ADDISON'S QUARREL WITH POPE.
It has been said that with _Cato_ the good fortune of Addison reached its
climax. After his triumph in the theatre, though he filled great offices
in the State and wedded "a noble wife," his political success was marred
by disagreements with one of his oldest friends; while with the Countess
of Warwick, if we are to believe Pope, he "married discord." Added to
which he was unlucky enough to incur the enmity of the most poignant and
vindictive of satiric poets, and a certain shadow has been for ever thrown
over his character by the famous verses on "Atticus." It will be
convenient in this chapter to investigate, as far as is possible, the
truth as to the quarrel between Pope and Addison. The latter has hitherto
been at a certain disadvantage with the public, since the facts of the
case were entirely furnished by Pope, and, though his account was
dissected with great acuteness by Blackstone in the _Biographia
Britannica_, the partizans of the poet were still able to plead that his
uncontradicted statements could not be disposed of by mere considerations
of probability.
Pope's account of his final rupture with Addison is reported by Spence as
follows: "Philips seems to have been encouraged to abuse me in
coffee-houses and conversations. Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherley in
which he had abused both me and my relations very grossly. Lord Warwick
himself told me one day 'that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be
well with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would never admit of a
settled friendship between us; and, to convince me of what he had said,
assured me that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals,
and had given him ten guineas after they were published.' The next day,
while I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison
to let him know 'that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his;
that, if I was to speak severely of him in return for it, it should not be
in such a dirty way; that I would rather tell him himself fairly of his
faults and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in
the following manner.' I then subjoined the first sketch of what has since
been called my satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and
never did me any injustice, that I know of, from that time to his death,
which was about three years after."[61]
Such was the story told by Pope in his own defence against the charge that
he had written and circulated the lines on Addison after the latter's
death. In confirmation of his evidence, and in proof of his own good
feeling for and open dealing with Addison, he inserted in the so-called
authorised edition of his correspondence in 1737 several letters written
apparently to Addison, while in what he pretended to be the surreptitious
edition of 1735 appeared a letter to Craggs, written in July, 1715, which,
as it contained many of the phrases and expressions used in the character
of Atticus, created an impression in the mind of the public that both
letter and verses were written about the same time. No suspicion as to the
genuineness of this correspondence was raised till the discovery of the
Caryll letters, which first revealed the fact that most of the pretended
letters to Addison had been really addressed to Caryll; that there had
been, in fact, no correspondence between Pope and Addison; and that,
therefore, in all probability, the letter to Craggs was also a fictitious
composition, inserted in the so-called surreptitious volume of 1735 to
establish the credit of Pope's own story.
We must accordingly put aside, as undeserving of credence, the poet's
ingeniously constructed charge, at any rate in the particular shape in
which it is preferred, and must endeavour to form for ourselves such a
judgment as is rendered probable by the acknowledged facts of the case.
What is indisputable is that in 1715 a rupture took place between Addison
and Pope, in consequence of the injury which the translator of the _Iliad_
conceived himself to have suffered from the countenance given to Tickell's
rival performance; and that in 1723 we find the first mention of the
satire upon Addison in a letter from Atterbury to Pope. The question is,
what blame attaches to Addison for his conduct in the matter of the two
translations; and what is the amount of truth in Pope's story respecting
the composition of the verses on Atticus.
Pope made Addison's acquaintance in the year 1712. On the 20th of
December, 1711, Addison had noticed Pope's _Art of Criticism_ in the 253d
number of the _Spectator_--partly, no doubt, in consequence of his
perception of the merits of the poem, but probably at the particular
instigation of Steele, whose acquaintance with Pope may have been due to
the common friendship of both with Caryll. The praise bestowed on the
_Essay_ (as it was afterwards called) was of the finest and most liberal
kind, and was the more welcome because it was preceded by a censure
conveyed with admirable delicacy on "the strokes of ill-nature" which the
poem contained. Pope was naturally exceedingly pleased, and wrote to
Steele a letter of thanks under the impression that the latter was the
writer of the paper, a misapprehension which Steele at once hastened to
correct. "The paper," says he, "was written by one with whom I will make
you acquainted--which is the best return I can make to you for your
favour."
