Thy tale will justify this truth.
But well I weet thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler poet's song:
Dan Pope, for thy misfortune grieved,
With kind concern and skill has weaved
A silken web; and ne'er shall fade
Its colours: gently has he laid
The mantle o'er thy sad distress,
And Venus shall the texture bless,'[153] &c.
Come we now to his translation of the ILIAD, celebrated by numerous
pens, yet shall it suffice to mention the indefatigable
SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE, KT.,
who (though otherwise a severe censurer of our author) yet styleth this
a 'laudable translation.'[154] That ready writer,
MR OLDMIXON,
in his forementioned essay, frequently commends the same. And the
painful
MR LEWIS THEOBALD
thus extols it: 'The spirit of Homer breathes all through this
translation.--I am in doubt whether I should most admire the justness to
the original, or the force and beauty of the language, or the sounding
variety of the numbers: but when I find all these meet, it puts me in
mind of what the poet says of one of his heroes, that he alone raised
and flung with ease a weighty stone, that two common men could not lift
from the ground; just so, one single person has performed in this
translation what I once despaired to have seen done by the force of
several masterly hands.'[155] Indeed, the same gentleman appears to have
changed his sentiment in his Essay on the Art of Sinking in Reputation
(printed in Mist's Journal, March 30, 1728,) where he says thus:--'In
order to sink in reputation, let him take into his head to descend into
Homer (let the world wonder, as it will, how the devil he got there),
and pretend to do him into English, so his version denote his neglect of
the manner how.' Strange variation! We are told in
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8,
'That this translation of the Iliad was not in all respects conformable
to the fine taste of his friend, Mr Addison; insomuch that he employed a
younger Muse in an undertaking of this kind, which he supervised
himself.' Whether Mr Addison did find it conformable to his taste or
not, best appears from his own testimony the year following its
publication, in these words:
MR ADDISON, FREEHOLDER, NO. 40.
'When I consider myself as a British freeholder, I am in a particular
manner pleased with the labours of those who have improved our language
with the translations of old Greek and Latin authors.--We have already
most of their historians in our own tongue, and what is more for the
honour of our language, it has been taught to express with elegance the
greatest of their poets in each nation. The illiterate among our own
countrymen may learn to judge from Dryden's Virgil of the most perfect
epic performance. And those parts of Homer which have been published
already by Mr Pope, give us reason to think that the Iliad will appear
in English with as little disadvantage to that immortal poem.'
As to the rest, there is a slight mistake, for this younger Muse was an
elder: nor was the gentleman (who is a friend of our author) employed by
Mr Addison to translate it after him, since he saith himself that he did
it before.[156] Contrariwise that Mr Addison engaged our author in this
work appeareth by declaration thereof in the preface to the Iliad,
printed some time before his death, and by his own letters of October
26, and November 2, 1713, where he declares it his opinion that no other
person was equal to it.
Next comes his Shakspeare on the stage: 'Let him (quoth one, whom I take
to be
MR THEOBALD, MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728,)
publish such an author as he has least studied, and forget to discharge
even the dull duty of an editor. In this project let him lend the
bookseller his name (for a competent sum of money) to promote the credit
of an exorbitant subscription.' Gentle reader, be pleased to cast thine
eye on the proposal below quoted, and on what follows (some months after
the former assertion) in the same journalist of June 8. 'The bookseller
proposed the book by subscription, and raised some thousands of pounds
for the same: I believe the gentleman did not share in the profits of
this extravagant subscription.
'After the Iliad, he undertook (saith
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728,)
the sequel of that work, the Odyssey; and having secured the success by
a numerous subscription, he employed some underlings to perform what,
according to his proposals, should come from his own hands.' To which
heavy charge we can in truth oppose nothing but the words of
MR POPE'S PROPOSAL FOR THE ODYSSEY, (PRINTED BY J. WATTS, JAN. 10,
1724.)
