Arabella Fermor, and Pope celebrated this event in five (certainly short) cantos. Here he was able to prove his greatness in all that was little; and really the trifle, if we dismiss all idea of poetic beauty, is quite a pretty piece of Chinese work. But, although Pope was considered the greatest wit of his time, there is no wit in The Rape of the Lock: such passages as the beginning of the third canto had perforce to be regarded as witty, where, speaking of Hampton Court, he says: Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, The only two poems of Pope which seem to deserve kindly remembrance are the Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady and the letter of Eloisa to Abelard. The following passage from the first almost attains the level of true poetry, and is at least a good example of Pope's mastery of language: What can atone, oh ever-injur'd shade! By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!- In the second, Eloisa's passionate letters are worked up into a rhetorical show-piece; however, Pope has not been able to obliterate entirely the affecting, really poetical passages of the real letters. The most beautiful lines are taken almost literally from the Latin letters of Eloisa; for instance, the passage from one of the most passionate: Should at my feet the world's great master fall, Himself, his throne, his world, I'd scorn them all : If there be yet another name more free, More fond than mistress, make me that to thee! Oh, happy state! when souls each other draw, All then is full, possessing and possess'd, No craving void left aching in the breast: E'en thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part, Pope's once famous Essay on Man (1729) is a didactic poem in four "epistles" upon the relation of man to the universe, to himself, to society, and upon the best way to happiness. The chief characteristic of this poem is the absurd and commonplace manner in which such eternal truths as "That virtue only makes our bliss below," or such eternal untruths as "Whatever is, is right," are treated with prolix diffuseness but, as always in Pope, in polished verses. At that time the Essay on Man appeared so important a philosophical work to the Berlin Academy of Science that it gave a prize for the best essay on "Pope's metaphysical (!) opinions." In his treatise on Pope as a Metaphysician, Lessing, as he has done to many another, has shown this bogey in its true form. It must be admitted that there are "beautiful passages" in Pope's Essay on Man; one of the best known and most vigorous is the following (Epistle I. ad fin.) :— All are but parts of one stupendous whole, That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Pope's last longer poetical effort, with the exception of a number of shorter satires and so-called Moral Essays (all in verse) was the fearful literary satire, The Dunciad (1729), in which he attacked the horde of untalented writers who had personally offended him. The subject of this butchery in rhyme is the award of the prize of stupidity to a certain Theobald, whose edition of Shakespeare had appeared at the same time as Pope's (1728). The latter was utterly unfitted to be an editor of Shakespeare, as is shown by the preface to his edition and his audacious and patronising treatment of the text. The dwarf laid sacrilegious hands on yet another giant,-Homer. He translated the Iliad and Odyssey into rhymed iambic pentameters, for which he received the sum of £8,000, and spent the money on the purchase of a country house at Twickenham. Nothing more need be said about the work, for the translation is a real burlesque of Homeric simplicity. Pope transformed the bard of the people into a Homer for the use of the drawing-room, a Homer with powdered wig and lace frills. Nevertheless, Pope, with his enormous influence on literary taste, did some good by his attentions to Shakespeare and Homer. Although against his will, he helped to regenerate the appreciation of true poetry about the middle of the eighteenth century, to which the study of Homer and Shakespeare and many other influences contributed. Pope did not add a single line to the imperishable stock of poetry; as a master of form he deserves the recognition which must be denied him as a creative poet. BIBLIOGRAPHY. GENERAL.-Hettner's Geschichte der englischen Litteratur im 18 Jahrhundert (revised by Brandl) is still the best; Beljame, Le public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre au 18ème siècle (for the beginning of the century); Gosse, A History of 18th Century Literature (the most recent work, but only mediocre); Minto, Literature of the Georgian Era; Mrs. Oliphant, Literary History of England in the 18th Century; Thackeray, The Four Georges; much that is valuable in Macaulay's History of England and Lecky's History of England in the 18th Century; Perry, La Litterature anglaise au 18ème siècle. POPE.