Lord BOLINGBROKE affects violent resentment for Pope's pretended
breach of confidence in having printed his "Patriot King"--WARBURTON'S
apology for POPE'S disinterested intentions--BOLINGBROKE instigates
MALLET to libel POPE, after the poet's death--The real motive for
libelling POPE was BOLINGBROKE'S personal hatred of WARBURTON, for the
ascendancy the latter had obtained over the poet--Some account of
their rival conflicts--BOLINGBROKE had unsettled POPE'S religious
opinions, and WARBURTON had confirmed his faith--POPE, however,
refuses to abjure the Catholic religion--Anecdote of POPE'S anxiety
respecting a future state--MALLET'S intercourse with POPE: anecdote of
"The Apollo Vision," where MALLET mistook a sarcasm for a
compliment--MALLET'S character--Why LEONIDAS GLOVER declined writing
the Life of Marlborough--BOLINGBROKE'S character hit off--WARBURTON,
the concealed object of this posthumous quarrel with POPE.
On the death of POPE, 1500 copies of one of Lord BOLINGBROKE'S works,
"The Patriot King," were discovered to have been secretly printed by
Pope, but never published. The honest printer presented the whole to
his lordship, who burned the edition in his gardens at Battersea. The
MS. had been delivered to our poet by his lordship, with a request to
print a few copies for its better preservation, and for the use of a
few friends.
Bolingbroke affected to feel the most lively resentment for what he
chose to stigmatise as "a breach of confidence." "His thirst of
vengeance," said Johnson, "incited him to blast the memory of the man
over whom he had wept in his last struggles; and he employed Mallet,
another friend of Pope, to tell the tale to the public with all its
aggravations. Warburton, whose heart was warm with his legacy, and
tender by the recent separation," apologised for Pope. The irregular
conduct which Bolingbroke stigmatised as a breach of trust, was
attributed to a desire of perpetuating the work of his friend, who
might have capriciously destroyed it. Our poet could have no selfish
motive; he could not gratify his vanity by publishing the work as his
own, nor his avarice by its sale, which could never have taken place
till the death of its author; a circumstance not likely to occur
during Pope's lifetime.[237]
The vindictive rage of Bolingbroke; the bitter invective he permitted
MALLET to publish, as the editor of his works; and the two anonymous
pamphlets of the latter, which I have noticed in the article of
WARBURTON; are effects much too disproportionate to the cause which is
usually assigned. JOHNSON does not develope the secret motives of what
he has energetically termed "Bolingbroke's thirst of vengeance." He
and Mallet carried their secret revenge beyond all bounds: the lordly
stoic and the irritated bardling, under the cloak of anonymous
calumny, have but ill-concealed the malignity of their passions. Let
anonymous calumniators recollect, in the midst of their dark work,
that if they escape the detection of their contemporaries, their
reputation, if they have any to lose, will not probably elude the
researches of the historian;--a fatal witness against them at the
tribunal of posterity.
The preface of Mallet to the "Patriot King" of Bolingbroke, produced a
literary quarrel; and more pamphlets than perhaps I have discovered
were published on this occasion.
Every lover of literature was indignant to observe that the vain and
petulant Mallet, under the protection of Pope's
Guide, philosopher, and friend!
should have been permitted to have aspersed Pope with the most
degrading language. Pope is here always designated as "This Man." Thus
"_This Man_ was no sooner dead than Lord Bolingbroke received
information that an entire edition of 1500 copies of these papers had
been printed; that this very _Man_ had corrected the press, &c." Could
one imagine that this was the Tully of England, describing our Virgil?
For Mallet was but the mouthpiece of Bolingbroke.
After a careful detection of many facts concerning the parties now
before us, I must attribute the concealed motive of this outrage
on Pope to the election the dying poet made of Warburton as his
editor. A mortal hatred raged between Bolingbroke and Warburton. The
philosophical lord had seen the mighty theologian ravish the prey
from his grasp. Although Pope held in idolatrous veneration the
genius of Bolingbroke, yet had this literary superstition been
gradually enlightened by the energy of Warburton. They were his good
and his evil genii in a dreadful conflict, wrestling to obtain the
entire possession of the soul of the mortal. Bolingbroke and
Warburton one day disputed before Pope, and parted never to meet
again. The will of Pope bears the trace of his divided feelings: he
left his MSS. to Bolingbroke as his executor, but his works to
Warburton as his editor. The secret history of Bolingbroke and
Warburton with Pope is little known: the note will supply it.[238]
But how did the puny Mallet stand connected with these great men? By
the pamphlets published during this literary quarrel he appears to
have enjoyed a more intimate intercourse with them than is known. In
one of them he is characterised "as a fellow who, while Mr. Pope
lived, was as diligent in licking his feet, as he is now in licking
your lordship's; and who, for the sake of giving himself an air of
importance, in being joined with you, and for the vanity of saying
'the Author and I,'--'the Editor and me,'--has sacrificed all his
pretensions to friendship, honour, and humanity."[239] An anecdote in
this pamphlet assigns a sufficient motive to excite some wrath in a
much less irritable animal than the self-important editor of
Bolingbroke's Works. The anecdote may be distinguished as