idas, that "the nail" which Mr.
Bowles has "hit _in_ the head," should he driven through his own
ears; I am sure that they are long enough.

The attempt of the poetical populace of the present day to obtain an
ostracism against Pope is as easily accounted for as the Athenian's
shell against Aristides; they are tired of hearing him always called
"the Just." They are also fighting for life; for, if he maintains his
station, they will reach their own by falling. They have raised a
mosque by the side of a Grecian temple of the purest architecture;
and, more barbarous than the barbarians from whose practice I have
borrowed the figure, they are not contented with their own grotesque
edifice, unless they destroy the prior, and purely beautiful fabric
which preceded, and which shames them and theirs for ever and ever. I
shall be told that amongst those I _have_ been (or it may be, still
_am_) conspicuous--true, and I am ashamed of it. I _have_ been
amongst the builders of this Babel, attended by a confusion of
tongues, but _never_ amongst the envious destroyers of the classic
temple of our predecessor. I have loved and honoured the fame and
name of that illustrious and unrivalled man, far more than my own
paltry renown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of "Schools" and
upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even surpass him. Sooner than a
single leaf should be torn from his laurel, it were better that all
which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever written,
should

"Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam, or Soho!"

There are those who will believe this, and those who will not. You,
sir, know how far I am sincere, and whether my opinion, not only in
the short work intended for publication, and in private letters which
can never be published, has or has not been the same. I look upon
this as the declining age of English poetry; no regard for others, no
selfish feeling, can prevent me from seeing this, and expressing the
truth. There can be no worse sign for the taste of the times than the
depreciation of Pope. It would be better to receive for proof Mr.
Cobbett's rough but strong attack upon Shakspeare and Milton, than to
allow this smooth and "candid" undermining of the reputation of the
most _perfect_ of our poets, and the purest of our moralists. Of his
power in the _passions_, in description, in the mock heroic, I leave
others to descant. I take him on his stron