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 "Characters of Men and Women" are the product of diligent
speculation upon human life; much labour has been bestowed upon
them, and Pope very seldom laboured in vain. That his excellence
may be properly estimated, I recommend a comparison of his
"Characters of Women" with Boileau's Satire; it will then be seen
with how much more perspicacity female nature is investigated, and
female excellence selected; and he surely is no mean writer to whom
Boileau should be found inferior. The "Characters of Men," however,
are written with more, if not with deeper, thought, and exhibit many
passages exquisitely beautiful. The "Gem and the Flower" will not
easily be equalled. In the women's part are some defects; the
character of Atossa is not so neatly finished as that of Clodio, and
some of the female characters may be found, perhaps, more frequently
among men; what is said of Philomede was true of Prior.
In the Epistles to Lord Bathurst and Lord Burlington, Dr. Warburton
has endeavoured to find a train of thought which was never in the
writer's head, and, to support his hypothesis, has printed that
first which was published last. In one the most valuable passage is
perhaps the Elegy on Good Sense, and the other the end of the Duke
of Buckingham.
The Epistle to Arbuthnot, now arbitrarily called the "Prologue to
the Satires," is a performance consisting, as it seems, of many
fragments wrought into one design, which, by this union of scattered
beauties, contains more striking paragraphs than could probably have
been brought together into an occasional work. As there is no
stronger motive to exertion than self-defence, no part has more
elegance, spirit, or dignity, than the poet's vindication of his own
character. The meanest passage is the satire upon Sporus.
Of the two poems which derived their names from the year, and which
are called the "Epilogue to the Satires," it was very justly
remarked by Savage that the second was in the whole more strongly
conceived, and more equally supported, but that it had no single
passages equal to the contention in the first for the dignity of
Vice and the celebration of the triumph of Corruption.
The "Imitations of Horace" seem to have been written as relaxations
of his genius. This employment became his favourite by its
facility; the plan was ready to his hand, and nothing was required
but to accommodate as he could the sentiments of an old author to
recent facts or familiar images; but what is easy is seldom
excellent. Such imitations cannot give pleasure to common readers;
the man of learning may be sometimes surprised and delighted by an
unexpected parallel, but the comparison requires knowledge of the
original, which will likewise often detect strained applications.
Between Roman images and English manners there will be an
irreconcilable dissimilitude, and the works will be generally
uncouth and parti-coloured, neither original nor translated, neither
ancient nor modern.
Pope had, in proportions very nicely adjusted to each other, all the
qualities that constitute genius. He had INTENTION, by which new
trains of events are formed and new scenes of imagery displayed, as
in the "Rape of the Lock," and by which extrinsic and adventitious
embellishments and illustrations are connected with a known subject,
as in the "Essay on Criticism." He had IMAGINATION, which strongly
impresses on the writer's mind, and enables him to convey to the
reader the various forms of nature, incidents of life, and energies
of passion, as in his "Eloisa," "Windsor Forest," and "Ethic
Epistles." He had JUDGMENT, which selects from life or Nature what
the present purpose requires, and by separating the essence of
things from its concomitants, often makes the representation more
powerful than the reality; and he had colours of language always
before him, ready to decorate his matter with every grace of elegant
expression, as when he accommodates his diction to the wonderful
multiplicity of Homer's sentiments and descriptions.
Poetical expression includes sound as well as meaning. "Music,"
says Dryden, "is inarticulate poetry;" among the excellences of
Pope, therefore, must be mentioned the melody of his metre. By
perusing the works of Dryden, he discovered the most perfect fabric
of English verse, and habituated himself to that only which he found
the best; in consequence of which restraint his poetry has been
censured as too uniformly musical, and as glutting the ear with
unvaried sweetness. I suspect this objection to be the cant of
those who judge by principles rather than perception, and who would
even themselves have less pleasure in his works if he had tried to
relieve attention by studied discords, or affected to break his
lines and vary his pauses. But though he was thus careful of his
versification, he did not oppress his powers with superfluous
rigour. He seems to have thought with Boileau that the practice of
writing might be refined till the difficulty should overbalance the
advantage. The construction of the language is not always strictly
grammatical; with those rhymes which prescription had conjoined he
contented himself, without regard to Swift's remonstrances, though
there was no striking consonance, nor was he very careful to vary
his terminations or to refuse admission, at a small distance, to the
same rhymes. To Swift's edict for the exclusion of alexandrines and
triplets he paid little regard; he admitted them, but, in the
opinion of Fenton, too rarely; he uses them more liberally in his
translation than his poems. He has a few double rhymes, and always,
I think, unsuccessfully, except once in the "Rape of the Lock."
Expletives he very early ejected from his verses, but he now and
then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of
the six first lines of the "Iliad" might lose two syllables with
very little diminution of the meaning, and sometimes, after all his
art and labour, one verse seems to be made for the sake of another.