These words were doubtless used by Steele in the warmth of his affection
for Addison, but they also express the general estimation in which the
latter was then held. He had recently established his man Button in a
coffee-house in Covent Garden, where, surrounded by his little senate,
Budgell, Tickell, Carey, and Philips, he ruled supreme over the world of
taste and letters. Something, no doubt, of the spirit of the coterie
pervaded the select assembly. Addison could always find a word of
condescending praise for his followers in the pages of the _Spectator_; he
corrected their plays and mended their prologues; and they on their side
paid back their patron with unbounded reverence, perhaps justifying the
satirical allusion of the poet to the "applause" so grateful to the ear of
Atticus:
"While wits and Templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise."
Pope, according to his own account, was admitted to the society, and left
it, as he said, because he found it sit too far into the night for his
health. It may, however, be suspected that the natures of the author of
the _Dunciad_ and of the creator of Sir Roger de Coverley, though touching
each other at many points, were far from naturally congenial; that the
essayist was well aware that the man who could write the _Essay on
Criticism_ had a higher capacity for poetry than either himself or any of
his followers; and that the poet, on his side, conscious of great if
undeveloped powers, was inclined to resent the air of patronage with which
he was treated by the King of Button's. Certain it is that the praise of
Pope by Addison in number 253 of the _Spectator_ is qualified (though by
no means unjustly), and that he is not spoken of with the same warmth as
Tickell and Ambrose Philips in number 523. "Addison," said Pope to Spence,
"seemed to value himself more upon his poetry than upon his prose, though
he wrote the latter with such particular ease, fluency, and
happiness."[62] This often happens; and perhaps the uneasy consciousness
that, in spite of the reputation which his _Campaign_ had secured for him,
he was really inferior to such men as John Philips and Tickell, made
Addison touchy at the idea of the entire circle being outshone by a new
candidate for poetical fame.
Whatever jealousy, however, existed between the two was carefully
suppressed during the first year of their acquaintance. Pope showed
Addison the first draft of the _Rape of the Lock_, and, according to
Warburton (whose account must be received with suspicion), imparted to him
his design of adding the fairy machinery. If Addison really endeavoured to
dissuade the poet from making this exquisite addition, the latter was on
his side anxious that _Cato_, which, as has been said, was shown to him
after its completion, should not be presented on the stage; and his
advice, if tested by the result, would have been quite as open as
Addison's to an unfavourable construction. He wrote, however, for the play
the famous Prologue which Steele inserted, with many compliments, in the
_Guardian_. But not long afterwards the effect of the compliments was
spoiled by the comparatively cold mention of Pope's _Pastorals_ in the
same paper that contained a glowing panegyric on the _Pastorals_ of
Ambrose Philips. In revenge, Pope wrote his paper commending Philips'
performance and depreciating his own, the irony of which, it is said,
escaping the notice of Steele, was inserted by him in the _Guardian_, much
to the amusement of Addison and more to the disgust of Philips.
The occasion on which Pope's pique against Addison began to develop into
bitter resentment is sufficiently indicated by the date which the poet
assigns to the first letter in the concocted correspondence--viz., July
20, 1713. This letter (which is taken, with a few slight alterations of
names, from one written to Caryll on November 19, 1712) opens as follows:
"I am more joyed at your return than I should be at that of the sun,
so much as I wish for him this melancholy wet season; but it has a
fate too like yours to be displeasing to owls and obscure animals who
cannot bear his lustre. What puts me in mind of these night-birds was
John Dennis, whom I think you are best revenged upon, as the sun was
in the fable upon those bats and beastly birds above mentioned, only
by shining on. I am so far from esteeming it any misfortune, that I
congratulate you upon having your share in that which all the great
men and all the good men that ever lived have had their part of--envy
and calumny. To be uncensured and to be obscure is the same thing. You
may conclude from what I here say that it was never in my thoughts to
have offered you my pen in any direct reply to such a critic, but only
in some little raillery, not in defence of you, but in contempt of
him."
