[Footnote 1: quis Temeros oculus mihi fascinat Agnos.--Virg.]
[Footnote 2: This letter is by John Hughes.]
* * * * *
No. 253. Thursday, December 20, 1711. Addison.
Indignor quicquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
Compositum, illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper.
Hor.
There is nothing which more denotes a great Mind, than the Abhorrence of
Envy and Detraction. This Passion reigns more among bad Poets, than
among any other Set of Men.
As there are none more ambitious of Fame, than those who are conversant
in Poetry, it is very natural for such as have not succeeded in it to
depreciate the Works of those who have. For since they cannot raise
themselves to the Reputation of their Fellow-Writers, they must
endeavour to sink it to their own Pitch, if they would still keep
themselves upon a Level with them.
The greatest Wits that ever were produced in one Age, lived together in
so good an Understanding, and celebrated one another with so much
Generosity, that each of them receives an additional Lustre from his
Contemporaries, and is more famous for having lived with Men of so
extraordinary a Genius, than if he had himself been the [sole Wonder
[1]] of the Age. I need not tell my Reader, that I here point at the
Reign of _Augustus_, and I believe he will be of my Opinion, that
neither _Virgil_ nor _Horace_ would have gained so great a Reputation in
the World, had they not been the Friends and Admirers of each other.
Indeed all the great Writers of that Age, for whom singly we have so
great an Esteem, stand up together as Vouchers for one anothers
Reputation. But at the same time that _Virgil_ was celebrated by
_Gallus, Propertius, Horace, Varius, Tucca_ and _Ovid_, we know that
_Bavius_ and _Maevius_ were his declared Foes and Calumniators.
In our own Country a Man seldom sets up for a Poet, without attacking
the Reputation of all his Brothers in the Art. The Ignorance of the
Moderns, the Scribblers of the Age, the Decay of Poetry, are the Topicks
of Detraction, with which he makes his Entrance into the World: But how
much more noble is the Fame that is built on Candour and Ingenuity,
according to those beautiful Lines of Sir _John Denham_, in his Poem on
_Fletchers_ Works!
But whither am I strayed? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other Mens Dispraise:
Nor is thy Fame on lesser Ruins built,
Nor needs thy juster Title the foul Guilt
Of Eastern Kings, who, to secure their Reign,
Must have their Brothers, Sons, and Kindred slain.
I am sorry to find that an Author, who is very justly esteemed among the
best Judges, has admitted some Stroaks of this Nature into a very fine
Poem; I mean _The Art of Criticism_, which was publish'd some Months
since, and is a Master-piece in its kind. [2] The Observations follow
one another like those in _Horace's Art of Poetry_, without that
methodical Regularity which would have been requisite in a Prose Author.
They are some of them uncommon, but such as the Reader must assent to,
when he sees them explained with that Elegance and Perspicuity in which
they are delivered. As for those which are the most known, and the most
received, they are placed in so beautiful a Light, and illustrated with
such apt Allusions, that they have in them all the Graces of Novelty,
and make the Reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more
convinced of their Truth and Solidity. And here give me leave to mention
what Monsieur _Boileau_ has so very well enlarged upon in the Preface to
his Works, that Wit and fine Writing doth not consist so much in
advancing Things that are new, as in giving Things that are known an
agreeable Turn. It is impossible for us, who live in the lat[t]er Ages
of the World, to make Observations in Criticism, Morality, or in any Art
or Science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little
else left us, but to represent the common Sense of Mankind in more
strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon Lights. If a Reader examines
_Horace's Art of Poetry_, he will find but very few Precepts in it,
which he may not meet with in _Aristotle_, and which were not commonly
known by all the Poets of the _Augustan_ Age. His Way of expressing and
applying them, not his Invention of them, is what we are chiefly to
admire.
For this Reason I think there is nothing in the World so tiresome as the
Works of those Criticks who write in a positive Dogmatick Way, without
either Language, Genius, or Imagination. If the Reader would see how the
best of the _Latin_ Criticks writ, he may find their Manner very
beautifully described in the Characters of _Horace, Petronius,
Quintilian_, and _Longinus_, as they are drawn in the Essay of which I
am now speaking.
Since I have mentioned _Longinus_, who in his Reflections has given us
the same kind of Sublime, which he observes in the several passages that
occasioned them; I cannot but take notice, that our _English_ Author has
after the same manner exemplified several of his Precepts in the very
Precepts themselves. I shall produce two or three Instances of this
Kind. Speaking of the insipid Smoothness which some Readers are so much
in Love with, he has the following Verses.
These_ Equal Syllables _alone require,
Tho oft the_ Ear _the_ open Vowels _tire,
While_ Expletives _their feeble Aid_ do _join,
And ten low Words oft creep in one dull Line.
