Chapter LXI: Appendix (5)

There are those who will believe this, and those who will not. You, sir, know how far I am sincere, and whether my opinion, not only in the short work intended for publication, and in private letters which can never be published, has or has not been the same. I look upon this as the declining age of English poetry; no regard for others, no selfish feeling, can prevent me from seeing this, and expressing the truth. There can be no worse sign for the taste of the times than the depreciation of Pope. It would be better to receive for proof Mr. Cobbett's rough but strong attack upon Shakspeare and Milton, than to allow this smooth and "candid" undermining of the reputation of the most _perfect_ of our poets, and the purest of our moralists. Of his power in the _passions_, in description, in the mock heroic, I leave others to descant. I take him on his strong ground as an _ethical_ poet: in the former, none excel; in the mock heroic and the ethical, none equal him; and in my mind, the latter is the highest of all poetry, because it does that in _verse_, which the greatest of men have wished to accomplish in prose. If the essence of poetry must be a _lie_, throw it to the dogs, or banish it from your republic, as Plato would have done. He who can reconcile poetry with truth and wisdom, is the only true "_poet_" in its real sense, "the _maker_" "the _creator_,"--why must this mean the "liar," the "feigner," the "tale-teller?" A man may make and create better things than these.

I shall not presume to say that Pope is as high a poet as Shakspeare and Milton, though his enemy, Warton, places him immediately under them.[1] I would no more say this than I would assert in the mosque (once Saint Sophia's), that Socrates was a greater man than Mahomet. But if I say that he is very near them, it is no more than has been asserted of Burns, who is supposed

"To rival all but Shakspeare's name below."

[Footnote 1: If the opinions cited by Mr. Bowles, of Dr. Johnson _against_ Pope, are to be taken as decisive authority, they will also hold good against Gray, Milton, Swift, Thomson, and Dryden: in that case what becomes of Gray's poetical, and Milton's moral character? even of Milton's _poetical_ character, or, indeed, of _English_ poetry in general? for Johnson strips many a leaf from every laurel. Still Johnson's is the finest critical work extant, and can never be read without instruction and delight.]

I say nothing against this opinion. But of what "_order_," according to the poetical aristocracy, are Burns's poems? There are his _opus magnum_, "Tam O'Shanter," a _tale_; the Cotter's Saturday Night, a descriptive sketch; some others in the same style: the rest are songs. So much for the _rank_ of his _productions_; the _rank_ of _Burns_ is the very first of his art. Of Pope I have expressed my opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect which the present attempts at poetry have had upon our literature. If any great national or natural convulsion could or should overwhelm your country in such sort, as to sweep Great Britain from the kingdoms of the earth, and leave only that, after all, the most living of human things, a _dead language_, to be studied and read, and imitated by the wise of future and far generations, upon foreign shores; if your literature should become the learning of mankind, divested of party cabals, temporary fashions, and national pride and prejudice; an Englishman, anxious that the posterity of strangers should know that there had been such a thing as a British Epic and Tragedy, might wish for the preservation of Shakspeare and Milton; but the surviving world would snatch Pope from the wreck, and let the rest sink with the people. He is the moral poet of all civilisation; and as such, let us hope that he will one day be the national poet of mankind. He is the only poet that never shocks; the only poet whose _faultlessness_ has been made his reproach. Cast your eye over his productions; consider their extent, and contemplate their variety:--pastoral, passion, mock heroic, translation, satire, ethics,--all excellent, and often perfect. If his great charm be his _melody_, how comes it that foreigners adore him even in their diluted translations? But I have made this letter too long. Give my compliments to Mr. Bowles.

Yours ever, very truly,

BYRON.

_To John Murray, Esq_.

_Post Scriptum_.--Long as this letter has grown, I find it necessary to append a postscript; if possible, a short one. Mr. Bowles denies that he has accused Pope of "a sordid money-getting passion;" but, he adds, "if I had ever done so, I should be glad to find any testimony that, might show he was _not_ so." This testimony he may find to his heart's content in Spence and elsewhere. First, there is Martha Blount, who, Mr. Bowles charitably says, "probably thought he did not save enough for her, as legatee." Whatever she _thought_ upon this point, her words are in Pope's favour. Then there is Alderman Barber; see Spence's Anecdotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax when he proposed a pension; his behaviour to Craggs and to Addison upon like occasions, and his own two lines--

"And, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive;"

written when princes would have been proud to pension, and peers to promote him, and when the whole army of dunces were in array against him, and would have been but too happy to deprive him of this boast of independence. But there is something a little more serious in Mr. Bowles's declaration, that he "_would_ have spoken" of his "noble generosity to the outcast Richard Savage," and other instances of a compassionate and generous heart, "_had they occurred to his recollection when he wrote_." What! is it come to this? Does Mr. Bowles sit down to write a minute and laboured life and edition of a great poet? Does he anatomise his character, moral and poetical? Does he present us with his faults and with his foibles? Does he sneer at his feelings, and doubt of his sincerity? Does he unfold his vanity and duplicity? and then omit the good qualities which might, in part, have "covered this multitude of sins?" and then plead that "_they did not occur to his recollection_?" Is this the frame of mind and of memory with which the illustrious dead are to be approached? If Mr. Bowles, who must have had access to all the means of refreshing his memory, did not recollect these facts, he is unfit for his task; but if he _did_ recollect and omit them, I know not what he is fit for, but I know what would be fit for him. Is the plea of "not recollecting" such prominent facts to be admitted? Mr. Bowles has been at a public school, and as I have been publicly educated also, I can sympathise with his predilection. When we were in the third form even, had we pleaded on the Monday morning, that we had not brought up the Saturday's exercise, because "we had forgotten it," what would have been the reply? And is an excuse, which would not be pardoned to a schoolboy, to pass current in a matter which so nearly concerns the fame of the first poet of his age, if not of his country? If Mr. Bowles so readily forgets the virtues of others, why complain so grievously that others have a better memory for his own faults? They are but the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitted from his catalogue are essential to the justice due to a man.

