The wrath of Peleus’ son, the direful spring
Of all the Grecian woes, O Goddess, sing,
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain.
The stern Pelides’ _rage_, O Goddess, sing,
wrath
Of all the woes _of Greece_ too fatal spring,
Grecian
That screwed with warriors dead the Phrygian plain,
heroes
And _peopled the dark with heroes_ slain:
filled the shady hell with chiefs untimely
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore,
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove;
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove.
Whose limbs, unburied on the hostile shore,
Devouring dogs and greedy vultures tore,
Since first _Atrides_ and _Achilles_ strove;
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove.
Declare, O Muse, in what ill-fated hour
Sprung the fierce strife from what offended Power?
Latona’s son a dire contagion spread,
And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead;
The King of Men his reverend priest defied,
And for the King’s offence the people died.
Declare, O Goddess, what offended Power
Enflamed their _rage_ in that _ill-omened_ hour;
anger fatal, hapless
Phœbus himself the _dire_ debate procured,
fierce
To avenge the wrongs his injured priest endured;
For this the god a dire infection spread,
And heaped the camp with millions of the dead:
The King of men the sacred sire defied,
And for the King’s offence the people died.
For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the Victor’s chain;
Suppliant the venerable father stands,
Apollo’s awful ensigns grace his hands,
By these he begs, and, lowly bending down,
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown.
For Chryses sought by _presents to regain_
costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the Victor’s chain;
Suppliant the venerable father stands,
Apollo’s awful ensigns graced his hands.
By these he begs, and, lowly bending down
_The golden sceptre_ and the laurel crown,
Presents the sceptre
_For these as ensigns of his god he bare_,
_The god who sends his golden shaft afar_;
Then low on earth the venerable man,
Suppliant before the brother kings began.
He sued to all, but chief implored for grace,
The brother kings of Atreus’ royal race;
Ye kings and warriors, may your vows be crowned,
And Troy’s proud walls lie level with the ground;
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o’er,
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore.
To all he sued, but chief implored for grace
The brother kings of Atreus’ royal race.
Ye _sons of Atreus_, may your vows be crowned,
kings and warriors
_Your labours_, _by the gods be all your labours crowned_;
_So may the gods your arms with conquest bless_,
_And_ Troy’s proud walls _lie_ level with the ground;
Till laid
_And crown your labours with desired success_;
May Jove restore you when your toils are o’er
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore.
But, oh! relieve a wretched parent’s pain,
And give Chryses to these arms again;
If mercy fail, yet let my present move,
And dread avenging Phœbus, son of Jove.
But, oh! relieve a hapless parent’s pain,
And give my daughter to these arms again;
_Receive my gifts_, if mercy fails, yet let my present move,
And fear _the god who deals his darts around_,
avenging Phœbus, son of Jove.
The Greeks, in shouts, their joint assent declare,
The priest to reverence, and release the fair:
Not so Atrides; he, with kingly pride,
Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied.
He said, the Greeks their joint assent declare,
_The father said_, _the generous Greeks relent_,
To accept the ransom, and restore the fair:
_Revere the priest_, _and speak their joint assent_;
Not so _the tyrant_; he, with kingly pride,
Atrides,
Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied
[Not so the tyrant. DRYDEN.]
Of these lines, and of the whole first book, I am told that there was yet
a former copy, more varied, and more deformed with interlineations.
The beginning of the second book varies very little from the printed
page, and is therefore set down without any parallel. The few slight
differences do not require to be elaborately displayed.
Now pleasing sleep had sealed each mortal eye:
Stretched in the tents the Grecian leaders lie;
The Immortals slumbered on their thrones above,
All but the ever-wakeful eye of Jove.
To honour Thetis’ son he bends his care,
And plunge the Greeks in all the woes of war.
Then bids an empty phantom rise to sight,
And thus _commands_ the vision of the night: directs
Fly hence, delusive dream, and, light as air,
To Agamemnon’s royal tent repair;
Bid him in arms draw forth the embattled train,
March all his legions to the dusty plain.
_Now tell the King_ ’tis given him to destroy
Declare even now
The lofty _walls_ of wide-extended Troy; towers
For now no more the gods with fate contend;
At Juno’s suit the heavenly factions end.
Destruction _hovers_ o’er yon devoted wall, hangs
And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall.
Invocation to the catalogue of ships.
Say, virgins, seated round the throne divine,
All-knowing goddesses! immortal nine!
Since earth’s wide regions, heaven’s unmeasured height,
And hell’s abyss, hide nothing from your sight
(We, wretched mortals! lost in doubts below,
But guess by rumour, and but boast we know),
Oh! say what heroes, fired by thirst of fame,
Or urged by wrongs, to Troy’s destruction came!
To count them all demands a thousand tongues,
A throat of brass and adamantine lungs.
Now virgin goddesses, immortal nine!
That round Olympus’ heavenly summit shine,
Who see through heaven and earth, and hell profound,
And all things know, and all things can resound!
Relate what armies sought the Trojan land,
What nations followed, and what chiefs command;
(For doubtful fame distracts mankind below,
And nothing can we tell, and nothing know)
Without your aid, to count the unnumbered train,
A thousand mouths, a thousand tongues, were vain.
Book V. _v._ 1.
But Pallas now Tydides’ soul inspires,
Fills with her force, and warms with all her fires:
Above the Greeks his deathless fame to raise,
And crown her hero with distinguished praise,
High on his helm celestial lightnings play,
His beamy shield emits a living ray;
The unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies,
Like the red star that fires the autumnal skies.
