6 without good lines. While the author was unknown some, as will 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. 177 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 of walks without a plan.' For which he wrote afterwards 'A mighty maze, but not without a plan': for, if there were 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, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right 3; 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". 178 The second and third Epistles were published, and Pope was, Pope thought Swift had not dis- second Epistle, he made in the first covered the authorship. Swift re- edition the following bad rhyme :plied on Nov. 1, 1734: _'Surely I “A cheat ! a whore! who starts not never doubted about your Essay on at the name, Man; and I would lay any odds that I In all the Inns of Court, or Drury would never fail to discover you in Lane ?" six lines, unless you had a mind to And Harte remembered to have often write below or beside yourself on heard it urged that it was impossible purpose. Pope's Works (Elwin and it could be Pope's on account of Courthope), vii. 324, 328. this very passage.' Warton's Essay, 2 'Expatiate free o'er all this scene ii. 210. of man.' Essay, i. 5. This couplet followed line 220 of the revised edition. By the kindness of Mr. Arthur Mr. Elwin, giving examples of Marlow I have seen the first edition other bad rhymes in the Epistles, of the four Essays with corrections says :-'There must have been some in Pope's hand. In the first Essay strange peculiarity in the ears of there are thirty-nine and two new a generation which could be revolted lines; in the second, nine and two by “lane” and “name," and welnew lines; in the third, eight; and come such rhymes as these. The in the fourth only one-the substitu- anecdote cannot be correct.' Pope's tion of St. John for Laelius. Works (Elwin and Courthope), ii. 'Pope told Harte that, in order 274. I do not agree with him. to disguise his being the author of the These rhymes were either good 1 3 lb. i. 293.. 4 5 I believe, more and more suspected of writing them; at last, in 1734, he avowed the fourth', and claimed the honour of a moral poet. In the conclusion it is sufficiently acknowledged that the 179 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 com 3. munications 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, but hardly can be true. The Essay plainly appears the fabrick of a poet: what Bolingbroke supplied could be only the first principles; the order, illustration, and embellishments must all be Pope's *. men. 3 rhymes to the eye or were conven- to The Essay on Man. But whattional. To make a word ending in ever may be the truth ... they are me rhyme with one ending in ne was doctrines having no peculiarity about not conventional. them by which they can be stamped * (It was published in folio by Wil- as his; they ... were current in the ford, 1734. Mr. C. E. Doble has conversation of reading and thinking kindly shown me his copy of a quarto So familiar did they seem to edition of the complete Essay, pub- Johnson that, instead of finding a lished by Gilliver the same year. In special paternity for them, he sneers neither case does Pope's name ap- at them as 'the talk of our mother pear on the title-page.] and our nurse" [post, POPE, 365).' Bolingbroke wrote to Swift in PATTISON, Essays, ii. 385. See also 1731 :— Does Pope talk to you of ante, SAVAGE, 119 n. the noble work which, at my instiga- Warburton states this. Works, tion, he has begun in such a manner 1811, xii. 335. Bolingbroke wrote to that he must be convinced by this Marchmont in 1742:-'I should be time I judged better of his talents sorry to shake even error, which it than he did ?' Ib. vii. 244. In Sept. is useful to maintain in society for 1734, at the end of a letter from no reason but this, that it is estabPope to Swift, he wrote:– He{Pope] lished. ... On this principle I have talks very pompously of my meta- cautioned Pope ; and your Lordship physics. ... It is true I have writ will oblige me greatly in taking and six letters and a half to him on repeating the same caution.' Marchsubjects of that kind, and I propose mont Papers, ii. 285. a letter and a half more.' Ib. p. 325. Johnson, criticizing this report, 'Pope stated to Spence that“he had which reached him from Lord received seven or eight sheets from Bathurst through Dr. Blair, said :Boling broke in relation to it" (Spence's Pope may have had from BolingAnec. p. 144). If the conjecture be broke the philosophic stamina of his right that these very sheets were Essay. .. We are sure that the the Fragments or Minutes of Essays poetical imagery, which makes a printed in Bolingbroke's Works (vii. great part of the poem, was Pope's 278-viii. end], we have the means of Boswell's Johnson, iii. 403. judging for ourselves what was exactly Dr. Warton had the same account the amount of his written contribution from Bathurst. Essay on Pope, ii. 123. 4 own. 180 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 splendid 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 un suspicious, many read it for a manual of piety. 