The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems Part 34

'267-280'

In these lines Pope speaks of G.o.d as the soul of the world in an outburst of really exalted enthusiasm that is rare enough in his work.

'269 That:'

a relative p.r.o.noun referring to "soul," l. 268.

'270 th' ethereal frame:' the heavens.

'276 as perfect in a hair as heart:'

this has been called "a vile ant.i.thesis," on the ground that there is no reason why hair and heart should be contrasted. But Pope may have had in mind the saying of Christ. "the very hairs of your head are all numbered." The hairs are spoken of here as the least important part of the body; the heart, on the other hand, has always been thought of as the most important organ. There is, therefore, a real ant.i.thesis between the two.

'278 Seraph ... burns:'

the seraphim according to old commentators are on fire with the love of G.o.d.

'280 equals all:'

makes all things equal. This does not seem consistent with the idea of the gradations of existence which Pope has been preaching throughout this Epistle. Possibly it means that all things high and low are filled alike with the divine spirit and in this sense all things are equal. But one must not expect to find exact and consistent philosophy in the 'Essay on Man'.

'281-294'

Here Pope sums up the argument of this Epistle, urging man to recognize his ignorance, to be content with his seeming imperfections, and to realize that "whatever is, is right."

'282 Our proper bliss:'

our happiness as men.

'283 point:'

appointed place in the universe.

'286 Secure:'

sure.

'289'

Hobbes, an English philosopher with whose work Pope was, no doubt, acquainted, says, "Nature is the art whereby G.o.d governs the world."

AN EPISTLE TO DR ARBUTHNOT

INTRODUCTION

Next to 'The Rape of the Lock', I think, the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot' is the most interesting and the most important of Pope's poems--the most important since it shows the master poet of the age employing his ripened powers in the field most suitable for their display, that of personal satire, the most interesting, because, unlike his former satiric poem the 'Dunciad', it is not mere invective, but gives us, as no other poem of Pope's can be said to do, a portrait of the poet himself.

Like most of Pope's poems, the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot' owes its existence to an objective cause. This was the poet's wish to justify himself against a series of savage attacks, which had recently been directed against him. If Pope had expected by the publication of the 'Dunciad' to crush the herd of scribblers who had been for years abusing him, he must have been woefully disappointed. On the contrary, the roar of insult and calumny rose louder than ever, and new voices were added to the chorus.

In the year 1733 two enemies entered the field against Pope such as he had never yet had to encounter--enemies of high social position, of acknowledged wit, and of a certain, though as the sequel proved quite inadequate, talent for satire. These were Lady Mary Wortley Montague and Lord John Hervey.

Lady Mary had been for years acknowledged as one of the wittiest, most learned, and most beautiful women of her day. Pope seems to have met her in 1715 and at once joined the train of her admirers. When she accompanied her husband on his emba.s.sy to Constantinople in the following year, the poet entered into a long correspondence with her, protesting in the most elaborate fashion his undying devotion. On her return he induced her to settle with her husband at Twickenham. Here he continued his attentions, half real, half in the affected gallantry of the day, until, to quote the lady's own words to her daughter many years after, "at some ill-chosen time when she least expected what romancers call a declaration, he made such pa.s.sionate love to her, as, in spite of her utmost endeavours to be angry and look grave, provoked an immoderate fit of laughter," and, she added, from that moment Pope became her implacable enemy. Certainly by the time Pope began to write the 'Dunciad' he was so far estranged from his old friend that he permitted himself in that poem a scoffing allusion to a scandal in which she had recently become involved. The lady answered, or the poet thought that she did, with an anonymous pamphlet, 'A Pop upon Pope', describing a castigation, wholly imaginary, said to have been inflicted upon the poet as a proper reward for his satire. After this, of course, all hope of a reconciliation was at an end, and in his satires and epistles Pope repeatedly introduced Lady Mary under various t.i.tles in the most offensive fashion. In his first 'Imitation of Horace', published in February, 1733, he referred in the most unpardonable manner to a certain Sappho, and the dangers attendant upon any acquaintance with her. Lady Mary was foolish enough to apply the lines to herself and to send a common friend to remonstrate with Pope. He coolly replied that he was surprised that Lady Mary should feel hurt, since the lines could only apply to certain women, naming four notorious scribblers, whose lives were as immoral as their works. Such an answer was by no means calculated to turn away the lady's wrath, and for an ally in the campaign of anonymous abuse that she now planned she sought out her friend Lord Hervey. John Hervey, called by courtesy Lord Hervey, the second son of the Earl of Bristol, was one of the most prominent figures at the court of George II. He had been made vice-chamberlain of the royal household in 1730, and was the intimate friend and confidential adviser of Queen Caroline. Clever, affable, unprincipled, and cynical, he was a perfect type of the Georgian courtier to whom loyalty, patriotism, honesty, and honor were so many synonyms for folly. He was effeminate in habits and appearance, but notoriously licentious; he affected to scoff at learning but made some pretense to literature, and had written 'Four Epistles after the Manner of Ovid', and numerous political pamphlets. Pope, who had some slight personal acquaintance with him, disliked his political connections and probably despised his verses, and in the 'Imitation' already mentioned had alluded to him under the t.i.tle of Lord f.a.n.n.y as capable of turning out a thousand lines of verse a day. This was sufficient cause, if cause were needed, to induce Hervey to join Lady Mary in her warfare against Pope.

