English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Part 27

RAPE OF THE LOCK.--The poem which displays most originality of invention is the _Rape of the Lock_. It is, perhaps, the best and most charming specimen of the mock-heroic to be found in English; and it is specially deserving of attention, because it depicts the social life of the period in one of its princ.i.p.al phases. Miss Arabella Fermor, one of the reigning beauties of London society, while on a pleasure party on the Thames, had a lock of her hair surrept.i.tiously cut off by Lord Petre. Although it was designed as a joke, the belle was very angry; and Pope, who was a friend of both persons, wrote this poem to a.s.suage her wrath and to reconcile them. It has all the system and construction of an epic. The poet describes, with becoming delicacy, the toilet of the lady, at which she is attended by obsequious sylphs.

The party embark upon the river, and the fair lady is described in the splendor of her charms:

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind In equal curls, and well conspired to deck, With shining ringlets, the smooth, ivory neck.

Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare.

And beauty draws us by a single hair.

Surrounding sylphs protect the beauty; and one to whom the lock has been given in charge, flutters unfortunately too near, and is clipped in two by the scissors that cut the lock. It is a rather extravagant conclusion, even in a mock-heroic poem, that when the strife was greatest to restore the lock, it flew upward:

A sudden star, it shot through liquid air, And drew behind a radiant trail of hair,

and thus, and always, it

Adds new glory to the shining sphere.

With these simple and meagre materials, Pope has constructed an harmonious poem in which the sylphs, gnomes, and other sprites of the Rosicrucian philosophy find appropriate place and service. It failed in its princ.i.p.al purpose of reconciliation, but it has given us the best mock-heroic poem in the language. As might have been expected, it called forth bitter criticisms from Dennis; and there were not wanting those who saw in it a political significance. Pope's pleasantry was aroused at this, and he published _A Key to the Lock_, in which he further mystifies these sage readers: Belinda becomes Great Britain; the Baron is the Earl of Oxford; and Thalestris is the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough.

THE MESSIAH.--In 1712 there appeared in one of the numbers of _The Spectator_, his _Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue_, written with the purpose of harmonizing the prophecy of Isaiah and the singular oracles of the Pollio, or Fourth Eclogue of Virgil. Elevated in thought and grand in diction, the Messiah has kept its hold upon public favor ever since, and portions of it are used as hymns in general worship. Among these will be recognized that of which the opening lines are:

Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise; Exalt thy towering head and lift thine eyes.

In 1713 he published a poem on _Windsor Forest_, and an _Ode on St.

Cecilia's Day_, in imitation of Dryden. He also furnished the beautiful prologue to Addison's Cato.

TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD.--He now proposed to himself a task which was to give him more reputation and far greater emolument than anything he had yet accomplished--a translation of the Iliad of Homer. This was a great desideratum, and men of all parties conspired to encourage and reward him.

Chapman's Homer, excellent as it was, was not in a popular measure, and was known only to scholars.

In the execution of this project, Pope labored for six years--writing by day and dreaming of his work at night; translating thirty or forty lines before rising in the morning, and jotting down portions even while on a journey. Pope's polished pentameters, when read, are very unlike the full-voiced hexameters of Homer; but the errors in the translation are comparatively few and unimportant, and his own poetry is in his best vein.

The poem was published by subscription, and was a great pecuniary success.

This was in part due to the blunt importunity of Dean Swift, who said: "The author shall not begin to print until I have a thousand guineas for him." Parnell, one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of the day, wrote a life of Homer, to be prefixed to the work; and many of the critical notes were written by Broome, who had translated the Iliad into English prose. Pope was not without poetical rivals. Tickell produced a translation of the first book of the Iliad, which was certainly revised, and many thought partly written, by Addison. A coolness already existing between Pope and Addison was increased by this circ.u.mstance, which soon led to an open rupture between them. The public, however, favored Pope's version, while a few of the _dilettanti_ joined Addison in preferring Tickell's.

The pecuniary results of Pope's labors were particularly gratifying. The work was published in six quarto volumes, and had more than six hundred subscribers, at six guineas a copy: the amount realized by Pope on the first and subsequent issues was upwards of five thousand pounds--an unprecedented payment of bookseller to author in that day.

VALUE OF THE TRANSLATION.--This work, in spite of the criticism of exact scholars, has retained its popularity to the present time. Chapman's Homer has been already referred to. Since the days of Pope numerous authors have tried their hands upon Homer, translating the whole or a part. Among these is a very fine poem by Cowper, in blank verse, which is praised by the critics, but little read. Lord Derby's translation is distinguished for its prosaic accuracy. The recent version of our venerable poet, Wm. C.

