Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/332

328 that the story could not have been read with out thoughts of the Countess of Salisbury, though it had been dedicated to another. "To behold," he proceeds, "a person only virtuous, stirs in us a prudent regret; to behold a person only amiable to the fight, warms us with a religious indignation; but to turn our eyes on a Countess of Salisbury, gives us pleasures and improvement; it works a sort of miracle, occasions the biass of our nature to fall off from sin, and makes our very senses and affections converts to our religion, and promoters of our duty." His flattery was as ready for the other sex as for ours, and was at least as well adapted.

August the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his friend Jervas, that he is just arived from Oxford; that every one is much concerned for the Queen's death, but that no panegyricks are ready, yet for the King. Nothing like friendship had yet taken place between Pope and Young; for, soon after the event which Pope mentions, Young published a poem on the Queen's death, and his Majesty's accession to the throne. It is inscribed to Addison, then secretary to the Lords Justices. Whatever Rh