Mr. Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of authorship. There is a plaintive dedication to Mr. Gifford, in which _he_ is made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterly. Mr. Southey, it seems, "the most able and eloquent writer in that Review," approves of Mr. Bowles's publication. Now it seems to me the more impartial, that notwithstanding that "the great writer of the Quarterly" entertains opinions opposite to the able article on Spence, nevertheless that essay was permitted to appear. Is a review to be devoted to the opinions of any _one_ man?

Must it not vary according to circumstances, and according to the subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must take the sweets and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so long a standing as Mr. Bowles might have become accustomed to such incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. I have been reviewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr. Bowles, and have had as pleasant things said, and some _as unpleasant_, as could well be pronounced. In the review of "The Fall of Jerusalem" it is stated, that I have devoted "my powers, &c. to the worst parts of Manicheism;" which, being interpreted, means that I worship the devil. Now, I have neither written a reply, nor complained to Gifford. I believe that I observed in a letter to you, that I thought "that the critic might have praised Milman without finding it necessary to abuse me;" but did I not add at the same time, or soon after, (a propos, of the note in the book of Travels,) that I would not, if it were even in my power, have a single line cancelled on my account in that nor in any other publication? Of course, I reserve to myself the privilege of response when necessary. Mr. Bowles seems in a whimsical state about the author of the article on Spence. You know very well that I am not in your confidence, nor in that of the conductor of the journal. The moment I saw that article, I was morally certain that I knew the author "by his style." You will tell me that I do _not know_ him: that is all as it should be; keep the secret, so shall I, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. He is not the person whom Mr. Bowles denounces. Mr. Bowles's extreme sensibility reminds me of a circumstance which occurred on board of a frigate in which I was a passenger and guest of the captain's for a considerable time. The surgeon on board, a very gentlemanly young man, and remarkably able in his profession, wore a _wig_. Upon this ornament he was extremely tenacious. As naval jests are sometimes a little rough, his brother officers made occasional allusions to this delicate appendage to the doctor's person. One day a young lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discussion, said, "Suppose now, doctor, I should take off your _hat_,"--"Sir," replied the doctor, "I shall talk no longer with you; you grow _scurrilous_." He would not even admit so near an approach as to the hat which protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches Mr. Bowles's laurels, even in his outside capacity of an _editor_, "they grow _scurrilous_." You say that you are about to prepare an edition of Pope; you cannot do better for your own credit as a publisher, nor for the redemption of Pope from Mr. Bowles, and of the public taste from rapid degeneracy.

OBSERVATIONS UPON "OBSERVATIONS"

A SECOND LETTER TO JOHN MURRAY, ESQ. ON THE REV. W.L. BOWLES'S STRICTURES ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF POPE.

* * * * *

_Now first published_.

* * * * *

Ravenna, March 25. 1821.

Dear Sir,

In the further "Observations" of Mr. Bowles, in rejoinder to the charges brought against his edition of Pope, it is to be regretted that he has lost his temper. Whatever the language of his antagonists may have been, I fear that his replies have afforded more pleasure to them than to the public. That Mr. Bowles should not be pleased is natural, whether right or wrong; but a temperate defence would have answered his purpose in the former case--and, in the latter, no defence, however violent, can tend to any thing but his discomfiture. I have read over this third pamphlet, which you have been so obliging as to send me, and shall venture a few observations, in addition to those upon the previous controversy.

Mr. Bowles sets out with repeating his "_confirmed conviction_," that "what he said of the moral part of Pope's character was, generally speaking, true; and that the principles of _poetical_ criticism which he has laid down are _invariable_ and _invulnerable_," &c.; and that he is the _more_ persuaded of this by the "_exaggerations_ of his opponents." This is all very well, and highly natural and sincere. Nobody ever expected that either Mr. Bowles, or any other author, would be convinced of human fallibility in their own persons. But it is nothing to the purpose--for it is not what Mr. Bowles thinks, but what is to be thought of Pope, that is the question. It is what he has asserted or insinuated against a name which is the patrimony of posterity, that is to be tried; and Mr. Bowles, as a party, can be no judge. The more _he_ is persuaded, the better for himself, if it give him any pleasure; but he can only persuade others by the proofs brought out in his defence.

After these prefatory remarks of "conviction," &c. Mr. Bowles proceeds to Mr. Gilchrist; whom he charges with "slang" and "slander," besides a small subsidiary indictment of "abuse, ignorance, malice," and so forth. Mr. Gilchrist has, indeed, shown some anger; but it is an honest indignation, which rises up in defence of the illustrious dead. It is a generous rage which interposes between our ashes and their disturbers. There appears also to have been some slight personal provocation. Mr. Gilchrist, with a chivalrous disdain of the fury of an incensed poet, put his name to a letter avowing the production of a former essay in defence of Pope, and consequently of an attack upon Mr. Bowles. Mr. Bowles appears to be angry with Mr. Gilchrist for four reasons:--firstly, because he wrote an article in "The London Magazine;" secondly, because he afterwards avowed it; thirdly, because he was the author of a still more extended article in "The Quarterly Review;" and, fourthly, because he was NOT the author of the said Quarterly article, and had the audacity to disown it--for no earthly reason but because he had NOT written it.

