"It is certainly a true observation, that no people | are so impatient of censure as those who are the greatest slanderers, which was wonderfully exemplified on this occasion. On the day the book was first vended, a crowd of authors besieged the shop; intreaties, advices, threats of law and battery, nay cries of treason, were all employed to hinder the coming out of the 'Dunciad ;' on the other side, the booksellers and hawkers made as great efforts to procure it. What could a few poor authors do against so great a majority of the public? There was no stopping a torrent with a finger; so out it came. "Many ludicrous circumstances attended it. The Dunces (for by this name they were called) held weekly clubs, to consult of hostilities against the author; one wrote a letter to a great minister, assuring him Mr. Pope was the greatest enemy the government had; and another bought his image in clay, to execute him in effigy; with which sad sort of satisfaction the gentlemen were a little comforted. "Some false editions of the book having an owl in their frontispiece, the true one, to distinguish it, fixed in his stead an ass laden with authors. Then another surreptitious one being printed with the same ass, the new edition in octavo returned for distinction to the owl again. Hence arose a great contest of booksellers against booksellers, and advertisements against advertisements; some recommending the edition of the owl, and others the edition of the ass; by which name they came to be distinguished, to the great honour also of the gentlemen of the Dunciad.'" Pope appears by this narrative to have contemplated his victory over the Dunces with great exultation; and such was his delight in the tumult which he had raised, that for a while,his natural sensibility was suspended, and he read reproaches and invectives without emotion, considering them only as the necessary effects of that pain which he rejoiced in having given. It cannot however be concealed, that, by his own confession, he was the aggressor: for nobody believes that the letters in the 'Bathos' were placed at random and it may be discovered that when he thinks himself concealed, he indulges the common vanity of common men, and triumphs in those distinctions which he had affected to despise. He is proud that his book was presented to the King and Queen by the right honourable Sir Robert Walpole; he is proud that they had read it before; he is proud that the edition was taken off by the nobility and persons of the first distinction. The edition of which he speaks was, I believe, that which, by telling in the text the names, and in the notes the characters, of those whom he had satirised, was made intelligible and diverting. The critics had now declared their approbation of the plan, and the common reader began to like it without fear; those who were strangers to petty literature, and therefore unable to decipher initials and blanks, had now names and perSons brought within their view; and delighted in the visible effect of those shafts of malice, which they had hitherto contemplated, as shot into the air. • Dennis, upon the fresh provocation now given him, renewed the enmity which had for a time been appeased by mutual civilities; and published remarks, which he had till then suppressed, upon the Rape of the Lock.' Many more grumbled in secret, or vented their resent ment in the newspapers by epigrams or invectives. universally supposed, and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is addressed, was privately said, to mean the Duke of Chandos; a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and show, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had consequently the voice of the public in his favour. A violent outcry was therefore raised against the ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was said to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, and who gained the opportunity of insulting him by the kindness of his invitation. The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope publicly denied; but from the reproach which the attack on a character so amiable brought upon him, he tried all means of escaping. The name of Cleland was again employed in an apology, by which no man was satisfied; and he was at last reduced to shelter his temerity behind dissimulation, and endeavour to make that disbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke, which was answered with great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his excuse without believing his professions. He said, that to have ridiculed his taste, or his buildings, had been an indifferent action in another man; but that in Pope after the reciprocal kindness that had been exchanged between them, it had been less easily excused. Pope, in one of his Letters, complaining of the treatment which his poem had found, "owns that such cri, tics can intimidate him, nay almost persuade him to write no more, which is a compliment this age deserves." The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous; for the world can easily go on without him, and in a short time will cease to miss him. I have heard of an idiot, who used to revenge his vexations by lying all night upon the bridge. "There is nothing," says Juvenal," that a man will not believe in his own favour.' Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers in the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored: and self-love did not suffer hin to suspect that they went away and laughed. The following year deprived him of Gay, a man whom he had known early, and whom he seemed to love with more tenderness than any other of his literary friends. Pope was now forty-four years old; an age at which the mind begins less easily to admit new confidence; and the will to grow less flexible; and when, therefore, the departure of an old friend is very acutely felt. In the next year he lost his mother, not by an unexpected death, for she had lasted to the age of ninetythree: but she did not die unlamented. The filial piety of Pope was in the highest degree amiable and exemplary; his parents had the happiness of living till he was at the summit of poetical reputation, till he was at ease in his fortune, and without a rival in his fame, and found no diminution of his respect and tenderness. Whatever was his pride, to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has, among its soothing and quiet comforts, few things better to give than such a son. One of the passages of Pope's life, which seems to deserve some inquiry, was a publication of Letters between him and many of his friends, which falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious bookseller of no good fame, were by him printed and sold. This volume containing some Letters from noblemen, Pope incited a Ducket, indeed, being mentioned as loving Burnet prosecution against him in the House of Lords for with "pious passion," pretended that his moral charac-breach of privilege, and attended himself to stimulate ter was injured, and for some time declared his resolu- the resentment of his friends. Curll appeared at the tion to take vengeance with a cudgel. But Pope ap- bar, and, knowing himself in no great danger, spoke of peased him, by changing "pious passion" to "cordia! Pope with very little reverence: "He has," said Curll, friendship;" and by a note, in which he vehemently dis-" a knack at versifying, but in prose I think myself claims the malignity of meaning imputed to the first expression. Aaron Hill, who was represented as diving for the prize, expostulated with Pope in a manner so much superior to all mean solicitation, that Pope was reduced to sneak and shuffle, sometimes to deny, and sometimes to apologize; he first endeavours to wound, and is then afraid to own that he meant a blow. The Dunciad,' in a complete edition, is addressed to Dr. Swift: of the notes, part were written by Dr. Arbuthnot; and an apologetical Letter was prefixed, signed by Cleland, but supposed to have been written by Pope. After this general war upon Dulness, he seems to have indulged himself a while in tranquillity; but his subsequent productions prove that he was not idle. He published (1731) a poem on Taste,' in which he very particularly and severely criticises the house, the furniture, the gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth and little taste. By Timon he was a match for him." When the orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed; Curll went away triumphant; and Pope was left to seek some other remedy. Curll's account was, that one evening a man in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's epistolary correspondence; that he asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorised to use his purchase to his own advantage. That Curl gave a true account of the transaction it is reasonable to believe, because no falsehood was ever detected: and when, some years afterwards, I mentioned it to Lintot, the son of Bernard, he declared his opinion to be, that Pope knew better than any body eise how Curll obtained the copies, because another parcel was at the same time sent to himself for which no price had ever been demanded, as he made known his resolution not to pay a porter, and consequently not to deal with a nameless agent. Such care had been taken to make them public, that they were sent at once to two booksellers: to Curll, who was likely to seize them as a prey; and to Lintot, who might be expected to give Pope information of the seeming injury. Lintot, I believe, did nothing; and Curl did what was expected. That to make them public was the only purpose may be reasonably supposed, because the numbers, offered to sale by the private messengers, shewed that hope of gain could not have been the motive of the impression. It seems that Pope, being desirous of printing his Letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion; that, when he could complain that his Letters were surreptitiously published, he might decently and defensively publish them himself. Pope's private correspondence, thus promulgated, filled the nation with praises of his candour, tenderness, and benevolence, the purity of his purposes, and the fidelity of his friendship. There were some Letters which a very good or a very wise man would wish suppressed; but as they had been already exposed, it was impracticable now to retract them. From the perusal of those Letters, Mr. Allen first conceived the desire of knowing him; and with so much zeal did he cultivate the friendship which he had newly formed, that, when Pope told his purpose of vindicating his own property by a genuine edition, he offered to pay the cost. This however Pope did not accept; but in time solicited a subscription for a Quarto volume, which appeared (1737), I believe, with