I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paraclete.

We shall, therefore, pass over it to a piece of more importance, the epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, which may justly be regarded, as one of the works on which the reputation of Pope will stand in future times.

The critick pursues Eloisa through all the changes of passion, produces the passages of her letters, to which any allusion is made, and intersperses many agreeable particulars and incidental relations.

It is justly remarked by him, that the wish of Eloisa, for the happy passage of Abelard into the other world, is formed according to the ideas of mystick devotion.

The quotation is from Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, l. 134: 'You raised these hallowed walls; the desert smil'd, And Paradise was open'd in the wild.

When Lady Mary went abroad in 1716 Pope, who always wanted to make the best of both worlds, thought, it has been related by his biographers, of what dramatic situation describing the separation of lovers would best suit him to express his feelings, and he found exactly what he wanted on the supposed authentic letters of Eloisa to Abelard.

There are few things in them but what you have already seen, except the 'Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard,' in which you will find one passage that I cannot tell whether to wish you should understand or not.

With vain desires the pensive ALCEA burns, 70 And, like sad ELOISA, loves and mourns.

I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paraclete.

His epistle of Eloisa to Abelard is declamatory and academic, and leaves the reader cold.

342, iii. 199, n. 2; Eloisa to Abelard, i. 38, i. 272; i. 134, v. 325, n. 2; Epitaph on Craggs, iv.

also contain some of the compositions of Eloisa.

Mr. Pope has very happily succeeded in many of his occasional pieces, such as Eloisa to Abelard, his Elegy on an unfortunate young Lady, and a variety of other performances deservedly celebrated.