Pope's quarrel with Cibber may serve to check the haughtiness of genius; it is a remarkable instance how good-humour can gently draw a boundary round the arbitrary power, whenever the wantonness of satire would conceal calumny. But this quarrel will become even more interesting, should it throw a new light on the character of one whose originality of genius seems little suspected. Cibber showed a happy address in a very critical situation, and obtained an honourable triumph over the malice of a great genius, whom, while he complained of he admired, and almost loved the cynic.

Pope, after several "flirts," as Cibber calls them, from slight personal motives, which Cibber has fully opened,[212] at length from "peevish weakness," as Lord Orford has happily expressed it, closed his insults by dethroning Theobald, and substituting Cibber; but as he would not lose what he had already written, this change disturbed the whole decorum of the satiric fiction. Things of opposite natures, joined into one, became the poetical chimera of Horace. The hero of the Dunciad is neither Theobald nor Cibber; Pope forced a dunce to appear as Cibber; but this was not making Cibber a dunce. This error in Pope emboldened Cibber in the contest, for he still insisted that the satire did not apply to him;[213] and humorously compared the libel "to a purge with a wrong label," and Pope "to an apothecary who did not mind his business."[214]

Cibber triumphed in the arduous conflict—though sometimes he felt that, like the Patriarch of old, he was wrestling, not with an equal, but one of celestial race, "and the hollow of his thigh was out of joint." Still, however, he triumphed, by that singular felicity of character, that inimitable gaiete de coeur, that honest simplicity of truth, from which flowed so warm an admiration of the genius of his adversary; and that exquisite tact in the characters of men, which carried down this child of airy humour to the verge of his ninetieth year, with all the enjoyments of strong animal spirits, and all that innocent egotism which became frequently a source of his own raillery.[215] He has applied to himself the epithet "impenetrable," which was probably in the mind of Johnson when he noticed his "impenetrable impudence." A critic has charged him with "effrontery."[216] Critics are apt to admit too much of traditional opinion into their own; it is necessary sometimes to correct the knowledge we receive. For my part, I can almost believe that Cibber was a modest man![217] as he was most certainly a man of genius. Cibber had lived a dissipated life, and his philosophical indifference, with his careless gaiety, was the breastplate which even the wit of Pope failed to pierce. During twenty years' persecution for his unlucky Odes, he never lost his temper; he would read to his friends the best things pointed against them, with all the spirit the authors could wish; and would himself write epigrams for the pleasure of hearing them repeated while sitting in coffee-houses; and whenever they were applauded as "Palpable hits!"—"Keen!"—"Things with a spirit in them!"—he enjoyed these attacks on himself by himself.[218] If this be vanity, it is at least "Cibberian."

It was, indeed, the singularity of his personal character which so long injured his genius, and laid him open to the perpetual attacks of his contemporaries,[219] who were mean enough to ridicule undisguised foibles, but dared not be just to the redeeming virtues of his genius. Yet his genius far exceeded his literary frailties. He knew he was no poet, yet he would string wretched rhymes, even when not salaried for them; and once wrote an Essay on Cicero's character, for which his dotage was scarcely an apology;—so much he preferred amusement to prudence.[220] Another foible was to act tragedies with a squeaking voice[221], and to write them with a genius about the same size for the sublime; but the malice of his contemporaries seemed to forget that he was creating new dramatic existences in the exquisite personifications of his comic characters; and was producing some of our standard comedies, composed with such real genius, that they still support the reputation of the English stage.

In the "Apology for his Life," Cibber had shown himself a generous and an ill-treated adversary, and at all times was prodigal of his eulogiums, even after the death of Pope; but, when remonstrance and good temper failed to sheathe with their oil the sharp sting of the wasp, as his weakest talent was not the ludicrous, he resolved to gain the laughers over, and threw Pope into a very ridiculous attitude.[222] It was extorted from Cibber by this insulting line of Pope's:—

And has not Colley, too, his Lord and w—e?

It seems that Pope had once the same! But a ridiculous story, suited to the taste of the loungers, nettled Pope more than the keener remonstrances and the honest truths which Cibber has urged. Those who write libels, invite imitation.

Besides the two letters addressed by Cibber to Pope, this quarrel produced a moral trifle, or rather a philosophical curiosity, respecting Cibber's own character, which is stamped with the full impression of all its originality.

The title, so expressive of its design, and the whim and good-humour of the work, which may be considered as a curious supplement to the "Apology for his Life," could scarcely have been imagined, and most certainly could not have been executed, but by the genius who dared it. I give the title in the note.[223] It is a curious exemplification of what Shaftesbury has so fancifully described as "self-inspection." This little work is a conversation between "Mr. Frankly and his old acquaintance, Colley Cibber." Cibber had the spirit of making this Mr. Frankly speak the bitterest things against himself; and he must have been an attentive reader of all the keenest reproaches his enemies ever had thrown out. This caustic censor is not a man of straw, set up to be easily knocked down. He has as much vivacity and wit as Cibber himself, and not seldom has the better of the argument. But the gravity and the levity blended in this little piece form admirable contrasts: and Cibber, in this varied effusion, acquires all our esteem for that open simplicity, that unalterable good-humour which flowed from nature, and that fine spirit that touches everything with life; yet, as he himself confesses, the main accusation of Mr. Frankly, that "his philosophical air will come out at last mere vanity in masquerade," may be true.

I will attempt to collect some specimens of this extraordinary production, because they harmonise with the design of the present work, and afford principles, in regard to preserving an equability of temper, which may guide us in Literary Quarrels.

Frankly observes, on Cibber's declaration that he is not uneasy at Pope's satire, that "no blockhead is so dull as not to be sore when he is called so; and (you'll excuse me) if that were to be your own case, why should we believe you would not be as uneasy at it as another blockhead?

Author. This is pushing me pretty home indeed; but I wont give out. For as it is not at all inconceivable, that a blockhead of my size may have a particular knack of doing some useful thing that might puzzle a wiser man to be master of, will not that blockhead still have something in him to be conceited of? If so, allow me but the vanity of supposing I may have had some such possible knack, and you will not wonder (though in many other points I may still be a blockhead) that I may, notwithstanding, be contented with my condition.

Frankly. Is it not commendable, in a man of parts, to be warmly concerned for his reputation?

Author. In what regards his honesty or honour, I will make some allowance; but for the reputation of his parts, not one tittle.

Frankly. How! not to be concerned for what half the learned world are in a continual war about.

