[Footnote 1: In all editions till that of Warburton it was thus: "For as
long as one side despises a well meant endeavour, the other will not be
satisfied with a moderate approbation." The first sentence of the next
paragraph is expanded in the manuscript: "Indeed they both proceed in
such a manner as if they really believed that poetry was immediate
inspiration. It were to be wished they would reflect that this
extraordinary zeal and fury is ill placed, poetry and criticism being by
no means the universal concern of the world. I do not say this to
imitate those people who make a merit of undervaluing the arts and
qualifications without which they had never been taken notice of. I
think poetry as useful as any other art, because it is as entertaining,
and therefore as well deserving of mankind."]
[Footnote 2: Until the edition of Warburton the reading was slightly
different: "Yet sure upon the whole a bad author deserves better usage
than a bad critic; a man may be the former merely through the misfortune
of an ill judgment, but he cannot be the latter without both that and an
ill temper."]
[Footnote 3: The instance of Pope himself is a refutation of his theory
that the world was almost exclusively composed of flatterers and
detractors, and chiefly of the last. Where he could count the deniers of
his genius by tens he could number his admirers by thousands.]
[Footnote 4: What is here said of the privileges of the poetic character
will not, I believe, bear the test of truth and experience. Surely a
poet is not particularly allowed "the freedom of saying careless
things," and his moral character and manners are to be estimated, as
well as his talents, before he is entitled to a certain station in
society.--BOWLES.]
[Footnote 5: In the MS. it followed thus: "For my part, I confess, had I
seen things in this view at first, the public had never been troubled
either with my writings, or with this apology for them. I am sensible
how difficult it is to speak of one's self with decency: but when a man
must speak of himself, the best way is to speak truth of himself, or, he
may depend upon it, others will do it for him. I will therefore make
this preface a general confession of all my thoughts of my own poetry,
resolving with the same freedom to expose myself, as it is in the power
of any other to expose them. In the first place, I thank God and nature
that I was born with a love to poetry; for nothing more conduces to fill
up all the intervals of our time, or, if rightly used, to make the whole
course of life entertaining: _Cantantes licet usque (minus via laedet)._
It is a vast happiness to possess the pleasures of the head, the only
pleasures in which a man is sufficient to himself, and the only part of
him which, to his satisfaction, he can employ all day long. The muses
are _amicae omnium horarum_; and, like our gay acquaintance, the best
company in the world as long as one expects no real service from them. I
confess there was a time when I was in love with myself, and my first
productions were the children of self-love upon innocence. I had made an
epic poem, and panegyrics on all the princes in Europe, and thought
myself the greatest genius that ever was. I cannot but regret those
delightful visions of my childhood, which, like the fine colours we see
when our eyes are shut, are vanished for ever. Many trials and sad
experience have so undeceived me by degrees, that I am utterly at a loss
at what rate to value myself. As for fame, I shall be glad of any I can
get, and not repine at any I miss; and as for vanity, I have enough to
keep me from hanging myself, or even from wishing those hanged who would
take it away. It was this that made me write. The sense of my faults
made me correct: besides that it was as pleasant to me to correct as to
write."--WARBURTON.
Spence relates that Pope said to Mr. Saville: "If I was to begin the
world again, and knew just what I do now, I would never write a verse."
In the passage from his manuscript preface, he intimates that he would
have amused himself by writing poetry, but would have forborne to
publish what he wrote. Either he was not honest in the opinion, or he
was self-deceived. He valued his fame above all things, and left no
means untried to protect and promote it.]
[Footnote 6: As was the practice of his master Dryden, who is severely
lashed for this in the Tale of a Tub.--WARTON.]
[Footnote 7: Pope was not justified in his boast. He dropped the
practice of fulsome dedications, but he made the most of his
distinguished friends in the body of his pieces, and though no "names of
great patrons" are given in this preface, he could not abstain from
announcing in the final sentence how much they had countenanced him.
This, moreover, was to proclaim the "recommendations" he repudiated, and
in every issue of his works the preface, which contained the
inconsistency, was followed in addition by a series of Recommendatory
Poems.]
[Footnote 8: The passage in inverted commas was first added in 1736.]
[Footnote 9: One of Pope's favourite topics is contempt for his own
poetry. For this, if it had been real, he would deserve no commendation;
and in this he was certainly not sincere, for his value of himself was
sufficiently observed; and of what could he be proud but of his poetry?
He writes, he says, when "he has just nothing else to do;" yet Swift
complains that he was never at leisure for conversation, because he "had
always some poetical scheme in his head." It was punctually required
that his writing-box should be set upon his bed before he rose; and Lord
Oxford's domestic related that in the dreadful winter of 1740, she was
called from her bed by him four times in one night to supply him with
paper lest he should lose a thought.--DR. JOHNSON.]
[Footnote 10: For the next sentence the manuscript has this passage:
"But I fear it is far otherwise with modern poets. We must bring our wit
to the press, as gardeners do their flowers to the market, which if they
cannot vend in the morning are sure to die before night. Were we
animated by the same noble ambition, and ready to prosecute it with
equal ardour, our languages are not only confined to a narrow extent of
country, but are in a perpetual flux, not so much as fixed by an
acknowledged grammar, while theirs were such as time and fate conspired
to make universal and everlasting."]
