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 incomparable poem. It is the happy that constitutes the principal merit in 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. 11, 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

the finest results were produced by felicitous accidents.-KNIGHT, CHARLES, 1849, Studies in Shakspere.

This was, perhaps, the first decided failure in any of the publications by Pope. He was deficient in some important requisites for the task he had undertaken. The irksome but necessary duty of collation was indifferently performed; he wanted patience, and he could not command all the early copies. He was not sufficiently read in the literature of Shakspeare's contemporaries, and thus missed many points of illustration confirming or elucidating the text. He also somewhat arbitrarily and unwarrantably altered or suppressed lines and passages, which he conceived to have been interpolated or vitiated by the players and transcribers. -CARRUTHERS, ROBERT, 1853-57, The Life of Alexander Pope, p. 231.

Rowe was succeeded, as an editor of Shakespeare, by Pope, who published a superb edition, in six volumes, quarto, in 1725. Pope, like most of those authors of eminence in other departments of literature, who have undertaken to regulate the text of Shakespeare, made a very poor editor. He used the quartos somewhat to the advantage, but more to the detriment of his author; foisting into the text that which Shakespeare himself had rejected. He gave us a few good, and several very pretty and plausible conjectural emendations of typographical errors; but he added to these so many which were only exponents of his own conceit and want of kindred appreciation of Shakespeare's genius, that his text, as a whole, is one of the poorest which remain to us. -WHITE, RICHARD GRANT, 1854, Shakespeare's Scholar, p. 9.

With a few happy emendations, and with a singularly interesting and wellwritten Preface, begins and ends all that is of any value in Pope's work as an editor of Shakspeare. For the correction of the text he did as little as Rowe. To its corruption he contributed more than any other eighteenth-century editor, with the exception, perhaps, of Warburton.

He professed to have based his text on a careful collation of the quartos and folios. Nothing can be more certain than that his text is based simply on Rowe's, and that he seldom troubled himself to consult either the quartos or the folios.

In "correction" his process is simple. If he cannot understand a word, he substitutes a word which he can: if a phrase is obscure to him, he rewrites it.-COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON, 1895, The Porson of Shakspearan Criticism, Essays and Studies, p. 295.

Pope had few qualifications for the task, and the venture was a commercial failure. His innovations are numerous, and are derived from "his private sense and conjecture, "but they are often plausible and ingenious. He was the first to indicate the place of each new scene, and he improved on Rowe's subdivision of the scenes.-LEE, SIDNEY, 1900, Shakespeare's Life and Works, p. 175.

THE DUNCIAD

1728-43

The Dunciad An Heroic Poem | In Three Books. | Dublin Printed, London Reprinted for A. Dodd. 1728.-TITLE PAGE TO FIRST EDITION, 1728, May 28.

There is a general outcry against that part of the poem which is thought an abuse on the Duke of Chandos. Other parts are quarrelled with as obscure and inharmonious; and I am told that there is an advertisement that promises a publication of Mr. Pope's Epistle verified. . . I am surprised Mr. Pope is not weary of making enemies.-DELANY, PATRICK,1731, Letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer, Dec. 23, Hanmer's Correspondence, p. 217.

On the 12th of March, 1729, at St. James's, that poem was presented to the King and Queen (who had before been pleased to read it) by the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole: and some days after the whole impression was taken and dispersed by several noblemen and persons of the first distinction. It is certainly. a true observation, that no people are so impatient of censure as those who are the greatest slanderers: which was wonderfully exemplified on this occasion. On the day the book was first vended, a crowd of authors besieged the shop; entreaties, advices, threats of law, and battery, nay, cries of treason were all employed, to hinder the coming out of the "Dunciad ;'' on the other side, the booksellers and hawkers made is great efforts to procure it: what could a few poor authors do against so great a majority as the public? There was no stopping a torrent with a finger, so out it came. Some false editions

of the book having an owl in their frontispiece, the true one, to distinguish it, fixed in its stead an ass laden with authors. Then another surreptitious one being printed with the same ass, the new edition in octavo returned for distinction to the owl again. Hence arose a great contest of booksellers against booksellers, and advertisements against advertisements; some recommended the "Edition of the Owl," and others the "Edition of the Ass;" by which names they came to be distinguished, to the great honour also of the gentlemen of the "Dunciad.”—SAVAGE, RICHARD, 1732, Account of the Dunciad.

The Dunciad cost me as much pains as anything I ever wrote.-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1734-36, Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 107.

It was a victory over a parcel of poor wretches, whom it was almost cowardice to conquer. A man might as well triumph for having killed so many silly flies that offended him. Could he have let them alone, by this time, poor souls! they had all been buried in oblivion.-CIBBER, COLLEY, 1742, Letter to Mr. Pope, July 7, p. 12.

The fifth volume contains a correcter and completer edition of the Dunciad than hath been hitherto published, of which, at present, I have only this further to add, that it was at my request he laid the plan of a fourth book. I often told him, it was a pity so fine a poem should remain disgraced by the meanness of its subject, the most insignificant of all dunces,-bad rhymers and malevolent cavillers; that he ought to raise and ennoble it by pointing his satire against the most pernicious of all,-minute philosophers and free-thinkers. I imagined, too, it was for the interest of religion to have it known, that so great a genius had a due abhorrence of these pests of virtue and society. He came readily into my opinion; but, at the same time, told me it would create him many enemies. He was not mistaken, for though the terror of his pen kept them for some time in respect, yet on his death they rose with unrestrained fury in numerous coffee-house tales, and Grub Street libels.

The plan of this admirable satire. was artfully contrived to show, that the follies and defects of a fashionable education naturally led to, and necessarily ended

in, freethinking, with design to point out the only remedy adequate to so destructive an evil. WARBURTON, WILLIAM, 1751, ed. Pope's Works.

He (Dryden) died, nevertheless, in a good old age, possessed of the kingdom of wit, and was succeeded by king Alexander, surnamed Pope. This prince enjoyed the crown many years, and is thought to have stretched the prerogative much farther than his predecessor: he is said to have been extremely jealous of the affections of his subjects, and to have employed various spies, by whom if he was informed of the least suggestion against his title, he never failed of branding the accused person with the word dunce on his forehead in broad letters; after which the unhappy culprit was obliged to lay by his pen forever, for no bookseller would venture to print a word that he wrote. He did indeed put a total restraint upon the liberty of the press; for no person durst read anything which was writ without his license and approbation; and this license he granted only to four during his reign, namely, to the celebrated Dr. Swift, to the ingenious Dr. Young, to Dr. Arbuthnot, and to one Mr. Gay, four of his principal courtiers and favourites. But, without diving any deeper into his character, we must allow that king Alexander had great merit as a writer, and his title to the kingdom of wit was better founded, at least, than his enemies have pretended.-FIELDING, HENRY, 1752, Covent Garden Journal, No. 23, March 21.

"The Dunciad" of Mr. Pope is an everlasting monument of how much the most correct, as well as the most elegant and harmonious, of all the English poets, had been hurt by the criticisms of the lowest and most contemptible authors. -SMITH, ADAM, 1759-61, Of Duty, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, pt. iii, ch. ii.

I thought you might possibly whip me at the cart's tail in a note in the "Divine Legation," the ordinary place of your literary execution; or pillory me in the "Dunciad," another engine which as legal proprietor, you have very ingeniously and judiciously applied to the same purpose; or perhaps have ordered me a kind of Bridewell correction, by one of your beadles, in a pamphlet.-LOWth, Robert, 1765, Letter to Warburton.