The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century/Prior, Gay and Pope
LECTURE THE FOURTH.
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE.
Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it behoves us not to pass over. Mat was a world-philosopher of no small genius, good nature, and acumen.[1] He loved, he drank, he sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, "in a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night; on his left hand his Horace, and a friend on his right," going out of town from the Hague to pass that evening and the ensuing Sunday, boozing at a Spiel-haus with his companions, perhaps bobbing for perch in a Dutch canal, and noting down, in a strain and with a grace not unworthy of his Epicurean master, the charms of his idleness, his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner's son in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of the Rod, Prior attracted some notice by writing verses at St. John's College, Cambridge, and, coming up to town, aided Montague[2] in an attack on the noble old English lion John Dryden, in ridicule of whose work, "The Hind and the Panther," he brought out that remarkable and famous burlesque, "The Town and Country Mouse." Aren't you all acquainted with it? Have you not all got it by heart? What! have you never heard of it? See what fame is made of! The wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural consequence of "The Town and Country Mouse," Matthew Prior was made Secretary of Embassy at the Hague! I believe it is dancing, rather than singing, which distinguishes the young English diplomatists of the present day; and have seen them in various parts perform that part of their duty very finely. In Prior's time it appears a different accomplishment led to preferment. Could you write a copy of Aleaics? that was the question. Could you turn out a neat epigram or two? Could you compose "The Town and Country Mouse?" It is manifest that, by the possession of this faculty, the most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and the interests of our own, are easily understood. Prior rose in the diplomatic service, and said good things that proved his sense and his spirit. When the apartments at Versailles were shown to him, with the victories of Louis XIV. painted on the walls, and Prior was asked whether the palace of the king of England had any such decorations, "The monuments of my master's actions," Mat said, of William, whom he cordially revered, "are to be seen everywhere except in his own house." Bravo, Mat! Prior rose to be full ambassador at Paris,[3] where he somehow was cheated out of his ambassadorial plate; and in a heroic poem, addressed by him to her late lamented majesty Queen Anne, Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of which Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, is her Majesty's picture; without that he can't be happy.
Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power
Higher to raise the glories of thy reign,
In words sublimer and a nobler strain.
May future bards the mighty theme rehearse.
Here, Stator Jove, and Phœbus, king of Verse,
The votive tablet I suspend."
With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive tablet is suspended for ever like Mahomet's coffin. News came that the Queen was dead. Stator Jove, and Phœbus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to this day, over the votive tablet. The picture was never got any more than the spoons and dishes—the inspiration ceased—the verses were not wanted—the ambassador wasn't wanted. Poor Mat was re-called from his embassy, suffered disgrace along with his patrons, lived under a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared in Essex, When deprived of all his pensions and emoluments, the hearty and generous Oxford pensioned him. They played for gallant stakes—the bold men of those days—and lived and gave splendidly.
Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, after spending an evening with Harley, St. John, Pope, and Swift, would go off and smoke a pipe with a couple of friends of his, a soldier and his wife, in Long Acre. Those who have not read his late excellency's poems should be warned that they smack not a little of the conversation of his Long Acre friends.[4] Johnson speaks slightingly of his lyrics; but with due deference to the great Samuel, Prior's seem to me amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humourous of English lyrical poems. Horace is always in his mind, and his song, and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns and melody, his loves, and his epicureanism, bear a great resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished master. In reading his works, one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their happy similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, he says, writing of that endless theme to poets, the vanity of human wishes—
And, waking, taste what we desire,
The real draught but feeds the fire,
The dream is better than the drink.
At objects in an airy height:
To stand aloof and view the flight,
Is all the pleasure of the game."
Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days was singing? and, in the verses of Chloe weeping and reproaching him for his inconstancy, where he says—
How after his journey, he set up his rest.
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run,
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
They were but my visits, but thou art my home!
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree;
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,
As he was a poet sublimer than me."
If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study Prior? Love and pleasure find singers in all days. Roses are always blowing and fading—to-day as in that pretty time when Prior sang of them, and of Chloe lamenting their decay—
Pointing, the lovely moralist said;
See, friend, in some few leisure hours,
See yonder what a change is made!
And that of Beauty are but one:
At morn both flourisht bright and gay,
Both fade at evening, pale and gone.
The amorous youth around her bowed,
At night her fatal knell was rung;
I saw, and kissed her in her shroud.
Such I, alas, may be to-morrow:
Go, Damon, bid the Muse display
The justice of thy Cloe's sorrow."
Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf lie lightly on him! Deus sit propitius huic potatori as Walter de Mapes sang.[5] Perhaps Samuel Johnson, who spoke slightingly of Prior's verses, enjoyed them more than he was willing to own. The old moralist had studied them as well as Mr. Thomas Moore, and defended them, and showed that he remembered them very well too, on an occasion when their morality was called in question by that noted puritan, James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck.[6]
In the great society of the wits, John Gay deserved to be a favourite, and to have a good place.[7] In his set all were fond of him. His success offended nobody. He missed a fortune once or twice. He was talked of for court favour, and hoped to win it; but the court favour jilted him. Craggs gave him some South-Sea Stock; and at one time Gay had very nearly made his fortune. But Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted him too: and so his friends, instead of being angry with him, and jealous of him, were kind and fond of honest Gay. In the portraits of the literary worthies of the early part of the last century, Gay's face is the pleasantest perhaps of all. It appears adorned with neither periwig nor night-cap (the full dress and negligée of learning, without which the painters of those days scarcely ever pourtrayed wits), and he laughs at you over his shoulder with an honest boyish glee—an artless sweet humour. He was so kind[errata 1], so gentle, so jocular, so delightfully brisk at times, so dismally woe-begone at others, such a natural good-creature, that the Giants loved him. The great Swift was gentle and sportive with him,[8] as the enormous Brobdingnag maids of honour were with little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,[9] and sport, and bark and caper without offending the most thin-skinned of poets and men; and when he was jilted in that little court affair of which we have spoken, his warm-hearted patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry,[10] (the 'Kitty, beautiful and young,' of Prior) pleaded his cause with indignation, and quitted the court in a huff, carrying off with them into their retirement their kind, gentle, protégé. With these kind, lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as delightful as those who harboured Don Quixote, and loved that dear old Sancho, Gay lived, and was lapped in cotton, and had his plate of chicken, and his saucer of cream, and frisked, and barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, and so ended.[11] He became very melancholy, and lazy, sadly plethoric, and only occasionally diverting in his latter days. But everybody loved him, and the remembrance of his pretty little tricks; and the raging old Dean of St. Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, was afraid to open the letter which Pope wrote him, announcing the sad news of the death of Gay.[12]
Swift's letters to him are beautiful; and having no purpose but kindness in writing to him, no party aim to advocate, or slight or anger to wreak, every word the Dean says to his favourite is natural, trustworthy, and kindly. His admiration for Gay's parts and honesty, and his laughter at his weaknesses, were alike just and genuine. He paints his character in wonderful pleasant traits of jocular satire. "I writ lately to Mr. Pope," Swift says, writing to Gay; "I wish you had a little villakin in his neighbourhood; but you are yet too volatile, and any lady with a coach and six horses would carry you to Japan." "If your ramble," says Swift, in another letter, "was on horseback, I am glad of it, on account of your health; but I know your arts of packing up a journey between stage-coaches and friends' coaches—for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which may take up seven years to finish, besides two or three under-ones that may add another thousand pounds to your stock, and then I shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but you love twelve-penny coaches too well, without considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half-a-crown a day:" and then Swift goes off from Gay to pay some grand compliments to Her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry, in whose sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and in whose radiance the Dean would have liked to warm himself too.
But we have Gay here before us, in these letters,—lazy, kindly, uncommonly idle; rather slovenly, I'm afraid; for ever eating and saying good things; a little, round, French abbé of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft-hearted.
Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the men than their works; or to deal with the latter only in as far as they seem to illustrate the character of their writers. Mr. Gay's "Fables," which were written to benefit that amiable Prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the warrior of Dettingen and Culloden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse since a period of very early youth; and it must be confessed that they did not effect much benefit upon the illustrious young Prince, whose manners they were intended to mollify, and whose natural ferocity our gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps proposed to restrain. But the six pastorals called the "Shepherd's Week," and the burlesque poem of "Trivia," any man fond of lazy literature will find delightful, at the present day, and must read from beginning to end with pleasure. They are to poetry what charming little Dresden china figures are to sculpture: graceful, minikin, fantastic; with a certain beauty always accompanying them. The pretty little personages of the pastoral, with gold clocks to their stockings, and fresh satin ribbons to their crooks and waistcoats and boddices, dance their loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, or rush from the false one daintily on their red-heeled tiptoes, and die of despair or rapture, with the most pathetic little grins and ogles; or repose, simpering at each other, under an arbour of pea-green crockery; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed with the best Naples in a stream of Bergamot. Gay's gay plan seems to me far pleasanter than that of Phillips—his rival and Pope's—a serious and dreary idyllic[errata 2] cockney; not that Gay's "Bumkinets and Hobnelias" are a whit more natural than the would-be serious characters of the other posture-master; but the quality of this true humourist was to laugh and make laugh, though always with a secret kindness and tenderness, to perform the drollest little antics and capers, but always with a certain grace, and to sweet music,—as you may have seen a Savoyard boy abroad, with a hurdy-gurdy and a monkey, turning over head and heels, or clattering and pirouetting in a pair of wooden shoes, yet always with a look of love and appeal in his bright eyes, and a smile that asks and wins affection and protection. Happy they who have that sweet gift of nature! It was this which made the great folks and court ladies free and friendly with John Gay—which made Pope and Arbuthnot love him—which melted the savage heart of Swift when he thought of him—and drove away, for a moment or two, the dark frenzies which obscured the lonely tyrant's brain, as he heard Gay's voice with its simple melody and artless ringing laughter.
What used to be said about Rubini, qu'il avait des larmes dans la voix, may be said of Gay,[13] and of one other humourist of whom we shall have to speak. In almost every ballad of his, however slight;[14] in the "Beggar's Opera"[15] and in its wearisome continuation (where the verses are to the full as pretty as in the first piece, however), there is a peculiar, hinted, pathetic sweetness and melody, It charms and melts you. It's indefinable, but it exists; and is the property of John Gay's and Oliver Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, or freshness of a rose.
Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so famous that most people here are no doubt familiar with it, but so delightful that it is always pleasant to hear:—
"I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common hayfield, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers—as constant as ever were found in romance—beneath a spreading bush. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewet; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five and twenty; Sarah, a brave woman of eighteen, John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pails. Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood, for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding clothes; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out of breath, sunk on a haycock; and John (who never separated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together, to secure her. Immediately, there was heard so loud a crash, as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another; those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay: they first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair—John, with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discolouring on their bodies—only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave!"
And the proof that this description is delightful and beautiful is, that the great My. Pope admired it so much that he thought proper to steal it and to send it off to a certain lady and wit, with whom he pretended to be in love in those days—my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to Mr. Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople.
We are now come to the greatest name on our list— the highest among the poets, the highest among the English wits and humourists with whom we have to rank him. If the author of the "Dunciad" be not a humourist, if the poet of the "Rape of the Lock" be not a wit, who deserves to be called so? Besides that brilliant genius, and immense fame, for both of which we should respect him, men of letters should admire him as being the greatest Literary artist that England has seen. He polished, he refined, he thought; he took thoughts from other works to adorn and complete his own; borrowing an idea or a cadence from another poet as he would a figure or a simile from a flower, or a river, stream, or any object which struck him in his walk, or contemplation of Nature. He began to imitate at an early age;[16] and taught himself to write by copying printed books. Then he passed into the hands of the priests, and from his first clerical master, who came to him when he was eight years old, he went to a school at Twyford, and another school at Hyde Park, at which places he unlearned all that he had got from his first instructor. At twelve years old, he went with his father into Windsor Forest, and there learned for a few months under a fourth priest. "And this was all the teaching I ever had," he said, "and God knows it extended a very little way."
When he had done with his priests he took to reading by himself, for which he had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry. He learned versification from Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of "Alcander," he imitated every poet, Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statius, Homer, Virgil. In a few years he had dipped into a great number of the English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. "This I did," he says, "without any design except to amuse myself; and got the languages by hunting after the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the books to get the languages. I followed everywhere as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and woods, just as they fell in his way. These five or six years I looked upon as the happiest in my life." Is not here a beautiful holiday picture? The forest and the fairy story-book—the boy spelling Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, battling with the Cid for the love of Chimène, or dreaming of Armida's garden—peace and sunshine round about—the kindest love and tenderness waiting for him at his quiet home yonder—and Genius throbbing in his young heart, and whispering to him, "You shall be great; you shall be famous; you, too, shall love and sing; you will sing her so nobly that some kind heart shall forget you are weak and ill-formed. Every poet had a love. Fate must give one to you too,"—and day by day he walks the forest, very likely looking out for that charmer, "They were the happiest days of his life," he says, when he was only dreaming of his fame: when he had gained that mistress she was no consoler.
That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, about the year 1705, when Pope was seventeen. Letters of his are extant, addressed to a certain Lady M———, whom the youth courted, and to whom he expressed his ardour in language, to say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious, and affected. He imitated love compositions as he had been imitating love poems just before—it was a sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, expressed as became it. These unlucky letters found their way into print years afterwards, and were sold to the congenial Mr. Curl. If any of my hearers, as I hope they may, should take a fancy to look at Pope's correspondence, let them pass over that first part of it; over, perhaps, almost all Pope's letters to women; in which there is a tone of not pleasant gallantry, and, amidst a profusion of compliments and politenesses, a something which makes one distrust the little pert, prurient bard. There is very little indeed to say about his loves, and that little not edifying. He wrote flames and raptures and elaborate verse and prose for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; but that passion probably came to a climax in an impertinence and was extinguished by a box on the ear, or some such rebuff, and he began on a sudden to hate her with a fervour much more genuine than that of his love had been. It was a feeble, puny grimace of love, and paltering with passion. After Mr. Pope had sent off one of his fine compositions to Lady Mary, he made a second draft from the rough copy, and favoured some other friend with it. He was so charmed with the letter of Gay's, that I have just quoted, that he had copied that and amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary as his own. A gentleman who writes letters à deux fins, and after having poured out his heart to the beloved, serves up the same dish rechauffé to a friend, is not very much in earnest about his loves, however much he may be in his piques and vanities when his impertinence gets its due.
But, save that unlucky part of the Pope Correspondence, I do not know, in the range of our literature, volumes more delightful.[17] You live in them in the finest company in the world. A little stately, perhaps; a little apprêté and conscious that they are speaking to whole generations who are listening; but in the tone of their voices—pitched, as no doubt they are, beyond the mere conversation key—in the expression of their thoughts, they various views and natures, there is something generous, and cheering, and ennobling. You are in the society of men who have filled the greatest parts in the world's story—you are with St. John the statesman; Peterborough the conqueror; Swift, the greatest wit of all times; Gay, the kindliest laugher—it is a privilege to sit in that company. Delightful and generous banquet! with a little faith and a little fancy any one of us here may enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures out of the past, and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind that there is always a certain cachet about great men—they may be as mean on many points as you or I, but they carry their great air—they speak of common life more largely and generously than common men do—they regard the world with a manlier countenance, and see its real features more fairly than the timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through blinkers, or to have an opinion when there is a crowd to back it. He who reads these noble records of a past age, salutes and reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may go home now and talk with St. John; you may take a volume from your library and listen to Swift and Pope.
Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say to him, try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly. I know nothing in any story more gallant and cheering, than the love and friendship which this company of famous men bore towards one another. There never has been a society of men more friendly, as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the society of men great and famous? and for liking them for the qualities which made them so? A mere pretty fellow from White's could not have written the "Patriot King," and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, whom the great St. John held to be one of the best and greatest of men: a mere nobleman of the Court could no more have won Barcelona, than he could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,[18] which are as witty as Congreve: a mere Trish Dean could not have written "Gulliver;" and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To name his friends is to name the best men of his time. Addison had a senate; Pope reverenced his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always. Its admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when some one said of his friend, "There is something in that great man which looks as if he was placed here by mistake," "Yes," Pope answered, "and when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possibly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club-table, so faithful and so friendly.
