egant and the noble, like schoolboys or a mob admitted
into a palace. There was also an intemperance and a luxuriancy in his
wit which he did not enough restrain. He wrote little to the
understanding, and less to the heart; but he frequently delights the
imagination, and sometimes strikes it with flashes of the highest
sublime. We had another poet of the age of Charles I., extremely admired
by all his contemporaries, in whose works there is still more affectation
of wit, a greater redundancy of imagination, a worse taste, and less
judgment; but he touched the heart more, and had finer feelings than
Waller. I mean Cowley.

_Boileau_.--I have been often solicited to admire his writings by his
learned friend, Dr. Spratt. He seems to me a great wit, and a very
amiable man, but not a good poet.

_Pope_.--The spirit of poetry is strong in some of his odes, but in the
art of poetry he is always extremely deficient.

_Boileau_.--I hear that of late his reputation is much lowered in the
opinion of the English. Yet I cannot but think that, if a moderate
portion of the superfluities of his wit were given by Apollo to some of
their modern bards, who write commonplace morals in very smooth verse,
without any absurdity, but without a single new thought, or one
enlivening spark of imagination, it would be a great favour to them, and
do them more service than all the rules laid down in my "Art of Poetry"
and yours of "Criticism."

_Pope_.--I am much of your mind. But I left in England some poets whom
you, I know, will admire, not only for the harmony and correctness of
style, but the spirit and genius you will find in their writings.

_Boileau_.--France, too, has produced some very excellent writers since
the time of my death. Of one particularly I hear wonders. Fame to him
is as kind as if he had been dead a thousand years. She brings his
praises to me from all parts of Europe. You know I speak of Voltaire.

_Pope_.--I do; the English nation yields to none in admiration of his
extensive genius. Other writers excel in some one particular branch of
wit or science; but when the King of Prussia drew Voltaire from Paris to
Berlin, he had a whole academy of _belles lettres_ in him alone.

_Boileau_.--That prince himself has such talents for poetry as no other
monarch in any age or country has ever possessed. What an astonishing
compass must there be in his mind, what an heroic tranquillity and
firmness in his heart, that