Congrevehas merit of the highest kind; he is an original writer, who borrowed neither the models of his plot nor the manner of his dialogue. Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly, for since I inspected them many years have passed, but what remains upon my memory is, that his characters are commonly fictitious and artificial, with very little of nature, and not much of life. He formed a peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he supposed to consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers; but that which he endeavoured, he seldom failed of performing. His scenes exhibit not much of humour, imagery, or passion: his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiators; every sentence is to ward or strike; the contest of smartness is never intermitted; his wit is a meteor playing to and fro with alternate coruscations. His comedies have, therefore, in some degree, the operation of tragedies, they surprise rather than divert, and raise admiration oftener than merriment. But they are the works of a mind replete with images, and quick in combination.
Of his miscellaneous poetry I cannot say anything very favourable. The powers of Congreve seem to desert him when he leaves the stage, as Antæus was no longer strong than when he could touch the ground. It cannot be observed without wonder, that a mind so vigorous and fertile in dramatic compositions should on any other occasion discover nothing but impotence and poverty. He has in these little pieces neither elevation of fancy, selection of language, nor skill in versification: yet, if I were required to select from the whole mass of English poetry the most poetical paragraph, I know not what I could prefer to an exclamation in the “Mourning Bride”:—
ALMERIA.It was a fancied noise; for all is hushed.LEONORA.It bore the accent of a human voice.ALMERIA.It was thy fear, or else some transient windWhistling through hollows of this vaulted isle:We’ll listen—LEONORA.Hark!ALMERIA.No, all is hushed and still as death.—’Tis dreadful!How reverend is the face of this tall pile,Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,Looking tranquillity! It strikes an aweAnd terror on my aching sight; the tombsAnd monumental caves of death look cold,And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.Give use thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hearThy voice—my own affrights me with its echoes.
ALMERIA.
It was a fancied noise; for all is hushed.
LEONORA.
It bore the accent of a human voice.
ALMERIA.
It was thy fear, or else some transient windWhistling through hollows of this vaulted isle:We’ll listen—
LEONORA.
Hark!
ALMERIA.
No, all is hushed and still as death.—’Tis dreadful!How reverend is the face of this tall pile,Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,Looking tranquillity! It strikes an aweAnd terror on my aching sight; the tombsAnd monumental caves of death look cold,And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.Give use thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hearThy voice—my own affrights me with its echoes.
He who reads these lines enjoys for a moment the powers of a poet; he feels what he remembers to have felt before, but he feels it with great increase of sensibility; he recognises a familiar image, but meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty and enlarged with majesty. Yet could the author, who appears here to have enjoyed the confidence of Nature, lament the death of Queen Mary in lines like these:—
“The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rillsFurrow the brows of all the impending hills.The water-gods to floods their rivulets turn,And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn.The fauns forsake the woods, the nymphs the grove,And round the plain in sad distractions rove:In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear,And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair.With their sharp nails, themselves the satyrs wound,And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground.Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak,Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces brokeSee Pales weeping too in wild despair,And to the piercing winds her bosses bare.And see yon fading myrtle, where appearsThe Queen of Love, all bathed in flowing tears;See how she wrings her hands, and beats her breast,And tears her useless girdle from her waist:Hear the sad murmurs of her sighing doves!For grief they sigh, forgetful of their loves.”
And many years after he gave no proof that time had improved his wisdom or his wit, for, on the death of the Marquis of Blandford, this was his song:—
“And now the winds, which had so long been still,Began the swelling air with sighs to fill;The water-nymphs, who motionless remainedLike images of ice, while she complained,Now loosed their streams; as when descending rainsRoll the steep torrents headlong o’er the plains.The prone creation who so long had gazedCharmed with her cries, and at her griefs amazed,Began to roar and howl with horrid yell,Dismal to hear, and terrible to tell!Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around,And echo multiplied each mournful sound.”
In both these funeral poems, when he hasyelledout manysyllablesof senselessdolour, he dismisses his reader with senseless consolation. From the grave of Pastora rises a light that forms a star, and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas from every tear sprung up a violet. But William is his hero, and of William he will sing:—
“The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait around,And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying sound.”
It cannot but be proper to show what they shall have to catch and carry:—
“’Twas now, when flowery lawns the prospect made,And flowing brooks beneath a forest shade,A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd,Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls preparedTheir arméd heads for light, by fate of war to proveThe victor worthy of the fair one’s love;Unthought presage of what met next my view;For soon the shady scene withdrew.And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers,Behold a town arise, bulwarked with walls and lofty towers;Two rival armies all the plain o’erspread,Each in battalia ranged, and shining arms arrayedWith eagle eyes beholding both from far,Namur, the price and mistress of the war.”
The “Birth of the Muse” is a miserable fiction. One good line it has which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verses are these:—
“This said, no more remained. The ethereal hostAgain impatient crowd the crystal coast.The father now, within his spacious hands,Encompassed all the mingled mass of seas and lands;And, having heaved aloft the ponderous sphere,He launched the world to float in ambient air.”
Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt seems to be the best; his Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, however, had some lines which Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own. His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphrastical, and the additions which he makes are of little value. He sometimes retains what were more properly omitted, as when he talks ofvervainandgumsto propitiate Venus.
Of his Translations, the “Satire of Juvenal” was written very early, and may therefore be forgiven, though it had not the massiness and vigour of the original. In all his versions strength and sprightliness are wanting; his “Hymn to Venus,” from Homer, is perhaps the best. His lines are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imperfect. His petty poems are seldom worth the cost of criticism; sometimes the thoughts are false and sometimes common. In his verses on Lady Gethin, the latter part is in imitation of Dryden’s ode on Mrs. Killigrew; and “Doris,” that has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, has indeed some lively stanzas, but the expression might be mended, and the most striking part of the character had been already shown in “Love for Love.” His “Art of Pleasing” is founded on a vulgar, but perhaps impracticable principle, and the staleness of the sense is not concealed by any novelty of illustration or elegance of diction. This tissue of poetry, from which he seems to have hoped a lasting name, is totally neglected, and known only as it is appended to his plays.
While comedy or while tragedy is regarded, his plays are likely to be read; but, except what relates to the stage, I know not that he has ever written a stanza that is sung, or a couplet that is quoted. The general character of his “Miscellanies” is that they show little wit and little virtue. Yet to him it must be confessed that we are indebted for the connection of a national error, and for the cure of our Pindaric madness. He first taught the English writers that Pindar’s odes were regular; and though certainly he had not the lire requisite for the higher species of lyric poetry, he has shown us that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in mere confusion there is neither grace nor greatness.
Sir Richard Blackmoreis one of those men whose writings have attracted much notice, but of whose life and manners very little has been communicated, and whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends. He was the son of Robert Blackmore, of Corsham in Wiltshire, styled by WoodGentleman, and supposed to have been an attorney, having been for some time educated in a country school, he was at thirteen sent to Westminster, and in 1668 was entered at Edmund Hall in Oxford, where he took the degree of MA. June 8, 1676, and resided thirteen years, a much longer time than is usual to spend at the university, and which he seems to have passed with very little attention to the business of the place; for, in his poems, the ancient names of nations or places, which he often introduces, are pronounced by chance. He afterwards travelled. At Padua he was made doctor of physic, and, after having wandered about a year and a half on the Continent, returned home.
In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, a humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been once a schoolmaster is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life.
