Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambics,' but mild Anagram.

2

Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in Acrostic land;

There thou mayst wings display, and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit,
Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute."

THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON.3
(ABRIDGED.)

A PARISH priest was of the pilgrim train;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.

His

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor
(As God had clothed his own ambassador);
For such on earth his blest Redeemer bore.
Of sixty years he seemed; and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense;
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere :
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see,
But sweet regards and pleasing sanctity;
Mild was his accent, and his action free,
With eloquence innate his tongue was armed,
Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charmed.

(1) Iambics-Satirical writings were generally composed in iambic verse. (2) Anagram, &c.-This and the next five lines allude to the fantastic modes of verse-writing in which the small wits of the day indulged.

(3) This is a sort of translation, as Dryden himself calls it, of Chaucer's "Character of a Good Parson" (for which see p. 241), but it is so different in many respects from the original, that it is more correctly a new building upon the old foundation. It will be useful and interesting to the reader to compare them together.

(4) As God had-as if God had himself.

For, letting down the golden chain' from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky.
He bore his great commission in his look;

But sweetly tempered awe, and softened all he spoke.
He preached the joys of Heaven and pains of hell,
And warned the sinner with becoming zeal;
But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

He taught the gospel rather than the law,
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw:
For fear but freezes minds; but love, like heat,
Exhales the soul sublime to seek her native seat.
To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard;
Wrapped in his crimes, against the storm prepared;
But when the milder beams of mercy play,

2

He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away;
Lightning and thunder (Heaven's artillery)
As harbingers before the Almighty fly;
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear;
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there!
The tithes his parish freely paid, he took,
But never sued, or cursed3 with bell and book:
With patience bearing wrong, but offering none,
Since every man is free to lose his own.
The country churls, according to their kind
(Who grudge their dues, and love to be behind),
The less he sought his offerings, pinched the more ;*
And praised a priest contented to be poor.

Yet of his little he had some to spare,

To feed the famished and to clothe the bare:
For mortified he was to that degree,

A poorer than himself he would not see.

"True priests," he said, "and preachers of the word,
Were only stewards of their Sovereign Lord;

Nothing was theirs, but all the public store;
Entrusted riches, to relieve the poor;

(1) The golden chain, &c.-There is nothing of the kind in Chaucer. The idea is derived from the golden chain which is represented by Homer as attached to the foot of Jupiter's throne, and reaching to earth-a beautiful emblem of providential care.

(2) Melts, &c.-This idea seems to be derived from Æsop's fable of "The Sun and the Wind."

(3) Cursed, &c.-In allusion to an awful ceremony of the Romish Church, in which curses were chaunted from a book, and a bell tolled at intervals.

(4) Pinched the more-i. e. denied themselves to pay his dues.

Who, should they steal for want of his relief,
He judged himself accomplice with the thief."
Wide was his parish, not contracted close
In streets, but here and there a straggling house;
Yet still he was at hand, without request,
To serve the sick, to succour the distressed:
Tempting, on foot, alone, without affright,
The dangers of a dark, tempestuous night.

The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheered,
Nor to rebuke the rich offender feared.

His preaching much, but more his practice wrought,
(A living sermon of the truths he taught):
For this by rules severe his life he squared,
That all might see the doctrine which they heard:
"For priests," he said, "are patterns for the rest;
(The gold of Heaven, who bear the God imprest);
But when the precious coin is kept unclean,
The Sovereign's image is no longer seen.
If they be foul, on whom the people trust,
Well may the baser brass contract a rust."
The prelate for his holy life he prized;
The worldly pomp of prelacy despised.
His Saviour came not with a gaudy show,
Nor was his kingdom of the world below.
Patience in want, and poverty of mind,
These marks of church and churchmen he designed,
And living taught, and dying left behind.
The crown he wore was of the pointed thorn;
In purple he was crucified, not born.

They who contend for place and high degree,
Are not his sons, but those of Zebedee.

