1709-1742.] THE POPULAR ELEMENT IN CONTROVERSY. 435 hope, was paid in more substantial coin than Pope's gratitude for his liberality. The controversial and sarcastic spirit in which Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and some lesser humorists and wits, dealt with matters of literature and learning, of art and science, displays the popular element that had become a characteristic of authorship. Until the subjects upon which ridicule is exercised come to be somewhat known and talked about, the ridicule is pointless. But a very superficial acquaintance with the higher objects of knowledge and taste would enable the reader of the "Battle of the Books," of the "Memoirs of Scriblerus," of the "Dunciad," of Gulliver in Laputa, to laugh at the whole tribe of grammarians, virtuosi, critics, projectors. Pope told Spence that "the design of the Memoirs of Scriblerus was to have ridiculed all the false tastes in learning, under the character of a man ot capacity enough, that had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously in each. It was begun by a club of the greatest wits of the age"* This sort of ridicule went on for forty years, till "the greatest wits of the age were all silenced by the greater "antic," who might say, "where be your gibes now?" But the gibes are still read, whilst the matters which gave birth to the gibes are well nigh forgotten. Few care for the controversy between Bentley and Boyle, about the comparative merits of the ancients and moderns, and the authenticity of the "Epistles of Phalaris." The critical student may have read with wonder the "Dissertation" in which Bentley demolished his antagonists with unbounded learning and irresistible logic. The popular reader cares nothing for the quarrel, except to laugh over the comic satire of Swift in the "Battle of the Books." The ancient and the modern volumes have been fighting in St. James's Library, when "the day being far spent, and the numerous forces of the moderns halfinclining to a retreat, there issued forth from a squadron of their heavy-armed foot a captain whose name was Bentley, the most deformed of all the moderns." Scaliger encounters Bentley, and thus assails him: "The malignity of thy temper perverteth nature; thy learning makes thee more barbarous; thy study of humanity more inhuman; thy converse among poets more grovelling, miry and dull." This is sheer abuse; and if all were such, no one would now turn to the "Battle of the Books." But there are passages of exquisite force and humour, such as the dialogue between the spider and the bee; and of inimitable burlesque, such as the mortal fight in which Boyle slays Bentley and his ally Wotton : "So Wotton fled, so Boyle pursued. But Wotton, heavy-armed and slow of foot, began to slack his course, when his lover Bentley appeared, returning laden with the spoils of the two sleepy ancients. Boyle observed him well, and, soon discovering the helmet and shield of Phalaris his friend, both which he had lately with his own hands new polished and gilt, rage sparkled in his eyes, and, leaving the pursuit after Wotton, he furiously rushed on against this new approacher. Fain would he be revenged on both; but both now fled different ways; and, as a woman in a little house that gets a painful livelihood by spinning, if chance her geese be scattered o'er the common, she courses round the plain from side to side, compelling here and there the stragglers to the flock; they cackle * "Anecdotes," p. 8. 436 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS-POPE'S ATTACK ON DENNIS. [1709-1742. loud, and flutter o'er the champaign; so Boyle pursued, so fled this pair of friends: finding at length their flight was vain, they bravely joined, and drew themselves in phalanx First Bentley threw a spear with all his force, hoping to pierce the enemy's breast; but Pallas came unseen, and in the air took off the point and clapped on one of lead, which, after a dead bang against the enemy's shield, fell blunted to the ground. Then Boyle, observing well his time, took up a lance of wondrous length and sharpness; and, as this pair of friends, compacted, stood close side to side, he wheeled him to the right, and, with unusual force, darted the weapon. Bentley saw his fate approach, and, flanking down his arms close to his sides, hoping to save his body, in went the point, passing through arm and side, nor stopped or spent its force till it had also pierced the valiant Wotton, who, going to sustain his dying friend, shared his fate. As when a skilful cook has trussed a brace of woodcocks, he with iron skewers pierces the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to the ribs; so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell, joined in their lives, joined in their deaths: so closely joined that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare. Farewell, beloved, loving pair; few equals have you