But Pallas now Tydides’ soul inspires,
Fills with her _rage_, and warms with all her fires;
force
O’er all the Greeks decrees his fame to raise,
Above the Greeks _her warrior’s_ fame to raise,
his deathless
And crown her hero with _immortal_ praise: distinguished
_Bright from_ his beamy _crest the_ lightnings play,
High on helm
From his broad buckler flashed the living ray;
High on his helm celestial lightnings play,
His beamy shield emits a living ray;
The goddess with her breath the flame supplies,
Bright as the star whose fires in autumn rise;
Her breath divine thick streaming flames supplies,
Bright as the star that fires the autumnal skies:
The unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies,
Like the red star that fires the autumnal skies.
When fresh he rears his radiant orb to sight,
And bathed in ocean shoots a keener light,
Such glories Pallas on the chief bestowed,
Such from his arms the fierce effulgence flowed;
Onward she drives him, furious to engage,
Where the fight burns, and where the thickest rage.
When fresh he rears his radiant orb to sight,
And gilds old ocean with a blaze of light,
Bright as the star that fires the autumnal skies,
Fresh from the deep, and gilds the seas and skies:
Such glories Pallas on her chief bestowed,
Such sparkling rays from his bright armour flowed,
Such sparkling rays from his bright armour flowed,
Onward she drives him _headlong_ to engage,
furious
Where the _war bleeds_, and where the _fiercest_ rage.
fight burns thickest
The sons of Dares first the combat sought,
A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault;
In Vulcan’s fane the father’s days were led,
The sons to toils of glorious battle bred;
There lived a Trojan—Dares was his name,
The priest of Vulcan, rich, yet void of blame;
The sons of Dares first the combat sought,
A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault.
_Conclusion of_ Book VIII. _v._ 687.
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O’er heaven’s clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole:
O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain’s head:
Then shine the vales—the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
And shoot a shady lustre o’er the field;
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose umbered arms by fits thick flashes send;
Loud neigh the coursers o’er their heaps of corn,
And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.
As when in stillness of the silent night,
As when the moon in all her lustre bright,
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O’er Heaven’s _clear_ azure _sheds_ her _silver_ light;
pure spreads sacred
As still in air the trembling lustre stood,
And o’er its golden border shoots a flood;
When _no loose gale_ disturbs the deep serene,
not a breath
And _no dim_ cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene;
not a
Around her silver throne the planets glow,
And stars unnumbered _trembling beams bestow_;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole:
Clear gleams of light _o’er the dark trees are seen_,
o’er the dark trees a yellow sheds
O’er the dark trees a yellower _green_ they shed,
gleam
verdure
And tip with silver _all the mountain heads_
forest
And tip with silver every mountain’s head.
The valleys open, and the forests rise,
The vales appear, the rocks in prospect rise,
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
All nature stands revealed before our eyes;
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.
The conscious shepherd, joyful at the sight,
Eyes the blue vault, and numbers every light.
The conscious swains _rejoicing at the sight_,
shepherds gazing with delight
Eye the blue vault, and bless the _vivid_ light.
glorious
useful
So many flames before _the navy_ blaze,
proud Ilion
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays,
Wide o’er the fields to Troy extend the gleams,
And tip the distant spires with fainter beams;
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gild the high walls, and tremble on the spires;
Gleam on the walls, and _tremble on the_ spires;
A thousand fires at distant stations bright,
Gild the dark prospect, and dispel the night.
Of these specimens every man who has cultivated poetry, or who delights
to trace the mind from the rudeness of its first conceptions to the
elegance of its last, will naturally desire a great number; but most
other readers are already tired, and I am not writing only to poets and
philosophers.
The “Iliad” was published volume by volume, as the translation proceeded.
The four first books appeared in 1713. The expectation of this work was
undoubtedly high, and every man who had connected his name with criticism
or poetry was desirous of such intelligence as might enable him to talk
upon the popular topic. Halifax, who, by having been first a poet, and
then a patron of poetry, had acquired the right of being a judge, was
willing to hear some books while they were yet unpublished. Of this
rehearsal Pope afterwards gave the following account:—
“The famous Lord Halifax was rather a pretender to taste than really
possessed of it. When I had finished the two or three first books of
my translation of the ‘Iliad,’ that lord desired to have the pleasure
of hearing them read at his house. Addison, Congreve, and Garth were
there at the reading. In four or five places Lord Halifax stopped me
very civilly, and with a speech each time of much the same kind, ‘I
beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage
that does not please me. Be so good as to mark the place, and
consider it a little at your leisure. I am sure you can give it a
little turn.’ I returned from Lord Halifax’s with Dr. Garth in his
chariot, and as we were going along was saying to the Doctor that my
lord had laid me under a great deal of difficulty by such loose and
general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages
almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended
his lordship in either of them. Garth laughed heartily at my
embarrassment: said I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord
Halifax to know his way yet; that I need not puzzle myself about
looking those places over and over when I got home. ‘All you need
do,’ says he, ‘is to leave them just as they are, call on Lord
Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind
observations on those passages, and then read them to him as altered.
I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable
for the event.’ I followed his advice, waited on Lord Halifax some
time after; said I hoped he would find his objections to those
passages removed; read them to him exactly as they were at first; and
his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, ‘Ay, now
they are perfectly right; nothing can be better.’”
