The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems.
by Alexander Pope.
PREFACE
It has been the aim of the editor in preparing this little book to get together sufficient material to afford a student in one of our high schools or colleges adequate and typical specimens of the vigorous and versatile genius of Alexander Pope. With this purpose he has included in addition to "The Rape of the Lock", the "Essay on Criticism" as furnishing the standard by which Pope himself expected his work to be judged, the "First Epistle" of the "Essay on Man" as a characteristic example of his didactic poetry, and the "Epistle to Arbuthnot", both for its exhibition of Pope"s genius as a satirist and for the picture it gives of the poet himself. To these are added the famous close of the "Dunciad", the "Ode to Solitude", a specimen of Pope"s infrequent lyric note, and the "Epitaph on Gay".
The first edition of "The Rape of the Lock" has been given as an appendix in order that the student may have the opportunity of comparing the two forms of this poem, and of realizing the admirable art with which Pope blended old and new in the version that is now the only one known to the average reader. The text throughout is that of the Globe Edition prepared by Professor A. W. Ward.
The editor can lay no claim to originality in the notes with which he has attempted to explain and ill.u.s.trate these poems. He is indebted at every step to the labors of earlier editors, particularly to Elwin, Courthope, Pattison, and Hales. If he has added anything of his own, it has been in the way of defining certain words whose meaning or connotation has changed since the time of Pope, and in paraphrasing certain pa.s.sages to bring out a meaning which has been partially obscured by the poet"s effort after brevity and concision.
In the general introduction the editor has aimed not so much to recite the facts of Pope"s life as to draw the portrait of a man whom he believes to have been too often misunderstood and misrepresented. The special introductions to the various poems are intended to acquaint the student with the circ.u.mstances under which they were composed, to trace their literary genesis and relationships, and, whenever necessary, to give an outline of the train of thought which they embody.
In conclusion the editor would express the hope that his labors in the preparation of this book may help, if only in some slight degree, to stimulate the study of the work of a poet who, with all his limitations, remains one of the abiding glories of English literature, and may contribute not less to a proper appreciation of a man who with all his faults was, on the evidence of those who knew him best, not only a great poet, but a very human and lovable personality.
T. M. P.
"Princeton University", "June" 4, 1906.
INTRODUCTION
Perhaps no other great poet in English Literature has been so differently judged at different times as Alexander Pope. Accepted almost on his first appearance as one of the leading poets of the day, he rapidly became recognized as the foremost man of letters of his age. He held this position throughout his life, and for over half a century after his death his works were considered not only as masterpieces, but as the finest models of poetry. With the change of poetic temper that occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth century Pope"s fame was overshadowed. The romantic poets and critics even raised the question whether Pope was a poet at all. And as his poetical fame diminished, the harsh judgments of his personal character increased. It is almost incredible with what exulting bitterness critics and editors of Pope have tracked out and exposed his petty intrigues, exaggerated his delinquencies, misrepresented his actions, attempted in short to blast his character as a man.
Both as a man and as a poet Pope is sadly in need of a defender to-day.
And a defense is by no means impossible. The depreciation of Pope"s poetry springs, in the main, from an attempt to measure it by other standards than those which he and his age recognized. The attacks upon his character are due, in large measure, to a misunderstanding of the spirit of the times in which he lived and to a forgetfulness of the special circ.u.mstances of his own life. Tried in a fair court by impartial judges Pope as a poet would be awarded a place, if not among the n.o.blest singers, at least high among poets of the second order. And the flaws of character which even his warmest apologist must admit would on the one hand be explained, if not excused, by circ.u.mstances, and on the other more than counterbalanced by the existence of n.o.ble qualities to which his a.s.sailants seem to have been quite blind.
Alexander Pope was born in London on May 21, 1688. His father was a Roman Catholic linen draper, who had married a second time. Pope was the only child of this marriage, and seems to have been a delicate, sweet-tempered, precocious, and, perhaps, a rather spoiled child.