Author. So are another half about religion; but neither Turk or Pope, swords or anathemas, can alter truth! There it stands! always visible to reason, self-defended and immovable! Whatever it was, or is, it ever will be! As no attack can alter, so no defence can add to its proportion.

Frankly. At this rate, you pronounce all controversies in wit to be either needless or impertinent.

Author. When one in a hundred happens not to be so, or to make amends for being either by its pleasantry, we ought in justice to allow it a great rarity. A reply to a just satire or criticism will seldom be thought better of.

Frankly. May not a reply be a good one?

Author. Yes, but never absolutely necessary; for as your work (or reputation) must have been good or bad, before it was censured, your reply to that censure could not alter it: it would still be but what it was. If it was good, the attack could not hurt it: if bad, the reply could not mend it.[224]

Frankly. But slander is not always so impotent as you seem to suppose it; men of the best sense may be misled by it, or, by their not inquiring after truth, may never come at it; and the vulgar, as they are less apt to be good than ill-natured, often mistake malice for wit, and have an uncharitable joy in commending it. Now, when this is the case, is not a tame silence, upon being satirically libelled, as liable to be thought guilt or stupidity, as to be the result of innocence or temper?—Self-defence is a very natural and just excuse for a reply.

Author. Be it so! But still that does not always make it necessary; for though slander, by their not weighing it, may pass upon some few people of sense for truth, and might draw great numbers of the vulgar into its party, the mischief can never be of long duration. A satirical slander, that has no truth to support it, is only a great fish upon dry land: it may flounce and fling, and make a fretful pother, but it wont bite you; you need not knock it on the head; it will soon lie still, and die quietly of itself.

Frankly. The single-sheet critics will find you employment.

Author. Indeed they wont. I'm not so mad as to think myself a match for the invulnerable.

Frankly. Have a care; there's Foulwit; though he can't feel, he can bite.

Author. Ay, so will bugs and fleas; but that's only for sustenance: everything must feed, you know; and your creeping critics are a sort of vermin, that if they could come to a king, would not spare him; yet, whenever they can persuade others to laugh at their jest upon me, I will honestly make one of the number; but I must ask their pardon, if that should be all the reply I can afford them."

This "boy of seventy odd," for such he was when he wrote "The Egotist," unfolds his character by many lively personal touches. He declares he could not have "given the world so finished a coxcomb as Lord Foppington, if he had not found a good deal of the same stuff in himself to make him with." He addresses "A Postscript, To those few unfortunate Readers and Writers who may not have more sense than the Author:" and he closes, in all the fulness of his spirit, with a piece of consolation for those who are so cruelly attacked by superior genius.

"Let us then, gentlemen, who have the misfortune to lie thus at the mercy of those whose natural parts happen to be stronger than our own—let us, I say, make the most of our sterility! Let us double and treble the ranks of our thickness, that we may form an impregnable phalanx, and stand every way in front to the enemy! or, would you still be liable to less hazard, lay but yourselves down, as I do, flat and quiet upon your faces, when Pride, Malice, Envy, Wit, or Prejudice let fly their formidable shot at you, what odds is it they don't all whistle over your head? Thus, too, though we may want the artillery of missive wit to make reprisals, we may at least in security bid them kiss the tails we have turned to them. Who knows but, by this our supine, or rather prone serenity, their disappointed valour may become their own vexation? Or let us yet, at worst, but solidly stand our ground, like so many defensive stone-posts, and we may defy the proudest Jehu of them all to drive over us. Thus, gentlemen, you see that Insensibility is not without its comforts; and as I give you no worse advice than I have taken myself, and found my account in, I hope you will have the hardness to follow it, for your own good and the glory of

"Your impenetrable humble servant, "C. C."

After all, one may perceive, that though the good-humour of poor Cibber was real, still the immortal satire of Pope had injured his higher feelings. He betrays his secret grief at his close, while he seems to be sporting with his pen; and though he appears to confide in the falsity of the satire as his best chance for saving him from it, still he feels that the caustic ink of such a satirist must blister and spot wherever it falls. The anger of Warburton, and the sternness of Johnson, who seem always to have considered an actor as an inferior being among men of genius, have degraded Cibber. They never suspected that "a blockhead of his size could do what wiser men could not," and, as a fine comic genius, command a whole province in human nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[212] Johnson says, that though "Pope attacked Cibber with acrimony, the provocation is not easily discoverable." But the statements of Cibber, which have never been contradicted, show sufficient motives to excite the poetic irascibility. It was Cibber's "fling" at the unowned and condemned comedy of the triumvirate of wits, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, Three Hours after Marriage, when he performed Bayes in the Rehearsal, that incurred the immortal odium. There was no malice on Cibber's side; for it was then the custom to restore the zest of that obsolete dramatic satire, by introducing allusions to any recent theatrical event. The plot of this ridiculous comedy hinging on the deep contrivance of two lovers getting access to the wife of a virtuoso, "one curiously swathed up like an Egyptian mummy, and the other slily covered in the pasteboard skin of a crocodile," was an incident so extremely natural, that it seemed congenial with the high imagination and the deep plot of a Bayes! Poor Cibber, in the gaiety of his impromptu, made the "fling;" and, unluckily, it was applauded by the audience! The irascibility of Pope too strongly authenticated one of the three authors. "In the swelling of his heart, after the play was over, he came behind the scenes with his lips pale and his voice trembling, to call me to account for the insult; and accordingly fell upon me with all the foul language that a wit out of his senses would be capable of, choked with the foam of his passion." Cibber replied with dignity, insisted on the privilege of the character, and that he would repeat the same jest as long as the public approved of it. Pope would have certainly approved of Cibber's manly conduct, had he not been the author himself. To this circumstance may be added the reception which the town and the court bestowed on Cibber's "Nonjuror," a satire on the politics of the jacobite faction; Pope appears, under the assumed name of Barnevelt, to have published "an odd piece of wit, proving that the Nonjuror, in its design, its characters, and almost every scene of it, was a closely-couched jacobite libel against the Government." Cibber says that "this was so shrewdly maintained, that I almost liked the jest myself." Pope seems to have been fond of this new species of irony; for, in the Pastorals of Phillips, he showed the same sort of ingenuity, and he repeated the same charge of political mystery against his own finest poem; for he proved by many "merry inuendoes," that "The Rape of the Lock" was as audacious a libel as the pretended Barnevelt had made out the Nonjuror to be. See note, p. 280.

