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RUPE


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11711
ALEXANDER POPE
(1688-1744)
BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
LEXANDER POPE, the foremost English poet of the eighteenth
century, was born in Lombard Street, London, on May
21st, 1688, and died at Twickenham, May 30th, 1744.
In our
literature he is the earliest man of letters pure and simple. With
that pursuit previous writers had mingled other avocations, if indeed
literature itself had not been with them an avocation amid the dis-
traction of other pursuits. Chaucer was a soldier and a diplomatist.
Spenser was a government official. Shakespeare was an actor, besides
being connected with the management of the company of which he
was a member. Milton was an eager and earnest participant in the
fierce religious and political strife of his time. Even Dryden held a
position in the civil service. But Pope was never anything else than
a man of letters. That career he had chosen from the first; and to
it he remained faithful to the last.
It was mainly due to choice; partly it was a result of necessity.
He was the son of a linen-draper who was a Roman Catholic; and
Pope, though almost a latitudinarian in matters of religion, stood
stanchly to the end by the faith of his parents. His creed accord-
ingly shut him out of all the posts of profit and sinecures with which
it was then not uncommon to reward literary merit. Even had it
been otherwise, it is not likely that he would have been turned aside
from his choice by the attraction of any other pursuit. In his case
the Muse cannot be said to have been ungrateful. To him in a
most unusual sense poetry was its own exceeding great reward. It
lifted him to a station such as no man of letters before his time had
ever attained, and few have attained since,- and this too in spite
of obstacles that it might seem would have put an effectual bar in
the way of success. A member of a proscribed religious body, with
no advantages of birth and fortune, with every disadvantage of per-
sonal appearance, he raised himself by the sheer force of genius
to a position of equality with the highest of the land. Unplaced,
untitled, he became the companion and friend of nobles and minis-
ters of State, without in a single instance sacrificing his personal self-
respect, or appearing even to his bitterest foes in the light of a
dependent upon the favor of the great.


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ALEXANDER POPE
11712
In one way this extraordinary success was due to good fortune.
Pope saw the beginning of the end of the system of patronage, and
was to profit more than any one else by the method of publication by
subscription — which to some extent took its place in the transition
that was going on to the system of publication now in force. Before
his time authors generally relied for their support, not on the sale of
their works, but upon the gifts received from the wealthy and power-
ful. To them they dedicated their productions, usually in terms of
fulsome eulogy; from them they received a reward varying with the
feelings and character of the bestower. The extravagant praise given
to ordinary men in these dedications by Pope's great predecessor has
cast something of a stain upon the reputation of Dryden; though all
that can be justly said against him was that in the general daubing
which every patron at that time received, his was the hand that laid
on the plaster with most skill and most effectiveness. But Pope was
reduced to no such sad necessity. The publication by subscription of
his translation of the Iliad, completed when he was but little over
thirty years old, with the subsequent translation of the Odyssey,
brought out in a similar way, made him pecuniarily independent. He
was never forced in consequence to resort for his subsistence to any
of those shifts and mean devices-as they appear at least from the
modern point of view-to which many of his most eminent contem-
poraries betook themselves either from choice or from necessity. Not
merely his example, but also his precepts, tended to bring the whole
system of patronage into disrepute. All these feelings about the early
adverse conditions which had surrounded him, and the success with
which he had triumphed over them, came to his mind when late in
life-it was in the year 1737 - he brought out his imitation of the
second epistle of the second book of Horace. In these following
lines, possessed of special biographic interest, he recalled the disabil-
ities under which he and his parents had suffered, and expressed his
joy in the right he had earned to boast that Homer had made him
independent of the favor of the powerful:-
"Bred up at home, full early I begun
To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus's son.
Besides, my father taught me from a lad
The better art to know the good from bad
(And little sure imported to remove,
To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learned grove):
But knottier points we knew not half so well
Deprived us soon of our paternal cell;
And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust,
Denied all posts of profit or of trust:
Hopes after hopes of pious Papists failed,
While mighty William's thundering arm prevailed.