In his latter productions the diction is sometimes vitiated by
French idioms, with which Bolingbroke had perhaps infected him.
I have been told that the couplet by which he declared his own ear
to be most gratified was this:-
"Lo, where Maeotis sleeps, and hardly flows
The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows."
But the reason of this preference I cannot discover.
It is remarked by Watts that there is scarcely a happy combination
of words, or a phrase poetically elegant in the English language,
which Pope has not inserted into his version of Homer. How he
obtained possession of so many beauties of speech it were desirable
to know. That he gleaned from authors, obscure as well as eminent,
what he thought brilliant or useful, and preserved it all in a
regular collection, is not unlikely. When, in his last years,
Hall's "Satires" were shown him, he wished that he had seen them
sooner. New sentiments and new images others may produce; but to
attempt any further improvement of versification will be dangerous.
Art and diligence have now done their best, and what shall be added
will be the effort of tedious toil and needless curiosity. After
all this, it is surely superfluous to answer the question that has
once been asked, Whether Pope was a poet, otherwise than by asking
in return, If Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To
circumscribe poetry by a definition will only show the narrowness of
the definer, though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not
easily be made. Let us look round upon the present time and back
upon the past; let us inquire to whom the voice of mankind has
decreed the wreath of poetry; let their productions be examined, and
their claims stated, and the pretensions of Pope will be no more
disputed. Had he given the world only his version, the name of poet
must have been allowed him: if the writer of the "Iliad" were to
class his successors he would assign a very high place to his
translator, without requiring any other evidence of genius.
The following letter, of which the original is in the hands of Lord
Hardwicke, was communicated to me by the kindness of Mr. Jodrell:-
"To MR. BRIDGES, at the Bishop of London's, at Fulham.
"SIR,--The favour of your letter, with your remarks, can never be
enough acknowledged, and the speed with which you discharged so
troublesome a task doubles the obligation.
"I must own you have pleased me very much by the commendations so
ill bestowed upon me; but I assure you, much more by the frankness
of your censure, which I ought to take the more kindly of the two,
as it is more advantage to a scribbler to be improved in his
judgment than to be smoothed in his vanity. The greater part of
those deviations from the Greek which you have observed I was led
into by Chapman and Hobbes; who are, it seems, as much celebrated
for their knowledge of the original as they are decried for the
badness of their translations. Chapman pretends to have restored
the genuine sense of the author from the mistakes of all former
explainers in several hundred places; and the Cambridge editors of
the large Homer, in Greek and Latin, attributed so much to Hobbes,
that they confess they have corrected the old Latin interpretation
very often by his version. For my part, I generally took the
author's meaning to be as you have explained it; yet their
authority, joined to the knowledge of my own imperfectness in the
language, overruled me. However, sir, you may be confident, I think
you in the right, because you happen to be of my opinion; for men
(let them say what they will) never approve any other's sense but as
it squares with their own. But you have made me much more proud of
and positive in my judgment, since it is strengthened by yours. I
think your criticisms which regard the expression very just, and
shall make my profit of them; to give you some proof that I am in
earnest, I will alter three verses on your bare objection, though I
have Mr. Dryden's example for each of them. And this, I hope, you
will account no small piece of obedience, from one who values the
authority of one true poet above that of twenty critics or
commentators. But, though I speak thus of commentators, I will
continue to read carefully all I can procure, to make up that way
for my own want of critical understanding in the original beauties
of Homer. Though the greatest of them are certainly those of
invention and design, which are not at all confined to the language;
for the distinguishing excellences of Homer are (by the consent of
the best critics of all nations), first in the manners (which
include all the speeches, as being no other than the representations
of each person's manners by his words): and then in that rapture
and fire, which carries you away with him, with that wonderful
force, that no man who has a true poetical spirit is master of
himself while he reads him. Homer makes you interested and
concerned before you are aware, all at once, where Virgil does it by
soft degrees. This, I believe, is what a translator of Homer ought
principally to imitate; and it is very hard for any translator to
come up to it, because the chief reason why all translations fall
short of their originals is, that the very constraint they are
obliged to renders them heavy and dispirited.
"The great beauty of Homer's language, as I take it, consists in
that noble simplicity which runs through all his works (and yet his
diction, contrary to what one would imagine consistent with
simplicity, is at the same time very copious). I don't know how I
have run into this pedantry in a letter, but I find I have said too
much, as well as spoken too inconsiderately; what farther thoughts I
have upon this subject I shall be glad to communicate to you (for my
own improvement) when we meet, which is a happiness I very earnestly
desire, as I do likewise some opportunity of proving how much I
think myself obliged to your friendship, and how truly I am, sir,
"Your most faithful humble servant,
"A. POPE."
