Bleft with each talent and each art to pleafe, 195 And born to write, converfe, and live with ease: NOTES. in writing the Examiners; and, under an affected care for the Government, would have hid, even from himself, the true grounds of his difguft. But his jealousy foon broke out, and difcovered itself, firft to Mr. Pope, and, not long after, to all the world. The Rape of the Lock had been written in a very hafty manner, and printed in a collection of Mifcellanies. The fuccefs it met with encouraged the Author to revise and enlarge it, and give it a more important air; which was done by advancing it into a mock-epic poem. In order to this it was to have its Machinery; which, by the happieft invention, he took from the Reficrucian Syftem. Full of this noble conception he communicated his fcheme to Mr. Addison, who, he imagined, would have been equally delighted with the improvement. On the contrary, he had the mortification to fee his friend receive it coldly; and even to advise him against any alteration; for that the poem, in its original ftate, was a delicious little thing, and, as he expreffed it, merum fal. Mr. Pope was shocked for his friend; and then firft began to open his eyes to his Character. Soon after this a tranflation of the firfl book of the Iliad appeared under the name of Mr. Tickell; which coming out at a critical jun&ure, when Mr. Pope was in the midft of his engagements on the fame fubject, and by a creature of Mr. Addison's, made him fufped this to be another thaft from the fame quiver: And after a diligent enquiry, and laying many odd circumftances together, he was fully convinced that it was not only publifhed with Mr. Addison's participation, but was indeed his own performance. And Sir R. Steele, in the ninth Edition of the Drummer (which Tickell had omitted to infert amongft Addifon's Works) in a long epiftle to Congreve, affirms very intelligibly, that Addison, and not Tickell, was the tranflator of the first book of the Iliad to which the latter had fet his name. Mr. Pope, in his firft refentment of this ufage, was refolved to expofe this new Verfion in a fevere critique upon it. I have now by me the Copy he had marked for this purpofe; in which he has claffed the feveral faults in tranflation, language, and numbers, under their proper heads. But the growing splendor of his own works fo eclipsed the faint efforts of this oppofition, that he trufled to its own weakness and malignity for the juftice due unto it. About this time, Mr. Addison's fon-in-law, the E. of Warwick, told Mr. Pope, that it was in vain to think of being well with his Father, who was naturally a jealous man; that Mr. Pope's talents in poetry had hurt him; and to fuch a degree, that he had underhand encouraged Gildon to write a thing about Wycherley; in which he had fcurriloufly abufed Mr. Pope and his family; and for this service be had given Gildon ten guineas, Should fuch a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes," And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise ; 200 VARIATIONS. After Ver. 208. in the MS. Who, if two Wits on rival themes conteft, Approves of cach, but likes the worft the beft. Alluding to Mr. P.'s and Tickeil's Tranflation of the firft Book of the Iliad. : NOTES. after the pamphlet was printed. The very next day, Mr. Pope, in great heat, wrote Mr. Addifon a Letter, wherein he told him, he was no franger to his behaviour; which, however, he should not imitate: But that what he thought faulty in him, he would tell him fairly to his face and what deferved praise he would not deny him to the world; and, as a proof of this difpofition towards him, he had fent him the inclofed; which was the CHARACTER, firft published feparately, and afterwards inferted in this place of the Epift. to Dr. Arbuthnot. This plain dealing had no ill effe&. Mr. Addifon treated Mr. Pope with civility, and, as Mr. Pope believed, with justice, from this time to his death; which happened about three years after. It appears, from a colle&ion of Swift's Letters lately published, that Mr. Addifon, when porty was at its height, used Swift much better than he had ufed Pope, on that account, though he had been more roughly treated by Swift than Pope's nature would fuffer him to treat any one. But the reafon is plain Swift was Addifon's rival only in politics: Pope was his rival in poetry; an oppofition lefs tolerable, as more perfonal. However Addifon's focial talents, in the entertainment and enjoyment of his intimate friends, charmed both Pope and Swift alike; as a quality far fuperior to any thing that was to be found in any other man. W. VER. 193. But were there One whofe fires, c.] The ftrokes in this Chara&er are highly finished. Atterbury fo well understood the force of them, that in one of his letters to Mr. Pope he fays, " Since you now know where your Strength lies, I hope you will not suffer that talent to lie unemployed." He did not; and, by that means, brought fatiric poetry to its perfe&ion. W. VER 198. Bear, like the Turk,] This is from Bacon de Aug. Scient. lib. 3. p. 180. And the thought was alfo used by Ld. Orrery, and by Denham. 