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ALEXANDER POPE
11713
For right hereditary taxed and fined,
He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
And me the Muses helped to undergo it:
Convict a Papist he, and I a poet.
But (thanks to Homer) since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive,
Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes,
If I would scribble rather than repose.
Years following years steal something every day,
At last they steal us from ourselves away;
In one our frolics, one amusements end,
In one a mistress drops, in one a friend:
This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,
What will it leave me if it snatch my rhyme?
If every wheel of that unwearied mill,
That turned ten thousand verses, now stands still ? »
In many respects Pope's life was peculiarly uneventful in the
usually uneventful life of an author. His father quitted his business
while the son was still a child, and took up his residence at Binfield
in Berkshire, on the northern border of Windsor Forest. From that
place he went in 1716 to Chiswick. In October of the following year
he died. Early in 1718 Pope left Chiswick, and removed with his
mother to Twickenham, about twelve miles from the centre of the
city of London proper. There he leased a house surrounded with five
acres on the banks of the Thames. On the adornment and improve-
ment of these grounds he spent henceforth time, thought, and money.
Through them ran the highway from Hampton Court to London, and
the two portions of his property were connected by a tunnel under
the road. This underground passage, styled a grotto, possessed a
spring; and was adorned with shells, corals, crystals, and in general
with an assortment of natural curiosities, to which Dr. Johnson in
his life of the poet applies the name of "fossil bodies. " This grotto
became noted; and references to it are by no means unfrequent in
the literature of the day. Twickenham remained henceforth Pope's
home, and his residence in it made it even during his lifetime classic
ground. From that place he ruled with almost undisputed sway over
English letters, making and unmaking reputations by the praise or
blame he bestowed in a single line.
Pope had almost from his infancy been devoted to literature.
He never really knew what it was to be a boy. His health, always
delicate, would not have endured the close confinement and hard
application of any rigid system of training. As he was a Catholic,
he could not have attended a public school had he so wished. That
deprivation was to him however no misfortune. Sickly and deformed,
precocious and sensitive, he would have been little at home in that
XX-733


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11714
ALEXANDER POPE
brutal boy-world, which spares the feelings of no comrade on the
ground of personal or mental defects. Accordingly he was thrown
from his earliest years upon the society of books and of his elders.
Taught mainly by private tutors and schoolmasters more
or less
incapable, his education was mainly of a desultory character; and
for the best part of it he was indebted to himself. For his purposes
it was probably none the worse on that account. Living a secluded
life in the country, he early manifested all the tastes and aspira-
tions of the born man of letters. While yet a mere boy he made
translations into verse, he wrote an epic, he wrote a tragedy; and
long before he reached his majority, he had displayed powers which
attracted the attention of men prominent in the social and literary
world.
His active career as a man of letters began with the publication
of his 'Pastorals. ' These appeared in 1709 in the sixth volume of
Tonson's Miscellany. Never was there a kind of literature more
unreal and conventional than that to which they belonged, though
our ancestors persuaded themselves, or affected to believe, that it was
a return to the simplicity of nature. The poetical pieces of the char-
acter then written are the most artificial products of an artificial age.
At their best no inhabitant of either city or country ever talked or
felt in real life as did those who are represented as bearing a part in
their dialogue; at their worst they were so expressionless as to re-
semble much more the bleating of sheep than the song of shepherds.
Yet they had been made a fashion. Those of Pope were received
with great contemporary applause, which, so far as the melody of the
numbers was concerned, was fully deserved. Following these on not
altogether dissimilar lines was the descriptive poem Windsor For-
est,' which came out in 1712. At a later period Pope apparently
learned to despise the taste which had inspired these productions.
"Who could take offense," he said, referring to them,
"While pure description took the place of sense? »
A far more worthy and substantial success was achieved by the
'Essay on Criticism,' which appeared in 1711. Pope was but twenty-
three years old at the time of its publication. The production,
however, is a remarkable one in many ways. The rules and maxims
are indeed little more than commonplaces; but the skill with which
they are expressed makes this poem, considering its character and
the youth of its writer, one of the most signal illustrations of pre-
cocity which our literature furnishes. In it in particular occur a
number of those pointed lines which have contributed to render Pope,
with the single exception of Shakespeare, the most frequently quoted
author in our speech. To "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,"


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ALEXANDER POPE
11715
and "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," are perhaps the
most familiar of the numerous sayings, which, occurring originally
in this poem, are now heard from the lips of everybody. But these,
as has been indicated, are far from being the only ones; while the
following comparison of the increasing difficulties that invariably
wait upon effort to reach the highest place has always been justly
admired:-
-
"So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales and seem to tread the sky;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthened way;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes;
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise. »
The greatest success, however, of Pope's early career was his mock-
heroic poem of the Rape of the Lock. ' This appeared in its origi-
nal form in 1712, but its present much enlarged form belongs to 1714.
The poem stands by itself in our literature. There is none like it;
and it may not be too much to say that in no literature is there
anything of the kind equaling it. The productions already mentioned,
with the Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady' and the
epistle of 'Eloïsa to Abélard,' constitute the most important contri-
butions that Pope made to English literature before he had completed
his version of the Iliad. They stand largely distinct in spirit and in
matter from the work of his later years. Some of them address the
emotional side of our nature, as contrasted with the appeal to the
purely intellectual side which is the distinguishing note of everything
written after the publication of the translation of the Odyssey. To
use his own words, he thenceforward
"Stooped to truth, and moralized his song»;
though this is a line which expresses his own belief rather than his
actual performance. These early productions brought him general
reputation, and the personal friendship of men eminent in the world.
of society and of letters. The good opinion of all was confirmed by
the publication of his translation of the Iliad, the first installment of
which was published in 1715, and the last as late as 1720.
It was this work which at that time established Pope's reputation
and fortune on a secure basis. To some extent it was necessity that
led him to undertake it, rather than strong desire or special qualifi-
cation. His father's fortune, whatever it was, had been reduced by
investments that turned out unfortunately. His own original work
had been paid for on a scale which the pettiest author of the present


