Extracts from the Primers and Common Prayers referred to in the Pamphlet.

Persons prayed for

King Charles II., Queen Mary, James Duke of York, and the rest of the Royal Family.

King Charles II., Queen Catherine, Mary the Queen Mother, James Duke of York, and all the Royal Family.

No Alteration.

King Charles II., Queen Catherine, James Duke of York, and all the Royal Family.

King James II., Queen Mary, Catherine the Queen Dowager, their Royal Highnesses Mary Princess of Orange and the Princess Anne of Denmark, and all the Royal Family.

Queen Anne,

Catherine the Queen Dowager, the Princess Sophia, and all the Royal Family.

King George I., George Prince of Wales, the Princess, and their Issue, and all the Royal Family.

King George II., Queen Caroline, the Royal Issue, and the rest of the Royal Family.

King George II., George Prince of Wales, the Princess Dowager of Wales, the Duke, the Princesses, and all the Royal Family.

King George III., Queen Charlotte, His Royal Highness George Prince of Wales, and all the Royal Family.

ON THE

POETICAL CHARACTER OF POPE;

FURTHER ELUCIDATING

THE

"INVARIABLE PRINCIPLES OF POETRY," &c.

WITH

A SEQUEL,

IN REPLY TO OCTAVIUS GILCHRIST.

BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES.

Concluded from the last No.

LONDON:

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

POETICAL CHARACTER OF POPE,

&c. &c.

THE quotations given in the pamphlet which has called forth your particular spleen, were not introduced to gratify any feelings of vanity, but to "grieve the heart" of the "solitary slanderer," by showing, from unequivocal documents, how much wiser judges and better men differed from him. Virgil may be appealed to, when the "bug Pantilius" decries.

Mr. Campbell was no "slanderer," Sir. He misrepresented my sentiments as to poetry, ignorantly; but he wrote with the courtesy of a gentleman and a scholar. He will confess that he misunderstood my sentiments. Of his other opinions, I can only say, that be they what they may, he will admit that, in the examples produced by him, as far as the poetical criticism was concerned, he did me INJUSTICE, as I am sure he will acquit me of base motives.

You misconceived what I said of Mr. Campbell. If he were to enter into a critical examination of every thing I may have advanced in the Life of Pope, or in the notes to his writings, I should hail the information. I would not attempt to defend what justice should think indefensible. "I would retrace

my steps;" with sorrow, that I had written one word that might be thought derogatory of the fair fame of a man of talents and virtues. I would evince my sincerity, by doing Pope "ample" if tardy justice. I would examine, as I profess I have done, but with new application and honorable ardor, the grounds of Johnson's and Warton's assertions, and if one single accusation shall be found not tenable, I would blot it out with much more readiness than I ever admitted it.

Nay, Sir, I would even discuss every point with you, had you

evinced a nobler disposition, and less prejudice and rancour than you have shown; even now if, omitting personal insults, gross exaggerations, undeserved aspersions, you would bring to the task as much acuteness as you please, but no bitterness, no turning, a step beyond decorum, into attempts to COMMIT A RAPE, I would meet you.

That a word has appeared, from which you might suppose I alluded with disrespect to your situation in life, I regret-indictum id volo-but allusions to the private life of a retired clergyman, in which he is held out almost as a crazy hypochondriac, is not criticism, but "railling." Your manner of speaking on the subject of personal allusions is manly; and, as you are not the writer of the article in the Quarterly, which many besides myself think, in two or three passages, to look like both "railing and raving," and personally insulting, I assure you, that the passage in the Pamphleteer, which will be thought objectionable, particularly if your first aggression is not considered, shall be left out when the copies of my defence are printed separately. And, if you could as readily be brought to admit that many reflections on me have been far from just, that some representations were not warranted, some language personally irritating, hardly reconcileable with the acknowledged courtesies of literary discussion or fair criticism, then the hope might not be in vain, that whatever I have advanced concerning Pope might be discussed without acrimony, of which, though I have replied to you, in a manner, I think, you deserve, I can confidently affirm I have none; you would find my acknowledgment of any fault committed, either to the living or the dead, would be as "AMPLE," and I should regret it was ever occasioned. And so, I bid you farewell for the present, till I speak of your other answer!

I shall take a glance at that when these sheets are printed. In the mean time, I turn to my original task of discussing the article in the Quarterly Review. Thus then we com

mence:

Dr. Warton had declared, or, according to the phraseology of this critic, Joseph Warton had the " MERIT of first declaring of Pope, that he did not think him at the head of his profession, and that his species of poetry was not the most excellent one of the art."

Nothing can be more clearly expressed. This is Warton's opinion, and this is mine; and this opinion I have supported in the Principles of Poetry; and this opinion I think I can easily defend (though I believe that so defined it will be generally admitted) against Doctor Johnson, Mr. Campbell, and this critic. But first, as to what Dr., or, (if the writer pleases,)" Samuel" Johnson, has to say against it: