No More Learning

Addison, indeed, was teaching his fellow citizens to expect far more
than wit or art from literature. His aim was to find the precepts
i Nos. 6, 13, 18, 29, 31.
» Nos. 39, 40, 42, 44, 51.
8 Nos. 58–61.
• Essay concerning the Human Understanding, ed. 1690, chap. XI, p. 68.
• No. 62. See also no, 63, which sums up his view of false wit in a delightful
allegory.


## p. 59 (#83) ##############################################

Addison on Paradise Lost
59
of morality' which should underlie every work of inspiration; and,
with this end in view, he endeavoured to explain the universal
charm of such artless compositions as Chevy Chace and The Chil-
dren in the Wood. Among the middle class, the love of medieval
ballads had survived the renascence and was probably not yet
dead; but Addison essayed a task beyond the learning of his age
when he attempted to subject folklore to the canons of criticism.
In his day, men could judge poetry only under the shadow of the
classics, and The Spectator is still pedantic enough to praise the
old minstrelsy because it finds therein a few parallels to Vergil
and Horacel.
Steele had loyally supplemented these more scholarly papers,
whenever Addison gave him an opening for a humorous contri-
bution and even succeeded in showing how Raphael's cartoons 3
are studies in the grandeur of human emotions. But his spontaneous
and erratic genius quite failed to keep pace with the dogmatism
of Addison's next and greatest critical effort. This was the series
of Saturday papers in which he criticises Paradise Lost by the
canons of Aristotle, Longinus and Le Bossu and, though finding
faults in Milton, judges him to be equal, if not superior, to Homer
or Vergil. From the eighteenth century point of view, he was right.
The middle classes who read books were not themselves subjected
to the great emotions of life, but were bent on methodically building
up their own culture. Hence, they could not appreciate the mystery,
the passion, the wildness or the pathos of ancient epic, and it is
significant that these qualities are not conspicuous in the great
translations of the period, which charmed by their rhetoric and
polish. The average eighteenth century reader had somewhat
the same point of view as the Italian critics of the renascence
and valued what had passed through the crucible of the intel-
lect and smelt of the lamp. When people at this stage of culture
consider a work of imagination, they are too prosaic to com-
prehend the romance of human activity. They want projected
shadows of life, which are vaster than reality and bolder in outline,
though less searching. Milton met these intellectual requirements
more fully than his forerunners, and Addison, in interpreting his
poet, seems to have followed Minturno's line of argument when he
championed the epic against the romanzi. Addison contended that
1 Nos. 70, 74, 85.
? Nos. 22, 36, 65.
3 No. 226. See no. 244 for an answer to this paper.
4 Nos. 267, 273, 279, 285, 291, 297, 303, 309, 315, 321, 327, 333, 339, 345, 351, 357,
363, 369.


## p. 60 (#84) ##############################################

60
Steele and Addison
1
1
6
>
Milton dealt with the destiny of the whole world, they but with that
of a single nation. His characters, though fewer in number, appear
more varied and less earth-bound than theirs. The conception of
sin and death contains 'a beautiful allegory'affecting all humanity.
Adam and Eve typify different beings before and after their fall.
Their conferences' are less mundane than the 'loves' of Dido and
Aeneas; Satan is more wily and more travelled than Ulysses? .
Besides, Paradise Lost was originally conceived as a tragedy, and,
though the dramatic atmosphere which pervades its final form is
rightly judged to be a blemish”, it is, for this reason, more easily
reducible to Aristotle's rules. After taking a bird's eye view of
the action, the actors, the sentiments and the languages, Addison
proceeds to consider each book separately. No greater service
could have been rendered to the unformed taste of his time than
to point out where Milton is to be admired, and Addison has the
wisdom to illustrate his criticisms so copiously that these papers
almost constitute a book of selected beauties. ' Much that he
praises is of permanent value, such as grandeur of style and
loftiness of conception; but, in much again, his literary judgment
is unconsciously biassed by a spirit of propaganda. In reality, The
Spectator was continuing, after nearly two generations, the same
reaction against restoration ideals which Milton had begun in his
old age. Thus, Paradise Lost had a hold on Addison's admiration
quite apart from its intrinsic merits. Milton's tumultuous and
over-burdened similes seemed perfect, in contrast with the artifices
of the little wits. Eve's purity and modesty exercised an
exaggerated charm in view of contemporary looseness', and it was
regarded as specially appropriate that her dream, inspired by Satan,
should be full of pride and conceits. Moreover, the age saw
6
that learning was its salvation and, in Paradise Lost, enjoyed the
quite artificial pleasures of research. Addison no longer holds
to Lionardi's, Fracastor's and Scaliger's? creed that all erudition
is an ornament to poetry; but he experiences a subtle delight in
tracing obscure parallels in inspiration comparing the sword of
Michael with the sword of Aeneas, or the golden compasses of the
Creator with Minerva's aegis, or the repentance of Adam and Eve
with the grief of Oedipus. And, finally, The Spectator was furthering
a
1 No. 297.
? L'Arte Poetica, 1564.
3 Nos. 267, 273, 279, 285.
4 No. 303.
5 Nos. 321, 345.
6 No. 327.
? See Lionardi, Dialogi della Inventione Poetica, 1554; Fracastor, Opera, 1555;
Scaliger, Poetices Libri Septem, 5th ed. 1617. See Spingarn, J. E. , Literary Criticism
in the Renaissance, 1908.


