Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Where praise is due, the praise bestow."
With fervent zeal the Persian moved,
Thus the proud calumny reproved:

"It was that God who claims my prayer,
Who gave thee birth, and raised thee there;
When o'er His beams the veil is thrown,
Thy substance is but plainer shown:
A passing gale, a puff of wind,
Dispels thy thickest troops combined."
The gale arose; the vapour tossed,
The sport of winds, in air was lost;
The glorious orb the day refines;
Thus envy breaks, thus merit shines.

ALEXANDER POPE.

(1688-1744.)

THE name which gives the key-note to the poetical literature of Anne's reign and those of the first two Georges, is that of Alexander Pope, whom his last biographer, Mr Roscoe, styles the "most harmonious, correct, and popular of the English poets." Pope brought to perfection that school of poetry, of which Dryden may be considered the founder and the type, and which has been termed the "poetry of artificial life." The imitators of Pope, and those who caught from him the complexion of their versification, degenerated into mere musical smoothness and unexciting sweetness; and hence the poetry of the eighteenth century exhibits, with a few illustrious exceptions, either a slumbrous artificial softness, or stilted pomp. The popularity of this school has declined before the stronger nutriment, which has administered to public taste since the age of Cowper: but Pope, as a classical writer, still sustains his position, and, like Shakspeare in a very different sphere of composition, has filled English literature with his maxims and phraseology.

Pope was the son of a London merchant, and was born in May 1688. His father, a Roman Catholic, after the Revolution annihilated the prospects of his party, realized his capital and retired to the small estate of Binfield in Windsor Forest. Here the poet spent his early years; his constitution was delicate, but he was an interesting and pleasing child, and termed, from the sweetness of his voice, the little nightingale. His education was begun by the priest of the family; he received some little instruction at two Catholic schools, at one of which he manifested at his master's expense the germs of his satiric talent. But after twelve years of age he was his own instructor. He read the classical poets with intense avidity; studied the early English literature, and acquired a knowledge of French and Italian. He had "lisped in numbers" so early, that he could not recollect the time when he did not write poetry. Dryden, his master in verse, was the object of his boyish enthusiasm. More fortunate than Ovid, his father encouraged him in his tastes, and used to criticise his efforts into correctness. His life as an author may date from his sixteenth year, when he wrote his "Pastorals." He rapidly acquired the notice and acquaintance of the literary men of the day. His religion and his connection with the Tory party excluded him from the patronage of the court; but the popularity of his works had enabled

him, by the time he was thirty years of age, to realize a sum sufficient to purchase the villa at Twickenham on the Thames, which he adorned with all the elaborate garden taste of the time. Hither he prevailed on his parents to remove, and here he resided till his death.

The life of Pope, like that of Dryden, forms the literary history of his period. It would be endless to relate his friendships or his enmities with Swift, Gay, Garth, Steele, Bolingbroke, Arbuthnot, Atterbury, Warburton, Addison, Dennis, Cibber. Like Dryden, he was perpetually involved in literary squabbles, and was abused very much in the same terms, (see Roscoe, iv. 379), and, like Dryden, he has immortalized in the Dunciad many names that time would otherwise have forgotten. His female friendships and enmities form also a variegated chapter in the poet's life.

No character has been more canvassed than that of Pope's, both personal and literary. On one side we have alleged meanness, avarice, duplicity, malignity, childishness, peevishness; on the other, gentleness, candour, dignified self-defence, just infliction of deserved chastisement, steady friendship, devout piety, and beautiful filial affection; by some he is elevated into the first rank in English poetry; by others, his merits are lowered to the question, whether he was a poet at all. The principal biographies of Pope are those of Warburton, Johnson, Warton, Bowles, and Roscoe.

The poet having survived considerably both his parents, whom he cherished in his retreat with the most devoted affection, sunk under a complication of diseases in the year 1744. He died in the reception of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic faith, although his religious opinions seem never greatly to have sympathized with any of the peculiar doctrines or practices of that persuasion.

