Lives of the English Poets : Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope Part 4

Violent party-men, who differed in all things besides, agreed in their turn to show particular respect and friends.h.i.+p to this insolent derider of the wors.h.i.+p of his country, till at last the reputed writer is not only gone off with impunity, but triumphs in his dignity and preferment. I do not know that any inquiry or search was ever made after this writing, or that any reward was ever offered for the discovery of the author, or that the infamous book was ever condemned to be burnt in public. Whether this proceeds from the excessive esteem and love that men in power, during the late reign, had for wit, or their defect of zeal and concern for the Christian religion will be determined best by those who are best acquainted with their character."

In another place he speaks with becoming abhorrence of a G.o.dLESS AUTHOR who has burlesqued a Psalm. This author was supposed to be Pope, who published a reward for any one that would produce the coiner of the accusation, but never denied it, and was afterwards the perpetual and incessant enemy of Blackmore.

One of his essays is upon the spleen, which is treated by him so much to his own satisfaction, that he has published the same thoughts in the same words; first, in the "Lay Monastery," then in the "Essay," and then in the "Preface to a Medical Treatise on the Spleen." One pa.s.sage, which I have found already twice, I will here exhibit, because I think it better imagined and better expressed than could be expected from the common tenor of his prose:-

"--As the several combinations of splenetic madness and folly produce an infinite variety of irregular under-standing, so the amicable accommodation and alliance between several virtues and vices produce an equal diversity in the dispositions and manners of mankind; whence it comes to pa.s.s, that as many monstrous and absurd productions are found in the moral as in the intellectual world.

How surprising is it to observe among the least culpable men, some whose minds are attracted by heaven and earth with a seeming equal force; some who are proud of humility; others who are censorious and uncharitable, yet self-denying and devout; some who join contempt of the world with sordid avarice; and others, who preserve a great degree of piety with ill-nature and ungoverned pa.s.sions. Nor are instances of this inconsistent mixture less frequent among bad men, where we often with admiration see persons at once generous and unjust, impious lovers of their country, and flagitious heroes, good-natured sharpers, immoral men of honour, and libertines who will sooner die than change their religion; and though it is true that repugnant coalitions of so high a degree are found but in a part of mankind, yet none of the whole ma.s.s, either good or bad, are entirely exempted from some absurd mixture."

He about this time (August 22, 1716) became one of the elects of the College of Physicians, and was soon after (October 1) chosen Censor.

He seems to have arrived late, whatever was the reason, at his medical honours.

Having succeeded so well in his book on Creation, by which he established the great principle of all religion, he thought his undertaking imperfect, unless he likewise enforced the truth of Revelation, and for that purpose added another poem on "Redemption."

He had likewise written before his "Creation" three books on the Nature of Man.

The lovers of musical devotion have always wished for a more happy metrical version than they have yet obtained of the Book of Psalms.

This wish the piety of Blackmore led him to gratify, and he produced (1721) "A New Version of the Psalms of David fitted to the Tunes used in Churches," which being recommended by the archbishops and many bishops, obtained a license for its admission into public wors.h.i.+p; but no admission has it yet obtained, nor has it any right to come where Brady and Tate have got possession. Blackmore's name must be added to those of many others who, by the same attempt, have obtained only the praise of meaning well.

He was not yet deterred from heroic poetry. There was another monarch of this island (for he did not fetch his heroes from foreign countries) whom he considered as worthy the epic muse, and he dignified "Alfred" (1723) with twelve books. But the opinion of the nation was now settled; a hero introduced by Blackmore was not likely to find either respect or kindness; "Alfred" took his place by "Eliza" in silence and darkness. Benevolence was ashamed to favour, and malice was weary of insulting. Of his four epic poems, the first had such reputation and popularity as enraged the critics; the second was at least known enough to be ridiculed; the two last had neither friends nor enemies.

Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. Blackmore being despised as a poet, was in time neglected as a physician; his practice, which was once invidiously great, forsook him in the latter part of his life, but being by nature, or by principle, averse from idleness, he employed his unwelcome leisure in writing books on physic, and teaching others to cure those whom he could himself cure no longer. I know not whether I can enumerate all the treatises by which he has endeavoured to diffuse the art of healing, for there is scarcely any distemper of dreadful name which he has not taught the reader how to oppose. He has written on the small- pox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on consumption, the spleen, the gout, the rheumatism, the king's evil, the dropsy, the jaundice, the stone, the diabetes, and the plague. Of those books, if I had read them, it could nor be expected that I should be able to give a critical account. I have been told that there is something in them of vexation and discontent, discovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade physic from its sublimity, and to represent it as attainable without much previous or concomitant learning. By the transient glances which I have thrown upon them I have observed an affected contempt of the ancients, and a supercilious derision of transmitted knowledge. Of this indecent arrogance the following quotation from his preface to the "Treatise on the Small-pox" will afford a specimen, in which, when the reader finds what I fear is true, that, when he was censuring Hippocrates, he did not know the difference between aphorism and apophthegm, he will not pay much regard to his determinations concerning ancient learning.