Pope"s religion and his chronic ill-health are two facts of the highest importance to be taken into consideration in any study of his life or judgment of his character. The high hopes of the Catholics for a restoration of their religion had been totally destroyed by the Revolution of 1688. During all Pope"s lifetime they were a sect at once feared, hated, and oppressed by the severest laws. They were excluded from the schools and universities, they were burdened with double taxes, and forbidden to acquire real estate. All public careers were closed to them, and their property and even their persons were in times of excitement at the mercy of informers. In the last year of Pope"s life a proclamation was issued forbidding Catholics to come within ten miles of London, and Pope himself, in spite of his influential friends, thought it wise to comply with this edict. A fierce outburst of persecution often evokes in the persecuted some of the n.o.blest qualities of human nature; but a long-continued and crushing tyranny that extends to all the details of daily life is only too likely to have the most unfortunate results on those who are subjected to it. And as a matter of fact we find that the well-to-do Catholics of Pope"s day lived in an atmosphere of disaffection, political intrigue, and evasion of the law, most unfavorable for the development of that frank, courageous, and patriotic spirit for the lack of which Pope himself has so often been made the object of reproach.
In a well-known pa.s.sage of the "Epistle to Arbuthnot", Pope has spoken of his life as one long disease. He was in fact a humpbacked dwarf, not over four feet six inches in height, with long, spider-like legs and arms. He was subject to violent headaches, and his face was lined and contracted with the marks of suffering. In youth he so completely ruined his health by perpetual studies that his life was despaired of, and only the most careful treatment saved him from an early death. Toward the close of his life he became so weak that he could neither dress nor undress without a.s.sistance. He had to be laced up in stiff stays in order to sit erect, and wore a fur doublet and three pairs of stockings to protect himself against the cold. With these physical defects he had the extreme sensitiveness of mind that usually accompanies chronic ill health, and this sensitiveness was outraged incessantly by the brutal customs of the age. Pope"s enemies made as free with his person as with his poetry, and there is little doubt that he felt the former attacks the more bitterly of the two. Dennis, his first critic, called him "a short squab gentleman, the very bow of the G.o.d of love; his outward form is downright monkey." A rival poet whom he had offended hung up a rod in a coffee house where men of letters resorted, and threatened to whip Pope like a naughty child if he showed his face there. It is said, though perhaps not on the best authority, that when Pope once forgot himself so far as to make love to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the lady"s answer was "a fit of immoderate laughter." In an appendix to the "Dunciad" Pope collected some of the epithets with which his enemies had pelted him, "an ape," "an a.s.s," "a frog," "a coward," "a fool," "a little abject thing." He affected, indeed, to despise his a.s.sailants, but there is only too good evidence that their poisoned arrows rankled in his heart. Richardson, the painter, found him one day reading the latest abusive pamphlet. "These things are my diversion," said the poet, striving to put the best face on it; but as he read, his friends saw his features "writhen with anguish," and prayed to be delivered from all such "diversions" as these. Pope"s enemies and their savage abuse are mostly forgotten to-day. Pope"s furious retorts have been secured to immortality by his genius. It would have been n.o.bler, no doubt, to have answered by silence only; but before one condemns Pope it is only fair to realize the causes of his bitterness.
Pope"s education was short and irregular. He was taught the rudiments of Latin and Greek by his family priest, attended for a brief period a school in the country and another in London, and at the early age of twelve left school altogether, and settling down at his father"s house in the country began to read to his heart"s delight. He roamed through the cla.s.sic poets, translating pa.s.sages that pleased him, went up for a time to London to get lessons in French and Italian, and above all read with eagerness and attention the works of older English poets,--Spenser, Waller, and Dryden. He had already, it would seem, determined to become a poet, and his father, delighted with the clever boy"s talent, used to set him topics, force him to correct his verses over and over, and finally, when satisfied, dismiss him with the praise, "These are good rhymes." He wrote a comedy, a tragedy, an epic poem, all of which he afterward destroyed and, as he laughingly confessed in later years, he thought himself "the greatest genius that ever was."
Pope was not alone, however, in holding a high opinion of his talents.
