Chapter XIV: Part 14

A perpetual intercourse of mutual adulation animated the
sovereign and his viceroy, and, by mutual support, each
obtained the same reward: two mitres crowned the greater and
the minor critic. This intercourse was humorously detected by
the lively author of "Confusion Worse Confounded."--"When the
late Duke of R.," says he, "kept wild beasts, it was a common
diversion to make two of his bears drunk (not metaphorically
with flattery, but literally with strong ale), and then daub
them over with honey. It was excellent sport to see how
lovingly (like a couple of critics) they would lick and claw
one another." It is almost amazing to observe how Hurd, who
naturally was of the most frigid temperament, and the most
subdued feelings, warmed, heated, and blazed in the
progressive stages "of that pageantry of praise spread over
the Rev. Mr. Warburton, when the latter was advancing fast
towards a bishoprick," to use the words of Dr. Parr, a
sagacious observer of man. However, notwithstanding the
despotic mandates of our Pichrocole and his dapper minister,
there were who did not fear to meet the greater bear of the
two so facetiously described above. And the author of
"Confusion Worse Confounded" tells a familiar story, which
will enliven the history of our great critic. "One of the
bears mentioned above happened to get loose, and was running
along the street in which a tinker was gravely walking. The
people all cried, 'Tinker! tinker! beware of the bear!' Upon
this Magnano faced about with great composure; and raising his
staff, knocked down Bruin, then setting his arms a-kimbo,
walked off very sedately; only saying, 'Let the bear beware of
the tinker,' which is now become a proverb in those
parts."--"Confusion Worse Confounded," p. 75.

POPE,

AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUARRELS.

POPE adopted a system of literary politics--collected with
extraordinary care everything relative to his Quarrels--no
politician ever studied to obtain his purposes by more oblique
directions and intricate stratagems--some of his manoeuvres--his
systematic hostility not practised with impunity--his claim to his
own works contested--CIBBER'S facetious description of POPE'S
feelings, and WELSTED'S elegant satire on his genius--DENNIS'S
account of POPE'S Introduction to him--his political prudence
further discovered in the Collection of all the Pieces relative to
the _Dunciad_, in which he employed SAVAGE--the THEOBALDIANS and
the POPEIANS; an attack by a Theobaldian--The _Dunciad_
ingeniously defended, for the grossness of its imagery, and its
reproach of the poverty of the authors, supposed by POPE himself,
with some curious specimens of literary personalities--the
Literary Quarrel between AARON HILL and POPE distinguished for its
romantic cast--a Narrative of the extraordinary transactions
respecting the publication of POPE'S Letters; an example of
Stratagem and Conspiracy, illustrative of his character.

POPE has proudly perpetuated the history of his Literary Quarrels; and he appears to have been among those authors, surely not forming the majority, who have delighted in, or have not been averse to provoke, hostility. He has registered the titles of every book, even to a single paper, or a copy of verses, in which their authors had committed treason against his poetical sovereignty.[192] His ambition seemed gratified in heaping these trophies to his genius, while his meaner passions could compile one of the most voluminous of the scandalous chronicles of literature. We are mortified on discovering so fine a genius in the text humbling itself through all the depravity of a commentary full of spleen, and not without the fictions of satire. The unhappy influence his _Literary Quarrels_ had on this great poet's life remains to be traced. He adopted a system of literary politics abounding with stratagems, conspiracies, manoeuvres, and factions.

Pope's literary quarrels were the wars of his poetical ambition, more perhaps than of the petulance and strong irritability of his character. They were some of the artifices he adopted from the peculiarity of his situation.

Thrown out of the active classes of society from a variety of causes sufficiently known,[193] concentrating his passions into a solitary one, his retired life was passed in the contemplation of his own literary greatness. Reviewing the past, and anticipating the future, he felt he was creating a new era in our literature, an event which does not always occur in a century: but eager to secure present celebrity, with the victory obtained in the open field, he combined the intrigues of the cabinet: thus, while he was exerting great means, he practised little artifices. No politician studied to obtain his purposes by more oblique directions, or with more intricate stratagems; and Pope was at once the lion and the fox of Machiavel. A book might be written on the Stratagems of Literature, as Frontinus has composed one on War, and among its subtilest heroes we might place this great poet.

To keep his name alive before the public was one of his early plans. When he published his "Essay on Criticism," anonymously, the young and impatient poet was mortified with the inertion of public curiosity: he was almost in despair.[194] Twice, perhaps oftener, Pope attacked Pope;[195] and he frequently concealed himself under the names of others, for some particular design. Not to point out his dark familiar "Scriblerus," always at hand for all purposes, he made use of the names of several of his friends. When he employed SAVAGE in "a collection of all the pieces, in verse and prose, published on occasion of the _Dunciad_," he subscribed his name to an admirable dedication to Lord Middlesex, where he minutely relates the whole history of the _Dunciad_, "and the weekly clubs held to consult of hostilities against the author;" and, for an express introduction to that work, he used the name of Cleland, to which is added a note, expressing surprise that the world did not believe that Cleland was the writer![196] Wanting a pretext for the publication of his letters, he delighted CURLL by conveying to him some printed surreptitious copies, who soon discovered that it was but a fairy treasure which he could not grasp; and Pope, in his own defence, had soon ready the authentic edition.[197] Some lady observed that Pope "hardly drank tea without a stratagem!" The female genius easily detects its own peculiar faculty, when it is exercised with inferior delicacy.