"As for this book of aphorisms, it is like my Lord Bacon's of the same t.i.tle, a book of jests, or a grave collection of trite and trifling observations; of which, though many are true and certain, yet they signify nothing, and may afford diversion, but no instruction, most of them being much inferior to the sayings of the wise men of Greece, which yet are so low and mean, that we are entertained every day with more valuable sentiments at the table conversation of ingenious and learned men."

I am unwilling, however, to leave him in total disgrace, and will therefore quote from another preface a pa.s.sage less reprehensible.

"Some gentlemen have been disingenuous and unjust to me, by wresting and forcing my meaning, in the preface to another book, as if I condemned and exposed all learning, though they knew I declared that I greatly honoured and esteemed all men of superior literature and erudition, and that I only undervalued false or superficial learning, that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; and that as to physic, I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native genius to make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents are separated, I a.s.serted, and do still insist, that a man of native sagacity and diligence will prove a more able and useful practiser than a heavy notional scholar, enc.u.mbered with a heap of confused ideas."

He was not only a poet and a physician, but produced likewise a work of a different kind, "A True and Impartial History of the Conspiracy against King William of Glorious Memory in the Year 1695." This I have never seen, but suppose it is at least compiled with integrity.

He engaged likewise in theological controversy, and wrote two books against the Arians: "Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothesis,"

and "Modern Arians Unmasked." Another of his works is "Natural Theology; or, Moral Duties considered apart from Positive; with some Observations on the Desirableness and Necessity of a Supernatural Revelation." This was the last book that he published. He left behind him "The Accomplished Preacher; or, an Essay upon Divine Eloquence," which was printed after his death by Mr. White of Nayland, in Ess.e.x, the minister who attended his death-bed, and testified the fervent piety of his last hours. He died on the 8th of October, 1729.

Blackmore, by the unremitted enmity of the wits, whom he provoked more by his virtue than his dulness, has been exposed to worse treatment than he deserved. His name was so long used to point every epigram upon dull writers, that it became at last a byword of contempt but it deserves observation, that malignity takes hold only of his writings, and that his life pa.s.sed without reproach, even when his boldness of reprehension naturally turned upon him many eyes desirous to espy faults which many tongues would have made haste to publish. But those who could not blame, could, at least, forbear to praise, and therefore of his private life and domestic character there are no memorials.

As an author, he may justly claim the honours of magnanimity. The incessant attacks of his enemies, whether serious or merry, are never discovered to have disturbed his quiet, or to have lessened his confidence in himself: they neither awed him to silence nor to caution: they neither provoked him to petulance, nor depressed him to complaint. While the distributors of literary fame were endeavouring to depreciate and degrade him, he either despised or defied them, wrote on as he had written before, and never turned aside to quiet them by civility, or repress them by confutation. He depended with great security on his own powers, and perhaps was for that reason less diligent in perusing books. His literature was, I think, but small. What he knew of antiquity, I suspect him to have gathered from modern compilers; but, though he could not boast of much critical knowledge, his mind was stored with general principles, and he left minute researches to those whom he considered as little minds. With this disposition he wrote most of his poems. Having formed a magnificent design, he was careless of particular and subordinate elegances; he studied no niceties of versification; he waited for no felicities of fancy, but caught his first thoughts in the first words in which they were presented; nor does it appear that he saw beyond his own performances, or had ever elevated his was to that ideal perfection which every genius born to excel is condemned always to pursue, and never overtake. In the first suggestions of his imagination he acquiesced; he thought them good, and did not seek for better. His works may be read a long time without the occurrence of a single line that stands prominent from the rest. The poem on "Creation" has, however, the appearance of more circ.u.mspection; it wants neither harmony of numbers, accuracy of thought, nor elegance of diction. It has either been written with great care, or, what cannot be imagined of so long a work, with such felicity as made care less necessary. Its two const.i.tuent parts are ratiocination and description. To reason in verse is allowed to be difficult; but Blackmore not only reasons in verse, but very often reasons poetically; and finds the art of uniting ornament with strength and ease with closeness. This is a skill which Pope might have condescended to learn from him, when he needed it so much in his "Moral Essays."