It is seldom that the great or the wise suspect that they are despised or
cheated. Halifax, thinking this a lucky opportunity of securing
immortality, made some advances of favour and some overtures of advantage
to Pope, which he seems to have received with sullen coldness. All our
knowledge of this transaction is derived from a single letter (December
1, 1714), in which Pope says, “I am obliged to you, both for the favours
you have done me and those you intend me. I distrust neither your will
nor your memory when it is to do good; and if I ever become troublesome
or solicitous, it must not be out of expectation, but out of gratitude.
Your lordship may cause me to live agreeably in the town, or contentedly
in the country, which is really all the difference I set between an easy
fortune and a small one. It is indeed a high strain of generosity in you
to think of making me easy all my life, only because I have been so happy
as to divert you some few hours; but, if I may have leave to add it is
because you think me no enemy to my native country, there will appear a
better reason; for I must of consequence be very much (as I sincerely am)
yours, &c.”
These voluntary offers, and this faint acceptance, ended without effect.
The patron was not accustomed to such frigid gratitude; and the poet fed
his own pride with the dignity of independence. They probably were
suspicious of each other. Pope would not dedicate till he saw at what
rate his praise was valued; he would be “troublesome out of gratitude,
not expectation.” Halifax thought himself entitled to confidence, and
would give nothing unless he knew what he should receive. Their commerce
had its beginning in hope of praise on one side and of money on the
other, and ended because Pope was less eager of money than Halifax of
praise. It is not likely that Halifax had any personal benevolence to
Pope; it is evident that Pope looked on Halifax with scorn and hatred.
The reputation of this great work failed of gaining him a patron but it
deprived him of a friend. Addison and he were now at the head of poetry
and criticism, and both in such a state of elevation that, like the two
rivals in the Roman State, one could no longer bear an equal, nor the
other a superior. Of the gradual abatement of kindness between friends,
the beginning is often scarcely discernible to themselves, and the
process is continued by petty provocations, and incivilities sometimes
peevishly returned, and sometimes contemptuously neglected, which would
escape all attention but that of pride, and drop from any memory but that
of resentment. That the quarrel of these two wits should be minutely
deduced is not to be expected from a writer to whom, as Homer says,
“nothing but rumour has reached, and who has no personal knowledge.”
Pope doubtless approached Addison, when the reputation of their wit first
brought them together, with the respect due to a man whose abilities were
acknowledged, and who, having attained that eminence to which he was
himself aspiring, had in his hands the distribution of literary fame. He
paid court with sufficient diligence by his prologue to “Cato,” by his
abuse of Dennis, and with praise yet more direct, by his poem on the
“Dialogues on Medals,” of which the immediate publication was then
intended. In all this there was no hypocrisy for he confessed that he
found in Addison something more pleasing than in any other man.
It may be supposed that, as Pope saw himself favoured by the world, and
more frequently compared his own powers with those of others, his
confidence increased, and his submission lessened; and that Addison felt
no delight from the advances of a young wit, who might soon contend with
him for the highest place. Every great man, of whatever kind be his
greatness, has among his friends those who officiously or insidiously
quicken his attention to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate
his resentment. Of such adherents Addison doubtless had many; and Pope
was now too high to be without them. From the emission and reception of
the proposals for the “Iliad,” the kindness of Addison seems to have
abated. Jervas the painter once pleased himself (August 20, 1714) with
imagining that he had re-established their friendship, and wrote to Pope
that Addison once suspected him of too close a confederacy with Swift,
but was now satisfied with his conduct. To this Pope answered, a week
after, that his engagements to Swift were such as his services in regard
to the subscription demanded, and that the Tories never put him under the
necessity of asking leave to be grateful. “But,” says he, “as Mr.
Addison must be the judge in what regards himself, and seems to have no
very just one in regard to me, so I must own to you I expect nothing but
civility from him.” In the same letter he mentions Philips, as having
been busy to kindle animosity between them; but in a letter to Addison he
expresses some consciousness of behaviour, inattentively deficient in
respect.
Of Swift’s industry in promoting the subscription there remains the
testimony of Kennet, no friend to either him or Pope.
“November 2, 1713, Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house, and had a
bow from everybody but me, who, I confess, could not but despise him.
When I came to the antechamber to wait, before prayers, Dr. Swift was
the principal man of talk and business, and acted as master of
requests. Then he instructed a young nobleman that the _best poet in
England_ was Mr. Pope (a papist), who had begun a translation of
‘Homer’ into English verse, for which _he must have them all
subscribe_: for, says he, the author _shall not_ begin to print till
_I have_ a thousand guineas for him.”
About this time it is likely that Steele, who was, with all his political
fury, good-natured and officious, procured an interview between these
angry rivals, which ended in aggravated malevolence. On this occasion,
if the reports be true, Pope made his complaint with frankness and
spirit, as a man undeservedly neglected or opposed; and Addison affected
a contemptuous unconcern, and in a calm, even voice reproached Pope with
his vanity, and, telling him of the improvements which his early works
had received from his own remarks and those of Steele, said that he,
being now engaged in public business, had no longer any care for his
poetical reputation, nor had any other desire with regard to Pope than
that he should not, by too much arrogance, alienate the public.
To this Pope is said to have replied with great keenness and severity,
upbraiding Addison with perpetual dependence, and with the abuse of those
qualifications which he had obtained at the public cost, and charging him
with mean endeavours to obstruct the progress of rising merit. The
contest rose so high that they parted at last without any interchange of
civility.
The first volume of “Homer” was (1715) in time published; and a rival
version of the first “Iliad,” for rivals the time of their appearance
inevitably made them, was immediately printed, with the name of Tickell.
