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more important interests. Those perhaps are faults; but what are such faults to such excellence!"

To these observations, from the pen of a critic who may be accused of having exercised no small degree of severity in judging some of the writings of Pope, we shall only add (what we hope will not be thought an exaggerated eulogium) that no work contains such delicate, and, at the same time, such forcible strokes of wit, free from coarseness and ribaldry, which are too often mistaken for wit; that it is not only superior to every other heroi-comical poem, but has also been justly styled the best satire extant.

As many of the notes upon the Rape of the Lock, in a late edition of Pope's works,

answer no purpose but that of refuting each other, and thereby perplexing the reader, we shall retain only in this such as come from the pen of Pope, which were chiefly intended to mark the differences between the first and subsequent editions.

то

MR. POPE.

To praise, and still with just respect to praise

A bard triumphant in immortal bays,

The learn'd to show, the sensible commend,
Yet still preserve the province of the friend,

What life, what vigour, must the lines require!

What music tune them, what affection fire!

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O might thy genius in my bosom shine,

Thou shouldst not fail of numbers worthy thine;

The brightest ancients might at once agree

To sing within my lays, and sing of thee.

Horace himself would own thou dost excel

In candid arts to play the critic well.

Ovid himself might wish to sing the dame

Whom Windsor Forest sees a gliding stream;

On silver feet, with annual osier crown'd,

She runs for ever through poetic ground.

How flame the glories of Belinda's hair,

Made by the Muse the envy of the fair!
Less shone the tresses Egypt's princess wore,

Which sweet Callimachus so sung before.

Here courtly trifles set the world at odds;

Belles war with beaux, and whims descend for gods.

The new machines, in names of ridicule,

Mock the grave frenzy of the chemic fool.

But know, ye Fair, a point conceal'd with art,

The sylphs and gnomes are but a woman's heart,

The graces stand in sight; a satyr-train

Peeps o'er their head, and laughs behind the scene.

In Fame's fair temple, o'er the boldest wits

Inshrin'd on high the sacred Virgil sits;

And sits in measures such as Virgil's muse

To place thee near him might be fond to chuse :

How might he tune th' alternate reed with thee,

Perhaps a Strephon thou, a Daphnis he;

While some old Damon, o'er the vulgar wise,

Thinks he deserves, and thou deserv'st the prize! Rapt with the thought, my fancy seeks the plains, And turns me shepherd while I hear the strains.

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