The first blow was struck in an anonymous poem, probably the combined work of the two allies, called 'Verses addressed to the Imitator of Horace', which appeared in March, 1733, and it was followed up in August by an 'Epistle from a n.o.bleman to a Doctor of Divinity', which also appeared anonymously, but was well known to be the work of Lord Hervey.

In these poems Pope was abused in the most unmeasured terms. His work was styled a mere collection of libels; he had no invention except in defamation; he was a mere pretender to genius. His morals were not left unimpeached; he was charged with selling other men's work printed in his name,--a gross distortion of his employing a.s.sistants in the translation of the 'Odyssey',--he was ungrateful, unjust, a foe to human kind, an enemy like the devil to all that have being. The n.o.ble authors, probably well aware how they could give the most pain, proceeded to attack his family and his distorted person. His parents were obscure and vulgar people; and he himself a wretched outcast:

with the emblem of [his] crooked mind Marked on [his] back like Cain by G.o.d's own hand.

And to cap the climax, as soon as these shameful libels were in print, Lord Hervey bustled off to show them to the Queen and to laugh with her over the fine way in which he had put down the bitter little poet.

In order to understand and appreciate Pope's reception of these attacks, we must recall to ourselves the position in which he lived. He was a Catholic, and I have already (Introduction, p. x) called attention to the precarious, tenure by which the Catholics of his time held their goods, their persons, their very lives, in security. He was the intimate of Bolingbroke, of all men living the most detested by the court, and his n.o.ble friends were almost without exception the avowed enemies of the court party. Pope had good reason to fear that the malice of his enemies might not be content to stop with abusive doggerel. But he was not in the least intimidated. On the contrary, he broke out in a fine flame of wrath against Lord Hervey, whom he evidently considered the chief offender, challenged his enemy to disavow the 'Epistle', and on his declining to do so, proceeded to make what he called "a proper reply" in a prose 'Letter to a n.o.ble Lord'. This masterly piece of satire was pa.s.sed about from hand to hand, but never printed. We are told that Sir Robert Walpole, who found Hervey a convenient tool in court intrigues, bribed Pope not to print it by securing a good position in France for one of the priests who had watched over the poet's youth.

If this story be true, and we have Horace Walpole's authority for it, we may well imagine that the entry of the bribe, like that of Uncle Toby's oath, was blotted out by a tear from the books of the Recording Angel.

But Pope was by no means disposed to let the attacks go without an answer of some kind, and the particular form which his answer took seems to have been suggested by a letter from Arbuthnot. "I make it my last request," wrote his beloved physician, now sinking fast under the diseases that brought him to the grave, "that you continue that n.o.ble disdain and abhorrence of vice, which you seem so naturally endued with, but still with a due regard to your own safety; and study more to reform than to chastise, though the one often cannot be effected without the other." "I took very kindly your advice," Pope replied, "... and it has worked so much upon me considering the time and state you gave it in, that I determined to address to you one of my epistles written by piecemeal many years, and which I have now made haste to put together; wherein the question is stated, what were, and are my motives of writing, the objections to them, and my answers." In other words, the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot' which we see that Pope was working over at the date of this letter, August 25, 1734, was, in the old-fashioned phrase, his 'Apologia', his defense of his life and work.

As usual, Pope's account of his work cannot be taken literally. A comparison of dates shows that the 'Epistle' instead of having been "written by piecemeal many years" is essentially the work of one impulse, the desire to vindicate his character, his parents, and his work from the aspersions cast upon them by Lord Hervey and Lady Mary.

The exceptions to this statement are two, or possibly three, pa.s.sages which we know to have been written earlier and worked into the poem with infinite art.

The first of these is the famous portrait of Addison as Atticus. I have already spoken of the reasons that led to Pope's breach with Addison (Introduction, p. xv); and there is good reason to believe that this portrait sprang directly from Pope's bitter feeling toward the elder writer for his preference of Tickell's translation. The lines were certainly written in Addison's lifetime, though we may be permitted to doubt whether Pope really did send them to him, as he once a.s.serted.

They did not appear in print, however, till four years after Addison's death, when they were printed apparently without Pope's consent in a volume of miscellanies. It is interesting to note that in this form the full name "Addison" appeared in the last line. Some time later Pope acknowledged the verses and printed them with a few changes in his 'Miscellany' of 1727, subst.i.tuting the more decorous "A---n" for the "Addison" of the first text. Finally he worked over the pa.s.sage again and inserted it, for a purpose that will be shown later, in the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot'.

It is not worth while to discuss here the justice or injustice of this famous portrait. In fact, the question hardly deserves to be raised. The pa.s.sage is admittedly a satire, and a satire makes no claim to be a just and final sentence. Admitting, as we must, that Pope was in the wrong in his quarrel with Addison, we may well admit that he has not done him full justice. But we must equally admit that the picture is drawn with wonderful skill, that praise and blame are deftly mingled, and that the satire is all the more severe because of its frank admission of the great man's merits. And it must also be said that Pope has. .h.i.t off some of the faults of Addison's character,--his coldness, his self-complacency, his quiet sneer, his indulgence of flattering fools--in a way that none of his biographers have done. That Pope was not blind to Addison's chief merit as an author is fully shown by a pa.s.sage in a later poem, less well known than the portrait of Atticus, but well worth quotation. After speaking of the licentiousness of literature in Restoration days, he goes on to say:

In our own (excuse some courtly stains) No whiter page than Addison's remains, He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, And sets the pa.s.sions on the side of truth, Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, And pours each human virtue in the heart.