_To John Murray, Esq_.
P.S. Amongst the above-mentioned lines there occurs the following,
_applied_ to Pope--
"The assassin's vengeance, and the coward's lie."
And Mr. Bowles persists that he is a well-wisher to Pope!!! He has,
then, edited an "assassin" and a "coward" wittingly, as well as
lovingly. In my former letter I have remarked upon the editor's
forgetfulness of Pope's benevolence. But where he mentions his faults
it is "with sorrow"--his tears drop, but they do not blot them out.
The "recording angel" differs from the recording clergyman. A fulsome
editor is pardonable though tiresome, like a panegyrical son whose
pious sincerity would demi-deify his father. But a detracting editor
is a paricide. He sins against the nature of his office, and
connection--he murders the life to come of his victim. If his author
is not worthy to be mentioned, do not edit at all: if he be, edit
honestly, and even flatteringly. The reader will forgive the weakness
in favour of mortality, and correct your adulation with a smile. But
to sit down "mingere in patrios cineres," as Mr. Bowles has done,
merits a reprobation so strong, that I am as incapable of expressing
as of ceasing to feel it.
_Further Addenda_.
It is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about "_in-door_
nature" and "artificial images," Pope was the principal inventor of
that boast of the English, _Modern Gardening_. He divides this honour
with Milton. Hear Warton:--"It hence appears, that this _enchanting_
art of modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference
over every nation in Europe, chiefly owes _its origin_ and its
improvements to two great poets, Milton and _Pope_."
Walpole (no friend to Pope) asserts that Pope formed _Kent's_ taste,
and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted
for diffusing "a taste in laying out grounds." The design of the
Prince of Wales's garden was copied from _Pope's_ at Twickenham.
Warton applauds "his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing
so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres." Pope was the
_first_ who ridiculed the "formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural
taste in gardening," both in _prose_ and verse. (See, for the former,
"The Guardian.")
"Pope has given not only some of our _first_ but _best_ rules and
observations on _Architecture_ and _Gardening_." (See Warton's Essay,
vol. ii. p. 237, &c. &c.)
Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in "Kendal
Green," and our Bucolical Cockneys, crying out (the latter in a
wilderness of bricks and mortar) about "Nature," and Pope's
"artificial in-door habits?" Pope had seen all of nature that
_England_ alone can supply. He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst
the beautiful scenery of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at
the country seats of Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough,
Digby, and Bolingbroke; amongst whose seats was to be numbered
_Stowe_. He made his own little "five acres" a model to princes, and
to the first of our artists who imitated nature. Warton thinks "that
the most engaging of _Kent_'s works was also planned on the model of
Pope's,--at least in the opening and retiring shades of Venus's
Vale."
It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and
he could ride (he rode to Oxford from London at a stretch), and he
was famous for an exquisite eye. On a tree at Lord Bathurst's is
carved "Here Pope sang,"--he composed beneath it. Bolingbroke, in one
of his letters, represents them both writing in the hay-field. No
poet ever admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has
done, as I will undertake to prove from his works, _prose_ and
_verse_, if not anticipated in so easy and agreeable a labour. I
remember a passage in Walpole, somewhere, of a gentleman who wished
to give directions about some willows to a man who had long served
Pope in his grounds: "I understand, sir," he replied: "you would have
them hang down, sir, _somewhat poetical_." Now, if nothing existed
but this little anecdote, it would suffice to prove Pope's taste for
_Nature_, and the impression which he had made on a common-minded
man. But I have already quoted Warton and Walpole (_both_ his
enemies), and, were it necessary, I could amply quote Pope himself
for such tributes to _Nature_ as no poet of the present day has even
approached.
