_salt_ of society, and the seasoning of composition. _Vulgarity_ is far worse than downright _blackguardism_; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, "signifying nothing." It does not depend upon low themes, or even low language, for Fielding revels in both;--but is he ever _vulgar_? No. You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master, not its slave. Your vulgar writer is always most vulgar, the higher, his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidcock's was wont to say,--"This, gentlemen, is the _eagle_ of the _sun_, from Archangel, in Russia; the _otterer_ it is, the _igherer_ he flies." But to the proofs. It is a thing to be felt more than explained. Let any man take up a volume of Mr. Hunt's subordinate writers, read (if possible) a couple of pages, and pronounce for himself, if they contain not the kind of writing which may be likened to "shabby-genteel" in actual life. When he has done this, let him take up Pope;--and when he has laid him down, take up the cockney again--if he can. * * * * * _Note to the passage in page_ 396. _relative to Pope's lines upon Lady Mary W. Montague_.] I think that I could show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was also greatly to blame in that quarrel, _not_ for having rejected, but for having encouraged him: but I would rather decline the task--though she should have remembered her own line, "_He comes too near, that comes to be denied_." I admire her so much--her beauty, her talents--that I should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name of _Mary_, that as Johnson once said, "If you called a dog _Harvey_, I should love him;" so, if you were to call a female of the same species "Mary," I should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the same sex with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman: she could translate _Epictetus_, and yet write a song worthy of Aristippus. The lines, "And when the long hours of the public are past, And we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last, May every fond pleasure that moment endear! Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear! Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud, Till," &c. &c.