It was soon perceived that, among the followers of Addison, Tickell had
the preference, and the critics and poets divided into factions. “I,”
says Pope, “have the town, that is, the mob, on my side; but it is not
uncommon for the smaller party to supply by industry what it wants in
numbers. I appeal to the people as my rightful judges, and, while they
are not inclined to condemn me, shall not fear the high-flyers at
Button’s.” This opposition he immediately imputed to Addison, and
complained of it in terms sufficiently resentful to Craggs, their common
friend.
When Addison’s opinion was asked, he declared the versions to be both
good, but Tickell’s the best that had ever been written; and sometimes
said that they were both good, but that Tickell had more of “Homer.”
Pope was now sufficiently irritated; his reputation and his interest were
at hazard. He once intended to print together the four versions of
Dryden, Maynwaring, Pope, and Tickell, that they might be readily
compared and fairly estimated. This design seems to have been defeated
by the refusal off Tonson, who was the proprietor of the other three
versions.
Pope intended, at another time, a rigorous criticism of Tickell’s
translation, and had marked a copy, which I have seen, in all places that
appeared defective. But while he was thus meditating defence or revenge,
his adversary sunk before him without a blow; the voice of the public was
not long divided, and the preference universally given to Pope’s
performance. He was convinced, by adding one circumstance to another,
that the other translation was the work of Addison himself; but, if he
knew it in Addison’s lifetime, it does not appear that he told it. He
left his illustrious antagonist to lie punished by what has been
considered as the most painful of all reflections—the remembrance of a
crime perpetrated in vain. The other circumstances of their quarrel were
thus related by Pope:—
“Philips seemed to have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses
and conversations, and 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 should
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 adjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my
satire on Addison. Mr Addison used me very civilly ever after.”
The verses on Addison, when they were sent to Atterbury, were considered
by him as the most excellent of Pope’s performances; and the writer was
advised, since he knew where his strength lay, not to suffer it to remain
unemployed. This year (1715), being by the subscription enabled to live
more by choice, having persuaded his father to sell their estate at
Binfield, he purchased, I think only for his life, that house at
Twickenham to which his residence afterwards procured so much
celebration, and removed thither with his father and mother. Here he
planted the vines and the quincunx which his verses mention; and being
under the necessity of making a subterraneous passage to a garden on the
other side of the road, he adorned it with fossil bodies, and dignified
it with the title of a grotto; a place of silence and retreat, from which
he endeavoured to persuade his friends and himself that cares and
passions could be excluded.
A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure of all Englishmen, who has
more frequent need to solicit than exclude the sun; but Pope’s excavation
was requisite as an entrance to his garden; and, as some men try to be
proud of their defects, he extracted an ornament from an inconvenience,
and vanity produced a grotto where necessity enforced a passage. It may
be frequently remarked of the studious and speculative, that they are
proud of trifles, and that their amusements seem frivolous and childish.
Whether it be that men, conscious of great reputation, think themselves
above the reach of censure, and safe in the admission of negligent
indulgences, or that mankind expect from elevated genius a uniformity of
greatness, and watch its degradation with malicious wonder, like him who,
having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, should lament that
she ever descended to a perch.
While the volumes of his “Homer” were annually published, he collected
his former works (1717) into one quarto volume, to which he prefixed a
preface, written with great sprightliness and elegance, which was
afterwards reprinted, with some passages subjoined that he at first
omitted. Other marginal additions of the same kind he made in the later
editions of his poems. Waller remarks, that poets lose half their
praise, because the reader knows not what they have blotted. Pope’s
voracity of fame taught him the art of obtaining the accumulated honour
both of what he had published, and of what he had suppressed. In this
year his father died suddenly, in his seventy-fifth year, having passed
twenty-nine years in privacy. He is not known but by the character which
his son has given him. If the money with which he retired was all gotten
by himself, he had traded very successfully in times when sudden riches
were rarely attainable.
The publication of the “Iliad” was at last completed in 1720. The
splendour and success of this work raised Pope many enemies that
endeavoured to depreciate his abilities. Burnet, who was afterwards a
judge of no mean reputation, censured him in a piece called “Homerides”
before it was published. Ducket likewise endeavoured to make him
ridiculous. Dennis was the perpetual persecutor of all his studies. But
whoever his critics were, their writings are lost, and the names, which
are preserved are preserved in the “Dunciad.”
In this disastrous year (1720) of national infatuation, when more riches
than Peru can boast were expected from the South Sea, when the contagion
of avarice tainted every mind, and even poets panted after wealth, Pope
was seized with the universal passion, and ventured some of his money.
The stock rose in its price, and for a while he thought himself the lord
of thousands. But this dream of happiness did not last long, and he
seems to have waked soon enough to get clear with the loss of what he
once thought himself to have won, and perhaps not wholly of that.
Next year he published some select poems of his friend Dr. Parnell, with
a very elegant dedication to the Earl of Oxford, who, after all his
struggles and dangers, then lived in retirement, still under the frown of
a victorious faction, who could take no pleasure in hearing his praise.
He gave the same year (1721) an edition of Shakespeare. His name was now
of so much authority that Tonson thought himself entitled, by annexing
it, to demand a subscription of six guineas for Shakespeare’s plays in
six quarto volumes. Nor did his expectation much deceive him, for, of
seven hundred and fifty which he printed, he dispersed a great number at
the price proposed. The reputation of that edition indeed, sunk,
afterwards so low, that one hundred and forty copies were sold at sixteen
shillings each. On this undertaking, to which Pope was induced by a
reward of two hundred and seventeen pounds twelve shillings, he seems
never to have reflected afterwards without vexation; for Theobald a man
of heavy diligence, with very slender powers, first, in a book called
“Shakespeare Restored,” and then in a formal edition, detected his
deficiencies with all the insolence of victory; and as he was now high
enough to be feared and hated, Theobald had from others all the help that
could be supplied, by the desire of humbling a haughty character. From
this time Pope became an enemy to editors, collators, commentators, and
verbal critics, and hoped to persuade the world that he miscarried in
this undertaking only by having a mind too great for such minute
employment.