We have said before that the chief wits of this time, with the exception of Congreve, were what we should now call men's men. They spent many hours of the four-and-twenty, a fourth part of each day nearly, in clubs, and coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by word of mouth; a journal of 1710 contained the very smallest portion of one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faithful habitués sate around; strangers came to wonder and listen, Old Dryden had his head-quarters at Will's, in Russell-street, at the corner of Bow-street, at which place Pope saw him when he was twelve years old. The company used to assemble on the first floor—what was called the dining-room floor in those days—and sate at various tables smoking their pipes. It is recorded that the beaux of the day thought it a great honour to be allowed to take a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. When Addison began to reign, he with a certain crafty propriety—a policy let us call it—which belonged to his nature, set up his court, and appointed the officers of his royal house. His palace was Button's, opposite Will's.[19] A quiet opposition, a silent assertion of empire, distinguished this great man. Addison's ministers were Budgell, Tickell, Philips, Carey; his master of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who was what Duroc was to Napoleon, or Hardy[errata 3] to Nelson; the man who performed his master's bidding, and would have cheerfully died in his quarrel. Addison lived with these people for seven or eight hours every day. The male society passed over their punch-bowls and tobacco-pipes, about as much time as ladies of that age spent over Spadille and Manille.
For a brief space, upon coming up to town, Pope formed part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather too eager and obsequious humble servant.[20] Dick Steele, the editor of the "Tatler," Mr, Addison's man, and his own man too,—a person of no little figure in the world of letters, patronised the young poet; and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope did the tasks very quickly and smartly (he had been at the feet quite as a boy of Wycherley's[21] decrepit reputation, and propped up for a year that doting old wit): he was anxious to be well with the men of letters, to get a footing and a recognition. He thought it an honour to be admitted into their company; to have the confidence of Mr. Addison's friend, Captain Steele. His eminent parts obtained for him the honour of heralding Addison's triumph of "Cato," with his admirable prologue, and heading the victorious procession as it were. Not content with this act of homage and admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself, by assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highly offended his lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed to write to Mr. Dennis and inform him, that Mr. Pope's pamphlet against him was written quite without Mr. Addison's approval.[22] Indeed, "The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the phrenzy of J.D.," is a vulgar and mean satire, and such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire to see any partisan of his strike, in any literary quarrel. Pope was closely allied with Swift when he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has been printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the foul marks of the master hand. Swift admired and enjoyed with all his heart the prodigious genius of the young Papist lad out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a University in his life, and came and conquered the Dons and the doctors with his wit. He applauded, and loved him, too: and protected him, and taught him mischief. I wish Addison could have loved him better. The best satire that ever has been penned would never have been written then; and one of the best characters the world ever knew, would have been without a flaw. But he who had so few equals could not bear one, and Pope was more than that. When Pope, trying for himself, and soaring on his immortal young wings, found that his, too, was a genius, which no pinion of that age could follow, he rose and left Addison's company, settling on his own eminence, and singing his own song.
It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer of My. Addison; nor likely that after escaping from his vassalage and assuming an independent crown, the sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him amicably.[23] They did not do wrong to mislike each other. They but followed the impulse of nature, and the consequence of position. When Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was naturally Napoleon's enemy. "There are many passions and tempers of mankind," says Mr. Addison in the "Spectator," speaking a couple of years before their little differences between him and Mr. Pope took place, "which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind. All those who made their entrance into the world with the same advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, are apt to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. Those, who were once his equals, envy and defame him, because they now see him the superior; and those who were once his superiors, because they look upon him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking, that as young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university education, he couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his young friend, Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid him with his own known scholarship and skill?[24] It was natural that Mr. Addison should doubt of the learning of an amateur Grecian; should have a high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's; and should help that ingenious young man, It was natural, on the other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends should believe that this counter-translation, suddenly advertised and so long written, though Tickell's college friends had never heard of it—though when Pope first wrote to Addison regarding his scheme, Mr. Addison knew nothing of the similar project of Tickell, of Queen's—if was natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, having interests, pensions, and prejudices of his own, should believe that Tickell's translation was but an act of opposition against Pope, and that they should call Mr. Tickell's emulation Mr. Addison's envy—if envy it were.
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires,
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease;
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne;
View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes,
And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame as to commend,
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged;
Like Cato give his little senate laws,
And ait attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise;
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be,
Who would not weep if Atticus were he?"
"I sent the verses to Mr. Addison," said Pope, "and he used me very civilly ever after." No wonder he did. It was shame very likely move than fear that silenced him. Johnson recounts an interview between Pope and Addison after their quarrel, in which Pope was angry, and Addison tried to be contemptuous and calm. Such a weapon as Pope's must have pierced any scorn. It flashes for ever, and quivers in Addison's memory. His great figure looks out on us from the past—stainless but for that—pale, calm, and beautiful: it bleeds from that black wound. He should be drawn, like St. Sebastian, with that arrow in his side. As he sent to Gay and asked his pardon, as he bade his step-son come and see his death, be sure he had forgiven Pope, when he made ready to show how a Christian could die.
Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a short time, and describes himself in his letters as sitting with that coterie until two o'clock in the morning over punch and Burgundy amidst the fumes of tobacco. To use an expression of the present day, the "pace" of those viveurs of the former age was awful. Peterborough lived into the very jaws of death; Godolphin laboured all day and gambled at night; Bolingbroke,[25] writing to Swift, from Dawley, in his retirement, dating his letter at six o'clock in the morning, and rising, as he says, refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time of his London life; when about that hour he used to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure, and jaded with business; his head often full of schemes, and his heart as often full of anxiety. It was too hard, too coarse a life for the sensitive, sickly Pope. He was the only wit of the day, a friend writes to me, who wasn't fat.[26] Swift was fat; Addison was fat; Steele was fat; Gay and Thomson were preposterously fat—all that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, shortened the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of that age. Pope withdrew in a great measure from this boisterous London company, and being put into an independence by the gallant exertions of Swift[27] and his private friends, and by the enthusiastic national admiration which justly rewarded his great achievement of the Iliad, purchased that famous villa of Twickenham which his song and life celebrated; duteously bringing his old parents to live and die there, entertaining his friends there, and making occasional visits to London in his little chariot, in which Atterbury compared him to "Homer in a nutshell."
"Mr. Dryden was not a genteel man," Pope quaintly said to Spence, speaking of the manners and habits of the famous old patriarch of Will's. With regard to Pope's own manners, we have the best contemporary authority that they were singularly refined and polished. With his extraordinary sensibility, with his known tastes, with his delicate frame, with his power and dread of ridicule, Pope could have been no other than what we call a highly-bred person.[28] His closest friends, with the exception of Swift, were among the delights and ornaments of the polished society of their age. Garth,[29] the accomplished and benevolent, whom Steele has described so charmingly, of whom Codrington said that his character was "all beauty," and whom Pope himself called the best of Christians without knowing it; Arbuthnot,[30] one of the wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest of mankind; Bolingbroke, the Alcibiades of his age; the generous Oxford; the magnificent, the witty, the famous, and chivalrous Peterborough: these were the fast and faithful friends of Pope, the most brilliant company of friends, let us repeat, that the world has ever seen. The favourite recreation of his leisure hours was the society of painters, whose art he practised. In his correspondence are letters between him and Jervas, whose pupil he loved to be—Richardson, a celebrated artist of his time, and who painted for him a portrait of his old mother, and for whose picture he asked and thanked Jervas in one of the most delightful letters that ever was penned,[31]—and the wonderful Kneller, who bragged more, spelt worse, and painted better than any artist of his day.[32]
It is affecting to note, through Pope's correspondence, the marked way in which his friends, the greatest, the most famous, and wittiest men of the time—generals and statesmen, philosophers and divines,—all have a kind word, and a kind thought for the good simple old mother, whom Pope tended so affectionately. Those men would have scarcely valued her, but that they knew how much he loved her and that they pleased him by thinking of her. If his early letters to women are affected and insincere, whenever he speaks about this one, it is with a childish tenderness and an almost sacred simplicity. In 1718, when young Mr. Pope had, by a series of the most astonishing victories and dazzling achievements, seized the crown of poetry; and the town was in an uproar of admiration, or hostility, for the young chief; when Pope was issuing his famous decrees for the translation of the Iliad; when Dennis and the lower critics were hooting and assailing him; when Addison and the gentlemen of his court were sneering with sickening hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the young conqueror; when Pope, in a fever of victory, and genius, and hope, and anger, was struggling through the crowd of shouting friends and furious detractors to his temple of Fame, his old mother writes from the country, "My deare," says she, "my deare, there's Mi. Blount, of Mapel Durom, dead the same day that Myr. Inglefield died. Your sister is well; but your brother is sick. My service to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to hear from you, and that you are well, which is my daily prayer; and this with my blessing." The triumph marches by, and the ear of the young conqueror, the hero of a hundred brilliant victories—the fond mother sits in the quiet cottage at home, and says, "I send you my daily prayers, and I bless you, my deare."
