Calamities And Quarrels Of Authors Part 37

FOOTNOTES:

[225] Sir William Blackstone's Discussion on the Quarrel between Addison and Pope was communicated by Dr. Kippis in his "Biographia Britannica," vol. i. p. 56. Blackstone is there designated as "a gentleman of considerable rank, to whom the public is obliged for works of much higher importance."

[226] Dennis a.s.serts in one of his pamphlets that Pope, fermenting with envy at the success of Addison's _Cato_, went to Lintot, and persuaded him to engage this redoubted critic to write the remarks on _Cato_--that Pope's grat.i.tude to Dennis for having complied with his request was the well-known narrative of Dennis "being placed as a lunatic in the hands of Dr. Norris, a curer of mad people, at his house in Hatton-garden, though at the same time I appeared publicly every day, both in the park and in the town." Can we suppose that Dennis tells a falsehood respecting Pope's desiring Lintot to engage Dennis to write down _Cato_? If true, did Pope wish to see Addison degraded, and at the same time take an opportunity of ridiculing the critic, without, however, answering his arguments? The secret history of literature is like that of politics?

[Dennis took a strong dislike to Addison's _Cato_, and his style of criticism is thus alluded to in the humorous account of his frenzy written by Pope: "On all sides of his room were pinned a great many sheets of a tragedy called _Cato_, with notes on the margin by his own hand. The words _absurd_, _monstrous_, _execrable_, were everywhere written in such large characters, that I could read them without my spectacles." Warton says that "Addison highly disapproved of this bitter satire on Dennis, and Pope was not a little chagrined at this disapprobation; for the narrative was intended to court the favour of Addison, by defending his _Cato_: in which seeming defence Addison was far from thinking our author sincere."]

[227] In the notes to the Prologue to the Satires.

[228] Pope's conjecture was perfectly correct. Dr. Warton confirms it from a variety of indisputable authorities.--Warton's "Pope,"

vol. iv. p. 34.

[229] In the "Freeholder," May, 1716.

[230] Pope himself thus related the matter to Spence: "Phillips seemed to have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations; and Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherly, in which he had abused both me and my relations very grossly.

Lord Warwick himself told me one day that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be well with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would never admit of a settled friends.h.i.+p between us, and to convince me of what he had said, a.s.sured me that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals, and had given him ten guineas after they were published."--ED.

[231] The strongest parts of Sir William Blackstone's discussion turn on certain inaccurate dates of Ruffhead, in his statements, which show them to be inconsistent with the times when they are alleged to have happened. These erroneous dates had been detected in an able article in the Monthly Review on that work, April, 1769. Ruffhead is a tasteless, confused, and unskilful writer--Sir William has laid great stress on the incredible story of Addison paying Gildon to write against Pope, "a man so amiable in his moral character." It is possible that the Earl of Warwick, who conveyed the information, might have been a malicious, lying youth; but then Pope had some knowledge of mankind--he believed the story, for he wrote instantly, with honest though heated feelings, to Addison, and sent him, at that moment, the first sketch of the character of Atticus. Addison used him very civilly ever after--but it does not appear that Addison ever contradicted the tale of the officious Earl. All these facts, which Pope repeated many years after to Spence, Sir William was not acquainted with, for they were transcribed from Spence's papers by Johnson, after Blackstone had written.

[This is fully in accordance with his previous conduct, as he described it to Spence; on the first notification of the Earl of Warwick's news, "the next day when I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak severely of him, in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; and that I should rather tell himself freely of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner: I then adjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my Satire on Addison. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever after, and never did me any injustice that I know of from that time to his death, which was about three years after."]

[232] That Addison did occasionally divert Pope's friends from him, appears from the advice which Lady Mary Wortley Montague says he gave to her--"Leave him as soon as you can, he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appet.i.te to satire." Malone thinks this may have been said under the irritation produced by the verses on Addison, which Pope sent to him, as described above. Pope's love of satire, and unflinching use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison's nervous dislike to it.--ED.

[233] From Lord Egmont's MS. Collections.--See the "Addenda Kippis's Biographia Britannica."