While still a boy in his teens he was taken up and patronized by a number of gentlemen, Trumbull, Walsh, and Cromwell, all dabblers in poetry and criticism. He was introduced to the dramatist Wycherly, nearly fifty years his senior, and helped to polish some of the old man"s verses. His own works were pa.s.sed about in ma.n.u.script from hand to hand till one of them came to the eyes of Dryden"s old publisher, Tonson. Tonson wrote Pope a respectful letter asking for the honor of being allowed to publish them. One may fancy the delight with which the sixteen-year-old boy received this offer. It is a proof of Pope"s patience as well as his precocity that he delayed three years before accepting it. It was not till 1709 that his first published verses, the "Pastorals", a fragment translated from Homer, and a modernized version of one of the "Canterbury Tales", appeared in Tonson"s "Miscellany".
With the publication of the "Pastorals", Pope embarked upon his life as a man of letters. They seem to have brought him a certain recognition, but hardly fame. That he obtained by his next poem, the "Essay on Criticism", which appeared in 1711. It was applauded in the "Spectator", and Pope seems about this time to have made the acquaintance of Addison and the little senate which met in b.u.t.ton"s coffee house. His poem the "Messiah" appeared in the "Spectator" in May 1712; the first draft of "The Rape of the Lock" in a poetical miscellany in the same year, and Addison"s request, in 1713, that he compose a prologue for the tragedy of "Cato" set the final stamp upon his rank as a poet.
Pope"s friendly relations with Addison and his circle were not, however, long continued. In the year 1713 he gradually drew away from them and came under the influence of Swift, then at the height of his power in political and social life. Swift introduced him to the brilliant Tories, politicians and lovers of letters, Harley, Bolingbroke, and Atterbury, who were then at the head of affairs. Pope"s new friends seem to have treated him with a deference which he had never experienced before, and which bound him to them in unbroken affection. Harley used to regret that Pope"s religion rendered him legally incapable of holding a sinecure office in the government, such as was frequently bestowed in those days upon men of letters, and Swift jestingly offered the young poet twenty guineas to become a Protestant. But now, as later, Pope was firmly resolved not to abandon the faith of his parents for the sake of worldly advantage. And in order to secure the independence he valued so highly he resolved to embark upon the great work of his life, the translation of Homer.
"What led me into that," he told a friend long after, "was purely the want of money. I had then none; not even to buy books." It seems that about this time, 1713, Pope"s father had experienced some heavy financial losses, and the poet, whose receipts in money had so far been by no means in proportion to the reputation his works had brought him, now resolved to use that reputation as a means of securing from the public a sum which would at least keep him for life from poverty or the necessity of begging for patronage. It is worth noting that Pope was the first Englishman of letters who threw himself thus boldly upon the public and earned his living by his pen.
The arrangements for the publication and sale of Pope"s translation of Homer were made with care and pushed on with enthusiasm. He issued in 1713 his proposals for an edition to be published by subscription, and his friends at once became enthusiastic canva.s.sers. We have a characteristic picture of Swift at this time, bustling about a crowded ante-chamber, and informing the company that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist) who had begun a translation of Homer for which they must all subscribe, "for," says he, "the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him." The work was to be in six volumes, each costing a guinea. Pope obtained 575 subscribers, many of whom took more than one set. Lintot, the publisher, gave Pope 1200 for the work and agreed to supply the subscription copies free of charge. As a result Pope made something between 5000 and 6000, a sum absolutely unprecedented in the history of English literature, and amply sufficient to make him independent for life.
But the sum was honestly earned by hard and wearisome work. Pope was no Greek scholar; it is said, indeed, that he was just able to make out the sense of the original with a translation. And in addition to the fifteen thousand lines of the "Iliad", he had engaged to furnish an introduction and notes. At first the magnitude of the undertaking frightened him.
