In a letter on the subject of his loss, Pope observes: "Reason and religion both tell me it is best, but I am really more troubled than I would own. The very habitude of so many years, if there were little affection, would have this effect, for men are creatures more of habit than principle. But, in a word, not to seem a better man than I am, my attendance upon her living was not virtue, only duty; and my melancholy for her death is not virtue, but weakness." A great and new era in his life has begun, and he is settling all his affairs as though he too might soon die. He means to leave home for awhile, first joining Lord Peterborough at Southampton, and later paying a longpromised visit to Ladyholt. Swift was eagerly desirous that his friend should visit him in Dublin. There was just then a good opportunity of making a comfortable journey, as Dean Cottrell and his sister were coming over. Pope, however, preferred making plans for journeys when it was impossible to carry them into effect. In response to the dean's invitation he pleaded his dread of the sea. Considering that he suffered from colical pains and a weak chest, he felt sure that sea-sickness would kill him. And even if he survived the voyage, he was certain that the cramming and flattery of the dean's most poetical country would put an end to him.1 1 Swift said this was quite a mistaken idea. "It is true," he admitted, " our meat and wine is cheaper here, as it always is in the poorest countries, because there is no money to pay for them. . . . All my acquaintance tell me they know not above three families where they can occasionally dine in a whole year. Dr. Delany is the only gentleman I know who keeps one certain It was for the opposite reason that the dean refused a pressing invitation to England. He required horse exercise, and he never rode out without two servants behind him. Also he could not dine without a pint of good claret. He told Arbuthnot that Pope and Bolingbroke were too wise and too temperate, and too profound for him. "You are both too poor for me," he wrote to Pope, "but he [Bolingbroke] is much the poorer. With you I will find grass and wine and servants, but with him not." Pope had been anxious to reveal all the mysteries of his philosophical work to his friend, and had assured him, "You will not think that I am not merry enough, nor angry enough. It will not want for satire, but as for anger, I know it not; or at least only that sort of which the prophet speaks, Be ye angry and sin not. He is delighted at having earned the good opinion of Lord Orrery, since the only praises he thinks worth having are those bestowed by virtue for virtue. His poetry he will cheerfully abandon to the critics, but his morals he commits to the testimony of those who know him best. But though he dared not face the sea, Pope lost little time in setting out upon an overland journey from one country house to another. On August 9 he wrote to Bethel that he had been wandering about ever since his mother's death. He had spent a fortnight in Essex-presumably with Lord Oxfordwas then at Dawley, and was going on to Cirencester. day in the week to entertain seven or eight friends at dinner, and to pass the evening, where there is nothing of excess either in eating or drinking." "I wish," he adds, "I did not leave our friend [Miss Blount], who deserves more quiet, more health and happiness than can be found in such a family. . . . I have now but too much melancholy leisure, and no other care but to finish my Essay on Man.' There will be in it one line which may offend you, I fear, and yet. I will not alter or omit it, unless you come to town and prevent me before I print it." The Blounts had not taken a villa at Petersham this year, much to Pope's displeasure. Earlier in the summer he had written to Caryll: "As to your god-daughter and my friend, there is little hopes of seeing her here, for they made the home at Petersham so uneasy last summer that it was agreed to put it off, though I should have thought to have kept that of £20 a year, and put off the London one of £45 had been wiser, since a lodging for three months might have served as well there. But the elder sister is in eternal youth. I lament for poor Patty, whose health is concerned as well as her quiet, and both which have been sacrificed to their humour this many a year." September was spent between the Carylls at Ladyholt and Lord Peterborough at Bevis Mount, near Southampton.2 In October Pope was back again at Twickenham, working at the " Epistle to 1 The allusion to "blameless Bethel." 2 During the visit to Bevis Mount, Pope and Lord Peterborough went to Winchester College, where they offered prizes for the best copy of verses on the Campaign of Valentia. One prize was gained by William Whitehead, afterwards Poet Laureate, and the other by James Hampton, later known as the translator of Polybius. Lord Cobham," and seeing the last sheets of the Essay on Man" through the press. An act of genuine kindness and magnanimity on the part of the poet must be recorded at this time. His old enemy, Dennis, was blind, sick, and in distressed circumstances. A performance of The Provoked Husband was given for his benefit on December 18, and Pope furnished the Prologue, which was spoken by Theophilus Cibber. This is a fairly spirited piece of work, beginning with an allusion to "Belisarius, old and blind." The audience is reminded that the chiefs and the common soldiers were moved at the sight, and the poet exclaims : Such, such emotions should in Britons rise When, pressed by want and weakness, Dennis lies; Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse. The audience was reminded how valiantly Dennis had attacked the Pretender, the French tyrant, and the Pope. If there's a Briton then, true bred and born, Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn; If there's a critic of distinguished rage; If there's a senior who contemns this age; Let him to-night his just assistance lend, And be the Critic's, Briton's, Old Man's friend. The performance brought a hundred pounds, which helped to ease the last days of Dennis, who died on January 6, 1734, aged 77. CHAPTER XLV 1734 "Epistle to Lord Cobham"-Country Visits"The Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace"-Bath-"Sober Advice from Horace " "1 on the "Know HE "Epistle to Lord Cobham THE ledge and Character of Men" was finished in the winter of 1733-4, and published early in the new year. A manuscript draft of the poem was sent to Lord Cobham in October, and on November 1 he wrote from Stowe : "Though I have not modesty enough not to be pleased with your extraordinary compliment, I have wit enough to know how little I deserve it. . . . However, I have the honour of having received a public testimony of your esteem and friendship, and am as proud of it as I could be of any advantage which could happen to me." Lord Cobham, who considered the Epistle "the 1 Sir Richard Temple (c. 1669-1749). He served with distinction under Marlborough, and was created Baron Cobham in 1717, and Viscount in 1718. He was a zealous Hanoverian, but fell out of favour with the Government and Court party by opposing Walpole's Excise Bill in 1731. He was deprived of his military commands, and did not regain them till after the fall of Walpole in 1742. He rebuilt Stowe, and laid out the famous gardens with the help of Bridgeman. |