afterwards without vexation; for Theobald, a man | The first copy of Pope's books, with those of of heavy diligence, with very slender powers, first, Fenton, are to be seen in the Museum. The parts in a book called 'Shakspeare Restored,' and then of Pope are less interlined than the 'Iliad;' and in a formal edition, detected his deficiencies with all the insolence of victory; and, as he was now high enough to be feared and hated, Theobald had from others all the help that could be supplied, by the desire of humbling a haughty character.

From this time Pope became an enemy to editors, collators, commentators, and verbal critics; and hoped to persuade the world, that he miscarried in this undertaking only by having a mind too great for such minute employment.

Pope, in his edition, undoubtedly did many things wrong, and left many things undone; but let him not be defrauded of his due praise. He was the first that knew, at least the first that told, by what

the latter books of the 'Iliad' less than the former. He grew dexterous by practice, and every sheet enabled him to write the next with more facility. The books of Fenton have very few alterations by the hand of Pope. Those of Broome have not been found; but Pope complained, as it is reported, that he had much trouble in correcting them.

His contract with Lintot was the same as for the 'Iliad,' except that only one hundred pounds were to be paid him for each volume. The number of subscribers were five hundred and seventy-four, and of copies eight hundred and nineteen; so that his profits, when he had paid his assistants, were still very considerable. The work was finished

helps the text might be improved. If he inspected in 1725; and from that time he resolved to make

the early editions negligently, he taught others to be more accurate. In his Preface he expanded with great skill and elegance the character which had been given of Shakspeare by Dryden; and he drew the public attention upon his works, which, though often mentioned, had been little read.

no more translations.

The sale did not answer Lintot's expectation; and he then pretended to discover something of fraud in Pope, and commenced or threatened a suit in Chancery.

On the English 'Odyssey' a criticism was pub

Soon after the appearance of the 'Iliad,' resolv-lished by Spence, at that time Prelector of Poetry ing not to let the general kindness cool, he publish at Oxford; a man whose learning was not very ed proposals for a translation of the 'Odyssey,' in great, and whose mind was not very powerful. His five volumes, for five guineas. He was willing, criticism, however, was commonly just; what he however, now to have associates in his labour, thought, he thought rightly: and his remarks were being either weary with toiling upon another's recommended by his coolness and candour. In him

thoughts, or having heard, as Ruffhead relates, that Fenton and Broome had already begun the work, and liking better to have them confederates than rivals.

In the patent, instead of saying that he had "translated the Odyssey," as he had said of the 'Iliad,' he says, that he had "undertaken" a translation; and in the proposals the subscription is said to be not solely for his own use, but for that of "two of his friends who have assisted him in this work."

In 1723, while he was engaged in this new version, he appeared before the Lords at the memorable trial of Bishop Atterbury, with whom he had lived in great familiarity, and frequent correspondence. Atterbury had honestly recommended to him the study of the Popish controversy, in hope of his conversion; to which Pope answered in a manner that cannot much recommend his principles, or his judgment. In questions and projects of learning, they agreed better. He was called at the trial to give an account of Atterbury's domestic life, and private employment, that it might appear how little time he had left for plots. Pope had but few words to utter, and in those few he made several blunders.

Pope had the first experience of a critic without malevolence, who thought it as much his duty to display beauties as expose faults: who censured with respect, and praised with alacrity.

With this criticism Pope was so little offended, that he sought the acquaintance of the writer, whe lived with him from that time in great familiarity, attended him in his last hours, and compiled memorials of his conversation. The regard of Popa recommended him to the great and powerful; and he obtained very valuable preferments in the Church.

Not long after, Pope was returning home from a visit in a friend's coach, which, in passing a bridge, was overturned into the water; the windows were closed, and being unable to force them open, he was in danger of immediate death, when the postillion snatched him out by breaking the glass, of which the fragments cut two of his fingers in such a manner, that he lost their use.

Voltaire, who was then in England, sent him a letter of consolation. He had been entertained by Pope at his table, where he talked with so much grossness, that Mrs. Pope was driven from the room. Pope discovered, by a trick, that he was a spy for the court, and never considered him as a man worthy of confidence.