In his descriptions both of life and nature, the poet and the philosopher happily co-operate; truth is recommended by elegance, and elegance sustained by truth. In the structure and order of the poem, not only the greater parts are properly consecutive, but the didactic and ill.u.s.trative paragraphs are so happily mingled, that labour is relieved by pleasure, and the attention is led on through a long succession of varied excellence to the original position, the fundamental principle of wisdom and of virtue.

As the heroic poems of Blackmore are now little read, it is thought proper to insert, as a specimen from "Prince Arthur," the song of Mopas mentioned by Molyneux:-

"But that which Arthur with most pleasure heard Were n.o.ble strains, by Mopas sung the bard, Who to his harp in lofty verse began, And through the secret maze of Nature ran.

He the Great Spirit sung, that all things filled, That the tumultuous waves of Chaos stilled; Whose nod disposed the jarring seeds to peace, And made the wars of hostile Atoms cease.

All Beings, we in fruitful Nature find, Proceeded from the Great Eternal mind: Streams of his unexhausted spring of power, And, cherished with his influence, endure.

He spread the pure cerulean fields on high, And arched the chambers of the vaulted sky, Which he, to suit their glory with their height, Adorned with globes, that reel, as drunk with light.

His hand directed all the tuneful spheres, He turned their orbs, and polished all the stars.

He filled the Sun's vast lamp with golden light: And bid the silver Moon adorn the night.

He spread the airy Ocean without sh.o.r.es, Where birds are wafted with their feathered oars.

Then sung the bard how the light vapours rise From the warm earth, and cloud the smiling skies; He sung how some, chilled in their airy flight, Fall scattered down in pearly dew by night; How some, raised higher, sit in secret steams On the reflected points of bounding beams, Till, chilled with cold, they shade th' ethereal plain, Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain; How some, whose parts a slight contexture show, Sink hovering through the air in fleecy snow; How part is spun in silken threads, and clings Entangled in the gra.s.s is gluey strings; How others stamp to stones, with rus.h.i.+ng sound Fall from their crystal quarries to the ground; How some are laid in trains, that kindled fly, In harmless fires by night, about the sky; How some in winds blow with impetuous force, And carry ruin where they bend their course, While some conspire to form a gentle breeze, To fan the air, and play among the trees; How some, enraged, grow turbulent and loud, Pent in the bowels of a frowning cloud, That cracks, as if the axis of the world Was broke, and Heaven's bright towers were downwards hurled.

He sung how earth's wide ball, at Jove's command, Did in the midst on airy columns stand; And how the soul of plants, in prison held, And bound with sluggish fetters, lies concealed, Till with the spring's warm beams, almost released From the dull weight, with which it lay opprest, Its vigour spreads, and makes the teeming earth Heave up, and labour with the sprouting birth: The active spirit freedom seeks in vain, It only works and twists a stronger chain; Urging its prison's sides to break a way, It makes that wider, where 'tis forced to stay: Till, having formed its living house, it rears Its head, and in a tender plant appears.

Hence springs the oak, the beauty of the grove, Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move.

Hence grows the cedar, hence the swelling vine Does round the elm its purple cl.u.s.ters twine.

Hence painted flowers the smiling gardens bless, Both with their fragrant scent and gaudy dress.

Hence the white lily in full beauty grows, Hence the blue violet and blus.h.i.+ng rose.

He sung how sunbeams brood upon the earth, And in the glebe hatch such a numerous birth; Which way the genial warmth in Summer storms Turns putrid vapours to a bed of worms; How rain, transformed by this prolific power, Falls from the clouds an animated shower.

He sung the embryo's growth within the womb, And how the parts their various shapes a.s.sume.

With what rare art the wondrous structure's wrought, From one crude ma.s.s to such perfection brought; That no part useless, none misplaced we see, None are forgot, and more would monstrous be."

POPE

Alexander Pope was born in London, May 22, 1688, of parents whose rank or station was never ascertained: we are informed that they were of "gentle blood;" that his father was of a family of which the Earl of Downe was the head, and that his mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York, who had likewise three sons, one of whom had the honour of being killed, and the other of dying, in the service of Charles the First; the third was made a general officer in Spain, from whom the sister inherited what sequestrations and forfeitures had left in the family. This, and this only, is told by Pope, who is more willing, as I have heard observed, to show what his father was not, than what he was. It is allowed that he grew rich by trade; but whether in a shop or on the Exchange was never discovered till Mr. Tyers told, on the authority of Mrs.