The criticism upon Pope's Epitaphs, which was printed in "The
Universal Visitor," is placed here, being too minute and particular
to be inserted in the Life.
Every art is best taught by example. Nothing contributes more to
the cultivation of propriety than remarks on the works of those who
have most excelled. I shall therefore endeavour at this VISIT to
entertain the young students in poetry with an examination of Pope's
Epitaphs.
To define an epitaph is useless; every one knows that it is an
inscription on a tomb. An epitaph, therefore, implies no particular
character of writing, but may be composed in verse or prose. It is,
indeed, commonly panegyrical, because we are seldom distinguished
with a stone but by our friends; but it has no rule to restrain or
mollify it except this, that it ought not to be longer than common
beholders may be expected to have leisure and patience to peruse.
On CHARLES Earl of DORSET, in the church of Wythyham in Sussex.
Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muse's pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state;
Yet soft in nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Blest satirist! who touched the means so true,
As showed Vice had his hate and pity too.
Blest courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred kept his friendship and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected on his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or pests, deck the line.
The first distich of this epitaph contains a kind of information
which few would want, that the man for whom the tomb was erected
DIED. There are indeed some qualities worthy of the praise ascribed
to the dead, but none that were likely to exempt him from the lot of
man, or incline us much to wonder that he should die. What is meant
by "judge of nature" is not easy to say. Nature is not the object
of human judgment; for it is in vain to judge where we cannot alter.
If by nature is meant what is commonly called NATURE by the critics,
a just representation of things really existing, and actions really
performed, nature cannot be properly opposed to ART; nature being,
in this sense, only the best effect of ART.
The scourge of pride -
Of this couplet the second line is not what is intended, an
illustration of the former. PRIDE in the GREAT, is indeed well
enough connected with knaves in state, though KNAVES is a word
rather too ludicrous and light; but the mention of SANCTIFIED pride
will not lead the thoughts to FOPS IN LEARNING, but rather to some
species of tyranny or oppression, something more gloomy and more
formidable than foppery.
Yet soft his nature -
This is a high compliment, but was not first bestowed on Dorset by
Pope. The next verse is extremely beautiful.
Blest satirist! -
In this distich is another line of which Pope was not the author. I
do not mean to blame these imitations with much harshness; in long
performances they are scarcely to be avoided, and in shorter they
may be indulged, because the train of the composition may naturally
involve them, or the scantiness of the subject allow little choice.
However, what is borrowed is not to be enjoyed as our own, and it is
the business of critical justice to give every bird of the Muses his
proper feather.
Blest courtier! -
Whether a courtier can properly be commended for keeping his EASE
SACRED, may perhaps be disputable. To please king and country
without sacrificing friendship to any change of times was a very
uncommon instance of prudence or felicity, and deserved to be kept
separate from so poor a commendation as care of his ease. I wish
our poets would attend a little more accurately to the use of the
word SACRED, which surely should never be applied in a serious
composition, but where some reference may be made to a higher Being,
or where some duty is exacted or implied. A man may keep his
friendship sacred, because promises of friendship are very awful
ties; but methinks he cannot, but in a burlesque sense, be said to
keep his ease SACRED.
Blest peer! -
The blessing ascribed to the PEER has no connection with his
peerage; they might happen to any other man whose posterity were
likely to be regarded.
I know not whether this epitaph be worthy either of the writer or
the man entombed.
II.
On Sir WILLIAM TRUMBULL, one of the principal Secretaries of State
to King WILLIAM III., who, having resigned his place, died in his
retirement at Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1716.
A pleasing form, a firm, yet cautious mind,
Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resigned;
Honour unchanged, a principle profest.
Fixed to one side, but moderate to the rest;
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too,
Just to his prince, and to his country true;
Filled with the sense of age, the fire of youth,
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;
A generous faith, from superstition free;
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;
Such this man was; who new from earth removed
At length enjoys that liberty he loved.
In this epitaph, as in many others, there appears at the first view
a fault which I think scarcely any beauty can compensate. The name
is omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey some account of the
dead; and to what purpose is anything told of him whose name is
concealed? An epitaph, and a history of a nameless hero, are
equally absurd, since the virtues and qualities so recounted in
either are scattered at the mercy of fortune to be appropriated by
guess. The name, it is true, may be read upon the stone; but what
obligation has it to the poet, whose verses wander over the earth
and leave their subject behind them, and who is forced, like an
unskilful painter, to make his purpose known by adventitious help?
This epitaph is wholly without elevation, and contains nothing
striking or particular; but the poet is not to be blamed for the
defect of his subject. He said perhaps the best that could be said.
There are, however, some defects which were not made necessary by
the character in which he was employed. There is no opposition
between an HONEST COURTIER and a PATRIOT; for an HONEST, COURTIER
cannot but be a PATRIOT. It was unsuitable to the nicety required
in short compositions to close his verse with the word TOO; every
rhyme should be a word of emphasis: nor can this rule be safely
neglected, except where the length of the poem makes slight
inaccuracies excusable, or allows room for beauties sufficient to
overpower the effects of petty faults.