The principal of Pope's poetical writings are the following: "Pastorals;" "Odes ;" "Windsor Forest," a descriptive poem with historical allusions interwoven;" Epistles ;""Satires ;""Essay on Criticism," published when the poet was twenty-one, and regarded as miraculous in talent for such an age; "Essay on Man," a singularly-successful effort to weave ethical philosophy into poetry; " Moral Essays," supplementary to the design of the preceding piece; "The Rape of the Lock," a mock heroic on the fraudulent abstraction of a ringlet of a lady's hair; "The Dunciad," a mock heroic, lashing with satire his literary enemies; with numerous miscellaneous and fugitive pieces, epitaphs, &c. A great proportion of his verse consists of adaptations and imitations of early English authors, particularly Chaucer and Donne ; and of translations and imitations of classical authors, particularly Horace, Virgil, and Statius. His translations of the Iliad and Odyssey are well known as the most popular hitherto published; but in these he employed largely, especially in the Odyssey, the assistance of others. His prose works consist of" The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus," a satire on false learning; but a great portion of this piece is ascribed to his friend Dr Arbuthnot; the "Preface" to his edition of Shakspeare; and a large body of epistolary correspondence. "Of his social qualities," says Johnson, "if an estimate be made from his letters, an opinion too favourable cannot easily be formed; they exhibit a perpetual and unclouded effulgence of general benevolence and particular fondness. There is nothing but liberality, gratitude, constancy, and tenderness."

As a writer, the genius of Pope may be conceived to have been injured by his youthful and subsequent efforts in translation and imitation. Though in his original works his power of combination be great, he is deficient in that inventive faculty which is essential to the highest poetry. Hence his descriptions of nature are frequently groups of pretty things rather than living and speaking pictures. They have a garden aspect, where everything

is scrupulously elegant, soft, and beautiful. He seldom ascends to passion, yet he was capable of rendering "Eloisa to Abelard" one of the most affecting and moving of epistles. It is as the poet of learning and philosophy; as the satirist, who unites the fierceness of Juvenal with the elegance of Horace, except where he has sometimes descended in the Dunciad, that Pope merits the highest applause; and he felt with exultation this proud power: Yes, I am proud, I must be proud, to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me.

For a general estimate of Pope's poetry, we refer our readers to Johnson's beautiful parallel between him and Dryden. See Johnson's Life of Pope


FROM ESSAY ON CRITICISM."

(Our) critics, of less judgment than caprice,-
Curious, not knowing; not exact, but nice,-
Form short ideas; and offend in arts

(As most in manners) by a love to parts.
Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
Poets, like painters, thus, unskilled to trace
The naked nature, and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dress'd;

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;
Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind;

As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

For works may have more wit than does 'em good,
As bodies perish through excess of blood.

Others for language all their care express,
And value books, as women men, for dress:
Their praise is still,-The style is excellent;
The sense, they humbly take upon content.

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found:
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colour spreads on ev'ry place;
The face of nature we no more survey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay;
But true expression, like th' unchanging sun,
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words express'd,

Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd :
For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,
As several garbs with country, town, and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;

*

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

But most by numbers judge a poet's song,
And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:
In the bright muse, tho' thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;

Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.

These equal syllables alone require,

Tho' oft the car the open vowels tire;

While expletives their feeble aid do join;
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line;
While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes;
Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line, it "whispers through the trees;"
If crystals streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep :"
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught,
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine1 ends the song,

[ocr errors]

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

[blocks in formation]

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main,"
Hear how Timotheus's vary'd lays surprise,

1 The exemplification of the censured faults in the preceding has been admired. Alexandrine; generally understood to be derived from this measure, being used in the great metrical romance "Alexandreis," written about 1200 A.D., by Gaultier de Chatillon.

2 These celebrated lines have been censured, as not illustrating the poet's principle of echo to the sense.

See Alexander's Feast, p. 245, supra. Ajax and Camilla are from Homer and Virgil.

And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
While at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdu'd by sound!
The pow'r of music all our hearts allow,
And what Timotheus was, is DRYDEN now.

[blocks in formation]

And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands display'd,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncover'd, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of Pride.
Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,

Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches,1 Bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face:
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy sylphs2 surround their darling care:
These set the head, and those divide the hair;

Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown;
And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own.

1 Strangely among our grandmothers reckoned ornaments to beauty.

2 Spirits of the air, in the Rosicrucian philosophy: from silphe, Gr., a kind of beetle, or a moth supposed to renew its youth like the phoenix. The adoption of the sylph machinery in this poem has been reckoned one of the happiest efforts of Pope's invention. The Toilet was humorously translated into Latin hexameters by Pope's friend Parnell.See Roscoe, iii. 177.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »