"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.”

After likening the conceited poet to unskilled painters, who-
"With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part,

And hide with ornaments their want of art."

He warns the poet of the pernicious vice of using inflated and pretentious words, and attempting to pass off a feeble idea by clothing. it in grandiloquent language

"A vile conceit in pompous words expressed

Is like a clown in regal purple dressed."

This is the characteristic vice for which Dr. Johnson was so sharply criticised by Peter Pindar in those well-known lines

"I own I like not Johnson's turgid style,
That gives an inch the importance of a mile,
Casts of manure a wagon-load around
To raise a simple daisy from the ground;
Uplifts the club of Hercules-for what
To crush a butterfly or brain a gnat ;

Creates a whirlwind from the earth, to draw

A goose's feather, or exalt a straw

Alike in every theme his pompous art,

Heaven's awful thunder or a rumbling cart."

After pointing out that critics have no discrimination, or proper judgment, and that—

"Most, by numbers judge a poet's song,

And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong." instead of regarding the work as whole, he attacks with bitter sarcasın the feeble poets whose productions are of that commonplace character that we may instinctively guess what the inevitable second line will be when we hear the first, thus

"While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes;

Where'er you find

In the next line, it

If crystal streams

the cooling western breeze,'

whispers through the trees :'
with pleasing murmurs creep,'

The reader's threatened (not in vain) with 'sleep.'

On reading these lines we may well say-

"O wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us."

for in Pope's own Pastoral, number 4, on Winter, he not only commits the same faults himself that he condemns here, but he does so twice within 20 lines

And

"Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze

And told in sighs to all the trembling trees."

"In some still evening when the whispering breeze
Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees."

I am afraid of tiring your patience in making so many extracts, but one example leads so naturally to another that it is difficult to know where to stop. And Pope expresses in concise verse and with so much effect just those points that I wish to convey in my humble prose that I feel sure you will be indulgent. My time, however, is running so rapidly away that I shall be compelled to close my remarks without dwelling at any length upon the third part of the essay.

The following lines, intended to show the importance of art in the construction of poetry are too good to be passed over. He says:

"True ease in writing comes from art-not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense."

These lines contain in themselves the elements of an essay on poetry. They tell the student that even if he be endowed with what is called genius he must not on that account despise art and method; and they remind us of these subtleties of expression and graces of language which, in speech, distinguish the perfect orator from the clumsy speaker, and in literature, the true poet from the mere jingler of rhymes. They warn the poet against the admission of any jarring words that would arrest the even flow of melody, at the same time that they exhort him to select only those words which, by their sound, will best convey his meaning.

Many of the effects to which Pope refers in the last line, "The sound should be an echo to the sense," depend, of course, on fortuitous concidences, or a felicitous selection of those words which more than others convey, so to speak, some notion or idea of the action to be represented. The examples he gives of these effects are contained in the following lines:

"Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar."

He also gives a couplet intended to indicate the effect of airy, tripping, lightness-but he is not so happy in this, owing, perhaps, to the necessity of using a ten syllable line

"Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main."

One of the best examples of the "sound being an echo to the sense is contained in the first two lines of Byron's enigma on the letter H"'Twas whisper'd in Heaven, 'twas muttered in Hell, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell."

Having thus endeavoured to give a rough outline of the Essay, and illustrated it by some of its author's happiest efforts; the question

naturally arises-What is the verdict which we, in the present day, should pass upon this work?

No poet has been the subject of so much writing as Pope, no poetry so much criticised as his. By some writers he has been praised extravagantly, by others condemned as a trickster and a mere mechanical versifier; and more than one critic-Lady Mary Wortley Montague among the number-has been bold enough to say that he stole all his ideas.

Without venturing so far as to say "all," there is no doubt that many of the ideas embodied in this Essay were borrowed from Dryden, and Horace, and many, being mere platitudes were, so to speak, the common property of the world; but-granting this-we may ask what author is truly original in the sense that all he says is purely his own? Just as very much that Pope said is to be found in Dryden and Horace, so in like manner, much that Horace said is to be found in Aristotle and his contemporaries.

