_To John Murray, Esq_.
_Post Scriptum_.--Long as this letter has grown, I find it necessary
to append a postscript; if possible, a short one. Mr. Bowles denies
that he has accused Pope of "a sordid money-getting passion;" but, he
adds, "if I had ever done so, I should be glad to find any testimony
that, might show he was _not_ so." This testimony he may find to his
heart's content in Spence and elsewhere. First, there is Martha
Blount, who, Mr. Bowles charitably says, "probably thought he did not
save enough for her, as legatee." Whatever she _thought_ upon this
point, her words are in Pope's favour. Then there is Alderman Barber;
see Spence's Anecdotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax when
he proposed a pension; his behaviour to Craggs and to Addison upon
like occasions, and his own two lines--
"And, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive;"
written when princes would have been proud to pension, and peers to
promote him, and when the whole army of dunces were in array against
him, and would have been but too happy to deprive him of this boast
of independence. But there is something a little more serious in Mr.
Bowles's declaration, that he "_would_ have spoken" of his "noble
generosity to the outcast Richard Savage," and other instances of a
compassionate and generous heart, "_had they occurred to his
recollection when he wrote_." What! is it come to this? Does Mr.
Bowles sit down to write a minute and laboured life and edition of a
great poet? Does he anatomise his character, moral and poetical? Does
he present us with his faults and with his foibles? Does he sneer at
his feelings, and doubt of his sincerity? Does he unfold his vanity
and duplicity? and then omit the good qualities which might, in part,
have "covered this multitude of sins?" and then plead that "_they did
not occur to his recollection_?" Is this the frame of mind and of
memory with which the illustrious dead are to be approached? If Mr.
Bowles, who must have had access to all the means of refreshing his
memory, did not recollect these facts, he is unfit for his task; but
if he _did_ recollect and omit them, I know not what he is fit for,
but I know what would be fit for him. Is the plea of "not
recollecting" such prominent facts to be admitted? Mr. Bowles has
been at a public school, and as I have been publicly educated also, I
can sympathise with his predilection. When we were in the third form
even, had we pleaded on the Monday morning, that we had not brought
up the Saturday's exercise, because "we had forgotten it," what would
have been the reply? And is an excuse, which would not be pardoned to
a schoolboy, to pass current in a matter which so nearly concerns the
fame of the first poet of his age, if not of his country? If Mr.
Bowles so readily forgets the virtues of others, why complain so
grievously that others have a better memory for his own faults? They
are but the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitted from
his catalogue are essential to the justice due to a man.
Mr. Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of
authorship. There is a plaintive dedication to Mr. Gifford, in which
_he_ is made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterly. Mr.
Southey, it seems, "the most able and eloquent writer in that
Review," approves of Mr. Bowles's publication. Now it seems to me the
more impartial, that notwithstanding that "the great writer of the
Quarterly" entertains opinions opposite to the able article on
Spence, nevertheless that essay was permitted to appear. Is a review
to be devoted to the opinions of any _one_ man?
Must it not vary according to circumstances, and according to the
subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must take the sweets
and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so
long a standing as Mr. Bowles might have become accustomed to such
incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. I have been
reviewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr. Bowles, and have had
as pleasant things said, and some _as unpleasant_, as could well be
pronounced. In the review of "The Fall of Jerusalem" it is stated,
that I have devoted "my powers, &c. to the worst parts of
Manicheism;" which, being interpreted, means that I worship the
devil. Now, I have neither written a reply, nor complained to
Gifford. I believe that I observed in a letter to you, that I thought
"that the critic might have praised Milman without finding it
necessary to abuse me;" but did I not add at the same time, or soon
after, (à propos, of the note in the book of Travels,) that I would
not, if it were even in my power, have a single line cancelled on my
account in that nor in any other publication? Of course, I reserve to
myself the privilege of response when necessary. Mr. Bowles seems in
a whimsical state about the author of the article on Spence. You know
very well that I am not in your confidence, nor in that of the
conductor of the journal. The moment I saw that article, I was
morally certain that I knew the author "by his style." You will tell
me that I do _not know_ him: that is all as it should be; keep the
secret, so shall I, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. He is
not the person whom Mr. Bowles denounces. Mr. Bowles's extreme
sensibility reminds me of a circumstance which occurred on board of a
frigate in which I was a passenger and guest of the captain's for a
considerable time. The surgeon on board, a very gentlemanly young
man, and remarkably able in his profession, wore a _wig_. Upon this
ornament he was extremely tenacious. As naval jests are sometimes a
little rough, his brother officers made occasional allusions to this
delicate appendage to the doctor's person. One day a young
lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discussion, said, "Suppose
now, doctor, I should take off your _hat_,"--"Sir," replied the
doctor, "I shall talk no longer with you; you grow _scurrilous_." He
would not even admit so near an approach as to the hat which
protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches Mr. Bowles's
laurels, even in his outside capacity of an _editor_, "they grow
_scurrilous_." You say that you are about to prepare an edition of
Pope; you cannot do better for your own credit as a publisher, nor
for the redemption of Pope from Mr. Bowles, and of the public taste
from rapid degeneracy.