When he first engaged in the study of physic, he inquired, as he says, of Dr. Sydenham, what authors he should read and was directed by Sydenham to “Don Quixote”: “which” said he, “is a very good book; I read it still.” The perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous to men of eminence to give way to merriment; the idle and the illiterate will long shelter themselves under this foolish apophthegm. Whether he rested satisfied with this direction, or sought for better, he commenced physician, and obtained high eminence and extensive practice. He became Fellow of the College of Physicians, April 12, 1687, being one of the thirty which, by the new charter of King James, were added to the former fellows. His residence was in Cheapside, and his friends were chiefly in the City. In the early part of Blackmore’s time a citizen was a term of reproach; and his place of abode was another topic, to which his adversaries had recourse in the penury of scandal.
Blackmore, therefore, was made a poet not by necessity but inclination, and wrote not for a livelihood but for fame; or, if he may tell his own motives, for a nobler purpose, to engage poetry in the cause of virtue.
I believe it is peculiar to him that his first public work was an heroic poem. He was not known as a maker of verses till he published (in 1695) “Prince Arthur,” in ten books, written, as he relates, “by such catches and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours as his profession afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down the streets.” For the latter part of this apology he was accused of writing “to the rumbling of his chariot wheels.” He had read, he says, “but little poetry throughout his whole life; and for fifteen years before had not written a hundred verses except one copy of Latin verses in praise of a friend’s book.” He thinks, and with some reason, that from such a performance perfection cannot be expected; but he finds another reason for the severity of his censurers, which he expresses in language such as Cheapside easily furnished. “I am not free of the Poet’s Company, having never kissed the governor’s hands: mine is therefore not so much as a permission poem, but a downright interloper. Those gentlemen, who carry on their poetical trade in a joint stock, would certainly do what they could to sink and ruin an unlicensed adventurer, notwithstanding I disturbed none of their factories, nor imported any goods they have ever dealt in.” He had lived in the City till he had learned its note.
That “Prince Arthur” found many readers is certain; for in two years it had three editions, a very uncommon instance of favourable reception, at a time when literary curiosity was yet confined to particular classes of the nation. Such success naturally raised animosity; and Dennis attacked it by a formal criticism, more tedious and disgusting than the work which he condemns. To this censure may be opposed the approbation of Locke, and the admiration of Molyneux, which are found in their printed “Letters.” Molyneux is particularly delighted with the song of Mopas, which is therefore subjoined to this narrative.
It is remarked by Pope, that “what raises the hero, often sinks the man.” Of Blackmore is may be said that, as the poet sinks, the man rises; the animadversions of Dennis, insolent and contemptuous as they were, raised in him no implacable resentment; he and his critic were afterwards friends; and in one of his latter works he praises Dennis “as equal to Boileau in poetry, and superior to him in critical abilities.” He seems to have been more delighted with praise than pained by censure, and instead of slackening, quickened his career. Having in two years produced ten books of “Prince Arthur,” in two years more (1697) he sent into the world “King Arthur” in twelve. The provocation was now doubled, and the resentment of wits and critics may be supposed to have increased in proportion. He found, however, advantages more than equivalent to all their outrages. He was this year made one of the physicians in ordinary to King William, and advanced by him to the honour of knighthood, with the present of a gold chaise and medal. The malignity of the wits attributed his knighthood to his new poem, but King William was not very studious of poetry; and Blackmore perhaps had other merit, for he says in his dedication to “Alfred,” that “he had a greater part in the succession of the house of Hanover than ever he had boasted.”
What Blackmore could contribute to the Succession, or what he imagined himself to have contributed, cannot now be known. That he had been of considerable use, I doubt not but he believed, for I hold him to have been very honest; but he might easily make a false estimate of his own importance. Those whom their virtue restrains from deceiving others, are often disposed by their vanity to deceive themselves. Whether he promoted the Succession or not, he at least approved it, and adhered invariably to his principles and party through his whole life.
His ardour of poetry still continued; and not long after (1700) he published a “Paraphrase on the Book of Job, and other parts of the Scripture.” This performance Dryden, who pursued him with great malignity, lived long enough to ridicule in a Prologue.
The wits easily confederated against him, as Dryden, whose favour they almost all courted, was his professed adversary. He had, besides, given them reason for resentment, as, in his preface to “Prince Arthur,” he had said of the dramatic writers almost all that was alleged afterwards by Collier; but Blackmore’s censure was cold and general, Collier’s was personal and ardent; Blackmore taught his reader to dislike what Collier incited him to abhor.
In his preface to “King Arthur” he endeavoured to gain at least one friend, and propitiated Congreve by higher praise of his “Mourning Bride” than it has obtained from any other critic.
The same year he published a “Satire on Wit,” a proclamation of defiance which united the poets almost all against him, and which brought upon him lampoons and ridicule from every side. This he doubtless foresaw, and evidently despised; nor should his dignity of mind be without its praise, had he not paid the homage to greatness which he denied to genius, and degraded himself by conferring that authority over the national taste, which he takes from the poets, upon men of high rank and wide influence, but of less wit and not greater virtue.
Here is again discovered the inhabitant of Cheapside, whose head cannot keep his poetry unmingled with trade. To hinder that intellectual bankruptcy which he affects to fear he will erect a “Bank for Wit.” In this poem he justly censured Dryden’s impurities, but praised his powers, though in a subsequent edition he retained the satire, and omitted the praise. What was his reason, I know not; Dryden was then no longer in his way. His head still teemed with heroic poetry; and (1705) he published “Eliza,” in ten books. I am afraid that the world was now weary of contending about Blackmore’s heroes, for I do not remember that by any author, serious or comical, I have found “Eliza” either praised or blamed.
She “dropped,” as it seems, “dead-born from the press.” It is never mentioned, and was never seen by me till I borrowed it for the present occasion. Jacob says “it is corrected and revised from another impression,” but the labour of revision was thrown away.
From this time he turned some of his thoughts to the celebration of living characters, and wrote a poem on the Kit-Cat Club, and “Advice to the Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough” but on occasion of another year of success, thinking himself qualified to give more instruction, he again wrote a poem of “Advice to a Weaver of Tapestry.” Steele was then publishing theTatler, and, looking round him for something at which he might laugh, unluckily alighted on Sir Richard’s work, and treated it with such contempt that, as Fenton observes, he put an end to that species of writers that gave advice to painters.
Not long after (1712) he published “Creation,” a philosophical poem, which has been, by my recommendation, inserted in the late collection. Whoever judges of this by any other of Blackmore’s performances will do it injury. The praise given it by Addison (Spectator, 339) is too well known to be transcribed; but some notice is due to the testimony of Dennis, who calls it a “philosophical poem, which has equalled that of ‘Lucretius’ in the beauty of its versification, and infinitely surpassed it in the solidity and strength of its reasoning.”
Why an author surpasses himself it is natural to inquire. I have heard from Mr. Draper, an eminent bookseller, an account received by him from Ambrose Philips, “That Blackmore, as he proceeded in this poem, laid his manuscript from time to time before a club of wits with whom he associated, and that every man contributed, as he could, either improvement or correction; so that,” said Philips, “there are perhaps nowhere in the book thirty lines together that now stand as they were originally written.”
