where there is so much bad ground. The smoke is very troublesome when they do it, and there had been so many complaints made of it, that Clement the Eleventh resolved to forbid the practice. When the order was laid before that pope to be signed by him, a cardinal (who happened to be with his holiness) spoke much of the use of it; showed him the passage in Virgil:* and the pope on reading it changed his mind, and rejected the order.-H.

"Our religion is not founded upon reason," said the Bishop of Arles, speaking of the religion of the church of Rome. That great prelate had the goodness to attempt (in a quarter of an hour's visit) to bring us over to the love of popery, and of a popish prince. When he found that we held steady to our principles all that time, he pitied us very much, and was extremely sorry that such fine and such promising young gentlemen would shut their eyes thus against the light, when it was offered to them: he lamented pathetically over us, and begged us again to consider all that he had offered to us. If we did not, he said, it shocked him to think of the sad consequence that could not but follow from our continuing in the way we were in: "for you Protestants (added he), when you die, all fall down into hell, as the flakes of snow fall upon the earth in the winter season."-Spence.

Malherbe was the first good poet among the French; and Rousseau is allowed by everybody to be their best now. * Virg. Georg. i. 84–93.

t "Notre religion n'est pas fondée sur les raisonnements,” were his words. Mr. Spence has evidently mistaken the import of the word raisonnements.-Editor.

"Quand vous venez à mourir, vous tomberez en enfer; comme les flocs de neige tombent sur la terre dans le tems de l'hyver.”

-Fontenelle has been the great corrupter of the French language; and the more from his writing with so much wit. Numbers endeavour to imitate him, take the same liberties with the language, and aim at nothing but to shine.Ramsay.

While Marshal Turenne was saying some very fine and very humane things, just after the battle of Retel; the Prince de Conde said: "What signifies moralizing so much about the matter, since one night at Paris will make it all up again?”—R.

Pope and Boileau are certainly the two best poets of all the moderns. They both write extremely well; but I should prefer Pope to Boileau, because he excels in what is most material in the character of a poet. Boileau writes more correctly, and better than Pope; but Pope thinks more nobly, and has much more of the true spirit of poetry than Boileau.-R. [This had the more weight with me, because Dr. Cocchi, and other good judges I met with on the continent, agreed in this sentiment throughout, though they might express it in other words.]-Spence.

The Pretender's eldest son had been taught, by his nurses, to be extremely terrified whenever it lightened. They had used to shut up all the windows, and run into corners with him to avoid the sight of it. When Ramsay was made his tutor, he resolved to take off so bad an impression. Whenever there was a storm, he would fling up the sashes, and hold him there, forcing him to face the lightning. By this means, he in some time conquered his prejudices so far, that at last the boy came even to delight in looking at the lightning. He would run to the window, fling it up himself, and seemed to be diverted with the flashes

instead of afraid of them. Somebody had told Cardinal Alberoni of this; and the next time he saw Ramsay, he complimented him upon it before a good deal of company. "You do well, M. Ramsay (said he), you must teach him to fear nothing; neither man, nor the devil, nor God himself-for, (added he, in a lower voice and graver air, on observing the company seemed shocked at what he had said) as to the good God, we ought to love him, not to fear him."*—From a friend of Ramsay's.

* Vous faites très bien, Monsieur Ramsay. Il faut l'apprendre à ne rien craindre; ni les hommes, ni le Diable, ni Dieu même. car-pour le bon Dieu-il faut l'aimer, et non pas le craindre.

END OF SECTION III.

SPENCE'S ANECDOTES.

SECTION IV. 1734-36.

HE famous Lord Hallifax (though so much talked of) was rather a pretender to taste, than really possessed of it.-When I had finished the two or three first books of my translation of the Iliad, that lord "desired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house."-Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading.-In four or five places, Lord Hallifax stopped me very civilly; and with a speech, each time much of the same kind: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me.-Be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a little more at your leisure. -I am sure you can give it a better turn."-I returned from Lord Hallifax's with Dr. Garth,* in his chariot; and

* This is lengthened from the short hints in the first memorandum paper. Such fillings up, and in this particular, should be flung into notes; for one can't answer for the particular circumstances at such a distance of time. For instance, according to my memory, it was Garth he returned home with; but in my paper, Congreve's name has a particular mark under it; and so it might be he, and not Garth, that let Mr. Pope into this part of Lord Hallifax's character. This must be hinted at above, and enlarged upon in the notes.-Note in pencil on the margin by Spence.

as we were going along, was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty, by such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended his lordship in either of them.-Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Hallifax, to know his way yet: that I need not puzzle myself in looking those places over and over when I got home. “All you need do (said he) is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Hallifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages; and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."-I followed his advice; waited on Lord Hallifax some time after: said I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed, read them to him exactly as they were at first; his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out,

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Ay now, Mr. Pope, they are perfectly right! nothing can be better."-P.

"Did not he write the Country Mouse with Mr. Pryor?" "Yes, just as if I was in a chaise with Mr. Cheselden here, drawn by his fine horse, and should say,-Lord, how finely we draw this chaise!”—Lord Peterborough.

Donne had no imagination, but as much wit, I think, as any writer can possibly have.*—Oldham is too rough and coarse.-Rochester is the medium between him and the Earl of Dorset.-Lord Dorset is the best of all those writers.-What! better than Lord Rochester?"-Yes, Ro

• It is remarkable that Dryden also says of Donne; "he was the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of this nation.”– Jos. Warton.