denly and vanishing, as thro' a perspective | did not affect his heart. "Mrs. Lepell," glass. When you shut the doors of this grotto he once wrote to Teresa Blount, "walked it becomes on the instant from a luminous room, with me three or four hours by moonlight, a camera obscura; on the walls of which all ob- and we met no creature of any quality but jects of the river, hills, woods and boats are the king, who gave audience to the viceforming a moving picture in their visible radia- chamberlain all alone under the garden tions; and when you have a mind to light it up, wall.” it affords you a very different scene. It is finished with shells interspersed with pieces of looking-glass in angular forms; and in the ceiling is a star of the same material, at which when a lamp (of an orbicular figure of thin alabaster) is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place.

Pope was evidently delighted with his achievement, which most men now-a-days will regard as utterly contemptible; and Mr. Carruthers publishes a correspondence in which the poet, not four years before his death, thanks Dr. Oliver of Bath and two of his friends for their contributions to his "plaything." The Doctor in his reply writes after this quaint fashion:

Sir, you make this month tedious by promising to see me in the next. I hope to meet you in a state of health likely to keep you many years above ground; but whenever the world is robbed of you where can you be better deposited than in your own grotto? for I know you have no ambition to be laid near kings, and lie where you will, your own works must be your everlasting monument.

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Bolingbroke was also a frequent guest at Twickenham, and Pope visited his lordship at Dawley, from whence he writes one day that they had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl. One night, we are told, and the anecdote is characteristic of the period, after the poet had been dining at Dawley, Lord Bolingbroke sent him home in a coach and six. 'A small bridge about a mile from Pope's residence was broken down, and the postilion taking the water, the coach came in contact with the trunk of a tree and was overturned. Before the coachman could

get to Pope's assistance, the water had reached the knots of his periwig. The glass was broken, and he was rescued, but not until he had received a severe wound in his right hand which for some time disqualified him for writing." Whereupon Voltaire, who was at Dawley, wrote to the poet in a strain which sounds ineffably absurd in modern ears, saying that the water was not Hippocrene's or it would have respected him, and adding, "Is it possible that those fingers which have written the Rape of the Lock' and the Criticism,' which have dressed Homer so becomingly in an English coat, should have been so barbarously treated?

"but more like a silver penny than a genius." Pope visited the honest clergyman and anecdote-monger at Oxford, and the pleasant letter in which Spence describes the interview to his mother is worth recording. It was written in 1735, nine years before the death of the poet.

Many pleasant glimpses are given us of the poet in connection with his small estate at Twickenham, and some which are not pleasant or favourable to his memory. Pope affected to live the life of a recluse; but his was the seclusion of a man of let- One of Pope's latest and sincerest friendters, able to gather round him all who were ships was with Spence, "a good-natured illustrious in the world of literature, and harmless little soul," according to Walpole, many of the aristocratic personages who ruled in the world of fashion. We forget the poet's bickerings and literary dishonesties when we see him at bis villa in the society of warm admirers and friends. "Pope," said Warburton, after spending a week at Twickenham, is as good a companion as a poet, and what is more, appears to be as good a man." At one time Swift paid him a visit of four months, and the two great satirists went in company to the little court of the Princess of Wales at Leicester House and at Richmond Hill. A brilliant scene must that court of the Opposition sometimes have presented when Gay and Swift, Arbuthnot and Pope chatted in the saloons or gossiped with Mary Bellenden, "soft and fair as down," and "youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell," in the gardens of the palace. Sometimes the pleasure of a lonely ramble with a beauty of the court charmed the poet's fancy if it board?

Monday last after dinner, according to the good sauntering custom that I use here every day, I was lolling at a coffee-house half asleep, and half reading something about Prince Eugene and the armies on the Rhine, when a ragged boy of an ostler came in to me with a little scrap of

The Prince, afterwards George II., must have been occasionally at Twickenham, for Dr. Johnson while the Prince of Wales was talking of poetry. No records that Pope once slumbered at his own table doubt the talk on such a subject was stupid enough, and perhaps under the circumstances the poet's want "if we may judge from the intellect of the speaker, of politeness may be forgiven. We wonder whether he ever nodded in his chair when Gay and Arbuth

not, Warburton and St. Johu were seated at his

now."

ance.

