PASTORALS 1709 The author seems to have a particular genius for this kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds his years. He has taken very freely from the ancients. But what he has mixed of his own with theirs is no way inferior to what he has taken from them. It is not flattery at all to say that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age. His preface is very judicious and learned.-WALSH, WILLIAM, 1705? Letter to William Wycherley, April 20. He shall bring with him, if you will, a young poet, newly inspired in the neighbourhood of Cooper's Hill, whom he and Walsh have taken under their wing. His name is Pope. He is not above seventeen or eighteen years of age, and promises miracles. If he goes on as he has begun in the Pastoral way, as Virgil first tried his strength, we may hope to see English poetry vie with the Roman, and this swan of Windsor sing as sweetly as the Mantuan. -GRANVILLE, GEORGE (LORD LANSDOWNE), 1706? Letters, Works of LordLansdowne, vol. II, p. 113. I have lately seen a pastoral of yours in Mr. Walsh's and Congreve's hands, which is extremely fine, and is generally approved of by the best judges in poetry. I remember I have formerly seen you at my shop, and am sorry I did not improve my acquaintance with you. If you design your poem for the press, no person shall be more careful in printing it, nor no one can give a greater encouragement to it.-TONSON, JACOB, 1706, Letter to Mr. Pope, April 20. Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found Art strength'ning nature, sense improved by sound. -WYCHERLEY, WILLIAM, 1709, To My Friend Mr. Pope, On his Pastorals. Neither Mr. Pope's nor Mr. Philips's pastorals, do any great honour to the English poetry. Mr. Pope's were composed in his youth; which may be an apology for other faults, but cannot well excuse the barrenness that appears in them. They are written in remarkably smooth and flowing numbers, and this is their chief merit; for there is scarcely any thought in them which can be called his own; scarcely any description, or any image of nature, which has the marks of being original, or copied from nature herself; but a repetition of the common images that are to be found in Virgil, and in all poets who write of rural themes.— BLAIR, HUGH, 1783, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres, ed. Mills, Lecture xxxix. It is somewhat strange that in the pastorals of a young poet there should not be found a single rural image that is new; but this, I am afraid, is the case in the Pastorals before us. The ideas of Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser are, indeed, here exhibited in language equally mellifluous and pure; but the descriptions and sentiments are trite and common. Το this assertion, formerly made, Dr. Johnson answered, "that no invention was intended." He, therefore, allows the fact and the charge. It is a confession of the very fault imputed to them. There ought to have been invention. It has been my fortune from my way of life, to have seen many compositions of youths of sixteen years old, far beyond these Pastorals in point of genius and imagination, though not perhaps of correctness. Their excellence, indeed, might be owing to having had such a predecessor as Pope.-WARTON, JOSEPH, 1797, ed. Pope's Works. Warton's observations are very just, but he does not seem sufficiently to discriminate between the softness of individual lines, which is the chief merit of these Pastorals, and the general harmony of poetic numbers. Let it, however, be always remembered, that Pope gave the first idea of mellifluence, and produced a softer and sweeter cadence than before belonged to the English couplet. Dr. Johnson thinks it will be in vain, after Pope, to endeavour to improve the English versification, and that it is now carried to the ne plus ultra of excellence. This is an opinion the validity of which I must be permitted to doubt. Pope certainly gave a more correct and finished tone to the English versification, but he sometimes wanted a variety of pause, and his nice precision of every line prevented, in a few instances, a more musical flow of modulated passages. But we are to consider what he did, not what might be done, and surely there cannot be two opinions respecting his improvement of the couplet though it does not follow that his general rhythm has no imperfection. Johnson seems to have depreciated, or to have been ignorant of, the metrical powers of some writers prior to Pope. His ear seems to have been caught chiefly by Dryden, and as Pope's versification was more equably (couplet with couplet being considered, not passage with passage) connected than Dryden's, he thought therefore that nothing could be added to Pope's versification. I should think it the extreme of arrogance and folly to make my own ear the criterion of music; but I cannot help thinking that Dryden, and of later days, Cowper, are much more harmonious in their general versification than Pope. I ought also to mention a neglected poem, not neglected on account of its versification, but on account of its title and subject-Prior's "Solomon." Whoever candidly compares these writers together, unless his ear be habituated to a certain recurrence of pauses precisely at the end of a line, will not (though he will give the highest praise for compactness, skill, precision, and force, to the undivided couplets of Pope, separately considered)-will not, I think, assent to the position, that in versification "what he found brickwork he left marble." I am not afraid to own, that with the exception of the "Epistle to Abelard," as musical as it is pathetic, the verses of Pope want variety, and on this account in some instances they want both force and harmony. In variety, and variety only, let it be remembered, I think Pope deficient.-BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE, 1806, ed. Pope's Works. There is no evidence, except the poet's own assertion, to prove that the Pastorals were composed at the age of sixteen. They had been seen by Walsh before April 20, 1705, if any dependence could be placed upon the letter of that date which he wrote to Wycherley, when returning the manuscript, but the letter rests on the authority of Pope alone, and there is reason to question the correctness of the date. Whatever may be the true date of the Pastorals, a portion of them certainly existed before April 20, 1706.-ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1871, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, Pastorals, vol. I, pp. 240-41. The Pastorals have been seriously criticised; but they are, in truth, mere schoolboy exercises; they represent nothing more than so many experiments in versification. The pastoral form has doubtless been used in earlier hands to embody true poetic feeling; but in Pope's time it had become hopelessly threadbare. The fine gentlemen in wigs and laced coats amused themselves by writing about nymphs and "conscious swains," by way of asserting their claims to elegance of taste. Pope, as a boy, took the matter seriously, and always retained a natural fondness for a juvenile performance upon which he had expended great labour, and which was the chief proof of his extreme precocity. He invites attention to his own merits, and claims especially the virtue of propriety. He does not, he tells us, like some other people, make his roses and daffodils bloom in the same season, and cause his nightingales to sing in November; and he takes particular credit for having remembered that there were no wolves in England, and having accordingly excised a passage in which Alexis prophesied that those animals would grow milder as they listened to the strains of his favourite nymph. When a man has got so far as to bring to England all the pagan deities, and rival shepherds contending for bowls and lambs in alternate strophes, these niceties seem a little out of place. We may agree with Johnson that Pope performing upon a pastoral pipe is rather a ludicrous person, but for mere practice even nonsense verses have been found useful.STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1880, Alexander Pope, (English Men of Letters), pp. 23, 24. I fell in love with Pope, whose life I read with an ardor of sympathy which I am afraid he hardly merited. I was of his side in all his quarrels, as far as I understood them, and if I did not understand them I was of his side anyway. When I found he was a Catholic I was almost ready to abjure the Protestant religion for his sake; but I perceived that this was not necessary when I came to know that most of his friends were Protestants. If the truth must be told, I did not like his best things at first, but long remained chiefly attached to his rubbishing pastorals, which I was perpetually imitating, with whole apparatus of swains and shepherdesses, purling brooks, enameled meads, rolling years, and the like. I could not imitate Pope without imitating his methods, and his method was to the last degree intelligent. He certainly knew what he was doing, and although I did not always know what I was doing, he made me wish to know, and ashamed of not knowing. There are several truer poets who might not have done this; and after all the modern contempt of Pope, he seems to me to have been at least one of the great masters, if not one of the great poets. HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN, 1895, My Literary Passions, pp. 49, 50. Certainly, the controversy as to the respective merits of Pope and Philips has lost its freshness. From the point of view taken in this essay, each had failed alike to appreciate the true conditions and to catch the proper spirit of pastoral. Yet within their own limits, one can hardly deny that the superiority rests with Pope. The contrary judgment were to confuse a rhymester with a man of genius. Pope's manner is intolerably artificial; he bears the graceless yoke of the Miltonic epithet; his matter is a mere pastiche from Virgil and Theocritus, Dryden and Spenser; but for melodious rhythm and dignity of phrase his pastorals reach a point which he never afterwards surpassed. The musical possibilities of the heroic couplet are exhausted in the eclogue entitled "Autumn," and though we may perhaps think the meter inappropriate to the subject, we cannot fail to be sensible of the ease and dignity of the verse.-CHAMBERS, EDMUND K., 1895, English Pastorals, p. xlv. ESSAY ON CRITICISM "The Art of Criticism," which was published some months since, and is a masterpiece in its kind. The observations follow one another like those in Horace's "Art of Poetry," without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose author. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity.-ADDISON, JOSEPH, 1711, The Spectator, No. 253, Dec. 20. His precepts are false, or trivial, or both; his thoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions absurd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes trivial and common; instead of majesty, we have something that is very mean; instead of gravity, something that is very boyish; and instead of perspicuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity and confusion. -DENNIS, JOHN, 1711, Reflections, Critical and Satirical on a Rhapsody, An Essay on Criticism. I dare not say anything of the "Essay on Criticism" in verse; but if any more curious reader has discovered in it something new which is not in Dryden's prefaces, dedications, and his "Essay on Dramatic Poetry," not to mention the French critics, I should be very glad to have the benefit of the discovery.-OLDMIXON, JOHN, 1728, Essay on Criticism in Prose. Was the work of his childhood almost; but is such a monument of good sense and poetry as no other, that I know, has raised in his riper years.-BOLINGBROKE, HENRY ST. JOHN LORD, 1735, On the Study and Use of History. I admired Mr. Pope's "Essay on Criticism" at first, very much, because I had not then read any of the ancient critics, and did not know that it was all stolen. MONTAGU, LADY MARY WORTLEY, 174041, Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 176. A work which displays such extent of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with mankind, and such knowledge both of ancient and modern learning, as are not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience. One of his greatest, though of his earliest, works is the "Essay on Criticism," which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he has produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself with observing that such powers may be soon attained, cannot but grieve to think that life was ever after at a stand. To mention the particular beauties of the Essay would be unprofitably tedious; but I cannot forbear to observe, that the comparison of a student's progress in the sciences with the journey of a traveller in the Alps, is perhaps the best that English poetry can shew.-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Pope, Lives of the English Poets. Most of the observations in this Essay are just, and certainly evince good sense, an extent of reading, and powers of comparison, considering the age of the author, extraordinary. Johnson's praise however is exaggerated.-BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE, 1806, ed. Pope's Works. The quantity of thought and observation in this work, for so young a man as Pope was when he wrote it, is wonderful: unless we adopt the supposition that most men of genius spend the rest of their lives in teaching others what they themselves have learned under twenty. The conciseness and felicity of the expression are equally remarkable. Nothing can be more original and happy than the general remarks and illustrations in the Essay: the critical rules laid down are too much those of a school, and of a confined one.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lectures on the English Poets, Lecture iv. Which some people have very unreasonably fancied his best performance.-DEQUINCY, THOMAS, c1838-63, Pope, Works, ed. Masson, vol. IV, p. 260. The praise that is uppermost in one's mind of the "Essay on Criticism" is its rectitude of legislation. Pope is an orthodox doctor-a champion of the good old cause. . . It is of the right good English temper-thoughtful and ardent-discreet and generous-firm with sensibility -bold and sedate-manly and polished. He establishes himself in well-chosen positions of natural strength, commanding the field; and he occupies them in the style of an experienced leader, with forces judiciously disposed, and showing a resolute front every way of defence and offence. WILSON, JOHN, 1845, Dryden and Pope, Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 57, p. 393. Considered solely as a phenomenon in literary history, the "Essay on Criticism" is doubtless one of the most remarkable instances of precocious genius which the annals of English or of any other literature afford.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1869, ed., Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, p. 47, note. English literature must become far richer than it is in witty mots or rememberable lines before we can afford to throw away the "Essay on Criticism.' PATTISON, MARK, 1872-89, Pope and His Editors, Essays, ed. Nettleship, vol. II, p. 360. The "Essay" has many incorrect observations, and, in spite of its own axioms, many bad rhymes, many faulty grammatical constructions. But these cannot weigh against the substantial merit of the performance. They cannot obscure the truth that the poem is, what its title pretends, an "Essay on Criticism, an attempt made, for the first time in English literature, and in the midst of doubts, perplexities, and distractions, of which we, in our position of the idle heirs of that age, can only have a shadowy conception, to erect a standard of judgment founded in justice of thought and accuracy of expression. Nor will it be denied that, as a poem, the critical and philosophical nature of the subject is enlivened by bold, brilliant, and beautiful imagery.-COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN, 1889, The Life of Alexander Pope, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. v, p. 70. Pope impaired the vitality of English poetry for fifty years by his futile "to advantage dressed," and succeeded in teaching "a school of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit," as the excited Keats has it. Horace is very modern, we say; we can read him nowadays with great comfort, with greater comfort than we can get from Pope. Not only is Horace nearer to us in his ideas on language and on style; he understood criticism better than did Pope.-HALE, EDWARD E., Jr., 1897, The Classics of Criticism, The Dial, vol. 22, p. 246. THE MESSIAH 1712 This is certainly the most animated and sublime of all authors' compositions, and it is manifestly owing to the great original which he copied. Perhaps the dignity, the energy, and the simplicity of the original, are in a few passages weakened and diminished by florid epithets, and useless circumlocutions.-WARTON, JOSEPH, 1797, ed. Pope's Works. All things considered, the "Messiah" is as fine and masterly a piece of composition as the English language, in the same style of verse, can boast. I have ventured to point out a passage or two, for they are rare, where the sublimity has been awakened by epithets; and I have done this, because it is a fault, particularly with young writers, so common. In the most truly sublime images of Scripture, the addition of a single word would often destroy their effect. It is therefore right to keep as nearly as possible to the very words. No one understood better than Milton where to be general, and where particular; where to adopt the very expression of Scripture, and where it was allowed to paraphrase.-BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE, 1806, ed. Pope's Works. The flamboyant style of his "Messiah" is to me detestable: nothing can be more unlike the simplicity of Christianity. All such, equally with those by whatever hand that would be religious by being miserable, I reject at once, along with all that are merely commonplace religious exercises.-MACDONALD, GEORGE, 1868, England's Antiphon, p. 285. The Pope says he was induced to subjoin in his notes the passages he had versified by "the fear that he had prejudiced Isaiah and Virgil by his management. reputation of Isaiah and Virgil was safe, and no one can doubt that his real reason for inviting the comparison was the belief that he had improved upon them. He imagined that he had enriched the text of the prophet, and did not suspect that the majesty and truth of the original were vitiated by his embroidery.-ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1871, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, Messiah, vol. I, p. 308. Pope's "Messiah" reads to us like a sickly paraphrase, in which all the majesty of the original is dissipated.-PATTISON, MARK, 1880, The English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. III, p. 60. His "Messiah" would sound grand to us, if we could for a moment feel that he felt it himself, or forget that it was copied from Virgil's Pollio.-POOR, LAURA ELIZABETH, 1880, Sanskrit and its Kindred Literatures, p, 436. It is an admirable tour de force, and should be regarded like his "Pastorals" as an exercise in diction and versification. Though, by the conditions under which he has bound himself, he was forced to lower the grandeur of the Scripture language, the artfulness with which he adapts his imagery to the Virgilian manner, and combines scattered passages of prophecy in a volume of stately and sonorous verse, is deserving of high admiration; and the concluding lines ascend to a height not unworthy of the original they paraphrase. -COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN, 1889, The Life of Alexander Pope, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. v, p. 36. RAPE OF THE LOCK THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos, Printed for Bernard Lintott, 1712. 8vo. The new machines, in names of ridicule, heart. The Graces stand in sight; a Satyr train Peeps o'er their head, and laughs behind the scene. -PARNELL, THOMAS, 1717, To Mr. Pope. The stealing of Miss Belle Fermor's hair, was taken too seriously, and caused an estrangement between the two families, though they had lived so long in great friendship before. A common acquaintance and well-wisher to both, desired me to write a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again. It was with this view that I wrote the "Rape of the Lock"; which was well received, and had its effect in the two families.-Nobody but Sir George Brown was angry, and he was a good deal so, and for a long time. He could not bear, that Sir Plume should talk nothing but nonsense.-Copies of the poem got about, and it was like to be printed; on which I published the first draught of it (without the machinery), in a Miscellany of Tonson's. The machinery was added afterwards, to make it look a little more considerable, and the scheme of adding it was much liked and approved of by several of my friends, and particularly by Dr. |