the habit of frequenting, that he might have the gratification of seeing an author whom he so enthusiastically admired. His first serious poetic efforts were in the epic and the dramatic way; but a little reflection convinced him that these productions were not worth preserving, and he therefore destroyed them. In 1704, when only sixteen years of age, he wrote his Pastorals and his Imitations of Chaucer. These performances placed him before his friends as an author, and introduced him to the acquaintance of the most eminent literary men of the day. The 'Pastorals' were confined to private circulation until 1709, when they were published in the same volume with those of Philips.

In 1711, when Pope was in the twenty-third year of his age, appeared his Essay on Criticism, though it is said to have been written two years earlier. This is, perhaps, the finest piece of argumentative poetry in the English language. The maturity of judgment that it exhibits is truly wonderful. The author's style was now thoroughly formed. His versification was based upon that of Dryden, but he gave to the heroic couplet a peculiar grace and melody as will at once be perceived from the following passage:

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied,

She gives in large recruits of needful Pride!

For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind
Pride, when Wit fails, steps in to our defence,

And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know,
Make use of every friend-and every foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing!
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
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 towering 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 attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

The Essay on Criticism' was soon followed by the Rape of the Lock which is, in the judgment of Dr. Johnson, the most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful, of all Pope's compositions.' The circumstance which elicited the poem was the following:-Lord Petre, the lover of a celebrated beauty, Miss Arabella Fermor, playfully stole a lock of her hair -an act that assumed so offensive an aspect to the lady and her friends that it caused an estrangement between the families. Pope's design in writing his poem was to turn the whole affair into a jest, ‘and laugh them together again; but though he did not succeed in effecting that object, yet, by the effort, he added greatly to his own reputation.

The machinery of the poem, founded upon the Rosicrucian theory, that the elements are inhabited by spirits, which they called sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and salamanders, was added at the suggestion of Dr. Garth and some other of his friends. Sylphs had been previously mentioned as invisible attendants on the fair, and the idea is shadowed forth in Shakspeare's 'Ariel,' and the amusements of the fairies in the 'Midsummer Nights' Dream.' But Pope has blended the most delicate satire with the most lively fancy, and produced the most brilliant mock-heroic-poem ever written. The following descriptions of the lady's toilet, and of Belinda are fair specimens of the work :

And now unvailed, the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid;
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eye she rears;
The inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,

And all Arabia breathes from yonder box:

The tortoise here and elephant unite,

Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy sylphs surround their darling care,
These set the head, and those divide the hair;
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown,
And Betty's praised for labours not her own.

DESCRIPTION OF BELINDA.

Not with more glories, in the ethereal plain,
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames.

Fair nymphs and well-dress'd youths around her shone,
But every eye was fixed on her alone.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those.
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazer strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide;
If to her share some female errors fall,

Look on her face and you'll forget them all.

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind
In equal curls, and well conspired to deck
With shining ringlets, the smooth ivory neck.
Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,
And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.
With hairy springes we the birds betray,
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey;
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.

The Temple of Fame, and the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, were next published; and in 1713, appeared his Windsor Forest, which was chiefly written as early as 1704. The latter poem was evidently founded on Denham's 'Cooper's Hill,' but it far excels the original. Pope was, properly speaking, no mere descriptive poet. He made the picturesque subservient to views of historical events, or to sketches of life and morals. Most of the Windsor Forest' being composed in his earlier years, amid the shades of those noble woods which he selected for the theme of his verse, there is, in this poem, a greater display of sympathy with external objects, than in any of his other works. The lawns and glades of the forest, the russet plains, and blue hills, and even the 'purple dyes of the wild heath,' had deeply impressed his young imagination. His account of the dying pheasant is a finished picture :—

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:

Short is his joy, he feels the fiery wound,

Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.

Oh! what avail his glossy varying dyes,

His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes;

The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold!

In 1713, the period to which our remarks have now brought us down, Pope commenced the translation of the Iliad.' At first the gigantic task which he had undertaken oppressed him with its difficulty, but he gradually became more familiar with the language and imagery of the original, and in a short time was able to write fifty lines a day. From this translation he realized nearly six thousand pounds; but his fame was not advanced in an equal proportion by his labors as a translator. The facility of his rhyme, the additional false ornaments which he imparted to the ancient Greek, and his departure from the nice discrimination of character and speech which prevails in Homer, are faults now universally admitted. Cowper, therefore, justly remarks, that the Iliad and Odyssey in Pope's hands have no more the air of antiquity than if he had himself invented them.' The success which attended the Iliad led to the translation of the Odyssey; but Pope now called in his friends, Broome and Fenton, to aid him. The labor was so arranged that the assistants performed one half of the task, but the compensation for the work was by no means so equally shared. Fenton, who was a poor country tutor, received three hundred pounds, and Broome, five hundred; while Pope obtained from his contract nearly three thousand.

Pope's Homeric labors lasted twelve years; and such was the improvement which his pecuniary resources derived from them, that he was enabled to remove from the shades of Windsor Forest to a situation nearer the metropolis. He purchased the lease of a house and grounds at Twickenham, to which he removed, with his father and mother, and where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. This classic spot which Pope delighted to improve, and where he was visited by ministers of state, by wits, by poets, and by beauties, now bears few marks of its former elegance and taste.

In 1716, while Pope was engaged in his translation of the Iliad, he wrote, during a visit to Oxford, the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard-a production which is the most highly poetical and passionate of all his works. The delicacy of the poet, in vailing over the circumstances of the story, and at the same time preserving the ardor of Eloisa's passion, the beauty of his imagery and descriptions, the exquisite melody of his versification, rising and falling like the tones of an Eolian harp, as he successively portrays the tumults of guilty love, the deepest penitence, and the highest devotional rapture, have scarcely ever been equalled. What could be sweeter than the following lines?—

In these deep solitudes and awful cells,

Where heavenly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns,

What means this tumult in a vestal's veins ?

Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love-From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.

Dear, fatal name! rest ever unrevealed,
Nor pass these lips in holy silence sealed:
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where, mix'd with God's, his loved idea lies:
O, write it not, my hand-the name appears
Already written-wash it out my tears!
In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays,

Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys.

Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains
Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains:

Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have worn!
Ye grots and caverns shagged with horrid thorn!
Shrines, where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep!
And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!
Though cold like you, unmoved and silent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to stone.

All is not heaven's while Abelard has part,
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain,
Nor tears for ages taught to flow in vain.

Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,

That well-known name awakens all my woes.

Oh, name forever sad, forever dear;

Still breathed in sighs, still ushered with a tear!

I tremble, too, where'er my own I find,

Some dire misfortune follows close behind.

Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow,

Led through a sad variety of woe:

Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom,
Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!

There stern religion quenched the unwilling flame,
There died the best of passions, love and fame.

Yet write, oh write me all, that I may join
Griefs to thy griefs, and echo sighs to thine!
Nor foes nor fortune take this power away;

And is my Abelard less kind than they?

Tears still are mine, and those I need not spare;
Love but demands what else were shed in prayer:

No happier task these faded eyes pursue;

To read and weep is all they now can do.

If less genial tastes, and a love of satire withdrew Pope from those fountain-springs of the Muse, it was evidently from no want of power in the poet to display the richest hues of imagination, or the finest impulses of the human heart.

In 1733, he published his Essay on Man, the subject having been suggested to him by Lord Bolingbroke. The 'Essay' was intended as part of a system of ethics in verse, which the poet had projected: it is now read, not for its philosophy, but for its poetry. Its metaphysical distinctions are neg