But his systematic hostility did not proceed with equal impunity: in this perpetual war with dulness, he discovered that every one he called a dunce was not so; nor did he find the dunces themselves less inconvenient to him; for many successfully substituted, for their deficiencies in better qualities, the lie that lasts long enough to vex a man; and the insolence that does not fear him: they attacked him at all points, and not always in the spirit of legitimate warfare.[198] They filled up his asterisks, and accused him of treason. They asserted that the panegyrical verses prefixed to his works (an obsolete mode of recommendation, which Pope condescended to practise), were his own composition, and to which he had affixed the names of some dead or some unknown writers. They published lists of all whom Pope had attacked; placing at the head, "God Almighty; the King;" descending to the "lords and gentlemen."[199] A few suspected his skill in Greek; but every hound yelped in the halloo against his Homer.[200] Yet the more extraordinary circumstance was, their hardy disputes with Pope respecting his claim to his own works, and the difficulty he more than once found to establish his rights. Sometimes they divided public opinion by even indicating the real authors; and witnesses from White's and St. James's were ready to be produced. Among these literary coteries, several of Pope's productions, in their anonymous, and even in their MS. state, had been appropriated by several pseudo authors; and when Pope called for restitution, he seemed to be claiming nothing less than their lives. One of these gentlemen had enjoyed a very fair reputation for more than two years on the "Memoirs of a Parish-Clerk;" another, on "The Messiah!" and there were many other vague claims. All this was vexatious; but not so much as the ridiculous attitude in which Pope was sometimes placed by his enraged adversaries.[201] He must have found himself in a more perilous situation when he hired a brawny champion, or borrowed the generous courage of some military friend.[202] To all these troubles we may add, that Pope has called down on himself more lasting vengeance; and the good sense of Theobald, the furious but often acute remarks of Dennis; the good-humoured yet keen remonstrance of Cibber; the silver shaft, tipped with venom, sent from the injured but revengeful Lady Mary; and many a random shot, that often struck him, inflicted on him many a sleepless night.[203] The younger Richardson has recorded the personal sufferings of Pope when, one day, in taking up Cibber's letter, while his face was writhing with agony, he feebly declared that "these things were as good as hartshorn to him;" but he appeared at that moment rather to want a little. And it is probably true, what Cibber facetiously says of Pope, in his second letter:--"Everybody tells me that I have made you as uneasy as a rat in a hot kettle, for a twelvemonth together."[204]

Pope was pursued through life by the insatiable vengeance of Dennis. The young poet, who had got introduced to him, among his first literary acquaintances, could not fail, when the occasion presented itself, of ridiculing this uncouth son of Aristotle. The blow was given in the character of Appius, in the "Art of Criticism;" and it is known Appius was instantaneously recognised by the fierce shriek of the agonised critic himself. From that moment Dennis resolved to write down every work of Pope's. How dangerous to offend certain tempers, verging on madness![205] Dennis, too, called on every one to join him in the common cause; and once he retaliated on Pope in his own way. Accused by Pope of being the writer of an account of himself, in Jacob's "Lives of the Poets," Dennis procured a letter from Jacob, which he published, and in which it appears that Pope's own character in this collection, if not written by him, was by him very carefully corrected on the proof-sheet; so that he stood in the same ridiculous attitude into which he had thrown Dennis, as his own trumpeter. Dennis, whose brutal energy remained unsubdued, was a rhinoceros of a critic, shelled up against the arrows of wit. This monster of criticism awed the poet; and Dennis proved to be a Python, whom the golden shaft of Apollo could not pierce.

The political prudence of Pope was further discovered in the "Collection of all the Pieces relative to the _Dunciad_," on which he employed Savage: these exemplified the justness of the satire, or defended it from all attacks. The precursor of the _Dunciad_ was a single chapter in "The Bathos; or, the Art of Sinking in Poetry;" where the humorous satirist discovers an analogy between flying-fishes, parrots, tortoises, &c., and certain writers, whose names are designated by initial letters. In this unlucky alphabet of dunces, not one of them but was applied to some writer of the day; and the loud clamours these excited could not be appeased by the simplicity of our poet's declaration, that the letters were placed at random: and while his oil could not smooth so turbulent a sea, every one swore to the flying-fish or the tortoise, as he had described them. It was still more serious when the _Dunciad_ appeared. Of that class of authors who depended for a wretched existence on their wages, several were completely ruined, for no purchasers were to be found for the works of some authors, after they had been inscribed in the chronicle of our provoking and inimitable satirist.[206]

It is in this collection by Savage I find the writer's admirable satire on the class of literary prostitutes. It is entitled "An Author to be Let, by Iscariot Hackney." It has been ably commended by Johnson in his "Life of Savage," and on his recommendation Thomas Davies inserted it in his "Collection of Fugitive Pieces;" but such is the careless curiosity of modern re-publishers, that often, in preserving a decayed body, they are apt to drop a limb: this was the case with Davies; for he has dropped the preface, far more exquisite than the work itself. A morsel of such poignant relish betrays the hand of the master who snatched the pen for a moment.

This preface defends Pope from the two great objections justly raised at the time against the _Dunciad_: one is, the grossness and filthiness of its imagery; and the other, its reproachful allusions to the poverty of the authors.

The _indelicacies_ of the _Dunciad_ are thus wittily apologised for:--

"They are suitable to the subject; a subject composed, for the most part, of authors whose writings are the refuse of wit, and who in life are the very excrement of Nature. Mr. Pope has, too, used dung; but he disposes that dung in such a manner that it becomes rich manure, from which he raises a variety of fine flowers. He deals in rags; but like an artist, who commits them to a paper-mill, and brings them out useful sheets. The chemist extracts a fine cordial from the most nauseous of all dung; and Mr. Pope has drawn a sweet poetical spirit from the most offensive and unpoetical objects of the creation--unpoetical, though eternal writers of poetry."