## p. 61 (#85) ##############################################

Addison 'On the Pleasures of the Imagination' 61
6
a religious revival under the auspices of culture and, therefore,
found in Paradise Lost the same kind of superiority that Harington 1
had claimed for Orlando Furioso. Addison reconciles himself even
to the speeches of the Almighty, though they are not ‘so proper to
fill the mind with sentiments of grandeur, as with thoughts of
devotion? '; while the morning and evening hymns, and the use
of scriptural phraseology throughout the poem, seemed like a touch
of inspiration higher than any of which a pagan could boast.
These Milton papers met with an enthusiastic reception. They
exercised an influence throughout the eighteenth century and only
became obsolete when Sainte-Beuve had taught Europe that the
critic should be less of a judge than a reconstructor-almost an
artist who creates a picture of the author's mind and of the
atmosphere in which he wrote. In any case, Addison never
attempted to enlarge the bounds of thought. His aim was to
gather up the best ideas of his time and put them within reach of
op
the ordinary reader. The same is true of his successive papers on
aesthetics, or, as he calls them, 'On the Pleasures of the Imagina-
tion. He wanted to show how the emotions can be raised and
purified by what men see and read. So, he discussed the intellectual
pleasure to be found, first, in landscapes and gardens, then, in
statues, pictures and architecture, and, then, in the mirrored views
of life which a descriptive writer can call up before the mind's eye.
This difficult and intricate subject involved an enquiry into the
psychology of the imagination and a scientific discrimination of
the functions and limits of the different arts. Granted his limita-
tions, Addison is more than equal to the task. He draws on his
own travels and experiences, he applies the wisdom of the ancients
and the more recent discoveries of Descartes, Locke and Berkeley*;
yet his exposition is lucid and complete within the compass of
eleven short essays. But, though he popularises admirably the
ideas of his time, he cannot investigate for himself. The thoughts
of his contemporaries lead him to the very brink of Lessing's
discovery concerning the relation of poetry to sculpture", but
he does not take a step further when his guides leave him.
Nevertheless, these papers must have awakened in many a new
1 An Apologie of Poetrie, Pt 2.
2 No. 315.
s Nos. 411–421, originally written as a single essay years before. See Some portions
of Essays contributed to the Spectator by Mr Joseph Addison, Glasgow, 1864.
* New Theory of Vision, 1709.
6 Nos. 416, 418; Addison was probably aware of Varchi's comparison of poetry with
painting in Lerzioni, lette nell' Accademia Fiorentina, 1590; see Spingarn, ibid.
Lessing's Laokoon, oder Über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie, appeared in 1766.


