CHAPTER X.

THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES.

The Miscellanies'-The Origin of the 'Dunciad '-Its motives as described by Cleland and Savage-Its real motives-Pope's causes of quarrel with the various persons satirised-The Grub Street Journal.

1726-1737.

POPE's carcer up to this point had been a signal proof of the growing power of literature in English society. By his religion he was completely barred from all advancement in the path of politics, which had brought Addison and other men of letters to various degrees of fortune and position. He had early perceived that whatever success he might ultimately obtain must be won by pleasing the public taste and imagination, and towards this object he had pressed with admirable patience and resolution. His labours on the translation of Homer had brought him a pecuniary return hitherto unexampled in the history of literature. The son of an obscure tradesman, he was welcomed as a friend and equal by the most distinguished members of an aristocracy as proud as any in Europe. But a triumph so unprecedented could hardly be won without an almost equivalent amount of loss and vexation. The men of letters who had failed to secure equal favours from the public were naturally disinclined to ascribe Pope's success entirely to his superior merit. Some of them could carry their recollections back to the time when Oldhamn had written his 'Satire dissuading from Poetry'; when the author of 'Hudibras' had died in want of the necessaries of life; when Milton had received the merest pittance for 'Paradise Lost'; and when Dryden had been forced to support himself by the fawning flattery of noble patrons.' Some again disliked Pope

1 Dennis's Remarks on Pope's Homer, 1717.

on account of his religion: others had received from him some personal cause of offence: all of them were ready to make use of any weapon which could lower his character or genius in public estcem. On the other hand, the poet's self-love and ambition had been enormously increased by success, and a temper, from childhood impatient of opposition, was now super-sensitively alive to all criticism which was calculated to make his countrymen's judgment of his merits less favourable than his own. Though, like many other men of similar disposition, he had a profound conviction of the excellence of his own motives, his rancour against his enemies was doubtless embittered by a sense that there was an element of justice in the criticism passed on his edition of Shakespeare, and on his conduct to his partners and to the public in the translation of the Odyssey.' Thus with Genius, Vanity, Spleen, and Suspicion on one side, and Failure, Envy and Malignity on the other, all the materials were accumulating for the outbreak of the great literary war which culminated in the publication of the Dunciad.' The history of the war is full of incidents illustrative of human nature, and of the respective characters of Pope and his enemies.

Evidence is not wanting to show that the first conception of the Dunciad' had been formed as early as 1720; and it is certain that in 1725 Pope had completed a satire in which, under cover of correcting the taste of the town in wit and criticism, he made severe personal attacks upon his critics or rivals.' Swift, then in Ireland, questioned the wisdom of these sallics. "Take care," said he, "the bad poets do not outwit you, as they have the good ones in every age, whom they have provoked to transmit their names to posterity. Mævius is as well known as Virgil, and Gildon will be as well known as you if his name gets into your verses." The poet appeared to be convinced. "I am much the happier," he replied, "for

'See Pope's letter to Swift, October 15, 1725.

Letter from Swift to Pope of November 26, 1725.

finding (a better thing than our wits) our judgments jump in the notion that all scribblers should be passed by in silence. . . . So let Gildon and Philips rest in peace!"

Swift was wise at a distance; nevertheless it was Swift who, by his own confession, was eventually the main cause of the publication of the 'Dunciad." In the summer of 1726 the Dean came over to England carrying with him the MS. of 'Gulliver;' and, being entertained for four months by Pope at Twickenham, he was brought within the circle of all the literary interests and antipathies of the latter. It was resolved between them that they would combine to publish in a Miscellany such of their writings in prose and verse as might seem worth preserving. The author of Gulliver,' on his return to Ireland in the autumn, told Pope that he was "mustering all the little things in verse that he thought might be safely printed," and he afterwards sent him a parcel of these with full powers to burn, blot, or correct them just as he thought fit. A similar selection of Pope's writings had evidently been made during Swift's visit at Twickenham, and among them, Pope tells us in his authoritative account of the publication of the 'Dunciad,' was the rough draft of that poem, which the author, in pretended compliance with his friend's earlier judgment, was condemning to the fire, when Swift, snatching it from its fate, urged him to proceed with it.