Such was the saint, who shone with every grace,
Reflecting, Moses-like, his Maker's face.
God saw his image lively was expressed,
And his own work, as in creation, blessed.

POPE.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-Alexander Pope, the most distinguished of Dryden's followers and disciples, was born in London, in 1688. His attachment to poetry was very early developed. He says of himself—

"As yet a child, and all unknown to fame,

lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."

As his father was a Roman Catholic, he did not receive a university education, but was carefully instructed both at home and at school by various Romish priests, until he reached the age of twelve, at which time, with singular decision and perseverance, "he formed," says Dr. Johnson, "a plan of study, which he completed with little other incitement than the desire of excellence." An important event in this early stage of his life was his being taken, at his own request, to a coffee-house frequented by Dryden, to see the eminent poet whose greatness was soon to be succeeded by his own. Dryden died about three weeks before Pope was twelve years old. His father, formerly a linen-draper in the Strand, had, some little time before this, retired from business with a considerable fortune, and was now residing at Binfield, in Windsor Forest; and here the youthful poet cultivated the genius of which he felt conscious, and ranged at will over the fair fields of ancient and modern literature. He soon became known as an author, by the publication of the "Pastorals," and subsequently, by the "Essay on Criticism," which at once formed for him the reputation that he maintained, by his numerous other writings, until his death, in 1774, at Twickenham.

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PRINCIPAL WORKS.-His first work was, as above intimated, the "Pastorals," or "Spring," "Summer," "Autumn," and "Winter," which he wrote at the age of sixteen. His most important_subsequent poems were the "Essay on Criticism," Rape of the Lock,' Temple of Fame,' "Windsor Forest," "translations of the and "Odyssey, Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard," 'Essay on Man," The Messiah," "Imitations of Horace," Moral Epistles," and "The Dunciad."

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CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE." In attempting to describe those characteristics which are peculiar to Pope, and by which he is more particularly distinguishable, both from those who

preceded him and those who have followed him, we may, in the first place, observe in all his writings a striking, expressive, and energetic manner, so peculiar as to carry with it a conviction that no other person could have compressed the same sentiments into such narrow limits with such full effect. At the same time, he is always equal and consistent with himself; in whatever he attempts, he always succeeds; whether he rises or falls, he does it with equal grace; the one displays no effort, the other no weakness.

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"2. He always goes directly to his point, and occupies no useless time. To his writings nothing can be added but what would be superfluous; from them nothing can be taken away but what would occasion a deficiency. He does not say all that can be said, but all that ought to be said.

"3. He is always alive and attentive to his subject, and he keeps his readers so. On whatever subject he writes, there is a continual and rapid variety, that plays upon the imagination, and surprises, elevates, softens, or in some other manner affects or delights the mind; yet this is never dwelt upon, so as to become tiresome or disgusting. A quick sense of propriety distinguishes all he says. His tact is sure. He feels for the reader, and never offers him anything but what is acceptable. This is a perpetual compliment to the good sense, or perhaps the self-love of the reader, who perceives that he is never treated with disrespect or neglect, and that the author has not only done all that was in his power, but all that was possible to be done, to gratify him.

"4. Though highly ornamented, he exhibits no ambitious love of ornament; nothing but what his subject demands. No unnecessary similes are introduced to illustrate a proposition which is sufficiently clear already. Pope well knew that the finest figures of speech, brought forward for their own sake, are an impertinence, not an ornament.

• 5. But perhaps the superlative merit of Pope consists in the point and correctness of his language, which is truly English, and exhibits no instances of being debased or intermixed with the French or any other foreign idioms. It would not be too much to say that if every English writer were to be corrected, so as to bring him to a true standard, there would be less to alter in Pope than in any other.

6. To these particular endowments of Pope, as a poet, we may add, the variety which he has displayed, not only in the choice of his subjects, but in the manner in which he has treated them. There is scarcely a subject, from the simplest description to