The relation of Philips, I suppose, was true; but when all reasonable, all credible allowance is made for this friendly revision, the author will still retain an ample dividend of praise; for to him must always be assigned the plan of the work, the distribution of its parts, the choice of topics, the train of argument, and, what is yet more, the general predominance of philosophical judgment and poetical spirit. Correction seldom effects more than the suppression of faults: a happy line, or a single elegance, may perhaps be added; but of a large work, the general character must always remain. The original constitution can be very little helped by local remedies; inherent and radical dulness will never be much invigorated by intrinsic animation. This poem, if he had written nothing else, would have transmitted him to posterity among the first favourites of the English muse; but to make verses was his transcendent pleasure, and, as he was not deterred by censure, he was not satiated with praise. He deviated, however, sometimes into other tracks of literature, and condescended to entertain his readers with plain prose. When theSpectatorstopped, he considered the polite world as destitute of entertainment, and in concert with Mr. Hughes, who wrote every third paper, published three times a week the “Lay Monastery,” founded on the supposition that some literary men, whose characters are described, had retired to a house in the country to enjoy philosophical leisure, and resolved to instruct the public by communicating their disquisitions and amusements. Whether any real persons were concealed under fictitious names is not known. The hero of the club is one Mr. Johnson, such a constellation of excellence, that his character shall not be suppressed, though there is no great genius in the design nor skill in the delineation.
“The first I shall name is Mr. Johnson, a gentleman that owes to nature excellent faculties and an elevated genius, and to industry and application many acquired accomplishments. His taste is distinguishing, just, and delicate; his judgment clear, and his reason strong, accompanied with an imagination full of spirit, of great compass, and stored with refined ideas. He is a critic of the first rank and, what is his peculiar ornament, he is delivered from the ostentation, malevolence, and supercilious temper, that so often blemish men of that character. His remarks result from the nature and reason of things, and are formed by a judgment free and unbiassed by the authority of those who have lazily followed each other in the same beaten track of thinking, and are arrived only at the reputation of acute grammarians and commentators; men who have been copying one another many hundred years without any improvement, or, if they have ventured farther, have only applied in a mechanical manner the rules of ancient critics to modern writings, and with great labour discovered nothing but their own want of judgment and capacity. As Mr. Johnson penetrates to the bottom of his subject, by which means his observations are solid and natural, as well as delicate, so his design is always to bring to light something useful and ornamental; whence his character is the reverse to theirs, who have eminent abilities in insignificant knowledge, and a great felicity in finding out trifles. He is no less industrious to search out the merit of an author, than sagacious in discerning his errors and defects, and takes more pleasure in commending the beauties than exposing the blemishes of a laudable writing. Like Horace, in a long work he can bear some deformities, and justly lay them on the imperfection of human nature, which is incapable of faultless productions. When an excellent drama appears in public, and by its intrinsic worth attracts a general applause, he is not stung with envy and spleen; nor does he express a savage nature in fastening upon the celebrated author, dwelling upon his imaginary defects, and passing over his conspicuous excellences. He treats all writers upon the same impartial foot, and is not, like the little critics, taken up entirely in finding out only the beauties of the ancient and nothing but the errors of the modern writers. Never did any one express more kindness and good-nature to young and unfinished authors, he promotes their interests, protects their reputation, extenuates their faults, and sets off their virtues, and by his candour guards them from the severity of his judgment. He is not like those dry critics who are morose because they cannot write themselves, but is himself master of a good vein in poetry; and though he does not often employ it, yet he has sometimes entertained his friends with his unpublished performances.”
The rest of the lay monks seem to be but feeble mortals an comparison with the gigantic Johnson, who yet, with all his abilities and the help of the fraternity, could drive the publication but to forty papers, which were afterwards collected into a volume, and called in the title “A Sequel to theSpectators.”
Some years afterwards (1716 and 1717) he published two volumes of essays in prose, which can be commended only as they are written for the highest and noblest purpose—the promotion of religion. Blackmore’s prose is not the prose of a poet, for it is languid, sluggish, and lifeless; his diction is neither daring nor exact, his flow neither rapid nor easy, and his periods neither smooth nest strong. His account ofwitwill show with how little clearness he is content to think, and how little his thoughts are recommended by his language.
“As to its efficient cause,witowes its production to an extraordinary and peculiar temperament in the constitution of the possessor of it, in which is found a concurrence of regular and exalted ferments, and an affluence of animal spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of purity; whence, being endowed with vivacity, brightness, and celerity, as well in their reflections as direct motions, they become proper instruments for the sprightly operations of the mind, by which means the imagination can with great facility range the wide field of Nature, contemplate an infinite variety of objects, and, by observing the similitude and disagreement of their several qualities, single out and abstract, and then suit and unite, those ideas which will best serve its purpose. Hence beautiful allusions, surprising metaphors, and admirable sentiments, are always ready at hand; and while the fancy is full of images, collected from innumerable objects, and their different qualities, relations, and habitudes, it can at pleasure dress a common notion in a strange but becoming garb, by which, as before observed, the same thought will appear a new one, to the great delight and wonder of the hearer. What we callgeniusresults from this particular happy complexion in the first formation of the person that enjoys it, and is Nature’s gift, but diversified by various specific characters and limitations, as its active fire is blended and allayed by different proportions of phlegm, or reduced and regulated by the contrast of opposite ferments. Therefore, as there happens in the composition of facetious genius a greater or less, though still an inferior, degree of judgment and prudence, one man of wit will be varied and distinguished from another.”
In these essays he took little care to propitiate the wits, for he scorns to avert their malice at the expense of virtue or of truth.
“Several, in their books, have many sarcastical and spiteful strokes at religion in general; while others make themselves pleasant with the principles of the Christian. Of the last kind this age has seen a most audacious example in the book entitled ‘A Tale of a Tub.’ Had this writing been published in a pagan or popish nation, who are justly impatient of all indignity offered to the established religion of their country, no doubt but the author would have received the punishment he deserved. But the fate of this impious buffoon is very different, for in a Protestant kingdom, zealous of their civil and religious immunities, he has not only escaped affronts and the effects of public resentment, but has been caressed and patronised by persons of great figure, and of all denominations. Violent party-men, who differed in all things besides, agreed in their turn to show particular respect and friendship to this insolent derider of the worship of his country, till at last the reputed writer is not only gone off with impunity, but triumphs in his dignity and preferment. I do not know that any inquiry or search was ever made after this writing, or that any reward was ever offered for the discovery of the author, or that the infamous book was ever condemned to be burnt in public. Whether this proceeds from the excessive esteem and love that men in power, during the late reign, had for wit, or their defect of zeal and concern for the Christian religion will be determined best by those who are best acquainted with their character.”
In another place he speaks with becoming abhorrence of agodless authorwho has burlesqued a Psalm. This author was supposed to be Pope, who published a reward for any one that would produce the coiner of the accusation, but never denied it, and was afterwards the perpetual and incessant enemy of Blackmore.
One of his essays is upon the spleen, which is treated by him so much to his own satisfaction, that he has published the same thoughts in the same words; first, in the “Lay Monastery,” then in the “Essay,” and then in the “Preface to a Medical Treatise on the Spleen.” One passage, which I have found already twice, I will here exhibit, because I think it better imagined and better expressed than could be expected from the common tenor of his prose:—
“—As the several combinations of splenetic madness and folly produce an infinite variety of irregular under-standing, so the amicable accommodation and alliance between several virtues and vices produce an equal diversity in the dispositions and manners of mankind; whence it comes to pass, that as many monstrous and absurd productions are found in the moral as in the intellectual world. How surprising is it to observe among the least culpable men, some whose minds are attracted by heaven and earth with a seeming equal force; some who are proud of humility; others who are censorious and uncharitable, yet self-denying and devout; some who join contempt of the world with sordid avarice; and others, who preserve a great degree of piety with ill-nature and ungoverned passions. Nor are instances of this inconsistent mixture less frequent among bad men, where we often with admiration see persons at once generous and unjust, impious lovers of their country, and flagitious heroes, good-natured sharpers, immoral men of honour, and libertines who will sooner die than change their religion; and though it is true that repugnant coalitions of so high a degree are found but in a part of mankind, yet none of the whole mass, either good or bad, are entirely exempted from some absurd mixture.”
