No More Learning

" It was punctually required that his
writing-box should be set upon his bed before he rose; and lord Oxford's
domestick related, that, in the dreadful winter of forty, she was called
from her bed by him four times in one night, to supply him with paper,
lest he should lose a thought.

He pretends insensibility to censure and criticism, though it was
observed, by all who knew him, that every pamphlet disturbed his quiet,
and that his extreme irritability laid him open to perpetual vexation;
but he wished to despise his criticks, and, therefore, hoped that he
did despise them.

As he happened to live in two reigns when the court paid little
attention to poetry, he nursed in his mind a foolish disesteem of kings,
and proclaims that "he never sees courts. " Yet a little regard shown him
by the prince of Wales melted his obduracy; and he had not much to say
when he was asked by his royal highness, "How he could love a prince
while he disliked kings. "

He very frequently professes contempt of the world, and represents
himself as looking on mankind, sometimes with gay indifference, as on
emmets 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 apparently counterfeited. How could he despise
those whom he lived by pleasing, and on whose approbation his esteem of
himself was super-structed? Why should he hate those to whose favour he
owed his honour and his ease? Of 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 "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 men.

His scorn of the great is too often repeated 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, at another time, that he lives
among them.

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:" 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 publick
character like his inevitably excites; and with what degree of
friendship the wits might live, very few were so much fools as ever to
inquire.

Some part of this pretended discontent he learned from Swift, and
expresses it, I think, 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 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 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 either acted or suffered enough in the world to
have become weary of it. And, indeed, it must be 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 appears such narrowness of
mind, as makes 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 the age from
their representation, would suppose them to have lived amidst ignorance
and barbarity, unable to find, among their contemporaries, either virtue
or intelligence, and persecuted by those that could not understand them.

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 sentiments, 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 Philips, whom he had first made ridiculous, and then
hated for being angry, continued too long. Of his vain desire to make
Bentley contemptible, I never heard any adequate reason. He was
sometimes wanton in his attacks; and, before Chandos, lady Wortley, and
Hill, was mean in his retreat.

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 a year, that he raised for Savage, twenty were paid by himself.
He was accused of loving money; but his love was eagerness to gain, not
solicitude to keep it.

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 it does not appear
that he lost a single friend by coldness or by injury; 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 known much
longer, and whom he naturally loved with greater fondness. His violation
of the trust reposed in him by Bolingbroke, could have no motive
inconsistent with the warmest affection; be either thought the action so
near to indifferent that he forgot it, or so laudable, that he expected
his friend to approve it.

It was reported, with such confidence as almost to enforce belief, that
in the papers intrusted to his executors was found a defamatory life of
Swift, which he had prepared as an instrument of vengeance, to be used
if any provocation should be ever given. About this I inquired of the
earl of Marchmont, who assured me, that no such piece was among his
remains.

The religion in which he lived and died was that of the church of Rome,
to which, in his correspondence with Racine, he professes himself a
sincere adherent. That he was not scrupulously pious in some part of his
life, is known by many idle and indecent applications of sentences taken
from the scriptures; a mode of merriment which a good man dreads for its
profaneness, and a witty man disdains for its easiness and vulgarity.
But to whatever levities he has been betrayed, it does not appear that
his principles were ever corrupted, or that he ever lost his belief of
revelation. The positions, which he transmitted from Bolingbroke, he
seems not to have understood; and was pleased with an interpretation,
that made them orthodox.

A man of such exalted superiority, and so little moderation, would
naturally have all his delinquencies observed and aggravated; those who
could not deny that he was excellent, would rejoice to find that he was
not perfect.

Perhaps it may be imputed to the unwillingness with which the same man
is allowed to possess many advantages, that his learning has been
depreciated. He certainly was, in his early life, a man of great
literary curiosity; and, when he wrote his Essay on Criticism, had, for
his age, a very wide acquaintance with books. When he entered into the
living world, it seems to have happened to him, as to many others, that
he was less attentive to dead masters; he studied in the academy of
Paracelsus, and made the universe his favourite volume. He gathered his
notions fresh from reality, not from the copies of authors, but the
originals of nature. Yet, there is no reason to believe, that literature
ever lost his esteem; he always professed to love reading; and Dobson,
who spent some time at his house, translating his Essay on Man, when I
asked him what learning he found him to possess, answered, "More than I
expected. " His frequent references to history, his allusions to various
kinds of knowledge, and his images, selected from art and nature, with
his observations on the operations of the mind, and the modes of life,
show an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excursive, vigorous, and
diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and attentive to retain it.

From this curiosity arose the desire of travelling, to which he alludes
in his verses to Jervas; and which, though he never found an opportunity
to gratify it, did not leave him till his life declined.

Of his intellectual character, the constituent and fundamental principle
was good sense, a prompt and intuitive perception of consonance and
propriety. He saw immediately, of his own conceptions, what was to be
chosen, and what to be rejected; and, in the works of others, what was
to be shunned, and what was to be copied.

But good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which manages
its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collects few
materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains
supremacy. Pope had, likewise, genius; a mind active, ambitious, and
adventurous, always investigating, always aspiring; in its widest
searches still longing to go forward, in its highest flights still
wishing to be higher; always imagining something greater than it knows,
always endeavouring more than it can do.

To assist these powers, he is said to have had great strength and
exactness of memory. That which he had heard or read was not easily
lost; and he had before him not only what his own meditation suggested,
but what he had found in other writers that might be accommodated to his
present purpose.

These benefits of nature he improved by incessant and unwearied
diligence; he had recourse to every source of intelligence, and lost no
opportunity of information; he consulted the living as well as the dead;
he read his compositions to his friends, and was never content with
mediocrity, when excellence could be attained. He considered poetry as
the business of his life; and, however he might seem to lament his
occupation, he followed it with constancy; to make verses was his first
labour, and to mend them was his last.

From his attention to poetry he was never diverted. If conversation
offered any thing that could be improved, he committed it to paper; if a
thought, or, perhaps, an expression more happy than was common, rose to
his mind, he was careful to write it; an independent distich was
preserved for an opportunity of insertion, and some little fragments
have been found containing lines, or parts of lines, to be wrought upon
at some other time.