[213] Cibber did not obtrude himself in this contest. Had he been merely a poor vain creature, he had not preserved so long a silence. His good-temper was without anger, but he remonstrates with no little dignity, when he chooses to be solemn; though to be playful was more natural to him. "If I have lain so long stoically silent, or unmindful of your satirical favours, it was not so much for want of a proper reply, as that I thought there never needed a public one; for all people of sense would know what truth or falsehood there was in what you said of me, without my wisely pointing it out to them. Nor did I choose to follow your example, of being so much a self-tormentor, as to be concerned at whatever opinion of me any published invective might infuse into people unknown to me. Even the malicious, though they may like the libel, don't always believe it." His reason for reply is, that his silence should not be farther reproached "as a plain confession of my being a bankrupt in wit, if I don't immediately answer those bills of discredit you have drawn upon me." There is no doubt that Cibber perpetually found instigators to encourage these attacks; and one forcible argument he says was, that "a disgrace, from such a pen, would stick upon me to posterity." He seems to be aware that his acquaintance cheer him to the lists "for their particular amusement."

[214] "His edition of Shakspeare proved no better than a foil to set off the superiority of Theobald's; and Cibber bore away the palm from him in the drama. We have an account of two attempts of Pope's, one in each of the two principal branches of this species of poetry, and both unsuccessful. The fate of the comedy has been already mentioned (in page 300), and the tragedy was saved from the like fate by one not less ignominious, being condemned and burnt by his own hands. It was called Cleone, and formed upon the same story as a late one wrote and published by Mr. Dodsley with the same title in 1759. See Dodsley's Preface."—Biographia Britannica, 1760.

[215] Armstrong, who was a keen observer of man, has expressed his uncommon delight in the company of Cibber. "Beside his abilities as a writer (as a writer of comedies, Armstrong means), and the singular variety of his powers as an actor, he was to the last one of the most agreeable, cheerful, and best-humoured men you would ever wish to converse with."—Warton's Pope, vol. iv. 160.

Cibber was one of those rare beings whose dispositions Hume describes "as preferable to an inheritance of 10,000l. a year."

[216] Dr. Aikin, in his Biographical Dictionary, has thus written on Cibber: "It cannot be doubted, that, at the time, the contest was more painful to Pope than to Cibber. But Pope's satire is immortal, whereas Cibber's sarcasms are no longer read. Cibber may therefore be represented to future times with less credit for abilities than he really deserves; for he was certainly no dunce, though not, in the higher sense of the word, a man of genius. His effrontery and vanity could not be easily overcharged, even by a foe. Indeed, they are striking features in the portrait drawn by himself." Dr. Aikin's political morality often vented its indignation at the successful injustice of great power! Why should not the same spirit conduct him in the Literary Republic? With the just sentiments he has given on Cibber, it was the duty of an intrepid critic to raise a moral feeling against the despotism of genius, and to have protested against the arbitrary power of Pope. It is participating in the injustice to pass it by, without even a regret at its effect.

As for Cibber himself, he declares he was not impudent, and I am disposed to take his own word, for he modestly asserts this, in a remark on Pope's expression,

"'Cibberian forehead,'

"by which I find you modestly mean Cibberian impudence, as a sample of the strongest.—Sir, your humble servant—but pray, sir, in your 'Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot' (where, by the way, in your ample description of a great Poet, you slily hook in a whole hat-full of virtues to your own character) have not you this particular line?

'And thought a Lie, in verse or prose, the same—'"

Cibber laments it is not so, for "any accusation in smooth verse will always sound well, though it is not tied down to have a tittle of truth in it, when the strongest defence in poor humble prose, not having that harmonious advantage, takes nobody by the ear—very hard upon an innocent man! For suppose in prose, now, I were as confidently to insist that you were an honest, good-natured, inoffensive creature, would my barely saying so be any proof of it? No sure. Why then, might it not be supposed an equal truth, that both our assertions were equally false? Yours, when you call me impudent; mine, when I call you modest, &c. While my superiors suffer me occasionally to sit down with them, I hope it will be thought that rather the Papal than the Cibberian forehead ought to be out of countenance." I give this as a specimen of Cibber's serious reasonings—they are poor; and they had been so from a greater genius; for ridicule and satire, being only a mere abuse of eloquence, can never be effectually opposed by truisms. Satire must be repelled by satire; and Cibber's sarcasms obtained what Cibber's reasonings failed in.

[217] Vain as Cibber has been called, and vain as he affects to be, he has spoken of his own merits as a comic writer,—and he was a very great one,—with a manly moderation, very surprising indeed in a vain man. Pope has sung in his Dunciad, most harmoniously inhuman,

"How, with less reading than makes felons scape, Less human genius than God gives an ape, Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece, A patch'd, vamp'd, future, old, revived new piece; 'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Congreve, and Corneille, Can make a CIBBER, JOHNSON, and OZELL."

Blasting as was this criticism, it could not raise the anger of the gay and careless Cibber. Yet what could have put it to a sharper test? Johnson and Ozell are names which have long disappeared from the dramatic annals, and could only have been coupled with Cibber to give an idea of what the satirist meant by "the human genius of an ape." But listen to the mild, yet the firm tone of Cibber—he talks like injured innocence, and he triumphs over Pope, in all the dignity of truth.—I appeal to Cibber's posterity!

"And pray, sir, why my name under this scurvy picture? I flatter myself, that if you had not put it there, nobody else would have thought it like me; nor can I easily believe that you yourself do: but perhaps you imagined it would be a laughing ornament to your verse, and had a mind to divert other people's spleen with it as well as your own. Now let me hold up my head a little, and then we shall see how the features hit me." He proceeds to relate, how "many of those plays have lived the longer for my meddling with them." He mentions several, which "had been dead to the stage out of all memory, which have since been in a constant course of acting above these thirty or forty years." And then he adds: "Do those altered plays at all take from the merit of those more successful pieces, which were entirely my own?—When a man is abused, he has a right to speak even laudable truths of himself, to confront his slanderer. Let me therefore add, that my first Comedy of The Fool in Fashion was as much (though not so valuable) an original, as any work Mr. Pope himself has produced. It is now forty-seven years since its first appearance on the stage, where it has kept its station, to this very day, without ever lying one winter dormant. Nine years after this, I brought on The Careless Husband, with still greater success; and was that too

'A patch'd, vamp'd, future, old, revived new piece?'