“—As the several combinations of splenetic madness and folly produce an infinite variety of irregular under-standing, so the amicable accommodation and alliance between several virtues and vices produce an equal diversity in the dispositions and manners of mankind; whence it comes to pass, that as many monstrous and absurd productions are found in the moral as in the intellectual world. How surprising is it to observe among the least culpable men, some whose minds are attracted by heaven and earth with a seeming equal force; some who are proud of humility; others who are censorious and uncharitable, yet self-denying and devout; some who join contempt of the world with sordid avarice; and others, who preserve a great degree of piety with ill-nature and ungoverned passions. Nor are instances of this inconsistent mixture less frequent among bad men, where we often with admiration see persons at once generous and unjust, impious lovers of their country, and flagitious heroes, good-natured sharpers, immoral men of honour, and libertines who will sooner die than change their religion; and though it is true that repugnant coalitions of so high a degree are found but in a part of mankind, yet none of the whole mass, either good or bad, are entirely exempted from some absurd mixture.”
He about this time (August 22, 1716) became one of the elects of the College of Physicians, and was soon after (October 1) chosen Censor. He seems to have arrived late, whatever was the reason, at his medical honours.
Having succeeded so well in his book on Creation, by which he established the great principle of all religion, he thought his undertaking imperfect, unless he likewise enforced the truth of Revelation, and for that purpose added another poem on “Redemption.” He had likewise written before his “Creation” three books on the Nature of Man.
The lovers of musical devotion have always wished for a more happy metrical version than they have yet obtained of the Book of Psalms. This wish the piety of Blackmore led him to gratify, and he produced (1721) “A New Version of the Psalms of David fitted to the Tunes used in Churches,” which being recommended by the archbishops and many bishops, obtained a license for its admission into public worship; but no admission has it yet obtained, nor has it any right to come where Brady and Tate have got possession. Blackmore’s name must be added to those of many others who, by the same attempt, have obtained only the praise of meaning well.
He was not yet deterred from heroic poetry. There was another monarch of this island (for he did not fetch his heroes from foreign countries) whom he considered as worthy the epic muse, and he dignified “Alfred” (1723) with twelve books. But the opinion of the nation was now settled; a hero introduced by Blackmore was not likely to find either respect or kindness; “Alfred” took his place by “Eliza” in silence and darkness. Benevolence was ashamed to favour, and malice was weary of insulting. Of his four epic poems, the first had such reputation and popularity as enraged the critics; the second was at least known enough to be ridiculed; the two last had neither friends nor enemies.
Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. Blackmore being despised as a poet, was in time neglected as a physician; his practice, which was once invidiously great, forsook him in the latter part of his life, but being by nature, or by principle, averse from idleness, he employed his unwelcome leisure in writing books on physic, and teaching others to cure those whom he could himself cure no longer. I know not whether I can enumerate all the treatises by which he has endeavoured to diffuse the art of healing, for there is scarcely any distemper of dreadful name which he has not taught the reader how to oppose. He has written on the small-pox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on consumption, the spleen, the gout, the rheumatism, the king’s evil, the dropsy, the jaundice, the stone, the diabetes, and the plague. Of those books, if I had read them, it could nor be expected that I should be able to give a critical account. I have been told that there is something in them of vexation and discontent, discovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade physic from its sublimity, and to represent it as attainable without much previous or concomitant learning. By the transient glances which I have thrown upon them I have observed an affected contempt of the ancients, and a supercilious derision of transmitted knowledge. Of this indecent arrogance the following quotation from his preface to the “Treatise on the Small-pox” will afford a specimen, in which, when the reader finds what I fear is true, that, when he was censuring Hippocrates, he did not know the difference betweenaphorismandapophthegm, he will not pay much regard to his determinations concerning ancient learning.
“As for this book of aphorisms, it is like my Lord Bacon’s of the same title, a book of jests, or a grave collection of trite and trifling observations; of which, though many are true and certain, yet they signify nothing, and may afford diversion, but no instruction, most of them being much inferior to the sayings of the wise men of Greece, which yet are so low and mean, that we are entertained every day with more valuable sentiments at the table conversation of ingenious and learned men.”
“As for this book of aphorisms, it is like my Lord Bacon’s of the same title, a book of jests, or a grave collection of trite and trifling observations; of which, though many are true and certain, yet they signify nothing, and may afford diversion, but no instruction, most of them being much inferior to the sayings of the wise men of Greece, which yet are so low and mean, that we are entertained every day with more valuable sentiments at the table conversation of ingenious and learned men.”
I am unwilling, however, to leave him in total disgrace, and will therefore quote from another preface a passage less reprehensible.
“Some gentlemen have been disingenuous and unjust to me, by wresting and forcing my meaning, in the preface to another book, as if I condemned and exposed all learning, though they knew I declared that I greatly honoured and esteemed all men of superior literature and erudition, and that I only undervalued false or superficial learning, that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; and that as to physic, I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native genius to make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents are separated, I asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native sagacity and diligence will prove a more able and useful practiser than a heavy notional scholar, encumbered with a heap of confused ideas.”
“Some gentlemen have been disingenuous and unjust to me, by wresting and forcing my meaning, in the preface to another book, as if I condemned and exposed all learning, though they knew I declared that I greatly honoured and esteemed all men of superior literature and erudition, and that I only undervalued false or superficial learning, that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; and that as to physic, I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native genius to make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents are separated, I asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native sagacity and diligence will prove a more able and useful practiser than a heavy notional scholar, encumbered with a heap of confused ideas.”
He was not only a poet and a physician, but produced likewise a work of a different kind, “A True and Impartial History of the Conspiracy against King William of Glorious Memory in the Year 1695.” This I have never seen, but suppose it is at least compiled with integrity. He engaged likewise in theological controversy, and wrote two books against the Arians: “Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothesis,” and “Modern Arians Unmasked.” Another of his works is “Natural Theology; or, Moral Duties considered apart from Positive; with some Observations on the Desirableness and Necessity of a Supernatural Revelation.” This was the last book that he published. He left behind him “The Accomplished Preacher; or, an Essay upon Divine Eloquence,” which was printed after his death by Mr. White of Nayland, in Essex, the minister who attended his death-bed, and testified the fervent piety of his last hours. He died on the 8th of October, 1729.
Blackmore, by the unremitted enmity of the wits, whom he provoked more by his virtue than his dulness, has been exposed to worse treatment than he deserved. His name was so long used to point every epigram upon dull writers, that it became at last a byword of contempt but it deserves observation, that malignity takes hold only of his writings, and that his life passed without reproach, even when his boldness of reprehension naturally turned upon him many eyes desirous to espy faults which many tongues would have made haste to publish. But those who could not blame, could, at least, forbear to praise, and therefore of his private life and domestic character there are no memorials.