## p. 62 (#86) ##############################################

62
Steele and Addison
sense of aesthetic enjoyment? Among other things, he protests
against the artificiality of rococo gardens, and shows what a
mine of wonder and reflection had been opened up by natural
philosophy
Although Addison varied these dissertations with humorous and
satirical essays, the tone of The Spectator became more and more
serious as the numbers continued to appear. At the outset, he
had declared, in two papers", that his practice was to put his
thoughts together without premeditation; but, towards the close,
he admitted the need of methodical discourses. He had other
things to teach besides the appreciation of literature and art. In
the latter half of the seventeenth century, England had exchanged
a civilization of war for a civilization of peace and needed a religion
a
to match. Martial patriotism, of course, still ran high ; but the
typical man of culture was a peaceful Londoner, busy with his
family and his profession, and the only battles which he fought
were those with himself. As has been shown, the votaries of the
old régime continued the tradition of atheism. But the middle
classes were still devout and only needed to bring into their wor-
ship that cult of urbanity at which they aimed in their daily lives.
No one could be more susceptible to this tendency than a man
of Addison's character, and, when he set himself to lead a social
reform, it was inevitable that he should write on religion. He is no
more original on this theme than on others. Humanised Christianity
is to be found, in all its sweetness, in Jeremy Taylor and had already
proved itself in John Webster's great book of sufficient power to
end the witch persecution. But, though Addison was not the first
to proclaim the gospel of peace and goodwill, he was the first who
could bring it into the hearts and homes of London citizens. Like
the earlier puritans, he held that religion should govern every
thought and action, but not to the exclusion of the world. His
creed was one of acquiescence and inward piety. Zeal was
often a cloak for pride, self-interest or ill-nature; enthusiasm led
to bigotry and superstition. A Christian's devotion should be
2
1 E. g. Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination, 1764.
? Nos. 414, 420.
8 E. g. nos. 81 (party patches), 102 (the use of the fan), 205 (the woman of fashion in
church), 247 (women as talkers), 265 (the head dress), 275 (a beau's head), 281 (a
coquette's heart), 343 (the Pythagorean monkey), 361 (catcalls), 377 (bill of mortality
through love).
* Nos. 46, 124.
o No. 476.
6 The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft, 1677. See ante, vol. VII, chap. xv,
pp. 396—7.


## p. 63 (#87) ##############################################

Addison on Religion. Cato
63
self-contained, with just enough fervour to prevent religion from
becoming a mere philosophy! Addison held, also, to the need of
self-examination, but not of despondency or self-contempt. To
him, everything was under the direction of a Supreme Being”, who,
as the Stoics and Juvenal had long before taught, knew better than
man what was good for him. The duty of human beings was to
be reconciled to their lot, to forget the differences and humiliations
of this life in the expectation of eternity, and to seek a sober
happiness in a sense of doing right*. These lay sermons are
accompanied by a few verse paraphrases of the Psalms, rendered
with polished simplicity, and are varied by allegories, among which
The First Vision of Mirza is justly celebrated for its tranquil,
lofty style.
The Spectator's last number appeared on 6 December 1712.
Both writers had cultivated to a surprising degree the art of
the Aâneur and knew how to turn innumerable and generally
unnoticed episodes of city life into charming sketches. Such
things as a sensation in a coffeehouse, a fencing-match, an argu-
ment in a bookshop, an old beggar, or a man who applauds with a
stick in a theatre gallery, are among their best studies of character'.
But, apparently, both editors had written themselves out. Addison,
at the instigation of his friends, set to work on Cato, the first four
acts of which had been written before the beginning of The Tatler,
perhaps as early as 1703. With many misgivings, he allowed the
tragedy to be produced at Drury lane on 14 April 1713. It was
a time of great political excitement; and, when so prominent a
public man as Addison produced a drama on Cato's last stand for
liberty, against the usurpation of Caesar, both parties turned the
situation against their opponents and applauded furiously. In any
event, the play was bound to have been a success. It pictures the
last of the Roman republicans, a statuesque outline magnanimous
and unmoved, surrounded by a treachery which is baffled by the
loyalty of his sons and Juba, accepting death rather than dishonour
and, in his last moments, taking thought for those around him.
The plot is twofold. Side by side with the study in public virtue
and high politics, a drama of the tender passion occupies the stage.
When Cato's son Marcius dies gallantly fighting against the traitor
Syphax, his brother wins the hand of Lucia, for which they had
a
i Nos. 185, 201, 483,
· Nos. 120, 121, 387, 489, 494, 495, 531, 543.
3 Nos. 207, 237, 391, 441.
- Nos. 186, 213, 219, 381, 483.
5 See respectively non. 403 and 481, 436, 438, 376, 235.
9


