Chapter 26

[187]Creech's translation of Horace's Art of Poetry:men of sense retire,The boys abuse, and only fools admire.Aaron Hill says, that Pope was very fond of the line in the text, and often repeated it. Hill, who "abhorred the sentiment," once asked him if he still adhered to the opinion of Longinus, that the true sublime thrilled and transported the reader. On Pope replying in the affirmative, his interrogator pressed him with the contradiction, and the perplexed poet, according to Hill's report, took refuge in nonsense, and made this unintelligible answer,—"that Longinus's remark was truth, but that, like certain truths of more importance, it required assent from faith, without the evidence of demonstration." It must be evident that Shakespeare, Milton, and scores besides, are worthy of admiration; and no man would show his sense by protesting that he did not admire but only approved of them. Pope is inconsistent, for at ver. 236 he speaks of "rapturewarming the mind," and of "the generous pleasure to becharmedwith wit."[188]In all editions before the quarto of 1743, "Some the French writers."[189]This was directed against Pope's co-religionists, and greatly annoyed them. The offence was not that he had misrepresented their views, but that he had denounced a doctrine which all zealous papists maintained. "Nothing," he said, when writing in vindication of the passage to Caryll, "has been so much a scarecrow to our opponents as that too peremptory and uncharitable assertion of an utter impossibility of salvation to all but ourselves. I own to you I was glad of any opportunity to express my dislike of so shocking a sentiment as those of the religion I profess are commonly charged with, and I hoped a slight insinuation, introduced by a casual similitude only, could never have given offence, but on the contrary, must needs have done good in a nation wherein we are the smaller party, and consequently most misrepresented, and most in need of vindication." The Roman Catholics took to themselves the couplet "Meanly they seek," which followed the simile, but Pope pointed out that the plural "some," and not the singular "each man," was the antecedent to "they." The comparison was not kept up throughout the paragraph, and the lines after ver. 397 refer solely to the critics.[190]The word "enlights" is, I believe, of our poet's coinage, analogically formed from "light," as "enlighten" from "lighten."—Wakefield.[191]Sir Robert Howard's poem against the Fear of Death:And neither gives increase, nor brings decay.[192]There is very little poetical expression from this line to ver. 450. It is only mere prose fringed with rhyme. Good sense in a very prosaic style; reasoning, not poetry.—Warton.[193]"Joins with quality" for "joins with men of rank" is a vulgar colloquialism.[194]In sing-song Durfey, Oldmixon or me,was the original reading of the manuscript.[195]This couplet is succeeded by two more lines in the manuscript:And while to thoughts refined they make pretence,Hate all that's common, ev'n to common sense.[196]In the first edition the reading was "dull believers," which Pope in the second edition altered to "plain." The change was occasioned by the outcry against the couplet. "An ordinary man," he wrote to Caryll, "would imagine the author plainly declared against these schismatics for quitting the true faith out of contempt of the understanding of some few of its believers. But these believers are called 'dull,' and because I say that these schismatics think some believers dull, therefore these charitable well-disposed interpreters of my meaning say that I think all believers dull." There is a culpable levity in the language of Pope's lines, but he could not intend to espouse the cause of the sceptics when he selects them as an instance of people who "purposely go wrong" because "the crowd go right."[197]If this couplet is interpreted by the grammatical construction, the "unfortified towns daily changed their sides" in consequence of vacillating "betwixt sense and nonsense." Of course Pope only meant that in war weak towns frequently changed sides, but not for the same reason that weak heads changed their opinions.[198]The Book of Sentences was a work of Peter Lombard, which consisted of subtle disquisitions on theology. Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary upon it.[199]St. Thomas Aquinas died in 1274. Scotus, who died in 1308, disputed the doctrines of his predecessor, and their respective disciples divided for a century the theological world.—Croker.[200]Cowley speaks of "the cobwebs of the schoolmen's trade," and says in a note, "the distinctions of the schoolmen may be likened to cobwebs either because of the too much fineness of the work, or because they take not the materials from nature, but spin it out of themselves."[201]A place where old and second-hand books were sold formerly, near Smithfield.—Pope.[202]Between this and verse 448:The rhyming clowns that gladded Shakespear's age,No more with crambo entertain the stage.Who now in anagrams their patron praise,Or sing their mistress in acrostic lays?Ev'n pulpits pleased with merry puns of yore;Now all are banished to th' Hibernian shore![And thither soon soft op'ra shall repair,Conveyed by Sw——y to his native air.There, languishing awhile, prolong its breath,Till like a swan it sings itself to death.]Thus leaving what was natural and fit,The current folly proved their ready wit:And authors thought their reputation safe,Which lived as long as fools were pleased to laugh.—Pope.The lines between brackets are from the manuscript, and were not printed by Pope. The whole passage was probably written after the poem was first published, since the topics seem to have been suggested by Addison's papers upon false wit in the Spectator of May, 1711, where the anagrams, acrostics, and punning sermons of the reign of James I. are all enumerated. Swiney was the director of the Italian opera, which, at the commencement of 1712, failed to meet with adequate support, and he withdrew, not to Ireland, but to the continent. "He remained there," says Cibber, "twenty years, an exile from his friends and country."[203]An additional couplet follows in the manuscript:To be spoke ill of, may good works befall,But those are bad of which none speak at all.[204]The parson alluded to was Jeremy Collier; the critic was the Duke of Buckingham; the first of whom very powerfully attacked the profligacy, and the latter the irregularity and bombast of some of Dryden's plays. These attacks were much more than merry jests.—Warton.[205]Dryden himself, Virg. Geor. iv. 729:But she returned no more to bless his longing eyes.—Wakefield.[206]Blackmore's attack upon Dryden occurs in a poem which appeared in 1700, called a Satire against Wit. The author treats wit as money, and proposes that the whole should be recoined for the purpose of separating the base metal from the pure.Into the melting pot when Dryden comesWhat horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes!How will he shrink when all his lewd allayAnd wicked mixture shall be purged away!When once his boasted heaps are melted down,A chestful scarce will yield one sterling crown.This is exaggerated, but the censure is directed against the indecency which was really infamous. The invectives of Milbourne in his Notes on Dryden's Virgil, 1698, had not the same excuse. The strictures are confined to the translation of the Eclogues and Georgics, and are throughout rabid, insolent, coarse, and contemptible. To demonstrate his own superiority, Milbourne inserted specimens of a rival translation, which is on a par with his criticisms. He was in orders, and acknowledges that one of his reasons for not sparing Dryden was that Dryden never spared a clergyman. "I am only," replied the poet, with exquisite sarcasm, "to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little." Dryden retaliated upon both antagonists together in the couplet,Wouldst thou be soon dispatched, and perish whole?Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul.Pope's line in the first edition wasNew Bl——s and new M——s must arise.In the second edition he substituted S——s, which meant Shadwells, for Bl——s, but in the quarto of 1717 he again coupled Blackmore with Milbourne, and printed both names at full length. Blackmore was living, and the changes indicate Pope's varying feelings towards him.[207]In the fifth book of Vitruvius is an account of Zoilus's coming to the court of Ptolemy at Alexandria, and presenting to him his virulent and brutal censures of Homer, and begging to be rewarded for his work; instead of which, it is said, the king ordered him to be crucified, or, as some said, stoned. His person is minutely described in the eleventh book of Ælian's various History.—Warton.Boileau's Art of Poetry, translated by Soame and Dryden:Let mighty Spenser raise his reverend head,Cowley and Denham start up from the dead.[208]A beautiful and poetical illustration. Pope has the art of enlivening his subject continually by images and illustrations drawn from nature, which by contrast have a particularly pleasing effect, and which are indeed absolutely necessary in a didactic poem.—Bowles.The passage originally stood thus in the manuscript:Wit, as the sun, such pow'rful beams displays,It draws up vapours that obscures its rays,But, like the sun eclipsed, makes only knownThe shadowing body's grossness, not its own;And all those clouds that did at first invadeThe rising light, and interposed a shade,When once transpierced with its prevailing rayReflect its glories, and augment the day.