"What terrible moments," he said to Spence, "does one feel after one has engaged for a large work. In the beginning of my translating the "Iliad", I wished anybody would hang me a hundred times. It sat so heavily on my mind at first that I often used to dream of it and do sometimes still." In spite of his discouragement, however, and of the ill health which so constantly beset him, Pope fell gallantly upon his task, and as time went on came almost to enjoy it. He used to translate thirty or forty verses in the morning before rising and, in his own characteristic phrase, "piddled over them for the rest of the day." He used every a.s.sistance possible, drew freely upon the scholarship of friends, corrected and recorrected with a view to obtaining clearness and point, and finally succeeded in producing a version which not only satisfied his own critical judgment, but was at once accepted by the English-speaking world as the standard translation of Homer.
The first volume came out in June, 1715, and to Pope"s dismay and wrath a rival translation appeared almost simultaneously. Tickell, one of Addison"s "little senate," had also begun a translation of the "Iliad", and although he announced in the preface that he intended to withdraw in favor of Pope and take up a translation of the "Odyssey", the poet"s suspicions were at once aroused. And they were quickly fanned into a flame by the gossip of the town which reported that Addison, the recognized authority in literary criticism, p.r.o.nounced Tickell"s version "the best that ever was in any language." Rumor went so far, in fact, as to hint pretty broadly that Addison himself was the author, in part, at least, of Tickell"s book; and Pope, who had been encouraged by Addison to begin his long task, felt at once that he had been betrayed. His resentment was all the more bitter since he fancied that Addison, now at the height of his power and prosperity in the world of letters and of politics, had attempted to ruin an enterprise on which the younger man had set all his hopes of success and independence, for no better reason than literary jealousy and political estrangement. We know now that Pope was mistaken, but there was beyond question some reason at the time for his thinking as he did, and it is to the bitterness which this incident caused in his mind that we owe the famous satiric portrait of Addison as Atticus.
The last volume of the "Iliad" appeared in the spring of 1720, and in it Pope gave a renewed proof of his independence by dedicating the whole work, not to some lord who would have rewarded him with a handsome present, but to his old acquaintance, Congreve, the last survivor of the brilliant comic dramatists of Dryden"s day. And now resting for a time from his long labors, Pope turned to the adornment and cultivation of the little house and garden that he had leased at Twickenham.
Pope"s father had died in 1717, and the poet, rejecting politely but firmly the suggestion of his friend, Atterbury, that he might now turn Protestant, devoted himself with double tenderness to the care of his aged and infirm mother. He brought her with him to Twickenham, where she lived till 1733, dying in that year at the great age of ninety-one. It may have been partly on her account that Pope pitched upon Twickenham as his abiding place. Beautifully situated on the banks of the Thames, it was at once a quiet country place and yet of easy access to London, to Hampton Court, or to Kew. The five acres of land that lay about the house furnished Pope with inexhaustible entertainment for the rest of his life. He "twisted and twirled and harmonized" his bit of ground "till it appeared two or three sweet little lawns opening and opening beyond one another, the whole surrounded by impenetrable woods."
Following the taste of his times in landscape gardening, he adorned his lawns with artificial mounds, a sh.e.l.l temple, an obelisk, and a colonnade. But the crowning glory was the grotto, a tunnel decorated fantastically with sh.e.l.ls and bits of looking-gla.s.s, which Pope dug under a road that ran through his grounds. Here Pope received in state, and his house and garden was for years the center of the most brilliant society in England. Here Swift came on his rare visits from Ireland, and Bolingbroke on his return from exile. Arbuthnot, Pope"s beloved physician, was a frequent visitor, and Peterborough, one of the most distinguished of English soldiers, condescended to help lay out the garden. Congreve came too, at times, and Gay, the laziest and most good-natured of poets. Nor was the society of women lacking at these gatherings. Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the wittiest woman in England, was often there, until her bitter quarrel with the poet; the grim old d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough appeared once or twice in Pope"s last years; and the Princess of Wales came with her husband to inspire the leaders of the opposition to the hated Walpole and the miserly king. And from first to last, the good angel of the place was the blue-eyed, sweet-tempered Patty Blount, Pope"s best and dearest friend.
