ht: honour to them! This poor Pope,--who knows what good is
in him? In a Time otherwise too prone to forget, he keeps up the
mournfulest ghastly memorial of the Highest, Blessedest, which once
was; which, in new fit forms, will again partly have to be. Is he not
as a perpetual death's-head and cross-bones, with their _Resurgam_, on
the grave of a Universal Heroism,--grave of a Christianity? Such
Noblenesses, purchased by the world's best heart's-blood, must not be
lost; we cannot afford to lose them, in what confusions soever. To all
of us the day will come, to a few of us it has already come, when no
mortal, with his heart yearning for a 'Divine Humility,' or other
'Highest form of Valour,' will need to look for it in death's-heads,
but will see it round him in here and there a beautiful living head.

Besides, there is in this poor Pope, and his practice of the Scenic
Theory of Worship, a frankness which I rather honour. Not half and
half, but with undivided heart does _he_ set about worshipping by
stage-machinery; as if there were now, and could again be, in Nature
no other. He will ask you, What other? Under this my Gregorian Chant,
and beautiful wax-light Phantasmagory, kindly hidden from you is an
Abyss, of Black Doubt, Scepticism, nay Sansculottic Jacobinism; an
Orcus that has no bottom. Think of that. 'Groby Pool _is_ thatched
with pancakes,'--as Jeannie Deans's Innkeeper defied it to be! The
Bottomless of Scepticism, Atheism, Jacobinism, behold, it is thatched
over, hidden from your despair, by stage-properties judiciously
arranged. This stuffed rump of mine saves not me only from rheumatism,
but you also from what other _isms_! In this your Life-pilgrimage
Nowhither, a fine Squallacci marching-music, and Gregorian Chant,
accompanies you, and the hollow Night of Orcus is well hid!

Yes truly, few men that worship by the rotatory Calabash of the
Calmucks do it in half so great, frank or effectual a way. Drury-Lane,
it is said, and that is saying much, might learn from him in the
dressing of parts, in the arrangement of lights and shadows. He is the
greatest Play-actor that at present draws salary in this world. Poor
Pope; and I am told he is fast growing bankrupt too; and will, in a
measurable term of years (a great way _within_ the 'three hundred'),
not have a penny to make his pot boil! His old rheumatic back will
then get to rest; and himself and his stage-properties sleep well in
Chaos forevermore.