In our estimate of Pope's character, let us always take into account that constant tenderness and fidelity of affection, which pervaded and sanctified his life, and never forget that maternal benediction.[33] It accompanied him always: his life seems purified by those artless and heartfelt prayers. And he seems to have received and deserved the fond attachment of the other members of his family. It is not a little touching to read in Spence of the enthusiastic admiration with which his half sister regarded him, and the simple anecdote by which she illustrates her love. "I think no man was ever so little fond of money." Mrs. Rackett says about her brother, "I think my brother when he was young read more books than any man in the world;" and she falls to telling stories of his school days, and the manner in which his master at Twyford ill used him. "I don't think my brother knew what fear was," she continues; and the accounts of Pope's friends bear out this character for courage. When he had exasperated the dunces, and threats of violence and personal assault were brought to him, the dauntless little champion never for one instant allowed fear to disturb him, or condescended to take any guard in his daily walks, except occasionally his faithful dog to bear him company. "I had rather die at once," said the gallant little cripple, "than live in fear of those rascals."
As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot asked and enjoyed for himself—a euthanasia—a beautiful end. A perfect benevolence, affection, serenity, hallowed the departure of that high soul. Even in the very hallucinations of his brain, and weaknesses of his delirium, there was something almost sacred. Spence describes him in his last days, looking up, and with a wrapt gaze as if something had suddenly passed before him. He said to me "What's that?" pointing into the air with a very steady regard, and then looked down and said with a smile of the greatest softness, "'twas a vision?" He laughed scarcely ever, but his companions describe his countenance as often illuminated by a peculiar sweet smile.
"When," said Spence,[34] "the kind anecdotist whom Johnson despised, "when I was telling Lord Bolingbroke that Mr. Pope, on every catching and recovery of his mind, was always saying something kindly of his present or absent friends; and that this was so surprising, as it seemed to me as if humanity had outlasted understanding,' Lord Bolingbroke said, 'It has so,' and then added, 'I never in my life knew a man who had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a more general friendship for mankind. I have known him these thirty years, and value myself more for that man's love than'———Here," Spence says, "St. John sunk his head, and lost his voice in tears." The sob which finishes the epitaph is finer than words. It is the cloak thrown over the father's face in the famous Greek picture which hides the grief and heightens it.
In Johnson's "Life of Pope," you will find described with rather a malicious minuteness some of the personal habits and infirmities of the great little Pope. His body was crooked, he was so short that it was necessary to raise his chair in order to place him on a level with other people at table.[35] He was sewed up in a buckram suit every morning and required a nurse like a child. His contemporaries reviled these misfortunes with a strange acrimony, and made his poor deformed person the butt for many a bolt of heavy wit. The facetious Mr. Dennis, in speaking of him, says, "If you take the first letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and last letters of his surname, you have A.P.E." Pope catalogues, at the end of the Dunciad, with a rueful precision, other pretty names, besides Ape, which Dennis called him. That great critic pronounced Mr. Pope was a little ass, a fool, a coward, a Papist, and therefore a hater of scripture, and so forth. It must be remembered that the pillory was a flourishing and popular institution in those days. Authors stood in it in the body sometimes: and dragged their enemies thither morally, hooted them with foul abuse, and assailed them with garbage of the gutter. Poor Pope's figure was an easy one for those clumsy caricaturists to draw. Any stupid hand could draw a hunchback, and write Pope underneath. They did. A libel was published against Pope, with such a frontispiece. This kind of rude jesting was an evidence not only of an ill nature, but a dull one. When a child makes a pun, or a lout breaks out into a laugh, it is some very obvious combination of words, or discrepancy of objects, which provokes the infantine satirist, or tickles the boorish wag; and many of Pope's revilers laughed, not so much because they were wicked, as because they knew no better.
Without the utmost sensibility, Pope could not have been the poet he was; and through his life, however much he protested that he disregarded their abuse, the coarse ridicule of his opponents stung and tore him. One of Cibber's pamphlets coming into Pope's hands, whilst Richardson the painter was with him, Pope turned round and said, "These things are my diversions:" and Richardson, sitting by whilst Pope perused the libel, said he saw his features "writhing with anguish." How little human nature changes! Can't one see that little figure? Can't one fancy one is reading Horace? Can't one fancy one is speaking of to-day?
The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led him to cultivate the society of persons of fine manners, or wit, or taste, or beauty, caused him to shrink equally from that shabby and boisterous crew which formed the rank and file of literature in his time: and he was as unjust to these men as they to him. The delicate little creature sickened at habits and com- pany which were quite tolerable to robuster men: and in the famous feud between Pope and the Dunces, and without attributing any peculiar wrong to either, one can quite understand how the two parties should so hate each other. As I fancy, it was a sort of necessity that when Pope’s triumph passed, Mr. Addison and his men should look rather contemptuously down on it from their balcony; so it was natural for Dennis and Tibbald, and Webster and Cibber, and the worn and hungry press-men in the crowd below, to howl at him and assail him. And Pope was more savage to Grub-street, than Grub-street was to Pope. The thong with which he lashed them was dreadful; he fired upon that howling crew such shafts of flame, and poison, he slew and wounded so fiercely, that in reading the “Dunciad” and the prose lampoons of Pope, one feels disposed to side against the ruthless little tyrant, at least to pity those wretched folks upon whom he was so unmerciful. It was Pope, and Swift to aid him, who established among us the Grub-street tradition. He revels in base descriptions of poor men’s want; he gloats over poor Dennis’s garret, and flannel night-cap, and red stockings; he gives instructions how to find Curll’s authors, the historian at the tallow-chandler’s under the blind arch in Petty France, the two translators in bed together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I fear, who contributed, more than any man who ever lived, to depreciate the literary calling. It was not an unprosperous one before that time, as we have seen; at least there were great prizes in the profession which had made Addison a minister, and Prior an ambassador, and Steele a commissioner, and Swift all but a bishop. The profession of letters was ruined by that libel of the "Dunciad." If authors were wretched and poor before, if some of them lived in haylofts, of which their landladies kept the ladders, at least nobody came to disturb them in their straw; if three of them had but one coat between them, the two remained invisible in the garret, the third, at any rate, appeared decently at the coffee-house, and paid his twopence like a gentleman. It was Pope that dragged into light all this poverty and meanness, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to public ridicule. It was Pope that has made generations of the reading world (delighted with the mischief, as who would not be that reads it?) believe that author and wretch, author and rags, author and dirt, author and drink, gin, cow-heel, tripe, poverty, duns, bailiffs, squalling children, and clamorous landladies, were always associated together. The condition of authorship began to fall from the days of the "Dunciad:" and I believe in my heart that much of that obloquy which has since pursued our calling was occasioned by Pope's libels and wicked wit. Everybody read those. Everybody was familiarised with the idea of the poor devil, the author. The manner is so captirating, that young authors practise it, and begin their career with satire. It is so easy to write, and so pleasant to read! to fire a shot that makes a giant wince, perhaps; and fancy one's self his conqueror. It is easy to shoot—but not as Pope did—the shafts of his satire rise sublimely: no poet's verse ever mounted higher than that-wonderful flight with which the "Dunciad" concludes:[36]—
Of night primeval and of Chaos old;
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying rainbows die away;
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain
The sick'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd,
Closed one by one to everlasting rest;—
Thus, at her fell approach and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is night.
