pieces, for these entitled him to the highest place among poets of his class; it was by his Homer. There have been other versions as unfaithful; but none were ever so well executed in as bad a style; and no other work in the language so greatly vitiated the diction of English poetry. Common readers (and the majority must always be such) will always be taken by glittering faults, as larks are caught by bits of looking-glass; and in this meretricious translation, the passages that were most unlike the original, which were most untrue to nature, and therefore most false in taste, were precisely those which were most applauded, and on which critic after critic dwelt with one cuckoo note of admiration.-SOUTHEY, ROBERT, 1835, Life of Cowper, vol. 1, p. 313. Chapman's translation, with all its defects, is often exceedingly Homeric; a praise which Pope himself seldom attained. HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. ii, ch. v, par. 73. In ele Between Pope and Homer there is interposed the mist of Pope's literary artificial manner, entirely alien to the plain naturalness of Homer's manner. vated passages he is powerful, as Homer is powerful, though not in the same way; but in plain narrative, where Homer is still powerful and delightful, Pope, by the inherent fault of his style, is ineffective and out of taste.-ARNOLD, MATTHEW, 1861, On Translating Homer, pp, 11, 21. Pope's translations of the Homeric poems are achievements not only unmatched but unapproached. His thorough command over his native tongue gave him an active sense of its capacities and its deficiencies, and therefore he took the two narratives, each with all its parts and their sequence, but he told the two stories in his own way. Passing his early youth in a heroic period, when the bells pealed at short intervals for victory after victory, he had the best of all possible opportunities for drinking in heroic sensations; and with thorough power and efficiency "he sang of battles and the breath of stormy war and violent death." His successors, professing to perform the same work, and to do it more accurately, have in that vain effort made repeated failures. -BURTON, JOHN HILL, 1880, A History of the Reign of Queen Anne, vol. III, p. 245. The Pity of it! And the changing Taste My Childhood fled your couplet's clarion tone, The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of Spears ; Still we may trace what Hearts heroic feel, And hear the Bronze that hurtels on the Steel! But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pretence, And great Achilles' Eloquence doth show One hundred and seventy years have since gone by, and many attempts have been made by writers of distinction to supply the admitted deficiencies in Pope's work. Yet his translation of the "Iliad" occupies a position in literature which no other has ever approached. It is the one poem of the kind that has obtained a reputation beyond the limits of the country in the language of which it is written, and the only one that has fascinated the imagination of the unlearned. Many an English reader, to whom the Greek was literally a dead language, has followed through it the action of the Ilíad with a livelier interest than that of the "Faery Queen" or of "Paradise Lost." The descriptions of the single combats and the funeral games have delighted many a schoolboy, who has perhaps revolted with an equally intense abhorrence from the syntax of the original.-COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN, 1889, The Life of Alexander Pope, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. V, p. 162. Many scholars and many poets have scoffed at his translations of Homer, but generations of English schoolboys have learned to love the "Iliad" because of the way in which Pope has told them the story, and as to the telling of a story the judgment of a schoolboy sometimes counts for more than the judgment of a sage. Pope's "Iliad" and and "Odyssey" are certainly not for those who can read the great originals in their own tongue, or even for those who have a taste strong and refined enough to enjoy the severe fidelity of a prose translation. But Pope has brought the story of Achilles' wrath, and Helen's pathetic beauty, and Hector's fall, and Priam's agony home to the hearts of millions for whom they would otherwise have no life.-MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1890, A History of the Four Georges, vol. II, p. 262. We may add that neither its false glitter nor Pope's inability-shared in great measure with every translator to catch the spirit of the original, can conceal the sustained power of this brilliant work. Its merit is the more wonderful since the poet's knowledge of Greek was extremely meagre, and he is said to have been constantly indebted to earlier translations. Gibbon said that his "Homer" had every merit except that of faithfulness to the original; and Pope, could he have heard it, might well have been satisfied with the verdict of Gray, a great scholar as well as a great poet, that no other version would ever equal his. All that has been hitherto said with regard to Pope and Homer relates to his version of the "Iliad." On that he expended his best powers, and on that it is evident he bestowed infinite pains.