Let the many living spectators of these plays, then, judge between us, whether the above verses came from the honesty of a satirist, who would be thought, like you, the upright censor of mankind. Sir, this libel was below you! Satire, without truth, recoils upon its author, and must, at other times, render him suspected of prejudice, even where he may be just; as frauds, in religion, make more atheists than converts; and the bad heart, Mr. Pope, that points an injury with verse, makes it the more unpardonable, as it is not the result of sudden passion, but of an indulged and slowly-meditating ill-nature. What a merry mixed mortal has nature made you, that can debase that strength and excellence of genius to the lowest human weakness, that of offering unprovoked injuries, at the hazard of your being ridiculous too, when the venom you spit falls short of your aim!" I have quoted largely, to show that Cibber was capable of exerting a dignified remonstrance, as well as pointing the lightest, yet keenest, shafts of sarcastic wit.

[218] Ayre's "Memoirs of Pope," vol. ii. p. 82.

[219] Even the "Grub-street Journal" had its jest on his appointment to the laureateship. In No. 52 was the following epigram:—

"Well, said Apollo, still 'tis mine To give the real laurel: For that my Pope, my son divine, Of rivals ends the quarrel. But guessing who would have the luck To be the birth-day fibber, I thought of Dennis, Tibbald, Duck, But never dreamt of Cibber!"—ED.

[220] It may be reasonably doubted, however, if vanity had not something to do with this—the vanity of appearing as a philosophical writer, and astonishing the friends who had considered him only as a good comedian. The volume was magnificently printed in quarto on fine paper, "for the author," in 1747. It is entitled, "The Character and Conduct of Cicero Considered, from the History of his Life by the Rev. Dr. Middleton; with occasional Essays and Observations upon the most Memorable Facts and Persons during that Period." The entire work is a series of somewhat too-familiar notes on the various passages of "Cicero's Life and Times," as narrated by Middleton. He terms the unsettled state after the death of Sylla "an uncomfortable time for those sober citizens who had a mind and a right to be quiet." His professional character breaks forth when he speaks of Roscius instructing Cicero in acting; and in the very commencement of his grave labour he rambles back to the theatre to quote a scene from Vanbrugh's Relapse, as a proof how little fashionable readers think while they read. Colley's well-meaning but free-and-easy reflections on the gravities of Roman history, in the progress of his work, are remarkable, and have all the author's coarse common sense, but very little depth or refinement—ED.

[221] With what good-humour he retorts a piece of sly malice of Pope's; who, in the notes to the Dunciad, after quoting Jacob's account of Cibber's talents, adds—"Mr. Jacob omitted to remark that he is particularly admirable in tragedy." To which Cibber rejoins—"Ay, sir, and your remark has omitted, too, that (with all his commendations) I can't dance upon the rope, or make a saddle, nor play upon the organ. My dear, dear Mr. Pope, how could a man of your stinging capacity let so tame, so low a reflection escape him? Why, this hardly rises above the petty malice of Miss Molly. 'Ay, ay, you may think my sister as handsome as you please, but if you were to see her legs!' If I have made so many crowded theatres laugh, and in the right place, too, for above forty years together, am I to make up the number of your dunces, because I have not the equal talent of making them cry too? Make it your own case. Is what you have excelled in at all the worse for your having so dismally dabbled in the farce of Three Hours after Marriage? What mighty reason will the world have to laugh at my weakness in tragedy, more than at yours in comedy?"

I will preserve one anecdote of that felicity of temper—that undisturbed good-humour which never abandoned Cibber in his most distressful moments. When he brought out, in 1724, his Caesar in Egypt, at a great expense, and "a beggarly account of empty boxes" was the result, it raised some altercations between the poet and his brother managers, the bard still struggling for another and another night. At length he closed the quarrel with a pun, which confessed the misfortune, with his own good-humour. In a periodical publication of the times I find the circumstance recorded in this neat epigram:—

On the Sixth Night of CIBBER'S "Caesar in Egypt."

When the pack'd audience from their posts retired, And Julius in a general hiss expired; Sage Booth to Cibber cried, "Compute our gains! These dogs of Egypt, and their dowdy queans, But ill requite these habits and these scenes, To rob Corneille for such a motley piece: His geese were swans; but zounds! thy swans are geese!" Rubbing his firm invulnerable brow, The bard replied—"The critics must allow 'Twas ne'er in Caesar's destiny TO RUN!" Wilks bow'd, and bless'd the gay pacific pun.

[222] A wicked wag of a lord had enticed Pope into a tavern, and laid a love-plot against his health. Cibber describes his resolute interference by snatching "our little Homer by the heels. This was done for the honour of our nation. Homer would have been too serious a sacrifice to our evening's amusement." He has metamorphosed our Apollo into a "Tom-tit;" but the Ovidian warmth, however ludicrous, will not now admit of a narrative. This story, by our comic writer, was accompanied by a print, that was seen by more persons, probably, than read the Dunciad. In his second letter, Cibber, alluding to the vexation of Pope on this ridiculous story, observes—"To have been exposed as a bad man, ought to have given thee thrice the concern of being shown a ridiculous lover." And now that he had discovered that he could touch the nerves of Pope, he throws out one of the most ludicrous analogies to the figure of our bard:—"When crawling in thy dangerous deed of darkness, I gently, with a finger and a thumb, picked off thy small round body by thy long legs, like a spider making love in a cobweb."

[223] "The EGOTIST, or Colley upon Cibber; being his own picture retouched to so plain a likeness that no one now would have the face to own it BUT HIMSELF.

'But one stroke more, and that shall be my last.'

London, 1743. DRYDEN."

[224] How many good authors might pursue their studies in quiet, would they never reply to their critics but on matters of fact, in which their honour may be involved. I have seen very tremendous criticisms on some works of real genius, like serpents on marble columns, wind and dart about, and spit their froth, but they die away on the pillars that enabled them to erect their malignant forms to the public eye. They fall in due time; and weak must be the substance of that pillar which does not stand, and look as beautiful, when the serpents have crawled over it, as before. Dr. Brown, in his "Letter to Bishop Lowth," has laid down an axiom in literary criticism:—"A mere literary attack, however well or ill-founded, would not easily have drawn me into a public expostulation; for every man's true literary character is best seen in his own writings. Critics may rail, disguise, insinuate, or pervert; yet still the object of their censures lies equally open to all the world. Thus the world becomes a competent judge of the merits of the work animadverted on. Hence, the mere author hath a fair chance for a fair decision, at least among the judicious; and it is of no mighty consequence what opinions the injudicious form concerning mental abilities. For this reason, I have never replied to any of those numerous critics who have on different occasions honoured me with their regard."



