as _not_ Pope's,--it was a fact.
All that it had of gross, he has softened;--all that it had of
indelicate, he has purified;--all that it had of passionate, he has
beautified;--all that it had of holy, he has hallowed. Mr. Campbell
has admirably marked this in a few words (I quote from memory), in
drawing the distinction between Pope and Dryden, and pointing out
where Dryden was wanting "I fear," says he, "that had the subject of
'Eloisa' fallen into his (Dryden's) hands, that he would have given
us but a _coarse_ draft of her passion." Never was the delicacy of
Pope so much shown as in this poem. With the facts and the letters of
"Eloisa" he has done what no other mind but that of the best and
purest of poets could have accomplished with such materials. Ovid,
Sappho (in the Ode called hers)--all that we have of ancient, all
that we have of modern poetry, sinks into nothing compared with him
in this production.

Let us hear no more of this trash about "licentiousness." Is not
"Anacreon" taught in our schools?--translated, praised, and edited?
Are not his Odes the amatory praises of a boy? Is not Sappho's Ode on
a girl? Is not this sublime and (according to Longinus) fierce love
for one of her own sex? And is not Phillips's translation of it in
the mouths of all your women? And are the English schools or the
English women the more corrupt for all this? When you have thrown the
ancients into the fire it will be time to denounce the moderns.
"Licentiousness!"--there is more real mischief and sapping
licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian hymn, or
a German comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was penned,
or poured forth, since the rhapsodies of Orpheus. The sentimental
anatomy of Rousseau and Mad. de S. are far more formidable than any
quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles, by
_reasoning_ upon the _passions_; whereas poetry is in itself passion,
and does not systematise. It assails, but does not argue; it may be
wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to Optimism.

Mr. Bowles now has the goodness "to point out the difference between
a _traducer_ and him who sincerely states what he sincerely
believes." He might have spared himself the trouble. The one is a
liar, who lies knowingly; the other (I speak of a scandal-monger of
course) lies, charitably believing that he speaks truth, and very
sorry to find himself in falsehood;--because he

"Would rather that the