181 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. 182 Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, eminent for his treatise 1 'On peut le traduire parce qu'il with sentiments, however beautiful, est extrêmement clair, et que ses unless they be methodically disposed. sujets, pour la plupart, sont généraux Warburton, iii. 167. Resnel's transet du ressort de toutes les nations. lation, "abounding in absurdities,' VOLTAIRE, Euvres, xxiv. 134. "Il Crousaz used in writing his Coma été traduit par des hommes dignes mentary. 16. p. 17. Pope's lines de le traduire. Ib. x. 115. (i. 277):Pope, in an undated letter, men- As full, as perfect in vile Man that tions two Italian versions, two French, mourns, one German, one in Latin verse printed As the rapt Seraph that adores and at Wirtemberg, and another in French burns' prose. Pope's Works (Elwin and are translated :Courthope), x. 98. “There are in the Dans un homme ignoré, sous une Brit. Mus, Cata. seven translations humble chaumière, into French verse, and one into Que dans le Séraphin, rayonnant French prose, coming down to 1864; de lumière.' five into German, coming down to On this Crousaz remarked :-'For 1874; five into Italian, coming down all that, we sometimes find in persons to 1856; two into Portuguese, one of the lowest rank a fund of probity into Polish; two into Latin verse.' and resignation which preserves them Ib. v. 250. There is also a copy in from contempt.' Ib. p. 37. See also English, Latin, Italian, French, and Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), German, printed at Amsterdam in ii. 494, 502, v. 327. 1772. Professor Morfill tells me he Johnson, in 1743, wrote a short has a Russian translation, Moscow, letter on the controversy to The 1757. Among the few English books Gentleman's Magazine, the first five Boswell found in Paoli's library in paragraphs of which appeared in Corsica was The Essay on Man. March, and the last eight in NovemBoswell's Corsica, 1768, p. 297. ber. Works, v. 202; Boswell's John. · Warburton attacked Resnel and son, i. 157 n. See also ib. i. 137. Crousaz. Resnel corrected Pope's For Resnel see ante, GARTH, 17; irregularity of method. “The French,' POPE, 43. of Logick 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 183 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 184 the first ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited enquiry, 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, ''The first text of my philosophi- Which opens out of darkness into cal studies, the book which taught day! me the use and conduct of my under- Oh had he, mounted on his wing of standing, was the Logic of Mr. de fire, Crousaz, a native and Professor of Soar'd where I sink, and sung imLausanne, who died about five years mortal man ! before my arrival. His reputation is How had it bless'd mankind, and already faded ;, but his moderate and rescued me!' methodical writings were useful in "The Essay is not a system at all ; their day to form the reason, the taste, but it is certainly not a system of and even the style of his country- deism, because that term connotes men; and he rescued the clergy of along with natural religion a negation the Pays de Vaud from the heavy of the truth or reality of the Christian and intolerant yoke of the theology revelation. ... There is not in the of Calvin.' GIBBON, Autobiographies, whole poem the least savour of an 1896, p. 234. See also ib. p. 135, and animus against revelation.' PATTIGibbon's Memoirs, pp. 87, 96. SON, Essays, ii. 388. · That Young saw nothing against ““ If you did not find Pope a philoreligion in the poem is shown by his sopher, you have made him one,” allusion to Pope and the Essay on Middleton told Warburton. Ib. p. Man at the end of the first canto of 130. See also post, POPE, 191, his Night Thoughts : 246. Oh had he press'd his theme, pur- 'Gray said Warburton's learning sued the track was a late acquisition, and did not sit 3 6 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 were too eager to be always cautious. His abilities gave him an 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 allurements of gentle language, but wished to compel rather than persuade? 185 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. 186 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 3 see 1 easily on him.' Mitford's Gray, v. miserable scribblers can be supposed 38. to ruffle. Of all that gross Beotian ' It was said by Bentley of War- phalanx who have written scurrilously burton, in relation to his learning against me I know not so much as that he never knew a man with so One whom a writer of reputation great an appetite and so bad a diges- would not wish to have his enemy, tion.' Quarterly Review, 1827, No. or whom a man of honour would not 71, p. 54. See also Boswell's John- be ashamed to own for his friend.' son, ii. 36, iv. 46, v. 80, 93. For Matthew Concanen AKENSIDE, 6 n. See also The Dun- 6 |
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