He was one of those few whose labour is their pleasure: he was never
elevated to negligence, nor wearied to impatience; he never passed a
fault unamended by indifference, nor quitted it by despair. He laboured
his works, first to gain reputation, and afterwards to keep it.

Of composition there are different methods. Some employ at once memory
and invention, and, with little intermediate use of the pen, form and
polish large masses by continued meditation, and write their productions
only when, in their own opinion, they have completed them. It is related
of Virgil, that his custom was to pour out a great number of verses in
the morning, and pass the day in retrenching exuberances and correcting
inaccuracies. The method of Pope, as may be collected from his
translation, was to write his first thoughts in his first words, and
gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, and refine them.

With such faculties, and such dispositions, he excelled every other
writer in poetical prudence: he wrote in such a manner as might expose
him to few hazards. He used almost always the same fabrick of verse;
and, indeed, by those few essays which he made of any other, he did not
enlarge his reputation. Of this uniformity the certain consequence was
readiness and dexterity. By perpetual practice, language had, in his
mind, a systematical arrangement; having always the same use for words,
he had words so selected and combined as to be ready at his call. This
increase of facility he confessed himself to have perceived in the
progress of his translation.

But what was yet of more importance, his effusions were always
voluntary, and his subjects chosen by himself. His independence secured
him from drudging at a task, and labouring upon a barren topick: he
never exchanged praise for money, nor opened a shop of condolence or
congratulation. His poems, therefore, were scarcely ever temporary. He
suffered coronations and royal marriages to pass without a song; and
derived no opportunities from recent events, nor any popularity from the
accidental disposition of his readers. He was never reduced to the
necessity of soliciting the sun to shine upon a birthday, of calling the
graces and virtues to a wedding, or of saying what multitudes have said
before him. When he could produce nothing new, he was at liberty to be
silent.

His publications were, for the same reason, never hasty. He is said to
have sent nothing to the press till it had lain two years under his
inspection: it is at least certain, that he ventured nothing without
nice examination. He suffered the tumult of imagination to subside, and
the novelties of invention to grow familiar. He knew that the mind is
always enamoured of its own productions, and did not trust his first
fondness. He consulted his friends, and listened with great willingness
to criticism; and, what was of more importance, he consulted himself,
and let nothing pass against his own judgment.

He professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an
opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with
unvaried liberality; and, perhaps, his character may receive some
illustration, if he be compared with his master.

Integrity of understanding, and nicety of discernment, were not allotted
in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude 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 desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He
wrote, 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 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 moment
happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it
from his mind; for, when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further
solicitude.

Pope was not content to satisfy; he desired to excel, and, therefore,
always endeavoured to do his best: he did not court the candour, but
dared the judgment of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from
others, he showed none 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; 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. "

His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their
publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never
abandoned 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.

In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose
education was more scholastick, and who, before he became an author, had
been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His
mind 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 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 obeys 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, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied
exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by
the sithe, and levelled by the roller.

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 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 always hasty, either excited by
some external occasion, or extorted by domestick 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 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 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 astonishment, 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 Dryden, let him not too hastily
condemn me; for meditation and inquiry, may, perhaps, show him the
reasonableness of my determination.

* * * * *

The works of Pope are now to be distinctly examined, not so much with
attention to slight faults, or petty beauties, as to the general
character and effect of each performance.

It seems natural for a young poet to initiate himself by pastorals,
which, not professing to imitate real life, require no experience; and,
exhibiting only the simple operation of unmingled passions, admit no
subtile reasoning or deep inquiry. Pope's pastorals are not, however,
composed but with close thought; they have reference to the times of the
day, the seasons of the year, and the periods of human life. The last,
that which turns the attention upon age and death, was the author's
favourite. To tell of disappointment and misery, to thicken the darkness
of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a
delicious employment of the poets. His preference was probably just, I
wish, however, that his fondness had not overlooked a line in which the
zephyrs are made "to lament in silence. "

To charge these pastorals with want of invention, is to require what was
never intended. The imitations are so ambitiously frequent, that the
writer evidently means rather to show his literature, than his wit. It
is surely sufficient for an author of sixteen, not only to be able to
copy the poems of antiquity with judicious selection, but to have
obtained sufficient power of language, and skill in metre, to exhibit a
series of versification, which had in English poetry no precedent, nor
has since had an imitation.

The design of Windsor Forest is evidently derived from Cooper's Hill,
with some attention to Waller's poem on the Park; but Pope cannot be
denied to excel his masters in variety and elegance, and the art of
interchanging description, narrative, and morality. The objection made
by Dennis is the want of plan, of a regular subordination of parts
terminating in the principal and original design. There is this want in
most descriptive poems, because, as the scenes, which they must exhibit
successively, are all subsisting at the same time, the order in which
they are shown must by necessity be arbitrary, and more is not to be
expected from the last part than from the first. The attention,
therefore, which cannot be detained by suspense, must be excited by
diversity, such as his poem offers to its reader.

But the desire of diversity may be too much indulged; the parts of
Windsor Forest which deserve least praise, are those which were added to
enliven the stillness of the scene, the appearance of Father Thames, and
the transformation of Lodona. Addison had in his Campaign derided the
rivers that "rise from their oozy beds" to tell stories of heroes; and
it is, therefore, strange that Pope should adopt a fiction not only
unnatural but lately censured. The story of Lodona is told with
sweetness; but a new metamorphosis is a ready and puerile expedient;
nothing is easier than to tell how a flower was once a blooming virgin,
or a rock an obdurate tyrant.

The Temple of Fame has, as Steele warmly declared, "a thousand
beauties. " Every part is splendid; there is great luxuriance of
ornaments; the original vision of Chaucer was never denied to be much
improved; the allegory is very skilfully continued, the imagery is
properly selected, and learnedly displayed; yet, with all this
comprehension of excellence, as its scene is laid in remote ages, and
its sentiments, if the concluding paragraph be excepted, have little
relation to general manners or common life, it never obtained much
notice, but is turned silently over, and seldom quoted or mentioned with
either praise or blame.