The reflections on the _poverty_ of its heroes are thus ingeniously defended:--"Poverty, not proceeding from folly, but which may be owing to virtue, sets a man in an amiable light; but when our wants are of our own seeking, and prove the motive of every ill action (for the poverty of bad authors has always a bad heart for its companion), is it not a vice, and properly the subject of satire?" The preface then proceeds to show how "all these _said writers_ might have been _good mechanics_." He illustrates his principles with a most ungracious account of several of his contemporaries. I shall give a specimen of what I consider as the polished sarcasm and caustic humour of Pope, on some favourite subjects.

"Mr. Thomas _Cooke_.--His enemies confess him not without merit. To do the man justice, he might have made a tolerable figure as a _Tailor_. 'Twere too presumptuous to affirm he could have been a _master_ in any profession; but, dull as I allow him, he would not have been despicable for a third or a fourth hand journeyman. Then had his wants have been avoided; for, he would at least have learnt to _cut his coat according to his cloth_.

"Why would not Mr. _Theobald_ continue an attorney? Is not _Word-catching_ more serviceable in splitting a cause, than explaining a fine poet?

"When Mrs. _Haywood_ ceased to be a strolling-actress, why might not the lady (though once a theatrical queen) have subsisted by turning _washerwoman_? Has not the fall of greatness been a frequent distress in all ages? She might have caught a beautiful bubble, as it arose from the suds of her tub, blown it in air, seen it glitter, and then break! Even in this low condition, she had played with a bubble; and what more is the vanity of human greatness?

"Had it not been an honester and more decent livelihood for Mr. _Norton_ (Daniel De Foe's son of love by a lady who vended oysters) to have dealt in a _fish-market_, than to be dealing out the dialects of Billingsgate in the Flying-post?

"Had it not been more laudable for Mr. _Roome_, the son of an _undertaker_, to have borne a link and a mourning-staff, in the long procession of a funeral--or even been more decent in him to have sung psalms, according to education, in an Anabaptist meeting, than to have been altering the _Jovial Crew, or Merry Beggars_, into a _wicked_ imitation of the _Beggar's Opera_?"

This satire seems too exquisite for the touch of Savage, and is quite in the spirit of the author of the _Dunciad_. There is, in Ruffhead's "Life of Pope," a work to which Warburton contributed all his care, a passage which could only have been written by Warburton. The strength and coarseness of the imagery could never have been produced by the dull and feeble intellect of Ruffhead: it is the opinion, therefore, of Warburton himself, on the _Dunciad_. "The _good purpose_ intended by this satire was, to the _herd_ in general, of less efficacy than our author hoped; for _scribblers_ have not the common sense of _other vermin_, who usually abstain from mischief, when they see any of their kind _gibbeted_ or _nailed up_, as terrible examples."--Warburton employed the same strong image in one of his threats.

One of Pope's Literary Quarrels must be distinguished for its romantic cast.

In the Treatise on the _Bathos_, the initial letters of the bad writers occasioned many heartburns; and, among others, Aaron Hill suspected he was marked out by the letters A. H. This gave rise to a large correspondence between Hill and Pope. Hill, who was a very amiable man, was infinitely too susceptible of criticism; and Pope, who seems to have had a personal regard for him, injured those nice feelings as little as possible. Hill had published a panegyrical poem on Peter the Great, under the title of "The Northern Star;" and the bookseller had conveyed to him a criticism of Pope's, of which Hill publicly acknowledged he mistook the meaning. When the Treatise of "The Bathos" appeared, Pope insisted he had again mistaken the initials A. H.--Hill gently attacked Pope in "a paper of very pretty verses," as Pope calls them. When the _Dunciad_ appeared, Hill is said "to have published pieces, in his youth, bordering upon the bombast." This was as light a stroke as could be inflicted; and which Pope, with great good-humour, tells Hill, might be equally applied to himself; for he always acknowledged, that when a boy, he had written an Epic poem of that description; would often quote absurd verses from it, for the diversion of his friends; and actually inserted some of the most extravagant ones in the very Treatise on "The Bathos." Poor Hill, however, was of the most sickly delicacy, and produced "The Caveat," another gentle rebuke, where Pope is represented as "sneakingly to approve, and want the worth to cherish or befriend men of merit." In the course of this correspondence, Hill seems to have projected the utmost stretch of his innocent malice; for he told Pope, that he had almost finished "An Essay on Propriety and Impropriety in Design, Thought, and Expression, illustrated by examples in both kinds, from the writings of Mr. Pope;" but he offers, if this intended work should create the least pain to Mr. Pope, he was willing, with all his heart, to have it run thus:--"An Essay on Propriety and Impropriety, &c., illustrated by Examples of the first, from the writings of Mr. Pope, and of the rest, from those of the author."--To the romantic generosity of this extraordinary proposal, Pope replied, "I acknowledge your generous offer, to give _examples of imperfections_ rather out of _your own works_ than mine: I consent, with all my heart, to your confining them to _mine_, for two reasons: the one, that I fear your sensibility that way is greater than my own: the other is a better; namely, that I intend to correct the faults you find, if they are such as I expect from Mr. Hill's cool judgment."[207]

Where, in literary history, can be found the parallel of such an offer of self-immolation? This was a literary quarrel like that of lovers, where to hurt each other would have given pain to both parties. Such skill and desire to strike, with so much tenderness in inflicting a wound; so much compliment, with so much complaint; have perhaps never met together, as in the romantic hostility of this literary chivalry.