[209]His instance refuted his position that "bare threescore" was the duration of modern fame. "It is now a hundred years," said Dennis in 1712, "since Shakespeare began to write, more since Spenser flourished, and above three hundred years since Chaucer died. And yet the fame of none of these is extinguished." Another century and a half has elapsed, and the reputation of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare is greater than ever. The notion of the "failing language" is not more sound. Though it is a hundred and fifty years since the Essay on Criticism was published, there is not a line which has an antiquated air.[210]The treach'rous colours in few years decay.—Pope.The next line is from Addison:And all the pleasing landscape fades away.[211]That is, of which those, who do not possess it, form an erroneous estimate, as productive of more happiness and enjoyment to the owner, than he really receives from it.—Wakefield.[212]In the previous paragraph Pope admitted that the fame of a modern might last three-score years. Here, contradicting himself and the facts, he limits its duration to the youth of the author. He applies to poets in general what was only true of inferior writers. The ephemeral versifiers were examples of deficient "wit," and not of the unhappy consequences of genuine poetic power.[213]Like some fair flow'r that in the spring does rise.—Pope.This line was an example both of the "feeble expletive" and of the "ten low words." "Supplies" in the amended version is, as Wakefield observes, a poor expression.[214]The Duke of Buckingham's Vision:The dearest care that all my thought employs.[215]Wakefield objects to the "slovenly superfluity of words," and asks "to whom can a wife possibly belong but the owner?" He misunderstood Pope, who, by "the wife of the owner," meant the wife of the owner of the wit. The metaphor is coarse, and out of keeping with the theme.[216]Thus in the first edition:The more his trouble as the more admired,Where wanted scorned, and envied where acquired.Against this Pope wrote, "To be altered. See Dennis, p. 20." "How," said Dennis, "can wit be scorned where it is not? The person who wants this wit may indeed be scorned, but such a contempt declares the honour that the contemner has for wit." Pope, in a letter to Caryll, admitted that he had been guilty of a bull, and the reading in the second edition was,'Tis most our trouble when 'tis most admired,The more we give, the more is still required.[217]In the first edition,Maintained with pains, but forfeited with ease;and in the second edition,The fame with pains we gain, but lose with ease.The original version appears better than the readings which successively replaced it.[218]Another couplet follows in the manuscript:Learning and wit were friends designed by heav'n;Those arms to guard it, not to wound, were giv'n.[219]Dryden's Prologue to the University of Oxford:Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.The feelings of antiquity were doubtless represented truly by Horace when he said that indifferent poets were not tolerated by anybody. There is not the least foundation for Pope's statement that it was the habit of old to praise bad authors for endeavouring well, and if it had been, the authors would not have cared for commendations on their abortive industry to the disparagement of their intellect.[220]Wakefield remarks upon the unhappy effect of "crowns" and "crown" in consecutive lines, and thinks the phrase "some others" in the next verse too mean and elliptical. Soame and Dryden, in their translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry, speak of the "base rivals" whoaspire to gain renownBy standing up and pulling others down.[221]Mr. Harte related to me, that being with Mr. Pope when he received the news of Swift's death, Harte said to him, he thought it a fortunate circumstance for their friendship, that they had lived so distant from each other. Pope resented the reflection, but yet, said Harte, I am convinced it was true.—Warton.[222]That is, all the unsuccessful authors maligned the successful. The unsuccessful writers never said anything more slanderous.[223]Boileau's Art of Poetry, translated by Soame and Dryden:Never debase yourself by treach'rous waysNor by such abject methods seek for praise.Pope's own life is the strongest example upon record of the degradation he deplores.[224]In the margin of the manuscript Pope has written the passages of Virgil from which he took his expressions. Æn. iii. 56:quid non mortalia pectora cogisAuri sacra fames?Geor. i. 37:Nec tibi regnandi veniat tam dira cupido,which Dryden translates,Nor let so dire a thirst of empire move.[225]Such a manly and ingenuous censure from a culprit in this way, as in the case of Pope, is entitled to great praise.—Wakefield.If his indecorums had been the failing of youth and thoughtlessness, and he had publicly recanted his errors, his self-condemnation would be meritorious. The larger portion of his offences were, on the contrary, committed after he had declared indecency to be unpardonable. Any man, however persistently reprobate, might earn "great praise" on terms like these.[226]No one has expressed himself upon this subject so pithily as Cowley:'tis justThe author blush, there where the reader must.[227]Hamlet:And duller shoulds't thou be than the fat weed.—Bowles.[228]Wits, says he, in Charles the Second's reign had pensions, when all the world knows that it was one of the faults of that reign that none of the politer arts were then encouraged. Butler was starved at the same time that the king had his book in his pocket. Another great wit [Wycherley] lay seven years in prison for an inconsiderable debt, and Otway dared not to show his head for fear of the same fate.—Dennis.[229]"The young lords who had wit in the court of Charles II. were," says Dennis, "Villiers Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, Lord Buckhurst afterwards Earl of Dorset, the Marquess of Halifax, the Earl of Rochester, Lord Vaughan, and several others." The jilts who ruled the state were the mistresses of the king. The Duke of Buckingham and his Rehearsal are chiefly aimed at in the expression "statesmen farces writ."—Croker.[230]Pepys, under the date of June 12, 1663, notices that wearing masks at the theatre had "of late become a great fashion among the ladies." Cibber states that the immorality of the plays was the cause of the usage. When he wrote in 1739 the custom had been abolished for many years in consequence of the ill effects which attended it.[231]He must mean in everyday life. There was no use for the "modest fan" at the theatre after the ladies had adopted the more effectual plan of wearing masks. Pope, ver. 535, ascribes the introduction of "obscenity" to the Restoration. In the theatre the grossness was a legacy from the older drama, and particularly from the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, which were the most popular pieces on the stage.[232]The author has omitted two lines which stood here as containing a national reflection, which in his stricter judgment he could not but disapprove, on any people whatever.—Pope.The cancelled couplet was as follows:Then first the Belgian morals were extolled,We their religion had, and they our gold.This sneer was dictated by the poet's dislike to William III. and the Dutch, for displacing the popish king James II.—Croker.This ingenious and religious author seems to have had two particular antipathies—one to grammatical and verbal criticism, the other to false doctrine and heresy. To the first we may ascribe his treating Bentley, Burman, Kuster, and Wasse with a contempt which recoiled upon himself. To the second we will impute his pious zeal against those divines of king William, whom he supposed to be infected with the infidel, or the socinian, or the latitudinarian spirit, and not so orthodox as himself, and his friends Swift, Bolingbroke, etc. Thus he laid about him, and censured men of whose literary, or of whose theological merits or defects, he was no more a judge than his footman John Searle.—Dr. Jortin.[233]Jortin asserted that by the "unbelieving priests" Pope alluded to Burnet. If Jortin is right, the passage was not satire but falsehood. That there was, however, much infidelity and socinianism during the reign of William III. is proved by an address of the House of Commons to the king, quoted by Bowles, "beseeching his majesty to give effectual orders for suppressing all pernicious books and pamphlets which contained impious doctrines against the Holy Trinity, and other fundamental articles of the protestant faith, tending to the subversion of the christian religion." This address was presented in February 1698.[234]In this line he had Kennet in view, who was accused of having said, in a funeral sermon on some nobleman, that converted sinners, if they were men of parts, repented more speedily and effectually than dull rascals.—Jortin.[235]The published sermons of the reign of William III. do not answer to this description, which is certainly a calumny.[236]So Lucretius, iv. 333:Lurida præterea fiunt quæcunque tuentur Arquati.Besides, whatever jaundice-eyes do view,Looks pale as well as those, and yellow too.—Creech.This notion of the transfusion of the colour to the object from a jaundiced eye, though current in all our authors, is, I believe, a mere vulgar error.—Wakefield.It is still a disputed point whether jaundice ever affects the eye in a degree to permit only the passage of the yellow rays. The instances are at least very rare; but popular belief is a sufficient ground for a poetical comparison. Pope had just exemplified his simile; for everything looked yellow to him in the reign of William III.