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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Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, eminent for his treatise of
logic, and his "Examen de Pyrrhonisme," and, however little known or
regarded here, was no mean antagonist. His mind was one of those in
which philosophy and piety are happily united. He was accustomed to
argument and disquisition, and perhaps was grown too desirous of
detecting faults, but his intentions were always right, his opinions
were solid, and his religion pure. His incessant vigilance for the
promotion of piety disposed him to look with distrust upon all
metaphysical systems of theology, and all schemes of virtue and
happiness purely rational; and therefore it was not long before he
was persuaded that the positions of Pope, as they terminated for the
most part in natural religion, were intended to draw mankind away
from revelation, and to represent the whole course of things as a
necessary concatenation of indissoluble fatality, and it is
undeniable that in many passages a religious eye may easily discover
expressions not very favourable to morals or to liberty.

About this time Warburton began to make his appearance in the first
ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind
fervid and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited inquiry,
with wonderful extent and variety of knowledge, which yet had not
oppressed his imagination nor clouded his perspicacity. To every
work he brought a memory full fraught, together with a fancy fertile
of original combinations and at once exerted the powers of the
scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. But his knowledge was too
multifarious to be always exact, and his pursuits were too eager to
be always cautions. His abilities gave him a haughty confidence,
which he disdained to conceal or mollify, and his impatience of
opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such
contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies,
and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the
cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperor's determination,
oderint dum metuant; he used no allurements of gentle language, but
wished to compel rather than persuade. His style is copious without
selection, and forcible without neatness. He took the words that
presented themselves. His diction is coarse and impure, and his
sentences are unmeasured. He had in the early part of his life
pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded
with the enemies of Pope. A letter was produced, when he had
perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, "Dryden, I
observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius,
Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty." And when Theobald
published Shakespeare, in opposition to Pope, the best notes were
supplied by Warburton. But the time was now come when Warburton was
to change his opinion, and Pope was to find a defender in him who
had contributed so much to the exaltation of his rival.

The arrogance of Warburton excited against him every artifice of
offence, and therefore it may be supposed that his union with Pope
was censured as hypocritical inconstancy, but surely to think
differently at different times of poetical merit may be easily
allowed. Such opinions are often admitted, and dismissed without
nice examination. Who is there that has not found reason for
changing his mind about questions of greater importance?

Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook, without solicitation,
to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, by freeing him from the
imputation of favouring fatality or rejecting revelation; and from
month to month continued a vindication of the "Essay on Man," in the
literary journal of that time called the "Republic of Letters."

Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of his own work, was
glad that the positions, of which he perceived himself not to know
the full meaning, could by any mode of interpretation be made to
mean well. How much he was pleased with his gratuitous defender the
following letter evidently shows:-

"April 11, 1739.

"Sir,--I have just received from Mr. R. two more of your letters.
It is in the greatest hurry imaginable that I write this; but I
cannot help thanking you in particular for your third letter, which
is so extremely clear, short, and full, that I think Mr. Crousaz
ought never to have another answer, and deserved not so good an one.
I can only say, you do him too much honour, and me too much right,
so odd as the expression seems; for you have made my system as clear
as I ought to have done, and could not. It is indeed the same
system as mine, but illustrated with a ray of your own, as they say
our natural body is the same still when it is glorified. I am sure
I like it better than I did before, and so will every man else. I
know I meant just what you explain; but I did not explain my own
meaning so well as you. You understand me as well as I do myself;
but you express me better than I could express myself. Pray accept
the sincerest acknowledgments. I cannot but wish these letters were
put together in one book, and intend (with your leave) to procure a
translation of part at least, or of all of them, into French; but I
shall not proceed a step without your consent and opinion," &c.

