Books: Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope
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Samuel Johnson >> Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope
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The "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" was undertaken at the desire of
Steele: in this the author is generally confessed to have
miscarried, yet he has miscarried only as compared with Dryden; for
he has far outgone other competitors. Dryden's plan is better
chosen; history will always take stronger hold of the attention than
fable: the passions excited by Dryden are the pleasures and pains
of real life, the scene of Pope is laid in imaginary existence; Pope
is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden with turbulent delight; Pope
hangs upon the ear, and Dryden finds the passes of the mind. Both
the odes want the essential constituent of metrical compositions,
the stated recurrence of settled numbers. It may be alleged that
Pindar is said by Horace to have written numeris lege solutis; but
as no such lax performances have been transmitted to us, the meaning
of that expression cannot be fixed; and perhaps the like return
might properly be made to a modern Pindarist as Mr. Cobb received
from Bentley, who, when he found his criticisms upon a Greek
exercise, which Cobb had presented, refuted one after another by
Pindar's authority, cried out at last, "Pindar was a bold fellow,
but thou art an impudent one."
If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the
first stanza consists of sounds well chosen indeed, but only sounds.
The second consists of hyperbolical commonplaces, easily to be
found, and perhaps without much difficulty to be as well expressed.
In the third, however, there are numbers, images, harmony, and
rigour, not unworthy the antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like
this--but every part cannot be the best. The next stanzas place and
detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, where neither
hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow can be found: the poet,
however, faithfully attends us; we have all that can be performed by
elegance of diction or sweetness of versification; but what can form
avail without better matter? The last stanza recurs again to
commonplaces. The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that of
Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end with the same fault;
the comparison of each is literal on one side and metaphorical on
the other. Poets do not always express their own thoughts: Pope,
with all this labour in the praise of music, was ignorant of its
principles and insensible of its effects.
One of his greatest, though of his earliest works, is the "Essay on
Criticism," which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed
him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits
every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic
composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness
of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression.
I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this
piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights
himself with observing that such powers may be soon attained, cannot
but grieve to think that life was ever after at a stand.
To mention the particular beauties of the essay would be
unprofitably tedious: but I cannot forbear to observe that the
comparison of a student's progress in the sciences with the journey
of a traveller in the Alps is perhaps the best that English poetry
can show. A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble
the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view,
and display it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of
these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it. In didactic
poetry, of which the great purpose is instruction, a simile may be
praised which illustrates, though it does not ennoble; in heroics,
that may be admitted which ennobles, though it does not illustrate.
That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of
its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said to be a short
episode. To this antiquity was so attentive, that circumstances
were sometimes added, which, having no parallels, served only to
fill the imagination, and produced what Perrault ludicrously called
"comparisons with a long tail." In their similes the greatest
writers have sometimes failed; the ship-race, compared with the
chariot-race, is neither illustrated nor aggrandised; land and water
make all the difference: when Apollo, running after Daphne, is
likened to a greyhound chasing a hare, there is nothing gained; the
ideas of pursuit and flight are too plain to be made plainer; and a
god and the daughter of a god are not represented much to their
advantage by a hare and dog. The simile of the Alps has no useless
parts, yet affords a striking picture by itself; it makes the
foregoing position better understood, and enables it to take faster
hold on the attention; it assists the apprehension and elevates the
fancy. Let me likewise dwell a little on the celebrated paragraph
in which it is directed that "the sound should seem an echo to the
sense;" a precept which Pope is allowed to have observed beyond any
other English poet.
