Sir William Temple as his friend and domestic companion. When he had
been about two years with Sir William, he contracted a very long and
dangerous illness by eating an immoderate quantity of fruit. To this
surfeit he was often heard to ascribe that giddiness in his head
which, with intermissions sometimes of longer and sometimes of shorter
continuance, pursued him to the end of his life.
In compliance with the advice of physicians, when he was sufficiently
recovered to travel, he went to Ireland, to try the effects of his
native air; but finding the greatest benefit arose from the exercise
of travelling, he followed his own inclination. He soon returned into
England, and was again received in a most affectionate manner by Sir
William Temple, who was then settled at Shene, where he was often
visited by King William.
Here Swift had frequent conversations with that prince, in some of
which the king offered to make him a captain of horse, which offer, in
splenetic dispositions, he always seemed sorry to have refused; but at
the time he had resolved within his own mind to take orders: and
during his whole life his resolutions, when once fixed, were ever
after immovable.
About this time he assisted Sir William Temple in revising his works.
He likewise corrected and improved his own "Tale of a Tub," a sketch
of which he had drawn up while he was a student at Trinity College,
Dublin. Sir William's conversation naturally turned upon political
subjects, and Swift improved the frequent opportunities he had of
acquiring from this able statesman a competent knowledge of public
affairs. But at length he suspected that Sir William neglected to
provide for him, merely that he might keep him in his family; and he
resented this so very warmly that a quarrel ensued, and they parted in
the year 1694, and he went to Ireland, where he took orders.
Sir William, however, notwithstanding the differences between them,
recommended him in the strongest terms to Lord Capel, then
lord-deputy, who gave him a prebend, of which the income was about
L100 a year. Swift soon grew weary of his preferment: it was not
sufficiently considerable, and was at so great a distance from the
metropolis that it absolutely deprived him of that conversation and
society in which he delighted. He had been used to different scenes in
England, and had naturally an aversion to solitude and retirement. He
was glad, therefore, to resign his prebend in favor of a friend, and
to return to Shene, to Sir William Temple, who was so much pleased
with his return, which he considered as an act of kindness to him in
the close of life, that a sincere reconciliation took place, and they
lived together in perfect harmony till the death of Sir William. By
his will he left him a considerable legacy in money, and the care,
trust, and emolument of publishing his posthumous works. During
Swift's residence at Shene he became intimately acquainted with Miss
Johnson, who was the daughter of Sir William's steward, and who was
afterward so distinguished and so much celebrated in Swift's works
under the name of Stella.
Soon after the death of his patron, Swift came to London, and took the
earliest opportunity of transmitting a memorial to King William, under
the claim of a promise made by his majesty to Sir William Temple,
"that Mr. Swift should have the first vacancy that happened among the
prebends of Westminster or Canterbury." The memorial had no effect;
and, indeed, Swift himself afterward declared that he believed the
king never received it. After a long and fruitless attendance at White
Hall, Mr. Swift reluctantly gave up all thoughts of a settlement in
England. In the year 1701 he took his doctor's degree; and toward the
latter end of that year King William died.
On the accession of Queen Anne, Dr. Swift came to England. It cannot
be denied that the chief ministers of the queen, whether distinguished
under the titles of Whigs or Tories, of high-church or of low-church,
were from the beginning to the end of her reign encouragers of
learning and patrons of learned men. The wits of that era were
numerous and eminent. Amid the crowd, yet superior to the rest,
appeared Dr. Swift. In a mixture of those two jarring parties called
Whig and Tory, consisted the first ministry of Queen Anne; but the
greater share of the administration was committed to the Whigs, who
soon engrossed the whole. The queen, whose heart was naturally
inclined toward the Tories, remained an unwilling prisoner several
years to the Whigs, till Mr. Harley at length took her majesty out of
their hands, and during the remainder of her life surrounded her with
a set of Tories, under the conduct of the Duke of Ormond and himself.