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11716
ALEXANDER POPE
age would deem beggarly. For the 'Rape of the Lock,' for instance,
in its first form, he had received but seven pounds; for the additions
to it, nearly tripling its length, fifteen pounds was the sum paid.
But the publication of the translation of the Iliad netted him over
five thousand pounds; and the subsequent translation of the Odyssey,
after paying his fellow-workers, Brome and Fenton, added to this
amount the further sum of three thousand pounds. Henceforth he
was pecuniarily independent. Even far greater was the accession to
his literary reputation. The translation of the Iliad, when completed,
placed him at the undisputed headship of English men of letters then
living. The subsequent fortunes of his version may be thought to
justify the enthusiasm with which it was received. There had been
three other translations of Homer before his own; those that have
followed, or are to follow, are as the sands of the sea for number.
Yet during the whole period that has elapsed since its publication,
Pope's version has never ceased to hold its place. Other translations
may more accurately reflect the spirit of the original; other transla-
tions may be more faithful to the sense: the one executed by him
has the supreme distinction of being readable.
The publication of his version of the two Homeric epics was fol-
lowed by his edition of the works of Shakespeare. This came out in
1725. It was a task Pope had no business to undertake; for his time
was too precious to be spent in text-correction and annotation, and
he had neither the leisure nor the taste to engage in that minute
and painstaking research which makes such correction or annotation
of real and permanent value. The edition was a general disappoint-
ment. In the year after its appearance Theobald (or Tibbald, as the
name is sometimes spelled) brought out a critical treatise with the
not altogether conciliatory title of Shakspear restored; or a Speci-
men of The Many Errors committed as well as unamended by Mr.
Pope in his late edition of this Poet. ' Yet in spite of these some-
what suggestive words, the reviewer expressed a good deal of respect
for the poet, though it was for him as a poet and not as a com-
mentator. Even in the latter capacity, he cannot fairly be deemed to
have exceeded the legitimate province of that criticism which is al-
ways held to justify an exultant yell over a real or fancied blunder
made by another scholar. But the comparative moderation of Theo-
bald did him no good. Of all the irritable race of authors, Pope was
the one least disposed to forget or forgive. This particular treatise
was the occasion of his bringing out, what he had long had in mind,
an attack on the whole body of minor authors, with whose venomous
but vigorous mediocrity his own sensitiveness had brought him into
conflict. Accordingly in 1728 appeared the 'Dunciad,' in three books,
with Theobald for hero as the supreme dunce.


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ALEXANDER POPE
11717
It shows the influence of a man of genius both over contem-
poraries and posterity, that the reputation of Theobald has never
recovered from the effects of this blow. He was undoubtedly a very
ordinary poet, and as a critic the best that can be said of him is
that he was as poor as the average members of that fraternity. But
as an editor there had been none before to compare with him, and
there have been very few since, amid the countless number who have
attacked the text of the great dramatist. His edition of Shakespeare,
which came out in 1733, effectually put Pope's in the shade then,
and has been ever since the storehouse upon which later commenta-
tors have drawn for their readings, even while engaged in depreciat-
ing the man to whom they owe the corrections they have adopted.
For Theobald was on the whole one of the acutest as well as one of
the most painstaking of textual critics. Yet in consequence of Pope's
attack he was held up at the time as one of the dullest of mortals,
and is often termed so now by men who are duller than he ever con-
ceived of any one's being. One of the last acts of Pope's life was to
dethrone him from the position to which he had been raised. The
proceeding was eminently characteristic of the poet. His publication
of the fourth book of the 'Dunciad' in 1742 led to a pamphlet, in the
shape of a letter addressed to him, by Colley Cibber. So stung was
he by the laureate's attack that he recast the whole 'Dunciad' in
1743, with the fourth book added; and in place of Theobald put his
later antagonist, whose qualities and attainments were almost exactly
the reverse of those of his original hero.
The publication of the Dunciad' marks the turning-point in
Pope's literary career. Henceforth his writings were of a philo-
sophical cast, like the 'Essay on Man,' which came out in four parts
from 1732 to 1734; or semi-philosophical and semi-satirical, as in the
'Moral Essays'; or mainly satirical, as in the 'Imitations of Horace. '
These imitations were wonderful exhibitions of ingenuity and skill.
Pope took particular satires and epistles of the Latin poet, and clev-
erly applied to contemporary characters and to modern times and
conditions the sentiments expressed by his model. In the composi-
tion of them his peculiar powers shone out at their best. One or
two of these pieces are in a measure autobiographical. An offshoot
of the 'Imitations' the Prologue to the Satires,' printed below —
is especially marked by this characteristic, and on the whole is the
most striking of all. It labors at present, as indeed all satirical work
must eventually labor, under the general ignorance that has come to
prevail about facts and persons once widely known; and the sting
that once caused keen pain to the victim and keener delight to con-
temporaries, is now not appreciated by the mass of even educated
readers. Still the point and venom are there; and so long as fuller