## p. 64 (#88) ##############################################

64
Steele and Addison
both been honourable rivals, and Juba, the once rejected suitor of
Marcia, Cato's daughter, romantically rescues her from the clutches
of Sempronius in disguise and finds that she has loved him all the
time. Thus, in the consecrated form of a Roman tragedy, the public
enjoyed that grandiose, if unsubstantial, projection of character
which they admired in Milton, together with the sentimental
chivalry of a French romance. To modern taste, the diction is
hopelessly declamatory, and the plot full of absurdities. But the
ordinary reader of the eighteenth century would almost regard
such artificiality as inevitable in a play which has strictly observed
the unities, contains a 'reversal of intention' and a 'recognition”
and abounds in crisp and quotable epigrams.
Meanwhile, Steele plunged into politics and, after much
pamphleteering, was expelled from the House of Commons for
uttering seditious libels. In 1714, he returned to literature and
started several periodicals, especially The Guardian, to which
Addison contributed fifty-one papers; and, in 1722, he produced
his last complete comedy, The Conscious Lovers. Though the plot
is largely borrowed from Terence's Andria and, where original,
abounds in more glaring improbabilities than his earlier work, the
play is remarkable because it resumes in brief all Steele's best
ideas on life and character. We have the sketch of servants whose
natural freshness is being gradually tainted by the corrupt and
contagious air of lackeydom? ; we have satire on marriages of
convenience, duelling and the chicanery of the law; a glance at
the opposition between the hereditary gentry and the rising
commercial class ; while, in Bevil junior, Steele portrays his ideal
of a gentleman, chivalrous and honourable to women, considerate
to men, respectful to his father and self-controlled amid the riotous
pleasures of the capital.
Steele and Addison produced other works separately. But,
when they ceased to collaborate in The Spectator, which was
subsequently continued by one of their circle, both became
authors of secondary importance. Their task was already done.
The peculiar circumstances of their lives gave them an unrivalled
opportunity of observing the movement of their time. Thanks
to a certain conventionality of intellect, coupled with amazing
1 The repetétela and ávarrópions of Aristotle; see Politics, ed. Butcher, 8. H. , 3rd
ed. 1902.
2 Besides the scenes in which Tom and Phillis appear, see the episode of the footboy
newly arrived in London, act v, sc. 2.
8 See bibliography.


## p. 65 (#89) ##############################################

Steele, Addison and the Essay
65
cleverness, they became the heart of this movement, and made it
literature. In this sense, they collaborated with their age. As a
comparison between the two writers is almost inevitable, it may
be said, in conclusion, that Steele was the more original and
Addison the more effective. Steele conceived the periodical essay,
but never perfected it; he accidentally discovered the short story
and verged upon the domestic novel, without substantially in-
fluencing the development of either genre. This ineffectiveness
was partly due to his volatile nature and somewhat unstable life,
but it was also largely due to the presence of Addison. That
successful and self-contained mentor seems to have unconsciously
restrained Steele's initiative. But, while he curbed his companion's
talents, he displayed the utmost efficiency in the use of his own
and, without any deep fund of ideas or sympathy, raised Steele’s
conception of an essay to a degree of perfection never since
surpassed. The Londoners of queen Anne's reign chiefly valued
The Spectator for Addison's humorous papers and religious dis-
sertations. The modern student most admires its accuracy and
penetration, and the true and long-enduring picture which it gives
of middle class culture and character.
E. L. IX.
CH, II.
5


## p.
66 (#90) ##############################################

CHAPTER III
POPE
The great writer of whom this chapter treats was a man of real
poetic genius, the growth and direction of which were powerfully
affected by his physical constitution, his circumstances and the
character of the age. None of his achievements belong to the
very highest forms of poetry. Where he excelled, his pre-eminence
is beyond dispute; yet his deficiency in qualities more prized by
a later generation has imperilled his very right to be regarded as
a poet. On certain points, all are practically agreed. Pope is
a memorable example of a conscious literary artist, the type in
our country of the classical spirit; rarely has a poet shown
himself a truer or more delicate representative of his own time.
Even did his work no longer appeal to us by its enduring
merit, he must escape neglect because of his part in England's
literary development.
Pope's true position has not always been recognised. He has
been viewed from the standpoint of periods out of sympathy with
his excellences and impatient of his defects, and his influence has
been regarded as a monstrous barrier restraining all deep and
natural emotion until swept away by the torrent of the romantic
revival. He has figured as one who left the free air of heaven
for the atmosphere of the coffeehouse, as the first to introduce
a mechanical standard of poetry, owing its acceptance to the
prosaic tone of his day. Attention to the historic side of literature
has brought sounder views. It is urged that, far from making
nature give way to art, he shared the reaction, not confined to
England, against an artificial mode, and stood in a real sense for
a return to nature. Rather than having been the originator of
a movement, he represents its climax, as he carried to completion
a work already begun.
Pope's attitude was not one of revolt. His poetry did not
disgust on its first appearance by deserting accepted models.