Bryant, is acknowledged to be at once scholarly, accurate, and harmonious, and will be of permanent value and reputation. But the exquisite tinkling of Pope's lines, the pleasant refrain they leave in the memory, like the chiming of silver bells, will cause them to last, with undiminished favor, unaffected by more correct rivals, as long as the language itself. "A very pretty poem, Mr. Pope," said the great Bentley; "but pray do not call it Homer." Despite this criticism of the Greek scholar, the world has taken it for Homer, and knows Homer almost solely through this charming medium.

The Iliad was issued in successive years, the last two volumes appearing in 1720. Of course it was savagely attacked by Dennis; but Pope had won more than he had hoped for, and might laugh at his enemies.

With the means he had inherited, increased by the sale of his poem, Pope leased a villa on the Thames, at Twickenham, which he fitted up as a residence for life. He laid out the grounds, built a grotto, and made his villa a famous spot.

Here he was smitten by the masculine charms of the gifted Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who figures in many of his verses, and particularly in the closing lines of the _Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard_. It was a singular alliance, destined to a speedy rupture. On her return from Turkey, in 1718, where her husband had been the English amba.s.sador, she took a home near Pope's villa, and, at his request, sat for her portrait. When, later, they became estranged, she laughed at the poet, and his coldness turned into hatred.

THE ODYSSEY.--The success of his version of the Iliad led to his translation of the Odyssey; but this he did with the collaboration of Fenton and Broome, the former writing four and the latter six books. The volumes appeared successively in 1725-6, and there was an appendix containing the _Batrachomiomachia_, or Battle of the Frogs and Mice, translated by Parnell. For this work Pope received the lion's share of profits, his co-laborers being paid only 800.

Among his miscellaneous works must be mentioned portions of _Martinus Scriblerus_. One of these, _Peri Bathous_, or _Art of Sinking in Poetry_, was the germ of The Dunciad.

Like Dryden, he was attacked by the _soi-disant_ poets of the day, and retorted in similar style and taste. In imitation of Dryden's _MacFlecknoe_, he wrote _The Dunciad_, or epic of the Dunces, in the first edition of which Theobald was promoted to the vacant throne. It roused a great storm. Authors besieged the publisher to hinder him from publishing it, while booksellers and agents were doing all in their power to procure it. In a later edition a new book was added, deposing Theobald and elevating Colley Cibber to the throne of Dulness. This was ill-advised, as the ridicule, which was justly applied to Theobald, is not applicable to Cibber.

ESSAY ON MAN.--The intercourse of the poet with the gifted but sceptical Lord Bolingbroke is apparent in his _Essay on Man_, in which, with much that is orthodox and excellent, the principles and influence of his lordship are readily discerned. The first part appeared in 1732, and the second some years later. The opinion is no longer held that Bolingbroke wrote any part of the poem; he has only infected it. It is one of Pope's best poems in versification and diction, and abounds with pithy proverbial sayings, which the English world has been using ever since as current money in conversational barter. Among many that might be selected, the following are well known:

All are but parts of one stupendous whole Whose body nature is, and G.o.d the soul.

Know thou thyself, presume not G.o.d to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod; An honest man's the n.o.blest work of G.o.d.

Among the historical teachings of Pope's works and career, and also among the curiosities of literature, must be noticed the publication of Pope's letters, by Curll the bookseller, without the poet's permission. They were princ.i.p.ally letters to Henry Cromwell, Wycherley, Congreve, Steele, Addison, and Swift. There were not wanting those who believed that it was a trick of the poet himself to increase his notoriety; but such an opinion is hardly warranted. These letters form a valuable chapter in the social and literary history of the period.

POPE'S DEATH AND CHARACTER.--On the 30th of May, 1744, Pope pa.s.sed away, after a long illness, during which he said he was "dying of a hundred good symptoms." Indeed, so frail and weak had he always been, that it was a wonder he lived so long. His weakness of body seems to have acted upon his strong mind, which must account for much that is satirical and splenetic in his writings. Very short, thin, and ill-shaped, his person wanted the compactness necessary to stand alone, until it was encased in stays. He needed a high chair at table, such as children use; but he was an epicure, and a fastidious one; and despite his infirmities, his bright, intellectual eye and his courtly manners caused him to be noted quite as much as his defects.

THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.--Pope has been set forth as the head of the _Artificial School_. This is, perhaps, rather a convenient than an exact designation. He had little of original genius, but was an apt imitator and reproducer--what in painting would be an excellent copyist. His greatest praise, however, is that he reduced to system what had gone before him; his poems present in themselves an art of poetry, with technical canons and ill.u.s.trations, which were long after servilely obeyed, and the influence of which is still felt to-day.

