"My friend, we are now in a polished age. What have feelings to do with
civilization?"

"Why, more than you will allow. Perhaps the greater our civilization,
the more numerous our feelings. Our animal passions lose in excess, but
our mental gain; and it is to the mental that poetry should speak. Our
English muse, even in this wonderful poem, seems to me to be growing,
like our English beauties, too glitteringly artificial: it wears /rouge/
and a hoop!"

"Ha! ha!--yes, they ornament now, rather than create; cut drapery,
rather than marble. Our poems remind me of the ancient statues.
Phidias made them, and Bubo and Bombax dressed them in purple. But this
does not apply to young Pope, who has shown in this very poem that he
can work the quarry as well as choose the gems. But see, the carriage
awaits us. I have worlds to do; first there is Swift to see; next,
there is some exquisite Burgundy to taste; then, too, there is the new
actress: and, by the by, you must tell me what you think of Bentley's
Horace; we will drive first to my bookseller's to see it; Swift shall
wait; Heavens! how he would rage if he heard me. I was going to say
what a pity it is that that man should have so much littleness of
vanity; but I should have uttered a very foolish sentiment if I had!"

"And why?"

"Because, if he had not so much littleness perhaps he would not be so
great: what but vanity makes a man write and speak, and slave, and
become famous? Alas!" and here St. John's countenance changed from
gayety to thought; "'tis a melancholy thing in human nature that so
little is good and noble, both in itself and in its source! Our very