That the Messiah excels the Pollio, is no great praise, if it be
considered from what original the improvements are derived.

The Verses on the unfortunate Lady have drawn much attention by the
illaudable singularity of treating suicide with respect; and they must
be allowed to be written, in some parts, with vigorous animation, and,
in others, with gentle tenderness; nor has Pope produced any poem in
which the sense predominates more over the diction. But the tale is not
skilfully told; it is not easy to discover the character of either the
lady or her guardian. History relates that she was about to disparage
herself by a marriage with an inferiour; Pope praises her for the
dignity of ambition, and yet condemns the uncle to detestation for his
pride; the ambitious love of a niece may be opposed by the interest,
malice, or envy of an uncle, but never by his pride. On such an occasion
a poet may be allowed to be obscure, but inconsistency never can be
right[148].

The Ode for St. Cecilia's Day was undertaken at the desire of Steele:
in this the author is generally confessed to have miscarried, yet he has
miscarried only as compared with Dryden; for he has far outgone other
competitors. Dryden's plan is better chosen; history will always take
stronger hold of the attention than fable: the passions excited by
Dryden are the pleasures and pains of real life, the scene of Pope is
laid in imaginary existence; Pope is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden
with turbulent delight; Pope hangs upon the ear, and Dryden finds the
passes of the mind.

Both the odes want the essential constituent of metrical compositions,
the stated recurrence of settled numbers. It may be alleged that Pindar
is said by Horace to have written "numeris lege solutis:" but as no such
lax performances have been transmitted to us, the meaning of that
expression cannot be fixed; and, perhaps, the like return might properly
be made to a modern Pindarist, as Mr. Cobb received from Bentley, who,
when he found his criticisms upon a Greek exercise, which Cobb had
presented, refuted one after another by Pindar's authority, cried out,
at last, "Pindar was a bold fellow, but thou art an impudent one. "

If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the first
stanza consists of sounds well chosen indeed, but only sounds.

The second consists of hyperbolical commonplaces, easily to be found,
and, perhaps, without much difficulty to be as well expressed.

In the third, however, there are numbers, images, harmony, and vigour,
not unworthy the antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this--but every
part cannot be the best.

The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of
mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, can be
found: the poet, however, faithfully attends us: we have all that can be
performed by elegance of diction, or sweetness of versification; but
what can form avail without better matter?

The last stanza recurs again to commonplaces. The conclusion is too
evidently modelled by that of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both
end with the same fault: the comparison of each is literal on one side,
and metaphorical on the other.

Poets do not always express their own thoughts; Pope, with all this
labour in the praise of musick, was ignorant of its principles, and
insensible of its effects.

One of his greatest, though of his earliest works, is the Essay on
Criticism, which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed him
among the first criticks and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode
of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactick composition,
selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept,
splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not
whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at
twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself with
observing that such powers may be so soon attained, cannot but grieve to
think that life was ever after at a stand.

To mention the particular beauties of the essay would be unprofitably
tedious; but I cannot forbear to observe, that the comparison of a
student's progress in the sciences with the journey of a traveller in
the Alps, is, perhaps, the best that English poetry can show. A simile,
to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show
it to the understanding in a clearer view, and display it to the fancy
with greater dignity; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to
recommend it. In didactick poetry, of which the great purpose is
instruction, a simile may be praised which illustrates, though it does
not ennoble; in heroicks, that may be admitted which ennobles, though it
does not illustrate. That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit,
independently of its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said
to be a short episode. To this antiquity was so attentive, that
circumstances were sometimes added, which, having no parallels, served
only to fill the imagination, and produced what Perrault ludicrously
called "comparisons with a long tail. " In their similes the greatest
writers have sometimes failed; the ship-race, compared with the
chariot-race, is neither illustrated nor aggrandized; land and water
make all the difference: when Apollo, running after Daphne, is likened
to a greyhound chasing a hare, there is nothing gained; the ideas of
pursuit and flight are too plain to be made plainer, and a god and the
daughter of a god are not represented much to their advantage by a hare
and dog. The simile of the Alps has no useless parts, yet affords a
striking picture by itself; it makes the foregoing position better
understood, and enables it to take faster hold on the attention; it
assists the apprehension, and elevates the fancy.

Let me, likewise, dwell a little on the celebrated paragraph, in which
it is directed that "the sound should seem an echo to the sense;" a
precept which Pope is allowed to have observed beyond any other English
poet.

This notion of representative metre, and the desire of discovering
frequent adaptations of the sound to the sense, have produced, in my
opinion, many wild conceits and imaginary beauties. All that can furnish
this representation are the sounds of the words considered singly, and
the time in which they are pronounced. Every language has some words
framed to exhibit the noises which they express, as _thump, rattle,
growl, hiss_. These, however, are but few, and the poet cannot make them
more, nor can they be of any use but when sound is to be mentioned. The
time of pronunciation was, in the dactylick measures of the learned
languages, capable of considerable variety; but that variety could be
accommodated only to motion or duration, and different degrees of motion
were, perhaps, expressed by verses rapid or slow, without much attention
of the writer, when the image had full possession of his fancy; but our
language having little flexibility, our verses can differ very little in
their cadence. The fancied resemblances, I fear, arise sometimes merely
from the ambiguity of words; there is supposed to be some relation
between a _soft_ line and a _soft_ couch, or between _hard_ syllables
and _hard_ fortune.

Motion, however, may be in some sort exemplified; and yet it may be
suspected that even in such resemblances the mind often governs the ear,
and the sounds are estimated by their meaning. One of the most
successful attempts has been to describe the labour of Sisyphus:

With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.

Who does not perceive the stone to move slowly upward, and roll
violently back? But set the same numbers to another sense:

While many a merry tale, and many a song,
Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long.
The rough road then, returning in a round,
Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground.

We have now, surely, lost much of the delay, and much of the rapidity.