His letters to Atterbury express the utmost esteem, tenderness, and gratitude; "perhaps," says He soon afterwards (1727) joined with Swift, he, "it is not only in this world that I may have who was then in England, to publish three volumes cause to remember the Bishop of Rochester." At of 'Miscellanies,' in which, amongst other things, their last interview in the Tower, Atterbury pre- he inserted the 'Memoirs of a Parish Clerk,' in sented him with a Bible. ridicule of Burnet's importance in his own History,

Of the 'Odyssey' Pope translated only twelve and a 'Debate upon Black and White Horses,' books; the rest were the work of Broome and Fen- written in all the formalities of a legal process, by ton: the notes were written wholly by Broome, the assistance, as is said, of Mr. Fortescue, afterwho was not over liberally rewarded. The public wards Master of the Rolls. Before these 'Miscelwas carefully kept ignorant of the several shares; lanies' is a Preface signed by Swift and Pope, but and an account was subjoined at the conclusion, apparently written by Pope, in which he makes a which is now known not to be true. ridiculous and romantic complaint of the robberies

1

committed upon authors by the clandestine seizurejas had casually got abroad, there was added to and sale of their papers. He tells, in tragic them the 'Treatise of the Bathos, or the 'Art of strains, how "the cabinets of ane Sick and the Sinking in Poetry. It happened that, in one chapclosets of the Dead have been proken open and ter of this piece, the several species of bad poete ransacked;" as if those violences were often com- were ranged in classes, to which were prefixed almitted for papers of uncertain and accidental value, most all the letters of the alphabet (the greatest which are rarely provoked by real treasures; as if part of them at random;) but such was the number epigrams and essays were in danger where gold of poets eminent in that art, that some one or other and diamonds are safe. A cat hunted for his musk took every letter to himself: all fell into so violent is, according to Pope's account, but the emblem of a fury, that, for half a year or more, the common a wit winded by booksellers. newspapers (in most of which they had some proHis complaint, however, received some attesta-perty, as being hired writers) were filled with the tion; for the same year the Letters written by him most abusive falsehoods and scurrilities they could to Mr. Cromwell, in his youth, were sold by Mrs. possibly devise; a liberty no way to be wondered Thomas to Curll, who printed them. at in those people, and in those papers, that, for In these Miscellanies was first published the many years during the uncontrolled license of the 'Art of Sinking in Poetry, which, by such a train press, had aspersed almost all the great characters of consequences as usually passes in literary quar- of the age; and this with impunity, their own per rels, gave, in a short time, according to Pope's ac- sons and names being utterly secret and obscure. count, occasion to the 'Dunciad.'

"This gave Mr. Pope the thought, that he had

In the following year (1728) he began to put now some opportunity of doing good, by detecting Atterbury's advice in practice; and showed his and dragging into light these common enemies of satirical powers by publishing the 'Dunciad, one mankind; since, to invalidate this universal slanof his greatest and most elaborate performances, in der, it sufficed to show what contemptible men which he endeavoured to sink into contempt all the were the authors of it. He was not without hopes, writers by whom he had been attacked, and some that, by manifesting the dulness of those who had others whom he thought unable to defend them- only malice to recommend them, either the bookselves. sellers would not find their account in employing At the head of the Dunces he placed poor Theo- them, or the men themselves, when discovered, bald, whom he accused of ingratitude; but whose want courage to proceed in so unlawful an occupareal crime was supposed to be that of having re-tion. This it was that gave birth to the 'Dunciad;' vised Shakspeare more happily than himself. This and he thought it a happiness, that by the late flood satire had the effect which he intended, by blast- of slander on himself, he had acquired such a peing the characters which it touched. Ralph, who, culiar right over their names as was necessary to unnecessarily interposing in the quarrel, got a this design.

place in a subsequent edition, complained that for "On the 12th of March, 1729, at St. James's, a time he was in danger of starving, as the book- that poem was presented to the King and Queen sellers had no longer any confidence in his capacity. (who had before been pleased to read it) by the