sufficient profit. In the preface he tells, that his Letters were reposited in a friend's library, said to be the Earl of Oxford's, and that the copy thence stolen was sent to the press. The story was doubtless received with different degrees of credit. It may be suspected that the Preface to the Miscellanies' was written to prepare the public for such an incident; and to strengthen this opinion, James Worsdale, a painter, who was employed in clandestine negotiations, but whose veracity was very doubtful, declared that he was the messenger who carried, by Pope's direction, the books to Curll. When they were first published and avowed, as they had relation to recent facts, and persons either then living or not yet forgotten, they may be supposed to have found readers; but as the facts were minute, and the characters, being either private or literary, were little known, or little regarded, they awaked no popular kindness or resentment; the book never became much the subject of conversation; some read it as a contemporary history, and some perhaps as a model of epistolary language: but those who read it did not talk of it. Not much therefore was added by it to fame or envy: nor do I remember that it produced either public praise, or public censure. It had, however, in some degree, the recommendation of novelty. Our language had few Letters, except those of statesmen. Howel, indeed, about a century ago, published his Letters, which are commended by Morhoff, and which alone, of his hundred volumes, continue his memory. Loveday's Letters were printed only once; those of Herbert and Suckling are hardly known. Mrs. Philips [Orinda's] are equally neglected. And those of Walsh seem written as exercises, and were never sent to any living mistress or friend. Pope's epistolary excellence had an open field; he had no English rival living or dead. part of what he persuaded himself to think a systeïn of Ethics, under the title of an Essay on Man, which, if his Letter to Swift (of September 14, 1735) be rightly explained by the commentator, had been eight years under his consideration, and to which he seems to have desired the success with great solicitude. He had now many open, and doubtless many secret enemies. The 'Dunces were yet smarting with the war; and the superiority which he publicly arrogated, disposed the world to wish his humiliation." All this he knew, and against all he provided. His own name, and that of his friend to whom the work is inscribed, were in the first editions carefully suppressed; and the poem, being of a new kind, was ascribed to one or another, as favour determined, or conjecture wandered; it was given, says Warburton, to every man, except him only who could write it. Those who like only when they like the author, and who are under the dominion of a name, condemned it; and those admired it who are willing to scatter praise at random, which while it is unapropriated, excites no envy. Those friends of Pope, that were trusted with the secret, went about lavishing honours on the new born poet, and hinting that Pope was never so much in danger from any former rival. To those authors whom he had personally offended, and to those whose opinion the world considered as decisive, and whom he suspected of envy or malevolence, he sent his Essay as a present before publication, that they might defeat their own enmity by praises, which they could not afterwards decently retract, With these precautions, 1733, was published the first part of the Essay on Man.' There had been for some time a report that Pope was busy upon a System of Morality: but this design was not discovered in the new poem, which had a form and a title with which its readers were unacquainted. Its reception was not. uniform: some thought it a very imperfect piece, though not without good lines. While the author was unknown, some, as wili always happen, favoured him as an adventurer, and some censured him as an intruder; but all thought him above neglect; the sale increased, and editions were multiplied. The subsequent editions of the first Epistle exhibited two memorable corrections. At first, the poet and his friend Expatiate freely o'er this scene of man, A mighty maze, but not without a plan : for, if there was no plan, it was in vain to describe or to trace the maze. The other alteration was of these lines; And spite of pride, and in thy reason's spite, but having afterwards discovered or been, shewn, that the "truth" which subsisted "in spite of reason" could not be very " clear," he substituted And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite. To such oversights will the most vigorous mind be liable, when it is employed at once upon argument and poetry. The second and third Epistles were published; and Pope was, I believe, more and more suspected of writing them; at last, in 1734, he avowed the fourth, and claim Pope is seen in this collection as connected with the other contemporary wits, and certainly suffers no dis-ed the honour of a moral poet. grace in the comparison; but it must be remembered, that he had the power of favouring himself; he might have originally had publication in his mind, and have written with care, or have afterwards selected those which he had most happily conceived, or most diligently laboured; and I know not whether there does not appear something more studied and artificial in his productions than the