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 aerial 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 Maeotis 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. Had the epitaph been written on the poor conspirator[153] who died lately in prison, after a confinement of more than forty years, without any crime proved against him, the sentiment had been just and pathetical; but why should Trumbull be congratulated upon his liberty, who had never known restraint?

III.

On the honourable SIMON HARCOURT, only son of the lord chancellor HARCOURT, at the church of Stanton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near, Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear:

Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died. How vain is reason, eloquence how weak! If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak. Oh! let thy once-lov'd friend inscribe thy stone, And with a father's sorrows mix his own!

This epitaph is principally remarkable for the artful introduction of the name, which is inserted with a peculiar felicity, to which chance must concur with genius, which no man can hope to attain twice, and which cannot be copied but with servile imitation.

I cannot but wish that, of this inscription, the two last lines had been omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add to the sense.

IV.

ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

In Westminster Abbey.

JACOBVS CRAGGS, REGI MAGNAE BRITANNIAE A SECRETIS ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBVS PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPVLI AMOR ET DELICIAE VIXIT TITVLIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR, ANNOS HEV PAVCOS, XXXV. OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear! Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend; Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd, Prais'd, wept, and honour'd, by the muse he lov'd.

The lines on Craggs were not originally intended for an epitaph; and, therefore, some faults are to be imputed to the violence with which they are torn from the poem that first contained them. We may, however, observe some defects. There is a redundancy of words in the first couplet: it is superfluous to tell of him, who was sincere, true, and faithful, that he was in honour clear.

There seems to be an opposition intended in the fourth line, which is not very obvious: where is the relation between the two positions, that he gained no title and lost no friend?

It may be proper here to remark the absurdity of joining, in the same inscription, Latin and English, or verse and prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue, and part in another, on a tomb, more than in any other place, or any other occasion; and to tell all that can be conveniently told in verse, and then to call in the help of prose, has always the appearance of a very artless expedient, or of an attempt unaccomplished. Such an epitaph resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys part by signs.

V.

INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE.

In Westminster Abbey[154].

Thy reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And, sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust; Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blest in thy genius, in thy love, too, blest! One grateful woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies.

Of this inscription the chief fault is, that it belongs less to Rowe, for whom it is written, than to Dryden, who was buried near him; and, indeed, gives very little information concerning either.

To wish "Peace to thy shade," is too mythological to be admitted into a Christian temple: the ancient worship has infected almost all our other compositions, and might, therefore, be contented to spare our epitaphs. Let fiction, at least, cease with life, and let us be serious over the grave.

VI.

ON MRS. CORBET,

Who died of a cancer in her breast[155].

Here rests a woman, good without pretence, Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense: No conquest she, but o'er herself, desir'd; No arts essay'd, but not to be admir'd. Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, Convinc'd that virtue only is our own. So unaffected, so compos'd a mind, So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refin'd, Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman dy'd.

I have always considered this as the most valuable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs weary and disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile, and the vain. Of such a character, which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value should be made known, and the dignity established. Domestick virtue, as it is exerted without great occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted tenour, required the genius of Pope to display it in such a manner as might attract regard, and enforce reverence. Who can forbear to lament that this amiable woman has no name in the verses?

If the particular lines of this inscription be examined, it will appear less faulty than the rest. There is scarcely one line taken from commonplaces, unless it be that in which only virtue is said to be our own. I once heard a Jady of great beauty and excellence object to the fourth line, that it contained an unnatural and incredible panegyrick. Of this let the ladies judge.

VII.

On the monument of the honourable ROBERT DIGBY, and of his sister MARY, erected by their father the lord DIGBY, in the church of Skerborne, in Dorsetshire, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth, Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth: Compos'd in sufferings, and in joy sedate, Good without noise, without pretension great. Just of thy word, in ev'ry thought sincere, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: Of softest manners, unaffected mind, Lover of peace, and friend of human kind: Go, live! for heav'n's eternal year is thine; Go, and exalt thy mortal to divine. And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom, Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb, Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore, Not parted long, and now to part no more! Go, then, where only bliss sincere is known! Go, where to love and to enjoy are one! Yet take these tears, mortality's relief, And, till we share your joys, forgive our grief: These little rites, a stone, a verse receive, 'Tis all a father, all a friend can give!

This epitaph contains of the brother only a general indiscriminate character, and of the sister tells nothing but that she died. The difficulty in writing epitaphs is to give a particular and appropriate praise. This, however, is not always to be performed, whatever be the diligence or ability of the writer; for, the greater part of mankind have no character at all, have little that distinguishes them from others equally good or bad, and, therefore, nothing can be said of them which may not be applied with equal propriety to a thousand more. It is, indeed, no great panegyrick, that there is inclosed in this tomb one who was born in one year, and died in another; yet many useful and amiable lives have been spent, which yet leave little materials for any other memorial. These are, however, not the proper subjects of poetry; and whenever friendship, or any other motive, obliges a poet to write on such subjects, he must be forgiven if he sometimes wanders in generalities, and utters the same praises over different tombs.

