I say nothing against this opinion. But of what "_order_," according to the poetical aristocracy, are Burns's poems? There are his _opus magnum_, "Tam O'Shanter," a _tale_; the Cotter's Saturday Night, a descriptive sketch; some others in the same style: the rest are songs. So much for the _rank_ of his _productions_; the _rank_ of _Burns_ is the very first of his art. Of Pope I have expressed my opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect which the present attempts at poetry have had upon our literature. If any great national or natural convulsion could or should overwhelm your country in such sort, as to sweep Great Britain from the kingdoms of the earth, and leave only that, after all, the most living of human things, a _dead language_, to be studied and read, and imitated by the wise of future and far generations, upon foreign shores; if your literature should become the learning of mankind, divested of party cabals, temporary fashions, and national pride and prejudice; an Englishman, anxious that the posterity of strangers should know that there had been such a thing as a British Epic and Tragedy, might wish for the preservation of Shakspeare and Milton; but the surviving world would snatch Pope from the wreck, and let the rest sink with the people. He is the moral poet of all civilisation; and as such, let us hope that he will one day be the national poet of mankind. He is the only poet that never shocks; the only poet whose _faultlessness_ has been made his reproach. Cast your eye over his productions; consider their extent, and contemplate their variety:--pastoral, passion, mock heroic, translation, satire, ethics,--all excellent, and often perfect. If his great charm be his _melody_, how comes it that foreigners adore him even in their diluted translations? But I have made this letter too long. Give my compliments to Mr. Bowles. Yours ever, very truly, BYRON. _To John Murray, Esq_. _Post Scriptum_.--Long as this letter has grown, I find it necessary to append a postscript; if possible, a short one. Mr. Bowles denies that he has accused Pope of "a sordid money-getting passion;" but, he adds, "if I had ever done so, I should be glad to find any testimony that, might show he was _not_ so." This testimony he may find to his heart's content in Spence and elsewhere. First, there is Martha Blount, who, Mr. Bowles charitably says, "probably thought he did not save enough for her, as legatee." Whatever she _thought_ upon this point, her words are in Pope's favour. Then there is Alderman Barber; see Spence's Anecdotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax when he proposed a pension; his behaviour to Craggs and to Addison upon like occasions, and his own two lines-- "And, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive, Indebted to no prince or peer alive;"