As an author, he may justly claim the honours of magnanimity. The incessant attacks of his enemies, whether serious or merry, are never discovered to have disturbed his quiet, or to have lessened his confidence in himself: they neither awed him to silence nor to caution: they neither provoked him to petulance, nor depressed him to complaint. While the distributors of literary fame were endeavouring to depreciate and degrade him, he either despised or defied them, wrote on as he had written before, and never turned aside to quiet them by civility, or repress them by confutation. He depended with great security on his own powers, and perhaps was for that reason less diligent in perusing books. His literature was, I think, but small. What he knew of antiquity, I suspect him to have gathered from modern compilers; but, though he could not boast of much critical knowledge, his mind was stored with general principles, and he left minute researches to those whom he considered as little minds. With this disposition he wrote most of his poems. Having formed a magnificent design, he was careless of particular and subordinate elegances; he studied no niceties of versification; he waited for no felicities of fancy, but caught his first thoughts in the first words in which they were presented; nor does it appear that he saw beyond his own performances, or had ever elevated his was to that ideal perfection which every genius born to excel is condemned always to pursue, and never overtake. In the first suggestions of his imagination he acquiesced; he thought them good, and did not seek for better. His works may be read a long time without the occurrence of a single line that stands prominent from the rest. The poem on “Creation” has, however, the appearance of more circumspection; it wants neither harmony of numbers, accuracy of thought, nor elegance of diction. It has either been written with great care, or, what cannot be imagined of so long a work, with such felicity as made care less necessary. Its two constituent parts are ratiocination and description. To reason in verse is allowed to be difficult; but Blackmore not only reasons in verse, but very often reasons poetically; and finds the art of uniting ornament with strength and ease with closeness. This is a skill which Pope might have condescended to learn from him, when he needed it so much in his “Moral Essays.”
In his descriptions both of life and nature, the poet and the philosopher happily co-operate; truth is recommended by elegance, and elegance sustained by truth. In the structure and order of the poem, not only the greater parts are properly consecutive, but the didactic and illustrative paragraphs are so happily mingled, that labour is relieved by pleasure, and the attention is led on through a long succession of varied excellence to the original position, the fundamental principle of wisdom and of virtue.
As the heroic poems of Blackmore are now little read, it is thought proper to insert, as a specimen from “Prince Arthur,” the song of Mopas mentioned by Molyneux:—
“But that which Arthur with most pleasure heardWere noble strains, by Mopas sung the bard,Who to his harp in lofty verse began,And through the secret maze of Nature ran.He the Great Spirit sung, that all things filled,That the tumultuous waves of Chaos stilled;Whose nod disposed the jarring seeds to peace,And made the wars of hostile Atoms cease.All Beings, we in fruitful Nature find,Proceeded from the Great Eternal mind:Streams of his unexhausted spring of power,And, cherished with his influence, endure.He spread the pure cerulean fields on high,And arched the chambers of the vaulted sky,Which he, to suit their glory with their height,Adorned with globes, that reel, as drunk with light.His hand directed all the tuneful spheres,He turned their orbs, and polished all the stars.He filled the Sun’s vast lamp with golden light:And bid the silver Moon adorn the night.He spread the airy Ocean without shores,Where birds are wafted with their feathered oars.Then sung the bard how the light vapours riseFrom the warm earth, and cloud the smiling skies;He sung how some, chilled in their airy flight,Fall scattered down in pearly dew by night;How some, raised higher, sit in secret steamsOn the reflected points of bounding beams,Till, chilled with cold, they shade th’ ethereal plain,Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain;How some, whose parts a slight contexture show,Sink hovering through the air in fleecy snow;How part is spun in silken threads, and clingsEntangled in the grass is gluey strings;How others stamp to stones, with rushing soundFall from their crystal quarries to the ground;How some are laid in trains, that kindled fly,In harmless fires by night, about the sky;How some in winds blow with impetuous force,And carry ruin where they bend their course,While some conspire to form a gentle breeze,To fan the air, and play among the trees;How some, enraged, grow turbulent and loud,Pent in the bowels of a frowning cloud,That cracks, as if the axis of the worldWas broke, and Heaven’s bright towers were downwards hurled.He sung how earth’s wide ball, at Jove’s command,Did in the midst on airy columns stand;And how the soul of plants, in prison held,And bound with sluggish fetters, lies concealed,Till with the spring’s warm beams, almost releasedFrom the dull weight, with which it lay opprest,Its vigour spreads, and makes the teeming earthHeave up, and labour with the sprouting birth:The active spirit freedom seeks in vain,It only works and twists a stronger chain;Urging its prison’s sides to break a way,It makes that wider, where ’tis forced to stay:Till, having formed its living house, it rearsIts head, and in a tender plant appears.Hence springs the oak, the beauty of the grove,Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move.Hence grows the cedar, hence the swelling vineDoes round the elm its purple clusters twine.Hence painted flowers the smiling gardens bless,Both with their fragrant scent and gaudy dress.Hence the white lily in full beauty grows,Hence the blue violet and blushing rose.He sung how sunbeams brood upon the earth,And in the glebe hatch such a numerous birth;Which way the genial warmth in Summer stormsTurns putrid vapours to a bed of worms;How rain, transformed by this prolific power,Falls from the clouds an animated shower.He sung the embryo’s growth within the womb,And how the parts their various shapes assume.With what rare art the wondrous structure’s wrought,From one crude mass to such perfection brought;That no part useless, none misplaced we see,None are forgot, and more would monstrous be.”
Alexander Popewas born in London, May 22, 1688, of parents whose rank or station was never ascertained: we are informed that they were of “gentle blood;” that his father was of a family of which the Earl of Downe was the head, and that his mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York, who had likewise three sons, one of whom had the honour of being killed, and the other of dying, in the service of Charles the First; the third was made a general officer in Spain, from whom the sister inherited what sequestrations and forfeitures had left in the family. This, and this only, is told by Pope, who is more willing, as I have heard observed, to show what his father was not, than what he was. It is allowed that he grew rich by trade; but whether in a shop or on the Exchange was never discovered till Mr. Tyers told, on the authority of Mrs. Racket, that he was a linendraper in the Strand. Both parents were Papists.
Pope was from his birth of a constitution tender and delicate, but is said to have shown remarkable gentleness and sweetness of disposition. The weakness of his body continued through his life, but the mildness of his mind perhaps ended with his childhood. His voice when he was young was so pleasing, that he was called in fondness “The Little Nightingale.”
Being not sent early to school, he was taught to read by an aunt; and, when he was seven or eight years old, became a lover of books. He first learned to write by imitating printed books, a species of penmanship in which he retained great excellence through his whole life, though his ordinary hand was not elegant. When he was about eight he was placed in Hampshire, under Taverner, a Romish priest, who, by a method very rarely practised, taught him the Greek and Latin rudiments together. He was now first regularly initiated in poetry by the perusal of “Ogilby’s Homer” and “Sandys’ Ovid.” Ogilby’s assistance he never repaid with any praise; but of Sandys he declared, in his notes to the “Iliad,” that English poetry owed much of its beauty to his translations. Sandys very rarely attempted original composition.
From the care of Taverner, under whom his proficiency was considerable, he was removed to a school at Twyford, near Winchester, and again to another school about Hyde Park Corner, from which he used sometimes to stroll to the play-hones, and was so delighted with theatrical exhibitions, that he formed a kind of play from “Ogilby’s Iliad,” with some verses of his own intermixed, which he persuaded his schoolfellows to act, with the addition of his master’s gardener, who personated Ajax.
At the two last schools he used to represent himself as having lost part of what Taverner had taught him, and on his master at Twyford he had already exercised his poetry in a lampoon. Yet under those masters he translated more than a fourth part of the “Metamorphoses.” If he kept the same proportion in his other exercises, it cannot be thought that his loss was great. He tells of himself, in his poems, that “he lisped in numbers;” and used to say that he could not remember the time when he began to make verses. In the style of fiction, it might have been said of him, as of Pindar, that when he lay in his cradle “the bees swarmed about his mouth.”