The scantiness of human praises can scarcely be made more apparent, than by remarking how often Pope has, in the few epitaphs which he composed, found it necessary to borrow from himself. The fourteen epitaphs, which he has written, comprise about a hundred and forty lines, in which there are more repetitions than will easily be found in all the rest of his works. In the eight lines which make the character of Digby, there is scarce any thought, or word, which may not be found in the other epitaphs.

The ninth line, which is far the strongest and most elegant, is borrowed from Dryden. The conclusion is the same with that on Harcourt, but is here more elegant and better connected.

VIII. ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

In Westminster Abbey, 1723.

Kneller, by heav'n, and not a master, taught, Whose art was nature, and whose pictures thought; Now for two ages, having snatch'd from fate Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great, Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays, Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise. Living, great nature fear'd he might outvie Her works; and dying, fears herself may die.

Of this epitaph the first couplet is good, the second not bad, the third is deformed with a broken metaphor, the word crowned not being applicable to the honours or the lays; and the fourth is not only borrowed from the epitaph on Raphael, but of very harsh construction.

IX.

ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS.

In Westminster Abbey, 1723.

Here, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind, Thy country's friend, but more of human kind. O! born to arms! O! worth in youth approv'd! O! soft humanity in age belov'd! For thee the hardy vet'ran drops a tear, And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere.

Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove Thy martial spirit, or thy social love! Amidst corruption, luxury and rage, Still leave some ancient virtues to our age: Nor let us say (those English glories gone) The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

The epitaph on Withers affords another instance of commonplaces, though somewhat diversified, by mingled qualities, and the peculiarity of a profession.

The second couplet is abrupt, general, and unpleasing; exclamation seldom succeeds in our language; and, I think, it may be observed, that the particle O! used at the beginning of a sentence, always offends.

The third couplet is more happy; the value expressed for him, by different sorts of men, raises him to esteem; there is yet something of the common cant of superficial satirists, who suppose that the insincerity of a courtier destroys all his sensations, and that he is equally a dissembler to the living and the dead[156].

At the third couplet I should wish the epitaph to close, but that I should be unwilling to lose the two next lines, which yet are dearly bought if they cannot be retained without the four that follow them.

X.

ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON.

At Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1730.

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, here lies an honest man: A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate, Whom heav'n kept sacred from the proud and great: Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. Calmly he look'd on either life, and here Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear; From nature's temp'rate feast rose satisfy'd, Thank'd heav'n that he liv'd, and that he dy'd.

The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed from Crashaw. The four next lines contain a species of praise, peculiar, original, and just. Here, therefore, the inscription should have ended, the latter part containing nothing but what is common to every man who is wise and good. The character of Fenton was so amiable, that I cannot forbear to wish for some poet or biographer to display it more fully for the advantage of posterity. If he did not stand in the first rank of genius, he may claim a place in the second; and, whatever criticism may object to his writings, censure could find very little to blame in his life.

XI.

ON MR. GAY.

In Westminster Abbey, 1732.

Of manners gentle, of affections mild; In wit, a man; simpicity, a child; With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, Form'd to delight at once and lash the age; Above temptation, in a low estate; And uncorrupted e'en among the great: A safe companion and an easy friend, Unblam'd through life, lamented in thy end; These are thy honours! not that here thy bust Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust; But that the worthy and the good shall say, Striking their pensive bosoms—Here lies Gay!

As Gay was the favourite of our author, this epitaph was probably written with an uncommon degree of attention; yet it is not more successfully executed than the rest, for it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labour. The same observation may be extended to all works of imagination, which are often influenced by causes wholly out of the performer's power, by hints of which he perceives not the origin, by sudden elevations of mind which he cannot produce in himself, and which sometimes rise when he expects them least.

The two parts of the first line are only echoes of each other; gentle manners and mild affections, if they mean any thing, must mean the same.

That Gay was a man in wit is a very frigid commendation; to have the wit of a man, is not much for a poet. The wit of a man[157], and the simplicity of a child, make a poor and vulgar contrast, and raise no ideas of excellence, either intellectual or moral.

In the next couplet rage is less properly introduced after the mention of mildness and gentleness which are made the constituents of his character; for a man so mild and gentle to temper his rage, was not difficult.

The next line is inharmonious in its sound, and mean in its conception; the opposition is obvious, and the word lash used absolutely, and without any modification, is gross and improper.

To be above temptation in poverty, and free from corruption among the great, is, indeed, such a peculiarity as deserved notice. But to be a safe companion is praise merely negative, arising not from the possession of virtue, but the absence of vice, and one of the most odious.

As little can be added to his character, by asserting that he was lamented in his end. Every man that dies is, at least, by the writer of his epitaph, supposed to be lamented; and, therefore, this general lamentation does no honour to Gay.

The first eight lines have no grammar; the adjectives are without any substantive, and the epithets without a subject.

The thought in the last line, that Gay is buried in the bosoms of the worthy and the good, who are distinguished only to lengthen the line, is so dark that few understand it; and so harsh, when it is explained, that still fewer approve[158].

XII.

INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

In Westminster Abbey.

ISAACUS NEWTONIUS: Quem immortalem Testantur, tempus, natura, coelum: Mortalem Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature, and nature's law, lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! And all was light.

Of this epitaph, short as it is, the faults seem not to be very few. Why part should be Latin, and part English, it is not easy to discover. In the Latin the opposition of immortalis and mortalis, is a mere sound, or a mere quibble; he is not immortal in any sense contrary to that in which he is mortal.

In the verses the thought is obvious, and the words night and light are too nearly allied.

XIII.

On EDMUND duke of BUCKINGHAM, who died in the nineteenth year of his age, 1735.

If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, And ev'ry op'ning virtue blooming round, Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, Or add one patriot to a sinking state; This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! The living virtue now had shone approv'd, The senate heard him, and his country lov'd. Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame, Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham: In whom a race, for courage fam'd and art, Ends in the milder merit of the heart: And, chiefs or sages long to Britain giv'n, Pays the last tribute of a saint to heav'n.

This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the rest; but I know not for what reason. To crown with reflection is surely a mode of speech approaching to nonsense. Opening virtues blooming round, is something like tautology; the six following lines are poor and prosaick Art is, in another couplet, used for arts, that a rhyme may be had to heart. The six last lines are the best, but not excellent.

The rest of his sepulchral performances hardly deserve the notice of criticism. The contemptible Dialogue between He and She should have been suppressed for the author's sake.

In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things that make wise men serious, he confounds the living man with the dead:

Under this stone, or under this sill, Or under this turf, &c.

When a man is once buried, the question, under what he is buried, is easily decided. He forgot that though he wrote the epitaph in a state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over him till his grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed.

The world has but little new; even this wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines:

Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hac humo, seu Sub quicquid voluit benignus haeres, Sive haerede benignior comes, seu Opportunius incidens viator; Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nec Tanti erat vacuum sibi cadaver Ut urnam cuperet parare vivens; Vivens ista tamen sibi paravit, Quae inscribi voluit suo sepulchro Olim siquod haberet is sepulchrum.

Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious imitator.

——-

[Footnote 108: This weakness was so great that he constantly wore stays, as I have been assured by a waterman at Twickenham, who, in lifting him into his boat, had often felt them. His method of taking the air on the water was to have a sedan chair in the boat, in which he sat with the glasses down. H.]

[Footnote 109: This opinion is warmly controverted by Roscoe, in his Life of Pope; and, perhaps, with justice; for, to adopt the words of D'Israeli, "Pope's literary warfare was really the wars of his poetical ambition more, perhaps, than of the petulance and strong irritability of his temper." See also sir Walter Scott's Swift, i. 316. ED.]

[Footnote 110: This is incorrect; his ordinary hand was certainly neat and elegant. I have some of it now before me. M.]

[Footnote 111: Pope's first instructor is repeatedly mentioned by Spence under the name of Banister, and described as the family priest. Spence's Anecd. 259. 283. Singer's edit. Roscoe's Pope, i. 11. ED.]

[Footnote 112: Dryden died May 1, 1700, a year earlier than Johnson supposed. M.]

[Footnote 113: No. 253. But, according to Dr. Warton, Pope was displeased at one passage, in which Addison censures the admission of "some strokes of ill-nature."]

[Footnote 114: See Gent. Mag. vol. li. p. 314. N. See the subject very fully discussed in Roscoe's Life of Pope, i. 86, and following pages.]

[Footnote 115: What eye of taste ever beheld the dancing fawn or the immortal Canova's dancing girl, and doubted of this power? Pindar long ago assigned this to sculpture, and was never censured for his poetic boldness:[Greek: Erga de zooisin erpon—tessi th' omoia kelenthoi pheron.] Olym. vii. 95. ED.]

[Footnote 116: Pope never felt with Eloisa, and, therefore, slighted his own affected effusions. He had little intense feeling himself, and all the passionate parts of the epistle are manifestly borrowed from Eloisa's own Latin letters. ED.]

[Footnote 117: It is still at Caen Wood. N.]

[Footnote 118: Spence.]

[Footnote 119: Earlier than this, viz. in 1688, Milton's Paradise Lost had been published with great success by subscription, in folio, under the patronage of Mr. (afterwards lord) Somers. R.]

[Footnote 120: This may very well be doubted. The interference of the Dutch booksellers stimulated Lintot to publish cheap editions, the greater sale of which among the people probably produced his large profits. ED.]

[Footnote 121: Spence.]

[Footnote 122: Spence.]

[Footnote 123: As this story was related by Pope himself, it was most probably true. Had it rested on any other authority, I should have suspected it to have been, borrowed from one of Poggio's Tales. De Jannoto Vicecomite. J.B.]

[Footnote 124: On this point, see notes on Halifax's life in this edition.]

[Footnote 125: Spence.]

[Footnote 126: See, however, the Life of Addison in the Biographia Britannica, last edition. R.]

[Footnote 127: See the letter containing Pope's answer to the bishop's arguments in Roscoe's life, i. 212.]

