lay the fault to his intimacy with Swift; and possibly the admirers of Swift would accuse Pope it cannot be doubted, however, that in this particular, as well as in their arrogant contempt of cotemporary writers, they spoiled each other. The two latter books of the Dunciad are tolerably free from this contamination; but from their subject they are intelligible only to readers well versed in the literature of that period. Pro The smaller and miscellaneous poems of this writer I shall commit without remark to your judgment and discretion. There is one production, however, which is such a master-piece in its kind, that I would point it out to your particular attention. This is his "Prologue to Cato." logues to plays are singular compositions, of which the proper character is scarcely to be determined by the practice of writers. Those of Dryden, which were famous in their day, are generally attempts at licentious wit or petulant satire. His example was was imitated; and scarcely any thing grave or dignified had been offered to the public in this form, till Pope, inspired by the noble subject of Addison's tragedy, composed this piece, which not only stands at the head of all prologues, but is scarcely surpassed in vigour of expression and elevation of sentiment by any passage in his own works. I now close my long letter; and remain, LETTER LETTER VIII. As one of our latest subjects was satire, I shall now, by way of comparison, direct you to another satirist of considerable note, of whom, however, we shall probably have more to say under another class. This is Dr. YOUNG, a cotemporary of Pope, and one of the poetical constellation of that period. This author has left us, under the general head of "Love of Fame, the universal Passion," seven satires, in which he illustrates by example this assumed principle of human conduct. Like all other theorists on the mind, who aim at simplicity in their explanation of the varieties of human character, he has laid more stress upon his fundamental principle than it will properly bear; and in many of the portraits which he draws, the love of fame can can scarcely be recognised as a leading feature. In reality, Young was a writer of much more fancy than judgment. He paints with a brilliant touch and strong colouring, but with little attention to nature; and his satires are rather exercises of wit and invention than grave exposures of human follies and vices. He, indeed, runs through the ordinary catalogue of fashionable excesses, but in such a style of whimsical exaggeration, that his examples have the air of mere creatures of the imagination. His pieces are, however, entertaining, and are marked with the stamp of original genius. Having much less egotism than those of Pope, they have a less splenetic air; and the author's aim seems to be so much more to show his wit, than to indulge his rancour, that his severest strokes give little pain. It has been observed, that Young's satires are strings of epigrams. His sketches of characters are generally terminated by a point, a point, and many of his couplets might be received as proverbial maxims or sentences. Such are the following: Men should press forward in fame's glorious chace; There is no woman where there 's no reserve, And 'tis on plenty your poor lovers starve. The man who builds and wants wherewith to pay, A common figure of speech with him is the antithesis, where two members of a sentence, apparently in opposition to each other, are connected by a subtle turn in the sense. Thus, And satirise with nothing but their praise.- 'Tis inhumanity to bless by chance. A shameless woman is the worst of men.- Because she's right, she's ever in the wrong. With wit, or the association of distant ideas by some unexpected resemblance, he abounds. Almost every page affords instances |