by an unscrupulous editor employed by the blind poet; most of his changes are bad, and some are atrocious. Bentley had offended Pope by criticizing his translation of Homer. Tibbalds: see note on "The Dunciad," I. 1 (p. 452). ¶ 172. Cf. Dryden's prologue to The Husband His Own Cuckold: "And wonders how the devil they durst come there." ¶ 180. "Amb. Philips translated a book called The Persian Tales."-P. ¶ 190. Tate: see note on "The Dunciad," I. 105 (p. 453). (126) 197. fond to rule: i. e., fond of ruling. 201. Damn with faint praise: cf. Wycherley's prologue to The Plain Dealer (1674): “And with faint praises one another damn.” 209. Changed slightly from a line in Pope's prologue to Addison's Cato (1713), "While Cato gives his little senate laws." Addison had succeeded to Dryden's position as king of the world of English letters, and in the coffee-houses and elsewhere his utterances on literature were accepted as law by an admiring circle. ¶ 211. Templars: students of the law or lawyers, residing in the Temple, London, which was occupied by two societies of lawyers; many of these supposed students of law were really idlers and men about town, more interested in literature and the theater than in law.. raise-rate highly, extol. 214. Atticus: in 1723, when this character-sketch was printed in a pamphlet, Cythereia, or Poems upon Love and Intrigue, the reading was "Addison." The lines were probably written about the year 1715, when Pope suspected that Addison, jealous of his rising fame, had been urging Tickell, one of Addison's satellites, to begin a rival translation of Homer. 222. George: George II; there is a sly reference to this dull monarch's indifference to poetry and art. ¶225. daggled= ran through mud and water. 227. Nor at rehearsals sweat: i. e., did not seek for popular fame by writing plays and training the actors at rehearsals of them. ¶230. Bufo: probably Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, statesman, poet, and patron of letters; he had offended Pope by patronizing Tickell, who dedicated to him his translation of a part of the Iliad. Castalian state: the realm of poets. Castalia, a fountain on Mt. Parnassus, the fabled abode of the Muses, was supposed to give poetic inspiration. ¶ 231. forked hill: the top of Parnassus was cleft. (127) 239. seat: country seat, or estate. 243. a dry rehearsal: i. e., the poor authors were allowed to read their works to the great man, but got no dinner. ¶ 244. paid in kind: i. e., he read them his own poems. 250. Bavius: see note on 1. 99. 254. whistled: "The image is taken from hawking, the whistle being the signal for slipping the hawk.”— Courthope. ¶256. Gay: John Gay (1685-1732), the poet; he was intimate with Pope and Swift. 257. neglected genius: "He [Gay] dangled for twenty years about a court, and at last was offered to be made usher to the young princesses."-Pope, quoted in Spence's Anecdotes, Section V (1737-39). Gay declined the place as beneath him. 1260. Queensb'ry: the Duke and the Duchess of Queensbury, in whose house Gay died, gave him a funeral and monument in Westminster Abbey. ¶261, 262. Cf. John Denham's "Of Prudence" (1668), 11. 93, 94: Learn to live well, that thou mayst die so too; 266. a minister my friend: Pope was a friend of James Craggs, Secretary of State for War in 1717. (128) 276. Balbus: the Earl of Kinnoul, who had been intimate with Pope and Swift. but later lost their esteem. ¶ 280. Sir Will: Sir William Yonge; Pope disliked him as a prominent Whig and a prosecutor of his friend Atterbury, who was banished as a Jacobite in 1723. Bubo: George Bubb Dodington, Baron Melcombe, a time-serving politician and a patron of letters; his offense seems to be hinted at in l. 291, 292. ¶ 299. "Meaning the man who would have persuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr. Pope meant him in those circumstances ridiculed in the 'Epistle on Taste.'"-P. The lines referred to are in "Moral Essays," IV. 141, 149: And now the chapel's silver bell you hear. To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite. 300. Canons: a residence of the Duke of Chandos. ¶302. "That is, pervert a general and justifiable satire into lampoon, and a poetical fiction into a slanderous lie."-Croker. 305. Sporus. "Sporus" was the name of an effeminate favorite of the Emperor Nero It is here applied to Lord Hervey, son of the Earl of Bristol, a court favorite and a Whig, holding a high office under Walpole. Pope cordially hated him (according to tradition, because of his rival intimacy with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), and satirized him in several poems. In reply there came out, in 1733, "Verses Addressed to the Imitator of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace," attributed to Hervey and Lady Mary, which meanly attacked Pope's humble birth and physical deformity: Whilst none thy crabbed numbers can endure, But as thou hat'st, be hated by mankind, And with the emblem of thy crooked mind Marked on thy back, like Cain, by God's own hand, Wander, like him, accursed through the land. The present vitriolic lines were Pope's retort. ¶ 306 a、s's milk: "Lord Hervey, to prevent the attacks of an epilepsy, persisted in a strict regimen of daily food, which was a small quantity of ass's milk, and a flour biscuit, with an apple once a week; and he used a little paint to soften his ghastly appearance."