[Footnote 128: The late Mr. Graves, of Claverton, informs us, that this bible was afterwards used in the chapel of Prior-park. Dr. Warburton probably presented it to Mr. Allen.]

[Footnote 129: See note to Adventurer, No. 138.]

[Footnote 130: Mr. D'Israeli has discussed the whole of this affair in his Quarrels of Authors, i. 176. Mr. Roscoe likewise, in his Life of Pope, examines very fully all the evidence to be gathered on the point, and comes to a conclusion much less reputable to Curll, than that to be inferred from Dr. Johnson's arguments. ED.]

[Footnote 131: These letters were evidently prepared for the press by Pope himself. Some of the originals, lately discovered, will prove this beyond all dispute; in the edition of Pope's works, lately published by Mr. Bowles.]

[Footnote 132: Ayre, in his Life of Pope, ii. 215, relates an amusing anecdote on this occasion. "Soon after the appearance of the first epistle," he observes, "a gentleman who had attempted some things in the poetical way, called on Pope, who inquired from him, what news there was in the learned world, and what new pieces were brought to light? The visiter replied, that there was little or nothing worthy notice; that there was, indeed, a thing called an Essay on Man, shocking poetry, insufferable philosophy, no coherence, no connexion. Pope could not repress his indignation, and instantly avowed himself the author. This was like a clap of thunder to the mistaken bard, who took up his hat and never ventured to show his unlucky face there again." It is generally supposed that Mallet was this luckless person. ED.]

[Footnote 133: This letter is in Mr. Malone's Supplement to Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 223.]

[Footnote 134: Spence.]

[Footnote 135: It has been admitted by divines, even that some sins do more especially beset particular individuals. Mr. Roscoe enters into a long vindication of Pope's doctrine against the imputations of Dr. Johnson; the most satisfactory parts of which are the refutations drawn from Pope's own essay.

The business of reason is shown to be, to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this passion more as friend than foe. Essay on Man, ep. ii. 164.

Th' eternal art, educing good from ill, Grafts on this passion our best principle; 'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd: Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd. Ib. ii. 175.

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, On savage stocks inserted learn to bear, The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, Wild nature's vigour working at the root, What crops of wit and honesty appear From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear, &c. Ib. ii. 181.

"And thus," concludes Mr. Roscoe, "the injurious consequences which Johnson supposes to be derived from Pope's idea of the ruling passion, are not only obviated, but that passion itself is shown to be conducive to our highest moral improvement." ED.]

[Footnote 136: Entitled, Sedition and Defamation displayed. 8vo. 1733. R.]

[Footnote 137: Among many manuscripts, letters, &c. relating to Pope, which I have lately seen, is a lampoon in the bible style, of much humour, but irreverent, in which Pope is ridiculed as the son of a hatter.]

[Footnote 138: On a hint from Warburton. There is, however, reason to think, from the appearance of the house in which Allen was born at Saint Blaise, that he was not of a low, but of a decayed family.]

[Footnote 139: Since discovered to have been Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester.

See the collection of that prelate's Epistolary Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 6. N. This I believe to be an error. Mr. Nichols has ascribed this preface to Atterbury on the authority of Dr. Walter Harte, who, in a manuscript note on a copy of Pope's edition, expresses his surprise that Pope should there have described the former editor as anonymous, as he himself had told Harte fourteen years before his own publication, that this preface was by Atterbury. The explication is probably this; that during that period he had discovered that he had been in a mistake. By a manuscript note in a copy presented by Crynes to the Bodleian library, we are informed that the former editor was Thomas Power, of Trinity college, Cambridge. Power was bred at Westminster, under Busby, and was elected off to Cambridge in the year 1678. He was author of a translation of Milton's Paradise Lost; of which only the first book was published, in 1691. J.B.]

[Footnote 140: In 1743.]

[Footnote 141: In 1744.]

[Footnote 142: Mr. Roscoe, with good reason, doubts the accuracy of this inconsistent and improbable story. See his Life of Pope, 556.]

[Footnote 143: Spence.]

[Footnote 144: This is somewhat inaccurately expressed. Lord Bolingbroke was not an executor: Pope's papers were left to him specifically, or, in case of his death, to lord Marchmont.]

[Footnote 145: This account of the difference between Pope and Mr. Allen is not so circumstantial as it was in Johnson's power to have made it. The particulars communicated to him concerning it he was too indolent to commit to writing; the business of this note is to supply his omissions. Upon an invitation, in which Mrs. Blount was included, Mr. Pope made a visit to Mr. Allen, at Prior-park, and having occasion to go to Bristol for a few days, left Mrs. Blount behind him. In his absence Mrs. Blount, who was of the Romish persuasion, signified an inclination to go to the popish chapel at Bath, and desired of Mr. Allen the use of his chariot for the purpose; but he being at that time mayor of the city, suggested the impropriety of having his carriage seen at the door of a place of worship, to which, as a magistrate, he was at least restrained from giving a sanction, and might be required to suppress, and, therefore, desire to be excused. Mrs. Blount resented this refusal, and told Pope of it at his return, and so infected him with her rage that they both left the house abruptly[1].

