turn of phrase, or a musical effect of metre in Virgil, which has not been imitated and extended by Statius; only, while the aim of the former was always to present noble matter in a noble form, the imagination of Statius, working on a subject of inferior interest, was wholly occupied with inventing ingenuities of expression. It was natural that a boy like Pope should be caught with the cleverness of Statius, and natural too that, in attempting to render it by means of such artifices as he could find in the English poets, he should insensibly form a poetic diction of his own. The most superficial reader can hardly fail to observe the gulf that separates his manner from Dryden's. The increased stateliness in the movement of the verse, the varied pauses, the calculated alliteration, the balance of one line against another, and the nice adjustment of each part of the couplet to the whole, all announce that a new master of melody has risen among the English poets. At the same time many crudities of style betray the boyish hand of the writer; more particularly the evident enjoyment with which the extravagances of Statius are loaded with additional conceit; the strained antithesis; the excessive number of verses in which two substantives, each accompanied by an epithet, are coupled together with an iteration producing monotony. For instance "Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing, While Dacia's mountains streamed with barb'rous blood." Exaggerated as the mannerism is, however, there is no denying the exquisite softness and sweetness of lines like these: "'Twas now the time when Phoebus yields to night, And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light. Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drew Her airy chariot hung with pearly dew; All birds and beasts lie hushed; sleep steals away The translation of Ovid's 'Epistle from Sappho to Phaon' (which is, however, of later date, having been written according to Pope himself in 1707) is even more felicitous. The hand of the genuine poet is unmistakable throughout this composition. It is beautifully harmonious, and the many original touches it contains show all the romantic sensibility which afterwards gave warmth and animation to the 'Epistle from Eloïsa to Abelard.' It will thus be seen that Pope in his early years had formed a new mould of metrical expression, partly by observing the gradual development of the heroic couplet, partly by assiduous attempts to reproduce classical forms of phraseology in English idioms. Insensibly, by this practice of composition, he began to set before himself, though at present dimly and imperfectly, that standard of writing which he afterwards made famous under the name of correctness. This word is inseparably associated with the name of William Walsh-' knowing Walsh,' as Pope afterwards called him when he mentioned him among his early friends-a man then well known as a critic and leader of the fashion. Pope told Spence that he had made the acquaintance of Walsh when he was about fifteen. This is an error, as Walsh had not been introduced to Pope when he wrote to Wycherley about him on April 20, 1705, and the first letter in their correspondence is dated June 24, 1705. Assuming, however, that they first became acquainted when the poet was just seventeen, it is plain, from the letters that passed between them, that Walsh was giving Pope advice in the sense reported by the latter to Spence: "He used to encourage me much, and used to tell me there was one way left of excelling: for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and he desired me to make that my study and aim." What did Walsh mean by "correctness?" It is commonly supposed that he meant no more than accuracy of expres Spence, Anecdotes,' p. 280. sion. The correspondence between him and Pope, however, shows clearly that what he had in his mind was not only this, but also propriety of design and justice of thought and taste. Pope, writing to him on July 6, 1706, asked his opinion as to how far the liberty of borrowing may extend. Walsh replied on July 20, 1706: "The best of the modern poets in all languages are those that have the nearest copied the ancients. Indeed, in all the common subjects of poetry, the thoughts are so obvious, at least if they are natural, that whoever writes last must write things like what have been said before: but they may as well applaud the ancients for the arts of eating and drinking, and accuse the moderns of having stolen those inventions from them, it being evident in all such cases that whoever lived first must find them out. It is true, indeed, when "Unus et alter Assuitur pannus," when there are one or two bright thoughts stolen, and all the rest is quite different from it, a poem makes a very foolish figure; but when it is all melted down together, and the gold of the ancients so mixed with the moderns, that none can distinguish the one from the other, I can never find fault with