By this fond and eager acceptance of an exculpatory comment Pope
testified that, whatever might be the seeming or real import of the
principles which he had received from Bolingbroke, he had not
intentionally attacked religion; and Bolingbroke, if he meant to
make him, without his own consent, an instrument of mischief, found
him now engaged, with his eyes open, on the side of truth. It is
known that Bolingbroke concealed from Pope his real opinions. He
once discovered them to Mr. Hooke, who related them again to Pope,
and was told by him that he must have mistaken the meaning of what
he heard: and Bolingbroke, when Pope's uneasiness incited him to
desire an explanation, declared that Hooke had misunderstood him.

Bolingbroke hated Warburton, who had drawn his pupil from him; and a
little before Pope's death they had a dispute, from which they
parted with mutual aversion. From this time Pope lived in the
closest intimacy with his commentator, and amply rewarded his
kindness and his zeal, for he introduced him to Mr. Murray, by whose
interest he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and to Mr. Allen, who
gave him his niece and his estate, and by consequence a bishopric.
When he died, he left him the property of his works, a legacy which
may be reasonably estimated at four thousand pounds.

Pope's fondness for the "Essay on Man" appeared by his desire of its
propagation. Dobson, who had gained reputation by his version of
Prior's "Solomon," was employed by him to translate it into Latin
verse, and was for that purpose some time at Twickenham; but he left
his work, whatever was the reason, unfinished; and, by Benson's
invitation, undertook the longer task of "Paradise Lost." Pope then
desired his friend to find a scholar who should turn his essay into
Latin prose; but no such performance has ever appeared.

Pope lived at this time AMONG THE GREAT, with that reception and
respect to which his works entitled him, and which he had not
impaired by any private misconduct or factious partiality. Though
Bolingbroke was his friend, Walpole was not his enemy, but treated
him with so much consideration as, at his request, to solicit and
obtain from the French Minister an abbey for Mr. Southcot, whom he
considered himself as obliged to reward, by his exertion of his
interest, for the benefit which he had received from his attendance
in a long illness. It was said, that when the Court was at
Richmond, Queen Caroline had declared her intention to visit him.
This may have been only a careless effusion, thought on no more.
The report of such notice, however, was soon in many mouths; and, if
I do not forget or misapprehend Savage's account, Pope, pretending
to decline what was not yet offered, left his house for a time, not,
I suppose, for any other reason than lest he should be thought to
stay at home in expectation of an honour which would not be
conferred. He was therefore angry at Swift, who represents him as
"refusing the visits of a queen," because he knew that what had
never been offered had never been refused.

Beside the general system of morality, supposed to be contained in
the "Essay on Man," it was his intention to write distinct poems
upon the different duties or conditions of life, one of which is the
"Epistle to Lord Bathurst" (1733) on the "Use of Riches," a piece on
which he declared great labour to have been bestowed. Into this
poem some hints are historically thrown, and some known characters
are introduced, with others of which it is difficult to say how far
they are real or fictitious: but the praise of Kryle, the Man of
Ross, deserves particular examination, who, after a long and pompous
enumeration of his public works and private charities, is said to
have diffused all those blessings from five hundred a year. Wonders
are willingly told and willingly heard. The truth is, that Kyrle
was a man of known integrity and active benevolence, by whose
solicitation the wealthy were persuaded to pay contributions to his
charitable schemes. This influence he obtained by an example of
liberality exerted to the utmost extent of his power, and was thus
enabled to give more than he had. This account Mr. Victor received
from the minister of the place, and I have preserved it, that the
praise of a good man, being made more credible, may be more solid.
Narrations of romantic and impracticable virtue will be read with
wonder, but that which is unattainable is recommended in vain; that
good may be endeavoured it must be shown to be possible. This is
the only piece in which the author has given a hint of his religion,
by ridiculing the ceremony of burning the Pope, and by mentioning
with some indignation the inscription on the Monument.