## p. 67 (#91) ##############################################

Early Studies
67
His immediate success proves how closely he was in touch with
his contemporaries. In the directness and lucidity of his style, he
improved his inheritance from Waller, Denham and Dryden. In
the skill with which he elaborated the heroic couplet, he was in-
debted to these poets, above all to Dryden, as well as to the
translations of Sandys. In the striving after simplicity, in the
rejection of the extravagance of the so-called metaphysical poets,
he instinctively followed an existing movement, precisely as the
justness of thought and clarity of expression in Swift and Addison
had an immediate ancestry. But, in prose and poetry alike, the
qualities greatly admired in that period, and valuable in any,
were won at the cost of others whose loss must be deplored, and
poetry suffered most.
Alexander Pope was born in London, on 21 May 1688, of parents
past middle age. They were devout Roman catholics; their son's
adherence to this creed seems to have been prompted by filial
affection. The accident of belonging to a proscribed church
decided the course of his education. It is curious to reflect that,
displaying such affinity for polish and precision, he should have
missed a classical training. After brief schooling, he was taken
home to Binfield, in Windsor forest, where his father had settled
on retiring from his linendraper's business, and from about the
age of twelve was largely self-taught. He grew up undersized,
delicate and deformed, though we have testimony to the beauty
of his voice and the brilliance of his eye. The presence of a fiery
soul within this frail tenement was proved when, in an unliterary
home, amid the languor of sickness and the lack of mental dis-
cipline, he developed a poetic genius, not fitful and uneven but
inspired by a continual endeavour after the highest attainable in
the form and music of his verse. Pope's own account of these early
studies was:
When I had done with my priests, I took to reading by myself, for which
I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry: and in a
few years I had dipped into a great number of the English, French, Italian,
Latin and Greek poets. This I did without any design but that of pleasing
myself: and got the languages by hunting after the stories in the several
poets I read1.
Of his knowledge of Italian, there is little trace. His Greek was,
certainly, not strong. In spite of some acquaintance with French
literature, he never seems to have had any real familiarity with the
language. With regard to scholarship, he was doubtless ‘shady
a
.
1 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, S. W. , 1820, p. 193.
5-2


## p. 68 (#92) ##############################################

68
Pope
1
>
in Latin’; but he was profoundly affected by the Roman poets,
with whose style and ways of thought he showed a remarkable
affinity. We everywhere feel the influence of the finish, dignity
and sonorousness of Latin poetry.
Of his own countrymen, Waller, Spenser and Dryden were his
favourites. While yet a child, he began to ‘lisp in numbers. ' At
his first school, he was punished for lampooning his master; at the
next, he tacked together speeches from Ogilby's Iliad to be acted
by his companions. Shortly after, as he told Spence, he began an
epic, Alcander Prince of Rhodes, and completed four books.
This he destroyed in mature life. We hear, also, of a tragedy on
St Geneviève. The satirical lines on the author of Successio (1712)
were said by Pope to have been written at fourteen; but the
earliest poem that has a place in his works is the Ode on Solitude,
sent to Henry Cromwell in a letter of 1709, and there stated to
have been composed when the author was not yet twelve; the
lines, however, were retouched after transcription and further
improved before their publication in 1735. The boy soon recog-
nised the weakness of his own efforts and turned to translation.
He was already familiar with attempts by others. In after years,
he still spoke with rapture of the pleasure he had received as
a boy from Ogilby's rendering of Homer. His own translation
of the first book of Statius's Thebais was professedly made ‘almost
in his childhood, but corrected before publication. He also tried
his hand on part of the Metamorphoses and began to submit
Chaucer to a similar process. His half-sister remarked of these
early years, 'I believe nobody ever studied so hard as my brother
did. He did nothing else but write and read. ' But Pope's literary
judgment was not based solely on books. At a susceptible age, he
formed a friendship with more than one man of mature years,
knowledge of the world and taste for letters. Among the earliest
of these was Sir William Trumbull, a retired diplomatist living near
Binfield Others were Wycherley, Henry Cromwell, a literary
man about town, and William Walsh, styled by Dryden the best
critic of our nation. Pope corresponded with these, sought their
advice and submitted his verses. His Pastorals went from hand
to hand and were complimented in flattering terms. Tonson
offered to publish them, and, after some delay, they appeared in
the sixth volume of his Miscellany, on 2 May 1709.
If we take Pope's own word, they had been composed when he
was sixteen. Parts, at least, had been written a year or two later,
and none assumed their final form until both numbers and language