it." This is good sense, and is only a variation of Horace's text"Difficile est proprie communia dicere;" and of Pope's "True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.” Nevertheless, the whole drift of Walsh's criticism, as preserved in his letters to Pope, shows that he comprehended imperfectly the vital meaning of Horace's maxim; and the best proof of his superficiality is the exaggerated praise which he bestowed upon Pope's 'Pastorals.' These poems were the latter's first serious effort in original composition; and they seem to have owed their origin to the following circumstances. Between his twelfth and seventeenth year, his too constant course of study began seriously to injure his health: he fell into a state of depression, and imagined that he had not long to live. He wrote to his various friends, bidding them farewell, and among others to Thomas Southcote, a member of an old Catholic family in the neighbourhood of Abingdon, who, taking a less gloomy view of his case, went off at once to consult Radcliffe, the most famous physician of the day. Radcliffe, divining what was wrong, prescribed a strict course of diet, ordered that the boy should relax the severity of his studies, and advised a daily ride in the Forest. His instructions were obeyed with the happy result that the poet rapidly regained his health and spirits. He always retained a grateful recollection of the service Southcote had done him, and twenty years afterwards, hearing that an Abbey in France, near Avignon, was vacant, and being then on good terms with Sir R. Walpole, he procured through the latter's influence with Cardinal Fleury, that it should be presented to his friend.' His new course of life brought him a valuable literary acquaintance. In the neighbourhood of Binfield is Easthampstead Park. It had originally been a royal residence, and James I. had occupied it as late as 1623, but it was soon afterwards granted by Charles I. to William Trumbull, agent for James I. and Charles I. at Brussels, and one of the Clerks of the Privy Council. Certain conditions appear to have been attached to the grant, for a petition of William Trumbull in 1661 states that his father had a grant from the late King, in reward for thirty years' service, of Easthampstead Park, Co. Berks, being chiefly barren heath, at a rental of 40s., on condition of his keeping two hundred deer there for his Majesty's recreation,' and 'begs release from the said condition on increasing the rental to £10, as the deer there have been universally destroyed, and it is almost impossible to obtain any." The occupant of the Park at this time was Sir William Trumbull, who having served his country in various diplomatic Spence, p. 6. The story is somewhat differently related in Ruffhead's Life of Pope, but on such a point Spence's authority may be regarded as superior. 2 State Papers, Domestic Series, 1661, 1662, Petition of William Trumbull, presented Aug. 20, 1661. capacities in Tangier, Florence, Turin, Paris, and Constantinople, and having afterwards been made by William III. a Lord of the Treasury, and Secretary of State, had resigned the office in 1697, and had now come to pass the close of his life quietly at Easthampstead. He had been a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and, retaining all his old scholarly tastes, was delighted to find in Pope a companion with whom he could talk freely of the classics in his retirement. The latter says that they used to take a ride together three or four days in the week, and at last every day, and it may be safely assumed that the idea of the 'Pastorals' was the fruit of their intercourse.' The first of them is inscribed to Trumbull, with an address, which, however, is not found in the original manuscript. There is some uncertainty as to the year in which these poems were written. Pope himself says that it was when he was sixteen years of age, that is in 1704, and beyond the fact that he systematically ante-dated his compositions in order to obtain credit for precocity, there is nothing improbable in the statement. Walsh, if we were to trust to the published correspondence between him and Wycherley, had seen them before April 20, 1705, but for the authenticity of this letter there is no voucher but Pope's, which is of course worthless by itself. In any case, the correspondence of Lord Lansdown (then Sir George Granville) shows that some of the Pastorals must have been written before the poet was eighteen. "He (Wycherley) shall bring with him, if you will," writes Granville to an unnamed correspondent, "a young poet, newly, inspired, in the neighbourhood of Cooper's Hill, whom he and Walsh have taken under their wing. His name is Pope. He is not above seventeen or eighteen years of age, and promises miracles. If he goes on as he has begun in the Pastoral way, as Virgil first tried his strength, we may hope to see English poetry vie with the Roman, and this swan of Windsor sing as 1 Spence, p. 194. |