His various excellence is really wonderful: architecture, painting,
_gardening_, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered,
that English _gardening_ is the purposed perfectioning of niggard
_Nature_, and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch,
double-post-and-rail, Hounslow Heath and Clapham Common sort of
country, since the principal forests have been felled. It is, in
general, far from a picturesque country. The case is different with
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and I except also the lake counties and
Derbyshire, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear Harrow on
the Hill, and some spots near the coast. In the present rank
fertility of "great poets of the age," and "schools of poetry"--a
word which, like "schools of eloquence" and of "philosophy," is never
introduced till the decay of the art has increased with the number of
its professors--in the present day, then, there have sprung up two
sorts of Naturals;--the Lakers, who whine about Nature because they
live in Cumberland; and their _under-sect_ (which some one has
maliciously called the "Cockney School"), who are enthusiastical for
the country because they live in London. It is to be observed, that
the rustical founders are rather anxious to disclaim any connexion
with their metropolitan followers, whom they ungraciously review, and
call cockneys, atheists, foolish fellows, bad writers, and other hard
names not less ungrateful than unjust. I can understand the
pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of Windermere to what Mr. Braham
terms "_entusumusy_," for lakes, and mountains, and daffodils, and
buttercups; but I should be glad to be apprised of the foundation of
the London propensities of their imitative brethren to the same "high
argument." Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge have rambled over half
Europe, and seen Nature in most of her varieties (although I think
that they have occasionally not used her very well); but what on
earth--of earth, and sea, and Nature--have the others seen? Not a
half, nor a tenth part so much as Pope. While they sneer at his
Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of Windsor except its
_brick_?
The most rural of these gentlemen is my friend Leigh Hunt, who lives
at Hampstead. I believe that I need not disclaim any personal or
poetical hostility against that gentleman. A more amiable man in
society I know not; nor (when he will allow his sense to prevail over
his sectarian principles) a better writer. When he was writing his
"Rimini," I was not the last to discover its beauties, long before it
was published. Even then I remonstrated against its vulgarisms; which
are the more extraordinary, because the author is any thing but a
vulgar man. Mr. Hunt's answer was, that he wrote them upon principle;
they made part of his "_system!!_" I then said no more. When a man
talks of his system, it is like a woman's talking of her _virtue_. I
let them talk on. Whether there are writers who could have written
"Rimini," as it might have been written, I know not; but Mr. Hunt is,
probably, the only poet who could have had the heart to spoil his own
Capo d'Opera.
With the rest of his young people I have no acquaintance, except
through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without my
desire), and I confess that till I had read them I was not aware of
the full extent of human absurdity. Like Garrick's "Ode to
Shakspeare," _they "defy criticism_." These are of the personages who
decry Pope. One of them, a Mr. John Ketch, has written some lines
against him, of which it were better to be the subject than the
author. Mr. Hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; but the rest
of these poor creatures seem so far gone that I would not "march
through Coventry with them, that's flat!" were I in Mr. Hunt's place.
To be sure, he has "led his ragamuffins where they will be well
peppered;" but a system-maker must receive all sorts of proselytes.
When they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they
have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of
Middlesex--when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced
to its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not till then,
can it properly he permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not
_in Wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the
"_artificial_" works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the
"Man of Ross," whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the
inn, I have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and
admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good
works could hardly have preserved his honest renown.
I would also observe to my friend Hunt, that I shall be very glad to
see him at Ravenna, not only for my sincere pleasure in his company,
and the advantage which a thousand miles or so of travel might
produce to a "natural" poet, but also to point out one or two little
things in "Rimini," which he probably would not have placed in his
opening to that poem, if he had ever seen Ravenna;--unless, indeed,
it made "part of his system!!" I must also crave his indulgence for
having spoken of his disciples--by no means an agreeable or
self-sought subject. If they had said nothing of _Pope_, they might
have remained "alone with their glory" for aught I should have said
or thought about them or their nonsense. But if they interfere with
the "little Nightingale" of Twickenham, they may find others who will
bear it--_I_ won't. Neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age,
can ever diminish my veneration for him, who is the great moral poet
of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of
existence. The delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood,
perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be the consolation of
my age. His poetry is the Book of Life. Without canting, and yet
without neglecting religion, he has assembled all that a good and
great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate
beauty. Sir William Temple observes, "that of all the members of
mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man
that is born capable of making a _great poet_, there may be a
_thousand_ born capable of making as great generals and ministers of
state as any in story." Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: it
is honourable to him and to the art. Such a "poet of a thousand
years" was _Pope_. A thousand years will roll away before such
another can be hoped for in our literature. But it can _want_
them--he himself is a literature.
One word upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. "Dr.
Clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has _not been_ able
to point out above three or four mistakes _in the sense_ through the
whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a different
kind." So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then,
that he avoided the chief fault of a translator. As to its other
faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a
sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of
the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst: they will
never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and
feeling.
The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets
is their _vulgarity_. By this I do not mean that they are _coarse_,
but "shabby-genteel," as it is termed. A man may be _coarse_ and yet
not _vulgar_, and the reverse. Burns is often coarse, but never
_vulgar_. Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher
of the Lake school, though they treat of low life in all its
branches. It is in their _finery_ that the new under school are
_most_ vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as what we
called at Harrow "a Sunday blood" might be easily distinguished from
a gentleman, although his clothes might be the better cut, and his
boots the best blackened, of the two;--probably because he made the
one, or cleaned the other, with his own hands.
In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the
latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. Of my
friend Hunt, I have already said, that he is any thing but vulgar in
his manners; and of his disciples, therefore, I will not judge of
their manners from their verses. They may be honourable and
_gentlemanly_ men, for what I know; but the latter quality is
studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me of Mr.
Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in
"Evelina." In these things (in private life, at least,) I pretend to
some small experience; because, in the course of my youth, I have
seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and
the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their
countries, down to the London boxer, the "_flash and the swell_," the
Spanish muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch
highlander, and the Albanian robber;--to say nothing of the curious
varieties of Italian social life. Far be it from me to presume that
there ever was, or can be, such a thing as an _aristocracy_ of
_poets_; but there _is_ a nobility of thought and of style, open to
all stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly from
education,--which is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns,
no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to be
perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's little chorus. If
I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should say
that it is only to be defined by _examples_--of those who have it,
and those who have it not. In _life_, I should say that most
_military_ men have it, and few _naval_;--that several men of rank
have it, and few lawyers;--that it is more frequent among authors
than divines (when they are not pedants); that _fencing_-masters have
more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that
(if it be not an Irishism to say so) it is far more generally
diffused among women than among men. In poetry, as well as writing in
general, it will never _make_ entirely a poet or a poem; but neither
poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it. It is the
_salt_ of society, and the seasoning of composition. _Vulgarity_ is
far worse than downright _blackguardism_; for the latter comprehends
wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad
abortive attempt at all things, "signifying nothing." It does not
depend upon low themes, or even low language, for Fielding revels in
both;--but is he ever _vulgar_? No. You see the man of education, the
gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master,
not its slave. Your vulgar writer is always most vulgar, the higher,
his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidcock's was
wont to say,--"This, gentlemen, is the _eagle_ of the _sun_, from
Archangel, in Russia; the _otterer_ it is, the _igherer_ he flies."
But to the proofs. It is a thing to be felt more than explained. Let
any man take up a volume of Mr. Hunt's subordinate writers, read (if
possible) a couple of pages, and pronounce for himself, if they
contain not the kind of writing which may be likened to
"shabby-genteel" in actual life. When he has done this, let him take
up Pope;--and when he has laid him down, take up the cockney
again--if he can.
* * * * *
_Note to the passage in page_ 396. _relative to Pope's
lines upon Lady Mary W. Montague_.] I think that I could
show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was also
greatly to blame in that quarrel, _not_ for having
rejected, but for having encouraged him: but I would rather
decline the task--though she should have remembered her own
line, "_He comes too near, that comes to be denied_." I
admire her so much--her beauty, her talents--that I should do
this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name
of _Mary_, that as Johnson once said, "If you called a
dog _Harvey_, I should love him;" so, if you were to call
a female of the same species "Mary," I should love it better
than others (biped or quadruped) of the same sex with a
different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman: she
could translate _Epictetus_, and yet write a song worthy
of Aristippus. The lines,
"And when the long hours of the public are past,
And we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last,
May every fond pleasure that moment endear!
Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear!
Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd,
He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud,
Till," &c. &c.
There, Mr. Bowles!--what say you to such a supper with such a
woman? and her own description too? Is not her "_champaigne
and chicken_" worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry? It
appears to me that this stanza contains the "_purée_" of
the whole philosophy of Epicurus:--I mean the _practical_
philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master; for
I have been too long at the university not to know that the
philosopher was himself a moderate man. But, after all, would
not some of us have been as great fools as Pope? For my part,
I wonder that, with his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his
disappointment, he did no more,--instead of writing some
lines, which are to be condemned if false, and regretted if
true.