[234] The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable interview I have hitherto only traced to "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of A. Pope, Esq., by William Ayre, Esq.,"

1745, vol. i. p. 100. This work comes in a very suspicious form; it is a huddled compilation, yet contains some curious matters; and pretends, in the t.i.tle-page, to be occasionally drawn from "original MSS. and the testimonies of persons of honour." He declares, in the preface, that he and his friends "had means and some helps which were never public." He sometimes appeals to several n.o.ble friends of Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publication, and that of its execution, are not in its favour. These volumes were written within six months of the decease of our poet; have no publisher's name; and yet the author, whoever he was, took out "a patent, under his majesty's royal signet," for securing the copyright. This Ayre is so obscure an author, though a translator of Ta.s.so's "Aminta,"

that he seems to have escaped even the minor chronicles of literature. At the time of its publication there appeared "Remarks on Squire Ayre's Memoirs of Pope." The writer pretends he has discovered him to be only one of the renowned Edmund Curll's "squires," who, about that time, had created an order of literary squires, ready to tramp at the funeral of every great personage with his life. The "Remarker" then addresses Curll, and insinuates he speaks from personal knowledge of the man:--"You have an adversaria of t.i.tle-pages of your own contrivance, and which your authors are to write books to. Among what you call _the occasional, or black list_, I have seen Memoirs of Dean Swift, Pope, &c." Curll, indeed, was then sending forth many pseudo squires, with lives of "Congreve," "Mrs. Oldfield," &c.; all which contained some curious particulars, picked up in coffee-houses, conversations, or pamphlets of the day. This William Ayre I accept as "a squire of low degree," but a real personage. As for this interview, Ayre was certainly incompetent to the invention of a single stroke of the conversations detailed: where he obtained all these interesting particulars, I have not discovered. Johnson alludes to this interview, states some of its results, but refers to no other authority than floating rumours.

[235] The line stood originally, and nearly literally copied from Isaiah--

"He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes;"

which Steele retouched, as it now stands--

"From every face he wipes off every tear."

Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks, has too much of modern quaintness. The difficulty of choice lies between that naked simplicity which scarcely affects, and those strokes of art which are too apparent.

[236] The last line of Addison's tragedy read originally--

"And oh! 'twas this that ended Cato's life."

A very weak line, which was altered at the suggestion of Pope as it stands at present:--

"And robs the guilty world of Cato's life."--ED.

BOLINGBROKE AND MALLET'S POSTHUMOUS QUARREL WITH POPE.

Lord BOLINGBROKE affects violent resentment for Pope's pretended breach of confidence in having printed his "Patriot King"--WARBURTON'S apology for POPE'S disinterested intentions--BOLINGBROKE instigates MALLET to libel POPE, after the poet's death--The real motive for libelling POPE was BOLINGBROKE'S personal hatred of WARBURTON, for the ascendancy the latter had obtained over the poet--Some account of their rival conflicts--BOLINGBROKE had unsettled POPE'S religious opinions, and WARBURTON had confirmed his faith--POPE, however, refuses to abjure the Catholic religion--Anecdote of POPE'S anxiety respecting a future state--MALLET'S intercourse with POPE: anecdote of "The Apollo Vision," where MALLET mistook a sarcasm for a compliment--MALLET'S character--Why LEONIDAS GLOVER declined writing the Life of Marlborough--BOLINGBROKE'S character hit off--WARBURTON, the concealed object of this posthumous quarrel with POPE.

On the death of POPE, 1500 copies of one of Lord BOLINGBROKE'S works, "The Patriot King," were discovered to have been secretly printed by Pope, but never published. The honest printer presented the whole to his lords.h.i.+p, who burned the edition in his gardens at Battersea. The MS. had been delivered to our poet by his lords.h.i.+p, with a request to print a few copies for its better preservation, and for the use of a few friends.

Bolingbroke affected to feel the most lively resentment for what he chose to stigmatise as "a breach of confidence." "His thirst of vengeance," said Johnson, "incited him to blast the memory of the man over whom he had wept in his last struggles; and he employed Mallet, another friend of Pope, to tell the tale to the public with all its aggravations. Warburton, whose heart was warm with his legacy, and tender by the recent separation," apologised for Pope. The irregular conduct which Bolingbroke stigmatised as a breach of trust, was attributed to a desire of perpetuating the work of his friend, who might have capriciously destroyed it. Our poet could have no selfish motive; he could not gratify his vanity by publis.h.i.+ng the work as his own, nor his avarice by its sale, which could never have taken place till the death of its author; a circ.u.mstance not likely to occur during Pope's lifetime.[237]

The vindictive rage of Bolingbroke; the bitter invective he permitted MALLET to publish, as the editor of his works; and the two anonymous pamphlets of the latter, which I have noticed in the article of WARBURTON; are effects much too disproportionate to the cause which is usually a.s.signed. JOHNSON does not develope the secret motives of what he has energetically termed "Bolingbroke's thirst of vengeance." He and Mallet carried their secret revenge beyond all bounds: the lordly stoic and the irritated bardling, under the cloak of anonymous calumny, have but ill-concealed the malignity of their pa.s.sions. Let anonymous calumniators recollect, in the midst of their dark work, that if they escape the detection of their contemporaries, their reputation, if they have any to lose, will not probably elude the researches of the historian;--a fatal witness against them at the tribunal of posterity.

