INEDITED POEM BY POPE.
In an original letter from James Boaden to Northcote the artist, I find the following passage; and I add to it the verses to which allusion is therein made:
"60. Warren Street, Fitzroy Square.
"28th August, 1827.
"My dear friend,
"The verses annexed are so fine, that you should put them into your copy of Pope, among the Miscellanies. Dr. Warburton received them too late for his edition of our poet, and I find them only in a letter from the prelate to Dr. Hurd, dated 'Prior Park, June 24th, 1765.'
"I have used the freedom to mark a few of the finest touches with a pencil, to show you my feeling. These you can rub out easily, and afterwards indulge your own. The style of interrogation seems to have revived in Gray's Elegy. Hurd would send the verses to Mason as soon as he got them; and Mason and Gray, as you know, were one in all their studies.
"I do not forget the Fables.
"Yours, my dear friend, always,
"J. Boaden.
"J. Northcote, Esq."
Not having by me any modern edition of Pope's Works, may I ask whether these verses, thus transcribed for Northcote by his friend Boaden, have yet been introduced to the public?
Verses by Mr. Pope, on the late Dean of Carlisle's (Dr. Bolton) having written and published a Paper to the Memory of Mrs. Butler, of Sussex, Mother to old Lady Blount of Twickenham.
[They are supposed to be spoken by the deceased lady to the author of that paper, which drew her character.]
"Stript to the naked soul, escaped from clay,
From doubts unfetter'd, and dissolved in day;
Unwarm'd by vanity, unreach'd by strife,
And all my hopes and fears thrown off with life;
Why am I charm'd by Friendship's fond essays,
And tho' unbodied, conscious of thy praise?
Has pride a portion in the parted soul?
Does passion still the formless mind control?
Can gratitude outpant the silent breath,
Or a friend's sorrow pierce the glooms of death?
No, 'tis a spirit's nobler taste of bliss,
That feels the worth it left, in proofs like this;
That not its own applause but thine approves,
Whose practice praises, and whose virtue loves;
Who liv'st to crown departed friends with fame;
Then dying, late, shalt all thou gav'st reclaim.
Mr. Pope."
A. F. W.