[237]In the first edition,Speak when you're sure, yet speak with diffidence.Dennis objected that a man when sure should speak "with a modest assurance," and Pope wrote on the margin of the manuscript, "Dennis, p. 21. Alter the inconsistency."Pope's maxim was commended by Franklin. He found that his overbearing, dictatorial manner roused needless opposition, and he resolved never "to use a word that imported a fixed opinion," but he employed instead the qualifying phrases, "I conceive," "I imagine," or "it so appears to me at present." "To this," he says, "after my character of integrity, I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new institutions or alterations in the old; for I was but a bad speaker, subject to much hesitation, and yet I generally carried my point." He admits that his humility was feigned. Had it been real there would have been no need for "I conceive," "I imagine," which are implied without a tiresome, superfluous repetition. Unless the dogmatism is in the mind opinions have not the tone of decrees.[238]Warton praises Pope for practising the precept in correcting the poems of Wycherley, and condemned Wycherley for ungenerously resenting the candour of his critic. Bowles extenuates the conduct of Wycherley, and says that "the superannuated bard" bore the corrections with "great temper till Pope seriously advised him to turn the whole into prose." Warton and Bowles were deceived by the printed correspondence of Pope and Wycherley, and were not aware that the letters were garbled in the very particulars which relate to the cause of the quarrel,—a quarrel so discreditable to Pope that he had recourse to forgery to shield himself and throw the blame upon Wycherley. It is certain that "the superannuated bard" did not take offence at the advice to turn his works into prose, and there is no reason to doubt the contemporaneous report that his anger arose from discovering that Pope, while professing unlimited friendship, had made him the subject of some satirical verses.[239]This picture was taken to himself by John Dennis, a furious old critic by profession, who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this Essay and its author in a manner perfectly lunatic: for, as to the mention made of him in ver. 270, he took it as a compliment, and said it was treacherously meant to cause him to overlook this abuse of his person.—Pope.Pope's acrimonious note on his early antagonist first appeared in the edition of 1743, when Dennis had been some years dead. "His book against me," the poet wrote to Caryll, Nov. 19, 1712, "made me very heartily merry in two minutes' time," and here we find him still smarting with resentment after thirty years and upwards had gone by, and his enemy was in the grave. The original reading in the manuscript of ver. 585 was "But D—— reddens." The substituted name is taken from Dennis's tragedy of "Appius and Virginia," which appeared in 1709. The stare was one of his characteristics. "He starts, stares, and looks round him at every jerk of his person forward," says Sir Richard Steele, when describing his walk. The "tremendous" was not only a sarcasm on his appearance, but on his partiality for the epithet, which was an old topic of ridicule. "If," said Gildon, in 1702, "there is anything of tragedy in the piece, it lies in the word 'tremendous,' for he is so fond of it he had rather use it in every page than slay his beloved Iphigenia." Gay, in 1712, jeeringly dedicated his Mohocks to Mr. D[ennis], and assigned, among the reasons for the selection, that his theme was "horrid and tremendous."[240]This thought occurs also in Donne's fourth Satire, which our poet has modernised:And though his face be as illAs theirs, which in old hangings whip Christ, stillHe strives to look worse.—Wakefield.[241]It may not be known to every reader that noblemen and the sons of noblemen are admitted of course at our universities to the degree of M.A., after keeping the terms of two years.—Wakefield.The privilege is now abolished.[242]If Cibber was the dull fellow Pope would have had him thought, no conduct could have been more proper towards him than that which Pope here recommends. Pope seems to have anticipated Colley's subsequent resolution "to write as long" as Pope "could rail."—Bowles.[243]Duke of Buckingham's Essay on Satire,But who can rail so long as he can sleep?[244]Pope may have derived this comparison from the "Epilogue, written by a person of honour," to Dryden's Secret Love:But t'other day I heard this rhyming fopSay critics were the whips, and he the top:For as a top spins best the more you baste her,So ev'ry lash you give, he writes the faster,The author of the Epilogue was more exact than Pope, whose application of the simile is inaccurate, for the top is in full spin when it is popularly said to be asleep.[245]Dryden's Aurengzebe:The dregs and droppings of enervate love.—Steevens.It has been suggested that he alludes to Wycherley.—Warton.Whom else could the lines suit at that period, when Pope says, "Such bards wehave?" If Wycherley was intended, what must we think of Pope, who could wound, in this manner, his old friend, for whom he professed so much kindness, and who first introduced him to notice and patronage.—Bowles.The application was too obvious for Pope to have ventured on the lines unless he had designed to expose his former ally. The original reading of ver. 610 in the manuscript was,But if incorrigible bards we view,Know there are mad, &c.And the alteration turned an unappropriated description into a particular censure on living men. Wycherley would be the last person to detect the likeness, and relaxing, some months after the Essay appeared, in his indignation against Pope, "he praised the poem," according to a letter of Cromwell, dated Oct. 26, 1711, but which rests on the authority of Pope alone.[246]In allusion to this class of pedants Gray said, "Learning never should be encouraged; it only draws out fools from their obscurity."[247]A common slander at that time in prejudice of that deserving author. Our poet did him this justice, when that slander most prevailed; and it is now (perhaps the sooner for this very verse) dead and forgotten.—Pope.The accusation from which he defended Garth was brought against Pope himself. "This poem," says Johnson, of Cooper's Hill, "had such reputation as to excite the common artifice by which envy degrades excellence. A report was spread that the performance was not Denham's own, but that he had bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. The same attempt was made to rob Addison of his Cato and Pope of his Essay on Criticism." The story told was that Wycherley sent the Essay to Pope for his revision, and that Pope published it as his own. Authors are not the only persons who are exposed to such calumnies. The victories of a great general are almost invariably imputed to some subordinate officer, and it was long a favourite theory of the malignant that Napoleon owed his successes to Berthier, and the Duke of Wellington to Sir George Murray.[248]There is an ellipse of "that" after "sacred," and of "it" after "fops," or the line is not English, and when the omitted words are supplied the inversion is intolerable.[249]The propriety of the specification in this proverbial remark is founded on a circumstance no longer existing in our poet's time, and derived, therefore, by him from older writers. "In the reigns of James I. and Charles I.," says Pennant, "the body of St. Paul's cathedral was the common resort of the politicians, the newsmongers, and the idle in general. It was called Paul's Walk, and the frequenters known by the name of Paul's walkers."—Wakefield.[250]Between this and ver. 624—In vain you shrug and sweat and strive to fly:These know no manners but in poetry.They'll stop a hungry chaplain in his grace,To treat of unities of time and place.—Pope.[251]This stroke of satire is literally taken from Boileau:Gardez-vous d'imiter ce rimeur furieux,Qui, de ses vains écrits, lecteur harmonieux,Aborde en récitant quiconque le salue,Et poursuit de ses vers les passants dans la rue.Il n'est temple si saint, des anges respecté,Qui soit contre sa muse un lieu de sûreté.Which lines allude to the impertinence of a French poet called Du Perrier, who finding Boileau one day at church, insisted upon repeating to him an ode during the elevation of the host.—Warton.Boileau tells the incident of an individual poetaster. Pope generalises the exceptional trait, and represents it to have been the usual practice of foppish critics to talk criticism at the altar. The probability is that he had never known an instance. The line "For fools rush in," is certainly fashioned, says Bishop Hurd, on Shakespeare, Richard iii. Act 1, Sc. 3:Wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.[252]Virgil, Geo. iv. 194:Excursusque breves tentant.Nor forage far, but short excursions make.Dryden.—Wakefield.[253]"Humanly" is improperly put for humanely. The only authorised sense of the former is belonging to man; of the latter, kindly, compassionately.—Dr. George Campbell.[254]"Love to praise" means "a love of bestowing praise," but, as Wakefield says, it is an "obscure expression, and repugnant to usage."[255]This is followed by two additional lines in the manuscript:Such did of old poetic laws impart,And what till then was fury turned to art.[256]Between ver. 646 and 647, I have found the following lines, since suppressed by the author:That bold Columbus of the realms of wit,Whose first discovery's not exceeded yet.Led by the light of the Mæonian star,He steered securely, and discovered far.He, when all nature was subdued before,Like his great pupil, sighed and longed for more;Fancy's wild regions yet unvanquished lay,A boundless empire, and that owned no sway.Poets, &c.—Warburton.

