[237] At the time, to season the tale for the babble of Literary
Tattlers, it was propagated that POPE intended, on the death
of BOLINGBROKE, to sell this eighteenpenny pamphlet at a
guinea a copy; which would have produced an addition of as
many hundreds to the thousands which the poet had honourably
reaped from his Homer. This was the ridiculous lie of the day,
which lasted long enough to obtain its purpose, and to cast an
odium on the shade of Pope. Pope must have been a miserable
calculator of _survivorships_, if ever he had reckoned on
this.
[238] Splendid as was the genius of Bolingbroke, the gigantic force of
Warburton obtained the superiority. Had the contest solely
depended on the effusions of genius, Bolingbroke might have
prevailed; but an object more important than human interests
induced the poet to throw himself into the arms of Warburton.
The "Essay on Man" had been reformed by the subtle aid of
Warburton, in opposition to the objectionable principles which
Bolingbroke had infused into his system of philosophy: this,
no doubt, had vexed Bolingbroke. But another circumstance
occurred of a more mortifying nature. When Pope one day showed
Warburton Bolingbroke's "Letters on the Study and Use of
History," printed, but not published, and concealing the name
of the author, Warburton not only made several very free
strictures on that work, but particularly attacked a
digression concerning the authenticity of the Old Testament.
Pope requested him to write his remarks down as they had
occurred, which he instantly did; and Pope was so satisfied
with them, that he crossed out the digression in the printed
book, and sent the animadversions to Lord Bolingbroke, then at
Paris. The style of the great dogmatist, thrown out in heat,
must no doubt have contained many fiery particles, all which
fell into the most inflammable of minds. Pope soon discovered
his officiousness was received with indignation. Yet when
Bolingbroke afterwards met Warburton he dissimulated: he used
the language of compliment, but in a tone which claimed
homage. The two most arrogant geniuses who ever lived, in vain
exacted submission from each other: they could allow of no
divided empire, and they were born to hate each other.
Bolingbroke suppressed his sore feelings, for at that very
time he was employed in collecting matter to refute the
objections; treasuring up his secret vengeance against Pope
and Warburton, which he threw out immediately on the death of
Pope. I collect these particulars from Ruffhead, p. 527, and
whenever, in that volume, Warburton's name is introduced, it
must be considered as coming from himself.
The reasonings of Bolingbroke appear at times to have
disturbed the religious faith of our poet, and he owed much to
Warburton in having that faith confirmed. But Pope rejected,
with his characteristic good sense, Warburton's tampering with
him to abjure the Catholic religion. On the belief of a future
state, Pope seems often to have meditated with great anxiety;
and an anecdote is recorded of his latest hours, which shows
how strongly that important belief affected him. A day or two
before his death he was at times delirious, and about four
o'clock in the morning he rose from bed and went to the
library, where a friend who was watching him found him busily
writing. He persuaded him to desist, and withdrew the paper he
had written. The subject of the thoughts of the delirious poet
was a new theory on the "Immortality of the Soul," in which he
distinguished between those material objects which tended to
strengthen his conviction, and those which weakened it. The
paper which contained these disordered thoughts was shown to
Warburton, and surely has been preserved.
[239] "A letter to the Lord Viscount B----ke, occasioned by his
treatment of a deceased friend." Printed for A. Moore, without
date. This pamphlet either came from Warburton himself, or
from one of his intimates. The writer, too, calls Pope his
friend.
[240] We find also the name of Mallet closely connected with another
person of eminence, the Patriot-Poet, Leonidas Glover. I take
this opportunity of correcting a surmise of Johnson's in his
Life of Mallet, respecting Glover, and which also places
Mallet's character in a true light.
A minute life of Mallet might exhibit a curious example of
mediocrity of talent, with but suspicious virtues, brought
forward by the accident of great connexions, placing a
bustling intriguer much higher in the scale of society than
"our philosophy ever dreamt of." Johnson says of Mallet, that
"It was remarkable of him, that he was the only Scot whom
Scotchmen did not commend." From having been accidentally
chosen as private tutor to the Duke of Montrose, he wound
himself into the favour of the party at Leicester House; he
wrote tragedies conjointly with Thomson, and was appointed,
with Glover, to write the Life of the Duke of Marlborough. Yet
he had already shown to the world his scanty talent for
biography in his "Life of Lord Bacon," on which Warburton so
acutely animadverted.
