eard in or out o'
the poupit,--His yepistles about the Passions, and sic like, in the
whilk he goes baith deep and high, far deeper and higher baith than mony
a modern poet, who must needs be either in a diving-bell or a balloon,--
His Rape o' the Lock o' Hair, wi' a' these Sylphs floating about in the
machinery o' the Rosicrucian Philosophism, just perfectly yelegant and
gracefu', and as gude, in their way, as onything o' my ain about
fairies, either in the _Queen's Wake_ or _Queen Hynde_,--His Louisa to
Abelard is, as I said before, coorse in the subject-matter, but, O sirs!
powerfu' and pathetic in execution--and sic a perfect spate o'
versification! His unfortunate lady, who sticked hersel for love wi' a
drawn sword, and was afterwards seen as a ghost, dim-beckoning through
the shade--a verra poetical thocht surely, and full both of terror and
pity....

_North._ Pope's poetry is full of nature, at least of what I have been
in the constant habit of accounting nature for the last threescore and
ten years. But (thank you, James, that snuff is really delicious)
leaving nature and art, and all that sort of thing, I wish to ask a
single question: what poet of this age, with the exception, perhaps, of
Byron, can be justly said, when put in comparison with Pope, to have
written the English language at all....

_Tickler._ What would become of Bowles himself, with all his elegance,
pathos, and true feeling? Oh! dear me, James, what a dull, dozing,
disjointed, dawdling, dowdy of a drawe would be his muse, in her very
best voice and tune, when called upon to get up and sing a solo after
the sweet and strong singer of Twickenham!

_North._ Or Wordsworth--with his eternal--Here we go up, and up, and up,
and here we go down, down, and here we go roundabout, roundabout!--Look
at the nerveless laxity of his _Excursion!_--What interminable prosing!--
The language is out of condition:--fat and fozy, thick-winded, purfled
and plethoric. Can he be compared with Pope?--Fie on't! no, no, no!--
Pugh, pugh!

_Tickler._ Southey--Coleridge--Moore?

_North._ No; not one of them. They are all eloquent, diffusive, rich,
lavish, generous, prodigal of their words. But so are they all deficient
in sense, muscle, sinew, thews, ribs, spine. Pope, as an artist, beats
them hollow. Catch him twaddling.

_Tickler._ It is a bad sign of the intellect of an age to depreciate the
genius of a country's classics. But the attempt covers such critics with