against the taste of the age, as illustrated by the favour with which the upstart author had recently been received in the clubs and coffee-houses.

Pope's resentment was naturally strong, but he was always too severe a critic of his own work not to profit by the attacks even of an enemy, where they were founded in truth. Or. June 25th, 1711, he sent Dennis's remarks to his friend Caryll, professing his indifference to their general tenor, but allowing their occasional justice. "To give this man his due," says he, "he has objected to one or two lines with reason, and I will alter them in case of another edition. I will make my enemy do me a kindness where he meant an injury, and so serve instead of a friend. What he observes at the bottom of page 20 of his 'Reflections' was objected to by yourself at Ladyholt, and had been mended but for the haste of the press. It is right Hibernian, and I confess it what the English call a bull in the expression, though the sense be manifest enough." He alludes to a passage in the first edition

"What is this wit which must our cares employ?
The owner's wife that other men enjoy ;

The more his trouble as the more admired,

Where wanted, scorned, and envied when acquired."

On which Dennis remarked: "How can wit be scorned where it is not? The person who wants this wit may indeed be scorned, but such a contempt declares the honour that the contemner has for wit." Pope altered the last couplet, in consequence of this criticism, to its present form:

"Then most our trouble still when most admired,
And still the more we give, the more required."

Again, in the first edition there was a couplet

“Be silent always when you doubt your sense;
Speak when you're sure, yet speak with diffidence."

On which Dennis observed that a man who was sure should

speak with a modest assurance.' Pope noted on the margin of his MS., “Dennis, p. 21. Alter the inconsistency." He did so, and the second line stands at present

"And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence."

He was soon consoled for Dennis's attacks by the approval of the highest critical authority of the time. Among those to whom he had no doubt sent a copy of the Essay was Steele, with whom he had already some acquaintance, and on December 20th a notice of the poem appeared in the 'Spectator':

"In our own country," said the writer, "a man seldom sets up for a poet without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art. The ignorance of the moderns, the scribblers of the age, the decay of poetry, are the topics of detraction with which he makes his entrance into the world. I am sorry to find that an author who is very justly esteemed among the best judges, has admitted some strokes of this nature into a very fine poem-I mean the Art of Criticism,' which was published some months since, and is a masterpiece of its kind. The observations follow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry,' without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose author. They are, some of them, uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity."

Pope was of course exceedingly pleased. He assumed that Steele was the author of the paper, and wrote to him, gratefally acknowledging the generosity of the praise, which he said he was inclined to ascribe to Steele's personal good will towards him, and he professed at the same time his willingness to omit the ill-natured strokes in another edition. Steele replied: "I have received your very kind letter. That part of it which is grounded upon your belief that I have much affection and friendship for you, I receive with great pleasure. That which acknowledges the honour done to your Essay, I

have no pretence to. The paper was written by one with whom I will make you acquainted, which is the best return I can make to you for your favour to, sir, your most obliged humble servant." Such was the origin of the acquaintance between Pope and Addison.

Opinion on the merits of the Essay on Criticism' has divided itself curiously according to the lines taken respectively by Addison and Dennis. Throughout the eighteenth and the early part of the present century the verdict of the former was repeated in various tones of emphasis. "The 'Essay on Criticism," " says Johnson, "is one of Pope's greatest works, and if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition-selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it." Warton endorsed Johnson's opinion on one point, but, in conformity with the theory of Poetry maintained through his 'Essay on the Genius of Pope,' questioned it on another. "The Essay on Criticism,"" says he, "is a poem of that species for which our author's genius was particularly turned-the didactic and moral. It is therefore, as might be expected, a masterpiece in its kind. . . When we consider the just taste, the strong sense, the knowledge of men, books, and opinions, that are so predominant in the 'Essay on Criticism,' we must readily agree to place the author among the first critics, though not, as Dr. Johnson says, ' among the first poets,' on that account alone." Bowles is one degree cooler. "Most of the observations in this Essay are just, and certainly evince good sense, an extent of reading, and powers of comparison, considering the age of the author, extraordinary.