The gaping of the Vowels in the second Line, the Expletive _do_ in the
third, and the ten Monosyllables in the fourth, give such a Beauty to
this Passage, as would have been very much admired in an Ancient Poet.
The Reader may observe the following Lines in the same View.
A needless Alexandrine _ends the Song,
That like a wounded Snake, drags its slow Length along_.
And afterwards,
Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence,
The Sound must seem an Eccho 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 shou'd like the Torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some Rocks vast Weight to throw,
The Line too labours, and the Words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the Plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending Corn, and skims along the Main.
The beautiful Distich upon _Ajax_ in the foregoing Lines, puts me in
mind of a Description in _Homer's_ Odyssey, which none of the Criticks
have taken notice of. [3] It is where _Sisyphus_ is represented lifting
his Stone up the Hill, which is no sooner carried to the top of it, but
it immediately tumbles to the Bottom. This double Motion of the Stone is
admirably described in the Numbers of these Verses; As in the four first
it is heaved up by several _Spondees_ intermixed with proper Breathing
places, and at last trundles down in a continual Line of _Dactyls_.
[Greek: Kaì màen Sisyphon eiseidon, kratér alge échonta,
Laan Bastázonta pelôrion amphotéraesin.
Aetoi ho mèn skaeriptómenos chersín te posín te,
Laan anô ôtheske potì lóphon, all hote mélloi
Akron hyperbaléein, tot apostrépsaske krataiis,
Autis épeita pédonde kylíndeto laas anaidáes.]
It would be endless to quote Verses out of _Virgil_ which have this
particular Kind of Beauty in the Numbers; but I may take an Occasion in
a future Paper to shew several of them which have escaped the
Observation of others.
I cannot conclude this Paper without taking notice that we have three
Poems in our Tongue, which are of the same Nature, and each of them a
Master-Piece in its Kind; the Essay on Translated Verse [4], the Essay
on the Art of Poetry [5], and the Essay upon Criticism.
[Footnote 1: [single Product]]
[Footnote 2: At the time when this paper was written Pope was in his
twenty-fourth year. He wrote to express his gratitude to Addison and
also to Steele. In his letter to Addison he said,
Though it be the highest satisfaction to find myself commended by a
Writer whom all the world commends, yet I am not more obliged to you
for that than for your candour and frankness in acquainting me with
the error I have been guilty of in speaking too freely of my brother
moderns.
The only moderns of whom he spoke slightingly were men of whom
after-time has ratified his opinion: John Dennis, Sir Richard Blackmore,
and Luke Milbourne. When, not long afterwards, Dennis attacked with his
criticism Addison's Cato, to which Pope had contributed the Prologue,
Pope made this the occasion of a bitter satire on Dennis, called _The
Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris_ (a well-known quack who professed the
cure of lunatics) _upon the Frenzy J. D_. Addison then, through Steele,
wrote to Popes publisher of this manner of treating Mr. Dennis, that
he could not be privy to it, and was sorry to hear of it. In 1715,
when Pope issued to subscribers the first volume of Homer, Tickell's
translation of the first book of the Iliad appeared in the same week,
and had particular praise at Buttons from Addison, Tickell's friend and
patron. Pope was now indignant, and expressed his irritation in the
famous satire first printed in 1723, and, finally, with the name of
Addison transformed to Atticus, embodied in the Epistle to Arbuthnot
published in 1735. Here, while seeing in Addison a man
_Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to live, converse, and write with ease,_
he said that should he, jealous of his own supremacy, damn with faint
praise, as one
_Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint the fault and hesitate dislike,
Who when two wits on rival themes contest,
Approves of both, but likes the worse the best:
Like Cato, give his little Senate laws,
And sits attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars every sentence raise:
And wonder with a foolish face of praise:
Who would not laugh if such a man there be?
Who would not weep if Addison were he?_
But in this _Spectator_ paper young Popes _Essay on Criticism_
certainly was not damned with faint praise by the man most able to give
it a firm standing in the world.]
[Footnote 3: Odyssey Bk. XI. In Ticknell's edition of Addison's works
the latter part of this sentence is omitted; the same observation having
been made by Dionysius of Halicarnassus.]