Dr. Swift was known to the great men of each denomination. It is
certain that he was bred up and educated with Whigs, at least with
such as may be found ranged under the title. His motives for quitting
Whigism for Toryism appear throughout his works. He had commenced as a
political author in 1701, when he published "A Discourse on the
Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and Commons in Athens and
Rome, with the Consequences they had upon both States." This was
written in defence of King William and his ministers against the
violent proceedings in the House of Commons. But from this time to the
year 1708, Lord Orrery informs us, he did not write any political
pamphlet. From this year to 1710 he worked hard to undermine the Whigs
and to open a way for the Tories to come into power. His intimacy with
Harley commenced, as may be deduced from his works, in October, 1710.
It seems undeniable that a settlement in England was the constant
object of Dr. Swift's ambition; so that his promotion to a deanery in
Ireland was rather a disappointment than a reward, as appears by many
expressions in his letters to Mr. Gay and Mr. Pope.
The business which first introduced him to Harley was a commission
sent to him by the primate of Ireland to solicit the queen to release
the clergy of that kingdom from the twentieth-penny and first-fruits.
As soon as he received the primate's instructions, he resolved to wait
on Harley; but before the first interview he took care to get himself
represented as a person who had been ill used by the last ministry,
because he would not go such lengths as they would have had him. The
new minister received him with open arms, soon after accomplished his
business, bade him come often to see him privately, and told him that
he must bring him to the knowledge of Mr. St. John (Lord Bolingbroke).
Swift presently became acquainted with the rest of the ministry, who
appear to have courted and caressed him with uncommon assiduity.
From this era to the death of Queen Anne we find him fighting on the
side of the ministers and maintaining their cause in pamphlets, poems,
and weekly papers. But notwithstanding his services to the ministry,
he remained without preferment till the year 1713, when he was made
Dean of St. Patrick's. In point of power and revenue such a deanery
might appear no inconsiderable promotion; but to an ambitious mind
whose perpetual aim was a settlement in England, a dignity in any
other kingdom must appear only an honorable and profitable banishment.
There is great reason to imagine that the temper of Swift might
occasion his English friends to wish him happily and properly promoted
at a distance. His spirit was ever untractable, the motions of his
genius irregular. He assumed more the airs of a patron than a friend.
He affected rather to dictate than advise, and was elated with the
appearance of enjoying ministerial confidence.
Dr. Swift had little reason to rejoice in the land where his lot had
fallen: for upon his arrival in Ireland to take possession of his
deanery, he found the violence of party reigning in that kingdom to
the highest degree. The common people were taught to look upon him as
a Jacobite, and they proceeded so far in their detestation as to throw
stones at him as he passed through the streets. The chapter of St.
Patrick's, like the rest of the kingdom, received him with great
reluctance. They thwarted him in every particular he proposed. He was
avoided as a pestilence, opposed as an invader, and marked out as an
enemy to his country. Such was his first reception as Dean of St.
Patrick's. Fewer talents and less firmness must have yielded to such
violent opposition. But so strange are the revolutions of this world
that Dean Swift, who was then the detestation of the Irish rabble,
lived to govern them with absolute sway.
He made no longer stay in Ireland than was requisite to establish
himself a dean, and in the beginning of the year 1714, returned to
England. He found his great friends at the helm much disunited among
themselves. He saw the queen declining in health and distressed in
situation. The part which he had to act upon this occasion was not so
difficult as it was disagreeable; he exerted all his skill to reunite
the ministers. Finding his endeavors fruitless, he retired to a
friend's house in Berkshire, where he remained till the queen's death,
an event which fixed the period of his views in England and made him
return as fast as possible to his deanery in Ireland, oppressed with
grief and discontent.