Pope in his edition undoubtedly did many things wrong, and left many
things undone; but let him not be defrauded of his due praise. He was
the first that knew, at least the first that told, by what helps the text
might be improved. If he inspected the early editions negligently, he
taught others to be more accurate. In his preface he expanded with great
skill and elegance the character which had been given of Shakespeare by
Dryden; and he drew the public attention upon his works, which, though
often mentioned, had been little read. Soon after the appearance of the
“Iliad,” resolving not to let the general kindness cool, he published
proposals for a translation of the “Odyssey,” in five volumes, for five
guineas. He was willing, however, now to have associates in his labour,
being either weary with toiling upon another’s thoughts, or having heard,
as Ruffhead relates, that Fenton and Broome had already begun the work,
and liking better to have them confederates than rivals. In the patent,
instead of saying that he had “translated” the “Odyssey,” as he had said
of the “Iliad,” he says that he had “undertaken” a translation: and in
the proposals, the subscription is said to be not solely for his own use,
but for that of “two of his friends who have assisted him in his work.”
In 1723, while he was engaged in this new version, he appeared before the
Lords at the memorable trial of Bishop Atterbury, with whom he had lived
in great familiarity, and frequent correspondence. Atterbury had
honestly recommended to him the study of the Popish controversy, in hope
of his conversion; to which Pope answered in a manner that cannot much
recommend his principles or his judgment. In questions and projects of
learning they agree better. He was called at the trial to give an
account of Atterbury’s domestic life and private employment, that it
might appear how little time he had left for plots. Pope had but few
words to utter, and in those few he made several blunders.
His letters to Atterbury express the utmost esteem, tenderness, and
gratitude. “Perhaps,” says he, “it is not only in this world that I may
have cause to remember the Bishop of Rochester.” At their last interview
in the Tower, Atterbury presented him with a Bible.
Of the “Odyssey” Pope translated only twelve books. The rest were the
work of Broome and Fenton: the notes were written wholly by Broome, who
was not over liberally rewarded. The public was carefully kept ignorant
of the several shares; and an account was subjoined at the conclusion
which is now known not to be true. The first copy of Pope’s books, with
those of Fenton, are to be seen in the Museum. The parts of Pope are
less interlined than the “Iliad,” and the latter books of the “Iliad”
less than the former. He grew dexterous by practice, and every sheet
enabled him to write the next with more facility. The books of Fenton
have very few alterations by the hand of Pope. Those of Broome have not
been found, but Pope complained, as it is reported, that he had much
trouble in correcting them. His contract with Lintot was the same as for
the “Iliad,” except that only one hundred pounds were to be paid him for
each volume. The number of subscribers were five hundred and
seventy-four, and of copies eight hundred and nineteen, so that his
profit, when he had paid his assistants, was still very considerable.
The work was finished in 1723; and from that time he resolved to make no
more translations. The sale did not answer Lintot’s expectation, and he
then pretended to discover something of a fraud in Pope, and commenced or
threatened a suit in Chancery.
On the English “Odyssey” a criticism was published by Spence, at that
time Prelector of Poetry at Oxford, a man whose learning was not very
great, and whose mind was not very powerful. His criticism, however, was
commonly just; what he thought he thought rightly, and his remarks were
recommended by his coolness and candour. In him Pope had the first
experience of a critic without malevolence, who thought it as much his
duty to display beauties as expose faults, who censured with respect, and
praised with alacrity. With this criticism Pope was so little offended,
that he sought the acquaintance of the writer, who lived with him from
that time in great familiarity, attended him in his last hours, and
compiled memorials of his conversation. The regard of Pope recommended
him to the great and powerful, and he obtained very valuable preferments
in the Church. Not long after Pope was returning home from a visit in a
friend’s coach, which, in passing a bridge, was overturned into the
water; the window’s were closed, and, being unable to force them open, he
was in danger of immediate death, when the postillion snatched him out by
breaking the glass, of which the fragments cut two of his fingers in such
a manner that he lost their use.
Voltaire, who was then in England, sent him a letter of consolation. He
had been entertained by Pope at his table, where he talked with so much
grossness that Mrs. Pope was driven from the room. Pope discovered, by a
trick, that he was a spy for the Court, and never considered him as a man
worthy of confidence. He soon afterwards (1727) joined with Swift, who
was then in England, to publish three volumes of “Miscellanies,” in
which, amongst other things, he inserted the “Memoirs of a Parish Clerk,”
in ridicule of Burnet’s importance in his own history, and a “Debate upon
Black and White Horses,” written in all the formalities of a legal
process by the assistance, as is said, of Mr. Fortescue, afterwards
Master of the Rolls. Before these “Miscellanies” is a preface signed by
Swift and Pope, but apparently written by Pope, in which he makes a
ridiculous and romantic complaint of the robberies committed upon authors
by the clandestine seizure and sale of their papers. He tells in tragic
strains how “the cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have
been broken open and ransacked,” as if those violences were often
committed for papers of uncertain and accidental value which are rarely
provoked by real treasures—as if epigrams and essays were in danger where
gold and diamonds are safe. A cat hunted for his musk is, according to
Pope’s account, but the emblem of a wit winded by booksellers. His
complaint, however, received some attestation, for the same year the
letters written by him to Mr. Cromwell in his youth were sold by Mrs.