Not long after the completion of the "Iliad", Pope undertook to edit Shakespeare, and completed the work in 1724. The edition is, of course, quite superseded now, but it has its place in the history of Shakespearean studies as the first that made an effort, though irregular and incomplete, to restore the true text by collation and conjecture. It has its place, too, in the story of Pope"s life, since the bitter criticism which it received, all the more unpleasant to the poet since it was in the main true, was one of the princ.i.p.al causes of his writing the "Dunciad". Between the publication of his edition of Shakespeare, however, and the appearance of the "Dunciad", Pope resolved to complete his translation of Homer, and with the a.s.sistance of a pair of friends, got out a version of the Odyssey in 1725. Like the "Iliad", this was published by subscription, and as in the former case the greatest men in England were eager to show their appreciation of the poet by filling up his lists. Sir Robert Walpole, the great Whig statesman, took ten copies, and Harley, the fallen Tory leader, put himself, his wife, and his daughter down for sixteen. Pope made, it is said, about 3700 by this work.
In 1726, Swift visited Pope and encouraged him to complete a satire which he seems already to have begun on the dull critics and hack writers of the day. For one cause or another its publication was deferred until 1728, when it appeared under the t.i.tle of the "Dunciad".
Here Pope declared open war upon his enemies. All those who had attacked his works, abused his character, or scoffed at his personal deformities, were caricatured as ridiculous and sometimes disgusting figures in a mock epic poem celebrating the accession of a new monarch to the throne of Dullness. The "Dunciad" is little read to-day except by professed students of English letters, but it made, naturally enough, a great stir at the time and vastly provoked the wrath of all the dunces whose names it dragged to light. Pope has often been blamed for stooping to such ign.o.ble combat, and in particular for the coa.r.s.eness of his abuse, and for his bitter jests upon the poverty of his opponents. But it must be remembered that no living writer had been so scandalously abused as Pope, and no writer that ever lived was by nature so quick to feel and to resent insult. The undoubted coa.r.s.eness of the work is in part due to the gross license of the times in speech and writing, and more particularly to the influence of Swift, at this time predominant over Pope. And in regard to Pope"s trick of taunting his enemies with poverty, it must frankly be confessed that he seized upon this charge as a ready and telling weapon. Pope was at heart one of the most charitable of men. In the days of his prosperity he is said to have given away one eighth of his income. And he was always quick to succor merit in distress; he pensioned the poet Savage and he tried to secure patronage for Johnson. But for the wretched hack writers of the common press who had barked against him he had no mercy, and he struck them with the first rod that lay ready to his hands.
During his work on the "Dunciad", Pope came into intimate relations with Bolingbroke, who in 1725 had returned from his long exile in France and had settled at Dawley within easy reach of Pope"s villa at Twickenham.
Bolingbroke was beyond doubt one of the most brilliant and stimulating minds of his age. Without depth of intellect or solidity of character, he was at once a philosopher, a statesman, a scholar, and a fascinating talker. Pope, who had already made his acquaintance, was delighted to renew and improve their intimacy, and soon came wholly under the influence of his splendid friend. It is hardly too much to say that all the rest of Pope"s work is directly traceable to Bolingbroke. The "Essay on Man" was built up on the precepts of Bolingbroke"s philosophy; the "Imitations of Horace" were undertaken at Bolingbroke"s suggestion; and the whole tone of Pope"s political and social satire during the years from 1731 to 1738 reflects the spirit of that opposition to the administration of Walpole and to the growing influence of the commercial cla.s.s, which was at once inspired and directed by Bolingbroke. And yet it is exactly in the work of this period that we find the best and with perhaps one exception, the "Essay on Man", the most original, work of Pope. He has obtained an absolute command over his instrument of expression. In his hands the heroic couplet sings, and laughs, and chats, and thunders. He has turned from the ign.o.ble warfare with the dunces to satirize courtly frivolity and wickedness in high places. And most important of all to the student of Pope, it is in these last works that his personality is most clearly revealed. It has been well said that the best introduction to the study of Pope, the man, is to get the "Epistle to Arbuthnot" by heart.
