"Pope, in fact, wherever he got it, appears to have understood the sex well. Bolingbroke, 'a judge of the subject,' says Warton, thought his 'Epistle on the Characters of Women' his 'masterpiece.' And even with respect to the grosser passion, which takes occasionally the name of '_romantic_,' accordingly as the degree of sentiment elevates it above the definition of love by Buffon, it may be remarked, that it does not always depend upon personal appearance, even in a woman. Madame Cottin was a plain woman, and might have been virtuous, it may be presumed, without much interruption. Virtuous she was, and the consequences of this inveterate virtue were that two different admirers (one an elderly gentleman) killed themselves in despair (see Lady Morgan's 'France'). I would not, however, recommend this rigour to plain women in general, in the hope of securing the glory of two suicides apiece. I believe that there are few men who, in the course of their observations on life, may not have perceived that it is not the greatest female beauty who forms the longest and the strongest passions. "But, apropos of Pope.--Voltaire tells us that the Marechal Luxembourg (who had precisely Pope's figure) was not only somewhat too amatory for a great man, but fortunate in his attachments. La Valière, the passion of Louis XIV. had an unsightly defect. The Princess of Eboli, the mistress of Philip the Second of Spain, and Maugiron, the minion of Henry the Third of France, had each of them lost an eye; and the famous Latin epigram was written upon them, which has, I believe, been either translated or imitated by Goldsmith: "'Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro, Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos: Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori, Sic tu cæcus Amor, sic erit illa Venus.' "Wilkes, with his ugliness, used to say that 'he was but a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in England;' and this vaunt of his is said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most extraordinary passions upon record, Vanessa's and Stella's. "'Vanessa, aged scarce a score. Sighs for a gown of _forty-four_.' He requited them bitterly; for he seems to have broken the heart of the one, and worn out that of the other; and he had his reward, for he died a solitary idiot in the hands of servants.