The first two volumes of the Miscellanies were printed by Benjamin Motte in June, 1727; the third, though ready for publication, was kept back,-I entertain not the least doubt— in anticipation of the appearance of the Dunciad.' When Savage, at the instigation of Pope, published the authorised history of the Dunciad,' he declared that it was written in retaliation for the attacks made on the author in consequence of the publication of the 'Bathos.' As a matter of fact, we know that the satire was practically finished when the third

Letter from Pope to Swift of December 14, 1725.

See Iutroduction to the 'Dunciad,'

Vol. IV., p. 5.

Letters from Swift to Pope of October 15 and December 5. 1726.

volume of the Miscellanies, containing the 'Bathos,' was published in March, 1727-8. The point of the Dunciad' lay in its personality, and Pope knew that a satire of this kind could only be justified if it was supposed to be a weapon of selfdefence. To propagate this belief, he laid a plot marked by his usual subtlety and niceness of calculation. The 'Bathos' is, as a whole, an admirable piece of general satire, written in the ironical vein of Martinus Scriblerus, with great liveliness, and in a spirit of perfectly legitimate literary criticism. One chapter however, obviously inserted for the purpose of irritation, was devoted to the baldest personality, consisting of a comparison of a number of living authors, whose identity could be easily recognised by their initials, to Flying Fishes, Swallows, Ostriches, Parrots, Didappers, Porpoises, Frogs, Eels, and Tortoises. This device answered its purpose perfectly. The enraged authors rushed into print, and as Savage says in his History,' "for half a year or mcre the common newspapers were filled with the most abusive falsehoods and scurrilitics they could possibly devise."

Pope, it appears, did not reveal even to Swift the real cause of the delay in publishing the 'Dunciad.' At the end of October, 1727, he had sent the Dean, who had recently returned to Ireland after a sccond visit to Twickenham, four lines of the inscription to rouse his curiosity, and in January, 1727-8, he allowed him to see it in full. Swift was now most cager for the publication of the poem, which was at this time called 'Dulness.' "Why," he writes to Gay, on February 26, 1727-8, "docs not Mr. Pope publish his 'Dulness'? The rogues he mawls will die in peace, and so will his friends, and so there will be neither punishment nor reward." Besides the necessity of publishing the 'Bathos' before the 'Dunciad,' a further reason for delaying the publi cation of the latter may have been the success of the 'Beggars' Opera,' which had now been running for more than a month, and was absorbing the conversation of the Town. On the 10th of May, Pope having announced to Swift the change in the title of the poem, the latter once more presses for its

publication. "There is now a vacancy for fame," says he; "the 'Beggars' Opera' has done its task; discedat uti conriva satur."

Still the 'Dunciad' failed to make its appearance. At the last moment the author changed his mind as to its form, and imparted the secret to Swift through Dr. Delany. He resolved to publish the poem anonymously, with nothing but initial letters to indicate the names of the persons ridiculed, and with a preface pretending that it was the work of a friend of Pope's; in order to keep up the mystification, he omitted the inscription to Swift as too clearly indicating the author; and he made believe on the title-page of the first edition that this was a reprint of another edition that had already been issued at Dublin.

These manœuvres were the product of his uncertainties and his fears. He was not sure how far the public would appreciate the satire; he was afraid that, if the authorship were avowed and names inserted, he might be exposed to an action for libel. On the former point he was soon relieved from anxiety. The poem appeared on the 28th of May, 1728, and was bought with avidity by the town, whose taste for personality had never before been gratified by such wholesale ridicule of individuals. This advantage being gained, Pope saw that he might disregard the fury of the Dunces, but, while resolving to advance openly to the attack, he tempered his boldness with the most nicely calculated caution. The imperfect edition which he had put out as a feeler showed him two things: first, that the public were extremely anxious to learn the real names of the dunces; and secondly, that the unmitigated personality of the satire required an apology. Accordingly he determined to publish the poem in a large edition, giving names and full explanatory notes, and inserting the suppressed inscription to Swift; but at the same time he wrote the Letter to the Publisher now prefixed to the 'Dunciad,' and procured for it the signature of his friend Cleland, afterwards called his "man William."