NOTES. PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES AND EPISTLES. 1735. An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. In Warburton's ed. (1751) entitled, An Apology for Himself and his Writings. John Arbuthnot, M.D., Fellow of the College of Physicians, and Physician in Ordinary to Queen Anne. He had wit, and not only literature, but even learning. His Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures' (1727) was for a long time the standard work on the subject. He lived with the wits of the Tory party, and formed one of the Scriblerus Club (1714), of which Harley, Atterbury, Pope, Congreve, Gay, and Swift were members. At the date of this Epistle he had retired to Hampstead, 'so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, or move.' Letter to Swift, Oct. 4, 1734. He died Feb. 27, 1735. The Epistle was published in January of that year. Cowper (Letters, March 21, 1784) says of Johnson's Poets: 'I know not but one might search these eight volumes with a candle to find a man, and not find one, unless, perhaps, Arbuthnot were he.' The line of argument by which satire is defended in this Epistle is sketched in a letter actually written by Pope to Arbuthnot, July 26, 1734. It is a reply to a letter in which Arbuthnot exhorts the poet to continue to satirise vice and folly, but with a due regard to your own safety.' Johnson, Life of Pope: 'The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot seems to be derived in its first design from Boileau's address "à son esprit," Satire 9. They are both an apology by the poet for satire.' A remote resemblance may also be traced to Young's, Two Epistles to Mr. Pope, concerning the Authors of the Age (1730).' 1. 1. good John. Pope's Will, Carruthers' Life, p. 453: ‘To my servant, John Searle, who has faithfully and ably served me many years, I give the sum of £100.' He is called 'the gardener' in the Plan of Mr. Pope's Garden, 1745. In 1735 he had been with Pope eleven years. 12. Tye up the knocker. Cf. Gay, Trivia, 2. 467 (1715): 'Where the brass-knocker, wrapt in flannel-band, Forbids the thunder of the footman's hand.' 1. 3. dog-star. Dunciad, 4. 9: 'Now flam'd the dogstar's unpropitious ray, Smote every brain, and wither'd every bay.' In this Epistle the 'flagrantis atrox hora canicula' is represented as inflammatory, not withering. 1. 6. recite. The 'recitator acerbus,' who insisted on making his friends listen to his verses, is a standing type of bore in the Latin literature of the first century A.D. Cf. Horat. A.P. 474: 'Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus, Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo.' The race was reproduced in France in the reign of Louis XIV., and is described by Boileau (L'Art Poét. c. 4): 'De ses vains écrits lecteur harmonieux Aborde en recitant quiconque le salue, Et poursuit de ses vers les passants dans la rue.' 1. 8. They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide. The grounds of Pope's villa at Twickenham, altogether about five acres, were cut in two by the turnpike road leading from London to Hampton Court. To obviate the awkwardness of crossing this road, he had an underground passage constructed, at an expense of £1,000. It terminated in a kind of open temple, 'wholly composed of shells in the rustic manner.' Pope to Edward Blount. This was my grot; my thicket, is perhaps a shrubbery called 'The Grove' in the Plan of 1745, in which it is No. 12. 1. 13. Mint. Suffolk House in Southwark was converted into a mint for coinage. Being afterwards pulled down, on its site were built 'many small cottages, of great rents, to the increasing of beggars.' Stow, Survey, 2. 18. The whole district, containing several streets and alleys, was a sanctuary for debtors. Young, Ep. to Mr. Pope (1730): 'E'en George's praise is dated from the Mint. 1. 14. Happy to catch me just at dinner-time. An unpardonable feature of Pope's satire is his constantly harping upon the beggary and miseries of poor authors. (See Introd. p. 14.) When we call to mind that he owed his own easy circumstances to the Homer subscription, we are reminded of his own line on Addison, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise.' The same want of good feeling is chargeable on Boileau, who could find pleasure in satirising indigence; e.g. L'Art Poétique, c. 4: Et libre du souci qui trouble Colletet, 1. 