“And spike of pride, _and in thy reason’s spite_,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right:”
but having afterwards discovered, or been shown, that the “truth” which
subsisted “in spite of reason” could not be very “clear,” he substituted
“And spite of pride _in erring reason’s spite_.”
To such oversights will the most vigorous mind be liable when it is
employed at once upon argument and poetry.
The second and third epistles were published, and Pope was, I believe,
more and more suspected of writing them. At last, in 1734, he avowed the
fourth, and claimed the honour of a moral poet. In the conclusion it is
sufficiently acknowledged that the doctrine of the “Essay on Man” was
received from Bolingbroke, who is said to have ridiculed Pope, among
those who enjoyed his confidence, as having adopted and advanced
principles of which he did not perceive the consequence, and as blindly
propagating opinions contrary to his own. That those communications had
been consolidated into a scheme regularly drawn, and delivered to Pope,
from whom it returned only transformed from prose to verse, has been
reported, but hardly can be true. The essay plainly appears the fabric
of a poet; what Bolingbroke supplied could be only the first principles,
the order, illustration, and embellishments, must all be Pope’s. These
principles it is not my business to clear from obscurity, dogmatism, or
falsehood, but they were not immediately examined. Philosophy and poetry
have not often the same readers; and the essay abounded in splendid
amplifications and sparkling sentences, which were read and admired with
no great attention to their ultimate purpose. Its flowers caught the
eye, which did not see what the gay foliage concealed, and for a time
flourished in the sunshine of universal approbation. So little was any
evil tendency discovered, that, as innocence is unsuspicious, many read
it for a manual of piety. Its reputation soon invited a translator. It
was first turned into French prose, and afterwards by Resnel into verse.
Both translations fell into the hands of Crousaz, who first, when he had
the version in prose, wrote a general censure, and afterwards reprinted
Resnel’s version, with particular remarks upon every paragraph.
Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, eminent for his treatise of
logic, and his “Examen de Pyrrhonisme,” and, however little known or
regarded here, was no mean antagonist. His mind was one of those in
which philosophy and piety are happily united. He was accustomed to
argument and disquisition, and perhaps was grown too desirous of
detecting faults, but his intentions were always right, his opinions were
solid, and his religion pure. His incessant vigilance for the promotion
of piety disposed him to look with distrust upon all metaphysical systems
of theology, and all schemes of virtue and happiness purely rational; and
therefore it was not long before he was persuaded that the positions of
Pope, as they terminated for the most part in natural religion, were
intended to draw mankind away from revelation, and to represent the whole
course of things as a necessary concatenation of indissoluble fatality,
and it is undeniable that in many passages a religious eye may easily
discover expressions not very favourable to morals or to liberty.
About this time Warburton began to make his appearance in the first ranks
of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and
vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited inquiry, with wonderful
extent and variety of knowledge, which yet had not oppressed his
imagination nor clouded his perspicacity. To every work he brought a
memory full fraught, together with a fancy fertile of original
combinations and at once exerted the powers of the scholar, the reasoner,
and the wit. But his knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact,
and his pursuits were too eager to be always cautions. His abilities
gave him a haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify,
and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries
with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his
enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured
the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperor’s determination,
_oderint dum metuant_; he used no allurements of gentle language, but
wished to compel rather than persuade. His style is copious without
selection, and forcible without neatness. He took the words that
presented themselves. His diction is coarse and impure, and his
sentences are unmeasured. He had in the early part of his life pleased
himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the
enemies of Pope. A letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself
forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, “Dryden, I observe, borrows for
want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius, Milton out of pride, and
Addison out of modesty.” And when Theobald published Shakespeare, in
opposition to Pope, the best notes were supplied by Warburton. But the
time was now come when Warburton was to change his opinion, and Pope was
to find a defender in him who had contributed so much to the exaltation
of his rival.
The arrogance of Warburton excited against him every artifice of offence,
and therefore it may be supposed that his union with Pope was censured as
hypocritical inconstancy, but surely to think differently at different
times of poetical merit may be easily allowed. Such opinions are often
admitted, and dismissed without nice examination. Who is there that has
not found reason for changing his mind about questions of greater
importance?
Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook, without solicitation, to
rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, by freeing him from the
imputation of favouring fatality or rejecting revelation; and from month
to month continued a vindication of the “Essay on Man,” in the literary
journal of that time called the “Republic of Letters.”
Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of his own work, was glad
that the positions, of which he perceived himself not to know the full
meaning, could by any mode of interpretation be made to mean well. How
much he was pleased with his gratuitous defender the following letter
evidently shows:—
“April 11, 1739.
