“The Dunciad” is blemished by the offensive images of the games; but the poetry appears to me admirable; and, though the fourth book has obscurities, I prefer it to the three others:  it has descriptions not surpassed by any poet that ever existed, and which surely a writer merely ingenious will never equal.  The lines on Italy, on Venice, on Convents, have all the grace for which I contend as distinct from poetry, though united with the most beautiful; and the “Rape of the Lock,” besides the originality of great part of the invention, is a standard of graceful writing.

In general, I believe that what I call grace, is denominated elegance; but by grace I mean something higher.  I will explain myself by instances—­Apollo is graceful, Mercury is elegant.  Petrarch, perhaps, owed his whole merit to the harmony of his numbers and the graces of his style.  They conceal his poverty of meaning and want of variety.  His complaints, too, may have added an interest, which, had his passion been successful, and had expressed itself with equal sameness, would have made the number of his sonnets insupportable.  Melancholy in poetry, I am inclined to think, contributes to grace, when it is not disgraced by pitiful lamentations, such as Ovid’s and Cicero’s in their banishments.  We respect melancholy, because it imparts a similar affection, pity.  A gay writer, who should only express satisfaction without variety, would soon be nauseous.

Madame de Sevigne shines both in grief and gaiety.  There is too much of sorrow for her daughter’s absence; yet it is always expressed by new terms, by new images, and often by wit, whose tenderness has a melancholy air.  When she forgets her concern, and returns to her natural disposition—­gaiety, every paragraph has novelty:  her allusions, her applications are the happiest possible.  She has the art of making you acquainted with all her acquaintance, and attaches you even to the spots she inhabited.  Her language is correct, though unstudied; and, when her mind is full of any great event, she interests you with the warmth of a dramatic writer, not with the chilling impartiality of an historian.  Pray read her accounts of the death of Turenne, and of the arrival of King James in France, and tell me whether you do not know their persons as if you had lived at the time.

For my part, if you will allow me a word of digression (not that I have written with any method), I hate the cold impartiality recommended to Historians:  “Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi:"[1] but, that I may not wander again, nor tire, nor contradict you any more, I will finish now, and shall be glad if you will dine at Strawberry Hill next Sunday, and take a bed there, when I will tell you how many more parts of your book have pleased me, than have startled my opinions, or, perhaps, prejudices.  I have the honour to be, Sir, with regard, &c.

[Footnote 1:  A quotation from Horace’s “Ars Poetica,” 102.]