He had been to take his last leave of

paper not half an inch broad which contained | leaving the principal part of his property to the following words, "Mr. Pope would be very Martha Blount for her life. There is a horglad to see Mr. Spence at the Cross Inn just rible story told in Dr. Johnson's biography, You may imagine how pleased I was; which is not only highly improbable, but and that I hobbled thither as fast as my spindle- appears to lack all evidence. "While he shanks would carry me. There I found him quite fatigued to death, with a thin face length- tion, as he was one day sitting in the air was yet capable of amusement and conversaened at least two inches beyond its usual appear with Lord Bolingbroke and Lord Marchmont he saw his favourite Martha Blount at the bottom of the terrace, and asked Lord Bolingbroke to go and hand her up. Bolingbroke, not liking his errand, crossed his legs and sat still; but Lord Marchmont, who was younger and less captious, waited on the lady, who when he came to her asked, What, is he not dead yet?""

Lord Peterborough; and came away in a chariot of his lordship's, that holds but one person for quick travelling. When he was got within about three miles of Oxford, coming down a hill in Bagley wood, he saw two gentlemen and a lady sitting in distress by the wayside. Near them lay a chaise overturned, and half broken to pieces; in the fall of which the poor lady had her arm broke. Mr. Pope had the goodness to stop and offer her his chariot to carry her to Oxford for help; and so walked the three miles in the very midst of a close sultry day, and came in dreadfully fatigued. An inn, though de signed for a place of rest, is but ill-suited to a man that's really tired; so I prevailed on him to go to my room, where I got him a little dinner, and where he enjoyed himself for two or three

hours.

The unlikelihood of this anecdote is obvious. If Martha had been cold-hearted enough to forget at the last the friendship of a lifetime, it is scarcely possible she would have given vent to her feelings before a friend of the poet, at the very moment too in which he was leading her towards him. Mr. Ward does not record this anecdote, and we may therefore conclude does not accept it Pope was on terms of familiarity with before, Pope had expressed for Martha as genuine. Only a month or two many persons of noble birth, but he knew Blount the most affectionate interest, and his own value too well to be guilty of syco- we would not willingly believe that his phancy. Sometimes, indeed, there are ex-friendship received so ungrateful a return. pressions in his letters which savour of this vice, as when he tells the Earl of Marchmont, shortly before his death, that he desires chiefly to live for his sake; but complimentary phrases such as these were current in polite society, and meant little. Mr. Carruthers repeats the story that Pope declined the honour of a visit from Queen Caroline, but adds to it this comment :

Where Johnson heard the story we are not told, but it receives no corroboration from Spence, who quotes, as Mr. Carruthers observes, a remark of Warburton's that it illness that Mrs. Blount's coming in gave a was very observable during Pope's last new turn of spirits or a temporary strength

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to him."

III.

Had Pope been ambitious of courtly distinction, he could have had little difficulty in obtaining ac- THERE were three things dear to Pope cess to the queen, who was fond of being consid-upon this earth his parents, his friends, ered the patroness of learning and genius. He did not affect such honours, but he could never have refused a proffered visit from her Majesty; he would rather have exulted, dressed in his best suit of black velvet, his tie-wig, and small sword, to lead the gracious Caroline round his laurel circus, and through his grotto.

and his fame; there was one thing he hated persistently with the whole force of his mind, namely, the criticism whose weakness opposed itself to his strength. We never find in him what we find in his great contemporary, Bishop Berkeley - a noble, selfdenying enthusiasm; he had no special For the sake of friendship he declined hatred of moral evil, but he was a thorough another honour more acceptable to a man good hater of any one who ventured to of letters than a visit from royalty. In question his sovereignity in the realm of 1741, Pope and Warburton visited Oxford letters. This was neither amiable nor wise, together, and it was proposed to confer but the evil is softened down when we conupon the poet the degree of Doctor of Civil sider the age and the man. The hacks of Law, and upon the divine the title of D.D. literature and the town swarmed with As far as concerns Warburton, "intrigue them indulged in the grossest personal and envy," according to Bishop Hurd, de- attacks. Nobody was spared unless he feated this scheme, and Pope resolved to were unfortunate enough to be obscure, or suffer with his friend. "I will be doctored unless he had too strong an arm and too with you," he said, "or not at all." He stout a cudgel to be insulted with impunity. died three years after this, on May 30, 1744, | Nothing was too sacred to be exempted VOL. XVII. 782

LIVING AGE.