The prevalence of this poem was gradual and right honourable Sir Robert Walpole; and, some slow: the plan, if not wholly new, was little un- days after, the whole impression was taken and derstood by common readers. Many of the allu- dispersed by several noblemen and persons of the sions required illustration; the names were often first distinction.

expressed only by the initial and final letters, and "It is certainly a true observation, that no peoif they had been printed at length, were such as ple are so impatient of censure as those who are the few had known or recollected. The subject itself greatest slanderers, which was wonderfully exemhad nothing generally interesting; for whom did it plified on this occasion. On the day the book was concern to know that one or another scribbler was first vended, a crowd of authors besieged the shop; a dunce? If therefore it had been possible for intreaties, advices, threats of law and battery, nay those who were attacked to conceal their pain and cries of treason, were all employed to hinder the their resentment, the 'Dunciad' might have made coming out of the 'Dunciad;' on the other side, the its way very slowly in the world.

booksellers and hawkers made as great efforts to

This, however, was not to be expected: every procure it. What could a few poor authors do man is of importance to himself, and therefore, in against so great a majority of the public? There his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the was no stopping a torrent with a finger; so out it world already acquainted with all his pleasures came.

and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish inju- "Many ludicrous circumstances attended it. The ries or misfortunes, which had never been known Dunces (for by this name they were called) held unless related by himself, and at which those that weekly clubs, to consult of hostilities against the hear them will only laugh; for no man sympathises author; one wrote a letter to a great minister, aswith the sorrows of vanity.

suring him Mr. Pope was the greatest enemy the

The history of the 'Dunciad' is very minutely government had; and another bought his image in related by Pope himself, in a Dedication which he clay, to execute him in effigy; with which sad sort wrote to Lord Middlesex in the name of Savage. of satisfaction the gentlemen were a little com"I will relate the War of the Dunces' (for so forted. t has been commonly called,) which began in the year 1727, and ended 1730.

"Some false editions of the book having an owl in their frontispiece, the true one, to distinguish it, "When Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope thought it pro- fixed in his stead an ass laden with authors. Then ber, for reasons specified in the Preface to their another surreptitious one being printed with the Miscellanies, to publish such little pieces of theirs same ass, the new edition in octavo returned, for distinction, to the owl again. Hence arose a great not idle. He published (1731) a poem on 'Taste,' contest of booksellers against booksellers, and ad- in which he very particularly and severely critivertisements against advertisements; some recom- cises the house, the furniture, the gardens, and the mending the edition of the owl, and others the edi- entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth tion of the ass; by which name they came to be and little taste. By Timon he was universally distinguished, to the great honour also of the gen- supposed, and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom tlemen of the 'Dunciad."

the poem is addressed, was privately said, to mean

Pope appears by his narrative to have contem- the Duke of Chandos; a man perhaps too much deplated his victory over the Dunces with great ex- lighted with pomp and show, but of a temper kind ultation; and such was his delight in the tumult and beneficent, and who had consequently the voice which he had raised, that for a while his natural of the public in his favour. sensibility was suspended, and he read reproaches A violent outcry was therefore raised against the and invectives without emotion, considering them ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was said to only as the necessary effects of that pain which he rejoiced in having given.

have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, and who gained the opportunity of insulting him by the kindness of his invitation.

It cannot however be concealed, that, by his own confession, he was the aggressor: for nobody believes that the letters in the 'Bathos' were placed at ran- The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope publicly dom: and it may be discovered that when he thinks denied; but from the reproach which the attack on himself concealed, he indulges the common vanity a character so amiable brought upon him, he tried of common men, and triumphs in those distinctions all means of escaping. The name of Cleland was which he had affected to despise. He is proud that again employed in an apology, by which no man his book was presented to the King and Queen by was satisfied; and he was at last reduced to shelter the right honourable Sir Robert Walpole; he is his temerity behind dissimulation, and endeavour proud that they had read it before; he is proud that to make that disbelieved which he never had conthe edition was taken off by the nobility and per- fidence openly to deny. He wrote an exculpatory sons of the first distinction. letter to the Duke, which was answered with The edition of which he speaks was, I believe, great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his that which, by telling in the text the names, and excuse without believing his professions. He said, in the notes the characters, of those whom he had that to have ridiculed his taste, or his buildings, satirised, was made intelligible and diverting. The had been an indifferent action in another man; but critics had now declared their approbation of the that in Pope, after the reciprocal kindness that had plan, and the common reader began to like it with- been exchanged between them, it had been less out fear; those who were strangers to petty litera- easily excused.