The allusion is to the squib called _Dr. Norris' Narrative of the Frenzy
of John Dennis_, which, it appears, was shown to Addison by Pope before
its appearance, and after the publication of which Addison caused Steele
to write to Lintot in the following terms:
"Mr. Lintot,--Mr. Addison desired me to tell you that he wholly
disapproves the manner of treating Mr. Dennis in a little pamphlet by
way of Mr. Norris' account. When he thinks fit to take notice of Mr.
Dennis' objections to his writings, he will do it in a way Mr. Dennis
shall have no just reason to complain of. But when the papers above
mentioned were offered to be communicated to him he said he could not,
either in honour or conscience, be privy to such a treatment, and was
sorry to hear of it.--I am, sir, your very humble servant."
Pope's motive in writing the pamphlet was, as Johnson says, "to give his
resentment full play without appearing to revenge himself" for the attack
which Dennis had made on his own poems. Addison doubtless divined the
truth; but the wording of the letter which he caused a third person to
write to Lintot certainly seems studiously offensive to Pope, who had,
professedly at any rate, placed his pen at his service, and who had
connected his own name with _Cato_ by the fine Prologue he had written in
its praise. Lintot would of course have shown Pope Steele's letter, and we
may be sure that the lofty tone taken by Addison in speaking of the
pamphlet would have rankled bitterly in the poet's mind.
At the same time Philips, who was naturally enraged with Pope on account
of the ridicule with which the latter had covered his _Pastorals_,
endeavoured to widen the breach by spreading a report that Pope had
entered into a conspiracy to write against the Whigs, and to undermine the
reputation of Addison. Addison seems to have lent a ready ear to these
accusations. At any rate Pope thought so; for when the good-natured
painter Jervas sought to bring about a composition, he wrote to him (27th
August, 1714):
"What you mentioned of the friendly office you endeavoured to do
betwixt Mr. Addison and me deserves acknowledgment on my part. You
thoroughly know my regard to his character, and my propensity to
testify it by all ways in my power. You as thoroughly know the
scandalous meanness of that proceeding, which was used by Philips, to
make a man I so highly value suspect my disposition towards him. But
as, after all, Mr. Addison must be the judge in what regards himself,
and has seemed to be no very just one to me, so I must own to you I
expect nothing but civility from him, how much soever I wish for his
friendship. As for any offices of real kindness or service which it is
in his power to do me, I should be ashamed to receive them from any
man who had no better opinion of my morals than to think me a party
man, nor of my temper than to believe me capable of maligning or
envying another's reputation as a poet. So I leave it to time to
convince him as to both, to show him the shallow depths of those
half-witted creatures who misinformed him, and to prove that I am
incapable of endeavouring to lessen a person whom I would be proud to
imitate, and therefore ashamed to flatter. In a word, Mr. Addison is
sure of my respect at all times, and of my real friendship whenever he
shall think fit to know me for what I am."
It is evident, from the tone of this letter, that all the materials for a
violent quarrel were in existence. On the one side was Addison, with
probably an instinctive dislike of Pope's character, intensified by the
injurious reports circulated against Pope in the "little senate" at
Button's; with a nature somewhat cold and reserved; and with something of
literary jealousy, partly arising from a sense of what was due to his
acknowledged supremacy, and partly from a perception that there had
appeared a very formidable "brother near the throne." On the side of Pope
there was an eager sensitiveness, ever craving for recognition and praise,
with an abnormal irritability prone to watch for, and reluctant to
forgive, anything in the shape of a slight or an injury. Slights and
injuries he already deemed himself to have received, and accordingly, when
Tickell, in 1715, published his translation of the First Book of the
_Iliad_ at the same time with his own translation of the first four books,
his smothered resentment broke into a blaze at what he imagined to be a
conspiracy to damage his poetical reputation. Many years afterwards, when
the quarrel between Addison and himself had become notorious, he arranged
his version of it for the public in a manner which is, indeed, far from
assisting us to a knowledge of the truth, but which enables us to
understand very clearly what was passing in his own mind at the time.