[187]Creech's translation of Horace's Art of Poetry:

men of sense retire,The boys abuse, and only fools admire.

Aaron Hill says, that Pope was very fond of the line in the text, and often repeated it. Hill, who "abhorred the sentiment," once asked him if he still adhered to the opinion of Longinus, that the true sublime thrilled and transported the reader. On Pope replying in the affirmative, his interrogator pressed him with the contradiction, and the perplexed poet, according to Hill's report, took refuge in nonsense, and made this unintelligible answer,—"that Longinus's remark was truth, but that, like certain truths of more importance, it required assent from faith, without the evidence of demonstration." It must be evident that Shakespeare, Milton, and scores besides, are worthy of admiration; and no man would show his sense by protesting that he did not admire but only approved of them. Pope is inconsistent, for at ver. 236 he speaks of "rapturewarming the mind," and of "the generous pleasure to becharmedwith wit."

[188]In all editions before the quarto of 1743, "Some the French writers."

[189]This was directed against Pope's co-religionists, and greatly annoyed them. The offence was not that he had misrepresented their views, but that he had denounced a doctrine which all zealous papists maintained. "Nothing," he said, when writing in vindication of the passage to Caryll, "has been so much a scarecrow to our opponents as that too peremptory and uncharitable assertion of an utter impossibility of salvation to all but ourselves. I own to you I was glad of any opportunity to express my dislike of so shocking a sentiment as those of the religion I profess are commonly charged with, and I hoped a slight insinuation, introduced by a casual similitude only, could never have given offence, but on the contrary, must needs have done good in a nation wherein we are the smaller party, and consequently most misrepresented, and most in need of vindication." The Roman Catholics took to themselves the couplet "Meanly they seek," which followed the simile, but Pope pointed out that the plural "some," and not the singular "each man," was the antecedent to "they." The comparison was not kept up throughout the paragraph, and the lines after ver. 397 refer solely to the critics.

[190]The word "enlights" is, I believe, of our poet's coinage, analogically formed from "light," as "enlighten" from "lighten."—Wakefield.

[191]Sir Robert Howard's poem against the Fear of Death:And neither gives increase, nor brings decay.

[191]Sir Robert Howard's poem against the Fear of Death:

And neither gives increase, nor brings decay.

[192]There is very little poetical expression from this line to ver. 450. It is only mere prose fringed with rhyme. Good sense in a very prosaic style; reasoning, not poetry.—Warton.

[193]"Joins with quality" for "joins with men of rank" is a vulgar colloquialism.

[194]In sing-song Durfey, Oldmixon or me,was the original reading of the manuscript.

[194]

In sing-song Durfey, Oldmixon or me,

was the original reading of the manuscript.

[195]This couplet is succeeded by two more lines in the manuscript:And while to thoughts refined they make pretence,Hate all that's common, ev'n to common sense.

[195]This couplet is succeeded by two more lines in the manuscript:

And while to thoughts refined they make pretence,Hate all that's common, ev'n to common sense.

[196]In the first edition the reading was "dull believers," which Pope in the second edition altered to "plain." The change was occasioned by the outcry against the couplet. "An ordinary man," he wrote to Caryll, "would imagine the author plainly declared against these schismatics for quitting the true faith out of contempt of the understanding of some few of its believers. But these believers are called 'dull,' and because I say that these schismatics think some believers dull, therefore these charitable well-disposed interpreters of my meaning say that I think all believers dull." There is a culpable levity in the language of Pope's lines, but he could not intend to espouse the cause of the sceptics when he selects them as an instance of people who "purposely go wrong" because "the crowd go right."

[197]If this couplet is interpreted by the grammatical construction, the "unfortified towns daily changed their sides" in consequence of vacillating "betwixt sense and nonsense." Of course Pope only meant that in war weak towns frequently changed sides, but not for the same reason that weak heads changed their opinions.

[198]The Book of Sentences was a work of Peter Lombard, which consisted of subtle disquisitions on theology. Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary upon it.

[199]St. Thomas Aquinas died in 1274. Scotus, who died in 1308, disputed the doctrines of his predecessor, and their respective disciples divided for a century the theological world.—Croker.

[200]Cowley speaks of "the cobwebs of the schoolmen's trade," and says in a note, "the distinctions of the schoolmen may be likened to cobwebs either because of the too much fineness of the work, or because they take not the materials from nature, but spin it out of themselves."

[201]A place where old and second-hand books were sold formerly, near Smithfield.—Pope.

[202]Between this and verse 448:The rhyming clowns that gladded Shakespear's age,No more with crambo entertain the stage.Who now in anagrams their patron praise,Or sing their mistress in acrostic lays?Ev'n pulpits pleased with merry puns of yore;Now all are banished to th' Hibernian shore![And thither soon soft op'ra shall repair,Conveyed by Sw——y to his native air.There, languishing awhile, prolong its breath,Till like a swan it sings itself to death.]Thus leaving what was natural and fit,The current folly proved their ready wit:And authors thought their reputation safe,Which lived as long as fools were pleased to laugh.—Pope.The lines between brackets are from the manuscript, and were not printed by Pope. The whole passage was probably written after the poem was first published, since the topics seem to have been suggested by Addison's papers upon false wit in the Spectator of May, 1711, where the anagrams, acrostics, and punning sermons of the reign of James I. are all enumerated. Swiney was the director of the Italian opera, which, at the commencement of 1712, failed to meet with adequate support, and he withdrew, not to Ireland, but to the continent. "He remained there," says Cibber, "twenty years, an exile from his friends and country."

[202]Between this and verse 448:

The rhyming clowns that gladded Shakespear's age,No more with crambo entertain the stage.Who now in anagrams their patron praise,Or sing their mistress in acrostic lays?Ev'n pulpits pleased with merry puns of yore;Now all are banished to th' Hibernian shore![And thither soon soft op'ra shall repair,Conveyed by Sw——y to his native air.There, languishing awhile, prolong its breath,Till like a swan it sings itself to death.]Thus leaving what was natural and fit,The current folly proved their ready wit:And authors thought their reputation safe,Which lived as long as fools were pleased to laugh.—Pope.

The lines between brackets are from the manuscript, and were not printed by Pope. The whole passage was probably written after the poem was first published, since the topics seem to have been suggested by Addison's papers upon false wit in the Spectator of May, 1711, where the anagrams, acrostics, and punning sermons of the reign of James I. are all enumerated. Swiney was the director of the Italian opera, which, at the commencement of 1712, failed to meet with adequate support, and he withdrew, not to Ireland, but to the continent. "He remained there," says Cibber, "twenty years, an exile from his friends and country."

[203]An additional couplet follows in the manuscript:To be spoke ill of, may good works befall,But those are bad of which none speak at all.

[203]An additional couplet follows in the manuscript:

To be spoke ill of, may good works befall,But those are bad of which none speak at all.