rest, except one long Letter by Bolingbroke, composed with the skill and industry of a professed author. It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously formed a style rarely writes afterwards with complete ease. Pope may be said to write always with his reputation in his head; Swift, perhaps, like a man who remembered he was writing to Pope; but Arbuthnot, like one who lets thoughts drop from his pen as they rise In the conclusion it is sufficiently acknowledged, that the doctrine of the Essay on Man' was received from Bolingbroke, who is said to have ridiculed Pope among those who enjoyed his confidence, as having adopted and advanced principles of which he did not perceive the consequence, and as blindly propagating opinions contrary to his own. That those communications had been consolidated into a scheme regularly drawn, and delivered to Pope, from whom it returned only transformed from prose to verse, has been reported, bet hardly can be true. The Essay plainly appears the fabric of a poet; what Bolingbroke supplied could only be the first principles: the order, illustration, and em bellishments, must all be Pope's. into his mind. Before these Letters appeared, he published the first These principles it is not my business to clear from obscurity, dogmatism, or falsehood; but they were not. immediately examined; philosophy and poetry have not often the same readers; and the Essay abounded in plendid amplifications and sparkling sentences, which were read and admired with no great attention to their ultimate purpose: its flowers caught the eye, which did not see what the gay foliage concealed, and for a time flourished in the sunshine of universal approbation. So little was any evil tendency discovered, that, as innocence is unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of piety. Its reputation soon invited a translator. It was first turned into French prose, and afterwards by Resnel into verse. Both translations fell into the hands of Crousaz, who first, when he had the version in prose, wrote a general censure, and afterwards reprinted Resnel's Version, with particular remarks upon every paragraph. Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, eminent for his treatise of Logic, and his Examen de Pyrrhonisme;' and, however little known or regarded here, was no mean antagonist. His mind was one of those in which philosophy and piety are happily united. He was accustomed to argument and disquisition, and perhaps was grown too desirous of detecting faults; but his intentions were always right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure. His incessant vigilance for the promotion of piety disposed him to look with distrust upon all metaphysical systems of Theology, and all schemes of virtue and happiness purely rational; and therefore it was not long before he was persuaded that the positions of Pope, as they terminated for the most part in natural religion, were intended to draw mankind away from revelation, and to represent the whole course of things as a necessary concatenation of indissoluble fatality; and it is undeniable, that in many passages a religious eye may easily discover expressions not very favourable to morals, or to liberty. About this time Warburton began to make his appearance in the first ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervent and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited inquiry, with wonderful extent and variety of knowledge, which yet had not oppressed his imagination, nor clouded his perspicacity. To every work he brought a memory full fraught, together with a fancy fertile of original combinations, and at once exerted the powers of the scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. But his knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact, and his pursuits too eager to be always cautious. His abilities gave him a haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperor's determination, oderint dum metuant; he used no alluréments of gentle language, but wished to compel rather than persuade. His style is copious without selection, and forcible without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves; his diction is coarse and impure; and his sentences are unmeasured. He had, in the early part of his life, pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the enemies of Pope. A Letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, Dryden I observe borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty." And when Theobald published Shakspeare, in opposition to Pope, the best notes were supplied by Warburton. But the time was now come when Warburton was to change his opinion; and Pope was to find a defender in him who had contributed so much to the exaltation of his rival. his own work, was glad that the positions, of which he perceived himself not to know the full meaning, could by any mode of interpretation be made to mean well. How much he was pleased with his gratuitous defender the following Letter evidently shews: "SIR, April 11, 1732. I "I have just received from Mr. R. two more of your Letters. It is in the greatest hurry imaginable that I write this; but I cannot help thanking you in particular for your third Letter, which is so extremely clear, short, and full, that I think Mr. Crousaz ought never to have another answer, and deserved not so good a one. can only say, you