The Elegy to the Memory of an unfortunate lady, as it came from the heart, is very tender and pathetic--more so, I think, than any other copy of verses of our author. The true cause of the excellence of this elegy is, that the occasion of it was real,--so true is the maxim that nature is more powerful than fancy, and that we can always feel more than we can imagine; and that the most artful fiction must give way to truth, for this lady was beloved by Pope. After many and wide enquiries I have been informed that her name was Wainsbury, and that--which is a singular circumstance--she was as ill-shaped and deformed as our author. Her death was not by a sword, but, what would less bear to be told poetically, she hanged herself. Johnson has too severely censured this elegy when he says, "that it has drawn much attention by the illaudable singularity of treating suicide with respect." She seems to have been driven to this desperate act by the violence and cruelty of her uncle and guardian, who forced her to a convent abroad, and to which circumstance Pope alludes in one of his letters.--WARTON. The real history of the lady distinguished by the epithet "unfortunate" in Pope's exquisite elegy, is still involved in mysterious uncertainty. One thing is plain, that he wished little should be known. It is remarkable that Caryll asks the question in two letters, but Pope returns no answer. It is in vain, after the fruitless enquiry of Johnson and Warton, perhaps, to attempt further elucidation; but I should think it unpardonable not to mention what I have myself heard, though I cannot vouch for its truth. The story which was told to Condorcet by Voltaire, and by Condorcet to a gentleman of high birth and character, from whom I received it, is this:--that her attachment was not to Pope, or to any Englishman of inferior degree, but to a young French prince of the blood royal, Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Berry, whom, in early youth, she had met at the court of France. The verses certainly seem unintelligible, unless they allude to some connection to which her highest hopes, though nobly connected herself, could not aspire. What other sense can be given to these words: Why bade ye else, ye pow'rs, her soul aspire Above the vulgar flight of low desire? Ambition first sprung from your bless'd abodes, The glorious fault of angels and of gods! She was herself of a noble family, or there can be no meaning in the line, That once had beauty, _titles_, wealth and fame. Under the idea here suggested, a greater propriety is given to the verse, which otherwise appears so tame and common-place, 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be.