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11718
ALEXANDER POPE
knowledge is accessible, change of time or circumstance can never
destroy the pungency and force of the lines, however much they may
impair belief in the justice of the attack. The picture, for instance,
of Addison under the name of Atticus, found in this prologue, may
be as grossly unfair as his partisans maintain; but while letters live,
that cruel characterization will never be dissociated from his memory,
and will always suggest doubt even when it does not carry convic-
tion.
The greatness of Addison has made this portrait familiar, and its
references easily understood. There are in Pope's works plenty of
similar passages, almost if not quite as powerful in their way; but
the subtle irony of personalities, that once made them widely read
and keenly enjoyed, now falls unheeded, save by the few who have
taken the pains to become fully acquainted with the minor charac-
ters and events of the time. The satirist, in truth, must always
sacrifice to some extent the future to the present. If Pope himself
appreciated the fact, he must have felt that for the coming loss he
was receiving some compensation in the actual terror he inspired.
About the extent of that there can be no question. He was dreaded
as no author before or since has been dreaded, and he exulted in the
consciousness of the power he wielded. "Yes, I am proud," he said
in the Epilogue to the Satires, '—
((—
-I must be proud, to see
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me:
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone. »
It was an obvious answer to all this,-and Pope did not fail to have
his attention called to it,- that a somewhat similar statement could
be made about a mad dog. Nor at the time could the possession of
this power conduce to a really enviable reputation, outside of the
comparatively limited circle with which he was closely connected,
and which naturally shared in his sentiments and prejudices. During
his life it is plain that suspicions were entertained, even by many
most disposed to admire him, that he was not as attractive in his
character as he was in his writings. In spite of the respect paid to
its sting, a hornet is not a creature to which any popular sympathy
clings. This feeling about him has increased since the devious course
he often pursued has been in these later times completely exposed.
The character of Pope is indeed the most peculiar and puzzling
of that of any author of our literature. His impatience under attack
was excessive; and when his hostility was once aroused, the viru-
lence of his dislike or hatred seemed thenceforth never to experi-
ence abatement. Occasionally too he expressed himself with a ferocity


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ALEXANDER POPE
11719
that bore a close resemblance to malignity. The violence of his
language, indeed, not unfrequently impaired the effectiveness of his
invective. It certainly sometimes exceeded the bounds of decency
and sense. The terms in which he came to speak of Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, to whom he had once professed something more.
than friendship, were simply unpardonable, no matter what the real
or fancied injury he may have suffered. There is something to be
said in palliation of his course, in fact something in the case of
certain persons which approaches justification. The age was a coarse
one; and literary combatants used towards each other the coarsest
language. Pope himself had early been subjected to contumely.
out of all proportion to the provocation he had given. By Dennis
in his remarks upon the Essay on Criticism' he had been styled a
"humpbacked toad. " Comments upon his personal deformities — and
such were not infrequent- he took deeply to heart; and these he
not only never forgave, he took care to repay in kind the abuse of
which he had been made the object. But on every side he was thin-
skinned. It was his abnormal sensitiveness to criticism that led to
the long war he carried on with the petty writers of the time, whom
he classed together under the general name of dunces. The contest
was only saved from being wholly ignoble by the marvelous ability
he brought to the work of waging it. But outside of any pretexts
furnished by the action of his opponents, he loved personalities for
their own sake. "Touch me," he wrote, "and no minister so sore. "
He adds:-
-
"Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme;
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burthen of some merry song. ».
The most singular thing about his character was, that while in
his controversies he was at times moved by some of the meanest
passions that can stir the heart, he sincerely regarded himself as
actuated by the purest and loftiest motives. It was, to use his own
words, the strong antipathy of good to bad, that led him to attack
those who had incurred his dislike, either on social, or political, or
literary grounds. It is needless to add that in his opinion those who
had incurred his dislike were invariably contemptible and vile. In
this matter he may or may not have imposed upon others; but there
is little reason to doubt that he imposed upon himself. No one
was ever more under the influence of that pleasing self-flattery which
tempts a man to give to his ill-nature the name of virtuous indigna-
tion. According to his own account he was engaged in a holy war
against vice, in whatever station of life it presented itself. Nor is