FOOTNOTES:

[192] Pope collected these numerous literary libels with extraordinary
care. He had them bound in volumes of all sizes; and a range
of twelves, octavos, quartos, and folios were marshalled in
portentous order on his shelves. He wrote the names of the
writers, with remarks on these _Anonymiana_. He prefixed to
them this motto, from Job: "Behold, my desire is, that mine
adversary had written a book: surely I would take it upon my
shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me." xxxi. 35. Ruffhead,
who wrote Pope's Life under the eye of Warburton, who revised
every sheet of the volume, and suffered this mere lawyer and
singularly wretched critic to write on, with far inferior
taste to his own--offered "the entire collection to any public
library or museum, whose search is after _curiosities_, and
may be desirous of enriching their common treasure with it: it
will be freely at the service of that which asks first." Did
no one accept the invitation? As this was written in 1769, it
is evidently pointed towards the British Museum; but there I
have not heard of it. This collection must have contained much
of the Secret Memoirs of Grub-street: it was always a fountain
whence those "waters of bitterness," the notes in the
_Dunciad_, were readily supplied. It would be curious to
discover by what stratagem Pope obtained all that secret
intelligence about his Dunces, with which he has burthened
posterity, for his own particular gratification. Arbuthnot, it
is said, wrote some notes merely literary; but Savage, and
still humbler agents, served him as his _Espions de Police_.
He pensioned Savage to his last day, and never deserted him.
In the account of "the phantom Moore," Scriblerus appeals to
Savage to authenticate some story. One curious instance of the
fruits of Savage's researches in this way he has himself
preserved, in his memoirs of "An Author to be Let, by Iscariot
Hackney." This portrait of "a perfect Town-Author" is not
deficient in spirit: the hero was one Roome, a man only
celebrated in the _Dunciad_ for his "funereal frown." But it
is uncertain whether this fellow had really so dismal a
countenance; for the epithet was borrowed from his profession,
being the son of an undertaker! Such is the nature of some
satire! Dr. Warton is astonished, or mortified, for he knew
not which, to see the pains and patience of Pope and his
friends in compiling the Notes to the _Dunciad_, to trace out
the lives and works of such paltry and forgotten scribblers.
"It is like walking through the darkest alleys in the dirtiest
part of St. Giles's." Very true! But may we not be allowed to
detect the vanities of human nature at St. Giles's as well as
St. James's? Authors, however obscure, are always an amusing
race to authors. The greatest find their own passions in the
least, though distorted, or cramped in too small a compass.

It is doubtless from Pope's great anxiety for his own literary
celebrity that we have been furnished with so complete a
knowledge of the grotesque groups in the _Dunciad_. "Give me a
shilling," said Swift, facetiously, "and I will insure you
that posterity shall never know one single enemy, excepting
those whose memory you have preserved." A very useful hint for
a man of genius to leave his wretched assailants to dissolve
away in their own weakness. But Pope, having written a
_Dunciad_, by accompanying it with a commentary, took the only
method to interest posterity. He felt that Boileau's satires
on bad authors are liked only in the degree the objects
alluded to are known. But he loved too much the subject for
its own sake. He abused the powers genius had conferred on
him, as other imperial sovereigns have done. It is said that
he kept the whole kingdom in awe of him. In "the frenzy and
prodigality of vanity," he exclaimed--

"--------Yes, I am proud to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me!"

Tacitus Gordon said of him, that Pope seemed to persuade the
nation that all genius and ability were confined to him and
his friends.

[193] Pope, in his energetic Letter to Lord HERVEY, that "masterpiece
of invective," says Warton, which Tyers tells us he kept long
back from publishing, at the desire of Queen Caroline, who was
fearful her counsellor would become insignificant in the
public esteem, and at last in her own, such was the power his
genius exercised;--has pointed out one of these causes. It
describes himself as "a private person under penal laws, and
many other disadvantages, not for want of honesty or
conscience; yet it is by these alone I have hitherto lived
_excluded from all posts of profit or trust_. I can interfere
with the views of no man."

[194] The first publisher of the "Essay on Criticism" must have been
a Mr. Lewis, a Catholic bookseller in Covent-garden; for,
from a descendant of this Lewis, I heard that Pope, after
publication, came every day, persecuting with anxious
inquiries the cold impenetrable bookseller, who, as the poem
lay uncalled for, saw nothing but vexatious importunities
in a troublesome youth. One day, Pope, after nearly a
month's publication, entered, and in despair tied up a
number of the poems, which he addressed to several who had a
reputation in town, as judges of poetry. The scheme
succeeded, and the poem, having reached its proper circle,
soon got into request.

[195] He was the author of "The Key to the Lock," written to show that
"The Rape of the Lock" was a political poem, designed to
ridicule the Barrier Treaty; [so called from the arrangement
made at the Peace of Utrecht between the ministers of Great
Britain and the States General, as to the towns on the
frontiers of the Dutch, which were to be permanently
strengthened as barrier fortresses. Pope, in the mask of
Esdras Barnivelt, apothecary, thus makes out his poem to be a
political satire. "Having said that by the _lock_ is meant the
_Barrier Treaty_--first then I shall discover, that Belinda
represents Great Britain, or (which is the same thing) her
late Majesty. This is plainly seen in the description of her,

"On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore."