Thomas to Curll, who printed them.
In these “Miscellanies” was first published the “Art of Sinking in
Poetry,” which, by such a train of consequences as usually passes in
literary quarrels, gave in a short time, according to Pope’s account,
occasion to the “Dunciad.”
In the following year (1728) he began to put Atterbury’s advice in
practice, and showed his satirical powers by publishing the “Dunciad,”
one of his greatest and most elaborate performances, in which he
endeavoured to sink into contempt all the writers by whom he had been
attacked, and some others whom he thought unable to defend themselves.
At the head of the “Dunces” he placed poor Theobald, whom he accused of
ingratitude, but whose real crime was supposed to be that of having
revised Shakespeare more happily than himself. This satire had the
effect which he intended, by blasting the characters which it touched.
Ralph, who, unnecessarily interposing in the quarrel, got a place in a
subsequent edition, complained that for a time he was in danger of
starving, as the booksellers had no longer any confidence in his
capacity. The prevalence of this poem was gradual and slow: the plan, if
not wholly new, was little understood by common readers. Many of the
allusions required illustration; the names were often expressed only by
the initial and final letters, and if they had been printed at length
were such as few had known or recollected. The subject itself had
nothing generally interesting, for whom did it concern to know that one
or another scribbler was a dunce? If, therefore, it had been possible
for those who were attacked to conceal their pain and their resentment,
the “Dunciad” might have made its way very slowly in the world. This,
however, was not to be expected: every man is of importance to himself,
and therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the world
already acquainted with all his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the
first to publish injuries or misfortunes, which had never been known
unless related by himself, and at which those that hear them will only
laugh, for no man sympathises with the sorrows of vanity.
The history of the “Dunciad” is very minutely related by Pope himself in
a dedication which he wrote to Lord Middlesex in the name of Savage.
“I will relate the war of the ‘Dunces’ (for so it has been commonly
called), which began in the year 1727, and ended in 1730
“When Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope thought it proper, for reasons specified
in the preface to their ‘Miscellanies,’ to publish such little pieces
of theirs as had occasionally got abroad, there was added to them the
‘Treatise of the Bathos, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry.’ It
happened that in one chapter of this piece the several species of bad
poets were ranged in classes, to which were prefixed almost all the
letters of the alphabet (the greatest part of them at random); but
such was the number of poets eminent in that art, that some one or
other took every letter to himself. All fell into so violent a fury,
that, for half a year or more, the common newspapers (in most of
which they had some property, as being hired writers) were filled
with the most abusive falsehoods and scurrilities they could possibly
devise, a liberty no way to be wondered at in those people, and in
those papers, that, for many years during the uncontrolled license of
the Press, had aspersed almost all the great characters of the age;
and this with impunity, their own persons and names being utterly
secret and obscure. This gave Mr. Pope the thought that he had now
some opportunity of doing good by detecting and dragging into light
these common enemies of mankind, since, to invalidate this universal
slander, it sufficed to show what contemptible men were the authors
of it. He was not without hopes that, by manifesting the dulness of
those who had only malice to recommend them, either the booksellers
would not find their account in employing them, or the men
themselves, when discovered, want courage to proceed in so unlawful
an occupation. This it was that gave birth to the ‘Dunciad,’ and he
thought it a happiness that, by the late flood of slander on himself,
he had acquired such a peculiar right over their names as was
necessary to this design.
“On the 12th of March, 1729, at St. James’s, that poem was presented
to the king and queen (who had before been pleased to read it) by the
Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole, and some days after the whole
impression was taken and dispersed by several noblemen and persons of
the first distinction.
“It is certainly a true observation that no people are so impatient
of censure as those who are the greatest slanderers, which was
wonderfully exemplified on this occasion. On the day the book was
first vended a crowd of authors besieged the shop; entreaties,
advices, threats of law and battery—nay, cries of treason—were all
employed to hinder the coming out of the ‘Dunciad.’ On the other
side, the booksellers and hawkers made as great efforts to procure
it. What could a few poor authors do against so great a majority as
the public? There was no stopping a torrent with a finger, so out it
came.
“Many ludicrous circumstances attended it. The ‘Dunces’ (for by this
name they were called) held weekly clubs, to consult of hostilities
against the author. One wrote a letter to a great minister, assuring
him Mr. Pope was the greatest enemy the Government had, and another
bought his image in clay to execute him in effigy, with which sad
sort of satisfaction the gentlemen were a little comforted. Some
false editions of the book, having an owl in their frontispiece, the
true one, to distinguish it, fixed in his stead an ass laden with
authors. Then another surreptitious one being printed with the same
ass, the new edition in octavo returned for distinction to the owl
again. Hence arose a great contest of booksellers against
booksellers, and advertisements against advertisements, some
recommending the edition of the owl, and others the edition of the
ass, by which names they came to be distinguished, to the great
honour also of the gentlemen of the ‘Dunciad.’”