[204]The parson alluded to was Jeremy Collier; the critic was the Duke of Buckingham; the first of whom very powerfully attacked the profligacy, and the latter the irregularity and bombast of some of Dryden's plays. These attacks were much more than merry jests.—Warton.

[205]Dryden himself, Virg. Geor. iv. 729:But she returned no more to bless his longing eyes.—Wakefield.

[205]Dryden himself, Virg. Geor. iv. 729:

But she returned no more to bless his longing eyes.—Wakefield.

[206]Blackmore's attack upon Dryden occurs in a poem which appeared in 1700, called a Satire against Wit. The author treats wit as money, and proposes that the whole should be recoined for the purpose of separating the base metal from the pure.Into the melting pot when Dryden comesWhat horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes!How will he shrink when all his lewd allayAnd wicked mixture shall be purged away!When once his boasted heaps are melted down,A chestful scarce will yield one sterling crown.This is exaggerated, but the censure is directed against the indecency which was really infamous. The invectives of Milbourne in his Notes on Dryden's Virgil, 1698, had not the same excuse. The strictures are confined to the translation of the Eclogues and Georgics, and are throughout rabid, insolent, coarse, and contemptible. To demonstrate his own superiority, Milbourne inserted specimens of a rival translation, which is on a par with his criticisms. He was in orders, and acknowledges that one of his reasons for not sparing Dryden was that Dryden never spared a clergyman. "I am only," replied the poet, with exquisite sarcasm, "to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little." Dryden retaliated upon both antagonists together in the couplet,Wouldst thou be soon dispatched, and perish whole?Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul.Pope's line in the first edition wasNew Bl——s and new M——s must arise.In the second edition he substituted S——s, which meant Shadwells, for Bl——s, but in the quarto of 1717 he again coupled Blackmore with Milbourne, and printed both names at full length. Blackmore was living, and the changes indicate Pope's varying feelings towards him.

Into the melting pot when Dryden comesWhat horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes!How will he shrink when all his lewd allayAnd wicked mixture shall be purged away!When once his boasted heaps are melted down,A chestful scarce will yield one sterling crown.

This is exaggerated, but the censure is directed against the indecency which was really infamous. The invectives of Milbourne in his Notes on Dryden's Virgil, 1698, had not the same excuse. The strictures are confined to the translation of the Eclogues and Georgics, and are throughout rabid, insolent, coarse, and contemptible. To demonstrate his own superiority, Milbourne inserted specimens of a rival translation, which is on a par with his criticisms. He was in orders, and acknowledges that one of his reasons for not sparing Dryden was that Dryden never spared a clergyman. "I am only," replied the poet, with exquisite sarcasm, "to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little." Dryden retaliated upon both antagonists together in the couplet,

Wouldst thou be soon dispatched, and perish whole?Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul.

Pope's line in the first edition was

New Bl——s and new M——s must arise.

In the second edition he substituted S——s, which meant Shadwells, for Bl——s, but in the quarto of 1717 he again coupled Blackmore with Milbourne, and printed both names at full length. Blackmore was living, and the changes indicate Pope's varying feelings towards him.

[207]In the fifth book of Vitruvius is an account of Zoilus's coming to the court of Ptolemy at Alexandria, and presenting to him his virulent and brutal censures of Homer, and begging to be rewarded for his work; instead of which, it is said, the king ordered him to be crucified, or, as some said, stoned. His person is minutely described in the eleventh book of Ælian's various History.—Warton.Boileau's Art of Poetry, translated by Soame and Dryden:Let mighty Spenser raise his reverend head,Cowley and Denham start up from the dead.

Boileau's Art of Poetry, translated by Soame and Dryden:

Let mighty Spenser raise his reverend head,Cowley and Denham start up from the dead.

[208]A beautiful and poetical illustration. Pope has the art of enlivening his subject continually by images and illustrations drawn from nature, which by contrast have a particularly pleasing effect, and which are indeed absolutely necessary in a didactic poem.—Bowles.The passage originally stood thus in the manuscript:Wit, as the sun, such pow'rful beams displays,It draws up vapours that obscures its rays,But, like the sun eclipsed, makes only knownThe shadowing body's grossness, not its own;And all those clouds that did at first invadeThe rising light, and interposed a shade,When once transpierced with its prevailing rayReflect its glories, and augment the day.

The passage originally stood thus in the manuscript:

Wit, as the sun, such pow'rful beams displays,It draws up vapours that obscures its rays,But, like the sun eclipsed, makes only knownThe shadowing body's grossness, not its own;And all those clouds that did at first invadeThe rising light, and interposed a shade,When once transpierced with its prevailing rayReflect its glories, and augment the day.

[209]His instance refuted his position that "bare threescore" was the duration of modern fame. "It is now a hundred years," said Dennis in 1712, "since Shakespeare began to write, more since Spenser flourished, and above three hundred years since Chaucer died. And yet the fame of none of these is extinguished." Another century and a half has elapsed, and the reputation of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare is greater than ever. The notion of the "failing language" is not more sound. Though it is a hundred and fifty years since the Essay on Criticism was published, there is not a line which has an antiquated air.

[210]The treach'rous colours in few years decay.—Pope.The next line is from Addison:And all the pleasing landscape fades away.

[210]

The treach'rous colours in few years decay.—Pope.

The next line is from Addison:

And all the pleasing landscape fades away.

[211]That is, of which those, who do not possess it, form an erroneous estimate, as productive of more happiness and enjoyment to the owner, than he really receives from it.—Wakefield.

[212]In the previous paragraph Pope admitted that the fame of a modern might last three-score years. Here, contradicting himself and the facts, he limits its duration to the youth of the author. He applies to poets in general what was only true of inferior writers. The ephemeral versifiers were examples of deficient "wit," and not of the unhappy consequences of genuine poetic power.

[213]Like some fair flow'r that in the spring does rise.—Pope.This line was an example both of the "feeble expletive" and of the "ten low words." "Supplies" in the amended version is, as Wakefield observes, a poor expression.

[213]

Like some fair flow'r that in the spring does rise.—Pope.

This line was an example both of the "feeble expletive" and of the "ten low words." "Supplies" in the amended version is, as Wakefield observes, a poor expression.

[214]The Duke of Buckingham's Vision:The dearest care that all my thought employs.

[214]The Duke of Buckingham's Vision:

The dearest care that all my thought employs.

[215]Wakefield objects to the "slovenly superfluity of words," and asks "to whom can a wife possibly belong but the owner?" He misunderstood Pope, who, by "the wife of the owner," meant the wife of the owner of the wit. The metaphor is coarse, and out of keeping with the theme.

[216]Thus in the first edition:The more his trouble as the more admired,Where wanted scorned, and envied where acquired.Against this Pope wrote, "To be altered. See Dennis, p. 20." "How," said Dennis, "can wit be scorned where it is not? The person who wants this wit may indeed be scorned, but such a contempt declares the honour that the contemner has for wit." Pope, in a letter to Caryll, admitted that he had been guilty of a bull, and the reading in the second edition was,'Tis most our trouble when 'tis most admired,The more we give, the more is still required.

[216]Thus in the first edition:

The more his trouble as the more admired,Where wanted scorned, and envied where acquired.

Against this Pope wrote, "To be altered. See Dennis, p. 20." "How," said Dennis, "can wit be scorned where it is not? The person who wants this wit may indeed be scorned, but such a contempt declares the honour that the contemner has for wit." Pope, in a letter to Caryll, admitted that he had been guilty of a bull, and the reading in the second edition was,

'Tis most our trouble when 'tis most admired,The more we give, the more is still required.

[217]In the first edition,Maintained with pains, but forfeited with ease;and in the second edition,The fame with pains we gain, but lose with ease.The original version appears better than the readings which successively replaced it.

[217]In the first edition,

Maintained with pains, but forfeited with ease;

and in the second edition,

The fame with pains we gain, but lose with ease.

The original version appears better than the readings which successively replaced it.

