find more pure English, more delicate, fine writing, a better mirror of manners at the present day, than in the Spectator? I grant you that there is more energy, passion, dictation, assertion, and positiveness in some of our modern standards, than in the works of Addison and Steele, but I would rather turn to this work for models in writing, than to an hundred of them. Although the doctrine of professed reviewing was not then thoroughly known, yet give me the direct, honest, enlightened criticism upon Milton, to an hundred modern reviews, where the sage commentator is only acquainted with perhaps the first half page of the work he praises or condemns. What a host of descendants have these works of Addison and Steele produced! Some that are doing good, and others that are doing no good at all. The world of taste and imagination was not alone improved, the exact sciences come in for their share of genius. Sir Isaac Newton, who was born in 1642, and died in 1727, lived among the illustrious men whose deeds we have mentioned. He enlarged the bounds then prescribed to science; taught new principles, examined old ones, and either established or destroyed them as they bore the test he submitted them to. His pure spirit seemed privileged to commune with the skies. He believed in a Creator, and his providence, and was rewarded above other men for the sincerity of his devotion, in the plenitude of the revelation vouchsafed him. Such men give to the thinking world new matter for thought, study, and experiment; they are superior spirits on errands of knowledge for the service of mankind. "Who can number up his labors? Who His high discoveries sing? when but a few Of the deep-studying race can stretch their minds To what he knew: * * * * What wonder thence that his devotion swell'd Responsive to his knowledge! For could he, In all its order, magnitude, and parts, Who fills, sustains, and actuates the whole ?" Pope was eighteen years younger than Addison. He was born in 1688, and as he was an author almost from his cradle, he must have been early acquainted with the works of his illustrious predecessor, Addison. His education was miscellaneous and extensive, but not minute, nor very accurate. He "never rose by benefice or trade," but was solely a poet from the beginning of his life to the end. Dryden was his model. The youthful poet read the works of his prototype with great enthusiasm ; and it is said that he had the satisfaction of seeing Dryden at the coffee-house, in his old age, but probably from the disparity of their years, no intercourse was ever had between them. Pope began to write with great taste very early in life. His Essay on Criticism, written when only twenty-one years of age, is a most wonderful performance. The MESSIAH appeared in the Spectator in 1712, when he was only twenty-four. Previous to this he had published that inimitable mock heroic poem, "The Rape of the Lock." It is playful, satirical, and elegant. His Eloisa has more feeling in it than all he ever wrote before. Warton has been In 1720, he published the Iliad. attacked for calling this the "highest effort of the poet," but I am at a loss to discover on what grounds he has been assailed for this opinion; for perhaps there have been some who wrote original compositions, if not like, yet with as much mind as Pope, but no one, except Sir William Jones, has ever made such admirable translations. Critics say that it is not literally Homer; but there is scarcely a fine passage in that great work of elegance and beauty that has not given you the sense of Homer in most beautiful English. This will be read as long as Homer is known. Shortly after these numerous publications, he grew proud and restive under the criticisms that either the ignorant or envious had made upon his works. He then rose in his wrath to form a DUNCIAD, to put all these knaves and fools in at once. This was a fearful labor, and broke at once a hornet's nest about his ears. If all his satire had been just, and in accordance with public feeling, it would have been dangerous enough in all conscience; but Pope, taking every one to be knave or dunce who did not believe in his Apollo-ship, unfortunately got into his work names of distinction, such as Bently and others; and he sometimes, with a childish inconstancy, changed his censures. Theobald was the first hero of the Dunciad, and Cibber was the last, the former having been dethroned to make way for the latter. There was no sympathy for the gnats and flies the satirist killed or wounded; but they would rail on, and what was worse, lie most lustily. He must have strong nerves and a reckless valor who makes up his mind to say what he pleases of every knave and dunce he finds in the world; and he must be still more fortified, who gives these epithets to men of character and spirit. A satirist is generally a man who has suffered and seeks revenge, or one rankling from defect, real or imaginary, of mind or person. It does not require half the talents that is generally supposed, to make a good satire. Virtues are not so prominent as vice, nor beauties so readily seen as defects. The satirist seizes on these vices or defects, and makes them ridiculous or detestable, as he wishes. How many fine looking kings have died, for the beauty of whose persons we have never stopped to inquire, while all the deformities of Richard III. are noted and remembered. But whatever may have been the defects of temper in Pope, or however unjust he may have been in particular instances, in assailing great and good men, who had perhaps accidentally offended him, still his works will hold their place in English literature. There is ease, succinctness, sweetness, and felicity of expression, in all his works. The ear is satisfied-yea, more, gratified— by his verse. When we are not convinced that he is exactly right in sentiment, we cannot but admire the power and beauty he evinces in putting forth his thoughts. With his little quarrels we have nothing to do at this time, and there is nothing to make us wish to keep them alive. The defects of those departed should be remembered no further than they can do some good to the living, or to those who are to come after us. The world is indebted to Pope for a great mass of English literature, such as furnishes the mind with subjects of thought, and at the same time leaves on the tablets of the memory, as the Arabians did on the walls of their temples, stanzas of truth and taste, written in bright and lasting letters. Young was seven years senior to Pope, but he did not begin to publish till some years after Pope's writings were generally known. He was bred to the civil law, but never practised his profession, and finding himself supported in his love of letters by the patrons of that day, he gave up that profession, and when near fifty years of age took orders in the church. His Last Day, which is a splendid poem, was written before he changed his profession. His satires followed. They are elegant and spirited compositions. In his Universal Passion, he laughs most heartily at vice and folly; but after several years, when domestic calamities sunk deeply into his heart, he changed his mode of addressing mankind. It often happens in life that we find those who are the most buoyant, joyous, and laughterloving at times, at other moments are the most distressed and wretched. The Night Thoughts were published in 1742, and soon became popular. They are congenial to the mind in misfortune, and they breathe such a strain of piety and hope, that they seem to ease the heart of its sorrows, by probing it most thoroughly. This work abounds in passages of most exquisite poetry; as a whole, it is a fine argument in favor of a future state of existence, drawn from philosophy, from nature, and revelation. The perusal of this book has inclined more people to serious thoughts than any other human production I know of. The mother, bereaved of her husband or children, turns to the Night Thoughts, as well as her Bible, for consolation; and the bereaved philosopher is sometimes found examining its pages, If we are called to watch over the corse of some de |