the Duchess, had there either been any specific bargain on his part to suppress it, or had he even believed that she any longer supposed it to be meant for a satire on herself. He must have intended to let it be known on its appearance that its original was the Duchess of Buckingham, who had recently died. His own death prevented the explanation. Bolingbroke, who knew the intention with which the character had been originally written, who knew also of the favour' Pope had received from the Duchess of Marlborough, but who was not aware of his design of re-naming the portrait, was naturally amazed after the poet's death to find the verses prepared for publication. He concluded Pope to be guilty of inexcusable ingratitude, and afterwards, in his vindictive desire to avenge his own injuries, he sought to damage the poet's memory by causing the character to be printed on the folio sheet with the hostile note which a generation later served for the foundation of Warton's gossiping scandal. Warburton, who had been a consenting party to the suppression of the edition of the Ethic Epistles,' was of course precluded from marking any direct defence of his friend, but from the note which he attached to the Character of Katherine, Duchess of Buckinghamshire,' it may be inferred, that if he had felt himself able, he would have put forward the explanation of the character of Atossa, which, coming from Pope himself, would of course have been accepted as conclusive.'

1 See Appendix IV., 'Remarks on the Character of Katherine, Duchess of Buckinghamshire,'

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PLACE OF POPE IN ENGLISH LITerature.

Difference between the Greek and the Mediæval Idea of Nature-Decay of the Mediaval Idea-Revival of Classical Principles of Criticism-Pope's Principles of Poetical Conception and Poetical Diction-Objections to his Principles and Practice-Historical survey of the Revival of the Romantic Principle-Warton-Bowles-Controversy respecting Pope in 1819 Rise of the Lake School-Wordsworth's theory of Poetical Conception and Poetical Diction-Coleridge's opinion-Examination of the Theory of Wordsworth and Coleridge-Matthew Arnold's view of Pope's place in English Literature-Conclusion.

EVERY biography of Pope is certain to occasion a great variety of judgments. As far, indeed, as it is a record of action there is not likely to be much difference of opinion as to the merits of the hero. The life of Pope is the first example in English history of the rise of a man of letters, by literature alone, to a position not only of honourable independence, but of familiarity with the most powerful and distinguished among his contemporaries, and of influence in the political struggles of the age. This position was won in the face of extraordinary disadvantages arising out of obscure birth, feeble health, and religious prejudice. Success so achieved, by acknowledged genius united to heroic patience and industry, deserves from English society, and especially from men of letters, a tribute of generous admiration.

The character developed in this long struggle after fame naturally excites more mixed feelings. In almost every scene of Pope's eventful history we see a conflict of strangely opposing qualities. A consciousness of genius and a passionate desire for distinction were joined in him with a painful ever-present scnse of the ridicule attaching to his physical infirmities. A

powerful mind, subtly appreciative of the finest beauties of form, was lodged in a sickly and misshapen body. Romantic sensibility and a large benevolence accompanied a satiric temper and a deadly vindictiveness against those who crossed his interests or mortified his vanity. These elementary tendencies received an impulse and direction from a peculiarly secluded education, which accustomed his mind to the use of equivocation, as the legitimate weapon of the weak against the powerful. Insatiable desire of praise or vengeance drove him into many actions of the paltriest dishonesty. Nevertheless, while he was pursuing his own ends by illegitimate means, it often happened that a certain warmth and largeness of heart engaged him in deeds of the most genuine benevolence. Hence, as Lord Chesterfield says: "Pope was as great an instance as any he quotes of the contrarieties and inconsistencies of human nature; for notwithstanding the malignancy of his satires and some blamable passages of his life, he was charitable to his power, active to do good offices, and piously attentive to an old bed-ridden mother who died but a little time before him." It is not wonderful that, of those who attempt to find the key to such a character in a single principle, some should seek to paint him as the honest man he professed, and probably believed, himself to be, while others should depict him, in the style of his enemies, as an unmitigated hypocrite.

Much of the same atmosphere of debate hangs round his reputation as a poet. The dispute on this point between himself and the Dunces, renewed in the following generation between Johnson and Warton, and in the succeeding age between Bowles on the one side, and Byron, Campbell, Roscoe, and Disraeli on the other, has hardly been ended in our own time. It remains for me in this chapter to place before the reader the main outlines of the controversy, and to examine, with such impartiality as may be, the issues which are at stake.

The poetry of Pope occupies a central position between two fluctuating movements of English taste. The classical

VOL. V.

school of the eighteenth century, of which he was the pioneer, was a protest against what has been rightly called the metaphysical school of the seventeenth century, just as the romantic school which arose in the early part of the present century was a reacting movement in art against the critical principles of the classical school. We ought not to regard the differing characteristics of these poetical groups as so many isolated phænomena: each is bound to the other by a historical connection, the full significance of which must be determined by reference to the course of English poetry as a whole. In other words, to appreciate the true meaning of the conflicts respecting the principles of poetry that have divided, and still divide, rival schools of criticism in this country, it is necessary to investigate the origin of the idea of Nature which each party holds to be the foundation of Art. To do this with completeness would require a volume, but the following outlines may serve as a supplement to what I have already said on the subject in the chapter on the Essay on Criticism.'

Greek poetry, both in its practice and its theory, was based on the direct imitation of nature; that is to say, its subjectmatter was, for the most part, derived from its own mythology, and was presented in forms which, to a great extent, arose out of the popular and religious institutions underlying all Greek social life. From these purely natural forms Aristotle reasoned to general principles which, according to him, were the laws of the Art of Poetry. The Roman poets and critics, adopting Greek models, carried them into all countries in which Latin culture predominated, so that before the fall of the Roman Empire what may be called a common sense of Nature, and common rules of rhetoric, prevailed wherever the art of poetry was practised in Europe.

The irruption of the barbarians obliterated like a deluge the landmarks of ancient criticism; the Latin language itself was only saved from destruction in the ark of the Christian Church. All the reasoning of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian seemed, like the Roman empire itself, to have completely

perished: for whole centuries the voice of poetry was silent in the Western World. In course of time new languages began to spring out of the decomposition of Latin, and, as was natural, their infancy was cradled in new forms of the poetic art. But the idea of Nature reflected in these forms was no longer one derived from direct imitation. A fresh conception of Man's relation to God, of the life beyond the grave, and consequently of the material universe, had come into being with the Christian Religion. And not only had Christianity supervened, but upon Christianity had been grafted Theology, and on Theology the Scholastic Philosophy. When we consider that the reappearance of Poetry is almost contemporaneous with the appearance of the Schoolmen, we can hardly doubt that much of the intellectual subtlety distinguishing the art of the Provençals was derived from the same atmosphere which inspired the five great doctors of the Mediæval Church. Other influences, no doubt, contributed largely to the creation of the new Idea of Nature. The prevalence of feudal institutions, the enthusiasm of the Crusades, the neighbourhood of Oriental thought, represented by the Arabs in Spain, and by the philosophy of Averroes and Avicenna incorporated in Christian theology; all this, operating on minds learning to express themselves in novel forms of language, and unfettered by the critical principles of the ancient world encouraged a new and vigorous growth of poetical conception. Hence the multitude of forms in which the poets of that early age manipulate what to us appears an extraordinary triviality of matter. Sirvente, Sonnet, Ballad, Virelay, Tenson, with all their subtle and scientific combinations of harmony, convey to us ideas of nature far more shadowy than do the odes of Horace; nevertheless it is evident that for the audiences of the Middle Ages they possessed not only music but warmth and meaning.

In time the medieval idea of Nature ceased to commend itself to the general sense of Europe. The wars between Christian and Paynim ceased; the wide-spread system of Feu