Alluding to the ancient name of Albion, from her white cliffs,
and to the cross which is the ensign of England. The baron who
cuts off the lock, or Barrier Treaty, is the Earl of Oxford.
Clarissa, who lent the scissors, my Lady Masham. Thalestris,
who provokes Belinda to resent the loss of the lock or treaty,
the Duchess of Marlborough; and Sir Plume, who is moved by
Thalestris to re-demand it of Great Britain, Prince Eugene,
"who came hither for that purpose." He concludes 32 pages of
similar argument by saying, "I doubt not if the persons most
concerned would but order Mr. Bernard Lintott, the printer and
publisher of this dangerous piece, to be taken into custody
and examined, many further discoveries might be made both of
this poet's and his abettors secret designs, which are
doubtless of the utmost importance to Government." Such is a
specimen of Pope's chicanery.] Its innocent extravagance could
only have been designed to increase attention to a work, which
hardly required any such artifice. [In the preface to this
production, "the uncommon sale of this book" is stated as one
reason for the publication; "above six thousand of them have
been already vended."] In the same spirit he composed the
"Guardian," in which Phillips's Pastorals were insidiously
preferred to his own. Pope sent this ironical, panegyrical
criticism on Phillips anonymously to the "Guardian," and
Steele not perceiving the drift, hesitated to publish it, till
Pope advised it. Addison detected it. I doubt whether we have
discovered all the _supercheries_ of this kind. After writing
the finest works of genius, he was busily employed in
attracting the public attention to them. In the antithesis of
his character, he was so great and so little! But he knew
mankind! and present fame was the great business of his life.

[196] Cleland was the son of Colonel Cleland, an old friend of Pope;
he and his son had served in the East Indian army; but the
latter returned to London, and became a sort of literary
jackal to Pope, and a hack author for the booksellers. He
wrote several moral and useful works; but as they did not pay
well, he wrote an immoral one, for which he obtained a better
price, and a pension of 100_l._ a-year, on condition that he
never wrote in that manner again. This was obtained for him by
Lord Granville, after Cleland had been cited before the Privy
Council, and pleaded poverty as the reason for such
authorship.--ED.

[197] The narrative of this dark transaction, which seems to have been
imperfectly known to Johnson, being too copious for a note,
will be found at the close of this article.

[198] A list of all the pamphlets which resulted from the _Dunciad_
would occupy a large space. Many of them were as grossly
personal as the celebrated poem. The poet was frequently
ridiculed under the names of "Pope Alexander" (from his
dictatorial style), and "Sawney." In "an heroic poem
occasioned by the _Dunciad_," published in 1728, the poet's
snug retreat at Twickenham is thus alluded to:--

"Sawney! a mimic sage of huge renown,
To Twick'nam bow'rs retir'd, enjoys his wealth,
His malice and his muse: in grottoes cool,
And cover'd arbours, dreams his hours away."

A fragment of Pope's celebrated grotto still remains; the
house is destroyed. Pope spent all his spare cash over his
Twickenham villa. "I never save anything," he said once to
Spence; and the latter has left a detailed account of what he
meant to do in the further decoration of his garden if he had
lived. As he gained a sum of money, he regularly spent it in
this way.--ED.

[199] Pope is, perhaps, the finest _character-painter_ of all
satirists. Atterbury, after reading the portrait of Atticus,
advised him to proceed in a way which his genius had pointed
out; but Arbuthnot, with his dying breath, conjured him "to
reform, and not to chastise;" that is, not to spare the vice,
but the person. It is said, Pope answered, that, to correct
the world with due effect, they become inseparable; and that,
deciding by his own experience, he was justified in his
opinion. Perhaps, at first, he himself wavered; but he strikes
bolder as he gathers strength. The two first editions of the
_Dunciad_, now before me, could hardly be intelligible: they
exhibit lines after lines gaping with an hiatus, or obscured
with initial letters: in subsequent editions, the names stole
into their places. We are told, that the personalities in his
satires quickened the sale: the portraits of Sporus, Bufo,
Clodius, Timon, and Atossa, were purchased by everybody; but
when he once declared, respecting the _characters_ of one of
his best satires, that no real persons were intended, it
checked public curiosity, which was felt in the sale of that
edition. Personality in his satires, no doubt, accorded with
the temper and the talent of Pope; and the malice of mankind
afforded him all the conviction necessary to indulge it. Yet
Young could depend solely on abstract characters and pure wit;
and I believe that his "Love of Fame" was a series of
admirable satires, which did not obtain less popularity than
Pope's. Cartwright, one of the poetical sons of Ben Jonson,
describes, by a beautiful and original image, the office of
the satirist, though he praises Jonson for exercising a virtue
he did not always practise; as Swift celebrates Pope with the
same truth, when he sings:--

"Yet malice never was his aim;
He lash'd the vice, but spared the name."

Cartwright's lines are:--

"--------'tis thy skill
To strike the vice, and spare the person still;
As he who, when he saw the serpent wreath'd
About his sleeping son, and as he breathed,
Drink in his soul, did so the shot contrive,
To kill the beast, but keep the child alive."

[200] Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, published a letter in Mist's
Journal, insisting that Pope had _mistaken the whole character
of Thersites_, from ignorance of the language. I regret I have
not drawn some notes from that essay. The subject might be
made curious by a good Greek scholar, if Pope has really erred
in the degree Cooke asserts. Theobald, who seems to have been
a more classical scholar than has been allowed, besides some
versions from the Greek tragic bards, commenced a translation
of the _Odyssey_ as soon as Pope's _Iliad_ appeared.

[201] In one of these situations, Pope issued a very grave, but very
ludicrous, advertisement. They had the impudence to publish an
account of Pope having been flagellated by two gentlemen in
Ham Walks, during his evening promenade. This was avenging
Dennis for what he had undergone from the narrative of his
madness. In "The Memoirs of Grub-street," vol. i. p. 96, this
tingling narrative appears to have been the ingenious forgery
of Lady Mary! On this occasion, Pope thought it necessary to
publish the following advertisement in the _Daily Post_, June
14, 1728:--

"Whereas, there has been a scandalous paper cried aloud about
the streets, under the title of 'A Pop upon Pope,' insinuating
that I was whipped in Ham Walks on Thursday last:--This is to
give notice, that I did not stir out of my house at Twickenham
on that day; and the same is a malicious and ill-founded
report.--A. P."