[218]Another couplet follows in the manuscript:Learning and wit were friends designed by heav'n;Those arms to guard it, not to wound, were giv'n.

[218]Another couplet follows in the manuscript:

Learning and wit were friends designed by heav'n;Those arms to guard it, not to wound, were giv'n.

[219]Dryden's Prologue to the University of Oxford:Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.The feelings of antiquity were doubtless represented truly by Horace when he said that indifferent poets were not tolerated by anybody. There is not the least foundation for Pope's statement that it was the habit of old to praise bad authors for endeavouring well, and if it had been, the authors would not have cared for commendations on their abortive industry to the disparagement of their intellect.

[219]Dryden's Prologue to the University of Oxford:

Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.

The feelings of antiquity were doubtless represented truly by Horace when he said that indifferent poets were not tolerated by anybody. There is not the least foundation for Pope's statement that it was the habit of old to praise bad authors for endeavouring well, and if it had been, the authors would not have cared for commendations on their abortive industry to the disparagement of their intellect.

[220]Wakefield remarks upon the unhappy effect of "crowns" and "crown" in consecutive lines, and thinks the phrase "some others" in the next verse too mean and elliptical. Soame and Dryden, in their translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry, speak of the "base rivals" whoaspire to gain renownBy standing up and pulling others down.

aspire to gain renownBy standing up and pulling others down.

[221]Mr. Harte related to me, that being with Mr. Pope when he received the news of Swift's death, Harte said to him, he thought it a fortunate circumstance for their friendship, that they had lived so distant from each other. Pope resented the reflection, but yet, said Harte, I am convinced it was true.—Warton.

[222]That is, all the unsuccessful authors maligned the successful. The unsuccessful writers never said anything more slanderous.

[223]Boileau's Art of Poetry, translated by Soame and Dryden:Never debase yourself by treach'rous waysNor by such abject methods seek for praise.Pope's own life is the strongest example upon record of the degradation he deplores.

[223]Boileau's Art of Poetry, translated by Soame and Dryden:

Never debase yourself by treach'rous waysNor by such abject methods seek for praise.

Pope's own life is the strongest example upon record of the degradation he deplores.

[224]In the margin of the manuscript Pope has written the passages of Virgil from which he took his expressions. Æn. iii. 56:quid non mortalia pectora cogisAuri sacra fames?Geor. i. 37:Nec tibi regnandi veniat tam dira cupido,which Dryden translates,Nor let so dire a thirst of empire move.

[224]In the margin of the manuscript Pope has written the passages of Virgil from which he took his expressions. Æn. iii. 56:

quid non mortalia pectora cogisAuri sacra fames?

Geor. i. 37:

Nec tibi regnandi veniat tam dira cupido,

which Dryden translates,

Nor let so dire a thirst of empire move.

[225]Such a manly and ingenuous censure from a culprit in this way, as in the case of Pope, is entitled to great praise.—Wakefield.If his indecorums had been the failing of youth and thoughtlessness, and he had publicly recanted his errors, his self-condemnation would be meritorious. The larger portion of his offences were, on the contrary, committed after he had declared indecency to be unpardonable. Any man, however persistently reprobate, might earn "great praise" on terms like these.

[225]Such a manly and ingenuous censure from a culprit in this way, as in the case of Pope, is entitled to great praise.—Wakefield.

If his indecorums had been the failing of youth and thoughtlessness, and he had publicly recanted his errors, his self-condemnation would be meritorious. The larger portion of his offences were, on the contrary, committed after he had declared indecency to be unpardonable. Any man, however persistently reprobate, might earn "great praise" on terms like these.

[226]No one has expressed himself upon this subject so pithily as Cowley:'tis justThe author blush, there where the reader must.

[226]No one has expressed himself upon this subject so pithily as Cowley:

'tis justThe author blush, there where the reader must.

[227]Hamlet:And duller shoulds't thou be than the fat weed.—Bowles.

[227]Hamlet:

And duller shoulds't thou be than the fat weed.—Bowles.

[228]Wits, says he, in Charles the Second's reign had pensions, when all the world knows that it was one of the faults of that reign that none of the politer arts were then encouraged. Butler was starved at the same time that the king had his book in his pocket. Another great wit [Wycherley] lay seven years in prison for an inconsiderable debt, and Otway dared not to show his head for fear of the same fate.—Dennis.

[229]"The young lords who had wit in the court of Charles II. were," says Dennis, "Villiers Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, Lord Buckhurst afterwards Earl of Dorset, the Marquess of Halifax, the Earl of Rochester, Lord Vaughan, and several others." The jilts who ruled the state were the mistresses of the king. The Duke of Buckingham and his Rehearsal are chiefly aimed at in the expression "statesmen farces writ."—Croker.

[230]Pepys, under the date of June 12, 1663, notices that wearing masks at the theatre had "of late become a great fashion among the ladies." Cibber states that the immorality of the plays was the cause of the usage. When he wrote in 1739 the custom had been abolished for many years in consequence of the ill effects which attended it.

[231]He must mean in everyday life. There was no use for the "modest fan" at the theatre after the ladies had adopted the more effectual plan of wearing masks. Pope, ver. 535, ascribes the introduction of "obscenity" to the Restoration. In the theatre the grossness was a legacy from the older drama, and particularly from the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, which were the most popular pieces on the stage.

[232]The author has omitted two lines which stood here as containing a national reflection, which in his stricter judgment he could not but disapprove, on any people whatever.—Pope.The cancelled couplet was as follows:Then first the Belgian morals were extolled,We their religion had, and they our gold.This sneer was dictated by the poet's dislike to William III. and the Dutch, for displacing the popish king James II.—Croker.This ingenious and religious author seems to have had two particular antipathies—one to grammatical and verbal criticism, the other to false doctrine and heresy. To the first we may ascribe his treating Bentley, Burman, Kuster, and Wasse with a contempt which recoiled upon himself. To the second we will impute his pious zeal against those divines of king William, whom he supposed to be infected with the infidel, or the socinian, or the latitudinarian spirit, and not so orthodox as himself, and his friends Swift, Bolingbroke, etc. Thus he laid about him, and censured men of whose literary, or of whose theological merits or defects, he was no more a judge than his footman John Searle.—Dr. Jortin.

[232]The author has omitted two lines which stood here as containing a national reflection, which in his stricter judgment he could not but disapprove, on any people whatever.—Pope.

The cancelled couplet was as follows:

Then first the Belgian morals were extolled,We their religion had, and they our gold.

This sneer was dictated by the poet's dislike to William III. and the Dutch, for displacing the popish king James II.—Croker.

This ingenious and religious author seems to have had two particular antipathies—one to grammatical and verbal criticism, the other to false doctrine and heresy. To the first we may ascribe his treating Bentley, Burman, Kuster, and Wasse with a contempt which recoiled upon himself. To the second we will impute his pious zeal against those divines of king William, whom he supposed to be infected with the infidel, or the socinian, or the latitudinarian spirit, and not so orthodox as himself, and his friends Swift, Bolingbroke, etc. Thus he laid about him, and censured men of whose literary, or of whose theological merits or defects, he was no more a judge than his footman John Searle.—Dr. Jortin.

[233]Jortin asserted that by the "unbelieving priests" Pope alluded to Burnet. If Jortin is right, the passage was not satire but falsehood. That there was, however, much infidelity and socinianism during the reign of William III. is proved by an address of the House of Commons to the king, quoted by Bowles, "beseeching his majesty to give effectual orders for suppressing all pernicious books and pamphlets which contained impious doctrines against the Holy Trinity, and other fundamental articles of the protestant faith, tending to the subversion of the christian religion." This address was presented in February 1698.

[234]In this line he had Kennet in view, who was accused of having said, in a funeral sermon on some nobleman, that converted sinners, if they were men of parts, repented more speedily and effectually than dull rascals.—Jortin.