Pope appears by this narrative to have contemplated his victory over the
“Dunces” with great exultation; and such was his delight in the tumult
which he had raised, that for a while his natural sensibility was
suspended, and he read reproaches and invectives without emotion,
considering them only as the necessary effects of that pain which he
rejoiced in having given. It cannot, however, be concealed that, by his
own confession, he was the aggressor, for nobody believes that the
letters in the “Bathos” were placed at random; and at may be discovered
that, when he thinks himself concealed, he indulges the common vanity of
common men, and triumphs in those distinctions which he affected to
despise. He is proud that his book was presented to the king and queen
by the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole; he is proud that they had
read it before; he is proud that the edition was taken off by the
nobility and persons of the first distinction. The edition of which he
speaks was, I believe, that which, by telling in the text the names, and
in the notes the characters, of those whom he had satirised, was made
intelligible and diverting. The critics had now declared their
approbation of the plan, and the common reader began to like it without
fear. Those who were strangers to petty literature, and therefore unable
to decipher initials and blanks, had now names and persons brought within
their view, and delighted in the visible effects of those shafts of
malice which they had hitherto contemplated as shot into the air.
Dennis, upon the fresh provocation now given him, renewed the enmity
which had for a time been appeased by mutual civilities, and published
remarks, which he had till then suppressed, upon the “Rape of the Lock.”
Many more grumbled in secret, or vented their resentment in the
newspapers by epigrams or invectives. Ducket, indeed, being mentioned as
loving Burnet with “pious passion,” pretended that his moral character
was injured, and for some time declared his resolution to take vengeance
with a cudgel. But Pope appeased him, by changing “pious passion” to
“cordial friendship,” and by a note, in which he vehemently disclaims the
malignity of the meaning imputed to the first expression. Aaron Hill,
who was represented as diving for the prize, expostulated with Pope in a
manner so much superior to all mean solicitation, that Pope was reduced
to sneak and shuffle, sometimes to deny, and sometimes to apologies; he
first endeavours to wound, and is then afraid to own that he meant a
blow.
The “Dunciad,” in the complete edition, is addressed to Dr. Swift. Of
the notes, part were written by Dr. Arbuthnot, and an apologetical letter
was prefixed, signed by Cleland, but supposed to have been written by
Pope.
After this general war upon dulness, he seems to have indulged himself a
while in tranquillity, but his subsequent productions prove that he was
not idle. He published (1731) a poem on “Taste,” in which he very
particularly and severely criticises the house, the furniture, the
gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth and
little taste. By Timon he was universally supposed, and by the Earl of
Burlington, to whom the poem is addressed, was privately said, to mean
the Duke of Chandos, a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and show,
but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had consequently the voice
of the public in his favour. A violent outcry was, therefore, raised
against the ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was said to have been
indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds,
and who gained the opportunity of insulting him by the kindness of his
invitation. The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope publicly denied; but
from the reproach which the attack on a character so amiable brought upon
him, he tried all means of escaping. The name of Cleland was again
employed in an apology, by which no man was satisfied, and he was at last
reduced to shelter his temerity behind dissimulation, and endeavour to
make that disbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He
wrote an exculpatory letter to the duke, which was answered with great
magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his excuse without believing his
professions. He said that to have ridiculed his taste, or his buildings,
had been an indifferent action in another man, but that in Pope, after
the reciprocal kindness that had been exchanged between them, it had been
less easily excused.
Pope, in one of his letters, complaining of the treatment which his poem
had found, “owns that such critics can intimidate him, nay almost
persuade him, to write no more, which is a compliment this age deserves.”
The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous, for the world can
easily go on without him, and in a short time will cease to miss him. I
have heard of an idiot, who used to revenge his vexatious by lying all
night upon the bridge. “There is nothing,” says Juvenal, “that a man
will not believe in his own favour.” Pope had been flattered till he
thought himself one of the moving powers in the system of life. When he
talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him entreated and
implored; and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away
and laughed.
The following year deprived him of Gay, a man whom he had known early,
and whom he seemed to love with more tenderness than any other of his
literary friends. Pope was now forty-four years old, an age at which the
mind begins less easily to admit new confidence, and the will to grow
less flexible, and when, therefore, the departure of an old friend is
very acutely felt. In the next year (1733) he lost his mother, not by an
unexpected death, for she had lasted to the age of ninety-three. But she
did not die unlamented. The filial piety of Pope was in the highest
degree amiable and exemplary. His parents had the happiness of living
till he was at the summit of poetical reputation, till he was at ease in
his fortune, and without a rival in his fame, and found no diminution of
his respect or tenderness. Whatever was his pride, to them he was
obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life
has, among its soothing and quiet comforts, few things better to give
than such a son.
One of the passages of Pope’s life, which seems to deserve some inquiry,
was a publication of “Letters” between him and many of his friends,
which, falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious bookseller, of no
good fame, were by him printed and sold. This volume containing some
letters from noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in the
House of Lords for breach of privilege, and attended himself to stimulate
the resentment of his friends. Curll appeared at the bar, and, knowing
himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverence.
“He has,” said Curll, “a knack at versifying, but in prose I think myself
a match for him.” When the orders of the House were examined, none of
them appeared to have been infringed. Curll went away triumphant, and
Pope was left to seek some other remedy.
Curll’s account was, that one evening a man in a clergyman’s gown, but
with a lawyer’s band, brought and offered for sale a number of printed
volumes, which he found to be Pope’s epistolary correspondence; that he
asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and
thought himself authorised to use his purchase to his own advantage.
