of "Patrick," Of this fortune, which, as it arose from public approbation, was very honourably obtained, his imagination seems to have been too full; it would be hard to find a man, so well entitled 5 to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money. In his letters, and in his poems, his garden and his grotto,21 his quincunx 22 and his vines, or some hints of his opulence, are always to be found. The He was fretful and easily displeased, and allowed himself to be capriciously resentful. He would sometimes leave Lord Oxford silently, no one could tell why, and was to be courted back by more letters and messages than the footmen were willing to carry. The 10 great topic of his ridicule is poverty; the crimes with which he reproaches his antagonists are their debts, their habitation in the Mint, 23 and their want of a dinner. He seems to be of an opinion not very uncommon in the table was indeed infested by Lady Mary Wortley, 19 who was the friend of Lady Oxford, and who, knowing his peevishness, could by no intreaties be restrained from contradicting him, till their disputes were sharpened to 15 world, that to want money is to want every such asperity, that one or the other quitted thing. the house. He sometimes condescended to be jocular with servants or inferiors; but by no merri Next to the pleasure of contemplating his possessions, seems to be that of enumerating the men of high rank with whom he was ac ment, either of others or his own, was he ever 20 quainted, and whose notice he loudly proseen excited to laughter. Of his domestic character, frugality was a part eminently remarkable. Having deter claims not to have been obtained by any practices of meanness or severity; a boast which was never denied to be true, and to which very few poets have ever aspired. Pope never set genius to sale, he never flattered those whom he did not love, nor praised those whom he did not esteem. Savage24 however remarked, that he began a little to relax his dignity when he wrote a distich for his "Highness's dog."25 His admiration of the great seems to have increased in the advance of life. He passed over peers and statesmen to inscribe his "Iliad" to Congreve, 20 with a magnanimity of which the praise had been complete, had his friend's mined not to be dependent, he determined not to be in want, and therefore wisely and mag- 25 nanimously rejected all temptations to expense unsuitable to his fortune. This general care must be universally approved; but it sometimes appeared in petty artifices of parsimony, such as the practice of writing his compositions 30 on the back of letters, as may be seen in the remaining copy of the "Iliad," "20 by which perhaps in five years five shillings were saved; or in a niggardly reception of his friends, and scantiness of entertainment, as, when he had 35 virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was two guests in his house, he would set at supper a single pint upon the table; and, having himself taken two small glasses, would retire; and say, "Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine." Yet he tells his friends, that "he has a heart 40 for all, a house for all, and whatever they may think, a fortune for all." He sometimes, however, made a splendid dinner, and is said to have wanted no part of chosen for so great an honour, it is not now possible to know; there is no trace in literary history of any particular intimacy between them. The name of Congreve appears in the Letters among those of his other friends, but without any observable distinction or consequence. To his latter works, however, he took care to annex names dignified with titles, but was 21 The grotto at Twickenham was a tunnel decorated with shells, looking glasses, and minerals, connecting Pope's grounds which lay on either side of the London road. the skill or elegance which such performances 45 not very happy in his choice: for, except Lord require. That this magnificence should be often displayed, that obstinate prudence with which he conducted his affairs would not permit: for his revenue, certain and casual, amounted only to about eight hundred pounds 50 a year, of which however he declares himself able to assign one hundred to charity. 22 Groups of five trees (Lat. quinque) planted in squares, one at each corner, and one in the middle. 23 A building in Southwark, London, where debtors formerly found shelter, and immunity from arrest. 24 Richard Savage (1698-1743), a poet who is remembered chiefly through Johnson's Life of Savage. 25 "I am his Highness dog at Kew, Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?" 26 Congreve (1670-1792), writer of comedies that reflect the brilliancy, the wit, but also the coarseness and moral callousness of the Augustan age. Macaulay has explained why Pope should have dedicated his Iliad to Congreve. Whigs and Tories had vied in their patronage of the translation, and to avoid offence to either party it was necessary to find some person who was at once eminent and neutral. Congreve united these requisites. Bathurst," none of his noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to posterity; he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham, 28 Burlington, 29 or Bolingbroke. man's thoughts, while they are general, are right; and most hearts are pure, while temptation is away. It is easy to awaken generous sentiments in privacy; to despise death when 5 there is no danger; to glow with benevolence when there is nothing to be given. While such ideas are formed they are felt; and self-love does not suspect the gleam of virtue to be the meteor of fancy. If the letters of Pope are considered merely as compositions, they seem to be premeditated and artificial. It is one thing to write, because there is something