But, to show how little the greatest master of numbers can fix the
principles of representative harmony, it will be sufficient to remark
that the poet, who tells us, that

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main;

when he had enjoyed, for about thirty years, the praise of Camilla's
lightness of foot, tried another experiment upon _sound_ and _time_, and
produced this memorable triplet:

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestick march, and energy divine.

Here are the swiftness of the rapid race, and the march of slow-paced
majesty, exhibited by the same poet in the same sequence of syllables,
except that the exact prosodist will find the line of _swiftness_ by one
time longer than that of _tardiness_.

Beauties of this kind are commonly fancied; and, when real, are
technical and nugatory, not to be rejected, and not to be solicited.

To the praises which have been accumulated on the Rape of the Lock by
readers of every class, from the critick to the waiting-maid, it is
difficult to make any addition. Of that which is universally allowed to
be the most attractive of all ludicrous compositions, let it rather be
now inquired from what sources the power of pleasing is derived.

Dr. Warburton, who excelled in critical perspicacity, has remarked that
the preternatural agents are very happily adapted to the purposes of the
poem. The heathen deities can no longer gain attention: we should have
turned away from a contest between Venus and Diana. The employment of
allegorical persons always excites conviction of its own absurdity; they
may produce effects, but cannot conduct actions; when the phantom is put
in motion, it dissolves; thus Discord may raise a mutiny, but Discord
cannot conduct a march, or besiege a town. Pope brought into view a new
race of beings, with powers and passions proportionate to their
operation. The sylphs and gnomes act, at the toilet and the tea-table,
what more terrifick and more powerful phantoms perform on the stormy
ocean, or the field of battle; they give their proper help, and do their
proper mischief.

Pope is said, by an objector, not to have been the inventer of this
petty nation; a charge which might, with more justice, have been brought
against the author of the Iliad, who, doubtless, adopted the religious
system of his country; for what is there, but the names of his agents,
which Pope has not invented? Has he not assigned them characters and
operations never heard of before? Has he not, at least, given them their
first poetical existence? If this is not sufficient to denominate his
work original, nothing original ever can be written.

In this work are exhibited, in a very high degree, the two most engaging
powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things
are made new. A race of aërial people, never heard of before, is
presented to us in a manner so clear and easy, that the reader seeks for
no further information, but immediately mingles with his new
acquaintance, adopts their interests, and attends their pursuits, loves
a sylph, and detests a gnome.

That familiar things are made new, every paragraph will prove. The
subject of the poem is an event below the common incidents of common
life; nothing real is introduced that is not seen so often as to be no
longer regarded; yet the whole detail of a female day is here brought
before us invested with so much art of decoration, that, though nothing
is disguised, every thing is striking, and we feel all the appetite of
curiosity for that from which we have a thousand times turned
fastidiously away.

The purpose of the poet is, as he tells us, to laugh at "the little
unguarded follies of the female sex. " It is, therefore, without justice
that Dennis charges the Rape of the Lock with the want of a moral, and
for that reason sets it below the Lutrin, which exposes the pride and
discord of the clergy. Perhaps neither Pope nor Boileau has made the
world much better than he found it; but if they had both succeeded, it
were easy to tell who would have deserved most from publick gratitude.
The freaks, and humours, and spleen, and vanity of women, as they
embroil families in discord, and fill houses with disquiet, do more to
obstruct the happiness of life in a year than the ambition of the clergy
in many centuries. It has been well observed, that the misery of man
proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small
vexations continually repeated.

It is remarked by Dennis likewise, that the machinery is superfluous;
that, by all the bustle of preternatural operation, the main event is
neither hastened nor retarded. To this charge an efficacious answer is
not easily made.
The sylphs cannot be said to help or to oppose; and it
must be allowed to imply some want of art, that their power has not been
sufficiently intermingled with the action. Other parts may, likewise, be
charged with want of connexion; the game at _ombre_ might be spared;
but, if the lady had lost her hair while she was intent upon her cards,
it might have been inferred that those who are too fond of play will be
in danger of neglecting more important interests. Those, perhaps, are
faults; but what are such faults to so much excellence?

The epistle of Eloise to Abelard is one of the most happy productions of
human wit: the subject is so judiciously chosen, that it would be
difficult, in turning over the annals of the world, to find another
which so many circumstances concur to recommend. We regularly interest
ourselves most in the fortune of those who most deserve our notice.
Abelard and Eloise were conspicuous in their days for eminence of merit.
The heart naturally loves truth. The adventures and misfortunes of this
illustrious pair are known from undisputed history. Their fate does not
leave the mind in hopeless dejection; for they both found quiet and
consolation in retirement and piety. So new and so affecting is their
story, that it supersedes invention, and imagination ranges at full
liberty without straggling into scenes of fable.

The story, thus skilfully adopted, has been diligently improved. Pope
has left nothing behind him, which seems more the effect of studious
perseverance and laborious revisal. Here is particularly observable the
"curiosa felicitas," a fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here is no
crudeness of sense, nor asperity of language.

The sources from which sentiments, which have so much vigour and
efficacy, have been drawn, are shown to be the mystick writers by the
learned author of the Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope; a book
which teaches how the brow of criticism may be smoothed, and how she may
be enabled, with all her severity, to attract and to delight.

The train of my disquisition has now conducted me to that poetical
wonder, the translation of the Iliad, a performance which no age or
nation can pretend to equal. To the Greeks translation was almost
unknown; it was totally unknown to the inhabitants of Greece. They had
no recourse to the barbarians for poetical beauties, but sought for
every thing in Homer, where, indeed, there is but little that they might
not find.

The Italians have been very diligent translators; but I can hear of no
version, unless, perhaps, Anguillara's Ovid may be excepted, which is
read with eagerness. The Iliad of Salvini every reader may discover to
be punctiliously exact; but it seems to be the work of a linguist
skilfully pedantick; and his countrymen, the proper judges of its power
to please, reject it with disgust.