His works from the year 1714 to the year 1720 are few in number and of
small importance. "Poems to Stella" and "Trifles to Dr. Sheridan" fill
up a great part of that period. But during this interval, Lord Orrery
supposes, he employed his time in writing "Gulliver's Travels." His
mind was likewise fully occupied by an affecting private incident. In
1713 he had formed an intimacy with a young lady in London, to whom he
became a kind of preceptor; her real name was Vanhomrigh, and she was
the daughter of a Dutch merchant who settled and died at Dublin. This
lady was a great admirer of reading, and had a taste for poetry. This
increased her regard for Swift till it grew to affection, and she made
him an offer of marriage, which he refused, and upon this occasion he
wrote his little poem of "Cadenus and Vanessa." The young lady from
this time was called Vanessa; and her mother dying in 1714, she and
her sister followed the dean to Ireland, where he frequently visited
them; and he kept up a literary correspondence with Vanessa until her
death, which followed closely on a bitter quarrel with him.
In the year 1720 he began to reassume the character of a political
writer. A small pamphlet, in defence of the Irish manufactories, was
supposed to be his first essay, in Ireland, in that kind of writing;
and to that pamphlet he owed the turn of the popular tide in his
favor. The pamphlet recommended the universal use of the Irish
manufactures within the kingdom. Some little pieces of poetry to the
same purpose were no less acceptable and engaging; nor was the dean's
attachment to the true interest of Ireland any longer doubted. His
patriotism was as manifest as his wit; he was looked upon with
pleasure and respect as he passed through the streets, and had
attained to so high a degree of popularity as to become the arbitrator
in disputes among his neighbors.
But the popular affection which the dean had hitherto acquired, may be
said not to have been universal until the publication of the Drapier's
Letters, in 1724, which made all ranks and professions universal in
his applause. These letters were occasioned by a patent having been
obtained by one William Wood, to coin L180,000 of halfpence for the
use of Ireland. The dean, in character of a draper, wrote a series of
letters to the people, urging them not to receive this money; and
Wood, though powerfully supported, was compelled to withdraw his
patent, and his money was totally suppressed. Never was any name
bestowed with more universal approbation than the name of the Drapier
was bestowed upon the dean, who had no sooner assumed it than he
became the idol of Ireland, even to a degree of devotion; and bumpers
were poured forth to the Drapier, as large and as frequent as to the
glorious and immortal memory of King William III. Acclamations and
vows for his prosperity attended him wherever he went, and his
portrait was painted in every street in Dublin.
The dean was consulted in all points relating to domestic policy in
general, and to the trade of Ireland in particular; but he was more
immediately looked on as the legislator of the weavers, who frequently
came to him in a body to receive his advice in settling the rates of
their manufactures, and the wages of their journeymen. When elections
were pending for the city of Dublin, many of the companies refused to
declare themselves till they had consulted his sentiments and
inclinations.
In 1727 died his beloved Stella, in the forty-fourth year of her age,
regretted by the dean with such excess of sorrow as only the keenest
sensibility could feel, and the most excellent character excite. After
the death of Stella his life became very retired, and the austerity of
his temper increased; his public days for receiving company were
discontinued, and he even shunned the society of his most intimate
friends.
We have now conducted the dean through the most interesting
circumstances of his life, to the fatal period wherein he was utterly
deprived of his reason, a loss which he often seemed to foresee, and
prophetically lamented to his friends. The total deprivation of his
senses came upon him by degrees. In the year 1736 he was seized with a
violent fit of giddiness: he was at that time writing a satirical
poem, called the "Legion Club;" but he found the effects of his
giddiness so dreadful that he left the poem unfinished, and never
afterward attempted a composition of any length, either in verse or
prose. However, his conversation still remained the same, lively and
severe; but his memory gradually grew worse and worse, and as that
decreased he grew every day more fretful and impatient. From the year
1739 to the year 1744 his passions grew so violent and ungovernable,
his memory so decayed, and his reason so depraved, that the utmost
precautions were taken to prevent all strangers from approaching him,
for till then he had not appeared totally incapable of conversation.