'I take this occasion to declare that the subscription for Shakspeare
belongs wholly to Mr Tonson: And that the benefit of this proposal is
not solely for my own use, but for that of two of my friends, who have
assisted me in this work.' But these very gentlemen are extolled above
our poet himself in another of Mist's Journals, March 30, 1728, saying,
'That he would not advise Mr Pope to try the experiment again of getting
a great part of a book done by assistants, lest those extraneous parts
should unhappily ascend to the sublime, and retard the declension of the
whole.' Behold! these underlings are become good writers!
If any say, that before the said proposals were printed, the
subscription was begun without declaration of such assistance, verily
those who set it on foot, or (as their term is) secured it, to wit, the
Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Harcourt, were he living, would
testify, and the Right Honourable the Lord Bathurst, now living, doth
testify the same is a falsehood.
Sorry I am, that persons professing to be learned, or of whatever rank
of authors, should either falsely tax, or be falsely taxed. Yet let us,
who are only reporters, be impartial in our citations, and proceed.
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728.
'Mr Addison raised this author from obscurity, obtained him the
acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility, and
transferred his powerful interests with those great men to this rising
bard, who frequently levied by that means unusual contributions on the
public.' Which surely cannot be, if, as the author of The Dunciad
Dissected reporteth, 'Mr Wycherley had before introduced him into a
familiar acquaintance with the greatest peers and brightest wits then
living.'
'No sooner (saith the same journalist) was his body lifeless, but this
author, reviving his resentment, libelled the memory of his departed
friend; and, what was still more heinous, made the scandal public.'
Grievous the accusation! unknown the accuser! the person accused no
witness in his own cause; the person, in whose regard accused, dead! But
if there be living any one nobleman whose friendship, yea, any one
gentleman whose subscription Mr Addison procured to our author, let him
stand forth that truth may appear! _Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed
magis amica veritas_. In verity, the whole story of the libel is a lie.
Witness those persons of integrity, who, several years before Mr
Addison's decease, did see and approve of the said verses, in nowise a
libel but a friendly rebuke sent privately in our author's own hand to
Mr Addison himself, and never made public, till after their own journals
and Curll had printed the same. One name alone, which I am here
authorised to declare, will sufficiently evince this truth, that of the
Eight Honourable the Earl of Burlington.
Next is he taxed with a crime (in the opinion of some authors, I doubt,
more heinous than any in morality) to wit, plagiarism, from the
inventive and quaint-conceited
JAMES MOORE SMITH, GENT.
'Upon reading the third volume of Pope's Miscellanies, I found five
lines which I thought excellent; and happening to praise them, a
gentleman produced a modern comedy (the Rival Modes) published last
year, where were the same verses to a tittle. These gentlemen are
undoubtedly the first plagiaries that pretend to make a reputation by
stealing from a man's works in his own life-time, and out of a public
print.'[157] Let us join to this what is written by the author of the
Rival Modes, the said Mr James Moore Smith, in a letter to our author
himself, who had informed him, a month before that play was acted, Jan.
27, 1726-7, that 'these verses, which he had before given him leave to
insert in it, would be known for his, some copies being got abroad. He
desires, nevertheless, that since the lines had been read in his comedy
to several, Mr P. would not deprive it of them,' &c. Surely if we add
the testimonies of the Lord Bolingbroke, of the lady to whom the said
verses were originally addressed, of Hugh Bethel, Esq., and others, who
knew them as our author's, long before the said gentleman composed his
play, it is hoped the ingenuous that affect not error will rectify their
opinion by the suffrage of so honourable personages.
And yet followeth another charge, insinuating no less than his enmity
both to Church and State, which could come from no other informer than
the said
MR JAMES MOORE SMITH.
'The Memoirs of a Parish Clerk was a very dull and unjust abuse of a
person who wrote in defence of our religion and constitution, and who
has been dead many years.'[158] This seemeth also most untrue, it being
known to divers that these memoirs were written at the seat of the Lord
Harcourt in Oxfordshire, before that excellent person (Bishop Burnet's)
death, and many years before the appearance of that history of which
they are pretended to be an abuse. Most true it is that Mr Moore had
such a design, and was himself the man who pressed Dr Arbuthnot and Mr
Pope to assist him therein; and that he borrowed those memoirs of our
author, when that history came forth, with intent to turn them to such
abuse. But being able to obtain from our author but one single hint, and
either changing his mind, or having more mind than ability, he contented
himself to keep the said memoirs, and read them as his own to all his
acquaintance. A noble person there is, into whose company Mr Pope once
chanced to introduce him, who well remembereth the conversation of Mr
Moore to have turned upon the 'contempt he had for the work of that
reverend prelate, and how full he was of a design he declared himself to
have of exposing it.' This noble person is the Earl of Peterborough.
