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POPE..

Johnson observes that Pope preferred for their harmony these two lines:

Lo! where Maotis sleeps, and hardly flows
The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows.
I have somewhere read that he
gave a decided preference for the
same reason to the following in-
scription on a grotto, which he
translated from a modern Latin
poet.

Nymph of the grot! this sacred scene I keep,
And to the murmur of those waters sleep.
O, spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave,
And drink in silence, or in silence lave.

His attack on Colly Cibber was petulant and unjust. Cibber, far from being the dunce which Pope describes him, was a man of vig. orous sense and lively wit, as may be proved by his observations on Cicero, and by many of his plays.

Questions have been asked, and doubts have been entertained, whether Pope was a poet in the dignified meaning of the word. Let the answer be given, and let the doubt be destroyed, by the authority of reason and the impartiality of enlightened criticism." After all this, it is surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, Whether Pope was a poet; otherwise than by asking in return, if Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To circumscribe poetry by a definition will only shew the narrowness of the definer, though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look round upon the present time, and back upon the past; let us inquire to whom the voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the pretensions of Pope will be no more disputed. Had he given the world only his version,the name of poet must have been allowed him: if the writer of the "Iliad" were to class his suc

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Eugene Aram was a very extraordinary man. Without the aid of a master he gained a perfect knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and read all their authors. He acquired the Chaldee, Arabick, Hebrew, and Celtick, was an excellent botanist, and a profound mathematician. But the excellence of his head could not counteract the depravity of his heart, and he was induced to murder Daniel Clark, a shoe-maker, to possess himself of a trifling sum of money. The murder was concealed nearly fourteen years, and was accidentally discovered by some bones which were dug up. Aram was tried, convicted, and executed, on the testimony of his own wife, and on that of one Houseman, who had been concerned in the murder, but on this occasion turned king's evidence. The following defence, which this extraordinary man read in court, is perhaps one of the finest pieces of cloquence in our language, and will amply compensate for its length by its uncommon excellence.

My Lord I know not whether it is of right, or through some indulgence of your lordship, that I am allowed the liberty at this bar, and at this time, to attempt a defence; incapable, and uninstructed, as I am to speak. Since, while I see so many eyes upon me, so numerous and awful a concourse, fixed with attention, and filled with I know not what expectancy, I labour not with guilt, my lord, but with perplexity. For having never seen a court but this, being wholly unacquainted with law, the customs of the bar, and

all judiciary proceedings, I fear I shall be so little capable of speaking with propriety in this place, that it exceeds my hope if I shall be able to speak at all.

I have heard, my lord, the indictment read, wherein I find myself charged with the highest crime; with an enormity I am altogether incapable of; a fact, to the commission of which there goes far more insensibility of heart, more profligacy of morals, than ever fell to my lot. And nothing possibly could have admitted a presumption of this nature but a depravity, not inferiour to that imputed to me. However, as I stand indicted at your lordship's bar, and have heard what is called evidence induced in support of such a charge, I very humbly solicit your lordship's patience, and beg the hearing of this respectable audience, while I, single and unskilful, destitute of friends, and unassisted by counsel, say something, perhaps, like argument, in my defence. I shall consume but little of your lordship's time; what I have to say will be short, and this brevity, probably, will be the best part of it; however, it is offered with all possible regard, and the greatest submission to your lordship's consideration, and that of this honourable court.

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First, my lord, the whole tenor of my conduct in life contradicts every particular of this indictment, Yet I had never said this, did not my present circumstances extort it from me, and seem to make it necessary. Permit me here, my lord, to call upon malignity itself, so long and cruelly busied in this prosecution, to charge upon me, any immorality, of which prejudice was not the author. No, my lord, I concerted no schemes of fraud, projected no violence, injured no

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man's person or property. My days were honestly laborious, my nights intensely studious. And, I humbly conceive, my notice of this, especially at this time, will not be thought impertinent, or unseasonable; but, at least, deserving some attention: because, my lord, that any person, after a temperate use of life, a series of thinking and acting regularly, and without one single deviation from sobriety, should plunge into the very depth of profligacy, precipitately and at once, is altogether improbable and unprecedented, and absolutely inconsistent with the course of things. Mankind is never corrupted at once; villainy is always progressive, and declines from right, step after step, till every regard of probity is lost, and every sense of all moral obligations totally perishes.