This notion of representative metre, and the desire of discovering
frequent adaptations of the sound to the sense, have produced, in my
opinion, many wild conceits and imaginary beauties. All that can
furnish this representation are the sounds of the words considered
singly and the time in which they are pronounced. Every language
has some words framed to exhibit the noises which they express, as
THUMP, RATTLE, GROWL, HISS. These, however, are but few, and the
poet cannot make them more, nor can they be of any use but when
sound is to be mentioned. The time of pronunciation was in the
dactylic measures of the learned languages capable of considerable
variety; but that variety could be accommodated only to motion or
duration, and different degrees of motion were perhaps expressed by
verses rapid or slow, without much attention of the writer, when the
image had full possession of his fancy: but our language having
little flexibility, our verses can differ very little in their
cadence. The fancied resemblances, I fear, arise sometimes merely
from the ambiguity of words; there is supposed to be some relation
between a SOFT line and SOFT couch, or between HEARD syllables and
HARD fortune. Motion, however, may be in some sort exemplified; and
yet it may be suspected that in such resemblances the mind often
governs the ear, and the sounds are estimated by their meaning. One
of their most successful attempts has been to describe the labour of
Sisyphus:-
"With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground."
Who does not perceive the stone to move slowly upward, and roll
violently back? But set the same numbers to another sense:-
"While many a merry tale, and many a song,
Cheered the rough road, we wished the rough road long.
The rough road, then, returning in a round,
Mocked our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground."
We have now surely lost much of the delay and much of the rapidity.
But, to show how little the greatest master of numbers can fix the
principles of representative harmony, it will be sufficient to
remark that the poet who tells us that -
"When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main;"
when he had enjoyed for about thirty years the praise of Camilla's
lightness of foot, he tried another experiment upon SOUND and TIME,
and produced this memorable triplet:-
"Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine."
Here are the swiftness of the rapid race, and the march of slow-
paced majesty, exhibited by the same poet in the same sequence of
syllables, except that the exact prosodist will find the line of
SWIFTNESS by one time longer than that of TARDINESS. Beauties of
this kind are commonly fancied, and, when real, are technical and
nugatory, not to he rejected and not to be solicited.
To the praises which have been accumulated on the "Rape of the Look"
by readers of every class, from the critic to the waiting-maid, it
is difficult to make any addition. Of that which is universally
allowed to be the most attractive of all ludicrous compositions, let
it rather be now inquired from what sources the power of pleasing is
derived.
Dr. Warburton, who excelled in critical perspicacity, has remarked
that the preternatural agents are very happily adapted to the
purposes of the poem. The heathen deities can no longer gain
attention; we should have turned away from a contest between Venus
and Diana. The employment of allegorical persons always excites
conviction of its own absurdity; they may produce effects, but
cannot conduct actions; when the phantom is put in motion it
dissolves; thus Discord may raise a mutiny, but Discord cannot
conduct a march nor besiege a town. Pope brought in view a new race
of beings, with powers and passions proportionate to their
operation. The Sylphs and Gnomes act at the toilet and the tea-
table what more terrific and more powerful phantoms perform on the
stormy ocean or the field of battle: they give their proper help
and do their proper mischief. Pope is said, by an objector, not to
have been the inventor of this petty notion, a charge which might
with more justice have been brought against the author of the
"Iliad," who doubtless adopted the religious system of his country;
for what is there but the names of his agents which Pope has not
invented? Has he not assigned them characters and operations never
heard of before? Has he not, at least, given them their first
poetical existence? If this is not sufficient to denominate his
work original, nothing original ever can be written.
In this work are exhibited in a very high degree the two most
engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and
familiar things are made new. A race of aerial people never heard
of before is presented to us in a manner so clear and easy that the
reader seeks for no further information, but immediately mingles
with his new acquaintance, adopts their interests, and attends their
pursuits, loves a Sylph, and detests a Gnome. That familiar things
are made new every paragraph will prove. The subject of the poem is
an event below the common incidents of common life; nothing real is
introduced that is not seen so often as to be no longer regarded;
yet the whole detail of a female day is here brought before us,
invested with so much art of decoration that, though nothing is
disguised, everything is striking, and we feel all the appetite of
curiosity for that from which we have a thousand times turned
fastidiously away.