Confused, myself, with the mass of contradictory opinions uttered by his numerous biographers and commentators, I have mercifully refrained from inflicting the whole burden of my researches upon you; believing that by discarding these conflicting views, and relying upon the poet's own words, we should be better able to arrive at a correct judgment; but to give you some faint idea of these contradictory opinions, I may mention that while, on the one hand, Dr. Johnson says--"This work will place Pope among the first critics and first poets, and he has never since excelled it." Hazlitt, on the other hand, says- "This is the feeblest and least interesting of Pope's writing, being substantially a mere versification, like a metrical multiplication table." Young says "Pope is a correct poet." De Quincey-" He is discordant, indefinite, obscure."

I have also avoided, as far as possible, any direct reference to Pope as a man-first, because it is not within my province to-night, and, secondly, because such references would not enable us to form a more correct estimate of the poet. As a matter of history, it may, perhaps, be desirable to expose an author's inner life, and lay bare his weaknesses and failings to public gaze, as persistent and industrious biographers are wont to do; but to me, it seems the better course to judge a man by his work, than to decide upon the merits of a work by the character of the man.

With reference to this particular poem, I have a theory which I deduce mainly from two lines in the Essay itself, and to which I will refer in a moment.

You will recollect that I said, in my opening remarks, that a considerable portion of this poem consisted of truisms worked into poetical maxims. When I wrote those words I was not aware of the fact mentioned by one of his biographers that the whole of the Essay on Criticism was actually written in prose first, and then turned into poetry; and I venture to say that if it had remained in its original form it would never have attracted much attention. That his maxims were not all original is very evident, nor do I believe that Pope ever intended to claim them as such, and for the following reasons. Bearing

in mind the many definitions of wit and nature to which I have already alluded, and taking nature to mean, in this instance, "Truth evolved from experience" (not necessarily one's own experience), I believe the object and claim of this poem will be found in the following couplet :

"True wit is nature to advantage dressed,"

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.”

We may reasonably admit this construction, for we know that Boileau was one of Pope's models-and Boileau's creed was "that wit and fine writing do not consist so much in saying new things, as giving things that are known an agreeable turn." This was also the view taken by Pope's friendly adviser Walsh. It may be also that Pope not only imitated Dryden's style-but that he intended, in this Essay, to carry out Dryden's own description of some of his own writing, expressed in the last line of the following couplet :

"And this unpolished, rugged verse I chose

As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose."

Accepting this view, then, which is, I think, capable of logical proof, while we must regard this poem, as a whole, as a wonderful production, we cannot admit that it reaches a very high ideal of poetry. This may be, however, the fault of the subject, rather than the incapacity of the poet, for we find that when he discards what Dr. Johnson calls "axiomatic witticisms" and gives the reins to his fancy he soars much higher.

If to be universally quoted be a proof of enduring popularity, then Pope must take a high position, for few poets have left so many quotable phrases behind them as he. Such quotations as—

"One truth is clear, whatever is, is right."

And a hundred others that are familiar in our mouths as household words.

Finally, granting even the alleged lack of originality, granting minor defects of versification, there is yet much to admire, much to marvel at. To treat of dry rules and methods and set such a theme, as it were, to music; to put a new life into old platitudes so as to endow them with the charm of novelty, to gather up the "waifs and strays" of unrecorded wisdom "which oft had been thought, but ne'er so well expressed," and invest them with "those nameless graces which no art can teach.” This, I say, must have been the work of a man who, if not entitled to the highest rank, may truly and justly claim to be considered a great poet.

LEO.

TWO LOVE LYRICS.

I.

WHY should I sing that I love thee,

Since years have approved the truth?
"On earth is no woman above thee: "
Thus whispered the dream of my youth.
And now that the dream is fulfilled,

No words can be uttered so sweet;
With bliss all my being is thrilled,

As that love-charm I fondly repeat.

The joy and the pride of my home,
The loving-beloved of all;
And mem'ry, wherever I roam,

Bright visions of thee will recall.
The crown of all bliss is to love thee;
And still I can truly repeat

"On earth is no woman above thee, So perfect, so true, so complete."

II.

WHY should I sing that I love thee?
Or utter once more in a rhyme,

"On earth is no woman above thee,

Nor will be till th' ending of time?" Because it is sweet to thy ear,

Though repeated again and again; No song of the poet's so dear,

Nor breathes a sweeter refrain.

The lark from the heavens above

Greets his mate sitting low on the ground,

And though ever repeating his love,

Is never monotonous found.

So, dearest, my love-charm is still
Ever new, though ever so old,

And my heart with all blessing can fill,

No matter how oft it is told.

J. A. L.