## p. 69 (#93) ##############################################

Windsor Forest.
Messiah
69
had been assiduously polished. The paper is still extant, contain-
ing a list of passages drawn up by Pope, with which he was dis-
satisfied and alternatives appended for Walsh's choice. But the
pastoral was a dying form of poetry into which fresh blood could not
now be infused. Writing among country sights and sounds, Pope has,
at the utmost, two or three descriptive touches from his own obser-
vation. In his ironical criticism in The Guardian, Pope remarked
that Philips, in his Pastorals, gave ‘manifest proof of his knowledge
of books’; his own amply deserve this praise. He had gleaned,
not from Theocritus and Vergil alone, but from Spenser, Sidney,
Drummond, Milton, Waller, Dryden, Congreve, Walsh and Sannazaro.
The real merit of the Pastorals lay in the versification. The new
poet was clearly possessed of a quite exceptional metrical skill.
Windsor Forest (1713) belongs, in great part, to the period
of the Pastorals. It is no longer a purely literary exercise, but
an attempt to apply observation and reading to a larger theme.
The design, for which Pope was indebted to Denham's Cooper's
Hill, was to combine a description of the countryside and
field-sports with the historical and literary associations of the
district. He was induced to add the lines after I. 290 by Lord
Lansdowne (George Granville), who was anxious that he should
praise the peace of Utrecht. It must be confessed that Pope
is not strong in the appreciation of natural scenery, although
Wordsworth was pleased to allow that a passage or two in Windsor
Forest contained new images of external nature. Pope's treat-
ment is largely conventional, and the atmosphere is spoilt by one
of the worst faults of pseudo-classicism--the Mars-Bacchus-Apollo
element. The plumage of the dying pheasant may be over-elabo-
rated; still, it is distinctly pleasing to find a recognition that other
of God's creatures besides man have a right to enjoy themselves
on this earth. But, in his pastoral and sylvan efforts, Pope had
,
now clearly shown that, as a nature poet, he was not in advance
of his age. Thomson was yet to come.
The sacred eclogue Messiah was printed in The Spectator for
14 May 1712. In his attempt to pour the Messianic prophecies
of Isaiah into the mould of a Vergilian eclogue, Pope, in spite
of an undeniable impressiveness, lowered their majesty by artificial
epithet and paraphrase. It is curious to note how gradually the
false attitude came home to critics. Warton and Bowles use very
guarded language when suggesting that, in a few passages, Pope
had weakened the sublimity of Isaiah. It was Wordsworth who
cited the poem as an illustration of artificial poetic diction.


## p. 70 (#94) ##############################################

70
Pope
E
]
An Essay on Criticism, which appeared in 1711, was, apparently,
written in 1709, though Pope attempted afterwards to assign
its composition to an earlier date. It was natural that, being
studiously careful of his form, with the examples of Horace, Vida
and Boileau before him (not to mention Roscommon and Bucking-
hamshire), he should try to discuss the principles of his art. He
gave his poem, indeed, the title An Essay on Criticism; but it is
clear that he is addressing not so much the ingenuous reader as
the intending writer. He once said that he had digested all the
matter in prose before he began it in verse; but, according to
Jonathan Richardson, he often spoke of the Essay as an irregular
collection of thoughts, thrown together as they offered themselves,
as Horace's Art of Poetry was. ' And this would seem a true
description, for Pope was not a pioneer. He did not aim at leading
his generation along new ways, but at recalling them to paths
trodden by the ancients. Originality, even from the point of view
of his own days, is not to be expected from him. But, though
he inevitably insisted on truths which may now appear obvious,
his genius for conciseness and epigram has stamped many a truth
of this nature with the form that it must wear for all time. With
the Essay, Pope became famous.
Young Lord Petre, by snipping a lock of Miss Fermor's hair,
had caused ill-feeling between the families. Pope was invited by
his friend Caryll to allay this by taking the theme for a playful
poem. The Rape of the Lock, in its first form, was written within
a fortnight and published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany, 1712.
For the genre, Pope was indebted to Boileau's Lutrin, as Boileau
had been to Tassoni's Secchia Rapita ; but, in its blending of
mock-heroic, satire and delicate fancy, this exquisite specimen
of filigree work, as Hazlitt called it, remains unmatched. Pope's
hand was never happier than in adding to the original sketch his
machinery of sylphs and gnomes. But his genius for touching
appears throughout. Nothing could better illustrate Pope's
methods of working than to turn to the earlier version of the six
lines beginning canto i 13, and to watch how vastly each one has
been improved. The parody of Sarpedon's speech in the fifth canto
was not introduced till the edition of 1717. In Germany, The Rape
gave rise to a long series of imitations.
Two poems, of uncertain date, appear first in the volume of
1717: Eloisa to Abelard and the Elegy to the Memory of an
Unfortunate Lady. In these, Pope made a sustained attempt
to present pathos and passion. To modern taste, his emotion is