do him too much honour, and me too much right, so odd as the expression seems; for you have made my system as clear as I ought to have done, and could not. It is indeed the same system as mine, but illustrated with a ray of your own, as they say our natural body is the same still when it is glori fied. I am sure I like it better than I did before, and so will every man else. I know I meant just what you explain; but I did not explain my own meaning so well as you. You understand me as well as I do myself; but you express me better than I could express myself. Pray, accept the sincerest acknowledgments. I cannot but wish these Letters were put together in one Book, and intend (with your leave) to procure a translation of part at least, or of all of them, into French, but I shall not proceed a step without your consent and opinion, &c.' By this fond and eager acceptance of an exculpatory comment, Pope testified that, whatever might be the seeming or real import of the principles which he had attacked religion; and Bolingbroke, if he meant to received from Bolingbroke, he had not intentionally make him, without his own consent, an instrument of mischief, found him now engaged, with his eyes open on the side of truth. It is known that Bolingbroke concealed from Pope his real opinions. He once discovered them to Mr Hooke, who related them again to Pope, and was told by him that he must have mistaken the meaning of what he heard; and Bolingbroke, when Pope's uneasiness incited him to desire an explanation, declared that Hooke had misunderstood him. Bolingbroke hated Warburton, who had drawn his pupil from him; and a little before Pope's death they had a dispute, from which they parted with mutual aversion. his commentator, and amply rewarded his kindness and From this time Pope lived in the closest intimacy with zeal; for he introduced him to Mr. Murray, by whose interest he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn; and to Mr. Allen, who gave him his niece and his estate, and by consequence a bishopric. When he died, he left him the property of his works; a legacy which may be reasonably estimated at four thousand pounds. Pope's fondness for the Essay on Man' appeared by his desire of its propagation. Dobson, who had gained reputation by his version of Prior's Solomon,' was employed by him to translate it into Latin verse, and was for that purpose some time at Twickenham; but he left his work, whatever was the reason, unfinished; and, by Benson's invitation, undertook the longer task of 'Paradise Lost.' Pope then desired his friend to find a scholar who should turn his Essay into Latin prose; but no such performance has ever appeared. Pope lived at this time among the Great, with that reception and respect to which his works entitled him, and which he had not impared by any private misconduct or factious partiality. Though Bolingbroke was his friend, Walpole was not his enemy; but treated him with so much consideration, as at his request, to solicit and obtain from the French minister an abbey for Mr. Southcot, whom he considered himself as obliged to rewhich he had received from his attendance in a long illward, by this exertion of his interest, for the benefit The arrogance of Warburton excited against him every artifice of offence, and therefore it may be supposed that his union with Pope was censured as hypocritical inconsistency; but surely to think differently, at different times, of poetical merit, may be easily allowed. Such opinions are often admitted, and dismissed, without nice examination. Who is there that has not found reason for changing his mind about questions of great importance? Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook, without solicitation, to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, by freeing him from the imputation of favour-1 ing fatality, or rejecting revelation; and from month to month continued a vindication of the Essay on Man, in the literary journal of that time called The Republic of Letters.' Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of ness. It was said, that, when the Court was at Richmond, Queen Caroline had declared her intention to visit him. This may have been only a careless effusion, thought on in many mouths; and, if I do not forget or misappreno more; the report of such notice, however, was soon hend Savage's account, Pope, pretending to decline what was not yet offered, left his house for a time, not suppose for any other reason than lest he should be thought to stay at home in expectation of an honour which would not be conferred. He was therefore angry at Swift, who represents him as "refusing the visits of a Queen," because he knew that what had never been offered had never been refused. Beside the general system of morality, supposed to, be contained in the Essay on Man,' it was his intention to write distinct poems upon the different duties or conditions of life; one of which is the Epistle to Lord Bathurst. (1733) on the Use of Riches,' a piece on which he declared great labour to have been bestowed*. Into this piece some hints are historically thrown, and some known characters are introduced, with others of which it is difficult to say how far they are real or fictitious; but the praise of Kyrl, the Man of Ross, deserves particular examination, who, after a long and pompous enumeration of his public works and private