ted it; though, _even then_, _I_ should be as much
against the attempt as ever.

"I have got a small packet of books, but neither Waldegrave,
Oxford, nor Scott's novels among them. Why don't you republish
Hodgson's Childe Harold's Monitor and Latino-mastix? They are
excellent. Think of this--they are all for _Pope_.

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

The controversy, in which Lord Byron, with so much grace and
good-humour, thus allowed himself to be disarmed by the courtesy of his
antagonist, it is not my intention to run the risk of reviving by any
enquiry into its origin or merits. In all such discussions on matters of
mere taste and opinion, where, on one side, it is the aim of the
disputants to elevate the object of the contest, and on the other, to
depreciate it, Truth will usually be found, like Shakspeare's gatherer
of samphire on the cliff, "halfway down." Whatever judgment, however,
may be formed respecting the controversy itself, of the urbanity and
gentle feeling on both sides, which (notwithstanding some slight trials
of this good understanding afterwards) led ultimately to the result
anticipated in the foregoing letter, there can be but one opinion; and
it is only to be wished that such honourable forbearance were as sure of
imitators as it is, deservedly, of eulogists. In the lively pages thus
suppressed, when ready fledged for flight, with a power of self-command
rarely exercised by wit, there are some passages, of a general nature,
too curious to be lost, which I shall accordingly proceed to extract for
the reader.

* * * * *

"Pope himself 'sleeps well--nothing can touch him further;' but those
who love the honour of their country, the perfection of her literature,
the glory of her language, are not to be expected to permit an atom of
his dust to be stirred in his tomb, or a leaf to be stripped from the
laurel which grows over it. * * *

"To me it appears of no very great consequence whether Martha Blount was
or was not Pope's mistress, though I could have wished him a better.
She appears to have been a cold-hearted, interested, ignorant,
disagreeable woman, upon whom the tenderness of Pope's heart in the
desolation of his latter days was cast away, not knowing whither to
turn, as he drew towards his premature old age, childless and
lonely,--like the needle which, approaching within a certain distance of
the pole