When this poem was first published, the dialogue having no letters
of direction was perplexed and obscure. Pope seems to have written
with no very distinct idea, for he calls that an "Epistle to
Bathurst," in which Bathurst is introduced as speaking. He
afterwards (1734) inscribed to Lord Cobham his "Characters of Men,"
written with close attention to the operations of the mind and
modifications of life. In this poem he has endeavoured to establish
and exemplify his favourite theory of the RULING PASSION, by which
he means an original direction of desire to some particular object,
an innate affection which gives all action a determinate and
invariable tendency, and operates upon the whole system of life,
either openly, cut more secretly by the intervention of some
accidental or subordinate propension. Of any passion, thus innate
and irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted. Human
characters are by no means constant; men change by change of place,
of fortune, of acquaintance. He who is at one time a lover of
pleasure, is at another a lover of money. Those, indeed, who attain
any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit, for excellence is
not often gained upon easier terms. But to the particular species
of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or
predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some
early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited
ardour and emulation. It must at least be allowed that this ruling
passion, antecedent to reason and observation, must have an object
independent on human contrivance, for there can be no natural desire
of artificial good. No man, therefore, can be born, in the strict
acceptation, a lover of money, for he may be born where money does
not exist; nor can he be born in a moral sense a lover of his
country, for society politically regulated is a state
contradistinguished from a state of nature, and any attention to
that coalition of interests which makes the happiness of a country
is possible only to those whom inquiry and reflection have enabled
to comprehend it. This doctrine is in itself pernicious as well as
false; its tendency is to produce the belief of a kind of moral
predestination or over-ruling principle which cannot be resisted.
He that admits it is prepared to comply with every desire that
caprice or opportunity shall excite, and to flatter himself that he
submits only to the lawful dominion of nature in obeying the
resistless authority of his ruling passion.

Pope has formed his theory with so little skill that in the examples
by which he illustrates and confirms it he has confounded passions,
appetites, and habits. To the "Characters of Men" he added soon
after, in an epistle supposed to have been addressed to Martha
Blount, but which the last edition has taken from her, the
"Characters of Women." This poem, which was laboured with great
diligence and in the author's opinion with great success, was
neglected at its first publication, as the commentator supposes,
because the public was informed by an advertisement that it
contained no character drawn from the life, an assertion which Pope
probably did not expect nor wished to have been believed, and which
he soon gave his readers sufficient reason to distrust, by telling
them in a note that the work was imperfect because part of his
subject was vice too high to be yet exposed. The time, however,
soon came in which it was safe to display the Duchess of Marlborough
under the name of Atossa, and her character was inserted with no
great honour to the writer's gratitude.

He published from time to time (between 1730 and 1740) imitations of
different poems of Horace, generally with his name, and once, as was
suspected, without it. What he was upon moral principles ashamed to
own he ought to have suppressed. Of these pieces it is useless to
settle the dates, as they had seldom much relation to the times, and
perhaps had been long in his hands. This mode of imitation, in
which the ancients are familiarised by adapting their sentiments to
modern topics, by making Horace say of Shakespeare what he
originally said of Ennius, and accommodating his satires on
Pantolabus and Nomentanus to the flatterers and prodigals of our own
time, was first practised in the reign of Charles the Second, by
Oldham and Rochester, at least I remember no instances more ancient.
It is a kind of middle composition between translation and original
design, which pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable,
and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite
amusement, for he has carried it farther than any former poet. He
published likewise a revival, in smoother numbers, of Dr. Donne's
"Satires," which was recommended to him by the Duke of Shrewsbury
and the Earl of Oxford. They made no great impression on the
public. Pope seems to have known their imbecility and therefore
suppressed them while he was yet contending to rise in reputation,
but ventured them when he thought their deficiencies more likely to
be imputed to Donne than to himself.

The "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," which seems to be derived in its
first design from Boileau's Address a son Esprit, was published in
January, 1735, about a month before the death of him to whom it is
inscribed. It is to be regretted that either honour or pleasure
should have been missed by Arbuthnot, a man estimable for his
learning, amiable for his life, and venerable for his piety.
Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his
profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient
literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright
and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit, a
wit who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble
ardour of religious zeal. In this poem Pope seems to reckon with
the public. He vindicates himself from censures, and with dignity
rather than arrogance enforces his own claims to kindness and
respect. Into this poem are interwoven several paragraphs which had
been before printed, as a fragment, and among them the satirical
lines upon Addison, of which the last couplet has been twice
corrected. It was at first -

"Who would not smile if such a man there be?
Who would not laugh if Addison were he?"