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11720
ALEXANDER POPE
this all. He himself was, if anything, more fond of the reputation of
being a good than a great man; and in order to secure the name of
it, stood constantly ready to sacrifice the thing. His life was largely
made up of a series of strategic devices to persuade the public that
he was by nature incapable of the very acts he was engaged in per-
petrating. If these things contributed to the benefit of his reputation
with his contemporaries, they have damaged him irretrievably with
posterity, now that his devious tracks have been fully explored.
This characteristic was most fully exemplified in his epistolary
correspondence,- both in its matter and the means he took to secure
its publication. His letters are not really letters; they are rather
little essays, short and somewhat tedious moral discourses. In fact,
Pope, when he wrote prose, wrote with his left hand. The difference
between it and his verse is everywhere plainly marked, but nowhere
more so than in the correspondence, which was brought out under
his own supervision. Never were letters more artificial. They are
particularly distinguished for the lofty moral sentiments they contain.
The impression they give of him is of a man animated by the most
exalted feelings that belong to humanity. Yet we know now that
they were never written as they were published. The correspondence
he carried on in his youth with Wycherley was so altered that the
parts the two writers played were completely reversed; and until a
recent period all biographers and literary historians have been de-
ceived by the mutilations of the originals then made. It was even
worse in the subsequent publication of his correspondence. He had
recalled the letters he wrote; and when time had made it safe, he
brought them out with dates changed, with contents dismembered,
and addressed to eminent persons then dead who had never had the
pleasure of receiving them while living. The elaborate scheme he
planned and carried out so as to appear in the light of being forced
for his own protection to publish this correspondence, reads like the
plot of a cheap and particularly villainous melodrama. For us the
effect of all these elaborate devices has been rendered absolutely
nugatory by the accidental discovery, in the middle of this century,
of transcripts of the original letters made before they were returned.
It is the barest act of justice to Pope to state that there was much
in his surroundings to explain these peculiarities in his proceedings,
though it is impossible to condone them.
His family professed a per-
secuted religion; and in the anti-Catholic reaction that followed the
expulsion of James II. , their situation must often have been disagree-
able. The boy was necessarily brought up in that atmosphere of
evasion and intrigue by which the weak strive to protect themselves
from the strong, seeking to secure by trickery what could not be
wrested from law. It was not a school to encourage the development


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ALEXANDER POPE
11721
of openness and manliness. Indirection to those thus nurtured tends
to become a second nature. Besides this, there were bodily defects
which probably exerted an influence of their own upon the poet's
nature. His life was, as he himself said, a long disease; and his per-
sonal appearance was such that his enemies delighted to call him a
monster. Deformity of the body sometimes reacts upon the charac-
ter; and Pope seems to have been one to whom this principle in a
measure applies. On the other hand, there is a good deal to be said
in his favor. In many respects he was an example to even good
men. Never was there a more pious and devoted son. He constantly
interested himself in behalf of the unfortunate who had gained his
sympathy or had engaged his respect. Furthermore, he early secured
the esteem of a number of persons whose friendship was always
an honor and was sometimes fame; and there must have been much
in his character to inspire respect and affection, or he could not have
earned a regard which was never given lightly, and would have been
withdrawn had there not existed qualities to retain it.
From Pope the man it is much more satisfactory to turn to Pope
the writer. The first thing that here arrests the attention is the esti-
mate in which he was held by his own generation. No poet of any
previous period in English literature ever attained like success, per-
haps no poet of any period. The critical attitude of the nineteenth
century is so different from the attitude of the eighteenth, that so
far from the former being able to sympathize with the sentiments of
the latter, it is hardly able to understand them. The view taken
of Pope by his contemporaries and immediate successors is some-
thing ordinarily incomprehensible to the modern man. In their eyes.
he was not merely a great poet; there was no greater English poet.
Some were disposed to reckon him the greatest. He was our Eng-
lish Homer, not merely because he translated him, but because he
stood in the same lofty relation to English poetry that Homer did to
Greek. While there were some who denied, and a few who scoffed
at, this enrollment, theirs was not the prevailing opinion. That was
expressed by Dr. Johnson in his comment on the delay which took
place in the publication of the second volume of Joseph Warton's
'Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope. ' The first had appeared
in 1756. In this, Warton had maintained that Pope did not stand at
the head of his profession; that he was indeed superior to all other
men in the kind of poetry in which he excelled, but that that in
which he excelled was not poetry of the highest kind. Heresy of
this sort was not palatable; at any rate, for some reason the second
volume was not published until 1782. When Boswell in 1763 asked
Johnson why Warton did not bring out the continuation, the latter
gave as the probable reason that the delay was due to the writer's


