Pope I have no doubt wrote the Epistle to Sappho, and this of Eloisa, under the impression of strong personal feelings. It is supposed the subject was suggested by the unfortunate young lady going into a convent, whose untimely death occasioned the beautiful Elegy, "What beck'ning ghost;" but I cannot help thinking the real circumstance that occasioned these touching effusions was his early attachment to Lady Mary W. Montagu. The concluding lines allude to her, as I think is evident from his letter. Speaking of a volume he had sent her when abroad, he adds, "Among the rest you have all I am worth, that is, my works. There are few things in them but what you have already seen, except the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, in which you will find one passage that I cannot tell whether to wish you should understand or not." The lines could not be meant for the unfortunate lady, for she was dead and forgotten--could not relate to Martha Blount, for he was not "condemned whole years in absence to deplore," and therefore they could be addressed only to Lady Mary; and "he best shall paint them who shall feel them most," was a direct allusion to his own ardent but hopeless passion.--BOWLES. Mr. Bowles has represented the Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard as being of an immoral tendency. It must however be observed, that if this construction be put upon the poem, it is what the author never intended. On the contrary, his object is to show the fatal consequences of an ungovernable passion; and if he has done this in natural and even glowing language, it must be remembered that such are not his own sentiments, but those of the person he has undertaken to represent, and are in general given in nearly her own words. That many expressions and passages may be pointed out which are inconsistent with the established order and regulations of society, may be fully admitted. Such, for instance, as the lines How oft, when pressed to marriage, have I said, Curse on all laws but those which love has made! But surely it is not likely that such sentiments can impose upon the weakest and most inexperienced minds. It is indeed highly probable that Pope has in some few instances intentionally exaggerated the sentiments and expressions of Eloisa in order to render it impossible for any person of common capacity to be misled by such statements.--ROSCOE.