Here in truth should we crave pardon of all the foresaid right
honourable and worthy personages, for having mentioned them in the same
page with such weekly riff-raff railers and rhymers, but that we had
their ever-honoured commands for the same; and that they are introduced
not as witnesses in the controversy, but as witnesses that cannot be
controverted; not to dispute, but to decide.
Certain it is, that dividing our writers into two classes, of such who
were acquaintance, and of such who were strangers to our author; the
former are those who speak well, and the other those who speak evil of
him. Of the first class, the most noble
JOHN DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
sums up his character in these lines:
'And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing,
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing,
Unless I justly could at once commend
A good companion, and as firm a friend;
One moral, or a mere well-natured deed,
Can all desert in sciences exceed.'[159]
So also is he deciphered by the honourable
SIMON HARCOURT.
'Say, wondrous youth, what column wilt thou choose,
What laurell'd arch, for thy triumphant Muse?
Though each great ancient court thee to his shrine,
Though every laurel through the dome be thine.
Go to the good and just, an awful train!
Thy soul's delight.'[160]
Recorded in like manner for his virtuous disposition and gentle bearing,
by the ingenious
MR WALTER HART,
in this apostrophe:
'Oh! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise!
Bless'd in thy life, and bless'd in all thy lays.
Add, that the Sisters every thought refine,
And even thy life be faultless as thy line.
Yet Envy still with fiercer rage pursues,
Obscures the virtue, and defames the Muse.
A soul like thine, in pain, in grief, resign'd,
Views with just scorn the malice of mankind.'[161]
The witty and moral satirist,
DR EDWARD YOUNG,
wishing some check to the corruption and evil manners of the times,
calleth out upon our poet to undertake a task so worthy of his virtue:
'Why slumbers Pope, who leads the Muses' train,
Nor hears that Virtue, which he loves, complain?'[162]
MR MALLET,
in his epistle on Verbal Criticism:
'Whose life, severely scann'd, transcends his lays;
For wit supreme is but his second praise.'
MR HAMMOND,
that delicate and correct imitator of Tibullus, in his Love Elegies,
Elegy xiv.:
'Now, fired by Pope and Virtue, leave the age,
In low pursuit of self-undoing wrong,
And trace the author through his moral page,
Whose blameless life still answers to his song.'
MR THOMSON,
in his elegant and philosophical poem of the Seasons:
'Although not sweeter his own Homer sings,
Yet is his life the more endearing song.'
To the same tune also singeth that learned clerk of Suffolk,
MR WILLIAM BROOME.
'Thus, nobly rising in fair Virtue's cause,
From thy own life transcribe the unerring laws.'[163]
And to close all, hear the reverend Dean of St Patrick's:
'A soul with every virtue fraught,
By patriots, priests, and poets taught.
Whose filial piety excels
Whatever Grecian story tells.
A genius for each business fit,
Whose meanest talent is his wit,' &c.
Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other side, and showing his
character drawn by those with whom he never conversed, and whose
countenances he could not know, though turned against him: first again,
commencing with the high-voiced and never-enough quoted
MR JOHN DENNIS,
who, in his 'Reflections on the Essay on Criticism,' thus describeth
him, 'A little affected hypocrite, who has nothing in his mouth but
candour, truth, friendship, good-nature, humanity, and magnanimity. He
is so great a lover of falsehood, that, whenever he has a mind to
calumniate his cotemporaries, he brands them with some defect which is
just contrary to some good quality for which all their friends and their
acquaintance commend them. He seems to have a particular pique to people
of quality, and authors of that rank. He must derive his religion from
St Omer's.' But in the character of Mr P. and his writings (printed by
S. Popping, 1716), he saith, 'Though he is a professor of the worst
religion, yet he laughs at it;' but that 'nevertheless he is a virulent
Papist; and yet a pillar for the Church of England.'