See skulking Faith to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head;
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause and is no more.
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine,
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine.
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos, is restored,
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all."[37]
In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, to the very greatest height which his sublime art has attained, and shows himself the equal of all poets of all times. It is the brightest ardour, the loftiest assertion of truth, the most generous wisdom, illustrated by the noblest poetic figure, and spoken in words the aptest, grandest, and most harmonious. It is heroic courage speaking: a splendid declaration of righteous wrath and war. It is the gage flung down, and the silver trumpet ringing defiance to falsehood and tyranny deceit, dulness, superstition. It is Truth, the champion, shining and intrepid, and fronting the great world-tyrant with armies of slaves at his buck. It is a wonderful and victorious single combat, in that great battle, which has always been waging since society began.
In speaking of a work of consummate art one does not try to show what it actually is, for that were vain; but what it is like, and what are the sensations produced in the mind of him who views it. And in considering Pope's admirable career, I am forced into similitudes drawn from other courage and greatness, and into comparing him with those who achieved triumphs in actual war. I think of the works of young Pope as I do of the actions of young Bonaparte or young Nelson. In their common life you will find frailties and meannesses, as great as the vices and follies of the meanest men. But in the presence of the great occasion, the great soul flashes out, and conquers transcendent[errata 4]. In thinking of the splendour of Pope's young victories, of his merit, unequalled as his renown, I hail and salute the achieving genius, and do homage to the pen of a hero.
- ↑ Gay calls him—"Dear Prior . . . . beloved by every muse."—Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece.Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently mentioned in the "Journal to Stella." "Mr. Prior," says Swift, "walks to make himself fat, and I to keep myself down. . . . . We often walk round the park together."In Swift's works there is a curious tract called "Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne" [Scott's edition, vol. xii.] The "Remarks" are not by the Dean; but at the end of each is an addition in italics from his hand, and these are always characteristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds, "Detestably Covetous," &c. Prior is thus noticed—
"Matthew Prior, Esq., Commissioner of Trade.
"On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued in his office; is very well at court with the ministry, and is an entire creature of my Lord Jersey's, whom he supports by his advice; is one of the best poets in England, but very factious in conversation. A thin, hollow-looked man, turned of 40 years old. This is near the truth."
"Yet counting as far as to fifty his years,
His virtues and vices were as other men's are,
High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears,
In a life party-coloured—half pleasure, half care.Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,
He strove to make interest and freedom agree;
In public employments industrious and grave,
And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he!Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot,
Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust;
And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about,
He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust."
Prior's Poems. [For my own monument.] - ↑ "They joined to produce a parody, entitled the 'Town and Country Mouse,' part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old friends Smart and Johnson, by repeating to them. The piece is therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of the 'Rehearsal' . . . There is nothing new or original in the idea . . . In this piece, Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the largest share."—Scott's Dryden, vol i. p. 330.
- ↑ "He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke of Shrewsbury, but that that nobleman," says Johnson, "refused to be associated with one so meanly born. Prior therefore continued to act without a title till the Duke's return next year to England, and then he assumed the style and dignity of embassador."
He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his Epitaph:—But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke."Nobles and heralds by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve;
Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?" - ↑ His epigrams have the genuine sparkle:
The Remedy worse than the Disease.
"I sent for Radcliff; was so ill,
That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescribed a pill,
And I was likely to recover."But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warmed the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician."
"Yes, every poet is a fool;
By demonstration Ned can show it;
Happy could Ned's inverted rule
Prove every fool to-be a poet."
"On his death-bed poor Lubin lies,
His spouse is in despair;
With frequent sobs and mutual sighs,
They both express their care.
"A different cause says Parson Sly,
The same effect may give;
Poor Lubin fears that he shall die,
His wife that he may live." - ↑
PRIOR TO SIR THOMAS HANMER,
"Aug. 4, 1709."Dear Sir,
"Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and cherished by correspondence; but with that additional benefit I am of opinion it will look more cheerful and thrive better: for in this case, as in love, though a man is sure of his own constancy, yet his happiness depends a good deal upon the sentiments of another, and while you and Chloe are alive, 'tis not enough that I love you both except I am sure you both love me again; and as one of her scrawls fortifies my mind more against affliction then all Epictetus, with Simplicius's comments into the bargain, so your single letter gave me more real pleasure than all the works of Plato. . . . . . I must return my answer to your very kind question concerning my health. The Bath waters have done a good deal towards the recovery of it, and the great specific, Cape Cuballum, will, I think, confirm it. Upon this head I must tell you that my mare Betty grows blind, and may one day, by breaking my neck, perfect my cure: if at Rixham fair any pretty nagg that is between thirteen and fourteen hands presented himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good joincture, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand. . . . . . ."—The Hanmer Correspondence, p. 120.FROM MR. PRIOR.
Paris, 1st—12th May, 1714."My Dear Lord and Friend,
"Matthew never had so great occasion to write a word to Henry as now: it is noised here that I am soon to return. The question that I wish I could answer to the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert de Torcy (to whom I made your compliments in the manner you commanded) is, what is done for me; and to what I am recalled? It may look like a bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like me? but it is not such: what is to become of a person who had the honour to be chosen, and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with what the queen designed should make the peace; returning with the Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest men in England, and one of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not, n'importe); having been left by him in the greatest character (that of Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary}, exercising that power conjointly with the Duke of Shrewsbury, and solely after his departure; having here received more distinguished honour than any minister, except an Ambassador, ever did, and some which were never given to any, but who had that character; having had all the success that could be expected, having (God be thanked!) spared no pains, at a time when at home the peace is voted safe and honourable—at a time when the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke First Secretary of State? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected, forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the queen satisfied with his services, or his friends concerned as to his fortune.
"Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a pity that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late Lord Godolphin. He said he would write to Robin and Harry about me. God forbid, my lord, that I should need any foreign intercession, or owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the decency of behaviour and the returns of common civility. Some say I am to go to Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commissioners for settling the commerce. In all cases I am ready, but in the mean time, dic aliquid de tribus espellis, Neither of these two are, I presume, honours or rewards; neither of them (let me say to my dear Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me,) are what Drift may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was his fellow clerk, has or may possess. I am far from desiring to lessen the great merit of the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem and love him; but in this trade of ours, my Lord, in which you are the general, as in that of the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and long service. You would do anything for your Queen's service, but you would not be contented to descend, and be degraded to a charge, no way proportioned to that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr. Ross, though he would charge a party with a halbard in his hand, would be content all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my Lord Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of Trade, or from Seeretary of War, would Frank Gwin think himself kindly used to be returned again to be Commissioner? In short, my lord, you have put me above myself, and if I am to return to myself, I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. I am sure, my lord, you will make the best use you can of this hint for my good. If I am to have anything it will certainly be for Her Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry, that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare not stand by me. If nothing is to be done, fiat voluntas Dei. I have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having implored your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance of this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord; all honour, health, and pleasure to you."Yours ever,"Matt."P.S. Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths together in Usquebaugh after our tea; we are the greatest friends alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the 'Book of Travels' you mentioned; if there be let friend Tilson send us more particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson can find them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some comfortable tidings." —Bolingbroke's Letters. - ↑ "I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire; Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales' censure of Prior in his preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions 'these impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobium of their ingenious author.' Johnson: 'Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people.' I instanced the tale of Paulo Purganti and his wife.' Johnson: 'Sir, there is nothing there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library.'"—Boswell's Life of Johnson.
- ↑ Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects not being great, was placed in his youth in the house of a silk-mercer in London. He was born in 1688—Pope's year, and in 1712 the Duchess of Monmouth made him her secretary. Next year he published his "Rural Sports," which he dedicated to Pope, and so made an acquaintance, which became a memorable friendship.
