is less noble than any description whatever of rocks and preci pices, which may be found in the numerous class of versifiers who paint poetical landscapes after nature?

Mr Bowles proceeds to observe that, in like manner, those passions of the human heart, which belong to nature in general, are, per se, more adapted to the higher species of poetry, than those which are derived from incidental and transient manners. Of this proposition there can be no doubt. From these two axioms he infers, that the rule by which we would estimate Pope's general poetical character, would be obvious. But as he seems hastening to a conclusion, a new rule of judging comes across Mr Bowles's mind, which is likely to render our critical calculation somewhat more complex. Let me not be considered,' says he, 'as thinking that the subject alone constitutes poetical excellency. The execution is to be taken into consideration at the same time; for we might fall asleep over the creation of Blackmore, but be alive to the touches of animation and satire in Boileau.' By execution, he means, not only the colours of expression, but the design, the contrast of light and shade, the masterly management, the judicious disposition, and, in short, every thing that gives to a great subject relief, interest, and animation.' The subject and the exccution, therefore, we find at last, are equally to be considered the one respecting the poetry; the other, the art and powers of the poet.' And it is, in Mr Bowles's opinion, for want of observing this rule, that so much has been said, and so little understood, of the real ground of Pope's character as a poet. Now, it appears to us, we confess, that Pope's, or any other man's character as a poet, must depend upon his art and powers' solely, and in no degree upon the subject he has selected, however judicious or otherwise that choice may be, as to the end of displaying his talents to advantage. We submit to Mr Bowles, whether he has not fallen into a puzzle of ideas, not uncommon, of confounding the pleasure which a poem produces in us, with the degree of genius required for its composition. In estimating the poems of Pope, the subject may justly claim some consideration, though we are inclined to believe that to men of cultivated taste, it enters but in a very small proportion to the execution, into the feelings of poetical delight. But Mr Bowles is expressly considering the merits of the poet; and these can only be appreciated by examining his reach of thought, powers over the passions, command of expression, and every other item which enters into the accounts of Parnassus.

There is, however, one sense, undoubtedly, in which the poeti cal character of Pope may be said to depend upon his subjects:

none

none can claim credit for greater powers than they display; and some subjects are less compatible than others with the manifestation of particular talents of execution.

It is this, perhaps, which Mr Bowles means, when he says, the subject is equally to be considered with the execution; it is this, at least, which he ought to mean. Pope must be judged,' he continues, according to the rank in which he stands among those of the French school, not the Italian; among those whose delineations are taken more from manners than from nature.' This is perfectly intelligible;-but is it true? Is there no difference between Pope and Boileau? Does he speak so little to the imagination and the heart? Does he borrow his delineations from manners only, and not from nature? Mr Bowles excepts, indeed, from his position, the Epistle of Eloisa, on which he bestows no more praise than is just, when he says, that nothing of the kind has ever been produced equal to it for pathos, painting and melody.' But are there no other parts of his works, in which Pope has reached a high tone of real poetry, according to the strictest notion of the term? Is poetry found in the moral sublime, in the excitement of high and dignified emotion, through the medium of harmonious and forcible numbers? The epistle to Lord Oxford displays this reach of noble sentiment, more uniformly, though not, perhaps, more conspicuously, than some other passages of his moral writings. Is the sprightliness of a versatile fancy, the play of varied imagery, a distinguishing characteristic of the poet? Where is this more striking, than in the Rape of the Lock,-and, indeed, in many parts of the Dunciad? Is the fervour of passion, the power of exciting and expressing emotion, the soul of poetry? We have already pointed to it in the Eloisa. What then is it that we want? and for what reason does Mr Bowles, like the vain herd of modern versifiers, carp at the poetical merits of Pope? That he is not of the class of Milton and Shakespeare is indisputable; and, notwithstanding the two volumes, in which Dr Warton thought it necessary to prove this truism, we doubt whether any critic, even during the flattery of his own age, ever thought of placing him so high.

The true reason, we suspect, of this perpetual tendency in the present age to depreciate Pope, is an inordinate preference of descriptive poetry. The following extract will prove, we think, the truth of what we assert, so far as Mr Bowles is concerned.

In what has been faid, I have avoided the introduction of pic turefque defcription; that is, accurate reprefentations from external objects of nature: but if the premises laid down in the commencement of thefe reflections are true, no one can ftand preeminent as a great poet, unless he has not only a heart fufceptible of the moft pathetic or most exalted

VOL. XI. NO. 22.

Dd

exalted feelings of nature, but an eye attentive to, and familiar with, every external appearance that she may exhibit, in every change of feafon, every variation of light and fhade, every rock, every tree, every leaf, in her folitary places. He who has not an eye to obferve these, and who cannot, with a glance, diftinguish every diversity of every hue in her variety of beauties, muft fo far be deficient in one of the effential qualities of a poet.

Here Pope, from infirmities, and from phyfical caufes, was particu larly deficient. When he left his own laurel circus at Twickenham, he was lifted into his chariot or his barge; and, with weak eyes, and tottering ftrength, it is phyfically impoffible he could be a defcriptive bard. Where defcription has been introduced among his poems, as far as his obfervation could go, he excelled; more could not be expected. In the defcriptions of the cloifter, the fcenes furrounding the melancholy convent, as far as could be gained by books, or fuggefted by imagination, he was eminently fuccefsful; but even here, perhaps, he only proved that he could not go far; and,

"The ftreams that fhine between the hills,

"The grots that echo to the tinkling rills,"

were poffibly tranfcripts of what he could mott eafily transcribe,-his own views and fcenery.