[Footnote 4: Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, author of the Essay
on Translated Verse, was nephew and godson to Wentworth, Earl of
Strafford. He was born in Ireland, in 1633, educated at the Protestant
University of Caen, and was there when his father died. He travelled in
Italy, came to England at the Restoration, held one or two court
offices, gambled, took a wife, and endeavoured to introduce into England
the principals of criticism with which he had found the polite world
occupied in France. He planned a society for refining our language and
fixing its standard. During the troubles of King James's reign he was
about to leave the kingdom, when his departure was delayed by gout, of
which he died in 1684. A foremost English representative of the chief
literary movement of his time, he translated into blank verse Horace's
Art of Poetry, and besides a few minor translations and some short
pieces of original verse, which earned from Pope the credit that
_in all Charles's days
Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays,_
he wrote in heroic couplets an Essay on Translated Verse that was
admired by Dryden, Addison, and Pope, and was in highest honour wherever
the French influence upon our literature made itself felt. Roscommon
believed in the superior energy of English wit, and wrote himself with
care and frequent vigour in the turning of his couplets. It is from this
poem that we get the often quoted lines,
_Immodest words admit of no Defence:
For Want of Decency is Want of Sense._]
[Footnote 5: The other piece with which Addison ranks Popes Essay on
Criticism, was by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, who was living
when the _Spectator_ first appeared. He died, aged 72, in the year 1721.
John Sheffield, by the death of his father, succeeded at the age of nine
to the title of Earl of Mulgrave. In the reign of Charles II he served
by sea and land, and was, as well as Marlborough, in the French service.
In the reign of James II. he was admitted into the Privy Council, made
Lord Chamberlain, and, though still Protestant, attended the King to
mass. He acquiesced in the Revolution, but remained out of office and
disliked King William, who in 1694 made him Marquis of Normanby.
Afterwards he was received into the Cabinet Council, with a pension of
£3000. Queen Anne, to whom Walpole says he had made love before her
marriage, highly favoured him. Before her coronation she made him Lord
Privy Seal, next year he was made first Duke of Normanby, and then of
Buckinghamshire, to exclude any latent claimant to the title, which had
been extinct since the miserable death of George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, the author of the _Rehearsal_. When the _Spectator_ appeared
John Sheffield had just built Buckingham House--now a royal palace--on
ground granted by the Crown, and taken office as Lord Chamberlain. He
wrote more verse than Roscommon and poorer verse. The _Essay on Poetry_,
in which he followed the critical fashion of the day, he was praised
into regarding as a masterpiece. He was continually polishing it, and
during his lifetime it was reissued with frequent variations. It is
polished quartz, not diamond; a short piece of about 360 lines, which
has something to say of each of the chief forms of poetry, from songs to
epics. Sheffield shows most natural force in writing upon plays, and
here in objecting to perfect characters, he struck out the often-quoted
line
_A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw_.
When he comes to the epics he is, of course, all for Homer and Virgil.
_Read Homer once, and you can read no more;
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem Prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the Books you need_.
And then it is supposed that some Angel had disclosed to M. Bossu, the
French author of the treatise upon Epic Poetry then fashionable, the
sacred mysteries of Homer. John Sheffield had a patronizing recognition
for the genius of Shakespeare and Milton, and was so obliging as to
revise Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar and confine the action of that play
within the limits prescribed in the French gospel according to the
Unities. Pope, however, had in the Essay on Criticism reckoned
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, among the sounder few
_Who durst assert the juster ancient Cause
And have restored Wits Fundamental Laws.
Such was the Muse, whose Rules and Practice tell,
Natures chief Masterpiece is writing well_.
With those last words which form the second line in the _Essay on
Poetry_ Popes citation has made many familiar. Addison paid young Pope
a valid compliment in naming him as a critic in verse with Roscommon,
and, what then passed on all hands for a valid compliment, in holding
him worthy also to be named as a poet in the same breath with the Lord
Chamberlain.]
* * * * *
No. 254. Friday, December 21, 1711. Steele.
[Greek: Semnòs érôs aretaes, ho dè kyprídos áchos ophéllei.]
When I consider the false Impressions which are received by the
Generality of the World, I am troubled at none more than a certain
Levity of Thought, which many young Women of Quality have entertained,
to the Hazard of their Characters, and the certain Misfortune of their
Lives. The first of the following Letters may best represent the Faults
I would now point at, and the Answer to it the Temper of Mind in a
contrary Character.
_My dear_ Harriot,
If thou art she, but oh how fallen, how changed, what an Apostate! how
lost to all that's gay and agreeable! To be married I find is to be
buried alive; I cant conceive it more dismal to be shut up in a Vault
to converse with the Shades of my Ancestors, than to be carried down
to an old Manor-House in the Country, and confined to the Conversation
of a sober Husband and an awkward Chamber-maid. For Variety I suppose
you may entertain yourself with Madam in her Grogram Gown, the Spouse
of your Parish Vicar, who has by this time I am sure well furnished
you with Receipts for making Salves and Possets, distilling Cordial
Waters, making Syrups, and applying Poultices.