At the beginning of the seventh line the word FILLED is weak and
prosaic, having no particular adaptation to any of the words that
follow it. The thought in the last line is impertinent, having no
connection with the foregoing character, nor with the condition of
the man described. Had the epitaph been written on the poor
conspirator who died lately in prison, after a confinement of more
than forty years, without any crime proved against him, the
sentiment had been just and pathetical; but why should Trumbull be
congratulated upon his liberty who had never known restraint?
III.
On the Hon. SIMON HARCOURT, only son of the Lord Chancellor
HARCOURT, at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt in Oxfordshire, 1720.
To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near,
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear;
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh let thy once-loved friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own!
This epitaph is principally remarkable for the artful introduction
of the name, which is inserted with a peculiar felicity, to which
chance must concur with genius, which no man can hope to attain
twice, and which cannot be copied but with servile imitation. I
cannot but wish that, of this inscription, the two last lines had
been omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add
to the sense.
IV.
On JAMES CRAGGS, Esq., in Westminster Abbey.
JACOBVS CRAGS,
REGI MAGNAE BRITANNIAE A SECRETIS
ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBVS,
PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPVLI AMOR ET DELICIAE:
VIXIT TITLIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR
ANNOS HEV PAVCOS, XXXV.
OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.
Statesman, yet friend to truth; of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear!
Who broke no premise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
Praised, wept, and honoured by the Muse he loved.
The lines on Craggs were not originally intended for an epitaph; and
therefore some faults are to be imputed to the violence with which
they are torn from the poems that first contained them. We may,
however, observe some defects. There is a redundancy of words in
the first couplet: it is superfluous to tell of him, who was
SINCERE, TRUE, and FAITHFUL, that he was IN HONOUR CLEAR. There
seems to be an opposition intended in the fourth line, which is not
very obvious: where is the relation between the two positions, that
he GAINED NO TITLE and LEST NO FRIEND?
It may be proper here to remark the absurdity of joining in the same
inscription Latin and English or verse and prose. If either
language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no
reason can be given why part of the information should be given in
one tongue, and part in another on a tomb, more than in any other
place, or any other occasion; and to tell all that can be
conveniently told in verse, and then to call in the help of prose,
has always the appearance of a very artless expedient, or of an
attempt unaccomplished. Such an epitaph resembles the conversation
of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys
part by signs.
V.
Intended for Mr. ROWE, in Westminster Abbey.
Thy reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust,
And sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust;
Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes.
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest;
One grateful women to thy fame supplies
What a whole thankless land to his denies.
Of this inscription the chief fault is that it belongs less to Rowe,
for whom it was written, than to Dryden, who was buried near him;
and indeed gives very little information concerning either.
To wish PEACE TO THY SHADE is too mythological to be admitted into a
Christian temple: the ancient worship has infected almost all our
other compositions, and might therefore be contented to spare our
epitaphs. Let fiction, at least, cease with life, and let us be
serious over the grave.
VI.
On Mrs. CORBET, who died of a Cancer in her Breast.
Here rests a woman, good without pretence,
Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense;
No conquest she, but o'er herself, desired;
No arts essayed, but not to be admired.
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinced that Virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, so composed a mind,
So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined,
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried;
The saint sustained it, but the woman died.
I have always considered this as the most valuable of all Pope's
epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any
shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes,
though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every
wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the
languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs weary and
disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile, and the vain. Of
such a character, which the dull overlook and the gay despise, it
was fit that the value should be made known and the dignity
established. Domestic virtue, as it is exerted without great
occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted tenor,
required the genius of Pope to display it in such a manner as might
attract regard and enforce reverence. Who can forbear to lament
that this amiable woman has no name in the verses? If the
particular lines of this inscription be examined, it will appear
less faulty than the rest. There is scarce one line taken from
commonplaces, unless it be that in which ONLY VIRTUE is said to be
OUR OWN. I once heard a lady of great beauty and excellence object
to the fourth line that it contained an unnatural and incredible
panegyric. Of this let the ladies judge.
VII.
On the Monument of the Hon. ROBERT DIGBY, and of his Sister MARY,
erected by their Father the Lord DIGBY in the church of Sherborne in
Dorsetshire, 1727
Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth:
Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,
Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:
Of softest manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind:
Go, live! for heaven's eternal year is thine,
Go, and exalt thy mortal to divine.
And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom.
Pensive hast followed to the silent tomb,
Steered the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go, then, where only bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!
Yet take these tears, Mortality's relief,
And, till we share your joys, forgive our grief:
These little rites a stone, a verse receive.
'Tis all a father, all a friend can give!
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