ores.

mented with fossils, shells, spars, basalt, and glittering A natural spring trickled from the pebbles, and increased the charms of the retreat by its perpetual ripple.

The following description of this grotto, by Pope himself, will shew the delight he took in this ornament of his grounds:-"When you shut the door of this grotto, it becomes on the instant, from a luminous room, a camera obscura, on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats, are forming a moving picture; and when you have a mind to light it less, it affords you a very different scene. It is finished with shells, interspersed with looking-glass in regular forms; and in the ceiling is a star of the same material, at which when a lamp of an orbicular figure of thin alabaster is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place."

A small part of his shrubberies, some of the trees he planted, and his once famous grotto, appear to be all now left of the horticultural and architectural works in which Pope delighted. Even the celebrated weeping willow is no more: notwithstanding props and other attempts to prolong its life, it is said to have perished in the year 1801. It is commonly stated that this tree was the parent of all the weeping willows in England. Some doubt the truth of this story; but it appears that these elegant trees were brought into Europe from the east by Tournefort a little before Pope's time, and that soon after the Salix Babylonica was introduced into this country.

The personal character of Pope requires little comment in this sketch of his life. He enjoyed the firm friendship of many intellectual men, and, in an age of the bitterest party strife, retained that moderation, which is so near akin to wisdom. It cannot be said that Pope was a deep philosopher, or a thoroughly trained scholar; but he possessed a taste for knowledge, a habit of investigation, and a scorn of pretension. He lived in an age when genius and talent crouched, with scarcely an exception, at the feet of the rich and powerful; but Pope was always independent, and mingled with nobles, statesmen, and prime ministers, without arrogance and without servility. But, on the other hand, we must admit, that the Poet was keenly irritable and bitterly revengeful; reckless in aspersing those who criticised his works, or wounded his vanity. He seems also to be chargeable with cowardice, often attacking the weak or timid, but retiring from encounters with the powerful. It must nevertheless be admitted, that many gave him ample provocation, and that his lash often fell upon men who united folly and dullness with malignity.

His "Windsor Forest" has been selected for this volume, because its descriptions apply to scenery in the neighbourhood of Eton, and the versification is a fair example of the finish and point for which Pope is famous.