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"Again, my lord, a suspicion of this kind, which nothing but malevolence could entertain, and ignorance propagate, is violently opposed by my very situation at that time, with respect to health for, but a little space before, I had been confined to my bed, and suffered under a very long and severe disorder, and was not able, for half a year together, so much as to walk. The distemper left me indeed, yet slowly and in part; but so macerated, so enfeebled, that I was reduced to cructhes; and was so far from being well about the time I am charged with this fact, that I never to this day perfectly recovered. Could then a person in this condition take any thing into his head so unlikely, so extravagant ; I, past the vigour of my age, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage, no ability to accomplish, no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact; without interest, without power, without motive, without means?

Besides, it must needs occur to every one, that an action of this atrocious nature is never heard of, but, when its springs are laid open, it appears that it was to support some indolence, or supply some luxury, to satisfy some avarice, or oblige some malice; to prevent some real, or some imaginary want yet I lay not under the in fluence of any one of these. Surely, my lord, I may, consistent with both truth and modesty, affirm thus much; and none who have any veracity, and knew me, will ever question this.

In the second place, the disap pearance of Clark is suggested as an argument of his being dead: but the uncertainty of such an inference from that, and the fallibil ity of all conclusions of such a sort, from such a circumstance, are too obvious, and too notorious, to require instances: yet, superseding many, permit me to produce a very recent one, and that afforded by this castle.

In June, 1757, William Thompson, for all the vigilance of this place, in open day-light, and double-ironed, made his escape; and, notwithstanding an immediate inquiry set on foot, the strictest search, and all advertisement, was never seen or heard of since. If then Thompson got off unseen, through all these difficulties, how very easy was it for Clark, when none of them opposed him? But what would be thought of a pros ecution commenced against any one seen last with Thompson ?

'Permit me next, my lord, to observe a little upon the bones which have been discovered. It is said, which perhaps is saying very far, that these are the skeleton of a man. It is possible indeed it may but is there any certain known criterion, which incontesta

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bly distinguishes the sex in human bones? Let it be considered, my lord, whether the ascertaining of this point ought not to precede any attempt to identify them.

The place of their depositum too claims much more attention than is commonly bestowed upon it: for, of all places in the world, none could have mentioned any one, wherein there was greater certainty of finding human bones, than a hermitage; except he should point out a church-yard hermitages, in time past, being not only places of religious retirement, but of burial too. And it has scarce or never been heard of, but that every cell, now known, contains, or contained, these relicks of humanity; some mutilated, and some entire. I do not inform, but give me leave to remind your lordship, that here sat solitary sanctity, and here the hermit, or the anchoress, hoped that repose for their bones, when dead, they here enjoyed when living.

All this while, my lord, I am sensible this is known to your lordship, and many in this court, better than I. But it seems necessary to my case, that others, who have not at all, perhaps, adverted to things of this nature, and may have concern in my trial, should be made acquainted with it. Suffer me then, my lord, to produce a few of many evidences, that these cells were used as repositories of the dead, and to enumerate a few, in which human bones have been found, as it happened in this in question; lest, to some, that accident might seem extraordinary, and, consequently, occasion prejudice.

1. The bones, as was supposed, of the Saxon, St. Dubritius, were discovered buried in his cell at Guy's cliff, near Warwick, as

appears from the authority of Sir William Dugdale.

2. The bones, thought to be those of the anchoress Rosia, were but lately discovered in a cell at Royston, entire, fair, and undecayed, though they must have lain interred for several centuries, as is proved by Dr. Stukely.

3. But our own country, nay, almost this neighbourhood, supplies another instance: for, in January, 1747, was found by Mr. Stovin, accompanied by a reverend gentleman, the bones, in part, of some recluse, in the cell at Lindholm, near Hatfield. They were believed to be those of William of Lindholm, a hermit, who had long made this cave his habitation.

4. In February, 1744, part of Woburn abbey being pulled down, a large portion of a corpse appeared, even with the flesh on, and which bore cutting with a knife; though it is certain this had lain above 200 years, and how much longer is doubtful; for this abbey was founded in 1145, and dissolved in 1538 or 9.

