APPENDIX III. LETTERS FROM POPE TO JACOB TONSON RESPECTING THE MAN OF ROSS.1 Extract from a letter dated Twickenham, 14th Nov., 1731. "You live not far from Ross. I desire you to get me an exact information of the Man of Ross. What was his Xtian and surname, what year he dyed, and about what age? And to transcribe his epitaph if he had one, and any particulars you can procure about him. I intend to make him an example in a Poem of mine." DEAR SIR, TWICKENHAM, June 7, 1732. Before I received yr last I intended to write to you my thanks for ye great Diligence (or let me give it a higher title) Zeal you have shown in giving me so many particulars of the Man of Ross. They are more than sufficient for my honest purpose of setting up his fame as an example to greater and wealthier men how they ought to use their Fortunes. You know few of these particulars can be made to shine in verse, but I have selected the most affecting, and added two or three which I learned from other hands. A small exaggeration you must allow me as a Poet, yet I was determined the ground work at least should be truth, which made me so scrupulous in my enquiries, and sure, considering that the world is bad enough to be always extenuating and lessening what Virtue is among us, it is but reasonable to pay it sometimes a little over measure to balance that injustice, especially when it is done for example and encouragement to others. If any man shall ever happen to endeavour to emulate the Man of Ross, 'twill be no manner of harm if I make him think he was something more charitable and more Beneficent than really he was, for so much more good it wld put the imitator upon doing, and further I am satisfyed in my conscience (from ye strokes in 2 or 3 accounts I have of his character) that it was in his will and in his heart to have done every good a Poet can imagine. My motive in singling out this man was twofold. First to distinguish Real and solid worth from showish or plausible expense, and virtue from vanity; and secondly to humble the pride of greater men, by an opposition of one so obscure and so distant from all ye sphere of public glory-this proud town. To send you any of the particular verses will be much to the prejudice of the whole, which if it has any Beauty derives it from the manner in which it is Placed as ye contrasTE (as ye Painters call it) in which it stands with ye pompous figures of famous or rich or high born men. I was not sorry he had no monument, and will put that circumstance into a note, perhaps into the body of the Poem itself (unless you entreat the contrary in y' own favour by y' zeal to erect one). I would however in this case spare 1 The originals of these letters, with others, are now in the possession of W. R. Baker, Esq., Bayfordbury, Herts. VOL. III.-POETRY. M M y' censure upon his Heir (so well as he deserves it), because I daresay after seeing his Picture every body will turn that circumstance to his honour, and conclude the Man of Ross himself wd not have any monument in memory of his own good name. I have no thought of printing ye Poem (which is an Epistle on the Use of Riches) this long time; perhaps not till it is accompanied by many others; and at a time when telling the truth and making and drawing exemplary pictures of men and manners can be of no disservice to the Author, and occasion no slanderer to mistake them and apply them falsely, as I was lately serva in the character of Timon. But I wish for nothing more than to see you here on the Quiet Banks of the Thames-where any of these things should be frankly shewn to you. My portrait by Dohl I have sent a week ago to y' nephew; you oblige me in ye copy of my old friend Dr. Garth, and you will always oblige me by continuing to write to me. As to Dr. Bentley and Milton, I think the one above and ye other below all criticism. Adieu, and Health and Peace and Fair Weather attend you. (Address not preserved, but sent to Tonson at The Hazells, Ledbury.) APPENDIX IV. FIRST DRAFT OF THE EPISTLE TO JERVAS. THIS small, well polished gem (ye work of years) Rise on ye sketch, or on ye canvass glow, Strike Where Beauty, waking all her forms, supplies Nature to thee has all her graces shown, And gave thee words to make those graces known. If Raphael writ, or if Leandro wrought, The verse is perished, or the piece forgot; Even Fresnoy painted with unfruitful pains; None practised better, none explained so well. Like friendly colours our kind arts unite, As twins they vary, and as twins are like, * 3 1 Lady Louisa Lennox, eldest daughter of Charles, first Duke of Richmond, and wife of James, third Earl of Berkeley. She was appointed in 1714 Lady of the Beachamber to the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline. She died of small-pox, Jan. 1716-7. 2 Ur In kindred studios might we wear the day, labours And suns on suns roll unperceived away. 3 The MS. is here quite undecipherable. Thou o'er thy Raphael's monument shouldst mourn, I wait inspiring dreams at Maro's urn. Here Art's rich reliques for our sorrows call, A mouldered marble, or a faded wall. There well studied busts attract the eye. 35 APPENDIX V. A COMPARISON of the following cancelled page of Warburton's edition of 1751 with the equivalent page in the published edition will explain the origin of the second title of the Epistle to Arbuthnot, and of the change of name in the poem now called Epilogue to the Satires. It will be seen that Warburton had written a long and satirical-and it may be added, a very stupid-note upon the couplet found in Pope's MS. after ver. 6 of that Epistle. He seems afterwards to have thought that it might be impolitic to provoke Mallet's resentment, and he accordingly cancelled the page. But as he had to supply the hiatus in the page, left by the removal of the note, he invented the title Prologue to the Satires; and to carry out his idea he called the two Dialogues, published originally under the title of Seventeen Hundred and Thirty-eight, the Epilogue to the Satires. It need hardly be said there is no connection between the Epistle to Arbuthnot and the various Imitations of Horace. |