red under
some domestic persecution. Pope seems to have taken up their cause with
energy, and sent money to Mrs. Cope when, at a later period, she was
dying abroad in great distress. His zeal seems to have been sincere and
generous, and it is possible enough that the elegy was a reflection of
his feelings, though it suggested an imaginary state of facts. If this
be so, the reference to the lady in his posthumous note contained some
relation to the truth, though if taken too literally it would be
misleading.

The poems themselves are, beyond all doubt, impressive compositions.
They are vivid and admirably worked. "Here," says Johnson of the _Eloisa
to Abelard_, the most important of the two, "is particularly observable
the _curiosa felicitas_, a fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here
is no crudeness of sense, nor asperity of language." So far there can be
no dispute. The style has the highest degree of technical perfection,
and it is generally added that the poems are as pathetic as they are
exquisitely written. Bowles, no hearty lover of Pope, declared the
Eloisa to be "infinitely superior to everything of the kind, ancient or
modern." The tears shed, says Hazlitt of the same poem, "are drops
gushing from the heart; the words are burning sighs breathed from the
soul of love." And De Quincey ends an eloquent criticism by declaring
that the "lyrical tumult of the changes, the hope, the tears, the
rapture, the penitence, the despair, place the reader in tumultuous
sympathy with the poor distracted nun." The pathos of the _Unfortunate
Lady_ has been almost equally praised, and I may quote from it a famous
passage which Mackintosh repeated with emotion to repel a charge of
coldness brought against Pope:--

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd and by strangers mourn'd!
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show?
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress'd,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast;
There shall the morn her