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11722
ALEXANDER POPE
disappointment at his inability to persuade the world to be of his
opinion in regard to Pope.
Certainly no English author, with the possible exception of Chau-
cer, so profoundly influenced the men of his own generation and of
those immediately succeeding. No author so impressed his peculiari-
ties of style and diction upon his followers. There is scarcely a poet
of the eighteenth century, outside of one or two of the first class, in
whose writings the imitation of Pope, conscious or unconscious, can-
not be found upon every page. Most of these authors have now sunk
into oblivion, or are known only to the special student; but their
number was legion, and several of them had in their day a good deal
of repute.
It was comparatively easy to catch Pope's manner, or
rather mannerisms,—the careful balancing of the two divisions of the
line, the antithesis of clause and of meaning, the almost monotonous
melody of the measure: but what was not easy to any, and to most
was impossible, was to impart to the verse the vigor which attracted
to it attention, and the point which riveted it in the memory; the
curious felicity of expression which gave to the obvious the aspect
of the striking; and more than all, the occasional loftiness of senti-
ment and diction which lifted the numbers from the region of artifice,
where so many of them belonged, into the atmosphere of creative
art.
As there was no justification for Pope's title to supremacy among
English poets, the reaction against the unreasonable claims set up in
his behalf brought him in the course of time into undeserved depre-
ciation. The revolt against his methods and style, which began in
the latter half of the last century, led to an undervaluation of his
achievement as undue as had been the exaggerated estimate previ-
ously taken. So far from his being deemed the greatest of English
poets, it became a matter of dispute whether he was a poet at all.
The literary tournament as to his merits and defects that went on in
the first quarter of the present century, in which Bowles, Byron, and
Campbell took part, is the most celebrated, though by no means the
only one, of the controversies started by the discussion as to his posi-
tion. The wits of Blackwood's Magazine felicitated themselves in
consequence with the thought that there was one subject for critical
disquisition that could never be exhausted. This inestimable treasure
was the question as to whether Pope was a poet. It would assuredly
be a very arbitrary and narrow definition of the word that would
reject him from the class. Still there is no doubt that the reaction
was, at one time at least, powerful enough to cause him to be widely
depreciated. Derogatory opinion of his work is indeed still frequently
expressed by men who have clearly not gone through that prelimi-
nary preparation for judging his writings which consists in reading


## p. 11723 (#347) ##########################################

ALEXANDER POPE
11723
them; and who often in condemning him resort to the very phrases
he originated, to express their own scanty ideas.
But no writer continues to remain a classic to successive genera-
tions without having very substantial claims to the position he has
achieved. Over a large number of men Pope will always exercise a
peculiar attraction. These are those to whom the poetry of the un-
derstanding is dear, as contrasted with the poetry of high spiritual
intuitions. Within this limited and lower field Pope is uniformly
excellent, and in many ways unsurpassed. Take him in respect to
the matter of diction. Not even Milton himself was his superior
in the extraordinary technical skill with which the manner is made
to correspond to the matter. His ability in this line was exhibited in
his very first work of importance,—the 'Essay on Criticism,' written
while he was a mere boy. The passage may serve for an illustra-
tion, where he exemplifies the faults he censures in his remarks upon
poetical numbers. The monotony of constantly recurring open vow-
els, the insertion of expletives to fill out the verse, the use of feeble
words, and the employment of the Alexandrine, are not only pointed
out, but are exhibited, in the following lines:-
"These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. "
But the correspondence of sound to sense is even more skillfully
shown in the passage immediately following, in the same poem, in
which the line moves slowly or rapidly, harshly or smoothly, in
accordance with the idea sought to be conveyed:-
-
Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,—
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar:
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. »
Again, in the effect wrought by the apt use of antithesis, Pope has
no superior; it may not be amiss to say he never had a rival. The
description of Addison as Atticus, already referred to, and that of
Lord Hervey under the title of Sporus, both occurring in the 'Pro-
logue to the Satires,' are conspicuous instances of his ability in the


## p. 11724 (#348) ##########################################

ALEXANDER POPE
11724
use of this rhetorical device. Still, the most brilliant illustrations of
his skill in this particular are to be found in the 'Rape of the Lock. '
Here the anticlimax often lends its aid to the effect; but in many
passages the latter is in no way dependent upon the former. Has,
indeed, a finer tribute ever been paid to the universal attraction of a
beautiful woman than in the following antithetical lines, which cele-
brate the heroine of the poem as she appeared upon the Thames?
"On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those:
Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide:
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all. "
It is easy now to decry Pope; but where in any poet have more ex-
quisite compliments been put into so few words? To examples of a
similar character though of different subject- and such are numerous
•
we must add the power of pointed expression, which has converted
so large a number of his lines into the cheap currency of common
quotation; furthermore, the constant recurrence of witty observation
in its most condensed form,-such, for illustration, as can be seen in
the latter half of a couplet like the following, describing a gossiping
conversation:
"A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies. »
Such passages will easily explain the attraction Pope has to men
of keen intellectual aptitudes, and to periods in which men of this
character abound. He is never likely to be a favorite of those indi-
viduals to whom poetry is mainly a source of spiritual comfort, or of
spiritual exaltation. But there are all sorts of tastes in the world;
and in the ever-changing revolution of literary fashions, Pope will
always be sure of a high place, varying in importance with the feel-
ings prevalent at the time, though it is hardly possible that he will
ever regain the position he held in the eighteenth century.
Thomas
R. Lounsbury.