Mr. Bowles declares, that "he will not enter into a particular examination of the pamphlet," which by a _misnomer_ is called "Gilchrist's Answer to Bowles," when it should have been called "Gilchrist's Abuse of Bowles." On this error in the baptism of Mr. Gilchrist's pamphlet, it may be observed, that an answer may be abusive and yet no less an answer, though indisputably a temperate one might be the better of the two: but if _abuse_ is to cancel all pretensions to reply, what becomes of Mr. Bowles's answers to Mr. Gilchrist?

Mr. Bowles continues:--"But as Mr. Gilchrist derides my _peculiar sensitiveness to criticism_, before I show how _destitute of truth is this representation_, I will here explicitly declare the only grounds," &c. &c. &c.--Mr. Bowles's sensibility in denying his "sensitiveness to criticism" proves, perhaps, too much. But if he has been so charged, and truly--what then? There is no moral turpitude in such acuteness of feeling: it has been, and may be, combined with many good and great qualities. Is Mr. Bowles a poet, or is he not? If he be, he must, from his very essence, be sensitive to criticism; and even if he be not, he need not be ashamed of the common repugnance to being attacked. All that is to be wished is, that he had considered how disagreeable a thing it is, before he assailed the greatest moral poet of any age, or in any language.

Pope himself "sleeps well,"--nothing can touch him further; but those who love the honour of their country, the perfection of her literature, the glory of her language--are not to be expected to permit an atom of his dust to be stirred in his tomb, or a leaf to be stripped from the laurel which grows over it.

Mr. Bowles assigns several reasons why and when "an author is justified in appealing to every _upright_ and _honourable_ mind in the kingdom." If Mr. Bowles limits the perusal of his defence to the "upright and honourable" only, I greatly fear that it will not be extensively circulated. I should rather hope that some of the downright and dishonest will read and be converted, or convicted. But the whole of his reasoning is here superfluous--"_an author is justified in appealing_," &c. when and why he pleases. Let him make out a tolerable case, and few of his readers will quarrel with his motives.

Mr. Bowles "will now plainly set before the literary public all the circumstances which have led to _his name_ and Mr. Gilchrist's being brought together," &c. Courtesy requires, in speaking of others and ourselves, that we should place the name of the former first--and not "_Ego_ et Rex meus." Mr. Bowles should have written "Mr. Gilchrist's name and his."

This point he wishes "particularly to address to those _most respectable characters_, who have the direction and management of the periodical critical press." That the press may be, in some instances, conducted by respectable characters is probable enough; but if they are so, there is no occasion to tell them of it; and if they are not, it is a base adulation. In either case, it looks like a kind of flattery, by which those gentry are not very likely to be softened; since it would be difficult to find two passages in fifteen pages more at variance, than Mr. Bowles's prose at the beginning of this pamphlet, and his verse at the end of it. In page 4. he speaks of "those most respectable characters who have the direction, &c. of the periodical press," and in page 10. we find--

"Ye _dark inquisitors_, a monk-like band,
Who o'er some shrinking victim-author stand,
A solemn, secret, and _vindictive brand,
Only_ terrific in your cowl and hood."

And so on--to "bloody law" and "red scourges," with other similar phrases, which may not be altogether agreeable to the above-mentioned "most respectable characters." Mr. Bowles goes on, "I concluded my observations in the last Pamphleteer with feelings _not unkind_ towards Mr. Gilchrist, or" [it should be _nor_] "to the author of the review of Spence, be he whom he might."--"I was in hopes, _as I have always been ready to admit any errors_ I might have been led into, or prejudice I might have entertained, that even Mr. Gilchrist might be disposed to a more _amicable_ mode of discussing what I had advanced in regard to Pope's moral character." As Major Sturgeon observes, "There never was a set of more _amicable_ officers--with the exception of a boxing-bout between Captain Shears and the Colonel."

A page and a half--nay only a page before--Mr. Bowles re-affirms his conviction, that "what he has said of Pope's moral character is _(generally speaking) true,_ and that his "poetical principles are _invariable_ and _invulnerable_." He has also published three pamphlets,--ay, four of the same tenour,--and yet, with this declaration and these declamations staring him and his adversaries in the face, he speaks of his "readiness to admit errors or to abandon prejudices!!!" His use of the word "amicable" reminds me of the Irish Institution (which I have somewhere heard or read of) called the "_Friendly_ Society," where the president always carried pistols in his pocket, so that when one amicable gentleman knocked down another, the difference might be adjusted on the spot, at the harmonious distance of twelve paces.

