to what does it amount?--to an impeachment of a liver
complaint. 'I will tell it to the world,' exclaimed the learned
Smelfungus: 'you had better (said I) tell it to your physician. 'There
is nothing dishonourable in such a disorder, which is more peculiarly
the malady of students. It has been the complaint of the good and the
wise and the witty, and even of the gay. Regnard, the author of the last
French comedy after Moliere, was atrabilarious, and Moliere himself
saturnine. Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Burns, were all more or less affected
by it occasionally. It was the prelude to the more awful malady of
Collins, Cowper, Swift, and Smart; but it by no means follows that a
partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs. But
even were it so,

"'Nor best, nor wisest, are exempt from thee;
Folly--Folly's only free.' PENROSE.

"Mendelsohn and Bayle were at times so overcome with this depression as
to be obliged to recur to seeing 'puppet-shows,' and 'counting tiles
upon the opposite houses,' to divert themselves. Dr. Johnson, at times,
'would have given a limb to recover his spirits.'

"In page 14. we have a large assertion, that 'the Eloisa alone is
sufficient to convict him (Pope) of _gross licentiousness_.' Thus, out
it comes at last--Mr. B. does accuse Pope of 'gross licentiousness,' and
grounds the charge upon a poem. The _licentiousness_ is a 'grand
peut-etre,' according to the turn of the times being:--the _grossness_ I
deny. On the contrary, I do believe that such a subject never was, nor
ever could be, treated by any poet with so much delicacy mingled with,
at the same time, such true and intense passion. Is the 'Atys' of
Catullus _licentious_? No, nor even gross; and yet Catullus is often a
coarse writer. The subject is nearly the same, except that Atys was the
suicide of his manhood, and Abelard the victim.

"The 'licentiousness' of the story was _not_ Pope's,--it was a fact. All
that it had of gross he has softened; all that it had of indelicate he
has purified; all that it had of passionate he has beautified; all that
it had of holy he has hallowed. Mr. Campbell has admirably marked this
in a few words (I quote from memory), in drawing the distinction between
Pope and Dryden, and pointing out where Dryden was wanting. 'I fear,'
says he, 'that had the subject of 'Eloisa' fallen into his (Dryden's)
hands, that he would have given us but a _coarse_ draft of her passion.'
Never was the deli