ic privation. He
was then earnest with me to return to England; and on my telling him,
with a smile, that he was once of a different opinion, he replied to
me, 'that he and others had been greatly misled; and that some pains,
and rather extraordinary means, had been taken to excite them.' Scott
is no more, but there are more than one living who were present at
this dialogue. He was a man of very considerable talents, and of
great acquirements. He had made his way, as a literary character,
with high success, and in a few years. Poor fellow! I recollect his
joy at some appointment which he had obtained, or was to obtain,
through Sir James Mackintosh, and which prevented the further
extension (unless by a rapid run to Rome) of his travels in Italy. I
little thought to what it would conduct him. Peace be with him!--and
may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as readily
forgiven him, as the little injury which he had done to one who
respected his talents, and regrets his loss.

I pass over Mr. Bowles's page of explanation, upon the correspondence
between him and Mr. S----. It is of little importance in regard to
Pope, and contains merely a re-contradiction of a contradiction of
Mr. Gilchrist's. We now come to a point where Mr. Gilchrist has,
certainly, rather exaggerated matters; and, of course, Mr. Bowles
makes the most of it. Capital letters, like Kean's name, "large upon
the bills," are made use of six or seven times to express his sense
of the outrage. The charge is, indeed, very boldly made; but, like
"Ranold of the Mist's" practical joke of putting the bread and cheese
into a dead man's mouth, is, as Dugald Dalgetty says, "somewhat too
wild and salvage, besides wasting the good victuals."

Mr. Gilchrist charges Mr. Bowles with "suggesting" that Pope
"attempted" to commit "a rape" upon Lady M. Wortley Montague. There
are two reasons why this could not be true. The first is, that like
the chaste Letitia's prevention of the intended ravishment by
Fireblood (in Jonathan Wild), it might have been impeded by a timely
compliance. The second is, that however this might be, Pope was
probably the less robust of the two; and (if the Lines on Sappho were
really intended for this lady) the asserted consequences of her
acquiescence in his wishes would have been a sufficient punishment.
The passage which Mr. Bowles quotes, however, insinuates nothing of
the kind: it merely charges her with encouragement, and him