Their predecessors, the Romans, have left some specimens of translation
behind them, and that employment must have had some credit in which
Tully and Germanicus engaged; but, unless we suppose, what is perhaps
true, that the plays of Terence were versions of Menander, nothing
translated seems ever to have risen to high reputation. The French, in
the meridian hour of their learning, were very laudably industrious to
enrich their own language with the wisdom of the ancients; but found
themselves reduced, by whatever necessity, to turn the Greek and Roman
poetry into prose. Whoever could read an author, could translate him.
From such rivals little can be feared.

The chief help of Pope in this arduous undertaking was drawn from the
versions of Dryden. Virgil had borrowed much of his imagery from Homer,
and part of the debt was now paid by his translator. Pope searched the
pages of Dryden for happy combinations of heroick diction; but it will
not be denied that he added much to what he found. He cultivated our
language with so much diligence and art, that he has left in his Homer a
treasure of poetical elegancies to posterity. His version may be said to
have tuned the English tongue; for, since its appearance, no writer,
however deficient in other powers, has wanted melody. Such a series of
lines, so elaborately corrected, and so sweetly modulated, took
possession of the publick ear; the vulgar was enamoured of the poem, and
the learned wondered at the translation.

But in the most general applause discordant voices will always be
heard. It has been objected, by some who wish to be numbered among the
sons of learning, that Pope's version of Homer is not Homerical; that it
exhibits no resemblance of the original and characteristick manner of
the father of poetry, as it wants his awful simplicity, his artless
grandeur, his unaffected majesty[149]. This cannot be totally denied;
but it must be remembered that "necessitas quod cogit defendit;" that
may be lawfully done which cannot be forborne. Time and place will
always enforce regard. In estimating this translation, consideration
must be had of the nature of our language, the form of our metre, and,
above all, of the change which two thousand years have made in the modes
of life and the habits of thought. Virgil wrote in a language of the
same general fabrick with that of Homer, in verses of the same measure,
and in an age nearer to Homer's time by eighteen hundred years; yet he
found, even then, the state of the world so much altered, and the demand
for elegance so much increased, that mere nature would be endured no
longer; and, perhaps, in the multitude of borrowed passages, very few
can be shown which he has not embellished.

There is a time when nations, emerging from barbarity, and falling into
regular subordination, gain leisure to grow wise, and feel the shame of
ignorance and the craving pain of unsatisfied curiosity. To this hunger
of the mind plain sense is grateful; that which fills the void removes
uneasiness, and to be free from pain for awhile is pleasure; but
repletion generates fastidiousness; a saturated intellect soon becomes
luxurious, and knowledge finds no willing reception till it is
recommended by artificial diction. Thus it will be found, in the
progress of learning, that in all nations the first writers are simple;
and that every age improves in elegance. One refinement always makes way
for another; and what was expedient to Virgil, was necessary to Pope.

I suppose many readers of the English Iliad, when they have been touched
with some unexpected beauty of the lighter kind, have tried to enjoy it
in the original, where, alas! it was not to be found. Homer, doubtless,
owes to his translator many Ovidian graces not exactly suitable to his
character; but to have added can be no great crime, if nothing be taken
away. Elegance is surely to be desired, if it be not gained at the
expense of dignity. A hero would wish to be loved, as well as to be
reverenced.

To a thousand cavils one answer is sufficient; the purpose of a writer
is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of
pleasing must be blown aside. Pope wrote for his own age and his own
nation: he knew that it was necessary to colour the images and point the
sentiments of his author; he, therefore, made him graceful, but lost him
some of his sublimity.

The copious notes with which the version is accompanied, and by which it
is recommended to many readers, though they were undoubtedly written to
swell the volumes, ought not to pass without praise: commentaries which
attract the reader by the pleasure of perusal have not often appeared;
the notes of others are read to clear difficulties, those of Pope to
vary entertainment.

It has, however, been objected, with sufficient reason, that there is in
the commentary too much of unseasonable levity and affected gaiety; that
too many appeals are made to the ladies, and the ease which is so
carefully preserved is, sometimes, the ease of a trifler. Every art has
its terms, and every kind of instruction its proper style; the gravity
of common criticks may be tedious, but is less despicable than childish
merriment.

Of the Odyssey, nothing remains to be observed: the same general praise
may be given to both translations, and a particular examination of
either would require a large volume. The notes were written by Broome,
who endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to imitate his master.

Of the Dunciad, the hint is confessedly taken from Dryden's Mac
Flecknoe; but the plan is so enlarged and diversified, as justly to
claim the praise of an original, and affords the best specimen that has
yet appeared of personal satire ludicrously pompous.

That the design was moral, whatever the author might tell either his
readers or himself, I am not convinced. The first motive was the desire
of revenging the contempt with which Theobald had treated his
Shakespeare, and regaining the honour which he had lost, by crushing his
opponent. Theobald was not of bulk enough to fill a poem, and,
therefore, it was necessary to find other enemies with other names, at
whose expense he might divert the publick.

In this design there was petulance and malignity enough; but I cannot
think it very criminal. An author places himself uncalled before the
tribunal of criticism, and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.
Dulness or deformity are not culpable in themselves, but may be very
justly reproached when they pretend to the honour of wit or the
influence of beauty. If bad writers were to pass without reprehension,
what should restrain them? "impune diem consumpserit ingens Telephus;"
and upon bad writers only will censure have much effect. The satire
which brought Theobald and Moore into contempt, dropped impotent from
Bentley, like the javelin of Priam.

All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as
useful when it rectifies errour and improves judgment; he that refines
the publick taste is a publick benefactor.

The beauties of this poem are well known; its chief fault is the
grossness of its images. Pope and Swift had an unnatural delight in
ideas physically impure, such as every other tongue utters with
unwillingness, and of which every ear shrinks from the mention.

But even this fault, offensive as it is, may be forgiven for the
excellence of other passages; such as the formation and dissolution of
Moore, the account of the traveller, the misfortune of the florist, and
the crowded thoughts and stately numbers which dignify the concluding
paragraph.

The alterations which have been made in the Dunciad, not always for the
better, require that it should be published, as in the present
collection, with all its variations.