15. bemus'u̸. Richardson (Dict.) quotes Fawkes, Horace, 1 Ep. 5: And drinks serene oblivion to his debts.' 1. 16. maudlin. Wedgwood, Dict., 'given to crying, as the Magdalene is commonly represented. Hence, crying or sentimentally drunk, halfdrunk.' More probably it is related to the Engl. moider, moidering; perhaps also connected with muddle. 1. 20. scrawls With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls. The scribbling poet in Boileau (L'Art Poét. c. 1) is made to charbonner de ses vers les murs d'un cabaret;' a decorous imitation of Martial, 12. 61: 'Carbone rudi putrique creta Scribit carmina quæ legunt... Nathaniel Lee is probably glanced at; see below, Sat. and Ep. 1. 100. Wither, when confined to the Tower in the reign of James I., wrote with ochre on his trencher, verses which he afterwards printed. Pope's description was almost literally realised in the melancholy history of Christopher Smart, who, in 1763, being in confinement, indented a poem on the wainscot of his cell with the head of a key. 1. 23. Arthur. Arthur Moore, of whom Burnet says, Own Time, 2. 622, that he had risen from being footman without any education, to be a great dealer in trade.' A full character of him is given in Speaker Onslow's note on the passage. Burnet, Own Time, Oxford ed., vol. vi. p. 162. giddy son. James Moore Smythe, son of Arthur Moore. For notice of him, see Pope's note, Dunciad, 2. 50; and below, l. 385. 1. 27. Friend to my life! which did not you prolong. Cf. Young, Night Thoughts, Night 4: Alive by miracle, or what is next, Alive by Mead!' From Horace, I Sat. 3. 89: 1. 33. Seiz'd and ty'd down to judge. ‘porrecto jugulo captivus ut audit.' Horace's allusion is to the mythological story of Silenus, seized in the gardens of Midas. The earliest version of this favourite subject of Greek artists and poets is that of Theophrastus, 'Eudemos;' ap. Plutarch, Consol. ad Apoll. 115 b. 1. 40. nine years. Hor. Ars Poet. 388, 'Nonum prematur in annum.' 1. 41. high in Drury-lane. Drury-lane and the Strand were the places where most of the gentry had lived before the Civil War. But after the Revolution fashion moved further west, Soho became the aristocratic quarter, and Drury-lane was left to poor authors and doubtful characters. Cf. Gay, Trivia: 'O, may thy virtue guard thee through the roads Of Drury's mazy courts and dark abodes!' 1. 43. prints before term ends, i. e. before the end of the London season. Trinity Term ended three weeks, or thereabouts, after Trinity Sunday. 1. 46. I'm all submission, what you'd have it, make it. From Boileau, L'Art Poét. c. I: 'Vous avez sur ses vers un pouvoir despotique. Mais tout ce beau discours dont il vient vous flatter, 1. 49. Pitholeon. A name borrowed from Hor. I Sat. 10. 22. 1. 51. but here's a letter. Refers to Thomas Cooke, of whom Pope says (Dunciad, 2. 138, note), that he wrote against him in the 'British,' 'London,' and 'Daily' Journals, and at the same time wrote a letter to him protesting his innocence. 1. 61. Fir'd that the house reject him, "Sdeath I'll print it, And shame the fools.' Taken by Horace and James Smith as the motto for their Rejected Addresses, 1813. 1. 62. Lintot. Bernard Lintot had ceased to publish for Pope some years before this. He had been disappointed in the expectations he had formed of the sale of the Odyssey, and this had led to a quarrel. Pope's celebrated ride to Oxford in company with Lintot took place twenty years before, in 1715, the year in which the first volume of the Iliad appeared. 1. 69. Midas; 1. 75. you deal in dangerous things, seems intended to suggest a reference to George II., Queen Caroline, and Sir R. Walpole, as Persius was said, by his biographer Probus, to have meant Nero, Pers. Sat. 1. 119, Dryden's transl.: The reeds shall tell you what the poet fears, Pope perhaps followed Boileau, Sat. 9. 222: 'J'irai creuser la terre, et comme ce barbier, Faire dire aux roseaux par un nouvel organe, Midas, le roi Midas a des oreilles d'âne.' 1. 80. That secret to each fool, that he's an ass. This is the thesis of Boileau's 4th Satire: 'l'homme le moins sage Croit toujours seul avoir la sagesse en partage, Et qu'il n'est point de fou qui par belles raisons Ne loge son voisin aux Petites Maisons.' ass. To be taken literally, not as the vulgarised metaphor which it has now become. |