It would be perhaps idle to notice the anachronism with which this passage concludes, were it not a proof of that cavilling disposition which we noticed above, and which is perpetually on the scent for some ill-natured remark towards Pope. Mr Bowles knows very well, that Pope was not possessed of his own views and scenery,' meaning his house and grotto at Twickenham, till long after the publication of Eloisa's epistle. But we object, as critics, to the spirit of the whole paragraph. That picturesque description is a fruitful source of poetical pleasure, we readily confess but we deny that it is essential to the poetical character, or that no one can stand preeminent, who has never excelled in it. Images, indeed, drawn from natural objects, are indispensable in poetry, as they are in all animated prose; but accurate and detailed description, which, in some species of poetical composition, is wholly inapplicable, is, in most others, rather valuable than necessary. Does Mr Bowles require, that the eye of the lyric poet, or of the tragedian, should be familiar with every variation of light and shade, every tree, and every leaf?'-Such petty circumstances of external nature are scorned by him who aims at a nobler quarry, the excitement of powerful emotion, and the delineation, not of trees and leaves, but of the passions and sentiments of the human mind. Even of those, whose subjects may fitly have led them to the introduction of this species of ornament, the painter's eye, which Mr Bowles requires, has been the lot of very few. Poets are said to be cupidi silvarum;' but it has chanced,

we

we believe, that most of them have lived in courts or cities, without much inquiry after any external appearances' of nature, beyond those which are tolerably obvious, and which all men recognize pretty equally. A poet feels, and expresses what he feels, more forcibly than an ordinary person: the most common phenomena of the visible world, therefore, strike more in his descriptions, than in reality; they are better selected, better combined, and more richly associated. But if the nice skill of landscape painting, the power of showing what the reader wonders he never saw before,' for which Dr Johnson has praised Thomson, be essential to poetry; valuable as, in its judicious exercise, it may be deemed, few indeed are the poets. There is something of this, but not a great deal, in Homer. There is, as we observed on a former occasion, an eminent degree of picturesque skill in Virgil; it is one of his peculiar excellences; and perhaps he has a claim to rank higher, in this respect, than any ancient or modern poet. But we say this, on account of the good taste with which he has refrained from excessive and particular detail. He falls very short of Mr Bowles's exaggerated requisition; he does not stop to distinguish every diversity of every hue in nature's variety of beauties; his descriptions are beautifully sketched, but the perfect finish must be supplied by the picturesque reader. The Italian poets are equally deficient, according to Mr Bowles's canon; even Spenser, if nicely examined, will not be found to have composed landscapes; and, with the weak eyes' of Milton, it is physically impossible,' in Mr Bowles's own words, that he could be a descriptive bard.'

In truth, we are become sick of this deluge of descriptive poetry, which, since the days of Thomson, has swept over the lower regions of Parnassus. It has its charm, and to us a very powerful one: we love the forms of external nature, and are pleased to find them suggested, whether by the painter or poet, in combinations more attractive than themselves generally present. But it readily degenerates into a very low style of poetry; a monotonous enumeration of rocks and rivers, birds and beasts, variegated only with the still more dreary embellishment of sickly and sombre sentiment. Will those, who are conversant with modern poetry, accuse us of injustice? It is the price which we pay for Thomson and Cowper; their successes, and the extreme easiness of descriptive poetry, have raised up a lamentable school, which we regret to think the public taste has too much encouraged. Indeed we owe some grudge to the two Wartons for their exceeding love of mere description,-though no one will impute to them

too great knowledge of nature, in any sense of the word. Minute description, however, independently of its tendency to become heavy and tedious, seems to labour under one inevitable fault; it is too technical; it is hardly understood, but by those who have watched the slight and evanescent differences of visible things, with more attention, than is usually given by the studious or the busy. Unless where a fondness for painting, or habits of much seclusion, have accustomed the mind to sift and discriminate the sensations of the eye, it is not, we think, very common for men to look on nature in detail. Her striking features arrest the most careless; but a thousand varieties of shade and colour play over her countenance, without being heeded before they pass away, or remembered when they return.

We have thought this much necessary to vindicate what we deem the cause of poets and poetry, from a narrow and exclusive system. We will not permit the bards of former days to be thus arraigned before a jury of tourists and draughtsmen, for the want of excellences of which their own contemporaries had never dreamed. But lest, in defending the poetical character of Pope against false principles of criticism, we should inadvertently have appeared to raise it too high, let it be understood, that we do not believe him possessed of that diviner spirit, that energy and enthusiasm, which are required for the epic, the tragic, or the lyric muse. Not choice only, but nature, prescribed a different range; and, within his own sphere, there are surely very few who could be placed over his head; much less could any critic of taste and candour refuse the name of poet to one so highly gifted by nature, and so improved by skill. May we be permitted to suggest what we, perhaps singularly, deem a striking deficiency in the poetical faculties of Pope? He seems to have never acquired that facility of conception, or that ready use of his own instrument, versification, which long habit has given to other poets. His hasty lines, whenever they have come to light, seem almost always feeble and ill expressed. There cannot be a stronger proof than an epigram which Mr Bowles has printed, (Vol. IV. p. 32.) It is surprising, that a man like Pope, who lisped in numbers,' could have suffered such wretched lines to escape him, even if he never intended them to be public. His frequent infelicity of diction, from its harshness, its obscurity, its hardness, or its grammatical inaccuracy, seems to have proceeded from the same cause. Poetry was his daily labour; but the task does not seem to have grown lighter by use. There is, perhaps, more ease in his early productions, than in those of his maturer life; and most of all in his Homer. We know, however, that even this translation was re

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