The purpose of the poet is, as he tells us, to laugh at "the little
unguarded follies of the female sex." It is therefore without
justice that Dennis charges the "Rape of the Lock" with the want of
a moral, and for that reason sets it below the "Lutrin," which
exposes the pride and discord of the clergy. Perhaps neither Pope
nor Boileau has made the world much better than he found it; but if
they had both succeeded, it were easy to tell who would have
deserved most from public gratitude. The freaks, and humours, and
spleen, and vanity of women as they embroil families in discord, and
fill houses with disquiet, do more to obstruct the happiness of life
in a year than the ambition of the clergy in many centuries. It has
been well observed that the misery of man proceeds not from any
single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexatious
continually repeated. It is remarked by Dennis, likewise, that the
machinery is superfluous; that, by all the bustle of preternatural
operation, the main event is neither hastened nor retarded. To this
charge an efficacious answer is not easily made. The Sylphs cannot
be said to help or oppose; and it must be allowed to imply some want
of art that their power has not been sufficiently intermingled with
the action. Other parts may likewise be charged with want of
connection--the game at ombre might be spared; but if the lady had
lost her hair while she was intent upon her cards it might have been
inferred that those who are too fond of play will be in danger of
neglecting more important interests. Those, perhaps, are faults,
but what are such faults to so much excellence!
The Epistle of "Eloise to Abelard" is one of the most happy
productions of human wit; the subject is so judiciously chosen that
it would be difficult in turning over the annals of the world to
find another which so many circumstances concur to recommend. We
regularly interest ourselves most in the fortune of those who most
deserve our notice. Abelard and Eloise were conspicuous in their
days for eminence of merit. The heart naturally loves truth. The
adventures and misfortunes of this illustrious pair are known from
undisputed history. Their fate does not leave the mind in hopeless
dejection, for they both found quiet and consolation in retirement
and piety. So new and so affecting is their story that it
supersedes invention, and imagination ranges at full liberty without
straggling into scenes of fable. The story thus skilfully adopted
has been diligently improved. Pope has left nothing behind him
which seems more the effect of studious perseverance and laborious
revisal. Here is particularly observable the curiosa felicitas, a
fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here is no crudeness of
sense nor asperity of language. The sources from which sentiments
which have so much vigour and efficacy have been drawn are shown to
be the mystic writers by the learned author of the "Essays on the
Life and Writings of Pope," a book which teaches how the brow of
Criticism may be smoothed, and how she may be enabled, with all her
severity, to attract and to delight.
The train of my disquisition has now conducted me to that poetical
wonder, the translation of the "Iliad," a performance which no age
or nation can pretend to equal. To the Greeks translation was
almost unknown; it was totally unknown to the inhabitants of Greece.
They had no recourse to the barbarians for poetical beauties, but
sought for everything in Homer, where, indeed, there is but little
which they might not find. The Italians have been very diligent
translators, but I can hear of no version, unless, perhaps,
Anguillara's "Ovid" may be excepted, which is read with eagerness.
The "Iliad" of Salvini every reader may discover to be punctiliously
exact; but it seems to be the work of a linguist skilfully pedantic;
and his countrymen, the proper judges of its power to please, reject
it with disgust. Their predecessors, the Romans, have left some
specimens of translation behind them, and that employment must have
had some credit in which Tully and Germanicus engaged; but unless we
suppose, what is perhaps true, that the plays of Terence were
versions of Menander, nothing translated seems ever to have risen to
high reputation. The French in the meridian hour of their learning
were very laudably industrious to enrich their own language with the
wisdom of the ancients; but found themselves reduced by whatever
necessity to turn the Greek and Roman poetry into prose. Whoever
could read an author could translate him. From such rivals little
can be feared.
The chief help of Pope in this audacious undertaking was drawn from
the versions of Dryden. Virgil had borrowed much of his imagery
from Homer; and part of the debt was now paid by his translator.
Pope searched the pages of Dryden for happy combinations of heroic
diction, but it will not be denied that he added much to what he
found. He cultivated our language with so much diligence and art,
that he has left in his "Homer" a treasure of poetical elegances to
posterity. His version may be said to have tuned the English
tongue; for since its appearance no writer, however deficient in
other powers, has wanted melody. Such a series of lines, so
elaborately corrected, and so sweetly modulated, took possession of
the public ear; the vulgar was enamoured of the poem, and the
learned wondered at the translation. But in the most general
applause discordant voices will always be heard. It has been
objected by some who wish to be numbered among the sons of learning
that Pope's version of Homer is not Homerical; that it exhibits no
resemblance of the original and characteristic manner of the Father
of Poetry, as it wants his artless grandeur, his unaffected majesty.