ture, and therefore unable to decipher initials and Pope, in one of his Letters, complaining of the blanks, had now names and persons brought within treatment which his poem had found, "owns that their view; and delighted in the visible effect of such critics can intimidate him, nay almost persuade those shafts of malice, which they had hitherto him to write no more, which is a compliment this contemplated, as shot into the air. age deserves." The man who threatens the world

Dennis, upon the fresh provocation now given is always ridiculous; for the world can easily go on him, renewed the enmity which had for a time without him, and in a short time will cease to miss been appeased by mutual civilities; and published him. I have heard of an idiot, who used to reremarks, which he had till then suppressed, upon venge his vexations by lying all night upon the the Rape of the Lock. Many more grumbled in bridge. "There is nothing," says Juvenal, "that secret, or vented their resentment in the newspa- a man will not believe in his own favour." Pope pers by epigrams or invectives.

had been flattered till he thought himself one of the

Ducket, indeed, being mentioned as loving Bur-moving powers in the system of life. When he net with "pious passion," pretended that his moral talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round character was injured, and for some time declared him intreated and implored: and self-love did not his resolution to take vengeance with a cudgel. But suffer him to suspect that they went away and Pope appeased him, by changing "pious passion" to "cordial friendship;" and by a note, in which he vehemently disclaims the malignity of meaning imputed to the first expression.

laughed.

The following year deprived him of Gay, a man whom he had known early, and whom he seemed to love with more tenderness than any other of his literary friends. Pope was now forty-four years

Aaron Hill, who was represented as diving for the prize, expostulated with Pope in a manner so old; an age at which the mind begins less easily to much superior to all mean solicitation, that Pope admit new confidence, and the will to grow less was reduced to sneak and shuffle, sometimes to flexible; and when, therefore, the departure of an deny, and sometimes to apologize; he first endeavours to wound, and is then afraid to own that he meant a blow.

old friend is very acutely felt.

In the next year he lost his mother, not by an unexpected death, for she had lasted to the age of

The 'Dunciad,' in a complete edition, is ad- ninety-three: but she did not die unlamented. The dressed to Dr. Swift: of the notes, part were writ- filial piety of Pope was in the highest degree amiten by Dr. Arbuthnot; and an apologetical Letter able and exemplary; his parents had the happiness was prefixed, signed by Cleland, but supposed to of living till he was at the summit of poetical repuhave been written by Pope.

tation, till he was at ease in his fortune, and with

After this general war upon Dulness, he seems out a rival in his fame, and found no diminution of to have indulged himself a while in tranquillity; his respect and tenderness. Whatever was his but his subsequent productions prove that he was pride, to them he was obedient; and whatever was

his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has, purpose of vindicating his own property by a genuamong its soothing and quiet comforts, few things ine edition, he offered to pay the cost. better to give than such a son.

This however Pope did not accept; but in time One of the passages of Pope's life, which seems solicited a subscription for a Quarto volume, which to deserve some inquiry, was a publication of Let-appeared (1737,) I believe, with sufficient profit ters between him and many of his friends, which In the preface he tells, that his Letters were re falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious book- posited in a friend's library, said to be the Earl of seller of no good fame, were by him printed and Oxford's, and that the copy thence stolen was sen sold. This volume containing some Letters from to the press. The story was doubtless received noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him with different degrees of credit. It may be sus in the House of Lords for a breach of privilege, and pected that the Preface to the 'Miscellanies' was attended himself to stimulate the resentment of his written to prepare the public for such an incident friends. Curll appeared at the bar, and, knowing and to strengthen this opinion, James Worsdale, a himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very painter, who was employed in clandestine nego little reverence: "He has," said Curll, "a knack tiations, but whose veracity was very doubtful, at versifying, but in prose I think myself a match declared that he was the messenger who carried, for him." When the orders of the House were by Pope's direction, the books to Curll.

examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed; Curll went away triumphant; and Pope was left to seek some other remedy.