The Essay on Man was a work of great labour and long consideration, but
certainly not the happiest of Pope's performances. The subject is,
perhaps, not very proper for poetry, and the poet was not sufficiently
master of his subject; metaphysical morality was to him a new study; he
was proud of his acquisitions, and, supposing himself master of great
secrets, was in haste to teach what he had not learned. Thus he tells
us, in the first epistle, that from the nature of the supreme being may
be deduced an order of beings such as mankind, because infinite
excellence can do only what is best. He finds out that these beings must
be "somewhere;" and that "all the question is, whether man be in a wrong
place. " Surely if, according to the poet's Leibnitzian reasoning, we may
infer that man ought to be, only because he is, we may allow that his
place is the right place, because he has it. Supreme wisdom is not less
infallible in disposing than in creating. But what is meant by
"somewhere" and "place," and "wrong place," it had been vain to ask
Pope, who, probably, had never asked himself.

Having exalted himself into the chair of wisdom, he tells us much that
every man knows, and much that he does not know himself; that we see but
little, and that the order of the universe is beyond our comprehension;
an opinion not very uncommon: and that there is a chain of subordinate
beings "from infinite to nothing," of which himself and his readers are
equally ignorant. But he gives us one comfort, which, without his help,
he supposes unattainable, in the position "that though we are fools, yet
God is wise. "

This essay affords an egregious instance of the predominance of genius,
the dazzling splendour of imagery, and the seductive powers of
eloquence. Never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment so
happily disguised. The reader feels his mind full, though he learns
nothing; and, when he meets it in its new array, no longer knows the
talk of his mother and his nurse. When these wonder-working sounds sink
into sense, and the doctrine of the essay, disrobed of its ornaments, is
left to the powers of its naked excellence, what shall we discover? That
we are, in comparison with our creator, very weak and ignorant; that we
do not uphold the chain of existence; and that we could not make one
another with more skill than we are made. We may learn yet more: that
the arts of human life were copied from the instinctive operations of
other animals; that if the world be made for man, it may be said that
man was made for geese. To these profound principles of natural
knowledge are added some moral instructions equally new; that
self-interest, well understood, will produce social concord; that men
are mutual gainers by mutual benefits; that evil is sometimes balanced
by good; that human advantages are unstable and fallacious, of uncertain
duration and doubtful effect; that our true honour is, not to have a
great part, but to act it well; that virtue only is our own; and that
happiness is always in our power.

Surely a man of no very comprehensive search may venture to say that he
has heard all this before; but it was never till now recommended by such
a blaze of embellishment, or such sweetness of melody. The vigorous
contraction of some thoughts, the luxuriant amplification of others, the
incidental illustrations, and sometimes the dignity, sometimes the
softness of the verses, enchain philosophy, suspend criticism, and
oppress judgment by overpowering pleasure.

This is true of many paragraphs; yet if I had undertaken to exemplify
Pope's felicity of composition before a rigid critick, I should not
select the Essay on Man; for it contains more lines unsuccessfully
laboured, more harshness of diction, more thoughts imperfectly
expressed, more levity without elegance, and more heaviness without
strength, than will easily be found in all his other works.

The Characters of Men and Women are the product of diligent speculation
upon human life: much labour has been bestowed upon them, and Pope very
seldom laboured in vain. That his excellence may be properly estimated,
I recommend a comparison of his Characters of Women with Boileau's
Satire; it will then be seen with how much more perspicacity female
nature is investigated, and female excellence selected; and he surely is
no mean writer to whom Boileau shall be found inferiour. The Characters
of Men, however, are written with more, if not with deeper, thought, and
exhibit many passages exquisitely beautiful. The Gem and the Flower will
not easily be equalled. In the women's part are some defects: the
character of Atossa is not so neatly finished as that of Clodio; and
some of the female characters may be found, perhaps, more frequently
among men; what is said of Philomede was true of Prior.

In the epistles to lord Bathurst and lord Burlington, Dr. Warburton has
endeavoured to find a train of thought which was never in the writer's
head, and, to support his hypothesis, has printed that first which was
published last. In one, the most valuable passage is, perhaps, the Elogy
on good Sense; and the other, the End of the Duke of Buckingham.

The epistle to Arbuthnot, now arbitrarily called the Prologue to the
Satires, is a performance consisting, as it seems, of many fragments
wrought into one design, which, by this union of scattered beauties,
contains more striking paragraphs than could, probably, have been
brought together into an occasional work. As there is no stronger
motive to exertion than self-defence, no part has more elegance, spirit,
or dignity, than the poet's vindication of his own character. The
meanest passage is the satire upon Sporus.

Of the two poems which derived their names from the year, and which are
called the Epilogue to the Satires, it was very justly remarked by
Savage, that the second was, in the whole, more strongly conceived, and
more equally supported, but that it had no single passages equal to the
contention in the first for the dignity of vice, and the celebration of
the triumph of corruption.

The imitations of Horace seem to have been written as relaxations of his
genius. This employment became his favourite by its facility; the plan
was ready to his hand, and nothing was required but to accommodate, as
he could, the sentiments of an old author, to recent facts or familiar
images; but what is easy is seldom excellent; such imitations cannot
give pleasure to common readers; the man of learning may be sometimes
surprised and delighted by an unexpected parallel; but the comparison
requires knowledge of the original, which will likewise often detect
strained applications. Between Roman images and English manners, there
will be an irreconcilable dissimilitude, and the work will be generally
uncouth and party-coloured; neither original nor translated, neither
ancient nor modern[150].

Pope had, in proportions very nicely adjusted to each other, all the
qualities that constitute genius. He had invention, by which new trains
of events are formed, and new scenes of imagery displayed, as in the
Rape of the Lock; and by which extrinsick and adventitious
embellishments and illustrations are connected with a known subject, as
in the Essay on Criticism. He had imagination, which strongly impresses
on the writer's mind, and enables him to convey to the reader, the
various forms of nature, incidents of life, and energies of passion, as
in his Eloisa, Windsor Forest, and Ethick Epistles. He had judgment,
which selects from life or nature what the present purpose requires, and
by separating the essence of things from its concomitants, often makes
the representation more powerful than the reality: and he had colours of
language always before him, ready to decorate his matter with every
grace of elegant expression, as when he accommodates his diction to _the
wonderful multiplicity_ of Homer's sentiments and descriptions.