Pope gradually persuaded himself that all the works of these years, the "Essay on Man", the "Satires, Epistles", and "Moral Essays", were but parts of one stupendous whole. He told Spence in the last years of his life: "I had once thought of completing my ethic work in four books.--The first, you know, is on the Nature of Man [the "Essay on Man"]; the second would have been on knowledge and its limits--here would have come in an Essay on Education, part of which I have inserted in the "Dunciad" ["i.e." in the Fourth Book, published in 1742]. The third was to have treated of Government, both ecclesiastical and civil--and this was what chiefly stopped my going on. I could not have said what "I would" have said without provoking every church on the face of the earth; and I did not care for living always in boiling water.--This part would have come into my "Brutus" [an epic poem which Pope never completed], which is planned already. The fourth would have been on Morality; in eight or nine of the most concerning branches of it."
It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Pope with his irregular methods of work and illogical habit of thought had planned so vast and elaborate a system before he began its execution. It is far more likely that he followed his old method of composing on the inspiration of the moment, and produced the works in question with little thought of their relation or interdependence. But in the last years of his life, when he had made the acquaintance of Warburton, and was engaged in reviewing and perfecting the works of this period, he noticed their general similarity in form and spirit, and, possibly under Warburton"s influence, conceived the notion of combining and supplementing them to form that "Greater Essay on Man" of which he spoke to Spence, and of which Warburton himself has given us a detailed account.
Warburton, a wide-read, pompous, and polemical clergyman, had introduced himself to the notice of Pope by a defense of the philosophical and religious principles of the "Essay on Man". In spite of the influence of the free-thinking Bolingbroke, Pope still remained a member of the Catholic church and sincerely believed himself to be an orthodox, though liberal, Christian, and he had, in consequence, been greatly disconcerted by a criticism of his poem published in Switzerland and lately translated into English. Its author, Pierre de Crousaz, maintained, and with a considerable degree of truth, that the principles of Pope"s poem if pushed to their logical conclusion were destructive to religion and would rank their author rather among atheists than defenders of the faith. The very word "atheist" was at that day sufficient to put the man to whom it was applied beyond the pale of polite society, and Pope, who quite lacked the ability to refute in logical argument the attack of de Crousaz, was proportionately delighted when Warburton came forward in his defense, and in a series of letters a.s.serted that Pope"s whole intention was to vindicate the ways of G.o.d to man, and that de Crousaz had mistaken his purpose and misunderstood his language. Pope"s grat.i.tude to his defender knew no bounds; he declared that Warburton understood the "Essay" better than he did himself; he p.r.o.nounced him the greatest critic he ever knew, secured an introduction to him, introduced him to his own rich and influential friends, in short made the man"s fortune for him outright. When the University of Oxford hesitated to give Warburton, who had never attended a university, the degree of D.D., Pope declined to accept the degree of D.C.L. which had been offered him at the same time, and wrote the Fourth Book of the "Dunciad" to satirize the stupidity of the university authorities. In conjunction with Warburton he proceeded further to revise the whole poem, for which his new friend wrote notes and a ponderous introduction, and made the capital mistake of subst.i.tuting the frivolous, but clever, Colley Gibber, with whom he had recently become embroiled, for his old enemy, Theobald, as the hero. And the last year of his life was spent in getting out new editions of his poems accompanied by elaborate commentaries from the pen of Warburton.