But Mr. Bowles "has since read a publication by him (Mr. Gilchrist) containing such vulgar slander, affecting private life and character," &c. &c.; and Mr. Gilchrist has also had the advantage of reading a publication by Mr. Bowles sufficiently imbued with personality; for one of the first and principal topics of reproach is that he is a _grocer_, that he has a "pipe in his mouth, ledger-book, green canisters, dingy shop-boy, half a hogshead of brown treacle," &c. Nay, the same delicate raillery is upon the very title-page. When controversy has once commenced upon this footing, as Dr. Johnson said to Dr. Percy, "Sir, there is an end of politeness--we are to be as rude as we please--Sir, you said that I was _short-sighted_." As a man's profession is generally no more in his own power than his person--both having been made out for him--it is hard that he should be reproached with either, and still more that an honest calling should be made a reproach. If there is any thing more honourable to Mr. Gilchrist than another it is, that being engaged in commerce he has had the taste, and found the leisure, to become so able a proficient in the higher literature of his own and other countries. Mr. Bowles, who will be proud to own Glover, Chatterton, Burns, and Bloomfleld for his peers, should hardly have quarrelled with Mr. Gilchrist for his critic. Mr. Gilchrist's station, however, which might conduct him to the highest civic honours, and to boundless wealth, has nothing to require apology; but even if it had, such a reproach was not very gracious on the part of a clergyman, nor graceful on that of a gentleman. The allusion to "_Christian_ criticism" is not particularly happy, especially where Mr. Gilchrist is accused of having "_set the first example of this mode in Europe_." What _Pagan_ criticism may have been we know but little; the names of Zoilus and Aristarchus survive, and the works of Aristotle, Longinus, and Quintilian: but of "Christian criticism" we have already had some specimens in the works of Philelphus, Poggius, Scaliger, Milton, Salmasius, the Cruscanti (versus Tasso), the French Academy (against the Cid), and the antagonists of Voltaire and of Pope--to say nothing of some articles in most of the reviews, since their earliest institution in the person of their respectable and still prolific parent, "The Monthly." Why, then, is Mr. Gilchrist to be singled out "as having set the first example?" A sole page of Milton or Salmasius contains more abuse--rank, rancorous, _unleavened_ abuse--than all that can be raked forth from the whole works of many recent critics. There are some, indeed, who still keep up the good old custom; but fewer English than foreign. It is a pity that Mr. Bowles cannot witness some of the Italian controversies, or become the subject of one. He would then look upon Mr. Gilchrist as a panegyrist.

In the long sentence quoted from the article in "The London Magazine," there is one coarse image, the justice of whose application I shall not pretend to determine:--"The pruriency with which his nose is laid to the ground" is an expression which, whether founded or not, might have been omitted. But the "anatomical minuteness" appears to me justified even by Mr. Bowles's own subsequent quotation. To the point:--"_Many facts_ tend to prove the peculiar susceptibility of his passions; nor can we implicitly believe that the connexion between him and Martha Blount was of a nature so pure and innocent as his panegyrist Ruffhead would have us believe," &c.--"At _no time_ could she have regarded _Pope personally_ with attachment," &c.--"But the most extraordinary circumstance in regard to his connexion with female society, was the strange mixture of _indecent_ and even _profane_ levity which his conduct and language often exhibited. The cause of this particularity may be sought, perhaps, in his consciousness of physical defect, which made him affect a character uncongenial, and a language opposite to the truth."--If this is not "minute moral anatomy," I should be glad to know what is! It is dissection in all its branches. I shall, however, hazard a remark or two upon this quotation.

To me it appears of no very great consequence whether Martha Blount was or was not Pope's mistress, though I could have wished him a better. She appears to have been a cold-hearted, interested, ignorant, disagreeable woman, upon whom the tenderness of Pope's heart in the desolation of his latter days was cast away, not knowing whither to turn as he drew towards his premature old age, childless and lonely,--like the needle which, approaching within a certain distance of the pole, becomes helpless and useless, and, ceasing to tremble, rusts. She seems to have been so totally unworthy of tenderness, that it is an additional proof of the kindness of Pope's heart to have been able to love such a being. But we must love something. I agree with Mr. B. that _she_ "could at no time have regarded _Pope personally_ with attachment," because she was incapable of attachment; but I deny that Pope could not be regarded with personal attachment by a worthier woman. It is not probable, indeed, that a woman would have fallen in love with him as he walked along the Mall, or in a box at the opera, nor from a balcony, nor in a ball-room; but in society he seems to have been as amiable as unassuming, and, with the greatest disadvantages of figure, his head and face were remarkably handsome, especially his eyes. He was adored by his friends--friends of the most opposite dispositions, ages, and talents--by the old and wayward Wycherley, by the cynical Swift, the rough Atterbury, the gentle Spence, the stern attorney-bishop Warburton, the virtuous Berkeley, and the "cankered Bolingbroke." Bolingbroke wept over him like a child; and Spence's description of his last moments is at least as edifying as the more ostentatious account of the deathbed of Addison. The soldier Peterborough and the poet Gay, the witty Congreve and the laughing Rowe, the eccentric Cromwell and the steady Bathurst, were all his intimates. The man who could conciliate so many men of the most opposite description, not one of whom but was a remarkable or a celebrated character, might well have pretended to all the attachment which a reasonable man would desire of an amiable woman.

Pope, in fact, wherever he got it, appears to have understood the sex well, Bolingbroke, "a judge of the subject," says Warton, thought his "Epistle on the Characters of Women" his "masterpiece." And even with respect to the grosser passion, which takes occasionally the name of "_romantic_," accordingly as the degree of sentiment elevates it above the definition of love by Buffon, it may be remarked, that it does not always depend upon personal appearance, even in a woman. Madame Cottin was a plain woman, and might have been virtuous, it may be presumed, without much interruption. Virtuous she was, and the consequences of this inveterate virtue were that two different admirers (one an elderly gentleman) killed themselves in despair (see Lady Morgan's "France"). I would not, however, recommend this rigour to plain women in general, in the hope of securing the glory of two suicides apiece. I believe that there are few men who, in the course of their observations on life, may not have perceived that it is not the greatest female beauty who forms the longest and the strongest passions.