POPE AND ADDISON.

The quarrel between POPE and ADDISON originated in one of the infirmities of genius—a subject of inquiry even after their death, by Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE—POPE courts ADDISON—suspects ADDISON of jealousy—ADDISON'S foible to be considered a great poet—interview between the rivals, of which the result was the portrait of ATTICUS, for which ADDISON was made to sit.

Among the Literary Quarrels of POPE one acquires dignity and interest from the characters of both parties. It closed by producing the severest, but the most masterly portrait of one man of genius, composed by another, which has ever been hung on the satiric Parnassus for the contemplation of ages. ADDISON must descend to posterity with the dark spots of ATTICUS staining a purity of character which had nearly proved immaculate.

The friendship between Pope and Addison was interrupted by one of the infirmities of genius. Tempers of watchful delicacy gather up in silence and darkness motives so shadowy in their origin, and of such minute growth, that, never breaking out into any open act, they escape all other eyes but those of the parties themselves. These causes of enmity are too subtle to bear the touch; they cannot be inquired after, nor can they be described; and it may be said that the minds of such men have rather quarrelled than they themselves: they utter no complaints, but they avoid each other. All the world perceived that two authors of the finest genius had separated from motives on which both were silent, but which had evidently operated with equal force on both. Their admirers were very general, and at a time when literature divided with politics the public interest, the best feelings of the nation were engaged in tracking the obscure commencements and the secret growth of this literary quarrel, in which the amiable and moral qualities of Addison, and the gratitude and honour of Pope, were equally involved. The friends of either party pretended that their chiefs entertained a reciprocal regard for each other, while the illustrious characters themselves were living in a state of hostility. Even long after these literary heroes were departed, the same interest was general among the lovers of literature; but those obscure motives which had only influenced two minds—those imperceptible events, which are only events as they are watched by the jealousy of genius—eluded the most anxious investigation. Yet so lasting and so powerful was the interest excited by this literary quarrel, that, within a few years, the elegant mind of Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE withdrew from the severity of profounder studies to inquire into the causes of a quarrel which was still exciting the most opposite opinions. Blackstone has judged and summed up; but though he evidently inclines to favour Addison, by throwing into the balance some explanation for the silence of Addison against the audible complaints of Pope; though sometimes he pleads as well as judges, and infers as well as proves; yet even Blackstone has not taken on himself to deliver a decision. His happy genius has only honoured literary history by the masterly force and luminous arrangement of investigation, to which, since the time of Bayle, it has been too great a stranger.[225]

At this day, removed from all personal influence and affections, and furnished with facts which contemporaries could not command, we take no other concern in this literary quarrel but as far as curiosity and truth delight us in the study of human nature. We are now of no party—we are only historians!

Pope was a young writer when introduced to Addison by the intervention of that generously-minded friend of both, Steele. Addison eulogised Pope's "Essay on Criticism;" and this fine genius covering with his wing an unfledged bardling, conferred a favour which, in the estimation of a poet, claims a life of indelible gratitude.

Pope zealously courted Addison by his poetical aid on several important occasions; he gave all the dignity that fine poetry could confer on the science of medals, which Addison had written on, and wrote the finest prologue in the language for the Whig tragedy of his friend. Dennis attacked, and Pope defended Cato[226]. Addison might have disapproved both of the manner and the matter of the defence; but he did more—he insulted Pope by a letter to Dennis, which Dennis eagerly published as Pope's severest condemnation. An alienation of friendship must have already taken place, but by no overt act on Pope's side.

Not that, however, Pope had not found his affections weakened: the dark hints scattered in his letters show that something was gathering in his mind. Warburton, from his familiar intercourse with Pope, must be allowed to have known his literary concerns more than any one; and when he drew up the narrative,[227] seems to me to have stated uncouthly, but expressively, the progressive state of Pope's feelings. According to that narrative, Pope "reflected," that after he had first published "The Rape of the Lock," then nothing more than a hasty jeu d'esprit, when he communicated to Addison his very original project of the whole sylphid machinery, Addison chilled the ardent bard with his coldness, advised him against any alteration, and to leave it as "a delicious little thing, merum sal." It was then, says Warburton, "Mr. Pope began to open his eyes to Addison's character." But when afterwards he discovered that Tickell's Homer was opposed to his, and judged, as Warburton says, "by laying many odd circumstances together," that Addison,[228] and not Tickell, was the author—the alienation on Pope's side was complete. No open breach indeed had yet taken place between the rival authors, who, as jealous of dominion as two princes, would still demonstrate, in their public edicts, their inviolable regard; while they were only watching the advantageous moment when they might take arms against each other.

Still Addison publicly bestowed great encomiums on Pope's Iliad, although he had himself composed the rival version, and in private preferred his own.[229] He did this with the same ease he had continued its encouragement while Pope was employed on it. We are astonished to discover such deep politics among literary Machiavels! Addison had certainly raised up a literary party. Sheridan, who wrote nearly with the knowledge of a contemporary, in his "Life of Swift," would naturally use the language and the feelings of the time; and in describing Ambrose Phillips, he adds, he was "one of Mr. Addison's little senate."

But in this narrative I have dropt some material parts. Pope believed that Addison had employed Gildon to write against him, and had encouraged Phillips to asperse his character.[230] We cannot, now, quite demonstrate these alleged facts; but we can show that Pope believed them, and that Addison does not appear to have refuted them.[231] Such tales, whether entirely false or partially true, may be considered in this inquiry of little amount. The greater events must regulate the lesser ones.[232]

Was Addison, then, jealous of Pope? Addison, in every respect, then, his superior; of established literary fame when Pope was yet young; preceding him in age and rank; and fortunate in all the views of human ambition. But what if Addison's foible was that of being considered a great poet? His political poetry had raised him to an undue elevation, and the growing celebrity of Pope began to offend him, not with the appearance of a meek rival, with whom he might have held divided empire, but as a master-spirit, that was preparing to reign alone. It is certain that Addison was the most feeling man alive at the fate of his poetry. At the representation of his Cato, such was his agitation, that had Cato been condemned, the life of Addison might, too, have been shortened. When a wit had burlesqued some lines of this dramatic poem, his uneasiness at the innocent banter was equally oppressive; nor could he rest, till, by the interposition of a friend, he prevailed upon the author to burn them.[233]

To the facts already detailed, and to this disposition in Addison's temper, and to the quick and active suspicions of Pope, irritable, and ambitious of all the sovereignty of poetry, we may easily conceive many others of those obscure motives, and invisible events, which none but Pope, alienated every day more and more from his affections for Addison, too acutely perceived, too profoundly felt, and too unmercifully avenged. These are alluded to when the satirist sings—

Damn with faint praise; assent with civil leer; And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike; Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike, &c.