which the mind wishes to discharge; and another to solicit the imagina Of his social qualities, if an estimate be made from his Letters, an opinion too favourable cannot easily be formed; they exhibit a perpetual and unclouded effulgence of general benevolence, and particular fondness. There 10 is nothing but liberality, gratitude, constancy, and tenderness. It has been so long said as to be commonly believed, that the true characters of men may be found in their Letters, and that he who writes to his friend lays his heart 15 tion, because ceremony or vanity require open before him. But the truth is, that such were the simple friendships of the Golden Age, and are now the friendships only of children. Very few can boast of hearts which they dare lay open to themselves, and of which, 20 by whatever accident exposed, they do not shun a distinct and continued view; and, certainly, what we hide from ourselves we do not show to our friends. There is, indeed, no transaction which offers stronger temptation 25 this he was certainly not sincere, for his high something to be written. Pope confesses his early Letters to be vitiated with affectation and ambition: to know whether he disentangled himself from those perverters of epistolatory integrity, his book and his life must be set in comparison. One of his favourite topics is contempt of his own poetry. For this, if it had been real, he would deserve no commendation; and in value of himself was sufficiently observed; and of what could he be proud but of his poetry? He writes, he says, when he has "just nothing else to do;" yet Swift complains that he was to fallacy and sophistication than epistolary intercourse. In the eagerness of conversation the first emotions of the mind often burst out before they are considered; in the tumult of business, interest and passion have their gen- 30 never at leisure for conversation because he uine effect; but a friendly Letter is a calm and deliberate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely no man sits down to depreciate by design his own character. had "always some poetical scheme in his head." It was punctually required that his writing-box should be set upon his bed before he rose; and Lord Oxford's domestic related, 35 that, in the dreadful winter of 1740,30 she was called from her bed by him four times in one night, to supply him with paper, lest he should lose a thought. Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom can a man so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by him whose kindness he desires to gain or keep? Even in writing to the world there is less constraint; 40 the author is not confronted with his reader, and takes his chance of approbation among the different dispositions of mankind; but a Letter is addressed to a single mind, of which the prejudices and partialities are known; and 45 must therefore please, if not by favouring them, by forbearing to oppose them. To charge those favourable representations, which men give of their own minds, with the The writer He pretends insensibility to censure and criticism, though it was observed by all who knew him that every pamphlet disturbed his quiet, that his extreme irritability laid him open to perpetual vexation; but he wished to despise his critics, and therefore hoped that he did despise them. As he happened to live in two reigns31 when the Court paid little attention to poetry, he nursed in his mind a foolish disesteem of King, and proclaims that "he never sees Courts." Wales melted his obduracy; and he had not guilt of hypocritical falsehood, would show 50 Yet a little regard shown him by the Prince of more severity than knowledge. commonly believes himself. Almost every Allen Bathurst (1682–1775), first Earl Bathurst, a prominent Tory statesman, a friend of Pope and Swift. Sir Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham (1669-1749), a statesman and soldier, who broke with Walpole and the King as a result of his opposition to the South Sea Company. Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington (1695-1753), celebrated for his cultivation of the Italian style of architecture. 30 In the Gentleman's Magazine of January 3rd, 1740, we read, "This month the frost, which began the 26th of last, grew more severe than has been known since the memorable winter of 1715-16." "The Thames represented a snowy field." . "The rivers Severn, Tyne, the Avon by Bristol, the rivers of Forth, Tay, etc. in Scotland, and the Liffey by Dublin, were all frozen up like the Thames." 31 The greater part of Pope's literary career was included within the reigns of the first two Georges (171427-60). Neither George I, who could not speak English, nor George II, were patrons of literature. much to say when he was asked by his Royal Highness, "How he could love a Prince while he disliked Kings?" lest "a glut of the world should throw him back upon study and retirement." To this Swift answered, with great propriety, that Pope had not yet acted or suffered enough in 5 the world, to have become weary of it. And, indeed, it must have been some very powerful reason that can drive back to solitude him who has once enjoyed the pleasures of society. In the letters both of Swift and Pope there He very frequently professes contempt of the world, and represents himself as looking on mankind sometimes with gay indifference, as on emmets32 of a hillock, below his serious attention; and sometimes with gloomy indignation, as on monsters more worthy of hatred than of pity. These were dispositions appar- 10 appears such narrowness of mind, as makes ently counterfeited. How could he despise those whom he lived by pleasing, and on whose approbation his esteem of himself was superstructed? Why should he hate those to whose favour he owed