205 Damn with faint praife, affent with civil leer, NOTES. VER. 209. Like Cato, give] In the fecond volume of the Biographia Britannica is a vindication of Addison, by a writer who, to a confummate knowledge of the laws and hiftory of his country, added a moft exquifite tafle in literature, I mean Sir William Blackftone; who thus concludes this vindication: Nothing furely could juftify fo deep a refentment, unless the ftory be true of the commerce between Addifon and Gildon; which will require to be very fully proved, before it can be believed of a gentleman who was fo amiable in his moral character, and who (in his own cafe) had two years before exprefsly disapproved of a personal abuse of Mr. Dennis. The person, indeed, from whom Mr. Pope feems to have received this anecdote, about the time of his writing the character, (viz. about July 1715) was no other than the Earl of Warwick, fon-in-law to Mr. Addison himself: and the fomething about Wycherley (in which the flory supposes that Addison hired Gildon to abuse Pope and bis family) is explained by a note on the Dunciad, to mean a pamphlet containing Mr. Wycherley's Life. Now it happens, that in July 1715, the Earl of Warwick (who died at the age of twenty-three, in Auguft 1721) was only a boy of feventeen, and not likely to be entrusted with fuch a fecret, by a ftatesman between forty and fifty, with whom it does not appear he was any way connected or acquainted; for Mr. Addison was not married to his mother, the Countess of Warwick, till the following year 1716 nor would Gilden have been employed in July 1715 to write Mr. Wycherley's Life, who lived till the December following. As therefore fo many inconfiftencies are evident in the flory itself, which never found its way into print till near fixty years after it is faid to have happened, it will be no breach of charity to suppose that the whole of it was founded on fome mifapprehenfion in either Mr. Pope or the Earl; and unless better proof can be given, we fhall readily acquit Mr. Addison of this most odious part of the charge." : 210 And fit attentive to his own applause; NOTES. 216 I beg leave to add, that as to the other accufation, Dr. Young, Lord Bathurst, Mr. Harte, and Lord Lyttelton, each of them affured me that Addison himself certainly tranflated the firft Book of Homer. An able vindication of Additon was written by Mr. Jeremiah Markland, then a young man, and afterwards the celebrated Critic. Both were printed together, by Curll, fo early as 1717. And perhaps this circumstance may furnish a clue to what has been so ably difcuffed by Judge Blackftone, in the Biographia Britannica," under the Article Addifon. The epiftle to Arbuthnot was not publifhed till January 1735; that to Auguftus, with fome others, appeared in 1738." I have seen Mr. Pope's beft performances, and find that he pleases the town moft when he is moft out of humour with the court. He has made very free with his gracious majefty, in the Epiftle to Auguftus. But he had loft his favourite bill; even my Lord Harvey had carried a point againft him; and while he is angry, he will never be idle. In this laft Epiftle he seems to have recante ed all he had before faid of Addifon," viz. -"(Excufe fome courtly ftains) "No whiter page than Addison remains," &c. From a manufcript letter of Mr. Clarke, who wrote on Antient Coins, to his learned printer and friend Mr. Bowyer; July 6, 1738. VER. 214. Who would not weep, if ATTICUS were he?] But when we come to know it belongs to Atticus. i. e. to one whose more obvious qualities had before engaged our love or efteem, then friendfhip, in fpite of ridicule, will make a feparation: our old impreffions will get the better of our new; or, at leaft, fuffer themselves to be no further impaired than by the admiffion of a mixture of pity and concern. W. But Ibid. ATTICUS] I was a great falfehood, which fome of the libels reported, that this charader was written after the Gentleman's death; which fee refuted in the Tellimonies prefixed to the Dunciad. the occafion of writing it was fuch as he would not make public out of regard to his memory: and all that could further be done was to omit the name, in the Edition of his Works. P. Or fmoaking forth, a hundred hawkers load, No more than thou, great GEORGE! a birth-day fong, VARIATIONS. After Ver. 234. in the MS. To Bards reciting he vouchsaf'd a nod, And fnuff'd their incenfe like a gracious god, NOTES. 230 235 VER. 218. On wings of winds came flying all abroad?] Hopkins, in the civth Pfalm. P. VER. 232. Puff'd by ev'ry quill ;] By Addison, in his Account of Poets; by Steele, in a dedication to the Spe&ator; by Tickell, to his Homer. The ridicule on the Hind and Panther was the beft of Halifax's compofitions. VER. 236. ▲ true Pindár flood without a head] Ridicules the affecta |