Accusations crowded faster than the pen could write them down. Pope never composed with more warmth. No one can imagine that Atticus was an ideal personage, touched as it is with all the features of an extraordinary individual. In a word, it was recognised instantly by the individual himself; and it was suppressed by Pope for near twenty years, before he suffered it to escape to the public.

It was some time during their avowed rupture, for the exact period has not been given, that their friends promoted a meeting between these two great men. After a mutual lustration, it was imagined they might have expiated their error, and have been restored to their original purity. The interview did take place between the rival wits, and was productive of some very characteristic ebullitions, strongly corroborative of the facts as they have been stated here. This extraordinary interview has been frequently alluded to. There can be no doubt of the genuineness of the narrative but I know not on what authority it came into the world.[234]

The interview between Addison and Pope took place in the presence of Steele and Gay. They met with cold civility. Addison's reserve wore away, as was usual with him, when wine and conversation imparted some warmth to his native phlegm. At a moment the generous Steele deemed auspicious, he requested Addison would perform his promise in renewing his friendship with Pope. Pope expressed his desire: he said he was willing to hear his faults, and preferred candour and severity rather than forms of complaisance; but he spoke in a manner as conceiving Addison, and not himself, had been the aggressor. So much like their humblest inferiors do great men act under the influence of common passions: Addison was overcome with anger, which cost him an effort to suppress; but, in the formal speech he made, he reproached Pope with indulging a vanity that far exceeded his merit; that he had not yet attained to the excellence he imagined; and observed, that his verses had a different air when Steele and himself corrected them; and, on this occasion, reminded Pope of a particular line which Steele had improved in the "Messiah."[235] Addison seems at that moment to have forgotten that he had trusted, for the last line of his own dramatic poem, rather to the inspiration of the poet he was so contemptuously lecturing than to his own.[236] He proceeded with detailing all the abuse the herd of scribblers had heaped on Pope; and by declaring that his Homer was "an ill-executed thing," and Tickell's had all the spirit. We are told, he concluded "in a low hollow voice of feigned temper," in which he asserted that he had ceased to be solicitous about his own poetical reputation since he had entered into more public affairs; but, from friendship for Pope, desired him to be more humble, if he wished to appear a better man to the world.

When Addison had quite finished schooling his little rebel, Gay, mild and timid (for it seems, with all his love for Pope, his expectations from the court, from Addison's side, had tethered his gentle heart), attempted to say something. But Pope, in a tone far more spirited than all of them, without reserve told Addison that he appealed from his judgment, and did not esteem him able to correct his verses; upbraided him as a pensioner from early youth, directing the learning which had been obtained by the public money to his own selfish desire of power, and that he "had always endeavoured to cut down new-fledged merit." The conversation now became a contest, and was broken up without ceremony. Such was the notable interview between two rival wits, which only ended in strengthening their literary quarrel; and sent back the enraged satirist to his inkstand, where he composed a portrait, for which Addison was made to sit, with the fine chiar' oscuro of Horace, and with as awful and vindictive features as the sombre hand of Juvenal could have designed.

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 asserts 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 gratitude 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 friendship between us, and to convince me of what he had said, assured 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 appetite 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 title-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 noble 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 Tasso'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 title-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 lordship, who burned the edition in his gardens at Battersea. The MS. had been delivered to our poet by his lordship, 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 publishing the work as his own, nor his avarice by its sale, which could never have taken place till the death of its author; a circumstance 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 assigned. 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 passions. 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 superstition 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 lordship'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 friendship, honour, and humanity."[239] An anecdote in this pamphlet assigns 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 nobody 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 lordship 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 friendship, 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 survivorships, 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 circumstance 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.

The reasonings of Bolingbroke appear at times to have disturbed the religious faith of our poet, and he owed much to Warburton in having that faith confirmed. But Pope rejected, with his characteristic good sense, Warburton's tampering with him to abjure the Catholic religion. On the belief of a future state, Pope seems often to have meditated with great anxiety; and an anecdote is recorded of his latest hours, which shows how strongly that important belief affected him. A day or two before his death he was at times delirious, and about four o'clock in the morning he rose from bed and went to the library, where a friend who was watching him found him busily writing. He persuaded him to desist, and withdrew the paper he had written. The subject of the thoughts of the delirious poet was a new theory on the "Immortality of the Soul," in which he distinguished between those material objects which tended to strengthen his conviction, and those which weakened it. The paper which contained these disordered thoughts was shown to Warburton, and surely has been preserved.

[239] "A letter to the Lord Viscount B——ke, occasioned by his treatment of a deceased friend." Printed for A. Moore, without date. This pamphlet either came from Warburton himself, or from one of his intimates. The writer, too, calls Pope his friend.

[240] We find also the name of Mallet closely connected with another person of eminence, the Patriot-Poet, Leonidas Glover. I take this opportunity of correcting a surmise of Johnson's in his Life of Mallet, respecting Glover, and which also places Mallet's character in a true light.

A minute life of Mallet might exhibit a curious example of mediocrity of talent, with but suspicious virtues, brought forward by the accident of great connexions, placing a bustling intriguer much higher in the scale of society than "our philosophy ever dreamt of." Johnson says of Mallet, that "It was remarkable of him, that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend." From having been accidentally chosen as private tutor to the Duke of Montrose, he wound himself into the favour of the party at Leicester House; he wrote tragedies conjointly with Thomson, and was appointed, with Glover, to write the Life of the Duke of Marlborough. Yet he had already shown to the world his scanty talent for biography in his "Life of Lord Bacon," on which Warburton so acutely animadverted.

According to Johnson's account, the Duchess of Marlborough assigned the task of writing the Life of the Duke to Glover and to Mallet, with a remuneration of a thousand pounds. She must, however, have mortified the poets by subjoining the sarcastic prohibition that "no verses should be inserted." Johnson adds, "Glover, I suppose, rejected with disdain the legacy, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet."

The cause why Glover declined this work could not, indeed, be known to Johnson: it arose from a far more dignified motive than the petty disdain of the legacy, which our great literary biographer has surmised. It can now be told in his own words, which I derive from a very interesting extract communicated to me by my friend Mr. Duppa, from that portion of the MS. Memoirs of Glover not yet published.