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71
Eloisa to Abelard. Epistles
too rhetorical. The lady's personality and fate are vague. Pope's
puzzling note darkened the mystery. Research has shown that,
while the death and details were imaginary, his warm sympathy
for Mrs Weston was the basis on which the poem was built. But,
the gleaning of phrases, the dexterous piecing together of parts of a
poem, are hardly suited for the expression of deep and spontaneous
feeling. It is possible that a poet may brood for long over a cruel
bereavement and yet not destroy the impression of sincerity by the
elaborate treatment of his grief. Such genuine emotion, however,
as is embodied in Pope's poem seems hardly deep or definite
enough to give warmth to the whole. The feeling has been
fondled for a literary purpose.
The material for Eloisa was taken from John Hughes's trans-
lation of a French paraphrase of the Latin epistles that passed
under the names of Abelard and Eloisa. The motive is the
struggle in her heart between her human passion for Abelard and
her dedication to the service of God. In the background of the
poem, the convent of the Paraclete and its surroundings, there are
touches which anticipate the romantic feeling for natural scenery
and architecture. A writer of our own time can still say of the
poem, Ce n'est pas seulement une des expressions les plus fortes
de la passion qui aient été données, c'est la seule qui existe de
l'amour absolu? But it may be doubted whether, in Pope's fervid
tones, we are listening to the voice of nature and passion and not
rather to a piece of superb declamation.
Whatever exception may be taken to his attempts in the higher
sphere of passion, Pope's sense of friendship, and something
further which it is not easy to define, are expressed with singular
charm in his Epistles to Mr Jervas, to a Young Lady with the
works of Voiture and to the Same on her leaving the Town after
the Coronation. It is characteristic that the last two Epistles
were written, in the first instance, for Teresa Blount, and trans-
ferred afterwards to her younger sister Martha. At this time,
Pope seems to have been specially susceptible to female influence.
How much genuine feeling and how much conventional gallantry
made up his attitude to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, it might be
hard to determine. The most likely explanation of the bitterness
with which he assailed her in after years is to be found in her own
statement, that a declaration of passionate love provoked on her
side an immoderate fit of laughter. On the other hand, it was
1 Montégut, Emile, 'Heures de Lecture d'un Critique : Pope,' Revue des deux Mondes,
15 March 1888.


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72
Pope
.
his fondness of thirty years for Martha Blount, at times misunder-
stood, that helped him through the long disease of his life.
Pope's literary activity in this first stretch of his career was
singularly varied. Any dramatic work was confined to a share
in Gay and Arbuthnot's Three Hours after Marriage. His Ode
for Music on Saint Cecilia's Day marks the absence of the lyrical
gift. His other attempts to sing were of the slightest ; but there
is enough variety in the rest to show the directions in which he
could turn his extraordinary technical skill. We miss any indi-
cation of what was to be the main subject of his matured art.
And, just when we might have expected him to plan a great
original work, he binds himself to years of translation, and, this
task over, we find him in a new field. Pope has been described ,
at this stage, as a potential romanticist, and we are conscious,
in more than one of his poems, of feelings that faded away and
a promise that was never fulfilled. Something must be allowed
to the spirit of the times, something to his long term of hard
labour on his Homer, something to advancing years. For Pope
aged early: to his gayer youth succeeded a more or less invalid
middle age, which might itself account for a change of tone and
a restriction in his choice of subject. The psychology of poetic
creation is a perilous topic; but it would seem that his fervour
was frequently kindled, not so much by the theme itself as by the
consciousness of literary effort in treating it; that, in short, his in-
spiration grew in the course of composition. The main features of
his style were now formed. Change of taste has done its worst with
them; but it is unfair to construct an idea of the essential from the
accidents of bis art. At his best, he is signally direct, free from
artificial balance, otiose epithets and pseudo-classical periphrasis.
The nature of many of his winged words is responsible for the
belief that Pope's qualities were hard and prosaic. But the exact
matching of thought with speech, making any other mode of expres-
sion inconceivable, is not less remarkable in passages where the
idea is more poetical. Pope did not restrict himself to conversa-
tional language: his style is exceptionally rich in apt reminiscences
of other writers. But his acquaintance with men of the world, at
a time when literature held little aloof from everyday life made him
sensitively aware what his audience demanded. In this respect, the
age of Anne may be called Augustan. Its chief men wrote primarily
for the few. Pope has been compared to Horace, from whom he
widely differs in much else. But the curiosa felicitas of both was
1 Montégut, Emilo, op. cit.