charities, is said to have diffused all those blessings from five hundred a year. Wonders are willingly told, and willingly heard. The truth, is, that Kyrl was a man of known integrity and active benevolence, by whose solicitation the wealthy were persuaded to pay contributions to his charitable schemes; this influence he obtained by an example of liberality exerted to the utmost extent of his power, and was thus enabled to give more than he had. This account Mr. Victor received from the minister of the place: and I have preserved it, that the praise of a good man, being made more credible, may be more solid. Narrations of romantic and impracticable virtue will be read with wonder, but that which is unattainable is recommended in vain; that good may be endeavoured, it must be shown to be possible. Blount, but which the last edition has taken from her the Characters of Women.' This poem, which was laboured with great diligence,and in the author's opinion with great success, was neglected at its first publication as the commentator supposes, because the public was informed, by an advertisement, that it contained no character drawn from the Life; an assertion whick Pope probably did not expect nor wish to have been believed, and which he soon gave his readers sufficient reason to distrust, by telling them in a note that the work was imperfect, because part of his subject was Vice too high to be yet exposed. The time however soon came, in which it was safe to display the Dutchess of Marlborough under the name of Atossa; and her character was inserted with no great honour to the writer's gratitude. He published from time to time (between 1730 and 1740) Imitations of different poems of Horace,' generally with his name, and once, as was suspected, without it. What he was upon moral principles ashamed to own, he ought to have suppressed. Of these pieces it is useless to settle the dates, as they seldom had, much relation to the times, and perhaps had been long in his hands. This mode of imitation, in which the ancients are familiarised, by adapting their sentiments to modern topics, by making Horace say of Shakspeare what he originally said of Ennius, and accommodating his satires This is the only piece in which the author has given on Pantolabus and Nomentanus to the flatterers and a hint of his religion, by ridiculing the ceremony of prodigals of our own time, was first practised in the burning the pope, and by mentioning with some indig-reign of Charles the Second by Oldham and Rochester, nation the inscription on the Monument+. at least I remember no instances more ancient. It is a kind of middle composition, between translation and original design, which pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable, and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite amusement; for he has carried it farther than any former poet. When this poem was first published, the dialogue having no letters of direction, was perplexed and obscure. Pope seems to have written with no very distinct idea; for he calls that an Epistle to Bathurst,' in which Bathurst is introduced as speaking. He afterwards (1734) inscribed to Lord Cobham his He published likewise a revival, in smoother num'Characters of Men,' written with close attention to the bers, of Dr. Donne's Satires, which was recommended operations of the mind and modifications of life. In to him by the Duke of Shrewsbury and the Earl of this poem he has endeavoured to establish and exem- Oxford. They made no great impression on the Public. plify his favourite theory of the Ruling Passion, by Pope seems to have known their imbecility, and therewhich he means an original direction of desire to some fore suppressed them while he was yet contending to particular object; an innate affection, which gives all rise in reputation, but ventured them when he thought action a determinate and invariable tendency, and ope- their deficiencies more likely to be imputed to Donne rates upon the whole system of life, either openly or than to himself. more secretly, by the intervention of some accidental or subordinate propension. Of any passion, thus innate and irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted. Human characters are by no means constant; men change by change of place, of fortune, of acquaintance; he who is at one time a lover of pleasure, is at another a lover of money. Those indeed who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit: for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms. But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation. It must at least be allowed that this Ruling Passion, antecedent to reason and observation, must have an object independent on human contrivance; for there can be no natural desire of artificial good. No man therefore can be born, in the strict acceptation, a lover of money; for he may be born where money does not exist: nor can he be born, in a moral sense, a lover of his country; for society, politically regulated, is a state contradistinguished from a state of nature; and any attention to that coalition of interests which makes the happiness of a country, is possible only to those whom inquiry and reflection have enabled to comprehend it. This doctrine is in itself pernicious as well as false; its tendency is to produce the belief of a kind of moral predestination, or overruling principle which cannot be resisted; he