I shall first quote the remarkable codicil from the original will of her Grace, which Mr. Duppa took the pains to consult. She assigns her reasons for the choice of her historians, and discriminates between the two authors. After bequeathing the thousand pounds for them, she adds: "I believe Mr. Glover is a very honest man, who wishes, as I do, all the good that can happen, to preserve the liberties and laws of England. Mr. Mallet was recommended to me by the late Duke of Montrose, whom I admired extremely for his great steadiness and behaviour in all things that related to the preservation of our laws and the public good."—Thus her Grace has expressed a personal knowledge and confidence in Glover, distinctly marked from her "recommended" acquaintance Mallet.

Glover refused the office of historian, not from "disdain of the legacy," nor for any deficient zeal for the hero whom he admired. He refused it with sorrowful disappointment; for, besides the fantastical restrictions of "not writing any verses;" and the cruel one of yoking such a patriot with the servile Mallet, there was one which placed the revision of the work in the hands of the Earl of Chesterfield: this was the circumstance at which the dignified genius of Glover revolted. Chesterfield's mean political character had excited his indignation; and he has drawn a lively picture of this polished nobleman's "eager prostitution," in his printed Memoirs, recently published under the title of "Memoirs of a celebrated Literary and Political Character," p. 24.

In the following passage, this great-minded man, for such he was, "unburthens his heart in a melancholy digression from his plain narrative."

"Composing such a narrative (alluding to his own Memoirs) and endeavouring to establish such a temper of mind, I cannot at intervals refrain from regret that the capricious restrictions in the Duchess of Marlborough's will, appointing me to write the life of her illustrious husband, compelled me to reject the undertaking. There, conduct, valour, and success abroad; prudence, perseverance, learning, and science, at home; would have shed some portion of their graces on their historian's page: a mediocrity of talent would have felt an unwonted elevation in the bare attempt of transmitting so splendid a period to succeeding ages." Such was the dignified regret of Glover!

Doubtless, he disdained, too, his colleague; but Mallet reaped the whole legacy, and still more, a pension: pretending to be always occupied on the Life of Marlborough, and every day talking of the great discoveries he had made, he contrived to make this nonentity serve his own purposes. Once hinting to Garrick, that, in spite of chronology, by some secret device of anticipation, he had reserved a niche in this great work for the Roscius of his own times, the gratitude of Garrick was instant. He recollected that Mallet was a tragedy-writer; and it also appeared that our dramatic bardling had one ready. As for the pretended Life of Marlborough, not a line appears ever to have been written!

Such was the end of the ardent solicitude and caprice of the Duchess of Marlborough, exemplified in the last solemn act of life, where she betrayed the same warmth of passion, and the same arrogant caprice she had always indulged, at the cost of her judgment, in what Pope emphatically terms "the trade of the world." She was

"The wisest fool much time has ever made."

Even in this darling project of her last ambition, to immortalise her name, she had incumbered it with such arrogant injunctions, mixed up such contrary elements, that they were certain to undo their own purpose. Such was the barren harvest she gathered through a life of passion, regulated by no principle of conduct. One of the most finished portraits of Pope is the Atossa, in his "Epistle on Woman." How admirably he shows what the present instant proves, that she was one who, always possessing the means, was sure to lose the ends.



LINTOT'S ACCOUNT-BOOK.

An odd sort of a literary curiosity has fallen in my way. It throws some light on the history of the heroes of the Dunciad; but such minutiae literariae are only for my bibliographical readers.

It is a book of accounts, which belonged to the renowned BERNARD LINTOT, the bookseller, whose character has been so humorously preserved by Pope, in a dialogue which the poet has given as having passed between them in Windsor Forest. The book is entitled "Copies, when Purchased." The power of genius is exemplified in the ledger of the bookseller as much as in any other book; and while I here discover, that the moneys received even by such men of genius as Gay, Farquhar, Cibber, and Dr. King, amount to small sums, and such authors as Dennis, Theobald, Ozell, and Toland, scarcely amount to anything, that of Pope much exceeds 4000l.

I am not in all cases confident of the nature of these "Copies purchased;" those works which were originally published by Lintot may be considered as purchased at the sums specified: some few might have been subsequent to their first edition. The guinea, at that time, passing for twenty-one shillings and sixpence, has occasioned the fractions.

I transcribe Pope's account. Here it appears that he sold "The Key to the Lock" and "Parnell's Poems." The poem entitled, "To the Author of a Poem called Successio," appears to have been written by Pope, and has escaped the researches of his editors. The smaller poems were contributed to a volume of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Lintot.[241]

MR. POPE.

L s. d. 19 Feb. 1711-12. Statius, First Book } 16 2 6 Vertumnus and Pomona }

21 March, 1711-12. First Edition Rape 7 0 0

9 April, 1712. To a Lady presenting Voiture } Upon Silence } 3 16 6 To the Author of a Poem called Successio }

23 Feb. 1712-13. Windsor Forest 32 5 0

23 July, 1713. Ode on St. Cecilia's day 15 0 0

20th Feb. 1713-14. Additions to the Rape 15 0 0

1 Feb. 1714-15. Temple of Fame 32 5 0

30 April, 1715. Key to the Lock 10 15 0

17 July, 1716. Essay on Criticism[242] 15 0 0

13 Dec. 1721. Parnell's Poems 15 0 0

23 March, 1713. Homer, vol. i. 215 0 0 650 books on royal paper 176 0 0

9 Feb. 1715-16. Homer, vol. ii. 215 0 0

7 May, 1716. 650 royal paper 150 0 0 This article is repeated to the sixth volume of of Homer. To which is to be added another sum of 840l., paid for an assignment of all the copies. The whole of this part of the account amounting to 3203 4 0

Copy-moneys for the Odyssey, vols. i. ii. iii., and 750 of each vol. royal paper, 4to. 615 6 0

Ditto for the vols. iv. v. and 750 do. 425 18 7-1/2 ———————— L4244 8 7-1/2 ================

MR. GAY.

L s. d. 12 May, 1713. Wife of Bath 25 0 0

11 Nov. 1714. Letter to a Lady 5 7 6

14 Feb. 1714. The What d'ye call it? 16 2 6

22 Dec. 1715. Trivia 43 0 0 Epistle to the Earl of Burlington 10 15 0

4 May, 1717. Battle of the Frogs 16 2 6

8 Jan. 1717. Three Hours after Marriage 43 2 6 The Mohocks, a Farce, 2l. 10s. (Sold the Mohocks to him again.[243]) Revival of the Wife of Bath 75 0 0 —————— L234 10 0

MR. DENNIS.

