ii. Towards the close of his father's residence at Binfield, however, his rising fame brought him frequently to London, and a new era in his life began. He was introduced into an atmosphere, social, political, and controversial, in which his latent genius for satire rapidly developed. Party spirit ran high, and men of talent naturally ranged themselves on the side of the Whigs, who commanded the services of Halifax, Addison, Steele, Dorset, Rowe, Philips, and many others. Swift, as the Coryphæus of the Tories, was glad to enlist the genius of Pope on that side, and he introduced him to Arbuthnot, thus composing the famous triumvirate who formed the mainstay of the Scriblerus Club. The poet made the acquaintance of the leading men of the day; he mixed, too, in fashionable life. "I sit up," he writes to Caryll (April, 1715), "till one or two o'clock every night over Burgundy and Champagne, and am become so much a modern rake, that I shall be ashamed in a short time to do any sort of business." Yet he was deeply engaged, when he wrote this, on his Translation of Homer. In fact, all the active and social faculties in his nature, his self-love, his sense of the ridiculous, his keenness for money-getting, were as much stimulated at this period, as the contemplative part of his nature had been in the quiet of Windsor Forest. But he was not so happy. Writing to Caryll, his old Catholic friend, whom he evidently loved and respected, he says (Nov. or Dec., 1715):

"I should make you a very long and extraordinary apology for having been so long silent, if I were to tell you in what a wild, distracted, amused, hurried state both my mind and body have been ever since my coming to this town. A good deal of it is so odd that it would hardly find credit; and more, so perplexed, that it would move pity in you when you reflect how naturally people of my turn love quiet, and how much my present studies require ease. In a word, the world and I agree as ill as my soul and body, my appetites and constitution, my books and business, so that I am more splenetic than ever you knew me concerned for others, out of humour with myself, fearful of some things, wearied with all."

This is the beginning of the period of his personal quarrels, which culminated in the publication of the 'Dunciad' in 1728. He quarrelled with Dennis; he quarrelled with Addison; he quarrelled with Philips; he quarrelled with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The lofty ideas which he had formed of his own virtue and benevolence were put to the rude test of experience, and any one but himself might have seen that they were not the sterling coin he thought them. But his self-love blinded him to all but the wickedness of his enemies. In his letters to his intimate friends, no less than in his apologies to the public, the author of the 'Dunciad' preserved the character of the moralist of Windsor Forest. Nor was his self-deception quite inexplicable. His enemies were, for the most part, a mean and malignant crew; and even if Pope's appetite for satire made him frequently the first aggressor, it must be admitted that his adversaries retaliated with weapons much less legitimate than those which had been used against them. The spretæ injuria formæ '-as deadly to a man like Pope as to a woman-the slanderous reports, destructive of the ideal character which he had imagined for himself; the imputations of blasphemy and malignity calculated to rob him of the respect which he sought, must all be taken into account. We cannot possibly excuse Pope's conduct, but we can compassionate him; we can understand how the overwhelming desire to set himself right with the public made him afterwards involve himself in the surreptitious publication of his mutilated correspondence; and we can feel that self-deception rather than hypocrisy is the key-note of such a passage as the following:

6

Not fashion's worshipper, not fashion's fool,
Not lucre's madman, not ambition's tool,
Not proud nor servile; be one poet's praise,
That if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways.
That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;
That not in fancy's maze he wandered long,
But stooped to truth, and moralised his song;
That not for fame, but virtue's better end
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,

The damning critic, half approving wit,
The coxcomb hit or fearing to be hit ;
Laughed at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad ;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tears he never shed,
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
The imputed trash and dulness not his own;
The morals blackened when the writings 'scape,
The libelled person, and the pictured shape ;
Abuse on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper that to greatness still too near
Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear-
Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue, welcome ev'n the last!
Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 334-359.

iii. In the third period of his life we find him under the influence of Bolingbroke. The independent position which the success of his Translations had secured for him enabled him to survey the world at leisure, and, encouraged by his 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' he began to turn to poetical account the study and reading of his youth. The fruits of Bolingbroke's instruction are seen in the Essay on Man,' and the Moral Essays.' Moreover, as that statesman was the guiding spirit of the Opposition to Walpole, he naturally imparted his political sentiments to his friend. No atmosphere could have been more congenial to Pope's habits of selfdeception. An Opposition, especially if it be ill-compacted and wanting in unity of principle, instinctively assumes to itself the monopoly of virtue and enlightenment; nor have we, with our own experience, any difficulty in reading between the lines of the fine invectives of the Craftsman' against the despotism of Walpole. Bolingbroke, Atterbury, and Oxford, in their hour of danger or disgrace, all adopt one tone. Their language expresses a philosophic contempt of power and of an ungrateful world, while their actions betray an incessant hankering to regain the position they have lost. Pope, who had a natural inclination for this kind of posing, though professing himself superior to party, caught with readiness the cant of Opposition. His poetry, which at

Binfield had been peaceful and pastoral, becomes at Twickenham full of personal references, secret histories, and political allusion. His villa in the midst of three courts, Kew, Richmond, and Hampton Court, and surrounded by houses of the nobility, formed a natural centre for the Opposition leaders, and for all the social rumours and scandals of that day. "I am tugged back," he writes to Gay (11th September, 1730), "to the world and its regards too often, and no wonder, when my retreat is but ten miles from the capital. I am within ear-shot of reports, within the vortex of lies and censures. I hear sometimes of the lampooners of beauty, the calumniators of virtue, the jokers at reason and religion." From such materials it was easy for his satiric and party spirit to frame an indictment against the universal corruption of the age, and particularly against the Court. The very act of Opposition became in his eyes a virtue:

But does the Court some worthy man remove?
That instant I declare he has my love.

Epilogue to Satires ii. 74.

And not only so, but voluntary secession from the Court prevailed with him to remove unworthy men from the purgatory of his own satire, as in the case of the notorious Sir George Oxenden, who, having been severely satirised in the first edition of MDCCXXXVIII.,' was pardoned in later editions, because it was remembered that he had voted with the party of the Prince of Wales.

Satire of this kind bears the stamp of self-deception. But it is indisputable that it also contains a considerable element of truth. Whatever benefits accrued to England from the accession of the House of Hanover, it cannot be denied that the Revolution was attended with great injustice and oppression to a large portion of the nation, and that to a Catholic like Pope the Brunswick dynasty was identified with the revival of the Penal Laws, with double taxes, and harsh restrictions of personal liberty. The quarrels in the Royal Family, of which the poet was evidently most minutely informed, were a

proper subject for party satire. The tone of the Church, Erastian and almost secular, especially in the Whig prelates, who owed their advancement to political interest, was certainly such as to invite stricture; while, the spiritual standard being low, the moral code of society was correspondingly debased. Gross sycophancy prevailed in the Court circles, and afforded an effective foil to Pope's constant professions of his own integrity and independence. Besides, the corruption of the monied interest, which had been encouraged by the Whigs as a means of maintaining the political balance against the landed. aristocracy; the South Sea Bubble; the venal nature of Walpole's government, and its debasing influence on literature; all presented a fair theme to a moralist of Pope's party and character.

These considerations may help the reader to understand the spirit of the satires contained in this volume. It is useless to try to paint the character of Pope in glowing colours. Those who, like Warburton and Roscoe, represent his genius for poetry as being 'only his second praise,' and base his reputation on his honesty and virtue, rather than on his poetical genius, do him an ill service. The evidence is against them; after the publication of the Caryll correspondence, it is impossible any longer to regard him as 'one of the noblest works of God.' The present volume will afford many further proofs of the unscrupulous deceptions he practised under the influence of his self-love and passion for fame. We must acknowledge the imperfection of his character, and leave it to the indulgence of the world, which, partly from humanity, partly from gratitude, makes equitable allowance for the faults of men of genius. But an Editor who makes any admissions to the moral disadvantage of the author, of whose reputation he has become, in a sense, the trustee, is bound to vindicate more jealously his literary genius. The world is, after all, more concerned with Pope's performances as a poet, as a satirist, and as one of the chief architects of our language, than with his character as a man. His fame has been established for more than a century and a half; but, since his genius was