1 Letter from Steele to Pope, of January 20, 1711-12.

Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets:'

'Pope.'

• Warton's edition of Pope's Works -Life p. xvi.

Johnson's praise, however, is exaggerated."' Finally the chorus of praise is completed by Hazlitt, who says: "The Rape of the Lock' is a double-refined essence of wit and fancy, as the 'Essay on Criticism' is of wit and sense. The quantity of thought and observation in this work for so young a man as Pope was when he wrote it, is wonderful; unless we adopt the supposition that most men of genius spend the rest of their lives in teaching others what they themselves have learned under twenty."

The tide begins to turn in the direction of disparagement with De Quincey. The 'Essay on Criticism' he pronounces to be "the feeblest and least interesting of Pope's writings, being substantially a mere versification, like a metrical multiplication table, of common-places the most mouldy with which criticism has baited its rat-traps. The maxims, of no natural order or logical dependency, are generally so vague as to mean nothing, and, what is remarkable, many of the rules are violated by no man as often as by Pope, and by Pope nowhere so often as in this very poem." The whole of De Quincey's Essay on Pope is vitiated by a tone of superiority which the proportion between their respective intellects by no means justifies. His opinion is, however, substantially approved, though with a wide difference in taste and expression, by Mr. Leslie Stephen, whose judgment, since it doubtless represents the views of many learned and accomplished men in our own day, I here reproduce at length:

"The maxims on which Pope chiefly dwells are for the most part the obvious rules which have been the common property of all generations of critics. One would scarcely ask for originality in such a case, any more than one would desire a writer on ethics to invent new laws of morality. We require neither Pope nor Aristotle to tell us that critics should not be pert nor prejudiced; that fancy should be regulated by judgment; that apparent facility comes by long training; that the sound should have some conformity to the meaning; that genius is

1 Bowles, edition of Pope's Works, vol. i., p. 198, note to v. 25.

Lectures on the English Poets

(3rd Edition), p. 142.

De Quincey's works (1862), vol vii., p. 64.

often envied; and that dulness is frequently beyond the reach of reproof. We might even guess, without the authority of Pope backed by Bacon, that there are some beauties which cannot be taught by method, but must be reached by a kind of felicity.' It is not the less interesting to notice Pope's skill in polishing these rather rusty sayings into the appearance of novelty. In a familiar line Pope gives us the view which he would himself apply in such cases

'True wit is nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.'

The only fair question, in short, is whether Pope has managed to give a lasting form to some of the floating commonplaces which have more or less suggested themselves to every writer. If we apply this test, we must admit that if the Essay upon Criticism' does not show deep thought, it shows singular skill in putting old truths. Pope undeniably succeeded in hitting off many phrases of marked felicity. He already. showed the power in which he was probably unequalled of coining aphorisms out of commonplace." 1

It will be observed that the critical sense of the Essay is most warmly appreciated by those who are nearest to it in point of time, and is coldly spoken of in proportion as the practical value of its maxims becomes less apparent. It is further seen that those who praise it for its matter do not claim for it much novelty, and those who depreciate it, for its lack of novelty in matter, yet speak highly of the beauty of its form. The question between the two sets of critics, therefore, narrows itself to a very definite issue. Is Mr. Stephen right in making its sole excellence consist in the 'coining of aphorisms out of commonplace,' or Addison, in saying that its observations are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity'? For if what is said in the Essay' be of the nature of platitude, no amount of skill in the manner of saying it can make it of any value: if, on the other hand, the truths that it conveys are such as, though not doubtful, are not known intuitively, but can only be discovered by experience and reflection; if, indeed, we see them every day openly disregarded by writers of talent

1 'Pope' (Men of Letters Series). By Leslie Stephen, p. 26.