from attack. The figure, the features, the agony like a man undergoing an operation. voice, the man's private habits were held up His more notable quarrels were with Addito laughter, and every one was considered son and with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. fair game whose religion or politics was In the first case, it is to be feared, he had opposed to that of the libeller, or who had only himself to blame; in the second, the excited envy by literary success. A crip- provocation may have come from Lady ple, whose bodily weakness was so extreme Mary, but Pope had no right to resent what that he required an attendant to dress him, was at worst a lady's folly, and never who professed a faith that was proscribed showed himself less the man than when he by law, and who without a university educa- assailed his former friend. Addison has, tion rose by dint of study and genius to be we think, been painted in too fair colours one of the most conspicuous men in Eng- by his admirers, and especially by the latest land, was not likely to escape detraction. and greatest, Lord Macauley. He is one Pope, however, eager for the fray, was the of the most delightful of writers, but it is first to throw down the glove. He rushed doubtful whether he was the most agreeable into the arena before he had received a of men. He was sixteen years older than challenge, and from the day when, as a Pope, and had reached the summit of the young poet he provoked Dennis in the mountain when the younger poet was still Essay on Criticism," until the day—it struggling at the base. There should have was not very long before his death-that been no jealousy here, for the paths of the he published the latest edition of the Dun- two men were diverse. Pope, on the one ciad, he lived as a man to whom literary war- hand, was a man of letters, and nothing fare was as the breath of life. The pen of more. He owed everything to his pen; he Grub Street was not his only enemy. When was either a great poet, an inimitable satirhe satirized Phillips - namby-pamby ist, or he sank at once into the common Phillips"in the Guardian, that worthy herd. The position of Addison was more is said to have hung a rod up at Button's with which to castigate the poet-dwarf, and it is related that when Pope took his wonted walk at Twickenham he used to carry pistols and to take with him a large dog. How passing strange it seems to read such an advertisement as the following, written by the first poet of his age, and published in the Daily Post, June 14, 1728!

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Whereas, there has been a scandalous paper cried aloud about the streets, under the title of "A Pop upon Pope," insinuating that I was whipped in Ham Walks on Thursday last: This is to give notice, that I did not stir out of my house at Twickenham on that day; and the same is a malicious and ill-founded report.

It is not likely that this public notice, extraordinary as it seems to us, startled newspaper readers in those days, for men who wrote too freely were frequently punished by this kind of Lynch law, and Defoe mentions several attempts that were made upon his person. Pope, feeble as he was in body, was free from the taint of cowardice, and laughed at the threats of his opponents just as he occasionally laughed at their attacks on paper. He could afford to do so always, but sometimes read them with bitterness. Men like Dennis, Theobald, and Cibber were not likely permanently to damage his reputation, but they often touched him to the quick, and he found it impossible to conceal what he felt. "These things are my diversion," he once exclaimed with a ghastly smile, but as he spoke he writhed in

assured. He was a statesman as well as an author, he had gained one of the highest posts in the state, he had won fame, wealth, and a countess (though that the lady were a gain may be questioned), and if Pope beat him in verse, and he did beat him incontestably, he could not approach his admirable prose, which remains perhaps unequalled to this day. Addison had his faults, but we do not believe that a rancorous jealousy was one of them. As much cannot be said of Pope, and it is sad to believe that the keenest satire he ever penned was written unworthily.

The famous Lady Mary controversy is more painful still, and the disgrace to Pope is deeper. There may have been severe provocation. The pretty, lively, witty woman had been flattered by Pope's attentions, or had amused herself with his strange gallantry. He wrote beautiful verses in her praise, and once, according to her own report, spoke words of love in her ear.

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The

woman of fashion," as Mrs. Oliphant calls her, burst into a fit of laughter, and the poet's love was turned to deadly hate. His unmanly satire of Lady Mary is, we think, the worst act of Pope's life, for the story that he took a bribe of 1,000l. from the Duchess of Marlborough to suppress the character of Ato sa is, to say the least, not proven, despite Mrs. Oliphant's assertion to the contrary. Lady Mary, grossly treated as she had been, retaliated after a gross fashion, in lines sneering at Pope's deformity. She even wrote to Lord Peterborough

to ask if the poet's disgusting couplet ap-| coarse vices and mean aims, and it may be plied to her a significant proof of the frank questioned whether any of the Queen Anne coarseness of the age. Had she remained men excepting Sir Richard Steele, whose silent the provocation would have been for- compliment to Lady Elizabeth Hastings degotten, and she would have commanded serves to be immortal, ever paid to women the sympathy of the world. the homage which they deserve. We should recollect, too, that in accordance with the spirit of the time were the toasts" who ruled the town. Women of rank spoke, wrote, and even acted in a way of which any modest woman would now be ashamed, and it must be owned that the vices and follies of fashionable life afforded ample grounds for satire. We have but to read Lord Hervey's Memoirs, the letters of Lady Mary, and the correspondence of the Countess of Suffolk, to see the loose views with regard to the relation of the sexes which then prevailed; and while the exquisite raillery of Addison and Steele shows us how women appeared in society, Swift's letters to Stella, and Pope's letters to Teresa and Martha Blount, prove (that is, if Stella and the Blounts may be regarded as representative woman) that the delicacy which should guard such an intercourse was in those days unknown.