[Footnote 11: In place of the remainder of the sentence he had written
in the manuscript, "is but to live twenty years longer than Quarles, or
Withers, or Dennis." The doctrine of Pope was unworthy the countryman of
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton. The first three had not been
"thrown aside at the end of one age," and no one who was capable of
comprehending the last could seriously believe that his reputation would
be ephemeral. The hypothesis, that the writers in a dead tongue can
alone secure a worthy audience, is altogether chimerical. The literature
of living languages has the ascendancy, and Shakespeare is more read,
and better appreciated, than AEschylus and Sophocles.]
[Footnote 12: I have frequently heard Dr. Young speak with great
disapprobation of the doctrine contained in this passage, with a view to
which he wrote his discourse on Original Composition.--WARTON.
The assertion of Pope is in the face of the facts. All the greatest
names in modern literature have a marked originality, and those authors
who have imitated the ancients, except in subordinate circumstances,
have usually produced tame and lifeless compositions, which were
speedily forgotten.]
[Footnote 13: The sophistry is transparent. A man may be a scholar
without being a plagiarist or an imitator.]
[Footnote 14: Here followed in the first edition, "and that I expect not
to be excused in any negligence on account of youth, want of leisure, or
any other idle allegations." This was inconsistent with his request, at
the conclusion of his preface, that those who condemned his poems would
remember his youth when he composed them. After the omitted sentence he
had added in the manuscript, "I have ever been fearful of making an ill
present to the world, for which I have as much respect as most poets
have for themselves. What I thought incorrect I suppressed; and what I
thought most finished I never published but with fear and trembling."]
[Footnote 15: From hence to the end of the paragraph the manuscript
continues thus: "A man that can expect but sixty years may be ashamed to
employ thirty in measuring syllables, and bringing sense and rhyme
together. We spend our youth in the pursuit of riches or fame in hopes
to enjoy them when we are old, and when we are old we find it is too
late to enjoy anything. I have got over the mistake pretty early. I
therefore hope the wits will pardon me if I leave myself time enough to
save my soul, and some wise men will be of my opinion even if I should
think a part of it better spent in the enjoyment of life than in
pleasing the critics."]
[Footnote 16: This sentence was in the manuscript, but Pope omitted it
in the edition of 1717, and restored it in 1736.]
[Footnote 17: In the manuscript he added, "which indeed was my chief
view in making it, for in the present liberty of the press, a man is
forced to appear as bad as he is, not to be thought worse." The
assertion is qualified in the text, but he could not entirely abandon
the affectation of pretending that he collected his works to escape the
disgrace of the pieces which were falsely attributed to him, and not to
obtain credit from his own performances.]
[Footnote 18: "I am always highly delighted," said Addison in the
Spectator, No. 523, Oct. 30, 1712, "with the discovery of any rising
genius among my countrymen. For this reason I have read over, with great
pleasure, the late Miscellany published by Mr. Pope, in which there are
many excellent compositions of that ingenious gentleman." The
announcement referred to the first edition of Lintot's Miscellany, and
from the literary intercourse which existed between Addison, Steele, and
Pope at the time, the compilation was not likely to have been ascribed
to the latter in the Spectator without sufficient authority. The
language of Pope seems carefully selected to avoid the direct denial
that he was the editor. The work was published anonymously, and he only
asserts that he had "never lent his _name_ to recommend any
miscellanies." The disclaimer was probably directed against the device
adopted by Lintot in the second edition, 1 vol. 8vo, 1714, which bore
this title, "Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. By several hands.
Particularly, etc." Here followed a list of Pope's contributions, and
his alone. Underneath the list a line was drawn across the page, and
below this line was printed in capital letters, "By Mr. Pope." The
complete separation between the list of pieces and the name of the poet
disconnected them to the eye, and left the impression that Pope was the
editor of the entire work. The same plan was continued till the fifth
edition, 2 vols. 12mo, 1727, when Lintot grew bolder, and inserted
bastard title-pages with the words, "Mr. Pope's Miscellany." The poet,
who corrected the proofs of his own pieces for the fifth edition,
assured Christopher Pitt, in a letter of July 23, 1726, that he had
never had anything to do with the remainder of the work; but the private
assurance, after many years, of a man who had no regard for truth does
not outweigh the assertion in the Spectator, when coupled with the
peculiar wording by which he evaded the public contradiction of the
statement.]
[Footnote 19: In 1721 he broke through his rule by recommending the
poems of Parnell to Lord Oxford in an Epistle in verse.--CUNNINGHAM.]
[Footnote 20: A few sentences before he had said, "for what I have
published I can only hope to be pardoned," and already he has forgotten
his mock modesty, and admits he has a hope that his works may prove "a
monument."]
[Footnote 21: The commendation of his own goodness is a theme which
constantly recurs in Pope, as if he hoped to conceal his delinquencies
by his loud profession of the contrary qualities. The topic is
introduced into this preface in a forced manner, and treated with
singular weakness. Intellectual capacity and literary pre-eminence are
no security for moral excellence; and it was idle to ask the public to
forget his reputation as a poet, which was his sole claim to fame, and
to commemorate him for virtues of which the world had no proof, and
which, if they were real, he shared with thousands.]
[Footnote 22: This was written in 1716; did our author recollect this
sentiment in 1729[8]?--WARTON.
Warton alludes to the Dunciad, but to have "insulted adversaries with
ill language" was only one out of several particulars, in which Pope's
subsequent career belied the protestations in his preface.]
[Footnote 23: This far-fetched excuse of Pope for rebuking the vanity of
contemporary poets, was a clumsy expedient to gratify his own vanity in
proclaiming to the world that "he had been encouraged by the great, and
commended by the eminent." He had not much title to reprove the vanity
of his brethren, when, in the same sentence, he recorded the praise
which the different orders of mankind had bestowed upon himself.]