་་ EPISTLE II. "Of the Characters of WOMEN.] There is nothing in Mr. Pope's Works more highly finished, or written with greater spirit, than this Epistle yet its success was in no proportion to the pains he took in composing it, or the effort of genius displayed in adorning it. Something he chanced to drop in a short advertisement prefixed to it, on its first publication, may perhaps account for the small attention the Public gave to it. He said, that no one Character in it was drawn from the Life. They believed him on his word; and expressed little curiosity about a satire in which there was nothing personal."WARBURTON. 66 'Bolingbroke, a judge of the subject, thought this Epistle the master-piece of Pope. But the bitterness of the satire is not always concealed in a laugh. The characters are lively, though uncommon. I scarcely remember one of them in our comic writers of the best order. The ridiculous is heightened by many strokes of humour, carried even to the borders of extravagance, as much as the two last lines of Boileau, quoted in the next page. The female foibles have been the subject of perhaps more wit in every language, than any other topic that can be named. The sixth satire of Juvenal, though detestable for its obscenity, is undoubtedly the most witty of all his sixteen, and is curious for the picture it exhibits of the private lives of the Roman ladies. If this Epistle yields, in any respect, to the tenth satire of Boileau on the same subject, it is in the delicacy and variety of the transitions by which the French writer passes from one character to another, always connecting each with the foregoing. It was a common saying of Boileau, speaking of La Bruyère, that one of the most difficult parts of composition was the art of transition. That we may see how happily Pope has caught the manner of Boileau, let us survey one of his portraits it shall be that of his learned lady: Qui s'offrira d'abord? Bon, c'est cette Scavante, D'où vient qu'elle a l'œil troublé, et le teint si terni ? Un Astrolabe en main, elle a dans sa gouttière A suivre Jupiter passé la nuit entière : Gardons de la troubler. Sa science, je croi, Tantot chez Dalancé faire l'expérience; Il faut chez Du Verney voir la dissection, "None of Pope's female characters excel the Doris of Congreve in delicate touches of raillery and ridicule.”—Warton. "The Characters of Men and Women' are the product of diligent speculation upon human life; much labour has been bestowed upon them, and Pope very seldom laboured in vain. That his excellence may be properly estimated, I recommend a comparison of his Characters of Women' with Boileau's Satire; it will then be seen with how much more perspicacity female nature is investigated and female excellence selected; and he surely is no mean writer to whom Boileau shall be found inferior."-JOHNSON. This Epistle was composed in 1732-3. Pope writes to Swift, February 16, 1733: "Your lady friend is semper eadem, and I have written an Epistle to her on that qualification in a female character; which is thought by my chief critic in your absence [i.e., Bolingbroke] to be my chef d'œuvre : but it cannot be printed perfectly in an age so sore of satire, and so willing to misapply characters." To the first edition of the Epistle he prefixed the following Advertisement: "The Author being very sensible how particular a Tenderness is due to the Female Sex, and at the same time how little they generally show to each other; declares upon his Honour that no one Character is drawn from the Life in this Epistle. It would otherwise be most improperly ascribed to a Lady, who, of all the Women he knows, is the last that would be entertained at the Expence of Another." When the public, as Warburton says, took the poet at his word and showed their indifference to a satire which was declared to be impersonal, Pope felt that it was necessary to pique their curiosity. Accordingly in the octavo edition of 1735 to ver. 103 the following note was appended: "Between this and the former lines, and also in some following parts, a want of connection may be perceived, occasioned by the omission of certain examples and illustrations of the maxims laid down, which may put the reader in mind of what the author has said in his Imitation of Horace : Publish the present age, but when the text This seems to illustrate the expressions in the letter to Swift, and to have a clear reference to the characters of Philomede, Atossa, and Chloe, which were not published as part of the Epistle till Warburton's edition of 1751. For the suppression of the character of Atossa, Pope, according to common report, is said to have received from the Duchess of Marlborough £1000, and the publication of the verses, after such a compact, is called by Warton 'the greatest blemish in the poet's character'; while Bowles, finding this expression to weak, exclaims: 'Call it rather, if it be fact, the most shameful dereliction of everything that was manly and honourable.' This no doubt must be the general verdict, if the story 'be fact;' but the fact ought not to be regarded as established until the story has been exposed to searching examination. How then does the evidence stand? The story is given by Warton in the following words: "These lines were shown to her Grace as if they were intended for the portrait of the Duchess of Buckingham; but she soon stopped the person who was reading them to her, as the Duchess of Portland informed me, and called out aloud, I cannot be so imposed upon: I see plainly enough for whom they are designed;' and abused Pope most plentifully on the subject, though she was afterwards reconciled to him, and courted him, and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress this portrait, which he accepted, it is said, by the persuasion of Mrs. M. Blount; and after the Duchess's death, it was printed in a folio sheet, 1746, and afterwards here inserted with those of Philomede and Chloe." Considering the gravity of this statement, the loose wording of Warton's note is most reprehensible. It is impossible, from the note itself, to say how much of the story was told him by the Duchess of Portland, and how much he derived from the vague 'it is said.' But more than this, the statement is inexcusably misleading. Any one would suppose, after reading it, that the lines were first printed in the 'folio sheet of 1746,' and that this was prepared by Pope and reserved by his directions till the Duchess was dead. Whereas the fact is, that the folio sheet was evidently printed, as will be presently seen, by an enemy of Pope's; while the lines themselves had been prepared for publication, in the edition printed, under his own supervision, on the eve of his death, and before the death of the Duchess. As for the evidence of the Duchess of Portland, reported as it is in this slipshod fashion, and coming from a somewhat hostile quarter,' it would, if unsupported, be insufficient to convict the poet of guilt; and Roscoe would have some reason for his indignant exclamation: The manner in which this story is brought forward by one of Pope's editors as "the greatest blemish in our poet's moral character," and represented by another "If it is fact" as the most shameful dereliction of everything that was manly and honourable," is, to say the least of it, inconsistent with the character of an editor, whose duty it is to defend his author against all accusations, not supported by competent and authentic proof.` But it is said this proof actually exists, though it was not within 1 We see from the Introductory Notes of Lady Louisa Stuart prefixed to the Letters of Lady M. W. Montagu that the Duchess of Portland shared her mother's antipathy to Pope.-Moy Thomas's Edition, vol. i., p. 94. |