I'jgi, on several eminent writers. 219 



The chief design of my troubling you at present 

 is to exprefs my admiration of the ingenious and 

 excellent criticism of your old correspondent on the 

 works of Mr Pope, a man, — fliall I call him a poet ? 

 whom many a fool hath praised. In his efsay on 

 criticism, generally allowed to be as good a poem as 

 ever he wrote, except, perhaps, the Rape of the 

 Lock, he has the following verse : 



" A work, f' outlast immortal Rome, tiesign'd." 



What a glaring inconsistency ! and in the Rape of 

 the Lock he has : 



" A: d slcepltjs lovers just at twelve awa ke." 



It were endlefs to point out his many inconsisten- 

 cies, especially as in your apology "for him to your 

 Old Correspondent you have not ventured to say, that 

 he has written any good poem, but only " a greater 

 " number of good lines, when taken singly," 'i^c. 

 As this seems to me to imply, that you allow he had 

 not capacity for any thing above a single line, I am 

 coiitent. But pray. Sir, would you, or any of your 

 correspondents, be so obliging as to acquaint me, 

 why modest writers, and especially poets, are almost 

 always allowed to sink into oblivion, while conceited 

 fops, like Mr Pope, become the objects of public ve- 

 neration ? Can any thing be more proudly said than 

 the Exegi monumentum aere perennius of Horace ? 

 What a fund of self sufficiency must he have been 

 pofsefsed of, when, in a letter addrefsed to Augustus, 

 an absolute prince, he tells him, in his own peculiar 

 manner, that to him (Horace,) and his brethren the 

 poets, the emperor of the world must be indebted for 

 liis reputation in future ages ! Yet what want of 

 order, and want of harmony, and some things worse, 