“SIR,—I have just received from Mr. R. two more of your letters. It
is in the greatest hurry imaginable that I write this; but I cannot
help thanking you in particular for your third letter, which is so
extremely clear, short, and full, that I think Mr. Crousaz ought
never to have another answer, and deserved not so good an one. I can
only say, you do him too much honour, and me too much right, so odd
as the expression seems; for you have made my system as clear as I
ought to have done, and could not. It is indeed the same system as
mine, but illustrated with a ray of your own, as they say our natural
body is the same still when it is glorified. I am sure I like it
better than I did before, and so will every man else. I know I meant
just what you explain; but I did not explain my own meaning so well
as you. You understand me as well as I do myself; but you express me
better than I could express myself. Pray accept the sincerest
acknowledgments. I cannot but wish these letters were put together
in one book, and intend (with your leave) to procure a translation of
part at least, or of all of them, into French; but I shall not
proceed a step without your consent and opinion,” &c.
By this fond and eager acceptance of an exculpatory comment Pope
testified that, whatever might be the seeming or real import of the
principles which he had received from Bolingbroke, he had not
intentionally attacked religion; and Bolingbroke, if he meant to make
him, without his own consent, an instrument of mischief, found him now
engaged, with his eyes open, on the side of truth. It is known that
Bolingbroke concealed from Pope his real opinions. He once discovered
them to Mr. Hooke, who related them again to Pope, and was told by him
that he must have mistaken the meaning of what he heard: and Bolingbroke,
when Pope’s uneasiness incited him to desire an explanation, declared
that Hooke had misunderstood him.
Bolingbroke hated Warburton, who had drawn his pupil from him; and a
little before Pope’s death they had a dispute, from which they parted
with mutual aversion. From this time Pope lived in the closest intimacy
with his commentator, and amply rewarded his kindness and his zeal, for
he introduced him to Mr. Murray, by whose interest he became preacher at
Lincoln’s Inn, and to Mr. Allen, who gave him his niece and his estate,
and by consequence a bishopric. When he died, he left him the property
of his works, a legacy which may be reasonably estimated at four thousand
pounds.
Pope’s fondness for the “Essay on Man” appeared by his desire of its
propagation. Dobson, who had gained reputation by his version of Prior’s
“Solomon,” was employed by him to translate it into Latin verse, and was
for that purpose some time at Twickenham; but he left his work, whatever
was the reason, unfinished; and, by Benson’s invitation, undertook the
longer task of “Paradise Lost.” Pope then desired his friend to find a
scholar who should turn his essay into Latin prose; but no such
performance has ever appeared.
Pope lived at this time _among the great_, with that reception and
respect to which his works entitled him, and which he had not impaired by
any private misconduct or factious partiality. Though Bolingbroke was
his friend, Walpole was not his enemy, but treated him with so much
consideration as, at his request, to solicit and obtain from the French
Minister an abbey for Mr. Southcot, whom he considered himself as obliged
to reward, by his exertion of his interest, for the benefit which he had
received from his attendance in a long illness. It was said, that when
the Court was at Richmond, Queen Caroline had declared her intention to
visit him. This may have been only a careless effusion, thought on no
more. The report of such notice, however, was soon in many mouths; and,
if I do not forget or misapprehend Savage’s account, Pope, pretending to
decline what was not yet offered, left his house for a time, not, I
suppose, for any other reason than lest he should be thought to stay at
home in expectation of an honour which would not be conferred. He was
therefore angry at Swift, who represents him as “refusing the visits of a
queen,” because he knew that what had never been offered had never been
refused.
Beside the general system of morality, supposed to be contained in the
“Essay on Man,” it was his intention to write distinct poems upon the
different duties or conditions of life, one of which is the “Epistle to
Lord Bathurst” (1733) on the “Use of Riches,” a piece on which he
declared great labour to have been bestowed. Into this poem some hints
are historically thrown, and some known characters are introduced, with
others of which it is difficult to say how far they are real or
fictitious: but the praise of Kryle, the Man of Ross, deserves particular
examination, who, after a long and pompous enumeration of his public
works and private charities, is said to have diffused all those blessings
from five hundred a year. Wonders are willingly told and willingly
heard. The truth is, that Kyrle was a man of known integrity and active
benevolence, by whose solicitation the wealthy were persuaded to pay
contributions to his charitable schemes. This influence he obtained by
an example of liberality exerted to the utmost extent of his power, and
was thus enabled to give more than he had. This account Mr. Victor
received from the minister of the place, and I have preserved it, that
the praise of a good man, being made more credible, may be more solid.
Narrations of romantic and impracticable virtue will be read with wonder,
but that which is unattainable is recommended in vain; that good may be
endeavoured it must be shown to be possible. This is the only piece in
which the author has given a hint of his religion, by ridiculing the
ceremony of burning the Pope, and by mentioning with some indignation the
inscription on the Monument.