## p. 11725 (#349) ##########################################

ALEXANDER POPE
11725
T
FROM THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM >
Is hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But of the two, less dangerous is th' offense
To tire our patience than mislead our sense.
Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.
A fool might once himself alone expose:
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches,— none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In poets as true genius is but rare,
True taste as seldom is the critic's share:
Both must alike from heaven derive their light,-
These born to judge as well as those to write.
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well:
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment too?
Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind:
Nature affords at least a glimmering light;
The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced,
Is by ill coloring but the more disgraced,
So by false learning is good sense defaced:
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools;
In search of wit these lose their common-sense,
And then turn critics in their own defense;
Each burns alike, who can or cannot write,
Or with a rival's or a eunuch's spite.
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.
Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite,
—
There are who judge still worse than he can write.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride,— the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied
She gives in large recruits of needful pride.


## p. 11726 (#350) ##########################################

11726
ALEXANDER POPE
-
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits swelled with wind;
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defense,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense:
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend — and every foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthened way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves and rapture warms the mind;
Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,
The generous pleasure to be charmed with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning faults one quiet tenor keep,
We cannot blame indeed- but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip or eye we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportioned dome,
(The world's just wonder, and e'en thine, O Rome! )
No single parts unequally surprise,—
All comes united to th' admiring eyes;


## p. 11727 (#351) ##########################################

ALEXANDER POPE
11727
"
No monstrous height, or breadth, or length, appear:
The whole at once is bold and regular.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
In every work regard the writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.
As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,
To avoid great errors must the less commit,—
Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays;
For not to know some trifles is a praise.
Most critics, fond of some subservient art,
Still make the whole depend upon a part:
They talk of principles, but notions prize,
And all to one loved folly sacrifice.
Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glittering thoughts struck out at every line;
Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit,
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,—
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;
Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit;
For works may have more wit than does them good,
As bodies perish through excess of blood.
Others for language all their care express,
And value books, as women men, for dress:
Their praise is still, The style is excellent;
The sense they humbly take upon content.
Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colors spreads on every place;
The face of nature we no more survey,-
All glares alike, without distinction gay:
But true expression, like th' unchanging sun,
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon;
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.


## p. 11728 (#352) ##########################################

11728
ALEXANDER POPE
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent as more suitable.
A vile conceit in pompous words expressed
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed:
For different styles with different subjects sort,
As several garbs with country, town, and court.
But most by numbers judge a poet's song,
And smooth or rough with them is right or wrong:
In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire,
Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line;
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes:
Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line it "whispers through the trees";
If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,"
The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep";
Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense:
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading notion of the town;


## p. 11729 (#353) ##########################################

ALEXANDER POPE
11729
They reason and conclude by precedent,
And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent.
Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then
Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
The vulgar thus through imitation err,
As oft the learned by being singular:
So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng
By chance go right, they purposely go wrong.
So schismatics the plain believers quit,
And are but damned for having too much wit.
Some praise at morning what they blame at night,
But always think the last opinion right.
A Muse by these is like a mistress used, —
This hour she's idolized, the next abused;
While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,
'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.
Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things,
Atones not for that envy which it brings:
In youth alone its empty praise we boast,
But soon the short-lived vanity is lost;
Like some fair flower the early spring supplies,
That gayly blooms, but e'en in blooming dies.
What is this wit, which must our cares employ?
The owner's wife that other men enjoy:
Then most our trouble still when most admired,
And still the more we give, the more required;
Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,
Sure some to vex, but never all to please:
'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun;
By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone!
If wit so much from ignorance undergo,
Ah, let not learning too commence its foe!
Of old those met rewards who could excel,
And such were praised who but endeavored well:
Though triumphs were to generals only due,
Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.
Now they who reach Parnassus's lofty crown
Employ their pains to spurn some others down;
And while self-love each jealous writer rules,
Contending wits become the sport of fools:
But still the worst with most regret commend,
For each ill author is as bad a friend.
To what base ends, and by what abject ways,
Are mortals urged through sacred lust of praise!
XX-734