left behind; and happy and immortal shall you be, if all my wit and eloquence can make you." "The Battle of the Books " was published in 1704. There was a much younger genius at that time writing Pastorals, who listened to the noise of the fray, and perhaps panted for his own day of strife and victory. In 1711 Pope published his "Essay on Criticism." Calm, sensible, modest, as became an author of twenty-two, the poet went out of his way to attack the jealous and suspicious old John Dennis, who laid down laws to the company at Button's, amongst which he had sate in his more prosperous days as the intimate of Dryden and Congreve. Dennis was furious at his portrait "Appius reddens at each word you speak, Addison, who had not yet come under the lash of the "fierce tyrant," gently rebuked the controversial spirit which Pope first displayed in this poem. In the "Spectator," the "Art of Criticism" is generously praised; but Addison, having said "in our own country a man seldom sets up for a poet without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art," adds, "I am sorry to find that an author, who is very justly esteemed amongst 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 master-piece in its kind."* The systematic depreciation, not only of the reputation of" brothers in the art," but of the studies and pursuits in which they took no especial interest themselves, forms a large portion of the writings of Pope and Swift. Gay and Arbuthnot joined heartily in the fun. The wit and the invective, however amusing and occasionally just, present too often only the ridiculous characteristics of useful and honourable labours, and the one-sided view of men not wholly deserving of contempt. Pope, in his talk with Spence upon the "Memoirs of Scriblerus," says, "the adventure of the shield was designed against Dr. Woodward and the · Spectator," No. 253. 1709-1742.] MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS-SMALL POETS. 437 Antiquaries." Who has not laughed in reading that "adventure of the shield?" It presents the ludicrous side of studies of which we now know the full value, but of which the popular readers of the time of Arbuthnot could only see the ridiculous aspect. Dr. Cornelius could prove from "the colour of the rust the exact chronology of the shield." The scullion “had scoured it as her hand irons," and the rust was vanished. Laugh we must, when the learned Doctor cries out, "Where are all those beautiful absurdities, the cause of much delightful disputation, where doubt and uncertainty went hand in hand, and eternally exercised the speculations of the learned? The gossips who had come to the christening of the infant who was brought into the great antiquary's study upon the shield, exclaim "'Tis nothing but a paltry old sconce, with the nozzle broken off." Exquisite banter! Woodward, in 1707, had published "An Account of Roman Urns, and other Antiquities lately dug up near Bishopgate." There were few, perhaps, who would take much interest in the fact, that under the stones on which they daily trod there was a tesselated pavement; there were urns of Roman pottery; relics of unfading interest to those who could carry their minds beyond the material objects, to think of the wondrous changes of civilised life during fourteen centuries. The satire against the antiquary has not damaged such studies as he pursued with real advantage to learning; nor has it damaged his character the philosopher who founded the Professorship of Geology at Cambridge. Woodward stands upon his own. substantial merits; and though advancing knowledge may have disturbed some of his theories, he is entitled to reverence as one of the zealous and disinterested workers in the vast fields of science then lying waste. "Middling poets," said Pope to Spence, "are no poets at all. There is always a great number of such in each age, that are almost totally forgotten in the next. A few curious inquirers may know that there were such men, and that they wrote such and such things; but to the world they are as if they had never been."* Pope has embalmed these dead of his own age. We admire his curious art, as we admire the mummy-cases of the Egyptians; but it is not worth while to unroll the mummies. In a paper written, it is believed, by Pope himself, under the name of Savage, it is said that after various falsehoods and scurrilities against him, he thought "he had now some opportunity of doing good;" and hoped, "by manifesting the dulness of those who had only malice to recommend them, either the booksellers would not find their account in employing them, or the men themselves, when discovered, want courage to proceed in so unlawful an occupation. This it was that gave birth to the 'Dunciad,' and he thought it an happiness that, by the late flood of slander on himself, he had acquired such a peculiar right to their names as was necessary to this design. +" Johnson has assigned a higher motive to Pope than the miserable desire for revenge, which is thus acknowledged by himself, or avowed by his authority. The talk was of Pope: Johnson said, "He wrote his 'Dunciad' for fame. That was his primary motive. Had it not been for that, the dunces might have railed against him till they were weary, without his troubling himself about them. He delighted to vex them, no doubt; but he had more delight in seeing how well he could * "Anecdotes," p. 150. + Quoted in Mr. Carruthers' "Life of Pope," p. 198. 