Books: Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope

S >> Samuel Johnson >> Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope

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The pamphlet was written with little power of thought or language,
and, if suffered to remain without notice, would have been very soon
forgotten. Pope had now been enough acquainted with human life to
know, if his passion had not been too powerful for his
understanding, that, from a contention like his with Cibber, the
world seeks nothing but diversion, which is given at the expense of
the higher character. When Cibber lampooned Pope, curiosity was
excited. What Pope would say of Cibber nobody inquired, but in hope
that Pope's asperity might betray his pain and lessen his dignity.
He should therefore have suffered the pamphlet to flutter and die,
without confessing that it stung him. The dishonour of being shown
as Cibber's antagonist could never be compensated by the victory.
Cibber had nothing to lose. When Pope had exhausted all his
malignity upon him, he would rise in the esteem both of his friends
and his enemies. Silence only could have made him despicable; the
blow which did not appear to be felt would have been struck in vain.
But Pope's irascibility prevailed, and he resolved to tell the whole
English world that he was at war with Cibber; and, to show that he
thought him to common adversary, he prepared no common vengeance.
He published a new edition of the "Dunciad," in which he degraded
Theobald from his painful pre-eminence, and enthroned Cibber in his
stead. Unhappily the two heroes were of opposite characters, and
Pope was unwilling to lose what he had already written. He has
therefore depraved his poem by giving to Cibber the old books, the
old pedantry, and the sluggish pertinacity of Theobald.

Pope was ignorant enough of his own interest to make another change,
and introduced Osborne contending for a prize among the booksellers.
Osborne was a man entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any
disgrace but that of poverty. He told me, when he was doing that
which raised Pope's resentment, that he should be put into the
"Dunciad;" but he had the fate of Cassandra. I gave no credit to
his prediction, till in time I saw it accomplished. The shafts of
satire were directed equally in vain against Cibber and Osborne;
being repelled by the impenetrable impudence of one, and deadened by
the impassive dulness of the other. Pope confessed his own pain by
his anger; but he gave no pain to those who had provoked him. He
was able to hurt none but himself; by transferring the same ridicule
from one to another, he reduced himself to the insignificance of his
own magpie, who from his cage calls cuckold at a venture.

Cibber, according to his engagement, repaid the "Dunciad" with
another pamphlet, which, Pope said, "would be as good as a dose of
hartshorn to him;" but his tongue and his heart were at variance. I
have heard Mr. Richardson relate that he attended his father the
painter on a visit, when one of Cibber's pamphlets came into the
hands of Pope, who said, "These things are my diversion." They sat
by him while he perused it, and saw his features writhing with
anguish: and young Richardson said to his father, when they
returned, that he hoped to be preserved from such diversion as had
been that day the lot of Pope. From this time, finding his diseases
more oppressive, and his vital powers gradually declining, he no
longer strained his faculties with any original composition, nor
proposed any other employment for his remaining life than the
revisal and correction of his former works, in which he received
advice and assistance from Warburton, whom he appears to have
trusted and honoured in the highest degree. He laid aside his Epic
Poem, perhaps without much loss to mankind; for his hero was Brutus
the Trojan, who, according to a ridiculous fiction, established a
colony in Britain. The subject, therefore, was of the fabulous age;
the actors were a race upon whom imagination has been exhausted, and
attention wearied, and to whom the mind will not easily be recalled,
when it is invited in blank verse, which Pope had adopted with great
imprudence, and, I think, without due consideration of the nature of
our language. The sketch is, at least in part, preserved by
Ruffhead, by which it appears that Pope was thoughtless enough to
model the names of his heroes with terminations not consistent with
the time or country in which he places them. He lingered through
the next year, but perceived himself, as he expresses it, "going
down the hill." He had for at least five years been afflicted with
an asthma, and other disorders, which his physicians were unable to
relieve. Towards the end of his life he consulted Dr. Thomson, a
man who had, by large promises, and free censures of the common
practice of physic, forced himself up into sudden reputation.
Thomson declared his distemper to be a dropsy, and evacuated part of
the water by tincture of jalap, but confessed that his belly did not
subside. Thomson had many enemies, and Pope was persuaded to
dismiss him.