## p. 11730 (#354) ##########################################

11730
ALEXANDER POPE
Ah, ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast,
Nor in the critic let the man be lost!
Good-nature and good-sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive divine. .
'Tis not enough your counsel still be true:
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.
Without good breeding, truth is disapproved;
That only makes superior sense beloved.
.
'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,
And charitably let the dull be vain;
Your silence there is better than your spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?
Still humming on their drowsy course they keep,
And lashed so long, like tops, are lashed asleep.
False steps but help them to renew the race,
As, after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.
What crowds of these, impenitently bold,
In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,
Still run on poets, in a raging vein,
E'en to the dregs and squeezings of the brain,
Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,
And rhyme with all the rage of impotence!
Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true
There are as mad abandoned critics too.
The bookful blockhead ignorantly read,
With loads of learnèd lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears.
All books he reads, and all he reads assails,
From Dryden's 'Fables' down to Durfey's 'Tales. '
With him most authors steal their works, or buy:
Garth did not write his own 'Dispensary. '
Name a new play, and he's the poet's friend;
Nay, showed his faults, but when would poets mend?
No place so sacred from such fops is barred,
Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's church-yard:
Nay, fly to altars, there they'll talk you dead;
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.


## p. 11731 (#355) ##########################################

ALEXANDER POPE
11731
THE GAME OF CARDS
From The Rape of the Lock'
CL
LOSE by those meads, for ever crowned with flowers,
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising towers,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighboring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take- and sometimes tea.
Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,
To taste awhile the pleasures of a court:
In various talk th' instructive hours they past,
Who gave the ball or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes:
At every word a reputation dies.
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.
Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine;
The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace,
And the long labors of the toilet cease.
Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,
Burns to encounter two adventurous knights,
At Ombre singly to decide their doom;
And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.
Straight the three bands prepare in arms to join,
Each band the number of the sacred nine.
Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aerial guard
Descend, and sit on each important card:
First Ariel perched upon a Matadore,
Then each according to the rank they bore;
For sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race,
Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place.
Behold, four Kings in majesty revered,
With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;
And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flower,
Th' expressive emblem of their softer power;


## p. 11732 (#356) ##########################################

11732
ALEXANDER POPE
Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,
Caps on their heads and halberts in their hand;
And particolored troops, a shining train,
Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.
The skillful nymph reviews her force with care:
Let Spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.
Now move to war her sable Matadores,
In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors.
Spadillio first, unconquerable lord!
Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board.
As many more Manillio forced to yield,
And marched a victor from the verdant field.
Him Basto followed, but his fate more hard
Gained but one trump and one plebeian card.
With his broad sabre next, a chief in years,
The hoary majesty of Spades appears:
Puts forth one manly leg, to sight revealed;
The rest his many-colored robe concealed.
The rebel Knave, who dares his prince engage,
Proves the just victim of his royal rage.
Ev'n mighty Pam, that Kings and Queens o'erthrew
And mowed down armies in the fights of Lu,
Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid,
Falls undistinguished by the victor Spade!
Thus far both armies to Belinda yield;
Now to the Baron fate inclines the field.
His warlike Amazon her host invades,
Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades.
The Club's black tyrant first her victim died,
Spite of his haughty mien, and barbarous pride:
What boots the regal circle on his head,
His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread;
That long behind he trails his pompous robe,
And, of all monarchs, only grasps the globe?
The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace;
Th' embroidered King who shows but half his face,
And his refulgent Queen, with powers combined
Of broken troops an easy conquest find.
Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.
Thus when dispersed a routed army runs,
Of Asia's troops and Afric's sable sons,
With like confusion different nations fly,
Of various habit and of various dye:


## p. 11733 (#357) ##########################################

ALEXANDER POPE
11733
The pierced battalions disunited fall,
In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.
The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts,
And wins (oh shameful chance! ) the Queen of Hearts.
At this, the blood the virgin's cheek forsook,
A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look;
She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill,
Just in the jaws of ruin and Codille.
And now (as oft in some distempered State)
On one nice trick depends the general fate.
An Ace of Hearts steps forth: the King unseen
Lurked in her hand, and mourned his captive Queen;
He springs to vengeance with an eager pace,
And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace.
The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky;
The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.
O thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,
Too soon dejected and too soon elate.
Sudden these honors shall be snatched away,
And cursed forever this victorious day.
For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned,
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round;
On shining altars of Japan they raise
The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze:
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
While China's earth receives the smoking tide;
At once they gratify their scent and taste,
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.
Straight hover round the fair her airy band:
Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquor fanned;
Some o'er her lap their careful plumes displayed,
Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade.
Coffee (which makes the politician wise,
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes)
Sent up in vapors to the Baron's brain
New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain.
Ah cease, rash youth! desist ere 'tis too late,
Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate!
Changed to a bird, and sent to flit in air,
She dearly pays for Nisus's injured hair!
But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!
Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace
A two-edged weapon from her shining case:


## p. 11734 (#358) ##########################################

11734
ALEXANDER POPE
So ladies in romance assist their knight,
Present the spear, and arm him for the fight.
He takes the gift with reverence, and extends
The little engine on his fingers' ends;
This just behind Belinda's neck he spread,
As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head.
Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair,
A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair;
And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear:
Thrice she looked back, and thrice the foe drew near.