Dennis likewise, that the machinery is superfluous;
that, by all the bustle of preternatural operation, the main event is
neither hastened nor retarded. To this charge an efficacious answer is
not easily made. The sylphs cannot be said to help or to oppose; and it
must be allowed to imply some want of art, that their power has not been
sufficiently intermingled with the action. Other parts may, likewise, be
charged with want of connexion; the game at _ombre_ might be spared;
but, if the lady had lost her hair while she was intent upon her cards,
it might have been inferred that those who are too fond of play will be
in danger of neglecting more important interests. Those, perhaps, are
faults; but what are such faults to so much excellence?

The epistle of Eloise to Abelard is one of the most happy productions of
human wit: the subject is so judiciously chosen, that it would be
difficult, in turning over the annals of the world, to find another
which so many circumstances concur to recommend. We regularly interest
ourselves most in the fortune of those who most deserve our notice.
Abelard and Eloise were conspicuous in their days for eminence of merit.
The heart naturally loves truth. The adventures and misfortunes of this
illustrious pair are known from undisputed history. Their fate does not
leave the mind in hopeless dejection; for they both found quiet and
consolation in retirement and piety. So new and so affecting is their
story, that it supersedes invention, and imagination ranges at full
liberty without straggling into scenes of fable.

The story, thus skilfully adopted, has been diligently improved. Pope
has left nothing behind him, which seems more the effect of studious
perseverance and laborious revisal. Here is particularly observable the
"curiosa felicitas," a fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here is no
crudeness of sense, nor asperity of language.

The sources from which sentiments, which have so much vigour and
efficacy, have been drawn, are shown to be the mystick writers by the
learned author of the Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope; a book
which teaches how the brow of criticism may be smoothed, and how she may
be enabled, with all her severity, to attract and to delight.

The train of my disquisition has now conducted me to that poetical
wonder, the translation of the Iliad, a performance which no age or
nation can pretend to equal. To the Greeks translation was almost
unknown; it was t