438 THE DUNCIAD. [1709-1742. vex them. In a previous conversation which turned upon Pope, Johnson "repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the 'Dunciad.' While he was talking loudly in praise of these lines, one of the company ventured to say, 'too fine for such a poem, a poem on what?' 'Why on Dunces. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, sir, hadst thou lived in those days!'"+ These "concluding lines" are indeed noble lines; which Pope himself admired "so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered." The whole fourth book of the 'Dunciad' is a grand satire upon many of the remarkable characteristics of the poet's age. It was completed in 1742. Warburton was by the side of Pope when he produced what he called The New Dunciad,' in which the ་ additional book was accompanied by the previous ones recast. The alterations were not judicious. The addition was a proof that the fruit of the sound mind in the feeble body had lost no particle of its spring-time pungency in its autumnal ripeness. With far higher objects than that of damaging authors who had wounded his self-love, Pope in this wonderful poem put forth all his power. We may bestow some care upon its examination; for, perhaps, more than anything he has written, the satirist here paints in the boldest style, and with the most durable as well as brilliant colours, the abuses, as he conceives, of literature, of learning, of science. We may pass over the mere temporary and personal satire of the three first books, then also worked up into their present form, with Theobald deposed from the throne of dulness, and king Cibber installed in his place. Those portions will always be read by the few, in spite of their capricious injustice, and, what is worse, of their miserable grossness. The fourth book, with a little of the same personality, and of the same indelicacy of which it may be readily cleared, may be read by all, as the most magnificent satire in our language. Warburton. The heroic games of the Goddess Dulness are over. The rival booksellers, Curll, Lintot, and Tonson have run their race. The authors have dived "Where Fleet-ditch, with disemboguing streams, Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames." Hoadly and Blackmore have read the assembly to sleep. King Cibber has been carried to the Elysian shades. The future reign of universal ignorance is foretold: "Proceed, great days, till learning fly the shore." The prophecy is about to be accomplished. The Goddess is "coming in her majesty, to destroy order and science, and to substitute the kingdom of the dull upon earth.'' * Boswell, one volume edition, p. 442. + Ibid. p. 203. 1709-1742.] COMMENTATORS-PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 439 "Beneath her foot-stool Science groans in chains, "In ten-fold bonds the muses lie." The Act for subjecting plays to a Licenser, which Walpole had managed to pass, had thus made "Thalia nerveless, cold, and dead." Walpole perhaps had saved Thalia from her own degradation. Opera comes to supplant Comedy. "When lo a harlot form soft sliding by With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye: By singing peers upheld on either hand She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand " Opera "cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look," and she drove Handel, with her rival Oratorio, "to the Hibernian shore." Fame blows her trumpet, and a "vast involuntary throng" crowd round the throne of the Goddess. There come the "Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead." The commentators come. Dulness, smiling, exclaims— "Let standard-authors, thus, like trophies borne, Admire new light through holes yourself have made." Alderman Benson is there, noted for the monuments he put up to departed genius, with his own name and titles pompously recorded in the inscription upon one tomb: "On two unequal crutches propp'd he came; The vanity of the age of Anne is less offensive than the cold neglect of the age of Victoria, in which it was fruitlessly tried to raise a monument to Caxton. The spectre of the Public Schools appears, with his "beaver'd brow," and his "birchen garland." He would speak in humbler tones now, but the time is not long passed since he thus might have spoken : "Since man from beast by words is known, To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, |