But, apropos of Pope.--Voltaire tells us that the Marechal Luxembourg (who had precisely Pope's figure) was not only somewhat too amatory for a great man, but fortunate in his attachments. La Valiere, the passion of Louis XIV., had an unsightly defect. The Princess of Eboli, the mistress of Philip II. of Spain, and Maugiron, the minion of Henry III. of France, had each of them lost an eye; and the famous Latin epigram was written upon them, which has, I believe, been either translated or imitated by Goldsmith:--

"Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro,
Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos;
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorrori,
Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus."

Wilkes, with his ugliness, used to say that "he was but a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in England;" and this vaunt of his is said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most extraordinary passions upon record, Vanessa's and Stella's.

"Vanessa, aged scarce a score,
Sighs for a gown of _forty-four_."

He requited them bitterly; for he seems to have broken the heart of the one, and worn out that of the other; and he had his reward, for he died a solitary idiot in the hands of servants.

For my own part, I am of the opinion of Pausanias. that success in love depends upon Fortune. "They particularly renounce Celestial Venus, into whose temple, &c. &c. &c. I remember, too, to have seen a building in AEgina in which there is a statue of Fortune, holding a horn of Amalthea; and near her there is a winged Love. The meaning of this is, that the success of men in love affairs depends more on the assistance of Fortune than the charms of beauty. I am persuaded, too, with Pindar (to whose opinion I submit in other particulars), that Fortune is one of the Fates, and that in a certain respect she is more powerful than her sisters."--See Pausanias, Achaics, book vii. chap.26. p.246. Taylor's "Translation."

Grimm has a remark of the same kind on the different destinies of the younger Crebillon and Rousseau. The former writes a licentious novel, and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh Review of Grimm's correspondence, seven or eight years ago.

In regard "to the strange mixture of indecent, and sometimes _profane_ levity, which his conduct and language _often_ exhibited," and which so much shocks Mr. Bowles, I object to the indefinite word "_often_;" and in extenuation of the occasional occurrence of such language it is to be recollected, that it was less the tone of _Pope_, than the tone of the _time_. With the exception of the correspondence of Pope and his friends, not many private letters of the period have come down to us; but those, such as they are--a few scattered scraps from Farquhar and others--are more indecent and coarse than any thing in Pope's letters. The comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Cibber, &c., which naturally attempted to represent the manners and conversation of private life, are decisive upon this point; as are also some of Steele's papers, and even Addison's. We all know what the conversation of Sir R. Walpole, for seventeen years the prime minister of the country, was at his own table, and his excuse for his licentious language, viz. "that every body understood _that_, but few could talk rationally upon less common topics." The refinement of latter days,--which is perhaps the consequence of vice, which wishes to mask and soften itself, as much as of virtuous civilisation,--had not yet made sufficient progress. Even Johnson, in his "London," has two or three passages which cannot be read aloud, and Addison's "Drummer" some indelicate allusions.

The expression of Mr. Bowles, "his consciousness of physical defect," is not very clear. It may mean deformity or debility. If it alludes to Pope's deformity, it has been attempted to be shown that this was no insuperable objection to his being beloved. If it alludes to debility, as a consequence of Pope's peculiar conformation, I believe that it is a physical and known fact that hump-backed persons are of strong and vigorous passions. Several years ago, at Mr. Angelo's fencing rooms, when I was a pupil of him and of Mr. Jackson, who had the use of his rooms in Albany on the alternate days, I recollect a gentleman named B--ll--gh--t, remarkable for his strength, and the fineness of his figure. His skill was not inferior, for he could stand up to the great Captain Barclay himself, with the muffles on;--a task neither easy nor agreeable to a pugilistic aspirant. As the by-standers were one day admiring his athletic proportions, he remarked to us, that he had five brothers as tall and strong as himself, and that their _father and mother were both crooked, and of very small stature_;--I think he said, neither of them five feet high. It would not be difficult to adduce similar instances; but I abstain, because the subject is hardly refined enough for this immaculate period, this moral millenium of expurgated editions in books, manners, and royal trials of divorce.

This laudable delicacy--this crying-out elegance of the day--reminds me of a little circumstance which occurred when I was about eighteen years of age. There was then (and there may be still) a famous French "entremetteuse," who assisted young gentlemen in their youthful pastimes. We had been acquainted for some time, when something occurred in her line of business more than ordinary, and the refusal was offered to me (and doubtless to many others), probably because I was in cash at the moment, having taken up a decent sum from the Jews, and not having spent much above half of it. The adventure on the tapis, it seems, required some caution and circumspection. Whether my venerable friend doubted my politeness I cannot tell; but she sent me a letter couched in such English as a short residence of sixteen years in England had enabled her to acquire. After several precepts and instructions, the letter closed. But there was a postscript. It contained these words:--"Remember, Milor, that _delicaci ensure_ everi succes." The _delicacy_ of the day is exactly, in all its circumstances, like that of this respectable foreigner. "It ensures every _succes_," and is not a whit more moral than, and not half so honourable as, the coarser candour of our less polished ancestors.