The subscription for Pope's translation of the _Iliad_ was set on foot in
November, 1713. On the 10th October, 1714, having two books completed, he
wished to submit them--or at any rate he told the public so in 1735--to
Addison's judgment. This was at a date when, as he informed Spence, "there
had been a coldness between Mr. Addison and me" for some time. According
to the letter which appears in his published correspondence, he wrote to
Addison on the subject as follows:
"I have been acquainted by one of my friends, who omits no
opportunities of gratifying me, that you have lately been pleased to
speak of me in a manner which nothing but the real respect I have for
you can deserve. May I hope that some late malevolences have lost
their effect?... As to what you have said of me I shall never believe
that the author of _Cato_ can speak one thing and think another. As a
proof that I account you sincere, I beg a favour of you: it is that
you would look over the two first books of my translation of Homer,
which are in the hands of Lord Halifax. I am sensible how much the
reputation of any poetical work will depend upon the character you
give it. It is therefore some evidence of the trust I repose in your
good will when I give you this opportunity of speaking ill of me with
justice, and yet expect you will tell me your truest thoughts at the
same time you tell others your most favourable ones."[63]
Whether the facts reported in this letter were as fictitious as we have a
right to assume the letter itself to be, it is impossible to say; Pope at
any rate told Spence the following story, which is clearly meant to fall
in with the evidence of the correspondence:
"On his meeting me there (Button's Coffee-House) he took me aside and
said he should be glad to dine with me at such a tavern if I would
stay till those people (Budgell and Philips) were gone. We went
accordingly, and after dinner Mr. Addison said 'that he had wanted for
some time to talk with me: that his friend Tickell had formerly, while
at Oxford, translated the first book of the _Iliad_. That he now
designed to print it, and had desired him to look it over: he must
therefore beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book,
because, if he did, it would have the air of double dealing.' I
assured him that I did not take it ill of Mr. Tickell that he was
going to publish his translation; that he certainly had as much right
to translate any author as myself; and that publishing both was
entering on a fair stage. I then added 'that I would not desire him to
look over my first book of the _Iliad_, because he had looked over Mr.
Tickell's, but could wish to have the benefit of his observations on
my second, which I had then finished, and which Mr. Tickell had not
touched upon.' Accordingly, I sent him the second book the next
morning; and in a few days he returned it with very high commendation.
Soon after it was generally known that Mr. Tickell was publishing the
first book of the _Iliad_ I met Dr. Young in the street, and, upon our
falling into that subject, the doctor expressed a great deal of
surprise at Tickell's having such a translation by him so long. He
said that it was inconceivable to him, and that there must be some
mistake in the matter; that he and Tickell were so intimately
acquainted at Oxford that each used to communicate to the other
whatever verses they wrote, even to the least things; that Tickell
could not have been busied in so long a work there without his knowing
something of the matter; and that he had never heard a single word of
it till this occasion."[64]
It is scarcely necessary to say that, after the light that has been
thrown on Pope's character by the detection of the frauds he practised in
the publication of his correspondence, it is impossible to give any
credence to the tales he poured into Spence's ear, tending to blacken
Addison's character and to exalt his own. Tickell's MS. of the translation
is in existence, and all the evidence tends to show that he was really the
author of it. But the above statement may be taken to reflect accurately
enough the rage, the resentment, and the suspicion which disturbed Pope's
own mind on the appearance of the rival translation. We can scarcely doubt
that it was this, and this alone, which roused him to such glowing
indignation and inspired him to write the character of Atticus. When the
verses were made public, after Addison's death, he probably perceived that
the public would not consider the evidence for Addison's collusion with
Tickell to be sufficiently strong to afford a justification for the
bitterness of the satire. It was necessary to advance some stronger plea
for such retaliation, especially as rumour confidently asserted that the
lines had not been written till after Addison was dead. Hence the story
told by Pope to Spence, proving first that the lines were not only written
during Addison's lifetime, but were actually sent to Addison himself; and
secondly, that they were only composed after the strongest evidence had
been afforded to the poet of his rival's malignant disposition towards
him. Hence, too, the publication in 1735 of the letter to Craggs, which,
containing as it did many of the phrases and metaphors employed in the
verses, seemed to supply indirect evidence that both were written about
the same period.