He now, however, grew rapidly worse, and died in 1745. He had willed
all his fortune to be used in founding a home for incurable madmen.
ALEXANDER POPE[3]
[Footnote 3: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
By AUSTIN DORSON
(1688-1744)
[Illustration: Alexander Pope.]
More than two hundred years ago, on May 21, 1688, was born in Lombard
Street, London, a poet whose influence, for nearly a century, reigned
paramount in English verse. He had not been long dead, it is true,
when his supremacy was contested, but to so little purpose that two
decades passed away before his overbold assailant mustered courage to
follow up his first attack. Then, after an interval, the challenge was
renewed, and for a long period the literary world rang with the blows
of the opposing champions. Was Alexander Pope a great poet or was he
not? It was Thomas Warton who first put that question, and it was
William Bowles who repeated it. Against Warton was Warburton; against
Bowles were Byron and Campbell and Roscoe, with a host of minor
combatants. When at last the contest seemed to droop it was only to
begin again upon a new issue; and the lists shook beneath the inroad
of De Quincey and Macaulay. Was Pope a "correct" poet? The latter-day
reader, turning cautiously--it may be languidly--the records of that
ancient controversy, wonders a little at the dust and hubbub. If he
trusts to his first impression, he will, in all probability, be
content to waive discussion by claiming for Pope a considerably lower
place than for Shakespeare or for Milton; and upon the point of his
"correctness" will decide discreetly, in the spirit of the immortal
Captain Bunsby, that much depends upon the precise application of the
term. But let him have a care. The debate is an endless one, eternally
seductive, irrepressibly renascent, and hopelessly bound up with the
ineradicable oppositions of human nature. Sooner or later he will be
drawn into the conflict and cry his slogan with the rest. If, in the
ensuing pages, their writer seems to shun that time-honored
discussion, as well as some other notable difficulties of Pope's
biography, he does so mainly lest they should, in Bunyan's homespun
phrase,
"--prove _ad infinitum_ and eat out
The thing that he already is about,"
to wit, the recalling of Pope's work and story.
Pope's father was a London linen-merchant, who, according to Spence,
"dealt in Hollands wholesale." His mother was of good extraction,
being the daughter of one William Turner, of York. Both were Roman
Catholics, at a time when to be of that faith in England was to suffer
many social disabilities; and it was perhaps in consequence of these
that, about the time of the Revolution, the elder Pope bought a small
house at Binfield, on the skirts of Windsor Forest. Here he lived upon
his means and cultivated his garden, a taste which he transmitted to
his son, who, under the care of his mother and a nurse named Mary
Beach, grew from a sickly infant into a frail, large-eyed boy with a
sweet voice, an eager, precocious temperament, and an inordinate love
of books, from copying the type of which he first learned to write.
Like his father, he was slightly deformed, while from his mother he
derived a life-long tendency to headache. His early education was of a
most miscellaneous character. After some tuition from the family
priest, he passed to a school at Twyford, where he is said to have
been flogged for lampooning the master. Thence he went to a second
school, where he learned but little. As a boy, however, he had tried
his hand at translating, and had tacked together, from reminiscences
of Ogilby, a kind of Homeric drama to be acted by his playmates, with
the gardener for Ajax. But his real education began at Binfield,
where, when between twelve and thirteen, he resolutely sat down to
teach himself Latin, French, and Greek. Between twelve and twenty he
must have read enormously and written as indefatigably. Among other
things, he composed an epic of Alexander, Prince of Rhodes, which is
said to have extended to four thousand lines, and its versification
was so finished that he used some of the couplets long afterward for
maturer work. His earliest critic was his father, who would sit in
judgment on his son's performances, ruthlessly "sending him down" when
the Muse proved unusually stubborn, "These be good rhymes," he would
say when he was pleased.
