[We may add, that in the Aldine edition of Pope, which was produced
under the editorial superintendence of the Rev. A. Dyce, the lines
are given as quoted from the _Times_, and without any various
reading. See vol. ii. p. 55.]
_Angels' Visits._
Campbell's famous line,
"Like angels visits, few and far between,"
has been clearly shown by a correspondent in another paper, to be all
but copied from Blair:--
----"like an ill-used ghost
Not to return;--or if it did, its visits
_Like those of angels, short and far between._"
Blair's _Grave_.
But the same phrase, though put differently, occurs in a religious poem
of Norris of Bemerton, who died in 1711:--
"But those who soonest take their flight,
Are the most exquisite and strong,
_Like angels visits, short_ and bright,
Mortality's too weak to bear them long."