While he was yet capable of amusement and conversation, as he was
one day sitting in the air with Lord Bolingbroke and Lord Marchmont,
he saw his favourite Martha Blount at the bottom of the terrace, and
asked Lord Bolingbroke to go and hand her up. Bolingbroke, not
liking his errand, crossed his legs and sat still; but Lord
Marchmont, who was younger and less captious, waited on the lady,
who, when he came to her, asked, "What, is he not dead yet?" She is
said to have neglected him with shameful unkindness, in the latter
time of his decay; yet, of the little which he had to leave she had
a very great part. Their acquaintance began early; the life of each
was pictured on the other's mind; their conversation therefore was
endearing, for when they met, there was an immediate coalition of
congenial notions. Perhaps he considered her unwillingness to
approach the chamber of sickness as female weakness, or human
frailty; perhaps he was conscious to himself of peevishness and
impatience, or, though he was offended by her inattention, might yet
consider her merit as overbalancing her fault; and if he had
suffered his heart to be alienated from her, he could have found
nothing that might fill her place; he could have only shrunk within
himself. It was too late to transfer his confidence or fondness.

In May, 1744, his death was approaching. On the 6th he was all day
delirious, which he mentioned for days afterwards as a sufficient
humiliation of the vanity of man; he afterwards complained of seeing
things as through a curtain, and in false colours, and one day, its
the presence of Dodsley, asked what arm it was that came from the
wall. He said that his greatest inconvenience was inability to
think. Bolingbroke sometimes wept over him in this state of
helpless decay; and being told by Spence, that Pope, at the
intermission of his deliriousness, was always saying something kind
either of his present or absent friends, and that his humanity
seemed to have survived his understanding, answered, "It has so."
And added, "I never in my life knew a man that had so tender a heart
for his particular friends, or more general friendship for mankind."
At another time he said, "I have known Pope these thirty years, and
value myself more in his friendship than--" His grief then
suppressed his voice.

Pope expressed undoubting confidence of a future state. Being asked
by his friend Mr. Hooke, a papist, whether he would not die like his
father and mother, and whether a priest should not be called, he
answered, "I do not think it essential, but it will be very right;
and I thank you for putting me in mind of it." In the morning,
after the priest had given him the last sacraments, he said "There
is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship; and indeed
friendship itself is only a part of virtue." He died in the evening
of the 30th day of May 1744, so placidly, that the attendants did
not discern the exact time of his expiration. He was buried at
Twickenham, near his father and mother, where a monument has been
erected to him by his commentator, the Bishop of Gloucester.

He left the care of his papers to his executors; first to Lord
Bolingbroke, and, if he should not be living, to the Earl of
Marchmont, undoubtedly expecting them to be proud of the trust, and
eager to extend his fame. But let no man dream of influence beyond
his life. After a decent time Dodsley, the bookseller, went to
solicit preference as the publisher, and was told that the parcel
had not been yet inspected; and, whatever was the reason, the world
has been disappointed of what was "reserved for the next age." He
lost, indeed, the favour of Bolingbroke by a kind of posthumous
offence. The political pamphlet called "The Patriot King" had been
put into his hands that he might procure the impression of a very
few copies, to be distributed, according to the author's direction,
among his friends, and Pope assured him that no more had been
printed than were allowed; but, soon after his death, the printer
brought and resigned a complete edition of fifteen hundred copies,
which Pope had ordered him to print and retain in secret. He kept,
as was observed, his engagement to Pope better than Pope had kept it
to his friend; and nothing was known of the transaction till, upon
the death of his employer, he thought himself obliged to deliver the
books to the right owner, who, with great indignation, made a fire
in his yard, and delivered the whole impression to the flames.