That Curll gave a true account of the transaction it is reasonable to
believe, because no falsehood was ever detected; and when, some years
afterwards, I mentioned it to Lintot, the son of Bernard, he declared his
opinion to be, that Pope knew better than anybody else how Curll obtained
the copies, because another parcel was at the same time sent to himself,
for which no price had ever been demanded, as he made known his
resolution not to pay a porter, and consequently not to deal with a
nameless agent. Such care had been taken to make them public, that they
were sent at once to two booksellers; to Curll, who was likely to seize
them as a prey, and to Lintot, who might he expected to give Pope
information of the seeming injury. Lintot, I believe, did nothing, and
Curll did what was expected. That to make them public was the only
purpose may be reasonably supposed, because the numbers offered to sale
by the private messengers showed that the hope of gain could not have
been the motive of the impression. It seems that Pope, being desirous of
printing his “Letters,” and not knowing how to do, without imputation of
vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an
appearance of compulsion, that, when he could complain that his “Letters”
were surreptitiously published, he might decently and defensively publish
them himself.
Pope’s private correspondence, thus promulgated, filled the nation with
the praises of his candour, tenderness, and benevolence, the purity of
his purposes, and the fidelity of his friendship. There were some
letters which a very good or a wise man would wish suppressed; but, as
they had been already exposed, it was impracticable now to retract them.
From the perusal of those letters, Mr. Allen first conceived the desire
of knowing him; and with so much zeal did he cultivate the friendship
which he had newly formed, that, when Pope told his purpose of
vindicating his own property by a genuine edition, he offered to pay the
cost. This, however, Pope did not accept; but in time solicited a
subscription for a quarto volume, which appeared (1737), I believe, with
sufficient profit. In the preface he tells that his letters were
reposited in a friend’s library, said to be the Earl of Oxford’s, and
that the copy thence stolen was sent to the press. The story was
doubtless received with different degrees of credit. It may be suspected
that the preface to the “Miscellanies” was written to prepare the public
for such an incident; and, to strengthen this opinion, James Worsdale, a
painter, who was employed in clandestine negotiations, but whose voracity
was very doubtful, declared that he was the messenger who carried, by
Pope’s direction, the books to Curll. When they were thus published and
avowed, as they had relation to recent facts, and persons either then
living or not yet forgotten, they may be supposed to have found readers;
but, as the facts were minute, and the characters being either private or
literary, were little known, or little regarded, they awaked no popular
kindness or resentment. The book never became much the subject of
conversation. Some read it as a contemporary history, and some perhaps
as a model of epistolary language; but those who read it did not talk of
it. Not much therefore was added by it to fame or envy, nor do I
remember that it produced either public praise or public censure. It
had, however, in some degree, the recommendation of novelty. Our
language had few letters, except those of statesmen. Howel, indeed,
about a century ago, published his “Letters,” which are commended by
Morhoff, and which alone, of his hundred volumes, continue his memory.
Loveday’s “Letters” were printed only once; those of Herbert and Suckling
are hardly known. Mrs. Phillips’s (Orinda’s) are equally neglected. And
those of Walsh seem written as exercises, and were never sent to any
living mistress or friend. Pope’s epistolary excellence had an open
field; he had no English rival, living or dead.
Pope is seen in this collection as connected with the other contemporary
wits, and certainly suffers no disgrace in the comparison; but it must be
remembered that he had the power of favouring himself. He might have
originally had publication in his mind, and have written with care, or
have afterwards selected those which he had most happily conceived or
most diligently laboured; and I know not whether there does not appear
something more studied and artificial in his productions than the rest,
except one long letter by Bolingbroke, composed with all the skill and
industry of a professed author. It is indeed not easy to distinguish
affectation from habit; he that has once studiously formed a style,
rarely writes afterwards with complete ease. Pope may be said to write
always with his reputation in his head; Swift, perhaps, like a man that
remembered he was writing to Pope; but Arbuthnot, like one who lets
thoughts drop from his pen as they rise into his mind. Before these
“Letters” appeared he published the first part of what he persuaded
himself to think a system of Ethics, under the title of an “Essay on
Man,” which, if his letter to Swift (of September 14, 1723), be rightly
explained by the commentator, had been eight years under his
consideration, and of which he seems to have desired the success with
great solicitude. He had now many open, and doubtless many secret,
enemies. The “Dunces” were yet smarting from the war, and the
superiority which he publicly arrogated disposed the world to wish his
humiliation. All this he knew, and against all this he provided. His
own name, and that of his friend to whom the work is inscribed, were in
the first editions carefully suppressed; and the poem being of a new kind
was ascribed to one or another as favour determined or conjecture
wandered. It was given, says Warburton, to every man except him only who
could write it. Those who like only when they like the author, and who
are under the dominion of a name, condemned it, and those admired it who
are willing to scatter praise at random, which, while it is
unappropriated, excites no envy. Those friends of Pope that were trusted
with the secret went about lavishing honours on the new-born poet, and
hinting that Pope was never so much in danger from any former rival. To
those authors whom he had personally offended, and to those whose opinion
the world considered as decisive, and whom he suspected of envy or
malevolence, he sent his Essay as a present before publication, that they
might defeat their own enemity by praises which they could not afterwards
decently retract. With these precautions, in 1733, was published the
first part of the “Essay on Man.” There had been for some time a report
that Pope was busy upon a “System of Morality,” but this design was not
discovered in the new poem, which had a form and a title with which its
readers were unacquainted. Its reception was not uniform. Some thought
it a very imperfect piece, though not without good lines. While the
author was unknown, some, as will always happen, favoured him as an
adventurer, and some censured him as an intruder, but all thought him
above neglect. The sale increased, and editions were multiplied. The
subsequent editions of the first epistle exhibited two memorable
corrections. At first, the poet and his friend
“Expatiate freely o’er this scene of man,
A mighty maze _of walks without a plan_;”
for which he wrote afterwards,
“A mighty maze, _but not without a plan_;”
for if there was no plan it was in vain to describe or to trace the maze.