Poetical expression includes sound as well as meaning; "Musick," says
Dryden, "is inarticulate poetry;" among the excellencies of Pope,
therefore, must be mentioned the melody of his metre. By perusing the
works of Dryden, he discovered the most perfect fabrick of English
verse, and habituated himself to that only which he found the best; in
consequence of which restraint, his poetry has been censured as too
uniformly musical, and as glutting the ear with unvaried sweetness. I
suspect this objection to be the cant of those who judge by principles
rather than perception; and who would even themselves have less pleasure
in his works, if he had tried to relieve attention by studied discords,
or affected to break his lines and vary his pauses.

But, though he was thus careful of his versification, he did not oppress
his powers with superfluous rigour. He seems to have thought, with
Boileau, that the practice of writing might be refined till the
difficulty should overbalance the advantage. The construction of his
language is not always strictly grammatical; with those rhymes, which
prescription had conjoined, he contented himself, without regard to
Swift's remonstrances, though there was no striking consonance; nor was
he very careful to vary his terminations, or to refuse admission, at a
small distance, to the same rhymes.

To Swift's edict, for the exclusion of alexandrines and triplets, he
paid little regard; he admitted them, but, in the opinion of Fenton, too
rarely; he uses them more liberally in his translation than his poems.

He has a few double rhymes; and always, I think, unsuccessfully, except
once in the Rape of the Lock.

Expletives he very early ejected from his verses; but he now and then
admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the six
first lines of the Iliad might lose two syllables with very little
diminution of the meaning; and sometimes, after all his art and labour,
one verse seems to be made for the sake of another. In his latter
productions the diction is sometimes vitiated by French idioms, with
which Bolingbroke had, perhaps, infected him.

I have been told, that the couplet by which he declared his own ear to
be most gratified, was this:

Lo, where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows
The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows.

But the reason of this preference I cannot discover.

It is remarked by Watts, that there is scarcely a happy combination of
words, or a phrase poetically elegant, in the English language, which
Pope has not inserted into his version of Homer. How he obtained
possession of so many beauties of speech, it were desirable to know.
That he gleaned from authors, obscure as well as eminent, what he
thought brilliant or useful, and preserved it all in a regular
collection, is not unlikely. When, in his last years, Hall's Satires
were shown him, he wished that he had seen them sooner.

New sentiments, and new images, others may produce; but to attempt any
further improvement of versification will be dangerous. Art and
diligence have now done their best, and what shall be added will be the
effort of tedious toil and needless curiosity.

After all this, it is, surely, superfluous to answer the question that
has once been asked, whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by asking
in return, if Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To
circumscribe poetry by a definition, will only show the narrowness of
the definer, though a definition, which shall exclude Pope, will not
easily be made. Let us look round upon the present time, and back upon
the past; let us inquire to whom the voice of mankind has decreed the
wreath of poetry; let their productions be examined, and their claims
stated, and the pretensions of Pope will be no more disputed. Had he
given the world only his version, the name of poet must have been
allowed him: if the writer of the Iliad were to class his successors, he
would assign a very high place to his translator, without requiring any
other evidence of genius.

* * * * *

The following Letter, of which the original is in the hands of lord
Hardwicke, was communicated to me by the kindness of Mr. Jodrell.

"To Mr. BRIDGES, at the bishop of London's, at Fulham.

"Sir,--The favour of your letter, with your remarks, can never
be enough acknowledged; and the speed with which you discharged
so troublesome a task, doubles the obligation.

"I must own, you have pleased me very much by the commendations
so ill bestowed upon me; but, I assure you, much more by the
frankness of your censure, which I ought to take the more kindly
of the two, as it is more advantageous to a scribbler to be
improved in his judgment, than to be soothed in his vanity. The
greater part of those deviations from the Greek, which you have
observed, I was led into by Chapman and Hobbes; who are, it
seems, as much celebrated for their knowledge of the original,
as they are decried for the badness of their translations.
Chapman pretends to have restored the genuine sense of the
author, from the mistakes of all former explainers, in several
hundred places; and the Cambridge editors of the large Homer, in
Greek and Latin, attributed so much to Hobbes, that they confess
they have corrected the old Latin interpretation, very often by
his version. For my part, I generally took the author's meaning
to be as you have explained it; yet their authority, joined to
the knowledge of my own imperfectness in the language, overruled
me. However, sir, you may be confident I think you in the right,
because you happen to be of my opinion: for men (let them say
what they will) never approve any other's sense, but as it
squares with their own. But you have made me much more proud of,
and positive in, my judgment, since it is strengthened by yours.
I think your criticisms, which regard the expression, very just,
and shall make my profit of them: to give you some proof that I
am in earnest, I will alter three verses on your bare objection,
though I have Mr. Dryden's example for each of them. And this, I
hope, you will account no small piece of obedience, from one,
who values the authority of one true poet above that of twenty
criticks or commentators. But, though I speak thus of
commentators, I will continue to read carefully all I can
procure, to make up, that way, for my own want of critical
understanding in the original beauties of Homer. Though the
greatest of them are certainly those of the invention and
design, which are not at all confined to the language: for the
distinguishing excellencies of Homer are (by the consent of the
best criticks of all nations) first in the manners, (which
include all the speeches, as being no other than the
representations of each person's manners by his words;) and then
in that rapture and fire, which carries you away with him, with
that wonderful force, that no man, who has a true poetical
spirit, is master of himself, while he reads him. Homer makes
you interested and concerned before you are aware, all at once;
whereas, Virgil does it by soft degrees. This, I believe, is
what a translator of Homer ought, principally, to imitate; and
it is very hard for any translator to come up to it, because the
chief reason, why all translations fall short of their originals
is, that the very constraint they are obliged to, renders them
heavy and dispirited.