According to Johnson's account, the Duchess of Marlborough
assigned the task of writing the Life of the Duke to Glover
and to Mallet, with a remuneration of a thousand pounds. She
must, however, have mortified the poets by subjoining the
sarcastic prohibition that "no verses should be inserted."
Johnson adds, "Glover, _I suppose, rejected with disdain the
legacy_, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet."
The cause why Glover declined this work could not, indeed, be
known to Johnson: it arose from a far more dignified motive
than the petty disdain of the legacy, which our great literary
biographer has surmised. It can now be told in his own words,
which I derive from a very interesting extract communicated to
me by my friend Mr. Duppa, from that portion of the MS.
Memoirs of Glover not yet published.
I shall first quote the remarkable codicil from the original
will of her Grace, which Mr. Duppa took the pains to consult.
She assigns her reasons for the choice of her historians, and
discriminates between the two authors. After bequeathing the
thousand pounds for them, she adds: "I believe Mr. Glover is a
very honest man, who wishes, as I do, all the good that can
happen, to preserve the liberties and laws of England. Mr.
Mallet was recommended to me by the late Duke of Montrose,
whom I admired extremely for his great steadiness and
behaviour in all things that related to the preservation of
our laws and the public good."--Thus her Grace has expressed a
personal knowledge and confidence in Glover, distinctly marked
from her "recommended" acquaintance Mallet.
Glover refused the office of historian, not from "disdain of
the legacy," nor for any deficient zeal for the hero whom he
admired. He refused it with sorrowful disappointment; for,
besides the fantastical restrictions of "not writing any
verses;" and the cruel one of yoking such a patriot with the
servile Mallet, there was one which placed the revision of the
work in the hands of the Earl of Chesterfield: this was the
_circumstance_ at which the dignified genius of Glover
revolted. Chesterfield's mean political character had excited
his indignation; and he has drawn a lively picture of this
polished nobleman's "eager prostitution," in his printed
Memoirs, recently published under the title of "Memoirs of a
celebrated Literary and Political Character," p. 24.
In the following passage, this great-minded man, for such he
was, "unburthens his heart in a melancholy digression from his
plain narrative."
"Composing such a narrative (alluding to his own Memoirs)
and endeavouring to establish such a temper of mind, I
cannot at intervals refrain from regret that the _capricious
restrictions_ in the Duchess of Marlborough's will,
appointing me to write the life of her illustrious husband,
compelled me to reject the undertaking. There, conduct,
valour, and success abroad; prudence, perseverance,
learning, and science, at home; would have shed some portion
of their graces on their historian's page: a mediocrity of
talent would have felt an unwonted elevation in the bare
attempt of transmitting so splendid a period to succeeding
ages." Such was the dignified regret of Glover!
Doubtless, he disdained, too, his colleague; but Mallet reaped
the whole legacy, and still more, a pension: pretending to be
always occupied on the Life of Marlborough, and every day
talking of the great discoveries he had made, he contrived to
make this nonentity serve his own purposes. Once hinting to
Garrick, that, in spite of chronology, by some secret device
of anticipation, he had reserved a niche in this great work
for the Roscius of his own times, the gratitude of Garrick was
instant. He recollected that Mallet was a tragedy-writer; and
it also appeared that our dramatic bardling had one ready. As
for the pretended Life of Marlborough, not a line appears ever
to have been written!
Such was the end of the ardent solicitude and caprice of the
Duchess of Marlborough, exemplified in the last solemn act of
life, where she betrayed the same warmth of passion, and the
same arrogant caprice she had always indulged, at the cost of
her judgment, in what Pope emphatically terms "the trade of
the world." She was
"The wisest fool much time has ever made."
Even in this darling project of her last ambition, to
immortalise her name, she had incumbered it with such arrogant
injunctions, mixed up such contrary elements, that they were
certain to undo their own purpose. Such was the barren harvest
she gathered through a life of passion, regulated by no
principle of conduct. One of the most finished portraits of
Pope is the Atossa, in his "Epistle on Woman." How admirably
he shows what the present instant proves, that she was one
who, always possessing the _means_, was sure to lose the
_ends_.