[Spence, on the authority of Pope's half-sister, says: "When
some of the people that he had put into the _Dunciad_ were so
enraged against him, and threatened him so highly, he loved to
walk alone to Richmond, only he would take a large faithful
dog with him, and pistols in his pocket. He used to say to us
when we talked to him about it, that 'with pistols the least
man in England was above a match for the largest.'"]

It seems that Phillips hung up a birchen-rod at Button's.
Pope, in one of his letters, congratulates himself that he
never attempted to use it. [His half-sister, Mrs. Rackett,
testifies to Pope's courage; she says, "My brother never knew
what fear was."]

[202] According to the scandalous chronicle of the day, Pope, shortly
after the publication of the _Dunciad_, had a tall Irishman to
attend him. Colonel Duckett threatened to cane him, for a
licentious stroke aimed at him, which Pope recanted. Thomas
Bentley, nephew to the doctor, for the treatment his uncle had
received, sent Pope a challenge. The modern, like the ancient
Horace, was of a nature liable to panic at such critical
moments. Pope consulted some military friends, who declared
that his _person_ ought to protect him from any such
redundance of valour as was thus formally required; however,
one of them accepted the challenge for him, and gave Bentley
the option either of fighting or apologising; who, on this
occasion, proved, what is usual, that the easiest of the two
was the quickest done.

[203] I shall preserve one specimen, so classically elegant, that Pope
himself might have composed it. It is from the pen of that
Leonard Welsted whose "Aganippe" Pope has so shamefully
characterised--

"Flow, Welsted, flow, like thine inspirer, beer!"

Can the reader credit, after this, that Welsted, who was clerk
in ordinary at the Ordnance Office, was a man of family and
independence, of elegant manners and a fine fancy, but who
considered poetry only as a passing amusement? He has,
however, left behind, amid the careless productions of his
muse, some passages wrought up with equal felicity and power.
There are several original poetical views of nature scattered
in his works, which have been collected by Mr. Nichols, that
would admit of a comparison with some of established fame.

Welsted imagined that the spirit of English poetry was on its
decline in the age of Pope, and allegorises the state of our
poetry in a most ingenious comparison. The picture is
exquisitely wrought, like an ancient gem: one might imagine
Anacreon was turned critic:--

"A flask I rear'd whose sluice began to fail,
And told, from Phaerus, this facetious tale:--
Sabina, very old and very dry,
Chanced, on a time, an EMPTY FLASK to spy:
The flask but lately had been thrown aside,
With the rich grape of Tuscan vineyards dyed;
But lately, gushing from the slender spout,
Its life, in purple streams, had issued out.
_The costly flavour still to sense remain'd_,
And still its sides the violet colour stain'd:
A sight so sweet taught wrinkled age to smile;
Pleased, she imbibes the generous fumes awhile,
Then, downwards turn'd, the vessel gently props,
And drains with patient care the lucid drops:
O balmy spirit of Etruria's vine!
O fragrant flask, she said, too lately mine!
_If such delights, THOUGH EMPTY, thou canst yield_,
What wondrous raptures hadst thou given if filled!"
_Paloemon to Coelia at Bath, or the Triumvirate._

"The empty flask" only retaining "the costly flavour," was the
verse of Pope.

[204] Pope was made to appear as ridiculous as possible, and often
nicknamed "Poet Pug," from the frontispiece to an attack in
reply to his own, termed "Pope Alexander's Supremacy and
Infallibility examined." It represents Pope as a misshapen
monkey leaning on a pile of books, in the attitude adopted by
Jervas in his portrait of the poet.--ED.

[205] Dennis tells the whole story. "At his first coming to town he
was importunate with Mr. Cromwell to introduce him to me. The
recommendation engaged me to be about thrice in company with
him; after which I went to the country, till I found myself
most insolently attacked in his very superficial 'Essay on
Criticism,' by which he endeavoured to destroy the reputation
of a man who had published pieces of criticism, and to set up
his own. I was moved with indignation to that degree, that I
immediately writ remarks on that essay. I also writ upon part
of his translation of 'Homer,' his 'Windsor Forest,' and his
infamous 'Temple of Fame.'" In the same pamphlet he
says:--"Pope writ his 'Windsor Forest' in envy of Sir John
Denham's 'Cooper's Hill;' his infamous 'Temple of Fame' in
envy of Chaucer's poem upon the same subject; his 'Ode on St.
Cecilia's Day,' in envy of Dryden's 'Feast of Alexander.'" In
reproaching Pope with his peculiar rhythm, that monotonous
excellence, which soon became mechanical, he has an odd
attempt at a pun:--"Boileau's Pegasus has all his paces; the
Pegasus of Pope, like a _Kentish post-horse_, is always upon
the _Canterbury_."--"Remarks upon several Passages in the
Preliminaries to the _Dunciad_," 1729.

[206] Two parties arose in the literary republic, the _Theobaldians_
and the _Popeians_. The "Grub-street Journal," a kind of
literary gazette of some campaigns of the time, records the
skirmishes with tolerable neutrality, though with a strong
leaning in favour of the prevailing genius.

The _Popeians_ did not always do honour to their great leader;
and the _Theobaldians_ proved themselves, at times, worthy of
being engaged, had fate so ordered it, in the army of their
renowned enemy. When Young published his "Two Epistles to
Pope, on the Authors of the Age," there appeared "One Epistle
to Mr. A. Pope, in Answer to two of Dr. Young's." On this, a
Popeian defends his master from some extravagant accusations
in "The Grub-street Memoirs." He insists, as his first
principle, that all accusations against a man's character
without an attestor are presumed to be slanders and lies, and
in this case every gentleman, though "Knight of the Bathos,"
is merely a liar and scoundrel.