Hitherto nothing had been done which was not naturally dictated by
resentment of violated faith; resentment more acrimonious, as the
violator had been more loved or more trusted. But here the anger
might have stopped; the injury was private, and there was little
danger from the example. Bolingbroke, however, was not yet
satisfied. His thirst of vengeance excited him to blast the memory
of the man over whom he had wept in his last struggles; and he
employed Mallet, another friend of Pope, to tell the tale to the
public, with all its aggravations. Warburton, whose heart was warm
with his legacy and tender by the recent separation, thought it
proper for him to interpose, and undertook, not indeed to vindicate
the action, for breach of trust has always something criminal, but
to extenuate it by an apology. Having advanced what cannot be
denied, that moral obliquity is made more or less excusable by the
motives that produce it, he inquires what evil purpose could have
induced Pope to break his promise. He could not delight his vanity
by usurping the work, which, though not sold in shops, had been
shown to a number more than sufficient to preserve the author's
claim; he could not gratify his avarice, for he could not sell his
plunder till Bolingbroke was dead; and even then, if the copy was
left to another, his fraud would be defeated, and if left to himself
would be useless.

Warburton therefore supposes, with great appearance of reason, that
the irregularity of his conduct proceeded wholly from his zeal for
Bolingbroke, who might perhaps have destroyed the pamphlet, which
Pope thought it his duty to preserve, even without its author's
approbation. To this apology an answer was written in "A letter to
the most impudent man living." He brought some reproach upon his
own memory by the petulant and contemptuous mention made in his will
of Mr. Allen and an affected repayment of his benefactions. Mrs.
Blount, as the known friend and favourite of Pope, had been invited
to the house of Allen, where she comported herself with such
indecent arrogance that she parted from Mrs. Allen in a state of
irreconcilable dislike, and the door was for ever barred against
her. This exclusion she resented with so much bitterness as to
refuse any legacy from Pope unless he left the world with a
disavowal of obligation to Allen. Having been long under her
dominion, now tottering in the decline of life, and unable to resist
the violence of her temper, or perhaps, with the prejudice of a
lover, persuaded that she had suffered improper treatment, he
complied with her demand, and polluted his will with female
resentment. Allen accepted the legacy, which he gave to the
hospital at Bath, observing that Pope was always a bad accountant,
and that if to 150 pounds he had put a cipher more he had come
nearer to the truth.

The person of Pope is well known not to have been formed by the
nicest model. He has, in his account of the "Little Club," compared
himself to a spider, and by another is described as protuberant
behind and before. He is said to have been beautiful in his
infancy, but he was of a constitution originally feeble and weak;
and, as bodies of a tender frame are easily distorted, his deformity
was probably in part the effect of his application. His stature was
so low, that to bring him to a level with common tables, it was
necessary to raise his seat. But his face was not displeasing, and
his eyes were animated and vivid. By natural deformity, or
accidental distortion, his vital functions were so much disordered,
that his life was "a long disease." His most frequent assailant was
the headache, which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam of
coffee, which he very frequently required.

Most of what can be told concerning his petty peculiarities was
communicated by a female domestic of the Earl of Oxford, who knew
him perhaps after the middle of life. He was then so weak as to
stand in perpetual need of female attendance; extremely sensible of
cold, so that he wore a kind of fur doublet, under a shirt of a very
coarse warm linen with fine sleeves. When he rose, he was invested
in bodice made of stiff canvas, being scarcely able to hold himself
erect till they were laced, and he then put on a flannel waistcoat.
One side was contracted. His legs were so slender, that he enlarged
their bulk with three pairs of stockings, which were drawn on and
off by the maid, for he was not able to dress or undress himself,
and neither went to bed nor rose without help. His weakness made it
very difficult for him to be clean. His hair had fallen almost all
away, and he used to dine sometimes with Lord Oxford, privately, in
a velvet cap. His dress of ceremony was black, with a tie-wig, and
a little sword. The indulgence and accommodation which his sickness
required, had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities
of a valetudinary man. He expected that everything should give way
to his ease or humour, as a child, whose parents will not hear her
cry, has an unresisted dominion in the nursery.

"C'est que l'enfant toujours est homme,
C'est que l'homme est toujours enfant."

When he wanted to sleep he "nodded in company," and once slumbered
at his own table while the Prince of Wales was talking of poetry.