And this artificial school was in the main due to the artificial character of the age. Nature seemed to have lost her charms; pastorals were little more than private theatricals, enacted with straw hats and shepherd's crook in drawing-rooms or on close-clipped lawns. Culture was confined to court and town, and poets found little inducement to consult the heart or to woo nature, but wrote what would please the town or court. This taste gave character to the technical standards, to which Pope, more than any other writer, gave system and coherence. Most of the literati were men of the town; many were fine gentlemen with a political bias; and thus it is that the school of poets of which Pope is the unchallenged head, has been known as the Artificial School.

In the pa.s.sage of time, and with the increase of literature, the real merits of Pope were for some time neglected, or misrepresented. The world is beginning to discern and recognize these again. Learned, industrious, self-reliant, controversial, and, above all, harmonious, instead of giving vent to the highest fancies in simple language, he has treated the common-place--that which is of universal interest--in melodious and splendid diction. But, above all, he stands as the representative of his age: a wit among the comic dramatists who were going out and the essayists who were coming in; a man of the world with Lady Mary and the gay parties on the Thames; a polemic, who dealt keen thrusts and who liked to see them rankle, and who yet writhed in agony when the _riposte_ came; a Roman Catholic in faith and a lat.i.tudinarian in speech;--such was Pope as a type of that world in which he lived.

A poet of the first rank he was not; he invented nothing; but he established the canons of poetry, attuned to exquisite harmony the rhymed couplet which Dryden had made so powerful an instrument, improved the language, discerned and reconnected the discordant parts of literature; and thus it is that he towers above all the poets of his age, and has sent his influence through those that followed, even to the present day.

OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.

_Matthew Prior_, 1664-1721: in his early youth he was a waiter in his uncle's tap-room, but, surmounting all difficulties, he rose to be a distinguished poet and diplomatist. He was an envoy to France, where he was noted for his wit and ready repartee. His love songs are somewhat immoral, but exquisitely melodious. His chief poems are: _Alma_, a philosophic piece in the vein of Hudibras; _Solomon_, a Scripture poem; and, the best of all, _The City and Country Mouse_, a parody on Dryden's _Hind and Panther_, which he wrote in conjunction with Mr. Montague. He was imprisoned by the Whigs in 1715, and lost all his fortune. He was distinguished by having Dr. Johnson as his biographer, in the _Lives of the Poets_.

_John Arbuthnot_, 1667-1735: born in Scotland. He was learned, witty, and amiable. Eminent in medicine, he was physician to the court of Queen Anne.

He is chiefly known in literature as the companion of Pope and Swift, and as the writer with them of papers in the Martinus Scriblerus Club, which was founded in 1714, and of which Pope, Gay, Swift, Arbuthnot, Harvey, Atterbury, and others, were the princ.i.p.al members. Arbuthnot wrote a _History of John Bull_, which was designed to render the war then carried on by Marlborough unpopular, and certainly conduced to that end.

_John Gay_, 1688-1732: he was of humble origin, but rose by his talents, and figured at court. He wrote several dramas in a mock-tragic vein. Among these are _What D'ye Call It?_ and _Three Hours after Marriage_; but that which gave him permanent reputation is his _Beggar's Opera_, of which the hero is a highwayman, and the characters are prost.i.tutes and Newgate gentry. It is interspersed with gay and lyrical songs, and was rendered particularly effective by the fine acting of Miss Elizabeth Fenton, in the part of _Polly_. The _Shepherd's Week_, a pastoral, contains more real delineations of rural life than any other poem of the period. Another curious piece is ent.i.tled, _Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London_.

_Thomas Parnell_, 1679-1718: he was the author of numerous poems, among which the only one which has retained popular favor is _The Hermit_, a touching poem founded upon an older story. He wrote the life of Homer prefixed to Pope's translation; but it was very much altered by Pope.

_Thomas Tickell_, 1686-1740: particularly known as the friend of Addison.

He wrote a translation of the First Book of Homer's Iliad, which was corrected by Addison, and contributed several papers to _The Spectator_.

But he is best known by his _Elegy_ upon Addison, which Dr. Johnson calls a very "elegant funeral poem."

_Isaac Watts_, 1674-1765: this great writer of hymns was born at Southampton, and became one of the most eminent of the dissenting ministers of England. He is princ.i.p.ally known by his metrical versions of the Psalms, and by a great number of original hymns, which have been generally used by all denominations of Christians since. He also produced many hymns for children, which have become familiar as household words. He had a lyrical ear, and an easy, flowing diction, but is sometimes careless in his versification and incorrect in his theology. During the greater part of his life the honored guest of Sir Thomas Abney, he devoted himself to literature. Besides many sermons, he produced a treatise on _The First Principles of Geology and Astronomy_; a work on _Logic, or the Right Use of the Reason in the Inquiry after Truth_; and _A Supplement on the Improvement of the Mind_. These latter have been superseded as text-books by later and more correct inquiry.