"You assure us he is not only a bad poet, but a stealer from
bad poets: if so, you have just cause to complain of invasion
of property. You assure us he is not even a versifier, but
steals the _sound_ of his verses; now, to _steal a sound_ is
as ingenious as to _paint an echo_. You cannot bear
_gentlemen_ should be treated as vermin and reptiles; now, to
be impartial, you were compared to _flying-fishes_,
_didappers_, _tortoises_, and _parrots_, &c., not vermin, but
curious and beautiful creatures"--alluding to the abuse, in
this "Epistle," on such authors as Atterbury, Arbuthnot,
Swift, the Duke of Buckingham, &c. The Popeian concludes:--

"After all, _your poem_, to comfort you, is more innocent than
the _Dunciad_; for in the one there's no man abused but is
very well pleased to be abused in such company; whereas in the
other there's no man so much as named, but is extremely
affronted to be ranked with such people as style each other
the _dullest of men_."

The publication of the _Dunciad_, however, drove the
_Theobaldians_ out of the field. Guerillas, such as the "One
Epistle," sometimes appeared, but their heroes struck and
skulked away. A _Theobaldian_, in an epigram, compared the
_Dunciad_ of Pope to the offspring of the celebrated Pope
Joan. The neatness of his wit is hardly blunted by a pun. He
who talks of Pope's "stealing a sound," seems to have
practised that invisible art himself, for the verse is musical
as Pope's.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE DUNCIAD.

"With rueful eyes thou view'st thy wretched race,
The child of guilt, and destined to disgrace.
Thus when famed Joan usurp'd the Pontiff's chair,
With terror she beheld her new-born heir:
Ill-starr'd, ill-favour'd into birth it came;
In vice begotten, and brought forth with shame!
In vain it breathes, a lewd abandon'd hope!
And calls in vain, the unhallow'd father--Pope!"

The answers to this epigram by the Popeians are too gross. The
"One Epistle" is attributed to James Moore Smyth, in alliance
with Welsted and other unfortunate heroes.

[207] The six Letters are preserved in Ruffhead's Appendix, No. 1.

A NARRATIVE

OF THE EXTRAORDINARY TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING THE PUBLICATION OF POPE'S LETTERS.

JOHNSON observes, that "one of the passages of POPE'S life which seems to deserve some inquiry, was the publication of his letters by CURLL, the rapacious bookseller."[208] Our great literary biographer has expended more research on this occasion than his usual penury of literary history allowed; and yet has only told the close of the strange transaction--the previous parts are more curious, and the whole cannot be separated. Joseph Warton has only transcribed Johnson's narrative. It is a piece of literary history of an uncommon complexion; and it is worth the pains of telling, if Pope, as I consider him to be, was the subtile weaver of a plot, whose texture had been close enough for any political conspiracy. It throws a strong light on the portrait I have touched of him. He conducted all his literary transactions with the arts of a Minister of State; and the genius which he wasted on this literary stratagem, in which he so completely succeeded, might have been perhaps sufficient to have organised rebellion.

It is well known that the origin of Pope's first letters given to the public, arose from the distresses of a cast-off mistress of one of his old friends (H. Cromwell),[209] who had given her the letters of Pope, which she knew how to value: these she afterwards sold to Curll, who preserved the originals in his shop, so that no suspicions could arise of their authenticity. This very collection is now deposited among Rawlinson's MSS. at the Bodleian.[210]

This single volume was successful; and when Pope, to do justice to the memory of Wycherley, which had been injured by a posthumous volume, printed some of their letters, Curll, who seemed now to consider that all he could touch was his own property, and that his little volume might serve as a foundation-stone, immediately announced _a new edition_ of it, with _Additions_, meaning to include the letters of Pope and Wycherley. Curll now became so fond of _Pope's Letters_, that he advertised for any: "no questions to be asked." Curll was willing to be credulous: having proved to the world he had some originals, he imagined these would sanction even spurious one. A man who, for a particular purpose, sought to be imposed on, easily obtained his wish: they translated letters of Voiture to Mademoiselle Rambouillet, and despatched them to the eager Bibliopolist to print, as Pope's to Miss Blount. He went on increasing his collection; and, skilful in catering for the literary taste of the town, now inflamed their appetite by dignifying it with "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence!"

But what were the feelings of Pope during these successive surreptitious editions? He had discovered that his genuine letters were liked; the grand experiment with the public had been made for him, while he was deprived of the profits; yet for he himself to publish his own letters, which I shall prove he had prepared, was a thing unheard of in the nation. All this was vexatious; and to stop the book-jobber and open the market for himself, was a point to be obtained.

While Curll was proceeding, wind and tide in his favour, a new and magnificent prospect burst upon him. A certain person, masked by the initials P. T., understanding Curll was preparing _a Life of Pope_, offered him "divers Memoirs gratuitously;" hinted that he was well known to Pope; but the poet had lately "treated him as a stranger." P. T. desires an answer from E. C. by the _Daily Advertiser_, which was complied with. There are passages in this letter which, I think, prove Pope to be the projector of it: his family is here said to be allied to Lord Downe's; his father is called a merchant. Pope could not bear the reproach of Lady Mary's line:--

Hard as thy heart, and as _thy birth obscure_.

He always hinted at noble relatives; but Tyers tells us, from the information of a relative, that "his father turns out, at last, to have been a linen-draper in the Strand:" therefore P. T. was at least telling a story which Pope had no objection should be repeated.

