And St. John's self, great Dryden's friends before, 150 Soft were my numbers; who could take offence, While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill; I wish'd the man a dinner, and sate still: Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answer'd, I was not in debt. 146 Not from the Burnets, &c. Pope's propensity to sarcasm naturally involved him in conflict. Those obscure writers were generally men laboring for their bread, and with neither time nor talents to court a war with a writer of his acknowleged severity. But if they dared not attack, and were unable to defend, they could bitterly retaliate: they thenceforth painfully occupied his thoughts; and the Dunciad' itself is scarcely more a monument of his powers than of their revenge. 151 Yet then did Gildon. Gildon was born at the village of Gillingham, near Shaftesbury, in Dorsetshire. He was sent to Douay, to the English college of secular priests there, to be made a priest; but came to London, spent his property, and endeavored to repair his fortune by writing abusive pamphlets.-Pope. 153 Yet then did Dennis rave. Dennis was to Pope, what Freron was to Voltaire, the perpetual object of hostility, evidently not unmingled with a sense of his powers to sting. Dennis himself was an example of the utter uselessness of learning, talents, and fortune, to an irritable temper. A successful dramatist, he quarrelled with the stage; a forcible political writer, he became hazardous to his party; and beginning the world with a competent income left to him by a relative, his carelessness melted it away, until his last refuge from poverty If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint. 156 Did some more sober critic come abroad; If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kiss'd the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense: 160 Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds: was an obscure place in the Customs. A large portion of his misfortunes arose from the bitterness of his criticism, the more offensive from its general truth, and its total disregard of the position of the writer whom he assailed. He attacked Addison's Cato,' when the author and the play were at the height of popular favor, and attacked it with a strength of criticism which made the offence irreparable. On Pope he retorted with alternate scorn and fury; and thus stored up for himself all the wrath of vindictive poetry. But if his folly laid him open to assault, his vigor never shrank from the contest, nor his sarcasm failed to give deadly blows. Pope's 'Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis' is an evidence of the pain which those blows could inflict; and he must have felt when Dennis died, in 1733, that if he had lost his most contemptible rival, he was not less relieved from his most formidable enemy. 164 Slashing Bentley. Pope's known disgust to Bentley is said to have arisen from a remark on his translation of Homer, that the verses were good verses; but the work was not Homer, but Spondanus.' A more probable and a more justifiable source of this disgust is to be found in the insolent language of Bentley on all subjects of criticism. His sense of superiority was unrestrainable; and between an arrogant value for his personal attainments, and an angry contempt for those of all others, he contrived to sow his path with thorns to the end of his life. Involved in literary quarrel when he was not involved in law, and often involved in both at the same time, he gives equally to scholars and men of the world an example of the necessity of moderation. As a classical com Each wight who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher that lives on syllables, Ev'n such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakspeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms 165 Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! 170 The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. Were others angry, I excused them too: Well might they rage; I gave them but their due. 175 A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; 180 mentator, Bentley possessed a high rank in his day; but his unfortunate edition of Milton shows how deplorably a critic may overrate his own powers, and how total an absence of true taste is compatible with classical fame. Bentley's Milton was long a matter of burlesque. Bowles gives the following epigram by Pope, on this extraordinary performance : Did Milton's prose, O Charles! thy death defend? A furious foe unconscious proves a friend. On Milton's verse did Bentley comment?-Know, A weak officious friend becomes a foe. While he but sought his author's fame to further, 180 A Persian tale. Ambrose Philips translated a book called the Persian Tales.'-Pope. He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left; And he, who now to sense, now nonsense lean ing, 185 Means not, but blunders round about a meaning; All these, my modest satire bade translate, And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate. 190 How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe; And swear, not Addison himself was safe! Peace to all such! But were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; 192 Not Addison himself was safe. The true nature of Pope's quarrel with Addison has been disputed: but we have at least the fact, that a quarrel existed, and we have also from Warburton the statement which Pope desired to be considered as true. Pope charges him severally with having urged the writers of the Examiners to attack him as a tory and jacobite; with having jealously advised him against introducing the sylphid machinery into the Rape of the Lock;' and with having attempted to thwart the translation of the 'Iliad,' by publishing, under the name of Tickell, a translation of the first book from his own pen. Such are the quarrels of the sons of fame. It is clear, that the first charge is without proof, the second is trifling, and the third might be alike negligence, ambition, or enmity. The character, 'Peace to all such,' was sent separately to Addison, in the wrath of the time, and afterwards inserted in the satire: it has always been regarded as one of the finest specimens of the writer's sarcasm, equally elegant, easy, and keen. 205 View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 210 What though my name stood rubric on the walls, 215 Or plaster'd posts, with claps, in capitals? song. 221 I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd my days, With handkerchief and orange at my side; |