-Courthope. (129) 319. "See Milton. Book IV."-P. The passage is Paradise Lost, IV 799 ff., where Satan is pictured as Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, Eve the queen, with whom Hervey was intimate. 324. now master up, now miss: an allusion to Hervey's effeminacy. 328. board: the council board. 341. stooped swooped down upon (a term from falconry). ¶343. stood withstood. ¶ 349. An allusion to a report that Pope had been set upon and beaten, and shed tears because of the pain. ¶350. "As that he received subscriptions for Shakespeare, that he set his name to Mr. Broome's verses, etc., which, though publicly disproved, were nevertheless shamelessly repeated in the libels and even in that called 'The Nobleman's Epistle.' "-P. 353. the pictured shape: Hogarth and others had put Pope, as a hunchback, into their caricatures. (130) 363. Japhet: Japhet Cooke, alias Sir Peter Stranger, who was put in jail for a forgery by which he conveyed an estate to himself. ¶365. Knight of the post: "The socalled 'Knights of the Post' stood about the sheriff's pillars near the courts, in readiness to swear anything for pay."-Ward. ¶369 Sappho probably Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Cf. notes on ll. 101, 305. 371. Pope wrote a prologue for a play given for Dennis' benefit, in 1733. 373. has rhymed for Moore: Pope seems to have given James Moore Smyth permission to use six lines by himself ("Moral Essays," II. 243-48) in Smyth's play, The Rival Modes. 375. Welsted's lie: "This man had the impudence to tell in print that Mr. P. had occasioned a lady's death, and to name a person he never heard of. He also published that he libelled the Duke of Chandos."-P. 378, 379. Eustace Budgell, a friend of Addison and a contributor to The Spectator, was accused of forging a man's will in his own favor; Pope says that Budgell suspected him of having written about the matter, and consequently abused him in print; Budgell drowned himself in 1737 ¶380. the two Curlls: Curll the publisher (see note on "The Dunciad," I. 40, p. 452) and Lord Hervey. ¶ 388. "Mr. Pope's father was of a gentleman's family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe. His mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esq., of York; she had three ¶391. brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles."-P. Bestia's: probably the reference is to Horace Walpole, the elder, uncle of the author of The Castle of Otranto; he was "beastly" in morals and person, and was "by rapine enriched" (so wrote his nephew). 393. discord in a noble wife: an allusion to Addison's unhappy marriage with the Countess of Warwick. 1397. Nor dared an oath: he was a nonjuror, i. e., he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary as the sovereigns of England, believing that James II was the rightful king (131) 410. extend a mother's breath: Pope says that his mother died "in 1733, aged 93, a very few weeks after this poem was finished." 417. as when he served a queen: see note on l. 27. .... (131) AN ESSAY ON MAN. Epistle I. "The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points. There are not many certain truths in this world. If I could flatter myself that this essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect, system of ethics. This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards. The other may seem odd, but is true: I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness."-Preface. (131) 1. St. John. Henry St. John (1678-1751), Viscount Bolingbroke, statesman, political writer, and philosopher. was secretary of state under Queen Anne; favoring the Pretender, he fled to France after the death of Anne, in 1714, but was allowed to return to England in 1723, and soon after settled near Pope. By his flashy abilities as a philosophical thinker he strongly impressed the poet, and induced him to undertake some poems on philosophical subjects; the scheme was a large one, of which the "Essay on Man" and the "Moral Essays" are only a part, and was never completed. The exact amount and nature of Pope's indebtedness to Bolingbroke in the "Essay on Man" is in dispute, but it was great and intimate. Dr. Hugh Blair, who dined with Lord Bathurst in 1763. in a letter to Boswell (see Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Globe ed., p. 512) says: "Lord Bathurst told us that the 'Essay on Man' was originally composed by Lord Bolingbroke in prose, and that Mr. Pope did no more than put it into verse; that he had read Lord Bolingbroke's manuscript in his own handwriting, and remembered well that he was at a loss whether most to admire the elegance of Lord Bolingbroke's prose or the beauty of Mr. Pope's verse.' "The late Lord Bathurst repeatedly assured me that he had read the whole scheme of the 'Essay on Man' in the handwriting of Bolingbroke, and drawn up in a series of propositions, which Pope was to versify and illustrate."-Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, Vol. II (1782). "He mentioned then, and at several other times, how much (or rather how wholly) he himself was obliged to him [Bolingbroke] for the thoughts and reasonings in his moral work, and once in particular said that, beside their frequent talking over that subject together, he had received, I think, seven or eight sheets from Lord Bolingbroke in relation to it, as I apprehended by way of letters, both to direct the plan in general and to supply the matter for the particular epistles."-Spence, in his Anecdotes, Section IV (1734-36). ¶6. In the first edition, “A mighty maze of walks without a plan." " (132) 14. manners=ways of life, conduct, morals. 15. candid: the usual meaning of "unbiased, impartial," does not fit well here; Elwin thinks the sense is "lenient and favorable in our judgment." ¶ 16. Cf. Paradise Lost, I. 26: "And justify the ways of God to men." 29-32. Cf. Bolingbroke, Fragment 43: "Just so it is with respect to the various systems, and systems of systems, that compose the universe. As distant as they are, and as different as we may imagine them to be, they are all tied together by relations and connections, by gradations and dependencies." 29. frame: the structure of the universe. ¶ 41. argent fields: cf. Paradise Lost, III. 460, "argent fields," where, however, the phrase refers to the moon and is therefore more appropriate than here. ¶43-48. Cf. Bolingbroke, Fragment 43: "Since infinite wisdom not only established the end but directed the means, the system of the universe must be necessarily the best of all possible systems. . . . . It might be determined in the divine ideas that there should be a gradation of life and intellect throughout the universe. In this case it was necessary that there should be some creatures at our pitch of rationality." ¶ 51, 52. Cf. Bolingbroke, Fragment 50: "The seeming imperfection of the parts is necessary to the real perfection of the whole." 53-56. Cf. Bolingbroke, Fragments 43, 63: “We labor hard, we complicate various means to arrive at one end." "In the works of men the most complicated schemes produce, very hardly and very uncertainly, one single effect. In the works of God one single scheme produces a multitude of different effects, and answers an immense variety of purposes." (133) 64. "A bull was kept at Memphis by the Egyptians, and worshipped, under the name of Apis, as a god. Other oxen were sacrificed to him, which brought the bovine 'victims' and the bovine 'god' into direct contrast."-Elwin. (134) 97. from home: before 1743 the reading was 'at home," which seemed to imply that this world, instead of the next world, was the home of the soul; the change was made, it is said, at the instance of Bishop Warburton, who had come forward as Pope's champion against the charge of heresy in this poem. ¶ 102. "The ancient opinion that the souls of the just went thither."-P. ¶ 113. sense: i. e., the senses. ¶ 114. Cf. Bolingbroke, Fragment 25: "To approve them is to weigh his own opinion against Providence." 117. gust pleasure of the palate; cf. "disgust." ¶ 126. Cf. Bolingbroke, Fragment 52: "Men would be angels, and we see in Milton that angels would be gods." .... .... (135) 156. Borgia: Cesare Borgia (1478-1507), natural son of Pope Alexander VI, by whom he was made a cardinal and a duke; he murdered his brother, and by cruelty and perfidy oppressed and terrorized the Italian cities in his dukedom. Catiline: the conspirator against the Republic of Rome, whom Cicero exposed and drove from the city as a public enemy. ¶ 160. young Ammon: Alexander the Great, who claimed descent from Jupiter Ammon. (136) 200. aromatic pain: cf. Lady Winchilsea's "Spleen" (1713), ll. 40, 41: Now the jonquille o'ercomes the feeble brain; We faint beneath the aromatic pain. 202. the music of the spheres: see note on "To the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew," 1. 49 (p. 436). ¶ 208. sensual-pertaining to the senses. 213. headlong lioness: "The manner of the lions hunting their prey in the deserts of Africa is this: at their first going out in the night-time they set up a loud roar, and then listen to the noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear and not by the nostril.”—P. (137) 227. middle natures: apparently, natures intermediate between others above and below. ¶234. quick=alive (O. E. “cwic," alive); cf. Acts 10:42, "The Judge of quick and dead." (138) 264. gen'ral frame: the universe. ¶278. seraph that adores and burns: “seraph" comes from a Hebrew word meaning "to burn;" the seraphim, in distinction from the contemplative cherubim, were characterized by worship so ardent that it consumed them. (139) MORAL ESSAYS. Epistle II. 1-68, 115-50, 249-92. The lady to whom the epistle is addressed was Martha Blount, who kept house for Pope many years and whom he probably would have liked to marry. ¶ 7-14. "Attitudes in which several ladies affected to be drawn, and sometimes one lady in them all."