About the time of the Revolution his father, who was undoubtedly disappointed by the sudden blast of Popish prosperity, quitted his trade, and retired to Binfield, in Windsor Forest, with about twenty thousand pounds, for which, being conscientiously determined not to entrust it to the Government, he found no better use than that of locking it up in a chest, and taking from it what his expenses required; and his life was long enough to consume a great part of it before his son came to the inheritance.
To Binfield Pope was called by his father when he was about twelve years old, and there he had for a few months the assistance of one Deane, another priest, of whom he learned only to construe a little of “Tully’s Offices.” How Mr. Deane could spend with a boy who had translated so much of “Ovid” some months over a small part of “Tully’s Offices,” it is now vain to inquire. Of a youth so successfully employed, and so conspicuously improved, a minute account must be naturally desired; but curiosity must be contented with confused, imperfect, and sometimes improbable intelligence. Pope, finding little advantage from external help, resolved thenceforward to direct himself, and at twelve formed a plan of study, which he completed with little other incitement than the desire of excellence. His primary and principal purpose was to be a poet, with which his father accidentally concurred by proposing subjects and obliging him to correct his performances by many revisals, after which the old gentleman, when he was satisfied, would say, “These are good rhymes.” In his perusal of the English poets he soon distinguished the versification of Dryden, which he considered as the model to be studied, and was impressed with such veneration for his instructor, that he persuaded some friends to take him to the coffee-house which Dryden frequented, and pleased himself with having seen him.
Dryden died May 1, 1701, some days before Pope was twelve; so early must he therefore have felt the power of harmony, and the zeal of genius. Who does not wish that Dryden could have known the value of the homage that was paid him, and foreseen the greatness of his young admirer?
The earliest of Pope’s productions is his “Ode on Solitude,” written before he was twelve, in which there is nothing more than other forward boys have attained, and which is not equal to Cowley’s performance at the same age. His time was now wholly spent in reading and writing. As he read the classics he amused himself with translating them, and at fourteen made a version of the first book of the “Thebais,” which, with some revision, he afterwards published. He must have been at this time, if he had no help, a considerable proficient in the Latin tongue.
By Dryden’s fables, which had then been not long published, and were much in the hands of poetical readers, he was tempted to try his own skill in giving Chaucer a more fashionable appearance, and put “January and May” and the “Prologue of the Wife of Bath” into modern English. He translated likewise the Epistle of “Sappho to Phaon” from Ovid, to complete the version, which was before imperfect, and wrote some other small pieces, which he afterwards printed. He sometimes imitated the English poets, and professed to have written at fourteen his poem upon “Silence,” after Rochester’s “Nothing.” He had now formed his versification, and the smoothness of his numbers surpassed his original; but this is a small part of his praise; he discovers such acquaintance both with human life and public affairs as is not easily conceived to have been attainable by a boy of fourteen in Windsor Forest.
Next year he was desirous of opening to himself new sources of knowledge, by making himself acquainted with modern languages, and removed for a time to London, that he might study French and Italian, which, as he desired nothing more than to read them, were by diligent application soon despatched. Of Italian learning he does not appear to have ever made much use in his subsequent studies. He then returned to Binfield, and delighted himself with his own poetry. He tried all styles, and many subjects. He wrote a comedy, a tragedy, an epic poem, with panegyrics on all the princes of Europe; and, as he confesses, “thought himself the greatest genius that ever was.” Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. He, indeed, who forms his opinion of himself in solitude, without knowing the powers of other men, is very liable to error; but it was the felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value. Most of his puerile productions were, by his maturer judgment, afterwards destroyed. “Alcander,” the epic poem, was burnt by the persuasion of Atterbury. The tragedy was founded on the legend of St. Genevieve. Of the comedy there is no account. Concerning his studies, it is related that he translated “Tully on Old Age,” and that, besides his books of poetry and criticisms, he read “Temple’s Essays” and “Locke on Human Understanding.” His reading, though his favourite authors are not known, appears to have been sufficiently extensive and multifarious, for his early pieces show with sufficient evidence his knowledge of books. He that is pleased with himself easily imagines that he shall please others. Sir William Trumbull, who had been Ambassador at Constantinople, and Secretary of State, when he retired from business, fixed his residence in the neighbourhood of Binfield. Pope, not yet sixteen, was introduced to the statesman of sixty, and so distinguished himself that their interviews ended in friendship and correspondence. Pope was, through his whole life, ambitious of splendid acquaintance; and he seems to have wanted neither diligence nor success in attracting the notice of the great, for, from his first entrance into the world, and his entrance was very early, he was admitted to familiarity with those whose rank or station made them most conspicuous.
From the age of sixteen the life of Pope, as an author, may be properly computed. He now wrote his pastorals, which were shown to the poets and critics of that time. As they well deserved, they were read with admiration, and many praises were bestowed upon them and upon the preface, which is both elegant and learned in a high degree; they were, however, not published till five years afterwards.
Cowley, Milton, and Pope are distinguished among the English poets by the early exertion of their powers, but the works of Cowley alone were published in his childhood, and, therefore, of him only can it be certain that his puerile performances received no improvement from his maturer studies.
At this time began his acquaintance with Wycherley, a man who seems to have had among his contemporaries his full share of reputation, to have been esteemed without virtue, and caressed without good humour. Pope was proud of his notice. Wycherley wrote verses in his praise, which he was charged by Dennis with writing to himself, and they agreed for a while to flatter one another. It is pleasant to remark how soon Pope learned the cant of an author, and began to treat critics with contempt, though he had yet suffered nothing from them. But the fondness of Wycherley was too violent to last. His esteem of Pope was such that he submitted some poems to his revision, and when Pope, perhaps proud of such confidence, was sufficiently bold in his criticisms, and liberal in his alterations, the old scribbler was angry to see his pages defaced, and felt more pain from the detection than content from the amendment of his faults. They parted, but Pope always considered him with kindness, and visited him a little time before he died. Another of his early correspondents was Mr. Cromwell, of whom I have learned nothing particular, but that he used to ride a-hunting in a tie-wig. He was fond, and perhaps vain, of amusing himself with poetry and criticism, and sometimes sent his performances to Pope, who did not forbear such remarks as were now and then unwelcome. Pope, in his turn, put the juvenile version of “Statius” into his hands for correction. Their correspondence afforded the public its first knowledge of Pope’s epistolary powers, for his letters were given by Cromwell to one Mrs. Thomas, and she many years afterwards sold them to Curll, who inserted them in a volume of his “Miscellanies.”
Walsh, a name yet preserved among the minor poets, was one of his first encouragers. His regard was gained by the pastorals, and from him Pope received the counsel from which he seems to have regulated his studies. Walsh advised him to correctness, which, as he told him, the English poets had hitherto neglected, and which, therefore, was left to him as a basis of fame; and, being delighted with rural poems, recommended to him to write a pastoral comedy, like those which are read so eagerly in Italy, a design which Pope probably did not approve, as he did not follow it.
Pope had now declared himself a poet, and, thinking himself entitled to poetical conversation, began at seventeen to frequent Will’s, a coffee-house on the north side of Russell Street, in Covent Garden, where the wits of that time used to assemble, and where Dryden had, when he lived, been accustomed to preside. During this period of his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious, wanting health for violent and money for expensive pleasures, and having excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, he spent much of his time over his books; but he read only to store his mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented with undistinguishing voracity, and with an appetite for knowledge too eager to be nice. In a mind like his, however, all the faculties were at once involuntarily improving. Judgment is forced upon us by experience. He that reads many books must compare one opinion or one style with another; and, when he compares, must necessarily distinguish, reject, and prefer. But the account given by himself of his studies was, that from fourteen to twenty he read only for amusement, from twenty to twenty-seven for improvement and instruction; that in the first part of his time he desired only to know, and in the second he endeavoured to judge.
