28 DECEMBER 1889, Page 14

BROWNING AND POPE.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sts,—In the article in the Spectator of December 21st, on " Browning and Tennyson," the writer says of the former

poet : " To use his own happy and latest phrase, he hitches the thing into verse.' " The phrase, however, can scarcely be called Mr. Browning's own, having been evidently suggested.

by the following couplet :- " Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme."

See Pope's "Imitations of Horace," Satire I.—I am, Sir, &c., J. D.