spear's, and not unworthy of him. We cannot set this
controversy in a clearer light, than by transcribing a letter subjoined
to the Double Falsehood.

Dear Sir,

You desire to know, why in the general attack which Mr. Pope has lately
made against writers living and dead, he has so often had a fling of
satire at me. I should be very willing to plead guilty to his
indictment, and think as meanly of myself as he can possibly do, were
his quarrel altogether upon a fair, or unbiassed nature. But he is angry
at the man; and as Juvenal says--

Facit indignatio versum.

He has been pleased to reflect on me in a few quotations from a play,
which I had lately the good fortune to usher into the world; I am there
concerned in reputation to enter upon my defence. There are three
passages in his Art of Sinking in Poetry, which he endeavours to bring
into disgrace from the Double Falsehood.

One of these passages alledged by our critical examiner is of that
stamp, which is certain to include me in the class of profound writers.
The place so offensive for its cloudiness, is,

--The obscureness of her birth
Cannot eclipse the lustre of her eyes,
Which make her all one light.

I must own, I think, there needs no great Oedipus to solve the
difficulty of this passage. Nothing has ever been more common, than for
lovers to compare their mistresses eyes to suns and stars. And what does
Henriquez say more here than this, 'That though his mistress be obscure
by her birth; yet her eyes are so refulgent, they set her above that
disadvantage, and make her all over brightness.' I remember another
rapture in Shakespear, upon a painter's drawing a fine lady's picture,
where the thought seems to me every whit as magnified and dark at the
first glance,

--But her eyes--
How could he see to do them! having done one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfinished.--

This passage is taken from the Merchant of Venice, which will appear the
more beautiful, the more it is considered.

Another passage which Mr. Pope is pleased to be merry with, is in a
speech of Violante's;

Wax! render up thy trust.--

This, in his English is open the letter; and he facetiously mingles it
with some pompous instances, most I believe of his own framing; which in
plain terms signify no more than, See, whose there; snuff the candle;
uncork the bottle; chip the bread; to shew how ridiculous actions of no
consequenc