[235]The published sermons of the reign of William III. do not answer to this description, which is certainly a calumny.

[236]So Lucretius, iv. 333:Lurida præterea fiunt quæcunque tuentur Arquati.Besides, whatever jaundice-eyes do view,Looks pale as well as those, and yellow too.—Creech.This notion of the transfusion of the colour to the object from a jaundiced eye, though current in all our authors, is, I believe, a mere vulgar error.—Wakefield.It is still a disputed point whether jaundice ever affects the eye in a degree to permit only the passage of the yellow rays. The instances are at least very rare; but popular belief is a sufficient ground for a poetical comparison. Pope had just exemplified his simile; for everything looked yellow to him in the reign of William III.

[236]So Lucretius, iv. 333:

Lurida præterea fiunt quæcunque tuentur Arquati.Besides, whatever jaundice-eyes do view,Looks pale as well as those, and yellow too.—Creech.

This notion of the transfusion of the colour to the object from a jaundiced eye, though current in all our authors, is, I believe, a mere vulgar error.—Wakefield.

It is still a disputed point whether jaundice ever affects the eye in a degree to permit only the passage of the yellow rays. The instances are at least very rare; but popular belief is a sufficient ground for a poetical comparison. Pope had just exemplified his simile; for everything looked yellow to him in the reign of William III.

[237]In the first edition,Speak when you're sure, yet speak with diffidence.Dennis objected that a man when sure should speak "with a modest assurance," and Pope wrote on the margin of the manuscript, "Dennis, p. 21. Alter the inconsistency."Pope's maxim was commended by Franklin. He found that his overbearing, dictatorial manner roused needless opposition, and he resolved never "to use a word that imported a fixed opinion," but he employed instead the qualifying phrases, "I conceive," "I imagine," or "it so appears to me at present." "To this," he says, "after my character of integrity, I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new institutions or alterations in the old; for I was but a bad speaker, subject to much hesitation, and yet I generally carried my point." He admits that his humility was feigned. Had it been real there would have been no need for "I conceive," "I imagine," which are implied without a tiresome, superfluous repetition. Unless the dogmatism is in the mind opinions have not the tone of decrees.

[237]In the first edition,

Speak when you're sure, yet speak with diffidence.

Dennis objected that a man when sure should speak "with a modest assurance," and Pope wrote on the margin of the manuscript, "Dennis, p. 21. Alter the inconsistency."

Pope's maxim was commended by Franklin. He found that his overbearing, dictatorial manner roused needless opposition, and he resolved never "to use a word that imported a fixed opinion," but he employed instead the qualifying phrases, "I conceive," "I imagine," or "it so appears to me at present." "To this," he says, "after my character of integrity, I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new institutions or alterations in the old; for I was but a bad speaker, subject to much hesitation, and yet I generally carried my point." He admits that his humility was feigned. Had it been real there would have been no need for "I conceive," "I imagine," which are implied without a tiresome, superfluous repetition. Unless the dogmatism is in the mind opinions have not the tone of decrees.

[238]Warton praises Pope for practising the precept in correcting the poems of Wycherley, and condemned Wycherley for ungenerously resenting the candour of his critic. Bowles extenuates the conduct of Wycherley, and says that "the superannuated bard" bore the corrections with "great temper till Pope seriously advised him to turn the whole into prose." Warton and Bowles were deceived by the printed correspondence of Pope and Wycherley, and were not aware that the letters were garbled in the very particulars which relate to the cause of the quarrel,—a quarrel so discreditable to Pope that he had recourse to forgery to shield himself and throw the blame upon Wycherley. It is certain that "the superannuated bard" did not take offence at the advice to turn his works into prose, and there is no reason to doubt the contemporaneous report that his anger arose from discovering that Pope, while professing unlimited friendship, had made him the subject of some satirical verses.

[239]This picture was taken to himself by John Dennis, a furious old critic by profession, who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this Essay and its author in a manner perfectly lunatic: for, as to the mention made of him in ver. 270, he took it as a compliment, and said it was treacherously meant to cause him to overlook this abuse of his person.—Pope.Pope's acrimonious note on his early antagonist first appeared in the edition of 1743, when Dennis had been some years dead. "His book against me," the poet wrote to Caryll, Nov. 19, 1712, "made me very heartily merry in two minutes' time," and here we find him still smarting with resentment after thirty years and upwards had gone by, and his enemy was in the grave. The original reading in the manuscript of ver. 585 was "But D—— reddens." The substituted name is taken from Dennis's tragedy of "Appius and Virginia," which appeared in 1709. The stare was one of his characteristics. "He starts, stares, and looks round him at every jerk of his person forward," says Sir Richard Steele, when describing his walk. The "tremendous" was not only a sarcasm on his appearance, but on his partiality for the epithet, which was an old topic of ridicule. "If," said Gildon, in 1702, "there is anything of tragedy in the piece, it lies in the word 'tremendous,' for he is so fond of it he had rather use it in every page than slay his beloved Iphigenia." Gay, in 1712, jeeringly dedicated his Mohocks to Mr. D[ennis], and assigned, among the reasons for the selection, that his theme was "horrid and tremendous."

Pope's acrimonious note on his early antagonist first appeared in the edition of 1743, when Dennis had been some years dead. "His book against me," the poet wrote to Caryll, Nov. 19, 1712, "made me very heartily merry in two minutes' time," and here we find him still smarting with resentment after thirty years and upwards had gone by, and his enemy was in the grave. The original reading in the manuscript of ver. 585 was "But D—— reddens." The substituted name is taken from Dennis's tragedy of "Appius and Virginia," which appeared in 1709. The stare was one of his characteristics. "He starts, stares, and looks round him at every jerk of his person forward," says Sir Richard Steele, when describing his walk. The "tremendous" was not only a sarcasm on his appearance, but on his partiality for the epithet, which was an old topic of ridicule. "If," said Gildon, in 1702, "there is anything of tragedy in the piece, it lies in the word 'tremendous,' for he is so fond of it he had rather use it in every page than slay his beloved Iphigenia." Gay, in 1712, jeeringly dedicated his Mohocks to Mr. D[ennis], and assigned, among the reasons for the selection, that his theme was "horrid and tremendous."

[240]This thought occurs also in Donne's fourth Satire, which our poet has modernised:And though his face be as illAs theirs, which in old hangings whip Christ, stillHe strives to look worse.—Wakefield.

[240]This thought occurs also in Donne's fourth Satire, which our poet has modernised:

And though his face be as illAs theirs, which in old hangings whip Christ, stillHe strives to look worse.—Wakefield.

[241]It may not be known to every reader that noblemen and the sons of noblemen are admitted of course at our universities to the degree of M.A., after keeping the terms of two years.—Wakefield.The privilege is now abolished.

[241]It may not be known to every reader that noblemen and the sons of noblemen are admitted of course at our universities to the degree of M.A., after keeping the terms of two years.—Wakefield.

The privilege is now abolished.

[242]If Cibber was the dull fellow Pope would have had him thought, no conduct could have been more proper towards him than that which Pope here recommends. Pope seems to have anticipated Colley's subsequent resolution "to write as long" as Pope "could rail."—Bowles.

[243]Duke of Buckingham's Essay on Satire,But who can rail so long as he can sleep?

[243]Duke of Buckingham's Essay on Satire,

But who can rail so long as he can sleep?

[244]Pope may have derived this comparison from the "Epilogue, written by a person of honour," to Dryden's Secret Love:But t'other day I heard this rhyming fopSay critics were the whips, and he the top:For as a top spins best the more you baste her,So ev'ry lash you give, he writes the faster,The author of the Epilogue was more exact than Pope, whose application of the simile is inaccurate, for the top is in full spin when it is popularly said to be asleep.