L s. d. Feb. 24, 1703-4. Liberty Asserted, one half share[245] 7 3 0

10 Nov. 1708. Appius and Virginia 21 10 0

25 April, 1711. Essay on Public Spirit 2 12 6

6 Jan. 1711. Remarks on Pope's Essay 2 12 6

Dennis must have sold himself to criticism from ill-nature, and not for pay. One is surprised that his two tragedies should have been worth a great deal more than his criticism. Criticism was then worth no more than too frequently it deserves; Dr. Sewel, for his "Observations on the Tragedy of Jane Shore," received only a guinea.

I had suggested a doubt whether Theobald attempted to translate from the original Greek: one would suppose he did by the following entry, which has a line drawn through it, as if the agreement had not been executed. Perhaps Lintot submitted to pay Theobald for not doing the Odyssey when Pope undertook it.

MR. THEOBALD.

L s. d. 23 May, 1713. Plato's Phaedon 5 7 6 For AEsculus's Trag. 1 1 6 being part of Ten Guineas.

12 June, 1714. La Motte's Homer 3 4 6

April 21, 1714. Articles signed by Mr. Theobald, to translate for B. Lintot the 24 books of Homer's Odyssey into English blank verse. Also the four Tragedies of Sophocles, called OEdipus Tyrannus, OEdipus Coloneus, Trachiniae, and Philoctetes, into English blank verse, with Explanatory Notes to the twenty-four Books of the Odyssey, and to the four Tragedies. To receive, for translating every 450 Greek verses, with Explanatory Notes thereon, the sum of 2l. 10s.

To translate likewise the Satires and Epistles of Horace into English rhyme. For every 120 Latin lines so translated, the sum of 1l. 1s. 6d.

These Articles to be performed, according to the time specified, under the penalty of fifty pounds, payable by either party's default in performance.

Paid in hand, 2l. 10s.

It appears that Toland never got above 5l., 10l., or 20l., for his publications. See his article in "Calamities of Authors," p. 155. I discovered the humiliating conditions that attended his publications, from an examination of his original papers. All this author seems to have reaped from a life devoted to literary enterprise, and philosophy, and patriotism, appears not to have exceeded 200l.

Here, too, we find that the facetious Dr. King threw away all his sterling wit for five miserable pounds, though "The Art of Cookery," and that of "Love," obtained a more honourable price. But a mere school-book probably inspired our lively genius with more real facetiousness than any of those works which communicate so much to others.

DR. KING.

L s. d. 18 Feb. 1707-8. Paid for Art of Cookery 32 5 0

16 Feb. 1708-9. Paid for the First Part of Transactions 5 0 0 Paid for his Art of Love 32 5 0

23 June, 1709. Paid for the Second Part of the Transactions[246] 5 0 0

4 March, 1709-10. Paid for the History of Cajamai 5 0 0

10 Nov. 1710. Paid for King's Gods 50 0 0

1 July, 1712. Useful Miscellany, Part I 1 1 6 Paid for the Useful Miscellany 3 0 0

Lintot utters a groan over "The Duke of Buckingham's Works" (Sheffield), for "having been jockeyed of them by Alderman Barber and Tonson." Who can ensure literary celebrity? No bookseller would now regret being jockeyed out of his Grace's works!

The history of plays appears here somewhat curious:—tragedies, then the fashionable dramas, obtained a considerable price; for though Dennis's luckier one reached only to 21l., Dr. Young's Busiris acquired 84l. Smith's Phaedra and Hippolytus, 50l.; Rowe's Jane Shore, 50l. 15s.; and Jane Gray, 75l. 5s. Cibber's Nonjuror obtained 105l. for the copyright.

Is it not a little mortifying to observe, that among all these customers of genius whose names enrich the ledger of the bookseller, Jacob, that "blunderbuss of law," while his law-books occupy in space as much as Mr. Pope's works, the amount of his account stands next in value, far beyond many a name which has immortalised itself!

FOOTNOTES:

[241] "Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, by several Hands," 1712.—The second edition appeared in 1714; and in the title-page are enumerated the poems mentioned in this account, and Pope's name affixed, as if he were the actual editor—an idea which Mr. Nichols thought he affected to discountenance. It is probable that Pope was the editor. We see, by this account, that he was paid for his contributions.

[242] This was a new edition, published conjointly by Lintot and Lewis, the Catholic bookseller and early friend of Pope, of whom, and of the first edition, 1711, I have preserved an anecdote, p. 280.

[243] The late Isaac Reed, in the Biog. Dramatica, was uncertain whether Gay was the author of this unacted drama. It is a satire on the inhuman frolics of the bucks and bloods of those days, who imitated the savageness of the Indians whose name they assumed.[244] Why Gay repurchased "The Mohocks," remains to be discovered. Was it another joint production with Pope?—The literary co-partnership between Pope and Gay has never been opened to the curious. It is probable that Pope was consulted, if not concerned, in writing "The What d'ye call it?" which, Jacob says in his "Poetical Register," "exposes several of our eminent poets." Jacob published while Gay was living, and seems to allude to this literary co-partnership; for, speaking of Gay, he says: "that having an inclination to poetry, by the strength of his own genius, and the conversation of Mr. Pope, he has made some progress in poetical writings."

This tragi-comical farce of "The Mohocks" is satirically dedicated to Dennis, "as a horrid and tremendous piece, formed on the model of his own 'Appius and Virginia.'" This touch seems to come from the finger of Pope. It is a mock-tragedy, for the Mohocks themselves rant in blank verse; a feeble performance, far inferior to its happier predecessor, "The What d'ye call it?"

[244] The brutal amusements of these "Mohocks," and the helpless terror of London, is scarcely credible in modern days. Wild bands of drunken men nightly infested the streets, attacking and ill-using every passer-by. A favourite pastime was to surround their victim with drawn swords, pricking him on every side as he endeavoured to escape. Many persons were maimed and dangerously wounded. Gay, in his Trivia, has noted some of their more innocent practical jokes; and asks—

"Who has not trembled at the Mohock's name? Was there a watchman took his hourly rounds, Safe from their blows or new invented wounds?"

Swift, in his notes to Stella, has expressed his dread, while in London, of being maimed, or perhaps killed, by them.—ED.