We have mentioned but two quarrels of the many which engaged Pope's thoughts and pen, and for our purpose these will suffice; but it is significant that not only was the poet quarrelling through the best portion of his life, but that his spirit seems to have animated several of the editors and authors who have attempted to vindicate or blacken his name. Warburton, who did a a great deal of dirty work for Pope in his notes to the Dunciad, was continually slashing right and left at real or imaginary foes: he abused his friends, he maligned his enemies, he condescended to mean acts, such, unhappily, as he might have learnt from Pope, and he disgraced his name and his profession by a succession of ignoble quarrels. "I do not know," said Dr. Johnson to the king, who talked of the controversy, between Warburton and Lowth, "which of them calls names best." No sooner was Pope dead than Bolingbroke, who had wept over his deathbed and was appointed his sole executor, began to traduce his memory, and what he could not decently say himself he paid Mallet to say for him. Between the philosopher and the bishop there raged, according to Disraeli, a mortal hatred, and without tracing all the literary quarrels that had their fountain-head at Twickenham, it will suffice to refer to the battle (we cannot use a milder word) at the beginning of this century between Bowles and Roscoe, in which Byron and Campbell took so prominent a part.

We do not think that Mrs. Oliphant is just to Pope; indeed we never knew any lady who wrote of him impartially. The reason is obvious. Pope's 'false and scandalous charges against the sex," as Miss Mitford terms them, are enough to alienate all good women. He is the only English poet of mark who has not written of the better half of mankind with chivalry and homage. Some of our poets have sinned grievously as writers of licentious verse, but the worst of them have shown fealty to the purity and dignity of woman. Pope, although he had a mother whom he loved with tenderness, has done nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he has struck at women with his keenest weapons, has libelled them, sneered at them, raised the laugh against them, and displayed a capacity for insult that has never been surpassed. We should remember, however, that the age was one of

This is one of the marks which distinguish that century from our own; another pointed out by Mrs. Oliphant and by other writers may deserve a word of comment. Never before or since has the profession of literature offered such prizes to its votaries. Men who followed the Muses" succes 3fully were not only hailed as poets, but rewarded with the honours of statesmen and diplomatists. Poetry led to office with as much certainty as sheep-stealing led to Tyburn, and the man who could tag verses was accounted fit to enjoy the highest offices in the state. Addison, who could not make a speech, was secretary of state; Tickell, a pleasant poet, was under-secretary, and the same post had been held by Rowe; Prior was minister at Paris; Garth was knighted and appointed physician to George I.; Congreve was secretary for the island of Jamaica, and had a comfortable place in the customs; Yalden succeeded Atterbury as bishop of Rochester; Steele was a commissioner of the Stamp Office, a surveyor of the royal stables at Hampton Court, governor of the royal company of comedians, and a knight; Mallet was under-secretary to the Prince of Wales; Gay, who was offered the post of gentleman usher to the Princess Louisa, considered himself slighted by the proposal. There remain the two greatest men of letters of that time, Swift and Pope. The former ruled the ministers, made many fortunes for others, but could not make his own, for the queen disliked

him, and refused to promote a clergyman to fatal facility of misinterpretation. high ecclesiastical honours who had written friendly but indefinite connection," he says, A Tale of a Tub. Pope's feeble health as a strange mixture of passion, gallantry, well as his proscribed faith shut him out from licentiousness, and kindness had long taken the prizes bestowed on inferior men, but place between himself and the Miss Blounts," his poetry gained him a competence, and his a statement for which the sole foundation company was courted by the highest per- must be sought in the mind of the writer. sonages in the land. That he was feared "Scandal alone," says Mr. Ward," (or hymore than he was loved was not disagreeable perconscientious biography) has contrived to the poet who wrote the bold couplet: to pervert the character of his (Pope's) relations towards the ladies of Mapledurham :" and Mrs. Oliphant writes with a fine and womanly appreciation of the position: