tique et philosophique par le sçavant Auteur de la Divine Légation de Moise. "Je me flatte que le Chevalier de Ramsay, rempli comme l'est d'un zele ardent pour la vérité, voudra bien vous en expliquer le contenu. Alors je m'en rapporterai à votre justice, et je me flatte que tous vos soupçons seront dissipés. "En attendant ces éclaircissemens, je ne sçaurois me refuser le plaisir de répondre nettement à ce que vous desirez sçavoir de moi. "Je déclare donc hautement et très-sincèrement, que mes sentimens sont diamétralement opposés à ceux de Spinoza et même à ceux de Leibnitz, puisqu'ils sont parfaitement conformés à ceux de M. Pascal et de M. l'Archevêque de Fenelon, et que je serois gloire d'imiter la docilité du dernier, en soumettant toujours toutes mes opinions particulières aux décisions de l'Eglise. "A LONDRES, "le 1 Septembre 1742." "Je suis, avec, &c. Voltaire has affirmed, "that Pope, to his knowledge, had not skill enough in the French language to have been able to have written this Letter to Racine; and that if he really wrote it, he must suddenly have been blessed with a gift of tongues, as a reward for writing so admirable a work as the Essay on Man." "If you would read," says Metastasio, "this poem without scruple, I recommend to you the excellent translation in terza rima, lately published, 1770, by Count Gius. Ferrero di Lauriano. In the judicious, Christian, and learned notes with which he has illus trated the work, you will see the innocence of the original evidently proved. You will find in Pope a great poet and a deep philosopher; but not such axioms as are necessary to support his own system.' Few pieces can be found that, for depth of thought, and penetration into the human mind and heart, excel the Epistle to Lord Cobham, first published 1733. This nobleman appears to have been much courted by the wits and writers of his time. Congreve addressed two Epistles in a pleasing and flowing style to him, and in a manner very Horatian. The most laboured of the two ends with a thought much censured by Swift; "that men have been always the same:" "That virtue now is neither more nor less, 3 Among the many inscriptions at Stowe, that to the memory of Congreve is expressed with a particular warmth of affection. Cobham being dismissed from the command of his regiment, by a pretty violent act of the Minister, against whose measures he had voted, particularly on the excise bill, became a popular character among the patriots. To him Glover inscribed his Leonidas, a poem much read and celebrated at its first publication; as to a person highly distinguished by his disinterested zeal, and unshaken 3 Dr. Young once expressed himself to me in very harsh terms, of what he termed the vanity of Congreve, in bequeathing by his will ten thousand pounds to the Dutchess of Marlborough, and nothing to Mrs. Bracegirdle, who had been long his favourite, and to whom he had many obligations. fidelity to his country, not less in civil life than in the field; and Dr. King introduced him, in his Templum Libertatis, as a principal figure, under the name of Varius; a long and languid work, that certainly leaned more to Republicanism than to Jacobitism, though King was commonly, and as I think, from my knowledge of him at that period of his life, falsely reckoned a Jacobite; for he was for ever ridiculing, as I well remember, the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. But it was the cant of that time, and the art of the Minister and his adherents, to stigmatize every man that dared to oppose his measures with that odious and contemptible name. Cobham, in his retirement from the court and business, employed himself in making and beautifying the celebrated gardens at Stowe, of which Lord Peterborough says to Pope, on his visiting them, "I went thither to see what I had seen, and was sure to like. I had the idea of those gardens so fixed in my imagination by many descriptions, that nothing surprised me; immensity and Vanbrugh appear in the whole, and in every part. I confess the stately Saccharissa at Stowe; but am content with my little Amoret:" meaning Bevis Mount, near Southampton. Lord Cobham wrote two Letters to Pope on occasion of this Epistle, which are so full of good sense, that they ought to be brought forward, and inserted in this place, as they are not found in the collection of our Author's Letters. "Stowe, Nov. 1, 1733. "THOUGH I have not modesty enough not to be pleased with your extraordinary compliment, I have wit enough to know how little I deserve it. You know all mankind are putting themselves upon the world for more than they are worth, and their friends are daily helping the deceit. But I am afraid I shall not pass for an absolute patriót; however, I have the honour of having received a public testimony of your esteem and friendship, and am as proud of it as I could be of any advantage which could happen to me. As I remember, when I saw the Brouillion of this Epistle, it was perplexed; you have now made it the contrary, and, I think, it is the clearest and the cleanest of all you have wrote. Don't you think you have bestowed too many lines on the old Letcher? The instance itself is but ordinary, and I think should be shortened or changed. Thank you; and believe me to be most sincerely yours, "COBHAM." "Stowe, Nov. 8, 1733. "I LIKE your Letcher better now 'tis shorter; and the Glutton is a very good Epigram. But they are both appetites, that from nature we indulge, as well for her ends as our pleasure. A Cardinal, in his way of pleasure, would have been a better instance. What do you think of an old Lady dressing her silver locks with pink, and ordering her coffin to be lined with white quilted satin, with gold fringes? Or Counsellor Vernon, retiring to enjoy himself with five thousand a year which he had got, and returning back to Chancery to get a little more, when he could not speak so loud as to be heard? or a Judge turned out coming again to the bar?-I mean that a passion or habit, that has not a natural foundation, falls in better with your subject, than any of our natural wants; which in some degree we cannot avoid pursuing to the last; and if a man has spirits or appetite enough to take a bit of either kind at parting, you may condemn him, but you would be proud to imitate him. "I congratulate you upon the fine weather. 'Tis a strange thing that people of condition, and men of parts, must enjoy it in common with the rest of the world. But now I think on't, their pursuits are generally after points of so great importance, that they do not enjoy it at all. I won't trouble you any longer, but with the assurance of what I hope you are perfectly convinced of, that I am most sincerely yours, "COBHAM." The first specimen of our Author's happy and judicious Imitations of Horace, was given, 1733, folio, with this title, "The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, imitated in a Dialogue between Alexander Pope of Twickenham, in Comm. Midd. Esq. on the one part, and his learned Council on the other." A minute detail of the beauties and blemishes of this Imitation is given in the succeeding Notes of this Edition. And I will only observe, that, perhaps, it may deserve consideration, whether the best manner of imitating the Satires and Epistles of Horace, which approach so near to comedy and to common conversation, would not be to adopt the familiar blank verse, which my lamented friend, Mr. Col |