In the spring of 1744, it was evident that Pope was failing fast. In addition to his other ailments he was now attacked by an asthmatical dropsy, which no efforts of his physicians could remove. Yet he continued to work almost to the last, and distributed copies of his "Ethic Epistles" to his friends about three weeks before his death, with the smiling remark that like the dying Socrates he was dispensing his morality among his friends. His mind began to wander; he complained that he saw all things as through a curtain, and told Spence once "with a smile of great pleasure and with the greatest softness" that he had seen a vision. His friends were devoted in their attendance. Bolingbroke sat weeping by his chair, and on Spence"s remarking how Pope with every rally was always saying something kindly of his friends, replied: "I never in my life knew a man that 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 his head dropped and his voice broke in tears. It was noticed that whenever Patty Blount came into the room, the dying flame of life flashed up in a momentary glow. At the very end a friend reminded Pope that as a professed Catholic he ought to send for a priest. The dying man replied that he did not believe it essential, but thanked him for the suggestion. When the priest appeared, Pope attempted to rise from his bed that he might receive the sacrament kneeling, and the priest came out from the sick room "penetrated to the last degree with the state of mind in which he found his penitent, resigned and wrapt up in the love of G.o.d and man." The hope that sustained Pope to the end was that of immortality. "I am so certain of the soul"s being immortal," he whispered, almost with his last breath, "that I seem to feel it within me, as it were by intuition." He died on the evening of May 30, so quietly that his friends hardly knew that the end had come.
He was buried in Twickenham Church, near the monument he had erected to his parents, and his coffin was carried to the grave by six of the poorest men of the parish.
It is plain even from so slight a sketch as this that the common conception of Pope as "the wicked wasp of Twickenham," a bitter, jealous, and malignant spirit, is utterly out of accord with the facts of his life. Pope"s faults of character lie on the surface, and the most perceptible is that which has done him most harm in the eyes of English-speaking men. He was by nature, perhaps by training also, untruthful. If he seldom stooped to an outright lie, he never hesitated to equivocate; and students of his life have found that it is seldom possible to take his word on any point where his own works or interests were concerned. I have already (p. x) attempted to point out the probable cause of this defect; and it is, moreover, worth while to remark that Pope"s manifold intrigues and evasions were mainly of the defensive order. He plotted and quibbled not so much to injure others as to protect himself. To charge Pope with treachery to his friends, as has sometimes been done, is wholly to misunderstand his character.
Another flaw, one can hardly call it a vice, in Pope"s character was his constant practice of considering everything that came in his way as copy. It was this which led him to reclaim his early letters from his friends, to alter, rewrite, and redate them, utterly unconscious of the trouble which he was preparing for his future biographers. The letters, he thought, were good reading but not so good as he could make them, and he set to work to improve them with all an artist"s zeal, and without a trace of a historian"s care for facts. It was this which led him to embody in his description of a rich fool"s splendid house and park certain unmistakable traces of a living n.o.bleman"s estate and to start in genuine amazement and regret when the world insisted on identifying the n.o.bleman and the fool. And when Pope had once done a good piece of work, he had all an artist"s reluctance to destroy it. He kept bits of verse by him for years and inserted them into appropriate places in his poems. This habit it was that brought about perhaps the gravest charge that has ever been made against Pope, that of accepting 1000 to suppress a satiric portrait of the old d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, and yet of publishing it in a revision of a poem that he was engaged on just before his death. The truth seems to be that Pope had drawn this portrait in days when he was at bitter enmity with the d.u.c.h.ess, and after the reconcilement that took place, unwilling to suppress it entirely, had worked it over, and added pa.s.sages out of keeping with the first design, but pointing to another lady with whom he was now at odds.
Pope"s behavior, we must admit, was not altogether creditable, but it was that of an artist reluctant to throw away good work, not that of a ruffian who stabs a woman he has taken money to spare.
Finally Pope was throughout his life, and notably in his later years, the victim of an irritable temper and a quick, abusive tongue. His irritability sprang in part, we may believe, from his physical sufferings, even more, however, from the exquisitely sensitive heart which made him feel a coa.r.s.e insult as others would a blow. And of the coa.r.s.eness of the insults that were heaped upon Pope no one except the careful student of his life can have any conception. His genius, his morals, his person, his parents, and his religion were overwhelmed in one indiscriminate flood of abuse. Too high spirited to submit tamely to these attacks, too irritable to laugh at them, he struck back, and his weapon was personal satire which cut like a whip and left a brand like a hot iron. And if at times, as in the case of Addison, Pope was mistaken in his object and a.s.saulted one who was in no sense his enemy, the fault lies not so much in his alleged malice as in the unhappy state of warfare in which he lived.