Of both which opinions
MR LEWIS THEOBALD
seems also to be; declaring, in Mist's Journal of June 22, 1718--'That,
if he is not shrewdly abused, he made it his practice to cackle to both
parties in their own sentiments.' But, as to his pique against people of
quality, the same journalist doth not agree, but saith (May 8, 1728)--
'He had, by some means or other, the acquaintance and friendship of the
whole body of our nobility.'
However contradictory this may appear, Mr Dennis and Gildon, in the
character last cited, make it all plain, by assuring us, 'That he is a
creature that reconciles all contradictions; he is a beast, and a man; a
Whig, and a Tory; a writer (at one and the same time) of Guardians and
Examiners;[164] an assertor of liberty, and of the dispensing power of
kings; a Jesuitical professor of truth, a base and a foul pretender to
candour.' So that, upon the whole account, we must conclude him either
to have been a great hypocrite, or a very honest man; a terrible imposer
upon both parties, or very moderate to either.
Be it as to the judicious reader shall seem good. Sure it is, he is
little favoured of certain authors, whose wrath is perilous: for one
declares he ought to have a price set on his head, and to be hunted down
as a wild beast.[165] Another protests that he does not know what may
happen; advises him to insure his person; says he has bitter enemies,
and expressly declares it will be well if he escapes with his life.[166]
One desires he would cut his own throat, or hang himself.[167]
But Pasquin seemed rather inclined it should be done by the Government,
representing him engaged in grievous designs with a lord of Parliament,
then under prosecution.[168] Mr Dennis himself hath written to a
minister, that he is one of the most dangerous persons in this
kingdom;[169] and assureth the public, that he is an open and mortal
enemy to his country; a monster, that will, one day, shew as daring a
soul as a mad Indian, who runs a-muck to kill the first Christian he
meets.[170] Another gives information of treason discovered in his
poem.[171] Mr Curll boldly supplies an imperfect verse with kings and
princesses.[172] And one Matthew Concanen, yet more impudent, publishes
at length the two most sacred names in this nation, as members of the
Dunciad.[173]
This is prodigious! yet it is almost as strange, that in the midst of
these invectives his greatest enemies have (I know not how) borne
testimony to some merit in him.
MR THEOBALD,
in censuring his Shakspeare, declares, 'He has so great an esteem for Mr
Pope, and so high an opinion of his genius and excellencies, that,
notwithstanding he professes a veneration almost rising to idolatry for
the writings of this inimitable poet, he would be very both even to do
him justice, at the expense of that other gentleman's character.'[174]
MR CHARLES GILDON,
after having violently attacked him in many pieces, at last came to wish
from his heart, 'That Mr Pope would be prevailed upon to give us Ovid's
Epistles by his hand, for it is certain we see the original of Sappho to
Pliaon with much more life and likeness in his version, than in that of
Sir Car Scrope. And this,' he adds, 'is the more to be wished, because
in the English tongue we have scarce anything truly and naturally
written upon love.'[175] He also, in taxing Sir Richard Blackmore for
his heterodox opinions of Homer, challengeth him to answer what Mr Pope
hath said in his preface to that poet.
MR OLDMIXON
calls him a great master of our tongue; declares 'the purity and
perfection of the English language to be found in his Homer; and, saying
there are more good verses in Dryden's Virgil than in any other work,
excepts this of our author only.'[176]
THE AUTHOR OF A LETTER TO MR CIBBER
says, 'Pope was so good a versifier [once], that, his predecessor, Mr
Dryden, and his cotemporary, Mr Prior, excepted, the harmony of his
numbers is equal to anybody's. And that he had all the merit that a man
can have that way.'[177] And
MR THOMAS COOKE,
after much blemishing our author's Homer, crieth out--
'But in his other works what beauties shine,
While sweetest music dwells in every line!