With regard to Pope's story, it is not too much to say that it entirely
breaks down on examination. He professes to give it on the authority of
Lord Warwick himself, reckoning, of course, that the evidence of
Addison's own step-son would be conclusive with the public. But Addison
was not married to the Countess of Warwick till August, 1716; and in the
previous May he had bestowed the most liberal praise on Pope's translation
in one of his papers in the _Freeholder_. For Lord Warwick, therefore, to
argue at that date that Addison's "_jealous temper_ could never admit of a
settled friendship" between him and Pope was out of the question. If, on
the other hand, Lord Warwick told his story to Pope before his mother's
marriage, the difficulty is equally great. The letter to Craggs, which, if
it was ever sent to the latter at all, must obviously have been written in
the same "heat" which prompted the satire on Atticus, is dated July 15,
1715. This fits in well enough with the date of the dispute about the
rival translations of the _Iliad_, but not with Lord Warwick's story, for
Wycherley, after whose death Gildon, we are told, was hired by Addison to
abuse Pope, did not die till the December of that year.
Again, the internal evidence of the character itself points to the fact
that, when it was first composed, its "heat" was not caused by any
information the poet had received of a transaction between Addison and
Gildon. The following is the first published version of the satire:
"If Dennis writes and rails in furious pet
I'll answer Dennis when I am in debt.
If meagre Gildon draw his meaner quill,
I wish the man a dinner and sit still.
But should there _One_ whose better stars conspire
To form a bard, and raise a genius higher,
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to live, converse, and write with ease;
Should such a one, resolved to reign alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with jealous yet with scornful eyes,
Hate him for arts that caused himself to rise,
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Alike reserved to blame or to commend,
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend,
Fearing e'en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged;
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 worst the best_:
Like Cato, give his little senate laws
And sits attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars every sentence praise
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?"
There is sufficient corroborative evidence to allow us to believe that
these lines were actually written, as Pope says, during Addison's
lifetime; and if they were, the character of the satire would naturally
suggest that its motive was Addison's supposed conduct in the matter of
the two translations of the _Iliad_. There is nothing in them to indicate
any connection in the poet's mind between Gildon and Addison; on the other
hand, the allusion to the "two wits" shows the special grievance that
formed the basis, in his imagination, of the whole character. Afterwards
we find that "meaner quill" is replaced by "_venal_ quill;" and the
couplet about the rival translations is suppressed. The inference is
plain. When Pope was charged with having written the character after
Addison's death, he found himself obliged, in self-defence, to furnish a
moral justification for the satire; and, after his own unfortunate manner,
he proceeded to build up for himself a position on a number of systematic
falsehoods. His story was probably so far true that the character was
really written while Addison was alive; on the other hand, it is not
unreasonable to conclude that the entire statement about Gildon and Lord
Warwick is fabulous; and, as the assertion that the lines were sent to
Addison immediately after their composition is associated with these
myths, this, too, may fairly be dismissed as equally undeserving of
belief.
As to the truth of the character of Atticus, however, it by no means
follows, because Pope's account of its origin is false, that the portrait
itself is altogether untrue. The partizans of Addison endeavour to prove
that it is throughout malicious and unjust. But no one can fail to
perceive that the character itself is a very extraordinary picture of
human nature; and there is no reason to suppose that Addison was superior
to the weaknesses of his kind. On the contrary, there is independent
evidence to show that he was strongly influenced by that literary jealousy
which makes the groundwork of the ideal character. This the piercing
intelligence of Pope no doubt plainly discerned; his inflamed imagination
built up on this foundation the wonderful fabric that has ever since
continued to enchant the world. The reader who is acquainted with his own
heart will probably not find much difficulty in determining what elements
in the character are derived from the substantial truth of nature, and
what are to be ascribed to the exaggerated perceptions of Genius.