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Pope's Workmanship and Style 73
connected with the same instinct. One of the conditions of Pope's
correctness was that no extravagance or solecism should offend
his reader's taste. His early devotion to books has been described.
'I had rather,' he confided to Spence, ‘be employed in reading
than in the most agreeable conversation'; and, in all that he read,
his tenacious memory and sense for apt expression never slumbered.
Individual as his style remains, its fabric is many a time woven
with threads drawn from another's web. But he was no plagiarist.
The form of words is borrowed or adapted to fit a thought of his
own that already asked for utterance. We are reminded again
and again of the advantage to which he had studied Milton and
Waller and Dryden, and many another predecessor, besides taking
hints from contemporaries. Many passages of this kind were noted
by Warton and Wakefield and later editors, and a closer search will
bring more to light. Pope is not one of those writers who are
never at a loss for a word, still less for ten. His style rests on his
oriental patience in elaborating his art. 'I corrected,' he observes
in his preface of 1717, 'because it was as pleasant to me to correct
as to write,' and a study of their gradual growth proves that, in
many of his lines, the finest touches are due to second intentions.
Thus
And strike to dust th’ imperial tow'rs of Troy1
owes its full effectiveness to an afterthought, and the inevitable
couplet that tells of fit instruments of illº is an improvement on an
earlier attempt. Autographs, proof-sheets and revised editions all
attest his passion for retouching. 'I will make my enemy do me
a kindness when he meant an injury,' he writes to Caryll, “and so
serve instead of a friend'; and he blotted lines that Dennis had
condemned. In minute care of workmanship, he has not been out-
done by Tennyson. The sense of the supreme importance of polish
was a legacy from Augustan Rome. The endeavour for compactness
makes Pope, at times, ungrammatical or obscure. Austin Dobson
has characterised his age:
When Phoebus touch'd the Poet's trembling ear
With one supreme commandment, Be thou Clear 3.
But, in An Essay on Criticism, where there is need above all to
be lucid, Pope, more than once, sins by ambiguity, as, again, in An
Essay on Man. The metrical principles which he followed from
an early period were expounded in a letter to Cromwell. He
1 The Rape of the Lock, canto III, 1. 174.
3 Ibid. 11. 125–6.
: A Dialogue to the memory of Mr Alexander Pope; Collected Poems, 1897, p. 304.


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74
Pope
excepts against hiatus, the use of expletives, monosyllabic lines-
unless very artfully managed-the repetition of the same rimes
within four or six lines and the too frequent use of alexandrines;
and recommends that the same pause in the verse should not be
continued for more than three lines in succession.
Pope has been charged with monotony in his management of
the heroic couplet. The surprising thing is that he should have
achieved so much variety. He was extraordinarily dexterous in
varying the music of his verse within the limits he had set himself.
The effect is due to change in pause and beat, a judicious attention
to the number of syllables in his words, with an unobtrusive
employment of every degree of alliteration and of what may be
called the opposite of alliteration, as in
Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day! .
The charge that, with Pope, the couplet is almost exclusively the
unit of composition requires qualification. At his best, we find
him working with the larger unit of the paragraph. As the ideas
of a prose-writer using short independent sentences are not neces-
sarily less consecutive than those developed in lengthy periods,
so Pope, by avoiding enjambement, is not compelled to express a
series of disconnected thoughts. A study of his more careful
paragraphs shows, too, with what art he extended alliteration
over the boundaries of the couplet and studied the music of the
larger division. The most serious fault which can be detected is
that his ear for rime was not so delicate as his sense of rhythm,
When all allowance has been made for the pronunciation of his
day, there still remain a large number of unsatisfactory rimes.
Weakness, too, is shown in the repetition of the same set of rimes
after too short an interval, and the employment of others too close
in sound to those immediately preceding.
Before the end of the period whose productions are contained
in the Works of 1717, he had already published the first instalment
of his most laborious enterprise. He once observed that, had he
not undertaken his translation of the Iliad, he would certainly
have written an epic poem. Towards the close of his life, he formed
a plan for one on Brutus of Troy; but Conington has well remarked
that Pope's sympathy with epic grandeur was the sympathy of art,
not of kindred inspiration. So far back as 9 April 1708, we find
Trumbull, in a letter to Pope, acknowledging the receipt of the
Sarpedon episode in the Iliad, afterwards published in Tonson's
Miscellany, and renewing a request that he would translate 'that
Epistle to Robert Earl of Oxford, and Earl Mortimer, 1. 38.