These he admired--on these he stamp'd his praise,
And bade them live to brighten future days.'[178]
So also one who takes the name of
H. STANHOPE,
the maker of certain verses to Duncan Campbell,[179] in that poem, which
is wholly a satire on Mr Pope, confesseth--
''Tis true, if finest notes alone could show
(Tuned justly high, or regularly low)
That we should fame to these mere vocals give,
Pope more than we can offer should receive:
For when some gliding river is his theme,
His lines run smoother than the smoothest stream,' &c.
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728.
Although he says, 'The smooth numbers of the Dunciad are all that
recommend it, nor has it any other merit,' yet that same paper hath
these words: 'The author is allowed to be a perfect master of an easy
and elegant versification. In all his works we find the most happy turns
and natural similes, wonderfully short and thick sown.'
The Essay on the Dunciad also owns (p. 25) it is very full of beautiful
images. But the panegyric which crowns all that can be said on this poem
is bestowed by our laureate,
MR COLLEY CIBBER,
who 'grants it to be a better poem of its kind than ever was writ:' but
adds, 'it was a victory over a parcel of poor wretches, whom it was
almost cowardice to conquer.--A man might as well triumph for having
killed so many silly flies that offended him. Could he have let them
alone, by this time, poor souls! they had all been buried in
oblivion.'[180] Here we see our excellent laureate allows the justice of
the satire on every man in it but himself, as the great Mr Dennis did
before him.
The said
MR DENNIS AND MR GILDON,
in the most furious of all their works (the forecited Character, p. 5),
do in concert confess, 'That some men of good understanding value him
for his rhymes.' And (p. 17), 'That he has got, like Mr Bayes in the
Rehearsal (that is, like Mr Dryden), a notable knack at rhyming, and
writing smooth verse.'
Of his Essay on Man, numerous were the praises bestowed by his avowed
enemies, in the imagination that the same was not written by him, as it
was printed anonymously.
Thus sang of it even
BEZALEEL MORRIS.
'Auspicious bard! while all admire thy strain,
All but the selfish, ignorant, and vain;
I, whom no bribe to servile flattery drew,
Must pay the tribute to thy merit due:
Thy Muse, sublime, significant, and clear,
Alike informs the soul, and charms the ear,' &c.
And
MR LEONARD WELSTED
thus wrote[181] to the unknown author, on the first publication of the
said Essay:--'I must own, after the reception which the vilest and most
immoral ribaldry hath lately met with, I was surprised to see what I had
long despaired--a performance deserving the name of a poet. Such, sir,
is your work. It is, indeed, above all commendation, and ought to have
been published in an age and country more worthy of it. If my testimony
be of weight anywhere, you are sure to have it in the amplest manner,'
&c.
Thus we see every one of his works hath been extolled by one or other of
his most inveterate enemies; and to the success of them all, they do
unanimously give testimony. But it is sufficient, _instar omnium_, to
behold the great critic, Mr Dennis, sorely lamenting it, even from the
Essay on Criticism to this day of the Dunciad! 'A most notorious
instance,' quoth he, 'of the depravity of genius and taste, the
approbation this essay meets with.'[182] 'I can safely affirm, that I
never attacked any of these writings, unless they had success infinitely
beyond their merit. This, though an empty, has been a popular scribbler.
The epidemic madness of the times has given him reputation.'[183] 'If,
after the cruel treatment so many extraordinary men (Spencer, Lord
Bacon, Ben. Jonson, Milton, Butler, Otway, and others) have received
from this country, for these last hundred years, I should shift the
scene, and show all that penury changed at once to riot and profuseness,
and more squandered away upon one object than would have satisfied the
greater part of those extraordinary men, the reader to whom this one
creature should be unknown would fancy him a prodigy of art and nature,
would believe that all the great qualities of these persons were centred
in him alone. But if I should venture to assure him that the people of
England had made such a choice, the reader would either believe me a
malicious enemy and slanderer, or that the reign of the last (Queen
Anne's) ministry was designed by fate to encourage fools.'[184]
But it happens that this our poet never had any place, pension, or
gratuity, in any shape, from the said glorious queen, or any of her
ministers. All he owed, in the whole course of his life, to any court,
was a subscription, for his Homer, of £200 from King George I., and £100
from the Prince and Princess.