Then -

"Who would not grieve if such a man there be?
Who would not laugh if Addison were he?"

At last it is -

"Who but must laugh if such a man there he?
Who would not weep if Atticus were he?"

He was at this time at open war with Lord Hervey, who had
distinguished himself as a steady adherent to the ministry, and
being offended with a contemptuous answer to one of his pamphlets,
had summoned Pulteney to a duel. Whether he or Pope made the first
attack perhaps cannot now be easily known. He had written an
invective against Pope, whom he calls, "Hard as thy heart, and as
thy birth obscure;" and hints that his father was a hatter. To this
Pope wrote a reply in verse and prose. The verses are in this poem,
and the prose, though it was never sent, is printed among his
letters; but to a cool reader of the present time exhibits nothing
but tedious malignity.

His last "Satires" of the general kind, were two Dialogues, named,
from the year in which they were published, "Seventeen hundred and
thirty-eight." In these poems many are praised and many reproached.
Pope was then entangled in the opposition, a follower of the Prince
of Wales, who dined at his house, and the friend of many who
obstructed and censured the conduct of the ministers. His political
partiality was too plainly shown; he forgot the prudence with which
he passed, in his earlier years, uninjured and unoffending, through
much more violent conflicts of faction. In the first Dialogue,
having an opportunity of praising Allen of Bath, he asked his leave
to mention him as a man not illustrious by any merit of his
ancestors, and called him in his verses "low-born Allen." Men are
seldom satisfied with praise introduced or followed by any mention
of defect. Allen seems not to have taken any pleasure in his
epithet, which was afterwards softened into "humble Allen." In the
second Dialogue he took some liberty with one of the Foxes among
others; which Fox in a reply to Lyttelton, took an opportunity of
repaying, by reproaching him with the friendship of a lampooner, who
scattered his ink without fear or decency, and against whom he hoped
the resentment of the Legislature would quickly be discharged.

About this time Paul Whitehead, a small poet, was summoned before
the Lords for a poem called "Manners," together with Dodsley, his
publisher. Whitehead, who hung loose upon society, skulked and
escaped, but Dodsley's shop and family made his appearance
necessary. He was, however, soon dismissed, and the whole process
was probably intended rather to intimidate Pope than to punish
Whitehead.

Pope never afterwards attempted to join the patriot with the poet,
nor drew his pen upon statesmen. That he desisted from his attempts
of reformation is imputed by his commentator to his despair of
prevailing over the corruption of the time. He was not likely to
have been ever of opinion that the dread of his satire would
countervail the love of power or of money; he pleased himself with
being important and formidable, and gratified sometimes his pride,
and sometimes his resentment, till at last he began to think he
should be more safe if he were less busy.

The "Memoirs of Scriblerus," published about this time, extend only
to the first book of a work projected in concert by Pope, Swift, and
Arbuthnot, who used to meet on the time of Queen Anne, and
denominated themselves the "Scriblerus Club." Their purpose was to
censure the abuses of learning by a fictitious life of an infatuated
scholar. They were dispersed; the design was never completed, and
Warburton laments its miscarriage as an event very disastrous to
polite letters. If the whole may be estimated by this specimen,
which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches
perhaps by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the
follies which the writer ridicules are so little practised that they
are not known; nor can the satire be understood but by the learned.
He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away. He
cures diseases that were never felt. For this reason this joint
production of three great writers has never obtained any notice from
mankind. It has been little read, or when read has been forgotten,
as no man could be wiser, better, or merrier, by remembering it.
The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its
general resemblance to "Don Quixote," there will be found in it
particular imitations of the "History of Mr. Ouffle."

Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as supplied him with hints
for his "Travels;" and with those the world might have been
contented, though the rest had been suppressed.

Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known to
have been explored by many other of the English writers. He had
consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors
whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too
generally neglected. Pope, however, was not ashamed of their
acquaintance, nor ungrateful for the advantages which he might have
derived from it. A small selection from the Italians, who wrote in
Latin, had been published at London, about the latter end of the
last century, by a man who concealed his name, but whom his preface
shows to have been qualified for his undertaking. This collection
Pope amplified by more than half, and (1740) published it in two
volumes, but injuriously omitted his predecessor's preface. To
these books, which had nothing but the mere text, no regard was
paid; the authors were still neglected, and the editor was neither
praised nor censured. He did not sink into idleness; he had planned
a work, which he considered as subsequent to his "Essay on Man," of
which he has given this account to Dr. Swift:-

"March 25, 1736.

"If ever I write any more Epistles in verse, one of them shall be
addressed to you. I have long concerted it and begun it; but I
would make what bears your name as finished as my last work ought to
be, that is to say, more finished than any of the rest. The subject
is large, and will divide into four Epistles, which naturally follow
the 'Essay on Man,' viz: 1. Of the Extent and Limits of Human
Reason and Science. 2. A view of the useful and therefore
attainable, and of the unuseful and therefore unattainable Arts. 3.
Of the Nature, Ends, Application, and Use, of different Capacities.
4. Of the Use of Learning, of the Science, of the World, and of Wit.
It will conclude with a satire against the misapplication of all
these, exemplified by Pictures, Characters, and Examples."

This work in its full extent--being now afflicted with an asthma,
and finding the powers of life gradually declining--he had no longer
courage to undertake; but, from the materials which he had provided,
he added, at Warburton's request, another book to the "Dunciad," of
which the design is to ridicule such studies as are either hopeless
or useless, as either pursue what is unattainable, or what, if it be
attained, is of no use. When this book was printed (1742) the
laurel had been for some time upon the head of Cibber, a man whom it
cannot be supposed that Pope could regard with much kindness or
esteem, though in one of the imitations of Horace he has liberally
enough praised the "Careless Husband." In the "Dunciad," among
other worthless scribblers, he had mentioned Cibber, who, in his
"Apology," complains of the great Poet's unkindness as more
injurious, "because," says he, "I never have offended him."

It might have been expected that Pope should have been in some
degree mollified by this submissive gentleness, but no such
consequence appeared. Though he condescended to commend Cibber
once, he mentioned him afterwards contemptuously in one of his
satires, and again in his "Epistle to Arbuthnot," and in the fourth
book of the "Dunciad" attacked him with acrimony, to which the
provocation is not easily discoverable. Perhaps he imagined that,
in ridiculing the Laureate, he satirised those by whom the laurel
had been given, and gratified that ambitious petulance with which he
affected to insult the great. The severity of this satire left
Cibber no longer any patience. He had confidence enough in his own
powers to believe that he could disturb the quiet of his adversary,
and doubtless did not want instigators, who, without any care about
the victory, desired to amuse themselves by looking on the contest.
He therefore gave the town a pamphlet, in which he declares his
resolution from that time never to bear another blow without
returning it, and to tire out his adversary by perseverance if he
cannot conquer him by strength.

The incessant and unappeasable malignity of Pope he imputes to a
very distant cause. After the Three Hours After Marriage had been
driven off the stage, by the offence which the mummy and crocodile
gave the audience, while the exploded scene was yet fresh in memory,
it happened that Cibber played Bayes in the Rehearsal; and, as it
had been usual to enliven the part by the mention of any recent
theatrical transactions, he said, that he once thought to have
introduced his lovers disguised in a mummy and a crocodile. "This,"
says he, "was received with loud claps, which indicated contempt for
the play." Pope, who was behind the scenes, meeting him as he left
the stage, attacked him, as he says, with all the virulence of a
"wit out of his senses;" to which he replied, "that he would take no
other notice of what was said by so particular a man, than to
declare, that as often as he played that part he would repeat the
same provocation." He shows his opinion to be that Pope was one of
the authors of the play which he so zealously defended, and adds an
idle story of Pope's behaviour at a tavern.

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