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 37. His translation of Homer resembles Homer as much as London resembles Troy, or Marlborough Achilles, or Queen Anne Hecuba. It is done with great literary art, but for that very reason it does not make us feel the simplicity and directness of his original. It has neither the manner nor the spirit of the Greek, just as Pope's descriptions of nature have neither the manner nor the spirit of nature.-BROOKE, STOPFORD A., 1896, English Literature, p. 186, He could not have turned out a true translation, indeed, when his lack of Greek learning threw him back upon French and Latin versions, upon earlier English translations, or upon assistance of more scholarly but less poetic friends. He worked from a Homer minus Homer's force and freedom, a Homer ornamented with epigrams to suit the taste of the age. His tools were a settled diction and a ready-made style, regular, neat, and terse. The result could never have been Homer, but it is an English poem of sustained vivacity and emphasis, a fine epic as epics went in the days of Anne-"A very pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but not Homer."-PRICE, WARWICK JAMES, 1896, ed., The Iliad of Homer, Books i, vi, xxii and xxiv, Introduction, p. 11. Although Pope has also a certain rapidity of movement, it is not the smooth, subtly-varied swiftness of Homer, but a jogging and rather monotonous briskness. He impedes the progress of the action, even in his translation, by introducing reflective phrases, fanciful asides, and lingering appreciation of passages elaborated for their own sakes, to their detriment as humble parts of a swift narrative. His eye is not fixed clearly on the moving objects, but on the thoughts and feelings he lets them suggest.-GENTNER, PHILIP, 1899, Introduction to Pope's Iliad, p. xi. ODYSSEY 1725 I think I need not recommend to you further the necessity of keeping this whole matter to yourself, as I am very sure Fenton has done, lest the least air of it prejudice with the town. But if you judge otherwise, I do not prohibit you taking to yourself your due share of fame. Take your choice also in that. . . The public is both an unfair and a silly judge unless it be trepanned into justice.POPE, ALEXANDER, 1724, Letter to Broome, Nov. Pope's "Homer's Odyssey," surely a very false, and though ingenious and talented, yet bad translation.-CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1831, Note Book, Life by Froude,. vol. II, p. 78. He made over 3500£. after paying Broome 500£. (including 100£. for notes) and Fenton 200£.—that is, 50£. a book. The rate of pay was as high as the work was worth, and as much as it would fetch in the open market. The large sum was entirely due to Pope's reputation, though obtained, so far as the true authorship was concealed upon something like false pretences. Still, we could have wished that he had been a little more liberal with his share of the plunder. The shares of the three colleagues in the Odyssey are not to be easily distinguished by internal evidence. On trying the experiment by a cursory reading, I confess (though a critic does not willingly admit his fallibility) that I took some of Broome's work for Pope's, and, though closer study or an acuter perception might discriminate more accurately, I do not think that the distinction would be easy. This may be taken to confirm the common theory that Pope's versification was a mere mechanical trick. Without admitting this, it must be admitted that the external characteristics of his manner were easily caught; and that it was not hard for a clever versifier to produce something closely resembling his inferior work, especially when following the same original. But it may be added that Pope's Odyssey was really inferior to the Iliad, both because his declamatory style is more out of place in its romantic narrative, and because he was weary and languid, and glad to turn his fame to account without more labour than necessary. STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1880, Alexander Pope (English Men of Letters), pp. 79, 80. ELOISA TO ABELARD 1717 Abelard and Eloisa flourished in the twelfth century; they were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a several Convent, and consecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this separation, that a letter of Abelard's to a Friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloisa. This awakening all her Tenderness, occasioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which gives so lively a picture of the struggles of grace and nature, virtue and passion.-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1717, Eloisa to Abelard, Argument. O Abelard, ill-fated youth, Thy tale will justify this truth: But well I weet, thy cruel wrong Adorns a nobler poet's song. Dan Pope, for thy misfortune grieved, With kind concern and skill has weaved A silken web; and ne'er shall fade Its colours; gently has he laid The mantle o'er thy sad distress: And Venus shall the texture bless. He o'er the weeping nun has drawn Such artful folds of sacred lawn; That love, with equal grief and pride, Shall see the crime he strives to hide; And, softly drawing back the veil, The god shall to his votaries tell Each conscious tear, each blushing grace, That deck'd dear Eloisa's face. -PRIOR, MATTHEW, 1718, Alma. Canto II. The harmony of numbers in this poem is very fine. It is rather drawn out to too tedious a length, although the passions vary with great judgment. It may be considered as superior to anything in the epistolary way; and the many translations which have been made of it into the modern languages are in some measure a proof of this.-GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, 1767, The Beauties of English Poetry. The epistle of "Eloise to Abelard" is one of the most happy productions of human wit; the subject is so judiciously chosen, that it would be difficult, in turning over the annals of the world, to find another which so many circumstances concur to recommend. JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Pope, Lives of the English Poets. Mr. Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard" is such a chef-d'œuvre that nothing of the kind can be relished after it. Yet it is not the story itself, nor the sympathy it excites in us, as Dr. Johnson would have us think, that constitutes the principal merit in that incomparable poem. It is the happy use he has made of the monastic gloom of the Paraclete, and of what I will call papistical machinery, which gives it its capital charm, so that I am almost inclined to wonder (if I could wonder at any of that writer's criticisms) that he did not take notice of this beauty, as his own superstitious turn certainly must have given him more than a sufficient relish for it.-MASON, WILLIAM, 1788, Life of William Whitehead, p. 30. It is fine as a poem; it is finer as a No piece of high-wrought eloquence. love-letter in verse. woman could be supposed to write a better Besides the richness of the historical materials, the high gusto of the original sentiments which Pope had to work upon, there were perhaps circumstances in his own situation which made him enter into the subject with even more than a poet's feeling. The tears shed are drops gushing from the heart; the words are burning sighs breathed from the soul of love. Perhaps the poem to which it bears the greatest similarity in our language is Dryden's "Tancred and Sigismunda," taken from Boccaccio. Pope's "Eloise" will bear this comparison; and after such a test, with Boccaccio for the original author, and Dryden for the translator, it need shrink from no other.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lectures on the English Poets, Lecture iv. He has rendered this one of the most impressive poems of which love is the subject; as it is likewise the most finished of all his works of equal length, in point of language and versification.-AIKIN, JOHN, 1820, Select Works of the British Poets. Had Pope never written but this poem, it should suffice to render him immortal, for all the united efforts of art and study, -of perseverance and toil,-could never have produced it, devoid of that exquisite sensibility, without which no poet ever excelled in the pathetic.-M'DERMOT, MARTIN, 1824, The Beauties of Modern Literature, p. xxi. I read it again, and am bored: this is not as it ought to be; but, in spite of myself, I yawn, and I open the original letters of Eloisa to find the cause of my weariness. Declamation and commonplace; she sends Abelard discourses on love and the liberty which it demands, on the cloister and peaceful life which it affords, on writing and the advantages of the post. Antitheses and contrasts, she forwards them to Abelard by the dozen; a contrast between the convent illuminated by his presence and desolate by his absence, between the tranquillity of the pure nun and the anxiety of the culpable nun, between the dream of human happiness and the dream of divine happiness. In fine, it is a bravura with contrasts of forte and piano, variations and change of key. Eloisa makes the most of her theme, and sets herself to crowd into it all the powers and effects of her voice. Admire the crescendo, the shakes by which she ends her brilliant Observe the noise of the big drum, I mean the grand contrivances, for so may be called all that a person says who wishes to rave and cannot. morceaux. This kind of poetry resembles cookery; neither heart nor genius is necessary to produce it, but a light hand, an attentive eye, and a cultivated taste.-TAINE, H. A,, 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol., II, bk. iii, ch. vii, pp. 200, 201, 202. Pope always resembles an orator whose gestures are studied, and who thinks, while he is speaking, of the fall of his robes, and the attitude of his hands. He is throughout academical; and though knowing with admirable nicety how grief should be represented, and what have been the expedients of his best predecessors, he misses the one essential touch of spontaneous impulse. One other blemish is perhaps more fatal to the popularity of the "Eloisa. There is a taint of something unwholesome and effeminate. Pope, it is true, is only following the language of the original in the most offensive passages; but we see too plainly that he has dwelt too fondly upon those passages, and worked them up with especial care. We need not be prudish in our judgment of impassioned poetry; but when the passion has this false ring, the ethical coincides with the aesthetic objection.STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1880, Alexander Pope (English Men of Letters), p. 38. The "Elegy on the Unfortunate Lady" is good, but I do not find much human feeling in him, except perhaps in "Eloisa. to Abelard."-TENNYSON, ALFRED LORD, 1883, Some Criticism on Poets, Memoirs by his Son, vol. II, p. 287, His "Eloisa," splendid as is its diction, and vigorous though be the portrayal of the miserable creature to whom the poem relates, most certainly lacks "a gracious somewhat," whilst no less certainly is it marred by a most unfeeling coarseness. A poem about love it may be a love poem it is not.-BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE, 1887, Obiter Dicta, Second Series, p. 106. In the "Eloisa to Abelard" there is undoubtedly much that no longer rings true to the modern ear; there are passages here and there which it is difficult to think of as having ever rung true to the ear of any man, even to that of the poet himself; there are lines in it, though but a few, which are of a taste that never could be otherwise than false and unsound in any poet of any age; it contains at least one line of which we can agree with Mr. Swinburne in thinking that "no woman could read it without a blush, nor any man without a laugh." Yet he who can read its last hundred lines, with the struggle between love and devotion thrilling and throbbing through them, and not hear in them the true note, the unmistakable cry of human passion, uttered as only poetry can give it utterance, may rest assured that his natural sympathies and sentiments have been dwarfed and sophisticated by theory, and that from dogmatizing overmuch about what poetry ought to be he has blunted some of the sensibilities which should tell him what poetry is. -TRAILL, H. D., 1889, Pope, The National Review, vol. 14, p. 497. It is unique in English literature for passionate eloquence of language and for melody of numbers. As his imagination dwelt upon the figure of Heloise in her devotion and her despair, as he pictured to himself the conflict in her soul between religious feeling and the memory of earthly passion, he poured his whole soul into his dramatic creation.-COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN, 1889, The Life of Alexander Pope, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. v, p. 135. A mystery surrounds the "Elegy"we do not know the circumstances by which it was conceived; but the warmth. of "Eloisa" may be largely explained on purely personal grounds, which fact, of course, robs it of much of its significance as an index to Pope's general taste in poetry. No one who reads Pope's correspondence with Lady Mary can avoid the conclusion that the poet embodied in this Epistle much of his own sentimental longings; for Pope's attitude toward the brilliant society woman was certainly more than that of conventional gallantry. -PHELPS, WILLIAM LYON, 1893, The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement, p. 24. EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE 1725 If aught on earth, when once this breath is fled, With human transport touch the mighty dead, Shakespear, rejoice! his hand thy page refines; Now ev'ry scene with native brightness shines; Just to thy fame he gives thy genuine thought; So Tully published that Lucretius wrote; Pruned by his care, thy laurels loftier grow, And bloom afresh on thy immortal brow. -BROOME, WILLIAM, 1726, To Mr. Pope. He [Pope] never valued himself upon it enough to mention it in any letter, poem, or other work whatsoever.-AYRE, WILLIAM, 1745, Memoirs of Pope, vol. II, p. 15. Mr. Pope discharged his duty so well, as to make his editions the best foundation for all future improvements.-WARBURTON, WILLIAM, 1747, ed. Shakspeare, Preface. Pope, in his edition, undoubtedly did many things wrong, and left many things undone; but let him not be defrauded of his due praise. He was the first that knew, at least the first that told, by what helps the text might be improved. If he inspected the early editions negligently, he taught others to be more accurate. In his preface he expanded with great skill and elegance the character which had been given to Shakespeare by Dryden; and he drew the public attention upon his works, which, though often mentioned, had been little read.-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Pope, Lives of the English Poets. Pope asserts, that he [Shakspeare] wrote both better and worse than any other man. All the scenes and passages which did not suit the littleness of his taste, he wished to place to the account of interpolating players; and he was in the right road, had his opinion been taken, of mangling Shakspeare in a most disgraceful manner. SCHLEGEL, AUGUSTUS WILLIAM, 1809, Dramatic Art and Literature, tr. Black. Pope would have given us a mutilated Shakespeare! but Pope, to satisfy us that he was not insensible to the fine passages of Shakespeare, distinguished by inverted commas all those which he approved!-so that Pope thus furnished for the first time what have been called "the beauties of Shakespeare"! But, amid such a disfigured text, the faults of Shakespeare must have been too apparent! Pope but partially relished, and often ill understood, his Shakespeare; yet, in the liveliest of prefaces, he offers the most vivid delineation of our great bard's general characteristics. The genius of Shakespeare was at once comprehended by his brother poet; but the text he was continually tampering with ended in a fatal testimony, that POPE had no congenial taste for the style, the manner, and the whole native drama, of England.-DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1841, Shakespeare, Amenities of Literature. His Preface is a masterly composition, containing many just views elegantly expressed. The criticism is neither profound nor original; but there is a tone of quiet sense about it which shows that Pope properly appreciated Shakspere's general excellence. He believes, in common with most of his time, that this excellence was attained by intuition, and that |