friendly admonition, against the indulgence of intemperate sorrow; a Letter admirable for its eloquence, and worthy of perpetual com

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mendation, as medicinal to every suffering parent, whom tenderness of heart may expose to the pitiable excesses of natural affliction.

If the English are inferior to other nations of the modern world, in the multitude of collected Letters, we may certainly produce single examples of exellence, not surpassed by foreigners, in Letters of diversified description.

In a consolatory Letter, Sir William Temple has no rival to apprehend: in a Letter of manly application to the mercy of a tyrant, (perhaps the kind of Letter, which it may be most difficult to write simply, and gracefully !) the poet Cleveland, addressing Oliver Cromwell, appears entitled to a similar encomium and for a Letter of laconic dignity, we may produce, without a fear of seeing her surpassed, the "high-born, and high-spirited Anne, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery."

Lord Bacon has expressed his very high esteem of epistolary writing in the following terms:-" Letters, such as are written from wise men, are, of all the words of men, in my judgment, the best." Yet this wonderful man is himself very far from appearing to such advantage in his Letters, as in his Moral Essays-the latter contain the pure essence of his powerful mind, the former are debased by the dregs of it: His Essays are an exquisite production of knowledge, wisdom, and piety-his Letters, a coarse tissue of artifice, adulation, and servility.

In a Letter to Mr: (afterwards Sir John) Davies, who was gone to compliment James the First, on his accession to

the throne of England, Bacon says "I commend myself to "your love, and the well-using my name-in imprinting a "good conceit and opinion of me, chiefly in the King-so "desiring you to be good to concealed Poets, I continue your "assured friend."

These remarkable words seem to imply that Bacon wished Davies to represent him to the King as privately devoted to poetry, and so he sometimes was. If he had this intention, it proves that he very early understood the various modes of obtaining favour with the new monarch, for when James saw Davies, he asked if he was Nosce teipsum, alluding to the title of his celebrated poem, and being informed that his new attendant was indeed the author of that admirable work, he gave him expectations of future promotion, which he soon fulfilled. There is a Letter of Bacon to James, on being created Viscount St. Albans, which enumerates the various favours he had received from that sovereign; but instead of displaying the genuine eloquence of manly gratitude, it contains a very poor conceit. Even in writing to the King's daughter, the Queen of Bohemia, on the occasion of presenting to her, his History of Henry the Seventh, Bacon is far from producing a graceful Letter.-But it is painful to dwell on the imperfections of so great a geniuslet us return to the moral poet, who described him truly and energetically, in a single verse.

One of the most interesting, and manly Letters, of the collection addressed to Pope, is the last of Arbuthnot's, containing the dying advice of that genuine, accomplished friend, to the too irritable poet. Pope, in his reply, assigns his reasons