To return to Mr. Bowles. "If what is here extracted can excite in the mind (I will not say of any 'layman', of any 'Christian', but) of any _human being_," &c. &c. Is not Mr. Gilchrist a "human being?" Mr. Bowles asks "whether in _attributing_ an article," &c. &c, "to the critic, he had _any reason_ for distinguishing him with that courtesy," &c. &c. But Mr. Bowles was wrong in "attributing the article" to Mr. Gilchrist at all; and would not have been right in calling him a dunce and a grocer, if he had written it.

Mr. Bowles is here "peremptorily called upon to speak of a circumstance which gives him the greatest pain,--the mention of a letter he received from the editor of 'The London Magazine.'" Mr. Bowles seems to have embroiled himself on all sides; whether by editing, or replying, or attributing, or quoting,--it has been an awkward affair for him.

Poor Scott is now no more. In the exercise of his vocation, he contrived at last to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest. But he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. I knew him personally, though slightly. Although several years my senior, we had been schoolfellows together at the "grammar-schule" (or, as the Aberdonians pronounce it, "_squeel_") of New Aberdeen. He did not behave to me quite handsomely in his capacity of editor a few years ago, but he was under no obligation to behave otherwise. The moment was too tempting for many friends and for all enemies. At a time when all my relations (save one) fell from me like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and my few friends became still fewer,--when the whole periodical press (I mean the daily and weekly, _not_ the _literary_ press) was let loose against me in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions (from their usual opposition) of "The Courier" and "The Examiner,"--the paper of which Scott had the direction was neither the last nor the least vituperative. Two years ago I met him at Venice, when he was bowed in griefs by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the bitterness of domestic privation. He was then earnest with me to return to England; and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a different opinion, he replied to me, 'that he and others had been greatly misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been taken to excite them.' Scott is no more, but there are more than one living who were present at this dialogue. He was a man of very considerable talents, and of great acquirements. He had made his way, as a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. Poor fellow! I recollect his joy at some appointment which he had obtained, or was to obtain, through Sir James Mackintosh, and which prevented the further extension (unless by a rapid run to Rome) of his travels in Italy. I little thought to what it would conduct him. Peace be with him!--and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as readily forgiven him, as the little injury which he had done to one who respected his talents, and regrets his loss.

I pass over Mr. Bowles's page of explanation, upon the correspondence between him and Mr. S----. It is of little importance in regard to Pope, and contains merely a re-contradiction of a contradiction of Mr. Gilchrist's. We now come to a point where Mr. Gilchrist has, certainly, rather exaggerated matters; and, of course, Mr. Bowles makes the most of it. Capital letters, like Kean's name, "large upon the bills," are made use of six or seven times to express his sense of the outrage. The charge is, indeed, very boldly made; but, like "Ranold of the Mist's" practical joke of putting the bread and cheese into a dead man's mouth, is, as Dugald Dalgetty says, "somewhat too wild and salvage, besides wasting the good victuals."

Mr. Gilchrist charges Mr. Bowles with "suggesting" that Pope "attempted" to commit "a rape" upon Lady M. Wortley Montague. There are two reasons why this could not be true. The first is, that like the chaste Letitia's prevention of the intended ravishment by Fireblood (in Jonathan Wild), it might have been impeded by a timely compliance. The second is, that however this might be, Pope was probably the less robust of the two; and (if the Lines on Sappho were really intended for this lady) the asserted consequences of her acquiescence in his wishes would have been a sufficient punishment. The passage which Mr. Bowles quotes, however, insinuates nothing of the kind: it merely charges her with encouragement, and him with wishing to profit by it,--a slight attempt at seduction, and no more. The phrase is, "a step beyond decorum." Any physical violence is so abhorrent to human nature, that it recoils in cold blood from the very idea. But, the seduction of a woman's mind as well as person is not, perhaps, the least heinous sin of the two in morality. Dr. Johnson commends a gentleman who having seduced a girl who said, "I am afraid we have done wrong," replied, "Yes, we _have_ done wrong,"--"for I would not _pervert_ her mind also." Othello would not "kill Desdemona's _soul_." Mr. Bowles exculpates himself from Mr. Gilchrist's charge; but it is by substituting another charge against Pope. "A step beyond decorum," has a soft sound, but what does it express? In all these cases, "ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute." Has not the Scripture something upon "the lusting after a woman" being no less criminal than the crime? "A step beyond decorum," in short, any step beyond the instep, is a step from a precipice to the lady who permits it. For the gentleman who makes it it is also rather hazardous if he does not succeed, and still more so if he does.

Mr. Bowles appeals to the "Christian reader!" upon this "_Gilchristian_ criticism." Is not this play upon such words "a step beyond decorum" in a clergyman? But I admit the temptation of a pun to be irresistible.

But "a hasty pamphlet was published, in which some personalities respecting Mr. Gilchrist were suffered to appear." If Mr. Bowles will write "hasty pamphlets," why is he so surprised on receiving short answers? The grand grievance to which he perpetually returns is a charge of "_hypochondriacism_," asserted or insinuated in the Quarterly. I cannot conceive a man in perfect health being much affected by such a charge, because his complexion and conduct must amply refute it. But were it true, to what does it amount?--to an impeachment of a liver complaint. "I will tell it to the world," exclaimed the learned Smelfungus.--"You had better," said I, "tell it to your physician." There is nothing dishonourable in such a disorder, which is more peculiarly the malady of students. It has been the complaint of the good, and the wise, and the witty, and even of the gay. Regnard, the author of the last French comedy after Moliere, was atrabilious; and Moliere himself, saturnine. Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Burns, were all more or less affected by it occasionally. It was the prelude to the more awful malady of Collins, Cowper, Swift, and Smart; but it by no means follows that a partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs. But even were it so,--

"Nor best, nor wisest, are exempt from thee;
Folly--Folly's only free." PENROSE.