Over against the faults of Pope we may set more than one n.o.ble characteristic. The sensitive heart and impulsive temper that led him so often into bitter warfare, made him also most susceptible to kindness and quick to pity suffering. He was essentially of a tender and loving nature, a devoted son, and a loyal friend, unwearied in acts of kindness and generosity. His ruling pa.s.sion, to use his own phrase, was a devotion to letters, and he determined as early and worked as diligently to make himself a poet as ever Milton did. His wretched body was dominated by a high and eager mind, and he combined in an unparalleled degree the fiery energy of the born poet with the tireless patience of the trained artist.
But perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of Pope is his manly independence. In an age when almost without exception his fellow-writers stooped to accept a great man"s patronage or sold their talents into the slavery of politics, Pope stood aloof from patron and from party. He repeatedly declined offers of money that were made him, even when no condition was attached. He refused to change his religion, though he was far from being a devout Catholic, in order to secure a comfortable place. He relied upon his genius alone for his support, and his genius gave him all that he asked, a modest competency. His relations with his rich and powerful friends were marked by the same independent spirit. He never cringed or flattered, but met them on even terms, and raised himself by merit alone from his position as the unknown son of an humble shopkeeper to be the friend and a.s.sociate of the greatest fortunes and most powerful minds in England. It is not too much to say that the career of a man of letters as we know it to-day, a career at once honorable and independent, takes its rise from the life and work of Alexander Pope.
The long controversies that have raged about Pope"s rank as a poet seem at last to be drawing to a close; and it has become possible to strike a balance between the exaggerated praise of his contemporaries and the reckless depreciation of romantic critics. That he is not a poet of the first order is plain, if for no other reason than that he never produced a work in any of the greatest forms of poetry. The drama, the epic, the lyric, were all outside his range. On the other hand, unless a definition of poetry be framed--and Dr. Johnson has well remarked that "to circ.u.mscribe poetry by a definition will only show the narrowness of the definer"--which shall exclude all gnomic and satiric verse, and so debar the claims of Hesiod, Juvenal, and Boileau, it is impossible to deny that Pope is a true poet. Certain qualities of the highest poet Pope no doubt lacked, lofty imagination, intense pa.s.sion, wide human sympathy. But within the narrow field which he marked out for his own he approaches perfection as nearly as any English poet, and Pope"s merit consists not merely in the smoothness of his verse or the polish of separate epigrams, as is so often stated, but quite as much in the vigor of his conceptions and the unity and careful proportion of each poem as a whole. It is not too much to say that "The Rape of the Lock" is one of the best-planned poems in any language. It is as symmetrical and exquisitely finished as a Grecian temple.
Historically Pope represents the fullest embodiment of that spirit which began to appear in English literature about the middle of the seventeenth century, and which we are accustomed to call the "cla.s.sical"
spirit. In essence this movement was a protest against the irregularity and individual license of earlier poets. Instead of far-fetched wit and fanciful diction, the cla.s.sical school erected the standards of common sense in conception and directness in expression. And in so doing they restored poetry which had become the diversion of the few to the possession of the many. Pope, for example, is preeminently the poet of his time. He dealt with topics that were of general interest to the society in which he lived; he pictured life as he saw it about him. And this accounts for his prompt and general acceptance by the world of his day.
For the student of English literature Pope"s work has a threefold value.
It represents the highest achievement of one of the great movements in the developments of English verse. It reflects with unerring accuracy the life and thought of his time--not merely the outward life of beau and belle in the days of Queen Anne, but the ideals of the age in art, philosophy, and politics. And finally it teaches as hardly any other body of English verse can be said to do, the perennial value of conscious and controlling art. Pope"s work lives and will live while English poetry is read, not because of its inspiration, imagination, or depth of thought, but by its unity of design, vigor of expression, and perfection of finish--by those qualities, in short, which show the poet as an artist in verse.
CHIEF DATES IN POPE"S LIFE