An instance of the like negligence may be noted in his relation of Pope's love of painting, which differs much from the information I gave him on that head. A picture of Betterton, certainly copied from Kneller by Pope[2], lord Mansfield once showed me at Kenwood-house, adding, that it was the only one he ever finished, for that the weakness of his eyes was an obstruction to his use of the pencil. H.

(Footnote 1: This is altogether wrong. Pope kept up his friendship with Mr. Allen to the last, as appears by his letters, and Mrs. Blount remained in Mr. Allen's house some time after the coolness took place between her and Mrs. Allen. Allen's conversation with Pope on this subject, and his letters to Mrs. Blount, all whose quarrels he was obliged to share, will be found in Mr. Bowles's edition of Pope's works. C.—See further and more minute information on this affair in Roscoe's Pope, i. 526, and following pages. Ed.)

(Footnote 2: See p. 249.)]

[Footnote 146: But see this matter explained by facts more creditable to Pope, in his life, Biographical Dictionary, vol. xxv.]

[Footnote 147: Part of it arose from an annuity of two hundred pounds a year, which he had purchased either of the late duke of Buckinghamshire, or the dutchess, his mother, and which was charged on some estate of that family. [See p. 256.] The deed by which it was granted was some years in my custody. H.]

[Footnote 148: The account herein before given of this lady and her catastrophe, cited by Johnson from Ruffhead, with a kind of acquiescence in the truth thereof, seems no other than might have been extracted from the verses themselves. I have in my possession a letter to Dr. Johnson, containing the name of the lady; and a reference to a gentleman well known in the literary world for her history. Him I have seen; and, from a memorandum of some particulars to the purpose, communicated to him by a lady of quality, he informs me, that the unfortunate lady's name was Withinbury[1], corruptly pronounced Winbury; that she was in love with Pope, and would have married him; that her guardian, though she was deformed in person, looking upon such a match as beneath her, sent her to a convent; and that a noose, and not a sword, put an end to her life. H. (Footnote 1: According to Warton, the lady's name was Wainsbury. ED.)]

[Footnote 149: Bentley was one of these. He and Pope, soon after the publication of Homer, met at Dr. Mead's at dinner; when Pope, desirous of his opinion of the translation, addressed him thus: "Dr. Bentley, I ordered my bookseller to send you your books: I hope you received them." Bentley, who had purposely avoided saying any thing about Homer, pretended not to understand him, and asked, "Books! books! what books?"—" My Homer," replied Pope, "which you did me the honour to subscribe for."—"Oh," said Bentley, "aye, now I recollect—your translation:—it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer." H.

Some good remarks on Pope's translation may be found in the work of Melmoth, entitled Fitzosborne's Letters. ED.]

[Footnote 150: In one of these poems is a couplet, to which belongs a story that I once heard the reverend Dr. Ridley relate:

"Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage; Hard words, or hanging, if your judge be ...,"

Sir Francis Page, a judge well known in his time, conceiving that his name was meant to fill up the blank, sent his clerk to Mr. Pope, to complain of the insult. Pope told the young man that the blank might be supplied by many monosyllables, other than the judge's name:—"but, sir," said the clerk, "the judge says that no other word will make sense of the passage."—"So then it seems," says Pope "your master is not only a judge but a poet; as that is the case, the odds are against me. Give my respects to the judge, and tell him, I will not contend with one that has the advantage of me, and he may fill up the blank as he pleases." H.]

[Footnote 151: See note, by Gifford, on Johnson's criticism here in Massinger's works.]

[Footnote 152: Johnson, I imagine, alludes to a well-known line by Rochester:

The best good man with the worst-natur'd muse. ]

[Footnote 153: Major Bernardi, who died in Newgate, Sept. 20, 1736. See Gent. Mag. vol. 1. p. 125. N.]

[Footnote 154: This was altered much for the better, as it now stands on the monument in the abbey, erected to Rowe and his daughter. WARB. See Bowles's edition of Pope's works, ii. 416.]

[Footnote 155: In the north aisle of the parish church of St. Margaret, Westminster. H.]

[Footnote 156: The thought was, probably, borrowed from Carew's Obsequies to the lady Anne Hay:

I heard the virgins sigh, I saw the sleek And polish'd courtier channel his fresh cheek With real tears. J.B.]

[Footnote 157: Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. DRYDEN, on Mrs. Killigrew.]

[Footnote 158: The same thought is found in George Whetstone's epitaph on the good lord Dyer, 1582: Et semper bonus ille bonis fuit, ergo bonorum Sunt illi demum pectora sarcophagus. J.B.]



PITT.

Christopher Pitt, of whom whatever I shall relate, more than has been already published, I owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton, was born, in 1699, at Blandford, the son of a physician much esteemed.

He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into Winchester college, where he was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his removal to New college, in 1719, presented to the electors, as the product of his private and voluntary studies, a complete version of Lucan's poem, which he did not then know to have been translated by Rowe.