The Pastorals, which had been for some time handed about among poets and critics, were at last printed (1709) in Tonson’s “Miscellany,” in a volume which began with the Pastorals of Philips, and ended with those of Pope. The same year was written the “Essay on Criticism,” a work which displays such extent of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with mankind, and such knowledge both of ancient and modern learning, as are not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience. It was published about two years afterwards, and, being praised by Addison in theSpectator, with sufficient liberality, met with so much favour as enraged Dennis, “who,” he says, “found himself attacked, without any manner of provocation on his side, and attacked in his person instead of his writings, by one who was wholly a stranger to him, at a time when all the world knew he was persecuted by fortune; and not only saw that this was attempted in a clandestine manner, with the utmost falsehood and calumny, but found that all this was done by a little, affected hypocrite, who had nothing in his mouth at the same time but truth, candour, friendship, good-nature, humanity, and magnanimity.” How the attack was clandestine is not easily perceived, nor how his person is depreciated; but he seems to have known something of Pope’s character, in whom may be discovered an appetite to talk too frequently of his own virtues. The pamphlet is such as rage might be expected to dictate. He supposes himself to be asked two questions; whether the essay will succeed, and who or what is the author.
Its success he admits to be secured by the false opinions then prevalent; the author he concludes to be “young and raw.”
“First, because he discovers a sufficiency beyond his little ability, and hath rashly undertaken a task infinitely above his force. Secondly, while this little author struts and affects the dictatorian air, he plainly shows that at the same time he is under the rod: and, while he pretends to give laws to others, is a pedantic slave to authority and opinion. Thirdly, he hath, like schoolboys, borrowed both from living and dead. Fourthly, he knows not his own mind, and frequently contradicts himself. Fifthly, he is almost perpetually in the wrong.”
“First, because he discovers a sufficiency beyond his little ability, and hath rashly undertaken a task infinitely above his force. Secondly, while this little author struts and affects the dictatorian air, he plainly shows that at the same time he is under the rod: and, while he pretends to give laws to others, is a pedantic slave to authority and opinion. Thirdly, he hath, like schoolboys, borrowed both from living and dead. Fourthly, he knows not his own mind, and frequently contradicts himself. Fifthly, he is almost perpetually in the wrong.”
All these positions he attempts to prove by quotations and remarks; but his desire to do mischief is greater than his power. He has, however, justly criticised some passages in these lines:—
“There are whom Heaven has blessed with store of wit,Yet want as much again to manage it:For wit and judgment ever are at strife—”
It is apparent that wit has two meanings, and that what is wanted, though called wit, is truly judgment. So far Dennis is undoubtedly right: but not content with argument, he will have a little mirth, and triumphs over the first couplet in terms too elegant to be forgotten. “By the way, what rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this youngster had espoused some antiquated muse, who had sued out a divorce on account of impotence, from some superannuated sinner; and, having been p—d by her former spouse, has got the gout in her decrepit age, which makes her hobble so damnably?” This was the man who would reform a nation sinking into barbarity.
In another place Pope himself allowed that Dennis had detected one of those blunders which are called “bulls.” The first edition had this line:—
“What is this wit—Where wanted scorned; and envied where acquired?”
“How,” says the critic, “can wit be scorned where it is not? Is not this a figure frequently employed in Hibernian land! The person that wants this wit may indeed be scorned, but the scorn shows the honour which the contemner has for wit.” Of this remark Pope made the proper use, by correcting the passage.
I have preserved, I think, all that is reasonable in Dennis’s criticism; it remains that justice be done to his delicacy. “For his acquaintance,” says Dennis, “he names Mr. Walsh, who had by no means the qualification which this author reckons absolutely necessary to a critic, it being very certain that he was, like this essayer a very indifferent poet; he loved to be well dressed; and I remember a little young gentleman whom Mr. Walsh used to take into his company as a double foil to his person and capacity. Inquire between Sunning Hill and Oakingham, for a young, short, equal, gentleman, the very bow of the God of Love, and tell me whether he be a proper author to make personal reflections? He may extol the ancients, but he has reason to thank the gods that he was born a modern; for had he been born of Grecian parents, and his father consequently had by law had the absolute disposal of him, his life had been no longer than that of one of his poems, the life of half a day. Let the person of a gentleman of his parts be never so contemptible, his inward man is ten times more ridiculous; it being impossible that his outward form, though it be that of downright monkey, should differ so much from human shape as his unthinking, immaterial part does from human understanding.” Thus began the hostility between Pope and Dennis, which, though it was suspended for a short time, never was appeased. Pope seems, at first, to have attacked him wantonly; but though he always professed to despise him, he discovers, by mentioning him very often, that he felt his force or his venom.
Of this essay, Pope declared that he did not expect the sale to be quick, because “not one gentleman in sixty, even of liberal education, could understand it.” The gentleman, and the education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character than they are of this. He mentioned a thousand copies as a numerous impression.
Dennis was not his only censurer; the zealous Papists thought the monks treated with too much contempt, and Erasmus too studiously praised; but to these objections he had not much regard.
The “Essay,” has been translated into French by Hamilton, author of the “Comte de Grammont,” whose version was never printed, by Robotham, secretary to the king for Hanover, and by Resnel; and commented by Dr. Warburton, who has discovered in it such order and connection as was not perceived by Addison, nor, as it is said, intended by the author.
Almost every poem, consisting of precepts, is so far arbitrary and immethodical, that many of the paragraphs may change places with no apparent inconvenience; for of two or more positions, depending upon some remote and general principle, there is seldom any cogent reason why one should precede the other. But for the order in which they stand, whatever it be, a little ingenuity may easily give a reason. “It is possible,” says Hooker, “that, by long circumduction, from any one truth all truth may be inferred.” Of all homogeneous truths, at least of all truths respecting the same general end, in whatever series they may be produced, a concatenation by intermediate ideas may be formed, such as, when it is once shown, shall appear natural; but if this order be reversed, another mode of connection equally spacious may be found or made. Aristotle is praised for naming fortitude first of the cardinal virtues, as that without which no other virtue can steadily be practised; but he might, with equal propriety, have placed prudence and justice before it; since without prudence fortitude is mad; without justice, it is mischievous. As the end of method is perspicuity, that series is sufficiently regular that avoids obscurity; and where there is no obscurity, it will not be difficult to discover method.
In theSpectatorwas published the “Messiah,” which he first submitted to the perusal of Steele, and corrected in compliance with his criticisms. It is reasonable to infer from his “Letters” that the verses on the “Unfortunate Lady” were written about the time when his “Essay” was published. The lady’s name and adventures I have sought with fruitless inquiry. I can therefore tell no more than I have learned from Mr. Ruffhead, who writes with the confidence of one who could trust his information. She was a woman of eminent rank and large fortune, the ward of an uncle, who, having given her a proper education, expected, like other guardians, that she should make at least an equal match; and such he proposed to her, but found it rejected in favour of a young gentleman of inferior condition. Having discovered the correspondence between the two lovers, and finding the young lady determined to abide by her own choice, he supposed that separation might do what can rarely be done by arguments, and sent her into a foreign country, where she was obliged to converse only with those from whom her uncle had nothing to fear. Her lover took care to repeat his vows; but his letters were intercepted and carried to her guardian, who directed her to be watched with still greater vigilance, till of this restraint she grow so impatient that she bribed a woman servant to procure her a sword, which she directed to her heart.
From this account, given with evident intention to raise the lady’s character, it does not appear that she had any claim to praise nor much to compassion. She seems to have been impatient, violent, and ungovernable. Her uncle’s power could not have lasted long; the hour of liberty and choice would have come in time. But her desires were too hot for delay, and she liked self-murder better than suspense. Nor is it discovered that the uncle, whoever he was, is with much justice delivered to posterity as “a false guardian.” He seems to have done only that for which a guardian is appointed; he endeavoured to direct his niece till she should be able to direct herself. Poetry has not often been worse employed than in dignifying the amorous fiery of a raving girl.
Not long after he wrote the “Rape of the Lock,” the most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful off all his compositions, occasioned by a frolic of gallantry, rather too familiar, in which Lord Petre cut off a lock of Mrs. Arabella Fermor’s hair. This, whether stealth or violence, was so much resented that the commerce of the two families, before very friendly, was interrupted. Mr. Caryl, a gentleman who, being secretary to King James’s queen, had followed his mistress into France, and who, being the author ofSir Solomon Single, a comedy, and some translations, was entitled to the notice of a wit, solicited Pope to endeavour a reconciliation by a ludicrous poem which might bring both the parties to a better temper. In compliance with Caryl’s request, though his name was for a long time marked only by the first and last letter, “C—l,” a poem of two cantos, was written (1711), as is said, in a fortnight, and sent to the offended lady, who liked it well enough to show it; and, with the usual process of literary transactions, the author, dreading a surreptitious edition, was forced to publish it.
The event is said to have been such as was desired, the pacification and diversion of all to whom it related, except Sir George Brown, who complained with some bitterness that, in the character of Sir Plume, he was made to talk nonsense. Whether all this be true I have some doubt; for at Paris, a few years ago, a niece of Mrs. Fermor, who presided in an English convent, mentioned Pope’s work with very little gratitude, rather as an insult than an honour; and she may be supposed to have inherited the opinion of her family. At its first appearance at was termed by Addison “merum sal.” Pope, however, saw that it was capable of improvement; and, having luckily contrived to borrow his machinery from the Rosicrucians, imparted the scheme with which his head was teeming to Addison, who told him that his work, as it stood, was “a delicious little thing,” and gave him no encouragement to retouch it.
This has been too hastily considered as an instance of Addison’s jealousy, for, as he could not guess the conduct of the new design, or the possibilities of pleasure comprised in a fiction of which there had been no examples, he might very reasonably and kindly persuade the author to acquiesce in his own prosperity, and forbear an attempt which he considered as an unnecessary hazard. Addison’s counsel was happily rejected. Pope foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery then budding in his mind, and resolved to spare no art or industry of cultivation. The soft luxuriance of his fancy was already shooting, and all the gay varieties of diction were ready at his hand to colour and embellish it. His attempt was justified by its success. The “Rape of the Lock” stands forward, in the classes of literature, as the most exquisite example of ludicrous poetry. Berkeley congratulated him upon the display of powers more truly poetical than he had shown before with elegance of description and justness of precepts he had now exhibited boundless fertility of invention. He always considered the intermixture of the machinery with the action as his most successful exertion of poetical art. He, indeed, could never afterwards produce anything of such unexampled excellence. Those performances, which strike with wonder, are combinations of skilful genius with happy casualty; and it is not likely that any felicity, like the discovery of a new race of preternatural agents, should happen twice to the same man. Of this poem the author was, I think, allowed to enjoy the praise for a long time without disturbance. Many years afterwards Dennis published some remarks upon it with very little force and with no effect; for the opinion of the public was already settled, and it was no longer at the mercy of criticism.
About this time he published the “Temple of Fame,” which, as he tells Steele in their correspondence, he had written two years before—that is, when he was only twenty-two years old, an early time of life for so much learning and so much observation as that work exhibits. On this poem Dennis afterwards published some remarks, of which the most reasonable is that some of the lines represent motion as exhibited by sculpture.
Of the Epistle from “Eloisa to Abelard,” I do not know the date. His first inclination to attempt a composition of that tender kind arose, as Mr. Savage told me, from his perusal of Prior’s “Nut-brown Maid.” How much he has surpassed Prior’s work it is not necessary to mention, when perhaps it may be said, with justice, that he has excelled every composition of the same kind. The mixture of religious hope and resignation gives an elevation and dignity to disappointed love, which images merely natural cannot bestow. The gloom of a convent strikes the imagination with far greater force than the solitude of a grove. This piece was, however, not much his favourite in his later years, though I never heard upon what principle he slighted it.
In the next year (1713) he published “Windsor Forest,” of which part was, as he relates, written at sixteen, about the same time as his Pastorals, and the latter part was added afterwards. Where the addition begins we are not told. The lines relating to the peace confess their own date. It is dedicated to Lord Lansdowne, who was then in high reputation and influence among the Tories; and it is said that the conclusion of the poem gave great pain to Addison, both as a poet and a politician. Reports like this are often spread with boldness very disproportionate to their evidence. Why should Addison receive any particular disturbance from the last lines of “Windsor Forest”? If contrariety of opinion could poison a politician, he could not live a day; and, as a poet, he must have felt Pope’s force of genius much more from many other parts of his works. The pain that Addison might feel it is not likely that he would confess; and it is certain that he so well suppressed his discontent that Pope now thought himself his favourite, for, having been consulted in the revisal of “Cato” he introduced it by a prologue; and, when Dennis published his remarks, undertook, not indeed to vindicate, but to revenge his friend, by a “Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis.”
There is reason to believe that Addison gave no encouragement to this disingenuous hostility, for, says Pope, in a letter to him, “indeed your opinion, that ’tis entirely to be neglected, would be my own in my own case; but I felt more warmth here than I did when I first saw his book against myself (though, indeed, in two minutes it made me heartily merry).” Addison was not a man on whom such cant of sensibility could make much impression. He left the pamphlet to itself, having disowned it to Dennis, and perhaps did not think Pope to have deserved much by his officiousness.
This year was printed in theGuardianthe ironical comparison between the pastorals of Philips and Pope, a composition of artifice, criticism, and literature, to which nothing equal will easily be found. The superiority of Pope is so ingeniously dissembled, and the feeble lines of Philips so skilfully preferred, that Steele, being deceived, was unwilling to print the paper, lest Pope should be offended. Addison immediately saw the writer’s design, and, as it seems, had malice enough to conceal his discovery, and to permit a publication which, by making his friend Philips ridiculous, made him for ever an enemy to Pope.
It appears that about this time Pope had a strong inclination to unite the art of painting with that of poetry, and put himself under the tuition of Jervas. He was near-sighted, and therefore not formed by nature for a painter; he tried, however, how far he could advance, and sometimes persuaded his friends to sit. A picture of Betterton, supposed to be drawn by him, was in the possession of Lord Mansfield. If this was taken from the life, he must have begun to paint earlier, for Betterton was now dead. Pope’s ambition of this new art produced some encomiastic verses to Jervas, which certainly show his power as a poet; but I have been told that they betray his ignorance of painting. He appears to have regarded Betterton with kindness and esteem, and after his death published, under his name, a version into modern English of Chaucer’s Prologues and one of his Tales, which, as was related by Mr. Harte, were believed to have been the performance of Pope himself by Fenton, who made him a gay offer of five pounds if he would show them in the hand of Betterton.