'well known, has not been able to point out above 'three or four mistakes in the sense through the whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a 'different kind." So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief 'fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they 'consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may 'do their best and their worst; they will never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and feeling.

The grand distinction of the under forms of the 'new school of poets is their vulgarity. By this I do 'not mean that they are coarse, but " shabby-gen'teel," as it is termed. A man may be course and yet 'not vulgar, and the reverse. Burns is often coarse, 'but never vulgar. Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. It is in their finery that the new under school are most vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as 'what we called at Harrow "a Sunday blood" might 'be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although 'his clothes might be better cut, and his boots the 'best blackened, of the two;-probably because he 'made the one or cleaned the other with his own 'hands.

*

In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. They may be 'honourable and gentlemanly men, for what I know, but the latter quality is studiously excluded from 'their publications. They remind me of Mr. Smith

Far be it

' and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in "Evelina." Evelina." In these things (in private life, ' at least) I pretend to some small experience; because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a little ' of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and 'the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ' ranks of their countries, down to the London boxer, the "flash and the swell," the Spanish muleteer, the 'wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch highlander, ' and the Albanian robber;-to say nothing of the 'curious varieties of Italian social life. 'from me to presume that there are now, 'such a thing as an aristocracy of poets; but there is a nobility of thought and of style, open to all 'stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly 'from education,-which is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante ' and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to be perceived in 'the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's little cho'rus. If I were asked to define what this gentleman'liness is, I should say that it is only to be defined

or can be,

by examples of those who have it, and those who 'have it not. In life, I should say that most military

men have it, and few naval; that several men of 'rank have it, and few lawyers; that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they are 'not pedants); that fencing-masters have more of it 'than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and 'that (if it be not an Irishism to say so) it is far more 'generally diffused among women than among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never 'make entirely a poet or a poem ; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for anything without it. It is the salt of society, and the seasoning of composition. Vulgarity is far worse than downright black

VOL. III.

guardism; 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 C was wont to say, "This, gentlemen, is the Eagle of 'the Sun, from Archangel in Russia: the otterer it is, 'the igherer he flies.""

In a note on a passage relative to Pope's lines upon Lady Mary W. Montague, he says

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 "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.

'There, Mr. Bowles!-what say you to such a supper 'with such a woman? and her own description too? "Is not her " champaigne and chicken" worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that this ⚫ stanza contains the "purée" of the whole philosophy of Epicurus:-I mean the practical philosophy of 'his school, not the precepts of the master; for I have been too long at the university not to know that 'the philosopher was himself a moderate man. after all, would not some of us have been as great 'fools as Pope? For my part, I wonder that, with his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, 'he did no more,-instead of writing some lines, 'which are to be condemned if false, and regretted if ' true.'

But

LETTER 424.

TO MR. HOPPNER.

'Ravenna, May 11th, 1821.

As it is, I

'If I had but known your notion about Switzerland 'before, I should have adopted it at once. 'shall let the child remain in her convent, where she 'seems healthy and happy, for the present; but I 'shall feel much obliged if you will inquire, when you 'are in the cantons, about the usual and better modes ' of education there for females, and let me know the ' result of your opinions. It is some consolation that 'both Mr. and Mrs. Shelley have written to approve ' entirely my placing the child with the nuns for the present. I can refer to my whole conduct, as having 'neither spared care, kindness, nor expense, since the

02

6

'child was sent to me. The people may say what they please, I must content myself with not deserv'ing (in this instance) that they should speak ill.

every

'The place is a country town, in a good air, where there is a large establishment for education, and many children, some of considerable rank, placed in it. As a country town, it is less liable to objections of kind. It has always appeared to me, that 'the moral defect in Italy does not proceed from a conventual education,—because, to my certain knowledge, they come out of their convents innocent even 'to ignorance of moral evil,-but to the state of society into which they are directly plunged on coming out of it. It is like educating an infant on a moun'tain-top, and then taking him to the sea and throwing him into it and desiring him to swim. The evil, 'however, though still too general, is partly wearing away, as the women are more permitted to marry 'from attachment: this is, I believe, the case also in France. And after all, what is the higher society of England? According to my own experience, and to all that I have seen and heard (and I have lived 'there in the very highest and what is called the best), 'no way of life can be more corrupt. In Italy, how• ever, it is, or rather was, more systematized; but now, 'they themselves are ashamed of regular Serventism. 'In England, the only homage which they pay to 'virtue is hypocrisy. I speak of course of the tone of high life, the middle ranks may be virtuous. very 'I have not got any copy (nor have yet had) of the letter on Bowles; of course I should be delighted to 'send it to you. How is Mrs. H.? well hope. Let me know when you set out.

again, I I regret