"Gay," says Pope, "was quite a natural man,—wholly without art or design, and spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. He dangled for twenty years about a court, and at last was offered to be made usher to the young princess. Secretary Craggs made Gay a present of stock in the South-Sea year; and he was once worth 20,000l., but lost it all again. He got about 500l.. by the first Beggars Opera, and 1100l., or 1200l., by the second. He was negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the Duke of Queensberry took his money into his keeping, and let him only have what was necessary out of it, and, as he lived with them, he could not have occasion for much. He died worth upwards of 3000l."—Pope (Spence's Anecdotes). - ↑ "Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as ever I knew."—Swift, to Lady Betty Germaine, Jan. 1733.
- ↑ "Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit a man; simplicity, a child;
With native humour tem'pring virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age;
Above temptation in a low estate,
And uncorrupted e'en among the great:
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblamed through life, lamented in the end.
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust;
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms, 'Here lies Gay.'"
Pope's Epitaph on Gay."A hare who, in a civil way,
Comply'd with everything, like Gay."
Fables, "The Hare and many Friends." - ↑ "I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope, curiously, "since he was raffled for, and won back by his Duchess."—Works, Roscoe's Ed., vol. ix, p. 392.
Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen Anne brought back Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him the Secretaryship of that nobleman, of which he had had but a short tenure.
Gay's court prospects were never happy from this time.—His dedication of the "Shepherd's Week," to Bolingbroke, Swift used to call the "original sin," which had hurt him with the house of Hanover."Sept. 23, 1714."Dear Mr. Gay,—
"Welcome to your native soil! welcome to your friends! thrice welcome to me! whether returned in glory, blest with court interest, the love and familiarity of the great, and filled with agreeable hopes; or melancholy with dejection, contemplative of the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the future; whether returned a triumphant Whig or a depending Tory, equally all hail! equally beloved and welcome to me! If happy, I am to partake of your elevation; if unhappy you have still a warm corner in my heart, and a retreat at Benfield in the worst of times at your service. If you are a Tory, or thought so by any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but your gratitude to a few people who endeavoured to serve you, and whose politics were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think your principles and mine (as brother poets) had ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know you will be an honest man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you are incapable of being so much of either party as to be good for nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are or in whatever state you are, all hail!
"One or two of your own friends complained they bad nothing from you since the Queen's death; I told them no man living loved Mr. Gay better than I, yet I had not once written to him in all his voyage, This I thought a convincing proof, but truly one may be a friend to another without telling him so every month. But they had reasons, too, themselves to allege in your excuse, as men who really value one another will never want such as make their friends and themselves easy. The late universal concern in public affairs threw us all into a hurry of spirits: even I, who am more a philosopher than to expect anything from any reign, was borne away with the current, and full of the expectation of the successor. During your journeys, I knew not whither to aim a letter after you; that was a sort of shooting flying: add to this the demand Homer had upon me, to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, all of which are at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, O my friend! that my labour is over; come and make merry with me in much feasting. We will feed among the lilies (by the lilies I mean the ladies.) Are not the Rosalindas of Britain, as charming as the Blousalindas of the Hague? or have the two great Pastoral poets of our own nation renounced love at the same time? for Phillips, unnatural Phillips, hath deserted it, yea, and in a rustic manner kicked his Rosalind, Dr. Parnell and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) your company would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses: Homer shall support his children. I beg a line from you, directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnell is in an ill state of health.
"Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write something on the king, or prince, or princess. On whatsoever foot you may be with the court, this can do no harm. I shall never know where to end, and am confounded in the many things I have to say to you, though they all amount but to this, that I am, entirely, as ever,"Your," &c.Gay took the advice "in the poetical way," and published "An Epistle to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales." But, though this brought him access to Court, and the attendance of the Prince and Princess at his farce of the "What d'ye call it, it did not bring him a place. On the accession of George II, he was offered the situation of Gentleman Usher to the Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years old); but "by this offer," says Johnson, "he thought himself insulted." - ↑ "Gay was a great eater.—'As the French philosopher used to prove his existence by cogito, ergo sum, the greatest proof of Gay's existence is, edit, ergo est."
Congreve, in a Letter to Pope (Spence's Anecdotes).
- ↑ Swift indorsed the letter—"On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; received Dec. 15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune."
"It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord Bolingbroke, and obtained his patronage."—Scott's Swift, vol. i. p. 156.
Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus:—"[Dec, 5, 1732.]. . . "One of the nearest and longest ties I have ever had is broken all on a sudden by the unfortunate death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflammatory fever carried him out of this life in three days. . . . He asked of you a few hours before when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels and breast. . . . His sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows. . . . Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every fiend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left! Few are worth praying for, and one's self the least of all."
- ↑ "Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. 'He could play on the flute,' says Malone, 'and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so happily some of the airs in the Beggar's Opera.' "—Notes to Spence.
- ↑ "T'was when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring
All on a rock reclined.
Wide o'er the foaming billows
She cast a wistful look;
Her head was crown'd with willows
That trembled o'er the brook."'Twelve months are gone and over,
And nine long tedious days;
Why didst thou, veuturous lover,—
Why didst thon tmst the seas?
Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean,
And let my lover rest;
Ah! what's thy troubled motion
To that within my breast?The merchant robb'd of pleasure,
Sees tempests in despair;
But what's the loss of treasure
To losing of my dear?
Should yon some coast be laid on,
Where gold and diamonds grow,
You'd find a richer maiden,
But none that loves you so."'How can they say that Nature
Has nothing made in vain;
Why then beneath the water
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the racks discover
That dirk beneath the deep,
To wreek the wandering lover,
And leaye the maid to weep?""All melancholy lying,
Thus wail'd she for her dear:
Repay'd each blast with sighing,
Each hillow with a fear;
When o'er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spy'd;
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bow'd her head, and died."
A Ballad, from the "What-d'ye call it.""What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or rather Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the 'What d'ye call it.' 'T'was when the seas were roaring?' I have been well informed, that they all contributed,"—Cowper to Unwin, 1783.
- ↑ "Dr Swift had been observed once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try at such a thing, for some time, but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what give rise to the 'Beggar's Opera.' He began on it, and when he first mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us: and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice: but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, 'it would either take greatly or be damned confoundedly.' We were all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event; till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 'it will do—it must do!—I see it in the eyes of them!' This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke [besides his own good taste] has a more particular research than any one now living, in discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this as usual; the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause."—Pope (Spence's Anecdotes.)
- ↑ "Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favourites, in the order they are named in his first reading, till he was about twelve years old."—Pope (Spence's Anecdotes).
"Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant and dealt in Hollands, wholesale,) was no poet, but he used to set him to make English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in being pleased; and used often to send him back to new turn them, 'These are not good rhimes;' for that was my husband's word for verses.—Pope's Mother (Spence).
"I wrote things. I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic Poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes, and some of the neighbouring islands; and the poem opened under water with a description of the Court of Neptune.'—Pope (Ibid).
"His perpetual application (after he set to study, of himself,) reduced him in four years' time to so bad a state of health, that, after trying physicians for a good while in vain, he resolved to give way to his distemper; and sat down calmly in a full expectation of death in a short time. Under this thought, he wrote letters to take a last farewell of some of his more particular friends, and among the rest, one to the Abbé Southcote. The Abbé was extremely concerned, both for his very ill state of health and the resolution he said he had taken. He thought there might yet be hope, and went immediately to Dr. Radcliffe, with whom he was well acquainted, told him Mr. Pope's case, got full directions from him, and carried them down to Pope in Windsor Forest, The chief thing the doctor ordered him was to apply loss, and to ride every day. The following his advice soon restored him to his health."—Pope (Ibid). - ↑
MR. POPE TO THE REV. MR. BROOME, FULHAM, NORFOLK.
"Aug. 29th, 1730."Dear Sir,—
"I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to have informed myself and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a gradual decay, though so early in life, and was declining for five or six months. It was not, as I apprehended, the gout in his stomach, but, I believe, rather a complication first of gross humours, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves as he used no sort of exercise. No man better bore the approaches of his dissolution (as I am told), or with less ostentation yielded up his being. The great modesty which you know was natural to him, and the great contempt he had for all sorts of vanity and parade, never appeared more than in his last moments: he had a conscious satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling himself honest, true, and unpretending to more than his own. So he died as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient contentment.