-P. 23. Locke: the English philosopher (1632-1704). 24. Sappho's . . . dirty smock: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was slovenly; see note on "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," 1. 101 (p. 456). (140) 51. passion: i. e., love. ¶54. a wash: a face-wash for the complexion. Taylor: Jeremy Taylor (1613-67), author of Holy Living and Holy Dying. some nobleman. Chartres: an infamous money-lender of the times. ¶63. ¶64. his Grace: 69. Atossa's: the character of Atossa is a compound of traits taken from the Duchess of Marlborough and the Duchess of Buckingham. (141) 107. the Ring: a fashionable curving drive in Hyde Park, London. (142) 122. codille: see note on "The Rape of the Lock," III. 92 (p. 449). ¶123. vapours: see note on The Rape of the Lock," IV. 59 (p. 450). 124. Cf. "The Rape of the Lock," III. 157-60 (p. 100). (142) SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED. To Augustus, ll. 69-138. The poem is in imitation of the first epistle of the second book of Horace's epistles. .... .... (143) 6. the life to come: i. e., immortal fame, which can be won only by the most careful art. 17. Cowley: Abraham Cowley (1618-67), a poet of the "metaphysical," or "conceited," school; he wrote Davideis, a narrative poem in four books, and many so-called Pindaric odes of irregular structure, besides love poems; very popular in his day, and described on his gravestone in Westminster Abbey as the Pindar and Horace of his age, he soon fell out of sight as the fashion in poetry changed after the Restoration. ¶ 15. nature: natural genius, in distinction from art. 16. It was the tradition about Beaumont and Fletcher-who wrote together some of the best Elizabethan plays-that the latter was the more creative and the former the more critical. ¶ 17. Shadwell: see introductory note on Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe" (p. 433) and the note on ll. 166, 167 (p. 434). Wycherley: one of the earliest and best of the Restoration dramatists. slow: "Nothing was less true than this particular. But the whole paragraph has a mixture of irony, only the common chat of the pretenders to criticism, in some things right, in others wrong."-P. 18. Southern . . . . Rowe: minor dramatists of the Restoration period. 20. eldest Heywood: John Heywood (1500?-80 ?), the writer of interludes, and a forerunner of the regular dramatists in England; he is called eldest in distinction from Thomas Heywood, a contemporary of Shakspere. ¶23. "Gammer Gurton": "A piece of very low humor, one of the first printed plays in English, and therefore much valued by some antiquaries."-P. The full title is Gammer Gurton's Needle; it was acted in 1566, printed in 1575. 124. "Careless Husband": a play by Colley Cibber; this line was written before Pope had quarreled with him; cf. note on "The Dunciad," I. 188 (p. 454). ¶ 30. Roman feet: Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), like several other poets of his day, tried to write quantitative English verse, in imitation of Latin verse; specimens may be seen in his Arcadia. 33, 34. See Paradise Lost, VI. 609-28, and III. 96 ff. ¶36. Bentley: see note on "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," l. 164 (p. 456). hook: this may mean either the sicklelike instrument used in cutting grain, or the brackets in which Bentley inclosed lines which he suspected were spurious. 37. th' affected fool: Lord Hervey, who had written thus about his school studies; cf. note on "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," l. 305 (p. 458). Charles's: Charles I and Charles II. 39. either (144) 54. Betterton's: Thomas Betterton (1635-1710) was the greatest actor of his time. 155. Booth: Barton Booth (1681-1733), who played in Shaks perean parts with Betterton. with emphasis proclaims: "An absurd custom of several actors to pronounce with emphasis the mere proper names of Greeks and Romans."-P. Booth had offended Pope by calling his "Windsor Forest" "a wretched rhapsody." 57. Theobald had censured Pope for his criticism of Shakspere in the preface of his edition of the poet; see note on "The Dunciad," I. I (p. 452). 164. "Merlin's Prophecy": certain prophecies, written in Latin, were attributed to Merlin, the wizard of the legendary King Arthur's court. CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM "The preface is very judicious and very learned, and the verses [Pope's "Pastorals"] very tender and easy. The author seems to have a particular genius for that kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds the years you told me he was of. He has taken very freely from the ancients, but what he has mixed of his own with theirs is not inferior to what he has taken from them. 'Tis no flattery at all to say that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age."-William Walsh, in a letter to Wycherley, April 20, 1705. |