This is an instance of early diligence which well deserves to be recorded. The suppression of such a work, recommended by such uncommon circumstances, is to be regretted. It is, indeed, culpable to load libraries with superfluous books; but incitements to early excellence are never superfluous, and, from this example, the danger is not great of many imitations.

When he had resided at his college three years, he was presented to the rectory of Pimpern, in Dorsetshire, 1722, by his relation, Mr. Pitt, of Stratfield Say, in Hampshire; and, resigning his fellowship, continued at Oxford two years longer, till he became master of arts, 1724.

He probably about this time translated Vida's Art of Poetry, which Tristram's splendid edition had then made popular. In this translation he distinguished himself, both by its general elegance, and by the skilful adaptation of his numbers to the images expressed; a beauty which Vida has, with great ardour, enforced and exemplified.

He then retired to his living, a place very pleasing by its situation, and, therefore, likely to excite the imagination of a poet; where he passed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue, and beloved for the softness of his temper and the easiness of his manners. Before strangers he had something of the scholar's timidity or distrust; but when he became familiar he was, in a very high degree, cheerful and entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect; and he passed a life placid and honourable, neither too great for the kindness of the low, nor too low for the notice of the great.

At what time he composed his Miscellany, published in 1727, it is not easy or necessary to know: those which have dates appear to have been very early productions, and I have not observed that any rise above mediocrity.

The success of his Vida animated him to a higher undertaking; and in his thirtieth year he published a version of the first book of the AEneid. This being, I suppose, commended by his friends, he, some time afterwards, added three or four more; with an advertisement, in which he represents himself as translating with great indifference, and with a progress of which himself was hardly conscious. This can hardly be true, and, if true, is nothing to the reader.

At last, without any farther contention with his modesty or any awe of the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English AEneid, which I am sorry not to see, joined in this publication with his other poems[159]. It would have been pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing the two best translations that, perhaps, were ever produced by one nation of the same author.

Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures, and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's Iliad, he had an example of an exact, equable and splendid versification. With these advantages seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labour particular passages, and escape many errours. If the two versions are compared, perhaps the result would be that Dryden leads the reader forward by his general vigour and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the excellence of a single couplet; that Dryden's faults are forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal; that Pitt pleases the criticks, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read.

He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work deservedly conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a stone at Blandford, on which is this inscription:

In memory of CHR. PITT, clerk, M.A. Very eminent for his talents in poetry; and yet more for the universal candour of his mind, and the primitive simplicity of his manners. He lived innocent; and died beloved, Apr. 13, 1748, aged 48.

——-

[Footnote 159: It has since been added to the collection. R.]



THOMSON.

James Thomson, the son of a minister well esteemed for his piety and diligence, was born September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor. His mother, whose name was Hume[160], inherited, as coheiress, a portion of a small estate. The revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was, probably, in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported his family, having nine children, that Mr. Riccarton, a neighbouring minister, discovering in James uncommon promises of future excellence, undertook to superintend his education, and provide him books.

He was taught the common rudiments of learning at the school of Jedburg, a place which he delights to recollect in his poem of Autumn; but was not considered by his master as superiour to common boys, though, in those early days, he amused his patron and his friends with poetical compositions; with which, however, he so little pleased himself, that, on every new-year's day, he threw into the fire all the productions of the foregoing year.

From the school he was removed to Edinburgh, where he had not resided two years when his father died, and left all his children to the care of their mother, who raised, upon her little estate, what money a mortgage could afford, and, removing with her family to Edinburgh, lived to see her son rising into eminence.

The design of Thomson's friends was to breed him a minister. He lived at Edinburgh, as at school, without distinction or expectation, till, at the usual time, he performed a probationary exercise by explaining a psalm. His diction was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the professor of divinity, reproved him for speaking language unintelligible to a popular audience; and he censured one of his expressions as indecent, if not profane[161].

This rebuke is reported to have repressed his thoughts of an ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated, with new diligence, his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink into despondence.

He easily discovered, that the only stage on which a poet could appear, with any hope of advantage, was London; a place too wide for the operation of petty competition and private malignity, where merit might soon become conspicuous, and would find friends as soon as it became reputable to befriend it. A lady, who was acquainted with his mother, advised him to the journey, and promised some countenance, or assistance, which, at last, he never received; however, he justified his adventure by her encouragement, and came to seek, in London, patronage and fame.

At his arrival he found his way to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to the sons of the duke of Montrose. He had recommendations to several persons of consequence, which he had tied up carefully in his handkerchief; but as he passed along the street, with the gaping curiosity of a new-comer, his attention was upon every thing rather than his pocket, and his magazine of credentials was stolen from him.

His first want was a pair of shoes. For the supply of all his necessities, his whole fund was his Winter, which for a time could find no purchaser; till, at last, Mr. Millan was persuaded to buy it at a low price; and this low price he had, for some time, reason to regret[162]; but, by accident, Mr. Whatley, a man not wholly unknown among authors, happening to turn his eye upon it, was so delighted that he ran from place to place celebrating its excellence. Thomson obtained, likewise, the notice of Aaron Hill, whom, being friendless and indigent, and glad of kindness, he courted with every expression of servile adulation.