When they were first published and avowed, as they had relation to recent facts, and persons either then living or not yet forgotten, they may be sup

Curll's account was, that one evening a man in a posed to have found readers; but as the facts were clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, minute, and the characters, being either private or brought and offered to sale a number of printed literary, were little known, or little regarded, volumes, which he found to be Pope's epistolary they awakened no popular kindness or resentment; correspondence; that he asked no name, and was the book never became much the subject of convertold none, but gave the price demanded, and thought sation; some read it as a contemporary history, and himself authorised to use his purchase to his own some perhaps as a model of epistolary language: advantage. but those who read it did not talk of it. Not much That Curll gave a true account of the transaction therefore was added by it to fame or envy; nor do it is reasonable to believe, because no falsehood was I remember that it produced either public praise, ever detected: and when, some years afterwards, or public censure.

I mentioned it to Lintot, the son of Bernard, he It had, however, in some degree, the recommendeclared his opinion to be, that Pope knew better dation of novelty. Our language had few Letters, than any body else how Curll obtained the copies, except those of statesmen. Howel, indeed, about because another parcel was at the same time sent a century ago, published his Letters, which are to himself for which no price had ever been de-commended by Morhoff, and which alone, of his manded, as he made known his resolution not to hundred volumes, continue his memory. Lovepay a porter, and consequently not to deal with a day's Letters were printed only once; those of nameless agent. Herbert and Suckling are hardly known. Mrs. Such care had been taken to make them public, Phillips [Orinda's] are equally neglected. And that they were sent at once to two booksellers: to those of Walsh seem written as exercises, and Curll, who was likely to seize them as a prey; and were never sent to any living mistress or friend. to Lintot, who might be expected to give Pope in- Pope's epistolary excellence had an open field; he formation of the seeming injury. Lintot, I believe, had no English rival living or dead. did nothing; and Curll did what was expected. Pope is seen in this collection as connected with That to make them public was the only purpose the other contemporary wits, and certainly suffers may be reasonably supposed, because the numbers, no disgrace in the comparison; but it must be reoffered to sale by the private messengers, showed membered, that he had the power of favouring himthat hope of gain could not have been the motive self; he might have originally had publication in of the impression. his mind, and have written with care, or have af

It seems that Pope, being desirous of printing his terwards selected those which he had most hapLetters, and not knowing how to do, without im- pily conceived, or most diligently laboured; and I putation of vanity, what has in this country been know not whether there does not appear something done very rarely, contrived an appearance of com- more studied and artificial in his productions than pulsion; that, when he could complain that his Let- the rest, except one long Letter by Bolingbroke, ters were surreptitiously published, he might de-composed with the skill and industry of a professed cently and defensively publish them himself. author. It is indeed not easy to distinguish affecPope's private correspondence, thus promulgated, tation from habit; he that has once studiously formfilled the nation with praises of his candour, tender- ed a style rarely writes afterwards with complete ness, and benevolence, the purity of his purposes, ease. Pope may be said to write always with his and the fidelity of his friendship. There were reputation in his head; Swift, perhaps, like a man some Letters which a very good or a very wise who remembered he was writing to Pope; but man would wish suppressed; but as they had been Arbuthnot, like one who lets thoughts drop from already exposed, it was impracticable now to re- his pen as they rise into his mind.

tract them.