-Complete edition, including his letters, by Elwin (1872); poetical works by Ward, Rossetti, Arnold, Clarke, Cary, Dennis; Leslie Stephen, Pope (in English Men of Letters); A. Deetz, Alexander Pope; Carruthers, The Life of Alexander Pope; Courthope, the same; Lessing, Ueber Pope als Metaphysiker. CHAPTER II PRIOR AND GAY-THOMSON AND YOUNG ALL ALLAN RAMSAY LL the above were Pope's contemporaries, but (with the exception of Prior), like the first flush of morning, they announce the dawn of the new day of modern English lyric poetry in the second half of the century. Next to the masterpieces of poetical composition, there can be no keener enjoyment to the lover of genuine poetry than to contemplate such first glimmerings of a new poetical epoch. MATTHEW PRIOR (1664-1721) was a mere replica of the French society poets of the age. His long residence in a diplomatic capacity at the court of Versailles had matured his tendency to superficial poetical trifling. In his poems we must not look for anything beyond the pleasant, jesting tone of the man of the world. A poet who adapted La Fontaine's "Tales" can hardly have been a true lyric poet. JOHN GAY (1688-1732) still survives at the present day, thanks to one poem and one play. The poem is not a great poetical work, but it is something of which Pope was incapable; it can be sung, and is sung even at the present day. It is called Black-eyed Susan, hero and heroine are a sailor and his black-eyed sweetheart, and the poem has a genuine popular ring about it : All in the Downs the fleet was moored, If my sweet William sails among the crew?" His lyrical drama, The Beggar's Opera, is a work of permanent value. After Gay had failed in numerous other works for the stage, it was represented for the first time in 1728, and called forth so extraordinary an outburst of approval that it was performed for sixty-three consecutive nights, a thing unheard of at that time in the annals of the stage. A more correct title would be the "Rogues' Opera," or "Gallows' Opera," for the characters are nearly all without exception fit for the gallows, and in the majority of cases end their lives there. The "heroes" are: Peachum, a receiver of stolen goods, and his wife, a fitting mate for him; a robber captain, Mac Heath, secretly married to Polly, Peachum's daughter (one of half a dozen similar marriages); Lockit, a warder at Newgate, whose daughter Lucy also hopes to become Mrs. Mac Heath, and releases the criminal when he is from time to time arrested. Peachum is really the leader of the whole band under the captaincy of Mac Heath; he sells the stolen property, and if one of the thieves fails to pay him enough, sells him to justice for a fixed sum of £40. When he hears that his daughter has been so foolish as to throw herself away on a robber captain, his first idea is to bring his son-in-law to the gallows, that Polly may enter upon his inheritance. It is no small shock to him when his daughter's warm heart protests against this treachery to Mac Heath, whom she loves sincerely. The catastrophe, Mac Heath's death on the gallows, is brought about through the jealous rivalry of Lucy and Polly. There is no poetry in the Beggar's Opera, not even in the numerous songs with which the prose is varied. Nor must we try to find in it a political satire, as many have attempted to do, in spite of individual satirical hits which occur: for instance, when the horrible scoundrel Peachum says at the commencement, "My daughter to me should be like a court lady to a minister of State, a key to the whole gang." Its only real value, outside its "flash" language, consists in its faithful delineation of character. Apart from certain intentional exaggerations, all are true to life, especially the affectionate Polly, who is always humming an appropriate ditty. She became the favourite of the London audiences; the actress who first played the part was taken straight off the boards to the palace of a duke, whose wife she be came. The piece is only called the Beggar's Opera because the Prologue and Epilogue are spoken by a beggar and an actor. Even the word "opera" is incorrect; the piece is rather intended to be a satire upon opera, especially the Italian. Only the introductory music was written for the occasion; all the songs inserted were sung to the tune of wellknown street ballads, which materially contributed to their success. Gay even once ventures to lay hands on the great Handel; his band of robbers sets out on a plundering expedition to the accompaniment of a march from Handel's Rinaldo! James Thomson and Edward Young certainly belong in the main |