many places, and in many views."

Upon a passage in Spence's _Criticism_, at p. 45., Pope says:--"I think
this too nice." And the couplet objected to by Spence--

"Deep in my soul the trust shall lodge secur'd,
With ribs of steel, and marble heart immur'd,"

he pronounced "very bad." And of some tumid metaphors he says, "All too
forced and over-charged."

At p. 51. Spence says:--"Does it not sound mean to talk of lopping a
man? of lopping away all his posterity? or of trimming him with brazen
sheers? Is there not something mean, where a goddess is represented as
beck'ning and waving her deathless hands; or, when the gods are dragging
those that have provok'd them to destruction by the Links of fate?" Of
the two first instances, Pope says:--"Intended to be comic in a
sarcastic speech." And of the last:--"I think not at all mean, see the
Greek." The remarks are, however, expunged.

The longest remonstrance occurs at p. 6. of the Fifth Dialogue. Spence
had written:--"The _Odyssey_, as a moral poem, exceeds all the writings
of the ancients: it is perpetual in forming the manners, and in
instructing the mind; it sets off the duties of life more fully as well
as more agreeably than the Academy or Lyceum. _Horace ventured to say
thus much of the Iliad, and certainly it may be more justly said of this
later production by the same hand_." For the words in Italics Pope has
substituted:--"Horace, who was so well acquainted with the tenets of
both, has given Homer's poems the preference to either:" and says in a
note:--"I think you are mistaken in limiting this commendation and
judgment of Horace to the _Iliad_. He says it, at the beginning of his
Epistle, of Homer in general, and afterwards proposes both poems equally
as examples of morality; though the _Iliad_ be mentioned first: but then
follows--'_Rursus quid virtus et quid sapientia possit, Utile proposuit
nobis exemplar Ulyssem_,' &c. of the Odyssey."

At p. 34. Spence says:--"There seems to be something mean and awkward in
this image:--

"'His _loose head_ tottering as with wine opprest
Obliquely drops, and _nodding_ knocks his breast.'"

Here Pope says:--"Sure these are good lines. {397} They are not mine."
Of other passages which please him, he occasionally says,--"This is good
sense." And on one occasion, where Spence had objected, he says
candidly:--"This is bad, indeed,"--"and this."

At p. 50. Spence writes:--"There's a passage which I remember I w