What would have been said, what believed, if this had been an accident to the bones in question?

Further, my lord, it is not yet out of living memory, that a little distance from Knaresbo rough, in a field, part of the manor of the worthy and patriot .Baronet, who does that borough the honour to represent it in parliament, were found, in digging for gravel, not one human skeleton only, but five or six, deposited side by side, with each an urn placed at its head, as your lordship knows was usual in ancient inter

ments.

About the same time, and in another field, almost close to this borough, was discovered also, in searching for gravel, another hu

man skeleton; but the piety of the same worthy gentleman ordered both the pits to be filled up again, commendably unwilling to

disturb the dead.

Is the invention of these bones forgotten, then, or industriously concealed, that the discovery of those in question may appear the more singular and extraordinary? Whereas, in fact, there is nothing extraordinary in it. My Lord, almost every place conceals such remains. In fields, in hills, in highway sides, in commons, lie frequent and unsuspected bones. And our present allotments for rest for the departed, is but of some centuries.

Another particular seems not to claim a little of your lordship's notice, and that of the gentlemen of the jury; which is, that perhaps no example occurs of more than one skeleton being found in one cell; and in the cell in question was found but one; agreeable, in this, to the peculiarity of every other known cell in Britain. Not the invention of one skeleton, then, but of two, would have appeared suspicious and uncommon.

But then, my lord, to attempt to identify these, when even to identify living men sometimes has proved so difficult, as in the case of Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Symnel at home, and of Don Sebastian abroad, will be looked upon perhaps as an attempt to determine what is indeterminable. And I hope too it will not pass unconsidered here, where gentlemen believe with caution, think with reason, and decide with humanity, what interest the endeavours to do this is calculated to serve in assigning proper personality to those bones, whose particular appropria tion can only appear to eternal Omniscience.

• Permit me, my lord, also

very humbly to remonstrate, that, as human bones appear to have been the inseparable adjuncts of every cell, even any person's naming such a place at random as containing them, in this case, shews him rather unfortunate than conscious prescient, and that these at tendants on every hermitage only accidentally concurred with this conjecture. A mere casual coincidence of words and things.

• But it seems another skeleton has been discovered by some labourer, which was full as confidently averred to be Clark's as this. My Lord, must some of the living, if it promotes some interest, be made answerable for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance exposed? And might not a place where bones lay be mentioned by a person by chance, as well as found by a labourer by chance? Or, is it more criminal accidentally to name where bones li, than accidentally to find where they lie?

Here too is a human skull produced, which is fractured; but was this the cause, or was it the consequence of death; was it owing to violence, or was it the effect of natural decay? If it was violence, was that violence before or after death? My lord, in May 1732, the remains of William Lord Archbishop of this province were taken up, by permission, in this cathedral, and the bones of the skull were found broken; yet certainly he died by no violence offered to him alive, that could occasion that fracture there.

Let it be considered, my lord, that upon the dissolution of religious houses, and the commencement of the Reformation, the ravages of those times both affected the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures,

coffins were broken up, graves and vaults dug open, monuments ransack'd, and shrines demolished; your Lordship knows that these violations proceeded so far, as to occasion parliamentary authority to restrain them; and it did, about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I entreat your Lordship suffer not the violences, the depredations, and the iniquities of those times to be imputed to this.

Moreover, what gentleman here is ignorant that Knaresborough had a castle; which, though now a ruin, was once considerable both for its strength and garrison. All know it was vigorously besieged by the arms of the parliament; at which siege, in sallies, conflicts, flights, pursuits, many fell in all the places round it: and where they fell were buried; for every place, my lord, is burial earth in war; and many, questionless, of these rest yet unknown, whose bones futurity shall discover.

I hope, with all imaginable submission, that what has been said will not be thought impertinent to this indictment; and that it will be far from the wisdom, the learning, and the integrity of this place, to impute to the living what zeal in its fury may have done; what nature may have taken off, and piety interred; or what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited.

As to the circumstances that have been raked together, I have nothing to observe; but that all circumstances whatsoever are precarious, and have been but too frequently found lamentably fallible; even the strongest have failed. They may rise to the utmost degree of probability; yet are they but probability still. Why need I name to your lordship the two Harrisons recorded in Dr. Howel, who

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