The quiet, orderly household in Windsor Forest received but few
visitors, and those chiefly of the family faith. Such, for example,
were the Carylls of West Grinstead, and the Blounts of Mapledurham,
where there were two bright-eyed daughters of Pope's own age, the
"fair-hair'd Martha and Teresa brown," whose names, linked in Gay's
dancing-verse, were afterward to be indissolubly connected with that
of their Binfield neighbor. At this date, however, they must have been
school-girls at Hammersmith, under some pre-Thackerayan Miss
Pinkerton, or else were being "finished" at that Paris establishment
whence they derived the foreign _cachet_ which is said to have been
part of their charm. Another friend was the ex-statesman and
ambassador, Sir William Trumbull of East Hampstead, who compared
artichokes with the father and read poetry with the son. To Trumbull
Pope submitted some of his earliest verses, and from him, it seems,
received much valuable advice, including a recommendation to translate
Homer. Another acquaintance was the minor poet and criticaster,
William Walsh, who gave his young friend that memorable (and somewhat
ambiguous) injunction to "study the ancients" and "be correct." He had
been introduced to Walsh by another man of letters, whose acquaintance
he must have made during one of his brief excursions to London, the
whilom dramatist Wycherley--now a broken septuagenarian, but still
retaining a sort of bankrupt _bel air_. To Wycherley, who could not
tear himself from his favorite St. James's, the youthful Pope wrote
literary letters, being even decoyed into patching and revising the
old beau's senile verses. Another of his correspondents was Henry
Cromwell--Gay's "honest, hatless Cromwell, with red breeches," who at
this time was playing the part of an elderly Phaon to the Sappho of a
third-rate poetess, Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas. The epistles of the boy at
Binfield to these battered men about town, when not discussing metres
and the precepts of M. the Abbe Bossu, in a style modelled upon Balzac
and Voiture, are sometimes sorry reading. But both Wycherley and
Cromwell were wits and men of education, and it is not difficult to
pardon that morbid, over-active mind for occasional vagrancy in its
efforts after some congenial escape from the Tory fox-hunters of
Berkshire and the ribald drinking songs of Durfey.
By 1711, when Pope was three-and-twenty, his intercourse with
Wycherley and Cromwell had practically ceased, and "knowing Walsh" was
dead. But he had already obtained a hearing as a poet. He had written
a series of "Pastorals" in the reigning taste, a taste which, under
guise of imitating Theocritus and Virgil, not only transferred to our
bleaker shores the fauna and flora of Italy and Greece, but brought
along with them the light-clad (and somewhat embarrassed) Delias and
Sylvias of those sunnier lands. Pope, indeed, partly modified this. He
drew the line at wolves, for instance, though (as Mr. Leslie Stephen
suggests) this mattered little when altars and milk-white sacrificial
bulls were still "perpetually retained." But the main feature of the
"Pastorals" was less their subject than their versification, which in
these earliest efforts was already as finished and as artful as
anything Pope ever wrote, and was far above the work of his
contemporaries. Lansdowne ("Granville the polite"), Congreve, Garth,
Halifax, and others praised them warmly in MS., and left-legged Jacob
Tonson came cap in hand to solicit them for the sixth part of his
"Miscellany," where they ultimately wound up that volume, balancing
(or rather over-balancing) the "Pastorals" of Ambrose Philips, which
began it. To the same collection Pope contributed an imitation of
Chaucer, and an episode from the "Iliad." The immediate success of
these performances seems to have set him upon his next poem, the
"Essay on Criticism," which was published by Lewis in 1711. His
mastery over his medium was still more noticeable than the originality
of his thought. But this _cento_ of exquisitely chiselled critical
commonplaces goes far toward being a _chef d'oeuvre_ of mere
manipulative skill; and we are still, by our daily use of some of its
lines, justifying the truth of Addison's dictum, that "Wit and fine
Writing doth not consist so much in advancing Things that are new as
in giving Things that are known an agreeable Turn."