This cannot be totally denied; but it must be remembered that
necessitas quod cogit defendit; that may be lawfully done which
cannot be forborne. Time and place will always enforce regard. In
estimating this translation, consideration must be had of the nature
of our language, the form of our metre, and, above all, of the
change which two thousand years have made in the modes of life and
the habits of thought. Virgil wrote in a language of the same
general fabric with that of Homer, in verses of the same measure,
and in an age nearer to Homer's time by eighteen hundred years; yet
he found even then the state of the world so much altered, and the
demand for elegance so much increased, that mere nature would be
endured no longer; and, perhaps, in the multitude of borrowed
passages, very few can be shown which he has not embellished.
There is a time when nations, emerging from barbarity, and falling
into regular subordination, gain leisure to grow wise, and feel the
shame of ignorance and the craving pain of unsatisfied curiosity.
To this hunger of the mind plain sense is grateful; that which fills
the void removes uneasiness, and to be free from pain for a while is
pleasure; but repletion generates fastidiousness; a saturated
intellect soon becomes luxurious, and knowledge finds no willing
reception till it is recommended by artificial diction. Thus it
will be found, in the progress of learning, that in all nations the
first writers are simple, and that every age improves in elegance.
One refinement always makes way for another; and what was expedient
to Virgil was necessary to Pope. I suppose many readers of the
English "Iliad," when they have been touched with some unexpected
beauty of the lighter kind, have tried to enjoy it in the original,
where, alas! it was not to be found. Homer doubtless owes to his
translator many Ovidian graces not exactly suitable to his
character; but to have added can be no great crime, if nothing be
taken away. Elegance is surely to be desired, if it be not gained
at the expense of dignity. A hero would wish to be loved, as well
as to be reverenced. To a thousand cavils one answer is sufficient;
the purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would
destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside. Pope wrote for
his own age and his own nation: he knew that it was necessary to
colour the images and point the sentiments of his author; he
therefore made him graceful, but lost him some of his sublimity.
The copious notes with which the version is accompanied, and by
which it is recommended to many readers, though they were
undoubtedly written to swell the volumes, ought not to pass without
praise: commentaries which attract the reader by the pleasure of
perusal have not often appeared; the notes of others are read to
clear difficulties; those of Pope to vary entertainment. It has,
however, been objected, with sufficient reason, that there is in the
commentary too much of unseasonable levity and affected gaiety; that
too many appeals are made to the ladies, and the ease which is so
carefully preserved is sometimes the ease of a trifler. Every art
has its terms, and every kind of instruction its proper style; the
gravity of common critics may be tedious, but is less despicable
than childish merriment.
Of the "Odyssey" nothing remains to be observed; the same general
praise may be given to both translations, and a particular
examination of either would require a large volume. The notes were
written by Broome, who endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to imitate
his master.
Of the "Dunciad" the hint is confessedly taken from Dryden's "Mac
Flecknoe;" but the plan is so enlarged and diversified as justly to
claim the praise of an original, and affords the best specimen that
has yet appeared of personal satire ludicrously pompous. That the
design was moral, whatever the author might tell either his readers
or himself, I am not convinced. The first motive was the desire of
revenging the contempt with which Theobald had treated his
Shakspeare, and regaining the honour which he had lost, by crushing
his opponent. Theobald was not of bulk enough to fill a poem, and
therefore it was necessary to find other enemies with other names,
at whose expense he might divert the public.