Before these Letters appeared, he published the

From the perusal of those Letters, Mr. Allen first part of what he persuaded himself to think a first conceived the desire of knowing him; and with system of Ethics, under the title of an Essay on so much zeal did he cultivate the friendship which Man:' which, if his Letter to Swift (of September he had newly formed, that, when Pope told his 14, 1735) be rightly explained by the commentator, had been eight years under his consideration, and of writing them; at last, in 1734, he avowed the of which he seems to have desired the success with fourth, and claimed the honour of a moral poet. great solicitude. He had now many open, and In the conclusion it is sufficiently acknowledged, doubtless many secret enemies. The 'Dunces, that the doctrine of the 'Essay on Man' was rewere yet smarting with the war; and the superi- ceived from Bolingbroke, who is said to have ridiority which he publicly arrogated, disposed the culed Pope among those who enjoyed his confiworld to wish his humiliation.

dence, as having adopted and advanced principles All this he knew, and against all he provided. of which he did not perceive the consequence, and His own name, and that of his friend to whom the as blindly propagating opinions contrary to his own work is inscribed, were in the first editions care- That those communications had been consolidated fully suppressed; and the poem, being of a new kind, into a scheme regularly drawn, and delivered to was ascribed to one or another, as favour determin- Pope, from whom it returned only transformed from ed, or conjecture wandered; it was given, says prose to verse, has been reported, but hardly can Warburton, to every man, except him only who be true. The Essay plainly appears the fabric of could write it. Those who like only when they a poet; what Bolingbroke supplied could only be like the author, and who are under the dominion the first principles: the order, illustration, and emof a name, condemned it; and those admired it who bellishments, must all be Pope's. are willing to scatter praise at random, which, while These principles it is not my business to clear it is unappropriated, excites no envy. Those friends from obscurity, dogmatism, or falsehood; but they of Pope, that were trusted with the secret, went were not immediately examined: philosophy and about lavishing honours on the new-born poet, and poetry have not often the same readers; and the hinting that Pope was never so much in danger Essay abounded in splendid amplifications and from any former rival.

sparkling sentences, which were read and admired

To those authors whom he had personally of- with no great attention to their ultimate purpose: fended, and to those whose opinion the world con- its flowers caught the eye, which did not see what sidered as decisive, and whom he suspected of the gay foliage concealed, and for a time flourished envy or malevolence, he sent his Essay as a present in the sunshine of universal approbation. So little before publication, that they might defeat their own was any evil tendency discovered, that, as innoenmity by praises which they could not afterwards cence is unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of decently retract. piety.

With these precautions, 1733, was published the Its reputation soon invited a translator. It was first part of the 'Essay on Man.' There had been first turned into French prose, and afterwards by for some time a report that Pope was busy upon a Resnel into verse. Both translations fell into the System of Morality: but this design was not dis- hands of Crousaz, who first, when he had the vercovered in the new poem, which had a form and a sion in prose, wrote a general censure, and aftertitle with which its readers were unacquainted. wards reprinted Resnel's version, with particular Its reception was not uniform: some thought it a remarks upon every paragraph.

very imperfect piece, though not without good Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, eminent lines. While the author was unknown, some, as for his treatise of Logic, and his 'Examen de will always happen, favoured him as an adventurer, Pyrrhonisme; and, however little known or reand some censured him as an intruder; but all garded here, was no mean antagonist. His mind thought him above neglect; the sale increased, and was one of those in which philosophy and piety editions were multiplied. are happily united. He was accustomed to argu

The subsequent editions of the first Epistle ex-ment and disquisition, and perhaps was grown too hibited two memorable corrections. At first, the desirous of detecting faults; but his intentions were poet and his friend

Expatiate freely o'er this scene of man,
A mighty maze of walks without a plan:

For which he wrote afterwards,

A mighty maze, but not without a plan: for, if there was no plan, it was in vain or to trace the maze.

always right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure.

to describe positions of Pope,

The other alteration was of these lines;

And spite of pride, and in thy reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right:

but having afterwards discovered or been shown,
that the "truth" which subsisted " in spite of rea-
son" could not be very "clear," he substituted

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite.

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 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 fervent and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited inqui

To such oversights will the most vigorous mind ry, with wonderful extent and variety of knowbe liable, when it is employed at once upon argu-ledge, which yet had not oppressed his imaginament and poetry. tion, nor clouded his perspicacity. To every work The second and third Epistles were published; he brought a memory full fraught, together with a and Pope was, I believe, more and more suspected fancy fertile of original combinations, and at once