Winter was dedicated to sir Spencer Compton, but attracted no regard from him to the author; till Aaron Hill awakened his attention by some verses addressed to Thomson, and published in one of the newspapers, which censured the great for their neglect of ingenious men. Thomson then received a present of twenty guineas, of which he gives this account to Mr. Hill:

"I hinted to you in my last, that on Saturday morning I was with sir Spencer Compton. A certain gentleman, without my desire, spoke to him concerning me; his answer was, that I had never come near him. Then the gentleman put the question, if he desired that I should wait on him: he returned, he did. On this, the gentleman gave me an introductory letter to him. He received me in what they commonly call a civil manner; asked me some commonplace questions; and made me a present of twenty guineas. I am very ready to own that the present was larger than my performance deserved; and shall ascribe it to his generosity, or any other cause, rather than the merit of the address."

The poem, which, being of a new kind[163], few would venture at first to like, by degrees gained upon the publick; and one edition was very speedily succeeded by another.

Thomson's credit was now high, and every day brought him new friends; among others Dr. Rundle, a man afterwards unfortunately famous, sought his acquaintance, and found his qualities such, that he recommended him to the lord chancellor Talbot.

Winter was accompanied, in many editions, not only with a preface and a dedication, but with poetical praises by Mr. Hill, Mr. Mallet, (then Malloch,) and Mira, the fictitious name of a lady once too well known. Why the dedications are, to Winter and the other seasons, contrarily to custom, left out in the collected works, the reader may inquire.

The next year, 1727, he distinguished himself by three publications; of Summer, in pursuance of his plan; of a Poem on the Death of sir Isaac Newton, which he was enabled to perform as an exact philosopher by the instruction of Mr. Gray; and of Britannia, a kind of poetical invective against the ministry, whom the nation then thought not forward enough in resenting the depredations of the Spaniards. By this piece he declared himself an adherent to the opposition, and had, therefore, no favour to expect from the court.

Thomson, having been some time entertained in the family of the lord Binning, was desirous of testifying his gratitude by making him the patron of his Summer; but the same kindness which had first disposed lord Binning to encourage him, determined him to refuse the dedication, which was, by his advice, addressed to Mr. Dodington, a man who had more power to advance the reputation and fortune of a poet.

Spring was published next year, with a dedication to the countess of Hertford; whose practice it was to invite every summer some poet into the country, to hear her verses, and assist her studies. This honour was one summer conferred on Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with lord Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship's poetical operations, and, therefore, never received another summons.

Autumn, the season to which the Spring and Summer are preparatory, still remained unsung, and was delayed till he published, 1730, his works collected.

He produced in 1727 the tragedy of Sophonisba, which raised such expectation, that every rehearsal was dignified with a splendid audience, collected to anticipate the delight that was preparing for the publick. It was observed, however, that nobody was much affected, and that the company rose as from a moral lecture.

It had upon the stage no unusual degree of success. Slight accidents will operate upon the taste of pleasure. There is a feeble line in the play:

O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!

This gave occasion to a waggish parody:

O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!

which for awhile was echoed through the town.

I have been told by Savage, that of the prologue to Sophonisba, the first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it; and that the concluding lines were added by Mallet.

Thomson was not long afterwards, by the influence of Dr. Rundle, sent to travel with Mr. Charles Talbot, the eldest son of the chancellor. He was yet young enough to receive new impressions, to have his opinions rectified, and his views enlarged; nor can he be supposed to have wanted that curiosity which is inseparable from an active and comprehensive mind. He may, therefore, now be supposed to have revelled in all the joys of intellectual luxury; he was every day feasted with instructive novelties; he lived splendidly without expense; and might expect, when he returned home, a certain establishment.

At this time a long course of opposition to sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty, which was not in danger. Thomson in his travels on the continent, found or fancied so many evils arising from the tyranny of other governments, that he resolved to write a very long poem, in five parts, upon liberty.

While he was busy on the first book, Mr. Talbot died; and Thomson, who had been rewarded for his attendance by the place of secretary of the briefs, pays in the initial lines a decent tribute to his memory.

Upon this great poem two years were spent, and the author congratulated himself upon it as his noblest work; but an author and his reader are not always of a mind. Liberty called in vain upon her votaries to read her praises and reward her encomiast: her praises were condemned to harbour spiders, and to gather dust; none of Thomson's performances were so little regarded.

The judgment of the publick was not erroneous; the recurrence of the same images must tire in time; an enumeration of examples to prove a position which nobody denied, as it was from the beginning superfluous, must quickly grow disgusting.

The poem of Liberty does not now appear in its original state; but, when the author's works were collected after his death, was shortened by sir George Lyttelton, with a liberty, which, as it has a manifest tendency to lessen the confidence of society, and to confound the characters of authors, by making one man write by the judgment of another, cannot be justified by any supposed propriety of the alteration, or kindness of the friend. I wish to see it exhibited as its author left it.

Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and seems, for awhile, to have suspended his poetry; but he was soon called back to labour by the death of the chancellor, for his place then became vacant[164]; and though the lord Hardwicke delayed, for some time, to give it away, Thomson's bashfulness, or pride, or some other motive, perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from soliciting; and the new chancellor would not give him what he would not ask.

He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the prince of Wales was at that time struggling for popularity, and, by the influence of Mr. Lyttelton, professed himself the patron of wit: to him Thomson was introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of his affairs, said, "that they were in a more poetical posture than formerly;" and had a pension allowed him of one hundred pounds a year.

Being now obliged to write, he produced, 1738[165], the tragedy of Agamemnon, which was much shortened in the representation. It had the fate which most commonly attends mythological stories, and was only endured, but not favoured. It struggled with such difficulty through the first night, that Thomson, coming late to his friends with whom he was to sup, excused his delay by telling them how the sweat of his distress had so disordered his wig, that he could not come till he had been refitted by a barber.

He so interested himself in his own drama, that, if I remember right, as he sat in the upper gallery, he accompanied the players by audible recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him to silence. Pope countenanced Agamemnon, by coming to it the first night, and was welcomed to the theatre by a general clap; he had much regard for Thomson, and once expressed it in a poetical epistle sent to Italy, of which, however, he abated the value, by transplanting some of the lines into his epistle to Arbuthnot.

About this time the act was passed for licensing plays, of which the first operation was the prohibition of Gustavus Vasa[166], a tragedy of Mr. Brooke, whom the publick recompensed by a very liberal subscription; the next was the refusal of Edward and Eleonora, offered by Thomson. It is hard to discover why either play should have been obstructed. Thomson, likewise, endeavoured to repair his loss by a subscription, of which I cannot now tell the success.

When the publick murmured at the unkind treatment of Thomson, one of the ministerial writers remarked, that "he had taken a liberty which was not agreeable to Britannia in any season."

He was soon after employed, in conjunction with Mr. Mallet, to write the mask of Alfred, which was acted before the prince at Cliefden-house.

His next work, 1745, was Tancred and Sigismunda, the most successful of all his tragedies; for it still keeps its turn upon the stage. It may be doubted whether he was, either by the bent of nature or habits of study, much qualified for tragedy. It does not appear that he had much sense of the pathetick; and his diffusive and descriptive style produced declamation rather than dialogue.

His friend Mr. Lyttelton was now in power, and conferred upon him the office of surveyor-general of the Leeward Islands; from which, when his deputy was paid, he received about three hundred pounds a year.

The last piece that he lived to publish was the Castle of Indolence, which was many years under his hand, but was, at last, finished with great accuracy. The first canto opens a scene of lazy luxury that fills the imagination.

He was now at ease, but was not long to enjoy it; for, by taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, with some careless exasperation, ended in a fever that put an end to his life, August 27, 1748. He was buried in the church of Richmond, without an inscription; but a monument has been erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and "more fat than bard beseems," of a dull countenance, and a gross, unanimated, uninviting appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among select friends, and by his friends very tenderly and warmly beloved[167].

He left behind him the tragedy of Coriolanus, which was, by the zeal of his patron, sir George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit of his family, and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as showed him "to be," on that occasion, "no actor." The commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin; who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest by a very considerable present; and its continuance is honourable to both; for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation. By this tragedy a considerable sum was raised, of which part discharged his debts, and the rest was remitted to his sisters, whom, however removed from them by place or condition, he regarded with great tenderness, as will appear by the following letter, which I communicate with much pleasure, as it gives me, at once, an opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it.

"Hagley in Worcestershire, Oct. 4th, 1747.

"MY DEAR SISTER,—I thought you had known me better than to interpret my silence into a decay of affection, especially as your behaviour has always been such as rather to increase than diminish it. Don't imagine, because I am a bad correspondent, that I can ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do myself the justice to tell you, that my affections are naturally very fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of complaint against you, (of which, by the by, I have not the least shadow,) I am conscious of so many defects in myself, as dispose me to be not a little charitable and forgiving.

"It gives me the truest heartfelt satisfaction to hear you have a good, kind husband, and are in easy, contented circumstances; but were they otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten my tenderness towards you. As our good and tender-hearted parents did not live to receive any material testimonies of that highest human gratitude I owed them, (than which nothing could have given me equal pleasure,) the only return I can make them now is by kindness to those they left behind them. Would to God poor Lizy had lived longer, to have been a further witness of the truth of what I say, and that I might have had the pleasure of seeing once more a sister who so truly deserved my esteem and love! But she is happy, while we must toil a little longer here below: let us, however, do it cheerfully and gratefully, supported by the pleasing hope of meeting yet again on a safer shore, where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life will not, perhaps, be inconsistent with that blissful state. You did right to call your daughter by her name; for you must needs have had a particular tender friendship for one another, endeared as you were by nature, by having passed the affectionate years of your youth together; and by that great softener and engager of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in my power to ease it a little, I account one of the most exquisite pleasures of my life. But enough of this melancholy, though not unpleasing strain.