that admits it is prepared to comply with every desire that caprice or opportunity shall excite, and, to flatter himself that he submits only to the lawful dominion of Nature, in obeying the resistless authority of his Ruling Passion. Pope has formed his theory with so little skill, that in the examples by which he illustrates and confirms it, he has confounded passions, appetites, and habits. To the Characters of Men," he added soon after, in an Epistle supposed to have been addressed to Martha The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, which seems to be derived in its first design from Boileau's Address à son Esprit, was published in January 1735, about a month before the death of him to whom it is inscribed. It is to be regretted, that either honour or pleasure should have been missed by Arbuthnot; a man estimable for his learning, amiable for his life, and venerable for his piety. Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit, who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal. In this poem Pope seems to reckon with the public. He vindicates himself from censures; and with dignity, rather than arrogance, enforces his own claims to kindness and respect. Into this poem are interwoven several paragraphs which had been before printed as a fragment, and among them the satirical lines upon Addison, of which the last couplet has been twice corrected. It was at first, Who would not smile if such a man there be? Then, At Who would not grieve if such a man there be? Who but must laugh if such a man there be? He was at this time at open war with Lord Hervey, who had distinguished himself as a steady adherent to the Ministry; and, being offended with a contemptuous answer to one of his pamphlets*, had summoned Pulteney to a duel. Whether he or Pope made the first attack, perhaps, cannot now be easily known: he had Sedition and Defamation displayed.' 8vo. 1733. written an invective against Pope, whom he calls, "Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure;" and hints that his father was a hatter. To this Pope wrote a reply in verse and prose; the verses are in this poem; and the prose, though it was never sent, is printed among his Letters, but to a cool reader of the present time exhibits nothing but tedious malignity. His last Satires, of the general kind, were two Dialogues, named, from the year in which they were pub lished, Seventeen Hundred and Thirty-eight.' In these poems many are praised, and many reproached. Pope was then entangled in the opposition; a follower of the Prince of Wales, who dined at his house, and the friend of many who obstructed and censured the conduct of the Ministers. His political partiality was too plainly shewn he forgot the prudence with which he passed, in his earlier years, uninjured and unoffending, through much more violent conflicts of faction. In the first Dialogue, having an opportunity of praising Allen of Bath, he asked his leave to mention him as a man not illustrious by any merit of his ancestors, and called him in his verse "low-born Allen." Men are seldom satisfied with praise introduced or followed by any mention of defect. Allen seems not to have taken any pleasure in his epithet, which was afterwards softened into "humble Allen." In the second Dialogue he took some liberty with one of the Foxes, among others; which Fox, in a reply to Lyttleton, took an opportunity of repaying, by reproaching him with the friendship of a lampooner, who scattered his ink without fear or decency, and against whom he hoped the resentment of the Legislature would quickly be discharged. About this time Paul Whitehead, a small poet, was summoned before the Lords for a poem called Manners,' together with Dodsley his publisher. Whitehead, who hung loose upon society, sculked and escaped; but Dodsley's shop and family made his appearance necessary. He was, however soon dismissed; and the whole process was probably intended rather to intimidate Pope, than to punish Whitehead. tury, by a man who concealed his name, but who his Preface shews to have been qualified for his undertaking. This collection Pope amplified by more than half, and (1740) published it in two volumes, but injuriously omitted his predecessor's Preface. To these books, which had nothing but the mere text, no regard was paid; the authors were still neglected, and the editor was neither praised nor censured. He did not sink into idleness; he had planned a work which he considered as subsequent to his Essay on Man,' of which he has given this account to Dr. Swift: "March 25, 1736. "If ever I write any more Epistles in verse, one of them shall be addressed to you. I have long concerted it, and begun it; but I would make what bears your name as finished as my last work ought to be; that is to say, more finished than any of the rest, The subject is large, and will divide into four Epistles, which naturally follow the Essay on Man;' viz. 1. Of the Extent and Limits of human Reason and Science. 2. A View of the useful and therefore attainable, and of the unuseful and therefore unattainable Arts. 3. Of the Nature, Ends, Application, and Use, of different Capacities. 