in a most slippery place, may fail and falter in her sudden extemporal expressions, but the pen, having a greater advantage of premeditation, is not so subject to error, and leaves things behind it upon firm and authentic record. Now letters (here comes the division), though they be capable of any subject, yet commonly they are either narratory, objurgatory, consolatory, monitory, or congratulatory. The first consists of relations, the second of reprehensions, the third of comfort, the two last of counsel and joy." Then follows some very just and severe criticism: "There are some who, in lieu of letters, write homilies; they preach when they should epistolize (and it is easier to do the former than the latter); there are others that turn them to tedious tractates." Howell, himself, the earliest of our letter writers, is a capital fellow in his way; but he has not mentioned all the varieties of letters. There are the precise letters of business, and the ardent love letters; to a third and disinterested person, both of these are not only indifferent, but even tiresome. The purely literary letter is not mentioned, i. e., that in which topics of literature and the characters of authors are discussed; mere letters of compliment, or formal civility, are not recognized, nor lively gay epistles, that turn upon nothing. Some persons keep no letters by them. Hazlitt destroyed all he received a very poor compliment, we think, to a clever correspondent, to say nothing of the letters of a valued friend. Others hoard up every scrap of a note; this is as wrong in a different way. Many indifferent communications are received, but the choice correspond ence is of another character. Shenstone speaks somewhere of the melancholy pleasure he took of a rainy day when his spirits were low, in reading over the old letters of a dear friend. This retrospective pleasure is truly a melancholy one. Turning over the precious file, we encounter the affectionate protestations of one who has cruelly deceived us, or the generous praises of a now bitter enemy. We read the prophecies of those who early loved and appreciated us, and who can now confirm their past predictions. Time returns anew; the present is merged in the past, and scenes long gone by, revive to memory's view! Ah! could we but recall those feelings to which we received such a sympathetic response, those "hopes and fears, an undistinguishable throng;" could but the veil of years be removed, and youth and hope and innocence be revealed, then indeed might an Arcadian age commence, and the whole world look green and happy. It is well and profitable to the observer of human nature, and the self-student, to reperuse his collection of letters, and if he can procure them, to study his own. Viewed in connection with passing events, they form an unbroken narrative, and manifest the progress of tastes and sympathies, improvement in virtue, and accessions of knowledge. The didactic letters, the letters of business, of contention, of mere scandal, may be safely burned; but the memorials of affection, the evidences of friendship, are not to be lightly treated, but, dear as the apple of the eye, to be held among the richest treasures of the author, the thinker, and the man. VII. POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. LETTERS never offered more abundant nor so enticing materials, for literary and personal history, as in the case of Pope and his friends. The wonder only is, that Macaulay or Hazlitt never made the correspondence, or the correspondents of Pope, the subject of an article or a lecture. For either purpose, these volumes are admirably fitted; but, as the allotted space a notice of the sort may occupy here is restricted, we can pretend to little more than a sketch. Pope, his letters, and his friends; each text is worthy of a full illustration, but can be only briefly handled. The character and habits of mind of the poet, par excellence, " of Anna's reign," are vividly depicted in his correspondence. Writing to his nearest friends, and on the most solemn themes, Pope never forgot his authorship. His fame was too much in his eye, and the opinion of the public in his mind. His characteristic refinement, delicacy of judgment, his nicety of expression and neat turns of style, appear on every page. The virtues of the man, too, admirable and as real as the merits of the wit, satirist, and moral-painter, in spite of his affection and passion for intrigue and stratagem, are equally evident. His affections and regard for his parents; his devotion to his friends; his sincere humanity; his generous sensibility. The personal character of Pope, owing to his brilliant literary success, and to his success chiefly in satire, is not so well or so favorably known as it should be. He is thought by many to have been what he was humorously styled, and as falsely as humorously, "the little wasp of Twickenham.” So far from indulging mean spite and malice, the heart of Pope was of the noblest texture, and its impulses governed by the most exalted sentiments. If ever there was a true-hearted and magnanimous nature, in default of his crooked ways and unwise circumlocutions, it was Pope's. To Pope was addressed not only the hollow, courtly speeches of the titled and great, but the sincerest praises of England's finest wits and most delicate geniuses were accorded to Pope, and Pope was loved and honored, as well as admired and praised. He secured the personal affection of men, not only of talents equally fine and attic with his own, but in some walks superior, and whose own natures and tempers were above all praise. Only survey the list of Pope's intimate associates: Addison, Swift, Gay, Berkeley, Bolingbroke, Steele, Arbuthnot, Parnell, Wycherly, Congreve, Garth, Jervas, Fenton, Hugh Bethel, Ralph Allen, Rowe, and Sir William Trumbull, Secretary Craggs, Earls Halifax and Burlington, Bishop Atterbury, the Blounts, the Digbys, Cromwell, and the fine ladies of the day. It may be safely hazarded as a general remark, that not a single distinguished man of letters or public character in the kingdom was unknown to Pope. He was regarded, and justly, as the Horace and Voiture of England united, and for exact justness of thought and propriety of language, for wit (the like of which we have not since seen), for comic fancy, and for exquisite compliment, he was unrivalledbut chiefly as a moral satirist and judge, equally of books and artificial life, was he considered admirable, and in these walks he is decidedly a master. Pope was as precocious in his prose compositions as in his poetical attempts. His early correspondence was almost all of it written before the age of twenty. At sixteen, he commenced his correspondence with Wycherly, then near seventy, and, it must be confessed, Pope has the best of the bargain. Shortly after, he wrote to Walsh and Henry Cromwell, his early friends and flatterers. With Wycherly, Pope maintained a perfect war of compliments, and yet, after all, they quarrelled from Pope's plain speaking, when he was forced to it. Walsh, whom Dryden called the best critic in England, early favored Pope, and augured the most brilliant success for him. Pope has not forgotten to number him among the catalogue of his early associates. We cannot resist quoting the fine lines, often as they are referred to: "But why then publish? Granville, the polite, From these the world will judge of men and books, What might not the richest fool give for an epithet of |