The preface of Mallet to the "Patriot King" of Bolingbroke, produced a literary quarrel; and more pamphlets than perhaps I have discovered were published on this occasion.

Every lover of literature was indignant to observe that the vain and petulant Mallet, under the protection of Pope's

Guide, philosopher, and friend!

should have been permitted to have aspersed Pope with the most degrading language. Pope is here always designated as "This Man." Thus "_This Man_ was no sooner dead than Lord Bolingbroke received information that an entire edition of 1500 copies of these papers had been printed; that this very _Man_ had corrected the press, &c." Could one imagine that this was the Tully of England, describing our Virgil?

For Mallet was but the mouthpiece of Bolingbroke.

After a careful detection of many facts concerning the parties now before us, I must attribute the concealed motive of this outrage on Pope to the election the dying poet made of Warburton as his editor. A mortal hatred raged between Bolingbroke and Warburton. The philosophical lord had seen the mighty theologian ravish the prey from his grasp. Although Pope held in idolatrous veneration the genius of Bolingbroke, yet had this literary superst.i.tion been gradually enlightened by the energy of Warburton. They were his good and his evil genii in a dreadful conflict, wrestling to obtain the entire possession of the soul of the mortal. Bolingbroke and Warburton one day disputed before Pope, and parted never to meet again. The will of Pope bears the trace of his divided feelings: he left his MSS. to Bolingbroke as his executor, but his works to Warburton as his editor. The secret history of Bolingbroke and Warburton with Pope is little known: the note will supply it.[238]

But how did the puny Mallet stand connected with these great men? By the pamphlets published during this literary quarrel he appears to have enjoyed a more intimate intercourse with them than is known. In one of them he is characterised "as a fellow who, while Mr. Pope lived, was as diligent in licking his feet, as he is now in licking your lords.h.i.+p's; and who, for the sake of giving himself an air of importance, in being joined with you, and for the vanity of saying 'the Author and I,'--'the Editor and me,'--has sacrificed all his pretensions to friends.h.i.+p, honour, and humanity."[239] An anecdote in this pamphlet a.s.signs a sufficient motive to excite some wrath in a much less irritable animal than the self-important editor of Bolingbroke's Works. The anecdote may be distinguished as

THE APOLLO VISION.

"The editor (Mallet) being in company with the person to whom Mr. Pope has consigned the care of his works (Warburton), and who, he thought, had some intention of writing Mr. Pope's life, told him he had an anecdote, which he believed n.o.body knew but himself. I was sitting one day (said he) with Mr. Pope, in his last illness, who coming suddenly out of a reverie, which you know he frequently fell into at that time, and fixing his eyes steadfastly upon me; 'Mr. M. (said he), I have had an odd kind of vision. Methought I saw my own head open, and Apollo came out of it; I then saw your head open, and Apollo went into it; after which our heads closed up again.' The gentleman (Warburton) could not help smiling at his vanity; and with some humour replied, 'Why, sir, if I had an intention of writing _your_ life, this might perhaps be a proper anecdote; but I don't see, that in Mr. Pope's it will be of any consequence at all.'" P. 14.

This exhibits a curious instance of an author's egotism, or rather of Mallet's conceit, contriving, by some means, to have his name slide into the projected Life of Pope by Warburton, who appears, however, always to have treated him with the contempt Pope himself evidently did.[240] What opinion could the poet have entertained of the taste of that weak and vain critic, who, when Pope published anonymously "The Essay on Man," being asked if anything new had appeared, replied that he had looked over a thing called an "Essay on Man," but, discovering the utter want of skill and knowledge in the author, had thrown it aside. Pope mortified him by confiding to him the secret.

"The Apollo Vision" was a stinging anecdote, and it came from Warburton either directly or indirectly. This was followed up by "A Letter to the Editor of the Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, the Idea of a Patriot King," &c., a dignified remonstrance of Warburton himself; but "The Impostor Detected and Convicted, or the Principles and Practices of the Author of the Spirit of Patriotism (Lord Bolingbroke) set forth in a clear light, in a Letter to a Member of Parliament in Town, from his Friend in the Country, 1749,"

is a remarkable production. Lord Bolingbroke is the impostor and the concealed Jacobite. Time, the ablest critic on these party productions, has verified the predictions of this seer. We discover here, too, a literary fact, which is necessary to complete our present history. It seems that there were omissions and corrections in the edition Pope printed of "The Patriot King," which his caution or his moderation prompted, and which such a political demagogue as Bolingbroke never forgave. They are thus alluded to: "Lord B. may remember" (from a conversation held, at which the writer appears to have been present), "that a difference in opinion prevailed, and a few points were urged by that gentleman (Pope) in opposition to some particular tenets which related to the limitation of the English monarchy, and to the ideal doctrine of a patriot king. These were Mr.