"The great beauty of Homer's language, as I take it, consists in
that noble simplicity which runs through all his works; (and yet
his diction, contrary to what one would imagine consistent with
simplicity, is, at the same time, very copious. ) I don't know
how I have run into this pedantry in a letter, but I find I have
said too much, as well as spoken too inconsiderately; what
farther thoughts I have upon this subject, I shall be glad to
communicate to you, for my own improvement, when we meet; which
is a happiness I very earnestly desire, as I do likewise some
opportunity of proving how much I think myself obliged to your
friendship, and how truly I am, sir,

"Your most faithful, humble servant,

"A. POPE. "

The criticism upon Pope's epitaphs, [151] which was printed in the
Universal Visiter, is placed here, being too minute and particular to be
inserted in the life.

Every art is best taught by example. Nothing contributes more to the
cultivation of propriety, than remarks on the works of those who have
most excelled. I shall, therefore, endeavour, at this _visit_, to
entertain the young students in poetry with an examination of Pope's
epitaphs.

To define an epitaph is useless; every one knows that it is an
inscription on a tomb. An epitaph, therefore, implies no particular
character of writing, but may be composed in verse or prose. It is,
indeed, commonly panegyrical; because we are seldom distinguished with a
stone but by our friends; but it has no rule to restrain or modify it,
except this, that it ought not to be longer than common beholders may
be expected to have leisure and patience to peruse.

I.

_On_ CHARLES, _earl of_ DORSET, _in the church of Wythyham, in Sussex_.

Dorset, the grace of courts, the muse's pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, dy'd,--
The scourge of pride, though sanctify'd or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state;
Yet soft in nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Blest satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd, vice had his hate and pity too.
Blest courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred kept his friendship, and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefather's every grace
Reflecting, and reflected on his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

The first distich of this epitaph contains a kind of information which
few would want, that the man for whom the tomb was erected, _died_.
There are, indeed, some qualities worthy of praise ascribed to the dead,
but none that were likely to exempt him from the lot of man, or incline
us much to wonder that he should die. What is meant by "judge of
nature," is not easy to say. Nature is not the object of human judgment;
for it is vain to judge where we cannot alter. If by nature is meant
what is commonly called _nature_ by the criticks, a just representation
of things really existing, and actions really performed, nature cannot
be properly opposed to _art_; nature being, in this sense, only the best
effect of _art_.

The scourge of pride--

Of this couplet, the second line is not, what is intended, an
illustration of the former. _Pride_ in the _great_, is, indeed, well
enough connected with _knaves in state_, though _knaves_ is a word
rather too ludicrous and light; but the mention of _sanctified_ pride
will not lead the thoughts to _fops in learning_, but rather to some
species of tyranny or oppression, something more gloomy and more
formidable than foppery.

Yet soft his nature--

This is a high compliment, but was not first bestowed on Dorset by
Pope[152]. The next verse is extremely beautiful.

Blest satirist!

In this distich is another line of which Pope was not the author. I do
not mean to blame these imitations with much harshness; in long
performances they are scarcely to be avoided; and in shorter they may be
indulged, because the train of the composition may naturally involve
them, or the scantiness of the subject allow little choice. However,
what is borrowed is not to be enjoyed as our own; and it is the business
of critical justice to give every bird of the muses his proper feather.

Blest courtier!

Whether a courtier can properly be commended for keeping his _ease
sacred_, may, perhaps, be disputable. To please king and country,
without sacrificing friendship to any change of times, was a very
uncommon instance of prudence or felicity, and deserved to be kept
separate from so poor a commendation as care of his ease. I wish our
poets would attend a little more accurately to the use of the word
_sacred_, which surely should never be applied in a serious composition,
but where some reference may be made to a higher being, or where some
duty is exacted, or implied. A man may keep his friendship sacred,
because promises of friendship are very awful ties; but, methinks, he
cannot, but in a burlesque sense, be said to keep his ease _sacred_.

Blest peer!

The blessing ascribed to the _peer_ has no connexion with his peerage;
they might happen to any other man whose ancestors were remembered, or
whose posterity are likely to be regarded.

I know not whether this epitaph be worthy either of the writer or of the
man entombed.

II

_On sir_ WILLIAM TRUMBULL, one of the principal secretaries of state to
king William the third, who, having resigned his place, died in his
retirement at Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1716.

A pleasing form; a firm, yet cautious mind;
Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd;
Honour unchang'd, a principle profest,
Fix'd to one side, but mod'rate to the rest:
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too;
Just to his prince, and to his country true;
Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth,
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;
A gen'rous faith, from superstition free;
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;
Such this man was; who now, from earth remov'd,
At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd.

In this epitaph, as in many others, there appears, at the first view, a
fault which, I think, scarcely any beauty can compensate. The name is
omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey some account of the dead;
and to what purpose is any thing told of him whose name is concealed? An
epitaph, and a history of a nameless hero, are equally absurd, since the
virtues and qualities so recounted in either are scattered at the mercy
of fortune to be appropriated by guess. The name, it is true, may be
read upon the stone; but what obligation has it to the poet, whose
verses wander over the earth, and leave their subject behind them, and
who is forced, like an unskilful painter, to make his purpose known by
adventitious help?

This epitaph is wholly without elevation, and contains nothing striking
or particular; but the poet is not to be blamed for the defects of his
subject. He said, perhaps, the best that could be said. There are,
however, some defects which were not made necessary by the character in
which he was employed. There is no opposition between an _honest
courtier_ and a _patriot_; for, an _honest courtier_ cannot but be a
_patriot_.

It was unsuitable to the nicety required in short compositions, to close
his verse with the word _too_: every rhyme should be a word of emphasis;
nor can this rule be safely neglected, except where the length of the
poem makes slight inaccuracies excusable, or allows room for beauties
sufficient to overpower the effects of petty faults.

At the beginning of the seventh line the word filled is weak and
prosaick, having no particular adaptation to any of the words that
follow it.

The thought in the last line is impertinent, having no connexion with
the foregoing character, nor with the condition of the man described.