The reputation which his friendship gave procured him many
invitations, but he was a very troublesome inmate. He brought no
servant, and had so many wants, that a numerous attendance was
scarcely able to supply them. Wherever he was, he left no room for
another, because he exacted the attention, and employed the activity
of the whole family. His errands were so frequent and frivolous,
that the footmen in time avoided and neglected him, and the Earl of
Oxford discharged some of his servants for their resolute refusal of
his messages. The maids, when they had neglected their business,
alleged that they had been employed by Mr. Pope. One of his
constant demands was of coffee in the night, and to the woman that
waited on him in his chamber he was very burthensome. But he was
careful to recompense her want of sleep, and Lord Oxford's servant
declared, that in the house where her business was to answer his
call, she would not ask for wages. He had another fault, easily
incident to those who, suffering much pain, think themselves
entitled to what pleasures they can snatch. He was too indulgent to
his appetite: he loved meat highly seasoned and of strong taste;
and, at the intervals of the table, amused himself with biscuits and
dry conserves. If he sat down to a variety of dishes, he would
oppress his stomach with repletion; and though he seemed angry when
a dram was offered him, did not forbear to drink it. His friends,
who knew the avenues to his heart, pampered him with presents of
luxury, which he did not suffer to stand neglected. The death of
great men is not always proportioned to the lustre of their lives.
Hannibal, says Juvenal, did not perish by the javelin or the sword,
the slaughters of Cannae were revenged by a ring. The death of Pope
was imputed by some of his friends to a silver saucepan, in which it
was his delight to eat potted lampreys. That he loved too well to
eat is certain; but that his sensuality shortened his life will not
be hastily concluded, when it is remembered that a conformation so
irregular lasted six-and-fifty years, notwithstanding such
pertinacious diligence of study and meditation. In all his
intercourse with mankind he had great delight in artifice, and
endeavoured to attain all his purposes by indirect and unsuspected
methods. "He hardly drank tea without a stratagem." If at the
house of friends he wanted any accommodation, he was not willing to
ask for it in plain terms, but would mention it remotely as
something convenient; though when it was procured, he soon made it
appear for whose sake it had been recommended. Thus he teased Lord
Orrery till he obtained a screen. He practised his arts on such
small occasions, that Lady Bolingbroke used to say, in a French
phrase, that "he played the politician about cabbages and turnips."
His unjustifiable impression of the "Patriot King," as it can be
attributed to no particular motive, must have proceeded from his
general habit of secrecy and cunning; he caught an opportunity of a
sly trick, and pleased himself with the thought of outwitting
Bolingbroke. In familiar or convivial conversation, it does not
appear that he excelled. He may be said to have resembled Dryden,
as being not one that was distinguished by vivacity in company. It
is remarkable that, so near his time, so much should be known of
what he has written, and so little of what he has said: traditional
memory retains no sallies of raillery, nor sentences of observation:
nothing either pointed or solid, either wise or merry. One
apophthegm only stands upon record. When an objection, raised
against his inscription for Shakespeare, was defended by the
authority of Patrick, he replied, horresco referens, that he "would
allow the publisher of a dictionary to know the meaning of a single
word, but not of two words put together."

He was fretful and easily displeased, and allowed himself to be
capriciously resentful. He would sometimes leave Lord Oxford
silently, no one could tell why, and was to be courted back by more
letters and messages than the footmen were willing to carry. The
table was indeed infested by Lady Mary Wortley, who was the friend
of Lady Oxford, and who, knowing his peevishness, could by no
entreaties be restrained from contradicting him, till their disputes
were sharpened to such asperity, that one or the other quitted the
house. He sometimes condescended to be jocular with servants or
inferiors; but by no merriment, either of others or his own, was he
ever seen excited to laughter.