If this be the criterion of exemption, Mr. Bowles's last two pamphlets form a better certificate of sanity than a physician's. Mendehlson and Bayle were at times so overcome with this depression, as to be obliged to recur to seeing "puppet-shows, and counting tiles upon the opposite houses," to divert themselves. Dr. Johnson at times "would have given a limb to recover his spirits." Mr. Bowles, who is (strange to say) fond of quoting Pope, may perhaps answer,--

"Go on, obliging creatures, let me see
All which disgrac'd my betters met in me."

But the charge, such as it is, neither disgraces them nor him. It is easily disproved if false; and even if proved true, has nothing in it to make a man so very indignant. Mr. Bowles himself appears to be a little ashamed of his "hasty pamphlet;" for he attempts to excuse it by the "great provocation;" that is to say, by Mr. Bowles's supposing that Mr. Gilchrist was the writer of the article in the Quarterly, which he was _not_.

"But, in extenuation, not only the _great_ provocation should be remembered, but it ought to be said, that orders were sent to the London booksellers, that the most direct personal passages should be _omitted entirely_," &c. This is what the proverb calls "breaking a head and giving a plaster;" but, in this instance, the plaster was not spread in time, and Mr. Gilchrist does not seem at present disposed to regard Mr. Bowles's courtesies like the rust of the spear of Achilles, which had such "skill in surgery."

But "Mr. Gilchrist has _no right_ to object, as the reader will see." I am a reader, a "gentle reader," and I see nothing of the kind. Were I in Mr. Gilchrist's place, I should object exceedingly to being abused; firstly, for what I _did_ write, and, secondly, for what I did _not_ write; merely because it is Mr. Bowles's will and pleasure to be as angry with me for having written in the London Magazine, as for not having written in the Quarterly Review.

"Mr. Gilchrist has had ample revenge; for he has, in his answer, said so and so," &c. &c. There is no great revenge in all this; and I presume that nobody either seeks or wishes it. What revenge? Mr. Bowles calls names, and he is answered. But Mr. Gilchrist and the Quarterly Reviewer are not poets, nor pretenders to poetry; therefore they can have no envy nor malice against Mr. Bowles: they have no acquaintance with Mr. Bowles, and can have no personal pique; they do not cross his path of life, nor he theirs. There is no political feud between them. What, then, can be the motive of their discussion of his deserts as an editor?--veneration for the genius of Pope, love for his memory, and regard for the classic glory of their country. Why would Mr. Bowles edite? Had he limited his honest endeavours to poetry, very little would have been said upon the subject, and nothing at all by his present antagonists.

Mr. Bowles calls the pamphlet a "mud-cart," and the writer a "scavenger." Afterward he asks, "Shall he fling dirt and receive _rose-water_?" This metaphor, by the way, is taken from Marmontel's Memoirs; who, lamenting to Chamfort the shedding of blood during the French revolution, was answered, "Do you think that revolutions are to be made with _rose-water_?"

For my own part, I presume that "rose-water" would be infinitely more graceful in the hands of Mr. Bowles than the substance which he has substituted for that delicate liquid. It would also more confound his adversary, supposing him a "scavenger." I remember, (and do you remember, reader, that it was in my earliest youth, "Consule Planco,")--on the morning of the great battle, (the second)--between Gulley and Gregson,--_Cribb_, who was matched against Horton for the second fight, on the same memorable day, awaking me (a lodger at the inn in the next room) by a loud remonstrance to the waiter against the abomination of his towels, which had been laid in _lavender_. Cribb was a coal-heaver--and was much more discomfited by this odoriferous effeminacy of fine linen, than by his adversary Horton, whom, he "finished in style," though with some reluctance; for I recollect that he said, "he disliked hurting him, he looked so pretty,"--Horton being a very fine fresh-coloured young man.

To return to "rose-water"--that is, to gentle means of rebuke. Does Mr. Bowles know how to revenge himself upon a hackney-coachman, when he has overcharged his fare? In case he should not, I will tell him. It is of little use to call him "a rascal, a scoundrel, a thief, an impostor, a blackguard, a villain, a raggamuffin, a--what you please;" all that he is used to--it is his mother-tongue, and probably his mother's. But look him steadily and quietly in the face, and say--"Upon my word, I think you are the _ugliest fellow_ I ever saw in my life," and he will instantly roll forth the brazen thunders of the charioteer Salmoneus as follows:--"_Hugly_! what the h--ll are _you_? _You_ a _gentleman_! Why ----!" So much easier it is to _provoke_--and therefore to vindicate--(for passion punishes him who _feels_ it more than those whom the passionate would excruciate)--by a few quiet words the aggressor, than by retorting violently. The "coals of fire" of the Scripture are _benefits_;--but they are not the less "coals of _fire_."

I pass over a page of quotation and reprobation--"Sin up to my song"--"Oh let my little bark"--"Arcades ambo"--"Writer in the Quarterly Review and himself"--"In-door avocations, indeed"--"King of Brentford"--"One nosegay"--"Perennial nosegay"--"Oh Juvenes,"--and the like.