Blest Solitude! I wish thee Joy, my Dear, of thy loved Retirement,
which indeed you would perswade me is very agreeable, and different
enough from what I have here described: But, Child, I am afraid thy
Brains are a little disordered with Romances and Novels: After six
Months Marriage to hear thee talk of Love, and paint the Country
Scenes so softly, is a little extravagant; one would think you lived
the Lives of _Sylvan_ Deities, or roved among the Walks of Paradise,
like the first happy Pair. But prythee leave these Whimsies, and come
to Town in order to live and talk like other Mortals. However, as I am
extremely interested in your Reputation, I would willingly give you a
little good Advice at your first Appearance under the Character of a
married Woman: Tis a little Insolence in me perhaps, to advise a
Matron; but I am so afraid you'll make so silly a Figure as a fond
Wife, that I cannot help warning you not to appear in any publick
Places with your Husband, and never to saunter about St. _James's
Park_ together: If you presume to enter the Ring at _Hide-Park_
together, you are ruined for ever; nor must you take the least notice
of one another at the Play-house or Opera, unless you would be laughed
at for a very loving Couple most happily paired in the Yoke of
Wedlock. I would recommend the Example of an Acquaintance of ours to
your Imitation; she is the most negligent and fashionable Wife in the
World; she is hardly ever seen in the same Place with her Husband, and
if they happen to meet, you would think them perfect Strangers: She
never was heard to name him in his Absence, and takes care he shall
never be the Subject of any Discourse that she has a Share in. I hope
you' propose this Lady as a Pattern, tho I am very much afraid
you'll be so silly to think _Portia, &c. Sabine_ and _Roman_ Wives
much brighter Examples. I wish it may never come into your Head to
imitate those antiquated Creatures so far, as to come into Publick in
the Habit as well as Air of a _Roman_ Matron. You make already the
Entertainment at Mrs. _Modish's_ Tea-Table; she says, she always
thought you a discreet Person, and qualified to manage a Family with
admirable Prudence: she dies to see what demure and serious Airs
Wedlock has given you, but she says she shall never forgive your
Choice of so gallant a Man as _Bellamour_ to transform him to a meer
sober Husband; twas unpardonable: You see, my Dear, we all envy your
Happiness, and no Person more than _Your humble Servant_, Lydia.
Be not in pain, good Madam, for my Appearance in Town; I shall
frequent no publick Places, or make any Visits where the Character of
a modest Wife is ridiculous. As for your wild Raillery on Matrimony,
tis all Hypocrisy; you, and all the handsome young Women of our
Acquaintance, shew yourselves to no other Purpose than to gain a
Conquest over some Man of Worth, in order to bestow your Charms and
Fortune on him. There's no Indecency in the Confession, the Design is
modest and honourable, and all your Affectation cant disguise it.
I am married, and have no other Concern but to please the Man I Love;
he's the End of every Care I have; if I dress, tis for him; if I read
a Poem or a Play, tis to qualify myself for a Conversation agreeable
to his Taste: He's almost the End of my Devotions; half my Prayers are
for his Happiness. I love to talk of him, and never hear him named but
with Pleasure and Emotion. I am your Friend, and wish your Happiness,
but am sorry to see by the Air of your Letter that there are a Set of
Women who are got into the Common-Place Raillery of every Thing that
is sober, decent, and proper: Matrimony and the Clergy are the Topicks
of People of little Wit and no Understanding. I own to you, I have
learned of the Vicars Wife all you tax me with: She is a discreet,
ingenious, pleasant, pious Woman; I wish she had the handling of you
and Mrs. _Modish_; you would find, if you were too free with her, she
would soon make you as charming as ever you were, she would make you
blush as much as if you had never been fine Ladies. The Vicar, Madam,
is so kind as to visit my Husband, and his agreeable Conversation has
brought him to enjoy many sober happy Hours when even I am shut out,
and my dear Master is entertained only with his own Thoughts. These
Things, dear Madam, will be lasting Satisfactions, when the fine
Ladies, and the Coxcombs by whom they form themselves, are irreparably
ridiculous, ridiculous in old Age. I am, _Madam, your most humble
Servant_, Mary Home.
_Dear Mr_. SPECTATOR,
You have no Goodness in the World, and are not in earnest in any thing
you say that is serious, if you do not send me a plain Answer to this:
I happened some Days past to be at the Play, where during the Time of
Performance, I could not keep my Eyes off from a beautiful young
Creature who sat just before me, and who I have been since informed
has no Fortune. It would utterly ruin my Reputation for Discretion to
marry such a one, and by what I can learn she has a Character of great
Modesty, so that there is nothing to be thought on any other Way. My
Mind has ever since been so wholly bent on her, that I am much in
danger of doing something very extravagant without your speedy Advice
to,
SIR, _Your most humble Servant_.
I am sorry I cannot answer this impatient Gentleman, but by another
Question.
_Dear Correspondent_, Would you marry to please other People, or your
self?