his honour and his ease? Of 15 things that terminate in human life, the world is the proper judge; to despise its sentence, if it were possible, is not just; and if it were just, is not possible. Pope was far enough from this unreasonable temper: he was sufficiently 20 stand them. a fool to Fame, and his fault was, that he pretended to neglect it. His levity and his sullenness were only in his Letters; he passed through common life sometimes vexed, and sometimes pleased with the natural emotions of common 25 men. His scorn of the Great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises; and as falsehood is always in danger of inconsistency, he makes it his boast 30 at another time that he lives among them. them insensible of any excellence that has not some affinity with their own, and confines their esteem and approbation to so small a number, that whoever should form his opinion of their age from their representation, would suppose them to have lived among ignorance and barbarity, unable to find among their contemporaries either virtue or intelligence, and persecuted by those that could not under When Pope murmurs at the world, when he professes contempt of fame, when he speaks of riches and poverty, of success and disappointment, with negligent indifference, he certainly does not express his habitual and settled resentments, but either wilfully disguises his own character, or, what is more likely, invests himself with temporary qualities, and sallies out in the colours of the present moment. His hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, acted strongly upon his mind; and, if he differed from others, it was not by carelessness; he was irritable and resentful; his malignity to Phillips,33 whom he had first made ridiculous, and 35 then hated for being angry, continued too long. Of his vain desire to make Bentley34 contemptible, I never heard any adequate reason. He was sometimes wanton in his attacks; and, before Chandos, 35 Lady Wortley, and Hill, was mean in his retreat. It is evident that his own importance swells often in his mind. He is afraid of writing, lest the clerks of the Post-office should know his secrets; he has many enemies; he considers himself as surrounded by universal jealousy; "after many deaths, and many dispersions, two or three of us," says he, "may still be brought together, not to plot, but to divert ourselves, and the world too, if it pleases;" 40 and they can live together, and "show what friends wits may be, in spite of all the fools in the world." All this while it was likely that the clerks did not know his hand: he certainly had no more enemies than a public character 45 like his inevitably excites; and with what degree of friendship the wits might live, very few were so much fools as ever to enquire. Some part of this pretended discontent he learned from Swift, and expresses it, I think, 50 most frequently in his correspondence with him. Swift's resentment was unreasonable, but it was sincere; Pope's was the mere mimickry of his friend, a fictitious part which he began to play before it became him. When he 55 was only twenty-five years old, he related that "a glut of study and retirement had thrown him on the world," and that there was danger 32 An older form of ant. 36 The virtues which seem to have had most of his affection were liberality and fidelity of friendship, in which it does not appear that he was other than he describes himself. His fortune did not suffer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but he assisted Dodsley with a hundred pounds, that he might open a shop; and, of the subscription of forty pounds 33 Ambrose Phillips (1671-1749) a writer of pastorals. He was known as Namby-Pamby Phillips and Pope retained the name for him as being appropriate to his feeble style of poetry. 34 Richard Bentley (1662-1742), one of the foremost classical scholars of his time. Pope attacked Bentley in his Satires, but Bentley's scholarship was proof against such attacks. 35 In his poem on False Taste, Pope had criticised the house, furniture, and gardens of "Timon," generally be lieved to represent the Duke of Chandos, who had hospitably entertained him. 36 Aaron Hill (1685-1750) was one of the pigmy authors satirized in The Dunciad. a year that he raised for Savage, 38 twenty were paid by himself. He was accused of loving money; but his love was eagerness to gain, not solicitude to keep it. 5 to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven. For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might hasten their publication, were the two satires of "Thirty-eight;"43 of which Dodsley told me that they were brought to him by the author, that they might be fairly copied. "Almost every line," he said, "was then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time afterwards to me for the press, with almost every line written twice over a second time." In the duties of friendship he was zealous and constant; his early maturity of mind commonly united him with men older than himself, and therefore, without attaining any considerable length of life, he saw many companions of his youth sink into the grave; but 10 it does not appear that he lost a single friend by coldness or by injury;39 those who loved him once, continued their kindness. His ungrateful mention of Allen in his will, was the effect of his adherence to one whom he had 15 known much longer, and whom he naturally loved with greater fondness.40 His violation of the trust reposed in him by Bolingbroke could have no motive inconsistent with the warmest affection; he either thought the action so near 20 true. His parental attention never abandoned to indifferent that he forgot it, or so laudable that he expected his friend to approve it. . . His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the "Iliad," and freed it from some of its imperfections; and the "Essay on Criticism" received many improvements after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered without adding clearness, elegance, or vigour. Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden; but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope. Integrity of understanding and nicety of discernment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude 25 of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never deserved to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, 30 and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often, 35 with better means of information. His mind to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us with very little consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his moment happened to supply, and, when once 40 local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation; and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope. Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden observes44 the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, 40 The one whom Pope loved with a greater fondness was Martha Blount, whom but for his physical weakness he would have married. Pope was under obligations to Mr. Allen of Bath, and Martha Blount refused to accept any legacy from Pope unless he would promise to first 55 rising into inequalities, and diversified by the make good in his will what he owed Mr. Allen. Pope accordingly left £150 to Mr. Allen, that being what he thought he owed him. 41 In present use "dismissal." 42 Candour in 18th century use meant indulgence, kindness, and not honesty and openness, as now. varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; 43 Now known as the Epilogue to the Satires, but first entitled One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty-eight, from the year of publication. 44 i. c., obeys, follows. Cf. observe a rule. Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller. such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel: and, accordingly, we find that David wept for his son Absalom, Adrian for his Antinous, Niobe for her children, and 5 that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for Socrates before his death. My father managed his afflictions otherwise; and indeed differently from most men, either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred, that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every 10 as the Hebrews and the Romans,-nor slept other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said, that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's performances were it off, as the Laplanders,—nor hanged it, as Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these two pages? always hasty, either excited by some external 15 occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he 20 tened to the voice of nature, and modulated his When Tully2 was bereft of his dear daughter Tullia, at first he laid it to his heart,-he lis own unto it.-O, my Tullia!-my daughter! my child! Still, still, still, it was, O, my Tullia! -my Tullia! Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.-But as gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden therefore are higher, Pope 25 soon as he began to look into the stores of continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent as- 30 tonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. This parallel will, I hope, when it is well considered, be found just; and if the reader should suspect me, as I suspect myself, of some partial fondness for the memory of Dry- 35 den, let him not too hastily condemn me; for meditation and inquiry may, perhaps, show him the reasonableness of my determination. Laurence Sterne 1713-1764 MR. SHANDY ON HIS SON'S DEATH (From Tristram Shandy, 1759-67) And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too; so look to yourselves. philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion,nobody upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me. My father was as proud of his eloquence as Marcus Tullius Cicero could be for his life; and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary, at present, with as much reason: it was, indeed, his strength,-and his weakness too.His strength, for he was by nature eloquent; and his weakness, for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in life would but permit him to show his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one-(bating 40 the case of a systematic misfortune)—he had all he wanted. A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which set it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune was as five,-my father gained half in half; and consequently was as well again off as if it had never befallen him. . . Now let us go back to my brother's death. 45 'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or 50 Xenophon, or Epictetus, or Theophrastus, or Lucian, or some one, perhaps, of later date; either Cardan or Budæus, or Petrarch, or Stella, or possibly it may be some divine or father of the church; St. Austin, or St. 55 Cyprian, or Bernard-who affirms that it is an irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children;-and Seneca (I'm positive) tells us somewhere that Philosophy has a fine saying for everything. -For Death, it has an entire set: the misery was they all at once rushed so into my father's head that 'twas difficult to string them together, so as to make anything of a consistent 1i. e., make a popular song about it. Lillibullero was the name of a song directed against the Irish Roman Catholics, and immensely popular in England during the Revolution of 1688. 2 Cicero. |