P. Well (_entre nous_),
Most that he said of _Addison_ was _true_.
Plain Truth, you know--
FR. Is often not polite
(So _Hamlet_ thought)--
P. And _Hamlet_ (Sir) was right.
But leave POPE'S Life. To-day, methinks, we touch
The Work too little and the Man too much.
Take up the _Lock_, the _Satires_, _Eloise_--
What Art supreme, what Elegance, what Ease!
How keen the Irony, the Wit how bright,
The Style how rapid, and the Verse how light!
Then read once more, and you shall wonder yet
At Skill, at Turn, at Point, at Epithet.
"True Wit is Nature to Advantage dress'd"--
Was ever Thought so pithily express'd?
"And ten low Words oft creep in one dull Line"--
Ah, what a Homily on Yours ... and Mine!
Or take--to choose at Random--take but This--
"Ten censure wrong for one that writes amiss."
FR. Pack'd and precise, no Doubt. Yet surely those
Are but the Qualities we ask of Prose,
Was he a POET?
P. Yes: if that be what
_Byron_ was certainly and _Bowles_ was not;
Or say you grant him, to come nearer Date,
What _Dryden_ had, that was denied to _Tate_--
FR. Which means, you claim for him the Spark divine,
Yet scarce would place him on the highest Line--
P. True, there are Classes. POPE was most of all
Akin to _Horace_, _Persius_, _Juvenal_;
POPE was, like them, the Censor of his Age,
An Age more suited to Repose than Rage;
When Rhyming turn'd from Freedom to the Schools,
And shock'd with Licence, shudder'd into Rules;
When _Phoebus_ touch'd the Poet's trembling Ear
With one supreme Commandment _Be thou Clear_;
When Thought meant less to reason than compile,
And the _Muse_ labour'd ... chiefly with the File.
Beneath full Wigs no Lyric drew its Breath
As in the Days of great ELIZABETH;
And to the Bards of ANNA was denied
The Note that _Wordsworth_ heard on _Duddon_-side.
But POPE took up his Parable, and knit
The Woof of Wisdom with the Warp of Wit;
He trimm'd the Measure on its equal Feet,
And smooth'd and fitted till the Line was neat;
He taught the Pause with due Effect to fall;
He taught the Epigram to come at Call;
He wrote----
FR. His _Iliad_!
P. Well, suppose you own
You like your _Iliad_ in the Prose of _Bohn_,--
Tho' if you'd learn in Prose how _Homer_ sang,
'Twere best to learn of _Butcher_ and of _Lang_,--
Suppose you say your Worst of POPE, declare
His Jewels Paste, his Nature a Parterre,
His Art but Artifice--I ask once more
Where have you seen such Artifice before?
Where have you seen a Parterre better grac'd,
Or gems that glitter like his Gems of Paste?
Where can you show, among your Names of Note,
So much to copy and so much to quote?
And where, in Fine, in all our English Verse,
A Style more trenchant and a Sense more terse?
So I, that love the old _Augustan_ Days
Of formal Courtesies and formal Phrase;
That like along the finish'd Line to feel
The Ruffle's Flutter and the Flash of Steel;
That like my Couplet as compact as clear;
That like my Satire sparkling tho' severe,
Unmix'd with Bathos and unmarr'd by Trope,
I fling my Cap for Polish--and for POPE!