"As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but few; for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or thought much of the applause of men. I know an instance when he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that way; and if we join to this his natural love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sort: at least, I have heard of none, except some few further remarks on Waller (which his cautious integrity made him leave an order to be given to Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years since I saw it, a translation of the first book of 'Oppian.' He had begun a tragedy of Dion, but made small progress in it.
"As to his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no debts or legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr. Trumball and my lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, and mutual esteem.
"I shall, with pleasure, take upon me to draw this amiable, quiet, deserving, unpretending, Christian, unphilosophical character in his epitaph. There truth may be spoken in a few words; as for flourish, and oratory, and poetry, I leave them to younger and more lively writers, such as love writing for writing sake, and would rather show their own fine parts than report the valuable ones of any other man. So the elegy I renounce.
"I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so worthy a man, and a friend to us both. . . . . .
"Adieu; let us love his memory, and profit by his example. Am very sincerely, dear sir,"Your affectionate and real servant."TO THE EARL OF BURLINGTON.
"August, 1714."My Lord,
"If your mare could speak she would give you an account of what extraordinary company she had on the road, which, since she cannot do, I will.
"It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr Tonson, who, mounted on a stone-horse, overtook me in Windsor Forest. He said he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat of the Muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all means accompany me thither.
"I asked him where he got his horse? He answered he got it of his publisher; 'for that rogue, my printer (said he), disappointed me.' I hoped to put him in good humour by a treat at the tavern of a brown fricassée of rabbits, which cost ten shillings, with two quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I thought myself cock-sure of his horse, which he readily promised me, but said that Mr. Tonson had just such another design of going to Cambridge, expecting there the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr. ———; and if Mr. Tonson went, he was pre-engaged to attend him, being to have the printing of the said copy. So, in short, I borrowed this stone-horse of my publisher, which he had of Mr. Oldmixon for a debt. He lent me, too, the pretty boy you see after me. He was a smutty dog yesterday, and cost me more than two hours to wash the ink off his face; but the devil is a fair-conditioned devil, and very forward in his catechism. If you have any more bags he shall carry them.'
"I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave the boy a small bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir Virgil, and, mounting in an instant, preceded on the road, with my man before, my courteous stationer beside, and the aforesaid devil behind.
"Mr. Lintot began in this manner: 'Now, damn them! What if they should put it into the newspaper how you and I went together to Oxford? What would I care? If I should go down into Sussex they would say I was gone to the Speaker; but what of that? If my son were but big enough to go on with the business, by G—d, I would keep as good company as old Jacob.'
"Hereupon, I inquired of his son. 'The lad (says he) has fine parts, but is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for nothing in his education at Westminster. Pray, don't you think Westminster to be the best school in England? Most of the late Ministry came out of it; so did many of this Ministry. I hope the boy will make his fortune.'
"'Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford?' 'To what purpose? (said he.) The Universities do but make pedants, and I intend to breed him a man of business.'
"As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his saddle, for which I expressed some solicitude. 'Nothing (says he). I can bear it well enough; but, since we have the day before us, methinks it would be very pleasant for you to rest awhile under the woods.' When we were alighted, 'See, here, what a mighty pretty Horace I have in my pocket! What, if you amused yourself in turning an ode till we mount again? Lord! if you pleased. What a clever miscellany might you make at leisure hours!' 'Perhaps I may,' said I, 'if we ride on; the motion is an aid to my fancy; a round trot very much awakens my spirits; theu jog on apace, and I'll think as hard as I can.
"Silence ensued for a full hour; after which Mr. Lintot lugged the reins, stopped short, and broke out, 'Well, sir, how far have you gone?' I answered, seven miles. 'Z—ds, sir,' said Lintot, 'I thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldsworth, in a ramble round Wimbleton-hill, would translate a whole ode in half this time. I'll say that for Oldsworth [though I lost by his Timothy's] he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in England. I remember Dr. King would write verses in a tavern, three hours after he could not speak: and there is Sir Richard, in that rumbling old chariot of his, between Fleet-ditch and St. Giles's pound, shall make you half a Job.'
"Pray, Mr. Lintot,' (said I) 'uow you talk of translators, what is your method of managing them? 'Sir' {replied he) 'these are the saddest pack of rogues in the world: in a hungry fit, they'll swear they understand all the languages in the universe. I have known one of them take down a Greek book upon my counter, and cry, "Ah, this is Hebrew," and must read it from the latter end. By G—d, I can never be sure in these fellows, for I neither understand Greek, Latin, French, nor Italian myself. But this is my way; I agree with them for ten shillings per sheet, with a proviso that, I wilt have their doings corrected with whom I please; so by one or the other they are led at last to the true sense of an author; my judgment giving the negative to all my translators.' 'Then how are you sure these correctors may not impose upon you?' 'Why I get any civil gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into my shop, to read the original to me in English; by this I know whether my first translator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits his money or not.
"I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with S——— for a new version of "Lucretius," to publish against Tonson's, agreeing to pay the author so many shillings at his producing so many lines. He made a great progress in a very short time, and I gave it to the corrector to compare with the Latin; but he went directly to Creech's translation, and found it the same, word for word, all but the first page. Now, what d'ye think I did? I arrested the translator for a cheat; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay, too, upon the proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the original.'
"'Pray tell me next haw you deal with the critics?' 'Sir,' said he, 'nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them: the rich ones for a sheet a-piece of the blotted manuscript, which cost me nothing; they'll go about with it to their acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, who submitted it to their correction: this has given some of them such an air, that in time they come to be consulted with and dedicated to as the tip-top critics of the town.—As for the poor critics, I'll give you one instance of my management, by which you may guess the rest; a lean man, that looked like a very good scholar, came to me, t'other day; he turned over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders, and pish'd at every line of it. "One would wonder," (says he) "at the strange presumption of some men; Homer is no such easy task as every stripling, every versifier"—he was going on, when my wife called to dinner; "sir," said I, "will you please to eat a piece of beef with me? "Mr. Lintot," said he, "I am very sorry you should be at the expense of this great book, I am really concerned on your account." "Sir, I am much obliged to you: if you can dine upon a piece of beef together with a slice of pudding?"—"Mr. Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of learning."—"Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath, that the book is commendable, and the poetry excellent.
"'Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, 'in return to the frankness I have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at Court that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar or not?' I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my Lord being one I had particular obligations to.—'That may be, replied Mr. Lintot; 'but by G— if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good trial.'
"These, my Lord, are a few traits with which you discern the genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord Carleton, at Middleton . . . . . ."I am," &c.DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE.
"Sept. 29, 1725."I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin—into the grand monde—for fear of burying my parts; to signalize myself among curates and vicars, and correct all corruptions crept in relating to the weight of bread-and-butter through those dominions where I govern. I have employed my time (besides ditching) iu finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my travels [Gulliver's], in four parts complete, newly augmented, and intended for the press when the world shall deserve them, or rather, when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and dissensions; but the chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it; and if could I compass that design without hurting my own person or fortune, I would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, without reading. I am exceedingly pleased that you have done with translations; Lord Treasurer Oxford often lamented that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of misemploying your genius for so long a time; but since you will now be so much better employed, when you think of the world, give it one lash the more at my request. I have ever hated all societies, professions, and communities; and all my love is towards individuals,—for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one: it is so with physicians (I will not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man—although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so on.
. . . . "I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of that definition animal rationale, and to show it should be only rationis capax. . . . . . The matter is so clear that it will admit of no dispute—nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that you and I agree in the point. . . . . .
"Dr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the world, have lost that hardness of heart contracted by years and general conversation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking nor getting others. Oh if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my 'Travels!'"MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.
"October 15, 1725."I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends. . . . . Here is one [Lord Bolingbroke] who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) learned to be content with returning to his first point without the thought or ambition of shining at all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you again than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long despised but what is made up of a few men like yourself. . . . .
"Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs—and generally by Tories too. Because he had humour, he was supposed to have dealt with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when anyone had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil. . . . . .
"Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall; I wish he had received no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most improved mind since you saw him, that ever was improved without shifting into a new body, or being paullo minus ab angelis. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after so many varieties and changes, after so much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single thought of the one, any more than a single action of the other, remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that we should meet like the righteous in the millennium, quite at peace, divested of all our former passions, smiling at our past follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity.
******
"I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter."*** - ↑ Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says:—"He was one of those men of careless wit, and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand bons mots and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was this Lord, of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant as Amadis and as brave; but a little more expeditious in his journeys; for he is said to have seen more kings and more postilions than any man in Europe. . . . He was a man, as his friend said, who would neither live nor die like any other mortal."
"You must receive my letter with a just impartiality, and give grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day; I sink grievously with the weather-glass, and am quite spiritless when oppressed with the thoughts of a birthday or a return.
FROM THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH TO POPE.
"Dutiful affection was bringing me to town, but undutiful laziness, and being much out of order keep me in the country; however, if alive I must make my appearance at the birthday. . . . .
"You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you on this point, I doubt, every fairy will give a verdict against me. So sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favourite privileges of our church.
"I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you must not think of women in a reasonable way: you know we always make Goddesses of those we adore upon earth; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the Deity?
. . . I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a place as odd and as out of the way as himself.
"Your's."Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer. - ↑ "Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south side of Russell-street, about two doors from Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house.
"From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late and drank too much wine."—Dr. Johnson.
Will's coffee-house was on the west side of Bow-street, and "corner of Russell-street." See "Handbook of London." - ↑ "My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712: I liked him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his conversation. It was very soon after that Mr. Addison advised me 'not to be content with the applause of half the nation.' He used to talk much and often to me, of moderation in parties: and used to blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of a party man. He encouraged me in my design of translating the 'Iliad,' which was begun that year, and finished in 1718."—Pope (Spence's Anecdotes.)
"Addison had Budgell, and I think Phillips, in the house with him.—Gay, they would call one of my élèves—They were angry with me for keeping so much with Dr. Swift, and some of the late ministry."—Pope (Spence's Anecdotes.) - ↑
"TO MR. ALCOURT.
"Jan. 21, 1715-16."I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, and I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as soon as his life was despaired of. Accordingly, a few days before his death, he underwent the ceremony, and joined together those two sacraments which wise men say we should be the last to receive; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the consciousness of having, by this one act, obliged a woman who (he was told) had merit, and shown an heroic resentment of the ill-usage of his next heir. Some hundred pounds which he had with the lady, discharged his debts; a jointure of 500l a year made her a recompense; and the nephew was left to comfort himself as well as he could with the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate. I saw our friend twice after this was done—less peevish in his sickness than he used to be in his health; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to the bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request—the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her: 'My dear, it is only this—that you will never marry an old man again.' I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour. Mr. Wycherley showed his even in his last compliment; though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms?
"So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself to know such trifles when they concern or characterize any eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom wiser or wittier than others in these sober moments; at least, our friend ended much in the same character he had lived in; and Horace's rule for play may as well be applied to him as a playwright:—"'Servetur ad imum,
Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet.'"I am," &c. - ↑ "Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the selfishness of Pope's friendship; and, resolving that he should have the consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis by Steele that he was sorry for the insult."—Johnson (Life of Addison).
- ↑ "While I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know 'that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak of him severely in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; that I should rather tell him himself fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner. I then subjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and never did me any injustice, that I know of, from that time to his death, which was about three years after." —Pope (Spence's Anecdotes).
- ↑ "That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improbable; that Addison should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improbable; but that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villainy, seems, to us, improbable in a tenfold degree."—Macaulay.
- ↑
LORD BOLINGBROKE TO THE THREE YAHOOS OF TWICKENHAM.
"July 23, 1726."Jonathan, Alexander, John, Most Excellent Triumvirs of Parnassus,—
"Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary, I persuade myself that you have sent, at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neighbourhood again, by the end of next week; by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, la bagatelle, Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, John, mirth be with you!" - ↑ Prior must be excepted from this observation. "He was lank and lean."
- ↑ Swift exerted himself, very much, in promoting the "Iliad" subscription; and also introduced Pope to Harley and Bolingbroke —Pope realised by the "Iliad" upwards of 5000l., which he laid out partly in annuities, and partly in the purchase of his famous villa. Johnson remarks that "it would be hard to find a man so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money."
- ↑ "His (Pope's) voice in common conversation was so naturally musical, that I remember honest Tom Southerne used always to call him 'the little nightingale'"—Orrery.
- ↑ Garth, whom Dryden calls "generous as his Muse," was a Yorkshireman. He graduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. in 1691. He soon distinguished himself in his profession, by his poem of the "Dispensary," and in society, and pronounced Dryden's funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable member of the Kit-Kat, and a friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted by George I., with the Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718.
- ↑ Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergyman in Scotland, and belonged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was educated at Aberdeen; and, coming up to London—according to a Scotch practice often enough alluded to—to make his fortune, first made himself known by "an examination of Dr. Woodward's account of the Deluge." He became physician, successively, to Prince George of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have been the most learned, as well as one of the most witty and humorous members of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of him by the humourists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their correspondence. When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift:"Hampstead, Oct. 4, 1734."My dear and worthy Friend,—
"You have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful friends, for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The first was about your health; the last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar. I can assure you with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart towards you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world, and you, among the rest of my friends, shall have my last prayers and good wishes.
. . . . "I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat nor move. I most earnestly desired and begged of God that he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had forborne for some years), I recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again. . . . . . What I did, I can assure you was not for life, but ease; for I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to sea—who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family and from the kindness of my friends as any man; but the world, in the main, displeases me, and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are to befal my country. However, if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine why you are frightened from a journey to England: the reasons you assign are not sufficient—the journey I am sure would do you good. In genera], I recommend riding, of which I have always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own experience.
"My family give you their love and service, The great loss I sustained in one of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour; for all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from the way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none are with more sincerity than I am, my dear friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant."
"Arbuthnot," Johnson says, "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."
Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a department of which he was particularly qualified to judge: "Let me add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of 'Martinus Scriblerus' ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share."—See Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopædia Britannica, note to p. 242, and also note b. b. b. p. 285. - ↑
TO MR. RICHARDSON.
"Twickenham, June 10, 1733."As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hope that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this for the very reason, which possibly might hinder you coming, that my poor mother is dead. I thank God, her death was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to beheld it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painter drew; and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could come and sketch it for me. I am sure, if there be no very precedent obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this; and I hope to see you this evening, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written this—I could not (at this time) have written at all. Adieu! May you die as happy!
"Yours, &c," - ↑ "Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in, 'Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, 'you have the honour of seeing the two greatest men in the world.'—'I don't know how great you may be,' said the Guinea man, 'but I don't like your looks: I have often bought a man, much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas.'"—Dr. Warburton (Spence's Anecdotes).
- ↑ Swift's mention of him as one,is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better use than he ever intended it for, apropos of this subject.—He charitably sneers, in one of his letters, at Spence's "fondling an old mother—in imitation of Pope!""——— whose filial piety excells,
Whatever Grecian story tells," - ↑ Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. He was a short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, a clergyman and professor of poetry. He was a friend of Thomson's, whose reputation he aided. He published an "Essay on the Odyssey" in 1726, which introduced him to Pope. Everybody liked him. His "Anecdotes" were placed, while still in MS., at the service of Johnson and also of Malone. They were published by Mr. Singer in 1820.
- ↑ He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through "that long disease, my life." But not only was he so feeble as is implied in his use of the "buckram," but "it now appears," says Mr. Peter Cunningham, "from his unpublished letters, that, like Lord Hervey, he had recourse to ass's-milk for the preservation of his health." It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage that he alludes when he says—"Let Sporus tremble!—A. What, that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's milk?" - ↑ "He (Johnson) repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the 'Dunciad.'"—Boswell.
- ↑ “Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired these lines so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered. ‘And well it might, sir,’ said Johnson, ‘for they are noble lines.'"——J. Boswell, junior.
Errata