Racket, that he was a linendraper in the Strand. Both parents were Papists.

Pope was from his birth of a const.i.tution tender and delicate, but is said to have shown remarkable gentleness and sweetness of disposition. The weakness of his body continued through his life, but the mildness of his mind perhaps ended with his childhood. His voice when he was young was so pleasing, that he was called in fondness "The Little Nightingale."

Being not sent early to school, he was taught to read by an aunt; and, when he was seven or eight years old, became a lover of books.

He first learned to write by imitating printed books, a species of penmans.h.i.+p in which he retained great excellence through his whole life, though his ordinary hand was not elegant. When he was about eight he was placed in Hamps.h.i.+re, under Taverner, a Romish priest, who, by a method very rarely practised, taught him the Greek and Latin rudiments together. He was now first regularly initiated in poetry by the perusal of "Ogilby's Homer" and "Sandys' Ovid."

Ogilby's a.s.sistance he never repaid with any praise; but of Sandys he declared, in his notes to the "Iliad," that English poetry owed much of its beauty to his translations. Sandys very rarely attempted original composition.

From the care of Taverner, under whom his proficiency was considerable, he was removed to a school at Twyford, near Winchester, and again to another school about Hyde Park Corner, from which he used sometimes to stroll to the play-hones, and was so delighted with theatrical exhibitions, that he formed a kind of play from "Ogilby's Iliad," with some verses of his own intermixed, which he persuaded his schoolfellows to act, with the addition of his master's gardener, who personated Ajax.

At the two last schools he used to represent himself as having lost part of what Taverner had taught him, and on his master at Twyford he had already exercised his poetry in a lampoon. Yet under those masters he translated more than a fourth part of the "Metamorphoses." If he kept the same proportion in his other exercises, it cannot be thought that his loss was great. He tells of himself, in his poems, that "he lisped in numbers;" and used to say that he could not remember the time when he began to make verses. In the style of fiction, it might have been said of him, as of Pindar, that when he lay in his cradle "the bees swarmed about his mouth."

About the time of the Revolution his father, who was undoubtedly disappointed by the sudden blast of Popish prosperity, quitted his trade, and retired to Binfield, in Windsor Forest, with about twenty thousand pounds, for which, being conscientiously determined not to entrust it to the Government, he found no better use than that of locking it up in a chest, and taking from it what his expenses required; and his life was long enough to consume a great part of it before his son came to the inheritance.

To Binfield Pope was called by his father when he was about twelve years old, and there he had for a few months the a.s.sistance of one Deane, another priest, of whom he learned only to construe a little of "Tully's Offices." How Mr. Deane could spend with a boy who had translated so much of "Ovid" some months over a small part of "Tully's Offices," it is now vain to inquire. Of a youth so successfully employed, and so conspicuously improved, a minute account must be naturally desired; but curiosity must be contented with confused, imperfect, and sometimes improbable intelligence.

Pope, finding little advantage from external help, resolved thenceforward to direct himself, and at twelve formed a plan of study, which he completed with little other incitement than the desire of excellence. His primary and princ.i.p.al purpose was to be a poet, with which his father accidentally concurred by proposing subjects and obliging him to correct his performances by many revisals, after which the old gentleman, when he was satisfied, would say, "These are good rhymes." In his perusal of the English poets he soon distinguished the versification of Dryden, which he considered as the model to be studied, and was impressed with such veneration for his instructor, that he persuaded some friends to take him to the coffee-house which Dryden frequented, and pleased himself with having seen him.

Dryden died May 1, 1701, some days before Pope was twelve; so early must he therefore have felt the power of harmony, and the zeal of genius. Who does not wish that Dryden could have known the value of the homage that was paid him, and foreseen the greatness of his young admirer?

The earliest of Pope's productions is his "Ode on Solitude," written before he was twelve, in which there is nothing more than other forward boys have attained, and which is not equal to Cowley's performance at the same age. His time was now wholly spent in reading and writing. As he read the cla.s.sics he amused himself with translating them, and at fourteen made a version of the first book of the "Thebais," which, with some revision, he afterwards published. He must have been at this time, if he had no help, a considerable proficient in the Latin tongue.