4. Of the Use of Learning, of the Science of the World, and of Wit. It will conclude with a satire against the Misap plication of all these, exemplified by Pictures, Characters, and Examples." This work in its full extent, being now afflicted with an asthma, and finding the powers of life gradually declining, he had no longer courage to undertake; but from the materials whieh he had provided, he added at Warburton's request, another book to the Dunciad,' of which the design is to ridicule such studies as are either hopeless or useless, as either pursue what is unattainable, or what, if it be attained, is of no use When this book was printed (1742) the laurel had been for some time upon the head of Cibber; a man whom it cannot be supposed that Pope could regard with much kindness or esteem, though in one of the imitations of Horace he has liberally enough praised the Careless Husband. In the Dunciad,' among other Pope never afterwards attempted to join the patriot worthless scribblers, he had mentioned Cibber; who, in with the poet, nor drew his pen upon statesmen. That his Apology, complains of the great Poet's unkindhe desisted from his attempts of reformation, is imputedness as more injurious," because," says he, "I never by his commentator, to his despair of prevailing over the have offended him." corruption of the time. He was not likely to have been ever of opinion, that the dread of his satire would countervail the love of power or of money; he pleased himself with being important and formidable; and gratified sometimes his pride, and sometimes his resentment; till at last he began to think he should be more safe, if he were less busy. The Memoirs of Scriblerus,' published about this time, extend only to the first book of a work projected in concert by Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, who used to meet in the time of Queen Anne, and denominated themselves the Scriblerus Club.' Their purpose was to censure the abuses of learning by a fictitious Life of an infatuated Scholar. They were dispersed; the design was never completed; and Warburton laments its miscarriage, as an event very disastrous to polite letters. If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches perhaps by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules are so little practised, that they are not known: nor can the satire be understood but by the learned; he raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away. He cures diseases that were never felt. For this reason this joint production of three great writers has never obtained any notice from mankind; it has been little read, or when read has been forgotten, as no man could be wiser, better, or merrier, by remembering it. The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its general resemblance to Don Quixote, there will be found in it particular imitations of the History of Mr. Ouffle. Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as supplied him with hints for his Travels; and with those the world might have been contented, though the rest had been suppressed. Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally neglected. Pope, however, was not ashamed of their acquaintance, nor ungrateful for the advantages which he might have derived from it. A small selection from the Italians, who wrote in Latin, had been published at London, about the latter end of the last cen It might have been expected that Pope should have been, in some degree, mollified by this submissive gentleness, but no such consequence appeared. Though he condescended to commend Cibber once, he mentioned him afterwards contemptuously in one of his satires, and again in his Epistle to Arbuthnot; and in the fourth book of the Dunciad' attacked him with acrimony, to which the provocation is not easily discoverable. Perhaps he imagined that, in ridiculing the Laureate, he satirized those by whom the laurel had been given, and gratified that ambitious petulance with which he affected to insult the great. The severity of this satire left Cibber no longer any patience. He had confidence enough in his own powers to believe that he could disturb the quiet of his adversary, and doubtless did not want instigators, who, without any care about the victory, desired to amuse themselves by looking on the contest. He therefore gave the town a pamphlet, in which he declared his resolution from that time never to bear another blow without returning it, and to tire out his adversary by perseverance, if he cannot conquer him by strength. Three The incessant and unappeasable malignity of Pope he imputes to a very distant cause. After the hours after Marriage' had been driven off the stage, by the offence which the mummy and crocodile gave the audience, while the exploded scene was yet fresh in memory, it happened that Cibber played Bayes in the 'Rehearsal; and, as it had been usual to enliven the part by the mention of any recent theatrical transactions, he said, that he once thought to have introduced his lovers disguised in a Mummy and a Crocodile. "This," says he, "was received with loud claps, which indicated contempt of the play." Pope, who was behind the scenes, meeting him as he left the stage, attacked him, as he says, with all the virulence of a "Wit out of his senses;" to which he replied, "that he would take no other notice of what was said by so particular a man, than to declare, that as often as he played that part, he would repeat the same provocation." He shews his opinion to be, that Pope was one of the authors of the play which he so zealously defended; and adds an idle story of Pope's behaviour at a tavern. |