The second letter of P. T., for the first was designed only to break the ice, offers Curll "a large Collection of Letters from the early days of Pope to the year 1727." He gives an excellent notion of their value: "They will open very many scenes new to the world, and make the most authentic Life and Memoirs that could be." He desires they may be announced to the world immediately, in Curll's precious style, that he "might not appear himself to have set the whole thing a-foot, and afterwards he might plead he had only sent some letters to complete the Collection." He asks nothing, and the originals were offered to be deposited with Curll.

Curll, secure of this promised addition, but still craving for more and more, composed a magnificent announcement, which, with P. T.'s entire correspondence, he enclosed in a letter to Pope himself. The letters were now declared to be a "Critical, Philological, and Historical Correspondence."--His own letter is no bad specimen of his keen sense; but after what had so often passed, his impudence was equal to the better quality.

"SIR,--To convince you of my readiness to oblige you, the inclosed
is a demonstration. You have, as he says, disobliged a gentleman,
the initial letters of whose name are P. T. I have some other
papers in the same hand, relating to your _family_, which I will
show, if you desire a sight of them. Your letters to Mr. Cromwell
are out of print; and I intend to print them very beautifully, in
an octavo volume. I have more to say than is proper to write; and
if you will give me a meeting, I will wait on you with pleasure,
and close all differences between you and yours,

"E. CURLL."

Pope, surprised, as he pretends, at this address, consulted with his friends; everything evil was suggested against Curll. They conceived that his real design was "to get Pope to look over the former edition of his 'Letters to Cromwell,' and then to print it, as _revised_ by Mr. Pope; as he sent an _obscene book_ to a _Bishop_, and then advertised it as _corrected_ and _revised_ by him;" or perhaps to extort money from Pope for suppressing the MS. of P. T., and then publish it, saying P. T. had kept another copy. Pope thought proper to answer only by this public advertisement:--

"Whereas A. P. hath received a letter from E. C., bookseller, pretending that a person, the initials of whose name are P. T., hath offered the said E. C. to print a large Collection of Mr. P.'s letters, to which E. C. required an answer: A. P. having never had, nor intending to have, any private correspondence with the said E. C., gives it him in this manner. That he knows no such person as P. T.; that he believes he hath no such collection; and that he thinks the whole a forgery, and shall not trouble himself at all about it."

Curll replied, denying he had endeavoured to _correspond_ with Mr. Pope, and affirms that he had written to him by _direction_.

It is now the plot thickens. P. T. suddenly takes umbrage, accuses Curll of having "betrayed him to 'Squire Pope,' but you and he both shall soon be convinced it was no forgery. Since you would not comply with my proposal to advertise, I have printed them at my own expense." He offers the books to Curll for sale.

Curll on this has written a letter, which takes a full view of the entire transaction. He seems to have grown tired of what he calls "such jealous, groundless, and dark negotiations." P. T. now found it necessary to produce something more than a shadow--an agent appears, whom Curll considered to be a clergyman, who assumed the name of R. Smith. The first proposal was, that P. T.'s letters should be returned, that he might feel secure from all possibility of detection; so that P. T. terminates his part in this literary freemasonry as a nonentity.

Here Johnson's account begins.--"Curll said, that one evening a man in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's Epistolary Correspondence; that he asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorised to use his purchase to his own advantage." Smith, the clergyman, left him some copies, and promised more.

Curll now, in all the elation of possession, rolled his thunder in an advertisement still higher than ever.--"Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence regularly digested, from 1704 to 1734:" to lords, earls, baronets, doctors, ladies, &c., with their respective answers, and whose names glittered in the advertisement. The original MSS. were also announced to be seen at his house.

But at this moment Curll had not received many books, and no MSS. The advertisement produced the effect designed; it roused public notice, and it alarmed several in the House of Lords. Pope doubtless instigated his friends there. The Earl of Jersey moved, that to publish letters of Lords was a breach of privilege; and Curll was brought before the House.

This was an unexpected incident; and P. T. once more throws his dark shadow across the path of Curll to hearten him, had he wanted courage to face all the lords. P. T. writes to instruct him in his answers to their examination; but to take the utmost care to conceal P. T.; he assures him that the lords could not touch a hair of his head if he behaved firmly; that he should only answer their interrogatories by declaring he received the letters from different persons; that some were given, and some were bought. P. T. reminds one, on this occasion, of Junius's correspondence on a like threat with his publisher.

"Curll appeared at the bar," says Johnson, "and knowing himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverence. 'He has,' said Curll, 'a knack at versifying; but in prose I think myself a match for him.' When the Orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy." The fact, not mentioned by Johnson, is, that though Curll's flourishing advertisement had announced _letters written by lords_, when the volumes were examined not one written by a lord appeared.

The letter Curll wrote on the occasion to one of these dark familiars, the pretended clergyman, marks his spirit and sagacity. It contains a remarkable passage. Some readers will be curious to have the productions of so celebrated a personage, who appears to have exercised considerable talents.

_15th May, 1735._

"DEAR SIR,--I am just again going to the Lords to finish Pope. I
desire you to send me the _sheets_ to _perfect_ the first fifty
books, and likewise the _remaining three hundred books_; and pray
be at the Standard Tavern this evening, and I will pay you twenty
pounds more. My defence is right; I only told the lords I did not
know from whence the books came, and that my wife received them.
This was strict truth, and prevented all further inquiry. _The
lords declared they had been made Pope's tools._ I put myself on
this single point, and insisted, as there was not any Peer's
letter in the book, I had not been guilty of any breach of
privilege. I depend that the _books_ and the _imperfections_ will
be sent; and believe of P. T. what I hope he believes of me.

"For the Rev. Mr. SMITH."