"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? { 58} 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."
SOUTHEY'S "DOCTOR;" ST. MATTHIAS' DAY IN LEAP-YEAR.
In looking over the 1848 edition of Southey's book, _The Doctor_, I observe an error which has escaped the care and revision of the editor, the Rev. J. W. Warter, B.D. At p. 199., where Southey is referring to the advantages of almanacs, he writes:
"Who is there that has not sometimes had occasion to consult the almanac? Maximilian I., by neglecting to do this, failed in an enterprise against Bruges. It had been concerted with his adherents in that turbulent city, that he should appear before it at a certain time, and they would be ready to rise in his behalf, and open the gates for him. He forgot that it was leap-year, and came a day too soon; and this error on his part cost many of the most zealous of his friends their lives. It is remarkable that neither the historian who relates this, nor the writers who have followed him, should have looked into the almanac to guard against any inaccuracy in the relation; _for they have fixed the appointed day on the eve of St. Matthias, which being the 23rd of February, could not be put out of its course by leap-year_."