By Dryden's fables, which had then been not long published, and were much in the hands of poetical readers, he was tempted to try his own skill in giving Chaucer a more fas.h.i.+onable appearance, and put "January and May" and the "Prologue of the Wife of Bath" into modern English. He translated likewise the Epistle of "Sappho to Phaon"

from Ovid, to complete the version, which was before imperfect, and wrote some other small pieces, which he afterwards printed. He sometimes imitated the English poets, and professed to have written at fourteen his poem upon "Silence," after Rochester's "Nothing."

He had now formed his versification, and the smoothness of his numbers surpa.s.sed his original; but this is a small part of his praise; he discovers such acquaintance both with human life and public affairs as is not easily conceived to have been attainable by a boy of fourteen in Windsor Forest.

Next year he was desirous of opening to himself new sources of knowledge, by making himself acquainted with modern languages, and removed for a time to London, that he might study French and Italian, which, as he desired nothing more than to read them, were by diligent application soon despatched. Of Italian learning he does not appear to have ever made much use in his subsequent studies. He then returned to Binfield, and delighted himself with his own poetry. He tried all styles, and many subjects. He wrote a comedy, a tragedy, an epic poem, with panegyrics on all the princes of Europe; and, as he confesses, "thought himself the greatest genius that ever was." Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. He, indeed, who forms his opinion of himself in solitude, without knowing the powers of other men, is very liable to error; but it was the felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value. Most of his puerile productions were, by his maturer judgment, afterwards destroyed. "Alcander," the epic poem, was burnt by the persuasion of Atterbury. The tragedy was founded on the legend of St. Genevieve. Of the comedy there is no account.

Concerning his studies, it is related that he translated "Tully on Old Age," and that, besides his books of poetry and criticisms, he read "Temple's Essays" and "Locke on Human Understanding." His reading, though his favourite authors are not known, appears to have been sufficiently extensive and multifarious, for his early pieces show with sufficient evidence his knowledge of books. He that is pleased with himself easily imagines that he shall please others.

Sir William Trumbull, who had been Amba.s.sador at Constantinople, and Secretary of State, when he retired from business, fixed his residence in the neighbourhood of Binfield. Pope, not yet sixteen, was introduced to the statesman of sixty, and so distinguished himself that their interviews ended in friends.h.i.+p and correspondence. Pope was, through his whole life, ambitious of splendid acquaintance; and he seems to have wanted neither diligence nor success in attracting the notice of the great, for, from his first entrance into the world, and his entrance was very early, he was admitted to familiarity with those whose rank or station made them most conspicuous.

From the age of sixteen the life of Pope, as an author, may be properly computed. He now wrote his pastorals, which were shown to the poets and critics of that time. As they well deserved, they were read with admiration, and many praises were bestowed upon them and upon the preface, which is both elegant and learned in a high degree; they were, however, not published till five years afterwards.

Cowley, Milton, and Pope are distinguished among the English poets by the early exertion of their powers, but the works of Cowley alone were published in his childhood, and, therefore, of him only can it be certain that his puerile performances received no improvement from his maturer studies.

At this time began his acquaintance with Wycherley, a man who seems to have had among his contemporaries his full share of reputation, to have been esteemed without virtue, and caressed without good humour. Pope was proud of his notice. Wycherley wrote verses in his praise, which he was charged by Dennis with writing to himself, and they agreed for a while to flatter one another. It is pleasant to remark how soon Pope learned the cant of an author, and began to treat critics with contempt, though he had yet suffered nothing from them. But the fondness of Wycherley was too violent to last. His esteem of Pope was such that he submitted some poems to his revision, and when Pope, perhaps proud of such confidence, was sufficiently bold in his criticisms, and liberal in his alterations, the old scribbler was angry to see his pages defaced, and felt more pain from the detection than content from the amendment of his faults. They parted, but Pope always considered him with kindness, and visited him a little time before he died. Another of his early correspondents was Mr. Cromwell, of whom I have learned nothing particular, but that he used to ride a-hunting in a tie-wig. He was fond, and perhaps vain, of amusing himself with poetry and criticism, and sometimes sent his performances to Pope, who did not forbear such remarks as were now and then unwelcome. Pope, in his turn, put the juvenile version of "Statius" into his hands for correction. Their correspondence afforded the public its first knowledge of Pope's epistolary powers, for his letters were given by Cromwell to one Mrs. Thomas, and she many years afterwards sold them to Curll, who inserted them in a volume of his "Miscellanies."