Of his domestic character, frugality was a part eminently
remarkable. Having determined not to be dependent, he determined
not to be in want, and therefore wisely and magnanimously rejected
all temptations to expense unsuitable to his fortune. This general
care must be universally approved; but it sometimes appeared in
petty artifices of parsimony, such as the practice of writing his
compositions on the back of letters, as may be seen in the remaining
copy of the "Iliad," by which perhaps in five years five shillings
were saved; or in a niggardly reception of his friends, and
scantiness of entertainment, as, when he had two guests in his
house, he would set at supper a single pint upon the table; and
having himself taken two small glasses, would retire, and say,
"Gentlemen. I leave you to your wine." Yet he tells his friends
that "he has a heart for all, a house for all, and whatever they may
think, a fortune for all." He sometimes, however, made a splendid
dinner, and is said to have wanted no part of the skill or elegance
which such performances require. That this magnificence should be
often displayed, that obstinate prudence with which he conducted his
affairs would not permit; for his revenue, certain and casual,
amounted only to about eight hundred pounds a year, of which,
however, he declares himself able to assign one hundred to charity.
Of this fortune, which, as it arose from public approbation, was
very honourably obtained, his imagination seems to have been too
full: it would be hard to find a man so well entitled to notice by
his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money. In
his Letters and in his poems, his garden and his grotto, his
quincunx and his vines, or some hints of his opulence, are always to
be found. The great topic of his ridicule is poverty; the crimes
with which he reproaches his antagonists are their debts, their
habitation in the Mint, and their want of a dinner. He seems to be
of an opinion not very uncommon in the world, that to want money is
to want everything. Next to the pleasure of contemplating his
possessions, seems to be that of enumerating the men of high rank
with whom he was acquainted, and whose notice he loudly proclaims
not to have been obtained by any practices of meanness or servility;
a boast which was never denied to be true, and to which very few
poets have ever aspired. Pope never set genius to sale; he never
flattered those whom he did not love, nor praised those whom he did
not esteem. Savage, however, remarked that he began a little to
relax his dignity when he wrote a distich for "his Highness's dog."

His admiration of the great seems to have increased in the advance
of life. He passed over peers and statesmen to inscribe his "Iliad"
to Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the praise had been
complete, had his friend's virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was
chosen for so great an honour, it is not now possible to know; there
is no trace in literary history of any particular intimacy between
them. The name of Congreve appears in the Letters among those of
his other friends, but without any observable distinction or
consequence. To his latter works, however, he took care to annex
names dignified with titles, but was not very happy in his choice;
for, except Lord Bathurst, none of his noble friends were such as
that a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to
posterity; he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham,
Burlington, or Bolingbroke.

Of his social qualities, if an estimate be made from his Letters, an
opinion too favourable cannot easily be formed; they exhibit a
perpetual and unclouded effulgence of general benevolence, and
particular fondness. There is nothing but liberality, gratitude,
constancy, and tenderness. It has been so long said as to be
commonly believed, that the true characters of men may be found in
their letters, and that he who writes to his friend lays his heart
open before him. But the truth is that such were the simple
friendships of the Golden Age, and are now the friendships only of
children. Very few can boast of hearts which they dare lay open to
themselves, and of which, by whatever accident exposed, they do not
shun a distinct and continued view; and, certainly, who we hide from
ourselves we do not show to our friend. There is, indeed, no
transaction which offers strange temptations to fallacy and
sophistication than epistolary intercourse. In the eagerness of
conversation the first emotions of the mind often burst out before
they are considered; in the tumult of business, interest and passion
have their genuine effect; but a friendly letter is a calm and
deliberate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness of
solitude, and surely no man sits down to depreciate by design his
own character.

Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom can a man
so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by him whose
kindness he desires to gain or keep? Even in writing to the world
there is less constraint; the author is not confronted with his
reader, and takes his chance of approbation among the different
dispositions of mankind; but a letter is addressed to a single mind,
of which the prejudices and partialities are known; and must
therefore please, if not by favouring them, by forbearing to oppose
them. To charge those favourable representations, which men give of
their own minds, with the guilt of hypocritical falsehood, would
show more severity than knowledge. The writer commonly believes
himself. Almost every man's thoughts, while they are general, are
right; and most hearts are pure while temptation is away. It is
easy to awaken generous sentiments in privacy; to despise death when
there is no danger; to glow with benevolence when there is nothing
to be given. While such ideas are formed they are felt; and self-
love does not suspect the gleam of virtue to be the meteor of fancy.

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