is perhaps no danger more carefully to be shunned by the student of literature than the habit of resting satisfied with opinions at second-hand. Better a wrong estimate formed after due reading and thought, than a right estimate gleaned from critics, without any thought at all.
According to Warburton, who is as tricky as Pope himself when it suits his purpose to be so, the Essay on Man was intended to form four books, in which, as part of the general design, the Moral Essays would have been included, as well as Book IV. of the Dunciad, but to have welded these Essays, which were published separately, into one continuous poem would neither have suited Pope's genius nor the character of the poems; and how the last book of the Dunciad could have been included in such an olla podrida it is difficult to conceive. The poet was fond of projects, and this, happily for his readers, remained one. The dates of the four Essays, which are really Epistles, and appeared in folio pamphlets, run over several years, but were afterwards re-arranged by Pope. That to Lord Burlington, Of the Use of Riches (Epistle IV.), was published in 1731, under the title, Of False Taste; that to Lord Bathurst, Of the Use of Riches (Epistle III), in 1732; the epistle to Lord Cobham (Epistle I.), Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men, bears the date of 1733; and that To a Lady (Epistle II.), Of the Characters of Women, in 1735. Pope wrote other Epistles, some at a much earlier period of his career, which follow the Moral Essays but are not connected with them. Of these one is addressed to Addison, two are to Martha Blount, for whom the second of the Moral Essays was written; one to the painter Jervas, originally printed in 1717; while another, a few lines only in length, was addressed to Craggs when Secretary of State. Space will not allow of examining each of the Essays minutely, but there are portions of them which call for comment.
The first Moral Essay, Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men, in which Pope enlarges on his theory of a ruling passion, affords a significant example of his incapacity for sustaining an argument, since Warburton, to use his own words, entirely changed and reversed the order and disposition of the several parts to make the composition more coherent. That he has succeeded is doubtful, that he should have ventured upon such a task shows where Pope's weakness lay as a philosophical poet. It is the least interesting of the Essays, but is not without lines that none but Pope could have written. The Characters of Women, the subject of the second Essay, was not one which the satirist could treat with justice. He saw little in the sex save their foibles, and the lines with which it opens show the spirit that animates the poem:
'Nothing so true as what you once let fall;
"Most women have no character at all,"
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair.'
The satire contains one of Pope's offensive allusions to Lady Mary, and the celebrated portrait drawn from two notable women, the Duchess of Buckingham and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, from the latter of whom the poet, at one time, despite his unquestionable love of independence, received £1,000. The story, like many another in the career of Pope, is wrapt in mystery.
Pope took great pains with the Epistle Of the Use of Riches. It was altered from the original conception by the advice of Warburton, who cared more for the argument of a poem than for its poetry. The thought and purpose of the Essay are defective, notwithstanding Warburton's effort to clear them, but these defects are of slight moment when compared with the brilliant passages with which the poem is studded. Among them is the famous description of the Duke of Buckingham's death-bed which should be compared with Dryden's equally famous lines on the same nobleman's character.
'In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-heel, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies – alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring
Of mimic statesmen and their merry King.
No wit to flatter left of all his store!
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.'
There is also a covert attack in this Epistle upon the moneyed interest represented by Walpole, and on the political corruption which he sanctioned and promoted. Yet Pope knew how to praise the great Whig statesman for his social qualities:
'Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power;
Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe,
Smile without art and win without a bribe.'
Epistle IV. pursues the same subject as the third, and deals mainly with false taste in the expenditure of wealth, and with the necessity of following 'sense, of every art the soul.' In this poem there is the far-famed description of Timon's Villa, and by Timon Pope was accused of representing the Duke of Chandos, whose estate at Canons he is supposed to have held in scorn after having been, as he acknowledges, 'distinguished' by its master. That would not have deterred Pope from producing a brilliant picture, and his equivocations did but serve to increase suspicion. Probably he found it convenient to use some features of what he may have seen at Canons while composing a general sketch with no special application. The Moral Essays, it may be added, are not especially moral, but they are full of fine things, and form a portion of Pope's verse second only to the Imitations from Horace.
These Imitations are introduced by the Prologue addressed to Dr. Arbuthnot, a poem of more than common brilliancy, and also more than commonly venomous. Nowhere, perhaps, is there in Pope's works so powerful and bitter an attack as the twenty-five lines in the Prologue devoted to the vivisection of Lord Hervey, which we are forced to admire while feeling their malevolence; nowhere is there a more consummate piece of satire than the twenty-two lines that contain the poet's masterpiece, the character of Atticus; and nowhere, I may add, are there lines more personally interesting. Portions of the poem were written long before the date of publication, and this is Pope's excuse, a rather lame one perhaps, for printing the character of Atticus and the lines on his mother after the death of Addison and of Mrs. Pope.
'When I had a fever one winter in town,' Pope said to his friend Spence, 'that confined me to my room for some days, Lord Bolingbroke came to see me, happened to take up a Horace that lay on the table, and in turning it over dipt on the first satire of the second book. He observed how well that would hit my case if I were to imitate it in English. After he was gone I read it over, translated it in a morning or two, and sent it to press in a week or fortnight after. And this was the occasion of my imitating some other of the satires and epistles afterwards.'
Bolingbroke did his friend a better service in giving this advice than he had done with regard to the Essay on Man; and the six Imitations, with the Prologue and Epilogue, which are among the latest fruits of Pope's genius as a satirist, are also the ripest.
Warburton, writing of the Imitations of Horace, says: 'Whoever expects a paraphrase of Horace or a faithful copy of his genius or his manner of writing in these Imitations will be much disappointed. Our author uses the Roman poet for little more than his canvas; and if the old design or colouring chance to suit his purpose, it is well; if not, he employs his own without scruple or ceremony.'
This