When this poem was first published, the dialogue having no letters of
direction was perplexed and obscure. Pope seems to have written with no
very distinct idea, for he calls that an “Epistle to Bathurst,” in which
Bathurst is introduced as speaking. He afterwards (1734) inscribed to
Lord Cobham his “Characters of Men,” written with close attention to the
operations of the mind and modifications of life. In this poem he has
endeavoured to establish and exemplify his favourite theory of the
_ruling passion_, by which he means an original direction of desire to
some particular object, an innate affection which gives all action a
determinate and invariable tendency, and operates upon the whole system
of life, either openly, cut more secretly by the intervention of some
accidental or subordinate propension. Of any passion, thus innate and
irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted. Human characters
are by no means constant; men change by change of place, of fortune, of
acquaintance. He who is at one time a lover of pleasure, is at another a
lover of money. Those, indeed, who attain any excellence commonly spend
life in one pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier
terms. But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not
by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book
which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some
accident which excited ardour and emulation. It must at least be allowed
that this ruling passion, antecedent to reason and observation, must have
an object independent on human contrivance, for there can be no natural
desire of artificial good. No man, therefore, can be born, in the strict
acceptation, a lover of money, for he may be born where money does not
exist; nor can he be born in a moral sense a lover of his country, for
society politically regulated is a state contradistinguished from a state
of nature, and any attention to that coalition of interests which makes
the happiness of a country is possible only to those whom inquiry and
reflection have enabled to comprehend it. This doctrine is in itself
pernicious as well as false; its tendency is to produce the belief of a
kind of moral predestination or over-ruling principle which cannot be
resisted. He that admits it is prepared to comply with every desire that
caprice or opportunity shall excite, and to flatter himself that he
submits only to the lawful dominion of nature in obeying the resistless
authority of his ruling passion.
Pope has formed his theory with so little skill that in the examples by
which he illustrates and confirms it he has confounded passions,
appetites, and habits. To the “Characters of Men” he added soon after,
in an epistle supposed to have been addressed to Martha Blount, but which
the last edition has taken from her, the “Characters of Women.” This
poem, which was laboured with great diligence and in the author’s opinion
with great success, was neglected at its first publication, as the
commentator supposes, because the public was informed by an advertisement
that it contained no character drawn from the life, an assertion which
Pope probably did not expect nor wished to have been believed, and which
he soon gave his readers sufficient reason to distrust, by telling them
in a note that the work was imperfect because part of his subject was
vice too high to be yet exposed. The time, however, soon came in which
it was safe to display the Duchess of Marlborough under the name of
Atossa, and her character was inserted with no great honour to the
writer’s gratitude.
He published from time to time (between 1730 and 1740) imitations of
different poems of Horace, generally with his name, and once, as was
suspected, without it. What he was upon moral principles ashamed to own
he ought to have suppressed. Of these pieces it is useless to settle the
dates, as they had seldom much relation to the times, and perhaps had
been long in his hands. This mode of imitation, in which the ancients
are familiarised by adapting their sentiments to modern topics, by making
Horace say of Shakespeare what he originally said of Ennius, and
accommodating his satires on Pantolabus and Nomentanus to the flatterers
and prodigals of our own time, was first practised in the reign of
Charles the Second, by Oldham and Rochester, at least I remember no
instances more ancient. It is a kind of middle composition between
translation and original design, which pleases when the thoughts are
unexpectedly applicable, and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been
Pope’s favourite amusement, for he has carried it farther than any former
poet. He published likewise a revival, in smoother numbers, of Dr.
Donne’s “Satires,” which was recommended to him by the Duke of Shrewsbury
and the Earl of Oxford. They made no great impression on the public.
Pope seems to have known their imbecility and therefore suppressed them
while he was yet contending to rise in reputation, but ventured them when
he thought their deficiencies more likely to be imputed to Donne than to
himself.
The “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,” which seems to be derived in its first
design from Boileau’s Address _à son Esprit_, was published in January,
1735, about a month before the death of him to whom it is inscribed. It
is to be regretted that either honour or pleasure should have been missed
by Arbuthnot, a man estimable for his learning, amiable for his life, and
venerable for his piety. Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension,
skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with
ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright
and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit, a wit
who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of
religious zeal. In this poem Pope seems to reckon with the public. He
vindicates himself from censures, and with dignity rather than arrogance
enforces his own claims to kindness and respect. Into this poem are
interwoven several paragraphs which had been before printed, as a
fragment, and among them the satirical lines upon Addison, of which the
last couplet has been twice corrected. It was at first—
“Who would not smile if such a man there be?
Who would not laugh if Addison were he?”