P. Scandals all! Scandals that now I care not to recall. Surely a little, in two hundred Years, One may neglect Contemporary Sneers:-- Surely Allowance for the Man may make That had all _Grub-street_ yelping in his Wake! And who (I ask you) has been never Mean, When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen? No: I prefer to look on POPE as one Not rightly happy till his Life was done; Whose whole Career, romance it as you please, Was (what he call'd it) but a "long Disease:" Think of his Lot,--his Pilgrimage of Pain, His "crazy Carcass" and his restless Brain; Think of his Night-Hours with their Feet of Lead, His dreary Vigil and his aching Head; Think of all this, and marvel then to find The "crooked Body with a crooked Mind!" Nay rather, marvel that, in Fate's Despite, You find so much to solace and delight,-- So much of Courage, and of Purpose high In that unequal Struggle _not_ to die. I grant you freely that POPE played his Part Sometimes ignobly--but he lov'd his Art; I grant you freely that he sought his Ends Not always wisely--but he lov'd his Friends; And who of Friends a nobler Roll could show-- _Swift_, _St. John_, _Bathurst_, _Marchmont_, _Peterb'ro'_, _Arbuthnot_-- FR. ATTICUS? P. Well (_entre nous_), Most that he said of _Addison_ was _true_. Plain Truth, you know-- FR. Is often not polite (So _Hamlet_ thought)-- P. And _Hamlet_ (Sir) was right. But leave POPE'S Life. To-day, methinks, we touch The Work too little and the Man too much. Take up the _Lock_, the _Satires_, _Eloise_-- What Art supreme, what Elegance, what Ease! How keen the Irony, the Wit how bright, The Style how rapid, and the Verse how light! Then read once more, and you shall wonder yet At Skill, at Turn, at Point, at Epithet. "True Wit is Nature to Advantage dress'd"-- Was ever Thought so pithily express'd? "And ten low Words oft creep in one dull Line"-- Ah, what a Homily on Yours ... and Mine! Or take--to choose at Random--take but This-- "Ten censure wrong for one that writes amiss." FR. Pack'd and precise, no Doubt. Yet surely those Are but the Qualities we ask of Prose, Was he a POET? P. Yes: if that be what _Byron_ was certainly and _Bowles_ was not; Or say you grant him, to come nearer Date, What _Dryden_ had, that was denied to _Tate_-- FR. Which means, you claim for him the Spark divine, Yet scarce would place him on the highest Line--