[244]Pope may have derived this comparison from the "Epilogue, written by a person of honour," to Dryden's Secret Love:

But t'other day I heard this rhyming fopSay critics were the whips, and he the top:For as a top spins best the more you baste her,So ev'ry lash you give, he writes the faster,

The author of the Epilogue was more exact than Pope, whose application of the simile is inaccurate, for the top is in full spin when it is popularly said to be asleep.

[245]Dryden's Aurengzebe:The dregs and droppings of enervate love.—Steevens.It has been suggested that he alludes to Wycherley.—Warton.Whom else could the lines suit at that period, when Pope says, "Such bards wehave?" If Wycherley was intended, what must we think of Pope, who could wound, in this manner, his old friend, for whom he professed so much kindness, and who first introduced him to notice and patronage.—Bowles.The application was too obvious for Pope to have ventured on the lines unless he had designed to expose his former ally. The original reading of ver. 610 in the manuscript was,But if incorrigible bards we view,Know there are mad, &c.And the alteration turned an unappropriated description into a particular censure on living men. Wycherley would be the last person to detect the likeness, and relaxing, some months after the Essay appeared, in his indignation against Pope, "he praised the poem," according to a letter of Cromwell, dated Oct. 26, 1711, but which rests on the authority of Pope alone.

[245]Dryden's Aurengzebe:

The dregs and droppings of enervate love.—Steevens.

It has been suggested that he alludes to Wycherley.—Warton.

Whom else could the lines suit at that period, when Pope says, "Such bards wehave?" If Wycherley was intended, what must we think of Pope, who could wound, in this manner, his old friend, for whom he professed so much kindness, and who first introduced him to notice and patronage.—Bowles.

The application was too obvious for Pope to have ventured on the lines unless he had designed to expose his former ally. The original reading of ver. 610 in the manuscript was,

But if incorrigible bards we view,Know there are mad, &c.

And the alteration turned an unappropriated description into a particular censure on living men. Wycherley would be the last person to detect the likeness, and relaxing, some months after the Essay appeared, in his indignation against Pope, "he praised the poem," according to a letter of Cromwell, dated Oct. 26, 1711, but which rests on the authority of Pope alone.

[246]In allusion to this class of pedants Gray said, "Learning never should be encouraged; it only draws out fools from their obscurity."

[247]A common slander at that time in prejudice of that deserving author. Our poet did him this justice, when that slander most prevailed; and it is now (perhaps the sooner for this very verse) dead and forgotten.—Pope.The accusation from which he defended Garth was brought against Pope himself. "This poem," says Johnson, of Cooper's Hill, "had such reputation as to excite the common artifice by which envy degrades excellence. A report was spread that the performance was not Denham's own, but that he had bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. The same attempt was made to rob Addison of his Cato and Pope of his Essay on Criticism." The story told was that Wycherley sent the Essay to Pope for his revision, and that Pope published it as his own. Authors are not the only persons who are exposed to such calumnies. The victories of a great general are almost invariably imputed to some subordinate officer, and it was long a favourite theory of the malignant that Napoleon owed his successes to Berthier, and the Duke of Wellington to Sir George Murray.

The accusation from which he defended Garth was brought against Pope himself. "This poem," says Johnson, of Cooper's Hill, "had such reputation as to excite the common artifice by which envy degrades excellence. A report was spread that the performance was not Denham's own, but that he had bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. The same attempt was made to rob Addison of his Cato and Pope of his Essay on Criticism." The story told was that Wycherley sent the Essay to Pope for his revision, and that Pope published it as his own. Authors are not the only persons who are exposed to such calumnies. The victories of a great general are almost invariably imputed to some subordinate officer, and it was long a favourite theory of the malignant that Napoleon owed his successes to Berthier, and the Duke of Wellington to Sir George Murray.

[248]There is an ellipse of "that" after "sacred," and of "it" after "fops," or the line is not English, and when the omitted words are supplied the inversion is intolerable.

[249]The propriety of the specification in this proverbial remark is founded on a circumstance no longer existing in our poet's time, and derived, therefore, by him from older writers. "In the reigns of James I. and Charles I.," says Pennant, "the body of St. Paul's cathedral was the common resort of the politicians, the newsmongers, and the idle in general. It was called Paul's Walk, and the frequenters known by the name of Paul's walkers."—Wakefield.

[250]Between this and ver. 624—In vain you shrug and sweat and strive to fly:These know no manners but in poetry.They'll stop a hungry chaplain in his grace,To treat of unities of time and place.—Pope.

[250]Between this and ver. 624—

In vain you shrug and sweat and strive to fly:These know no manners but in poetry.They'll stop a hungry chaplain in his grace,To treat of unities of time and place.—Pope.

[251]This stroke of satire is literally taken from Boileau:Gardez-vous d'imiter ce rimeur furieux,Qui, de ses vains écrits, lecteur harmonieux,Aborde en récitant quiconque le salue,Et poursuit de ses vers les passants dans la rue.Il n'est temple si saint, des anges respecté,Qui soit contre sa muse un lieu de sûreté.Which lines allude to the impertinence of a French poet called Du Perrier, who finding Boileau one day at church, insisted upon repeating to him an ode during the elevation of the host.—Warton.Boileau tells the incident of an individual poetaster. Pope generalises the exceptional trait, and represents it to have been the usual practice of foppish critics to talk criticism at the altar. The probability is that he had never known an instance. The line "For fools rush in," is certainly fashioned, says Bishop Hurd, on Shakespeare, Richard iii. Act 1, Sc. 3:Wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

[251]This stroke of satire is literally taken from Boileau:

Gardez-vous d'imiter ce rimeur furieux,Qui, de ses vains écrits, lecteur harmonieux,Aborde en récitant quiconque le salue,Et poursuit de ses vers les passants dans la rue.Il n'est temple si saint, des anges respecté,Qui soit contre sa muse un lieu de sûreté.

Which lines allude to the impertinence of a French poet called Du Perrier, who finding Boileau one day at church, insisted upon repeating to him an ode during the elevation of the host.—Warton.

Boileau tells the incident of an individual poetaster. Pope generalises the exceptional trait, and represents it to have been the usual practice of foppish critics to talk criticism at the altar. The probability is that he had never known an instance. The line "For fools rush in," is certainly fashioned, says Bishop Hurd, on Shakespeare, Richard iii. Act 1, Sc. 3:

Wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

[252]Virgil, Geo. iv. 194:Excursusque breves tentant.Nor forage far, but short excursions make.Dryden.—Wakefield.

[252]Virgil, Geo. iv. 194:

Excursusque breves tentant.Nor forage far, but short excursions make.Dryden.—Wakefield.

[253]"Humanly" is improperly put for humanely. The only authorised sense of the former is belonging to man; of the latter, kindly, compassionately.—Dr. George Campbell.

[254]"Love to praise" means "a love of bestowing praise," but, as Wakefield says, it is an "obscure expression, and repugnant to usage."

[255]This is followed by two additional lines in the manuscript:Such did of old poetic laws impart,And what till then was fury turned to art.

[255]This is followed by two additional lines in the manuscript:

Such did of old poetic laws impart,And what till then was fury turned to art.

[256]Between ver. 646 and 647, I have found the following lines, since suppressed by the author:That bold Columbus of the realms of wit,Whose first discovery's not exceeded yet.Led by the light of the Mæonian star,He steered securely, and discovered far.He, when all nature was subdued before,Like his great pupil, sighed and longed for more;Fancy's wild regions yet unvanquished lay,A boundless empire, and that owned no sway.Poets, &c.—Warburton.

[256]Between ver. 646 and 647, I have found the following lines, since suppressed by the author:

That bold Columbus of the realms of wit,Whose first discovery's not exceeded yet.Led by the light of the Mæonian star,He steered securely, and discovered far.He, when all nature was subdued before,Like his great pupil, sighed and longed for more;Fancy's wild regions yet unvanquished lay,A boundless empire, and that owned no sway.Poets, &c.—Warburton.

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