P.'s reasons for the emendations he made; and which, together with the consideration that both their lives were at that time in a declining state, was the true cause, and no other, of his care to preserve those letters, by handing them to the press, with the precaution mentioned by the author." Indeed the cry raised against the _dead man_ by Bolingbroke and Mallet, was an artificial one: that it should ever have tainted the honour of the bard, or that it should ever have been excited by his "Philosopher and Friend," are equally strange; it is possible that the malice of Mallet was more at work than that of Bolingbroke, who suffered himself to be the dupe of a man held in contempt by Pope, by Warburton, and by others. But the pamphlet I have just noticed might have enraged Bolingbroke, because his true character is ably drawn in it. The writer says that "a person in an eminent station of life abroad, when Lord B---- was at Paris to transact a certain affair, said, _C'est certainement un homme d'esprit, mais un coquin sans probite_." This was a very disagreeable truth!

In one of these pamphlets, too, Bolingbroke was mortified at his dignity being lessened by the writer, in comparing his lords.h.i.+p with their late friend Pope.--"I venture to foretell, that the name of Mr.

Pope, in spite of your unmanly endeavours, shall revive and blossom in the dust, from his own merits; and presume to remind you, that _yours_, had it not been for _his_ genius, _his_ friends.h.i.+p, _his_ idolatrous veneration for _you_, might, in a short course of years, have died and been forgotten." Whatever the degree of genius Bolingbroke may claim, doubtless the verse of Pope has embalmed his fame. I have never been able to discover the authors of these pamphlets, who all appear of the first rank, and who seem to have written under the eye of Warburton. The awful and vindictive Bolingbroke, and the malignant and petulant Mallet, did not long brood over their anger: he or they gave it vent on the head of Warburton, in those two furious pamphlets, which I have noticed in the "Quarrels of Warburton." All these pamphlets were published in the same year, 1749, so that it is now difficult to arrange them according to their priority. Enough has been shown to prove, that the loud outcry of Bolingbroke and Mallet, in their posthumous attack on Pope, arose from their unforgiving malice against him, for the preference by which the poet had distinguished Warburton; and that Warburton, much more than Pope, was the real object of this masked battery.

FOOTNOTES:

[237] At the time, to season the tale for the babble of Literary Tattlers, it was propagated that POPE intended, on the death of BOLINGBROKE, to sell this eighteenpenny pamphlet at a guinea a copy; which would have produced an addition of as many hundreds to the thousands which the poet had honourably reaped from his Homer. This was the ridiculous lie of the day, which lasted long enough to obtain its purpose, and to cast an odium on the shade of Pope. Pope must have been a miserable calculator of _survivors.h.i.+ps_, if ever he had reckoned on this.

[238] Splendid as was the genius of Bolingbroke, the gigantic force of Warburton obtained the superiority. Had the contest solely depended on the effusions of genius, Bolingbroke might have prevailed; but an object more important than human interests induced the poet to throw himself into the arms of Warburton.

The "Essay on Man" had been reformed by the subtle aid of Warburton, in opposition to the objectionable principles which Bolingbroke had infused into his system of philosophy: this, no doubt, had vexed Bolingbroke. But another circ.u.mstance occurred of a more mortifying nature. When Pope one day showed Warburton Bolingbroke's "Letters on the Study and Use of History," printed, but not published, and concealing the name of the author, Warburton not only made several very free strictures on that work, but particularly attacked a digression concerning the authenticity of the Old Testament.

Pope requested him to write his remarks down as they had occurred, which he instantly did; and Pope was so satisfied with them, that he crossed out the digression in the printed book, and sent the animadversions to Lord Bolingbroke, then at Paris. The style of the great dogmatist, thrown out in heat, must no doubt have contained many fiery particles, all which fell into the most inflammable of minds. Pope soon discovered his officiousness was received with indignation. Yet when Bolingbroke afterwards met Warburton he dissimulated: he used the language of compliment, but in a tone which claimed homage. The two most arrogant geniuses who ever lived, in vain exacted submission from each other: they could allow of no divided empire, and they were born to hate each other.

Bolingbroke suppressed his sore feelings, for at that very time he was employed in collecting matter to refute the objections; treasuring up his secret vengeance against Pope and Warburton, which he threw out immediately on the death of Pope. I collect these particulars from Ruffhead, p. 527, and whenever, in that volume, Warburton's name is introduced, it must be considered as coming from himself.