Page 12. produces "more reasons,"--(the task ought not to have been difficult, for as yet there were none)--"to show why Mr. Bowles attributed the critique in the Quarterly to Octavius Gilchrist." All these "reasons" consist of _surmises_ of Mr. Bowles, upon the presumed character of his opponent. "He did not suppose there could exist a man in the kingdom so _impudent_, &c. &c. except Octavius Gilchrist."--"He did not think there was a man in the kingdom who would _pretend ignorance_, &c. &c. except Octavius Gilchrist."--"He did not conceive that one man in the kingdom would utter such stupid flippancy, &c. &c. except Octavius Gilchrist."--"He did not think there was one man in the kingdom who, &c. &c. could so utterly show his ignorance, _combined with conceit_, &c. as Octavius Gilchrist."--"He did not believe there was a man in the kingdom so perfect in Mr. Gilchrist's 'old lunes,'" &c. &c.--"He did not think the _mean mind_ of any one in the kingdom," &c. and so on; always beginning with "any one in the kingdom," and ending with "Octavius Gilchrist," like the word in a catch. I am not "in the kingdom," and have not been much in the kingdom since I was one and twenty, (about five years in the whole, since I was of age,) and have no desire to be in the kingdom again, whilst I breathe, nor to sleep there afterwards; and I regret nothing more than having ever been "in the kingdom" at all. But though no longer a man "in the kingdom," let me hope that when I have ceased to exist, it may be said, as was answered by the master of Clanronald's henchman, his day after the battle of Sheriff-Muir, when he was found watching his chief's body. He was asked, "who that was?" he replied--"it was a man yesterday." And in this capacity, "in or out of the kingdom," I must own that I participate in many of the objections urged by Mr. Gilchrist. I participate in his love of Pope, and in his not understanding, and occasionally finding fault with, the last editor of our last truly great poet.

One of the reproaches against Mr. Gilchrist is, that he is (it is sneeringly said) an F. S. _A_. If it will give Mr. Bowles any pleasure, I am not an F. S. A. but a Fellow of the Royal Society at his service, in case there should be any thing in that association also which may point a paragraph.

"There are some other reasons," but "the author is now _not_ unknown." Mr. Bowles has so totally exhausted himself upon Octavius Gilchrist, that he has not a word left for the real quarterer of his edition, although now "deterre."

The following page refers to a mysterious charge of "duplicity, in regard to the publication of Pope's letters." Till this charge is made in proper form, we have nothing to do with it: Mr. Gilchrist hints it--Mr. Bowles denies it; there it rests for the present. Mr. Bowles professes his dislike to "Pope's duplicity, _not_ to Pope"--a distinction apparently without a difference. However, I believe that I understand him. We have a great dislike to Mr. Bowles's edition of Pope, but _not_ to Mr. Bowles; nevertheless, he takes up the subject as warmly as if it was personal. With regard to the fact of "Pope's duplicity," it remains to be proved--like Mr. Bowles's benevolence towards his memory.

In page 14. we have a large assertion, that "the 'Eloisa' alone is sufficient to convict him of _gross licentiousness_." Thus, out it comes at last. Mr. Bowles _does_ accuse Pope of "_gross_ licentiousness," and grounds the charge upon a poem. The _licentiousness_ is a "grand peut-etre," according to the turn of the times being. The grossness I deny. On the contrary, I do believe that such a subject never was, nor ever could be, treated by any poet with so much delicacy, mingled with, at the same time, such true and intense passion. Is the "Atys" of Catullus _licentious_? No, nor even gross; and yet Catullus is often a coarse writer. The subject is nearly the same, except that Atys was the suicide of his manhood, and Abelard the victim.

The "licentiousness" of the story was _not_ Pope's,--it was a fact. All that it had of gross, he has softened;--all that it had of indelicate, he has purified;--all that it had of passionate, he has beautified;--all that it had of holy, he has hallowed. Mr. Campbell has admirably marked this in a few words (I quote from memory), in drawing the distinction between Pope and Dryden, and pointing out where Dryden was wanting "I fear," says he, "that had the subject of 'Eloisa' fallen into his (Dryden's) hands, that he would have given us but a _coarse_ draft of her passion." Never was the delicacy of Pope so much shown as in this poem. With the facts and the letters of "Eloisa" he has done what no other mind but that of the best and purest of poets could have accomplished with such materials. Ovid, Sappho (in the Ode called hers)--all that we have of ancient, all that we have of modern poetry, sinks into nothing compared with him in this production.

Let us hear no more of this trash about "licentiousness." Is not "Anacreon" taught in our schools?--translated, praised, and edited? Are not his Odes the amatory praises of a boy? Is not Sappho's Ode on a girl? Is not this sublime and (according to Longinus) fierce love for one of her own sex? And is not Phillips's translation of it in the mouths of all your women? And are the English schools or the English women the more corrupt for all this? When you have thrown the ancients into the fire it will be time to denounce the moderns. "Licentiousness!"--there is more real mischief and sapping licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian hymn, or a German comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was penned, or poured forth, since the rhapsodies of Orpheus. The sentimental anatomy of Rousseau and Mad. de S. are far more formidable than any quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles, by _reasoning_ upon the _passions_; whereas poetry is in itself passion, and does not systematise. It assails, but does not argue; it may be wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to Optimism.