It must not be hence inferred that every line written by Pope is as perfect as it should be, or may be taken as a model. Writing is a sustained endeavour to express meaning, and the artist is perpetually dropping below his own ideal. Besides, a long piece is to be regarded in its effect as a whole. The attempt to make it all point would result in a string of epigrams, not in a complete poem, which must be compounded of complementary parts. Incessant brilliance is unnatural, and fatigues the attention. Pope is at times flat, and below himself; sometimes fails in putting his meaning clearly; is occasionally clumsy; often ungrammatical. But in the art of adjustment of parts, of leading up to the point, of rising and falling, of knowing when to stimulate attention, and when to let it repose, he has few equals in our literature. The failures and the successes of such an artist in language are equally instructive to a learner. This exquisite skill of literary composition is that which places Pope in the first rank of English classics. But over and above the workmanship, the materials of the Satires and Epistles are not without qualities of permanent value. These enduring qualities may be referred to two heads. 1. The social ideas expressed, and the ethical standard implied, have the character of universality. The grave defects we have found in Pope's conception of life, and of human nature, will not allow him to be classed among the leading minds of his country. But though wanting himself the breadth of the highest genius, he lived in an age which was prepared and accustomed to have the understanding appealed to rather than the passions. This will become more intelligible by contrasting Pope with our elder writers generally. In our elder writers, from the Elizabethan age downwards, is found a wealth of imagery and a compass of language, by the side of which Pope seems at first sight impoverished. Yet none of our poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Milton alone excepted, have left works which can pass down to all time as classics of the language. They revel in an exuberant lawlessness of thought as well as of words. They are full of genius, but destitute of that art which alone can make genius tell. Their ideas follow no law, they are whimsical, fanciful, individual. They do not appeal to the universal human sentiment, but to some 'idola tribus.' Pope indeed wrote for his contemporaries, and 'for the Town,' and his Satires and Epistles teem with personal allusions. But reason is dominant throughout. These special cases are all brought up for judgment before that common sense which belongs to no age or country, but must be equally accepted by all. Indeed, the progress of cultivation consists in the ascendency gradually acquired by the intellectual associations over the suggestions of personal feeling. Pope's special judgments are constantly at fault, because he is biased by personal spite, or party zeal. But the law under which he is compelled to pronounce judgment, is the law of universal reason. He is in our poetry what Boileau is in French (Nisard, Lit. Franç. 2. 294), 'the type of the spirit of discipline and choice, of law and proportion, of the effort to raise the idea to its highest degree of generality. This ideal is one towards which all the great writers of the seventeenth century (in France) aspired. Descartes, Pascal, the Port Royal, the Académie have all recognised this universality as the supreme law of good writing.' 2. Pope's Satires and Epistles have a value for us as a contemporary record, inasmuch as they present the characters and reflect the manners of the period. In this respect they are a composite result of a retrospective sentiment reacting against the poet's actual position. The days of Queen Anne are in Pope's mind, the personages of the court of George II. and Caroline under his pen. Pope's Satires and Epistles certainly do not equal Lord Hervey's Memoirs in truth, or fulness and development of detail. But they stand next to those Memoirs as a lively picture of a section of social life between 1730-40. Lord Hervey presents us with the Court interior, Pope with the literary and opposition side of London life. All this would have been lost to us if Pope, like Bishop Hall in his Satires, had satirised abstract vices, or abused fictitious characters. It has been made a question if all the names in these Satires and Epistles are those of historical or actual persons. The principal ground for doubt is found in Pope's own words (Satires and Epistles, 1. 42), 'A hundred smart in Timon or in Balaam,' &c. It is true that in these lines Pope is speaking only of the Moral Epistles, in which some fictitious characters are certainly introduced as illustrations. But really the lines referred to are only an artifice of Pope to disguise the fact that in Timon he did mean the Duke of Chandos. And we have to set against any weight which these lines may possess in the question his own declaration (Satires and Epistles, Advertisement, p. 23), 'Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at, if they please.' But a more decisive proof that real characters are intended is an examination in detail of all the personal allusions. These in the Satires and Epistles amount to seventy-five. Of these many are named without disguise. Of those that are veiled under a pseudonym, some are so clearly indicated as to leave no room for doubt. Others are known by a tradition which may be traced up to the time of publication. There remain a few allusions which we cannot with certainty identify. (1) All the editors agree in filling up the blank, Satires and Epistles, 2. 120, with the name of Marlborough, but on what evidence I do not know. (2) In 2. 49, Mr. Carruthers explains 'Avidien or his wife' of Edward Wortley Montagu and Lady Mary, an interpretation which appears doubtful, though from the context it cannot be doubted that real persons are intended. (3) In 1. 49, Dr. Bennet affirmed that Lord Ilchester and Lord Holland were meant. But see note on the passage. (4) In 2. 87, the 'three ladies' cannot now be identified, yet Warburton, who himself cannot give the names, gives us to understand that the allusion was to fact. Other uncertain references are noticed in their place. It is true of the whole of Pope's satirical writings that there are very few fancy characters. So little did he care for playing with shadows, that even the personages in the farce Three Hours after Marriage (in which he assisted Gay and Arbuthnot) represent living persons. As Pope's pictures, then, are all portraits, it becomes necessary to know something of the characters which are brought upon the stage. It is true that the execution and literary beauties of his verse may be appreciated without this knowledge; yet not then wholly, inasmuch as the appropriateness of the touches is one of the elements of our judgment. But Pope is also a landmark in the literary and social history of England. There has accumulated round Pope's poems a mass of biographical anecdote such as surrounds the writings of no other English author. The student of our literature will find that his enjoyment of the wit of the Satires and Epistles is increased exactly in proportion as he extends his knowledge of the period. It would be useful to begin by reading over a summary of the public events of the reign of George II. For this purpose, Lord Stanhope's History of England offers a convenient and elegant abridgment. Mr. Carruthers' Life of Pope, 2nd edition, 1858, will be found to embody in an interesting narrative most of the ascertained facts about the poet and his works. For more complete information, the Memoirs, and other publications of the time, referred to in the Notes at the end of this volume should be consulted. Nothing further has been attempted in these Notes than to indicate to the student the sources of illustration. He should in no case rest satisfied with the information the Notes afford. They are a mere key to the explanatory literature, and not a substitute for it. Not only Pope's orthography is careless and inconsistent. proper names, but ordinary words, are spelt in different ways at different times. But in this also he was the man of his age. It may be a question if his errors should be corrected. But it cannot be right to reduce the orthography of 1730-40 to the conventional standard now established. The text therefore of Warburton's ed. 1751 has been scrupulously retained, errors, press or clerical, alone excepted. LINCOLN COLLEGE, January, 1872. M. P. SATIRES AND EPISTLES.. PROLOGUE. An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. ADVERTISEMENT. THIS paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune (the authors of Verses to the imitator of Horace, and of an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a nobleman at Hampton Court) to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge), but my person, morals, and family, whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so aukward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if anything offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous. Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at, if they please. I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage, and honour, on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out, but by its truth and likeness. P. P. HUT, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd I said, The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: |