In this design there was petulance and malignity enough; but I
cannot think it very criminal. An author places himself uncalled
before the tribunal of criticism, and solicits fame at the hazard of
disgrace. Dulness or deformity are not culpable in themselves, but
may be very justly reproached when they pretend to the honour of wit
or the influence of beauty. If bad writers were to pass without
reprehension, what should restrain them? impune diem consumpserit
ingens Telephus; and upon bad writers only will censure have much
effect. The satire which brought Theobald and Moore into contempt
dropped impotent from Bentley, like the javelin of Priam. All truth
is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful
when it rectifies error and improves judgment; he that refines the
public taste is a public benefactor. The beauties of this poem are
well known; its chief fault is the grossness of its images. Pope
and Swift had an unnatural delight in ideas physically impure, such
as every other tongue utters with unwillingness, and of which every
ear shrinks from the mention. But even this fault, offensive as it
is, may be forgiven for the excellence of other passages; such as
the formation and dissolution of Moore, the account of the
Traveller, the misfortune of the Florist, and the crowded thoughts
and stately numbers which dignify the concluding paragraph. The
alterations which have been made in the "Dunciad," not always for
the better, require that it should be published, as in the present
collection, with all its variations.
The "Essay on Man" was a work of great labour and long
consideration, but certainly not the happiest of Pope's
performances. The subject is perhaps not very proper for poetry;
and the poet was not sufficiently master of his subject;
metaphysical morality was to him a new study; he was proud of his
acquisitions, and, supposing himself master of great secrets, was in
haste to teach what he had not learned. Thus he tells us, in the
first Epistle, that from the nature of the Supreme Being may be
deduced an order of beings such as mankind, because infinite
excellence can do only what is best. He finds out that these beings
must be "somewhere;" and that "all the question is, whether man be
in a wrong place." Surely if, according to the poet's Leibnitzian
reasoning, we may infer that man ought to be, only because he is, we
may allow that his place is the right place, because he has it.
Supreme Wisdom is not less infallible in disposing than in creating.
But what is meant by SOMEWHERE, and PLACE, and WRONG PIECE, it had
been in vain to ask Pope, who probably had never asked himself.
Having exalted himself into the chair of wisdom, he tells us much
that every man knows, and much that he does not know himself; that
we see but little, and that the order of the universe is beyond our
comprehension; an opinion not very uncommon; and that there is a
chain of subordinate beings "from infinite to nothing," of which
himself and his readers are equally ignorant. But he gives us one
comfort, which without his help he supposes unattainable, in the
position "that though we are fools, yet God is wise."
This essay affords an egregious instance of the predominance of
genius, the dazzling splendour of imagery, and the seductive powers
of eloquence. Never was penury of knowledge and vulgarity of
sentiment so happily disguised. The reader feels his mind full,
though he learns nothing; and, when he meets it in its new array, no
longer knows the talk of his mother and his nurse. When these
wonder-working sounds sink into sense, and the doctrine of the
essay, disrobed of its ornaments, is left to the powers of its naked
excellence, what shall we discover? That we are, in comparison with
our Creator, very weak and ignorant; that we do not uphold the chain
of existence; and that we could not make one another with more skill
than we are made. We may learn yet more that the arts of human life
were copied from the instinctive operations of other animals; that
if the world be made for man, it may be said that man was made for
geese. To these profound principles of natural knowledge are added
some moral instructions equally new; that self-interest, well
understood, will produce social concord; that men are mutual gainers
by mutual benefits; that evil is sometimes balanced by good; that
human advantages are unstable and fallacious, of uncertain duration
and doubtful effect; that our true honour is not to have a great
part, but to act it well; that virtue only is our own; and that
happiness is always in our power. Surely a man of no very
comprehensive search may venture to say that he has heard all this
before; but it was never till now recommended by such a blaze of
embellishments, or such sweetness of melody. The vigorous
contraction of some thoughts, the luxuriant amplification of others,
the incidental illustrations, and sometimes the dignity, sometimes
the softness of the verses, enchain philosophy, suspend criticism,
and oppress judgment by overpowering pleasure. This is true of many
paragraphs; yet, if I had undertaken to exemplify Pope's felicity of
composition before a rigid critic, I should not select the "Essay on
Man;" for it contains more lines unsuccessfully laboured, more
harshness of diction, and more thoughts imperfectly expressed, more
levity without elegance, and more heaviness without strength, than
will easily be found in all his other works.
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