The Age of Pope

1

M. Sainte-Beuve, the greatest of French critics, frankly acknowledges his indebtedness to Boileau, whom he styles Louis the Fourteenth's 'Contrôleur Général du Parnasse.' 'S'il m'est permis de parler pour moi-même,' he writes, 'Boileau est un des hommes qui m'ont le plus occupé depuis que je fais de la critique, et avec qui j'ai le plus vécu en idée.' —Causeries du Lundi, tome sixième, p. 495.

2

Lecky's England, vol. i. p. 373.

3

The epithet is used in the Preface to the First Edition of Waller's Posthumous Poems, which Mr. Gosse believes was written by Atterbury, and he considers that this is the original occurrence of the phrase. —From Shakespeare to Pope, p. 248.

4

Messrs. Besant and Rice's novel, The Chaplain of the Fleet, gives a vivid picture of the life led in the Fleet, and also of the period.

5

Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, vol. ii. p. 55.

6

Lecky's England, vol. i. p. 479.

7

Shaftesbury's Characteristics, vol. i. p. 270.

8

Spectator, No. 126.

9

Lecky's England, vol. i. p. 522.

10

According to Hallam the thirty years which followed the Treaty of Utrecht 'was the most prosperous season that England had ever experienced.' —Const. Hist. ii. 464.

11

Some qualification may be made to these statements. Pope took pleasure in landscape gardening on the English plan, as opposed to the formality of the French and Dutch systems, and the design of the Prince of Wales's garden is said to have been copied from the poet's at Twickenham.

12

Elwin and Courthope's Pope, vol. ii. p. 160.

13

See the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

14

Elwin and Courthope's Pope, vol. v., p. 195.

15

'Lady Mary,' says Byron, 'was greatly to blame in that quarrel for having encouraged Pope… She should have remembered her own line,

'"He comes too near who comes to be denied."'

16

Studies in English Literature, p. 47. —Stanford.

17

Quin (1693-1766) was the famous actor, and Patterson was Thomson's deputy in the surveyor-generalship of the Leeward Isles, and ultimately his successor.

18

The Earl of Peterborough, the meteor-like brilliancy of whose actions forms one of the most striking chapters in the history of his time.

19

Life of Pope, p. 216.

20

'Pope and Swift,' says Dr. Johnson, 'had an unnatural delight in ideas physically impure, such as every other tongue utters with unwillingness, and of which every ear shrinks from the mention.'

21

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

22

No doubt many distinguished foreigners who appreciated the beauty of the poem had read it in the original.

23

Stephen's Pope, p. 163.

24

Lectures on Art, p. 70, Oxford.

25

See Martialis Epigrammata, book v. lii.

26

Fénelon was Archbishop of Cambray.

27

The Poetical Works of Gay, edited, with Life and Notes, by John Underhill, 2 vols.

28

'I'll swim through seas; I'll ride upon the clouds;I'll dig the earth; I'll blow out every fire;I'll rave; I'll rant; I'll rise; I'll rush; I'll war;Fierce as the man whom smiling dolphins boreFrom the prosaic to poetic shore.I'll tear the scoundrel into twenty pieces.'

'The reader,' Fielding adds in a note, 'may see all the beauties of this speech in a late ode called a Naval Lyric.'

29

Written but not published. The earlier books of the Night Thoughts appeared in 1742, the Grave in 1743, but in a letter dated Feb. 25th, 1741-2, Blair in transmitting the MS. of the poem to a friend states that the greater portion of it was composed several years before his ordination ten years previously. Southey states that Blair's Grave is the only poem he could call to mind composed in imitation of the Night Thoughts, but the style as well as the date contradicts this judgment.

30

The tradition is founded on a volume in the British Museum containing MS. corrections supposed to be in Pope's handwriting. It is now, however, the opinion of experts that the writing is not Pope's. If he be the author, it is the only example of blank verse which we have from his pen.

31

Cowper's line,

'Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,'

is not an improvement upon Garth's. Tempests, it has been justly said, do not beat.

32

The Spectator, No. 335.

33

Elwin and Courthope's Pope, vol. vii., p. 62.

34

Edward Young tried his skill on the same theme in a poetical epistle to Tickell, but his lines are leaden and his praise absurd. Addison's glory was so great, he says, as a statesman and a patriot, that

'It borders on disgrace

To say he sung the best of human race.'

35

To Lady Wardlaw Dr. Robert Chambers attributed twenty-five ballads, and among them several of the finest we possess, which are regarded as ancient by every other authority. If the assumption were proved, this lady would hold a distinguished and unique position among the poets of the Pope period, but there is absolutely no ground for the theory so zealously advocated by Chambers.

36

Cibber's Apology, p. 386.

37

Courthope's Addison, p. 150.

38

English Dramatic Literature, vol. ii., p. 603.

39

'It is a strange thing,' he writes, 'that you will not behave yourself with the obedience people of worse features do, but that I must be always giving you an account of every trifle and minute of my time.'

40

Steele had been previously married to Mrs. Stretch, a widow, who possessed an estate in the West Indies; but the lady did not long survive the marriage.

41

Victor's Original Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems, vol. i., p. 330.

42

Selections from Steele, by Austin Dobson. Introduction, p. xxx. Clarendon Press.

43

Life of Jonathan Swift, by John Forster, vol. i., pp. 164-174. Mr. Forster did not live to produce more than one volume of a work to which for many years he had given 'much labour and time.'

44

English Men of Letters – Jonathan Swift, by Leslie Stephen, p. 43.

45

Mrs. Pendarves writes (1733) 'The day before we came out of town we dined at Doctor Delany's, and met the usual company. The Dean of St. Patrick's was there in very good humour, he calls himself "my master," and corrects me when I speak bad English or do not pronounce my words distinctly. I wish he lived in England, I should not only have a great deal of entertainment from him, but improvement.' —Life and Correspondence of Mrs Delany, vol. i., p. 407.

46

Life of Swift, p. 299.

47

Jonathan Swift, a Biographical and Critical Study, by J. Churton Collins, p. 267.

48

See The Life and Works of Dr. Arbuthnot, by George A. Aitken. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

49

Daniel Defoe: his Life and recently discovered Writings, extending from 1716 to 1729. By William Lee. 3 vols.

50

Lee's Defoe, vol. i., p. 85. Of Defoe's fertility and capacity for work there cannot be a question; but the biographer's stupendous catalogue of his publications – 254 in number – contains many which are ascribed to him solely on what Mr. Lee regards as internal evidence.

51

English Men of Letters – Daniel Defoe. By William Minto. P. 170.

52

See note on page 248.

53

There can be no doubt, I think, despite Mr. Lee's arguments, that the work is as much a fiction as any other historical novel. That it may be based upon some authentic document is highly probable, although it is not necessary to agree with his biographer, that 'to claim for Defoe the authorship of the Cavalier, as a work of pure fiction, would be equivalent to a claim of almost superhuman genius.'

54

Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. ii., p. 597.

55

Four Centuries of English Letters, edited and arranged by W. Baptiste Scoones, p. 214.

56

These Letters were not published until after the earl's death, but many of them belong, chronologically, to our period. The first letter of the series was written in 1738.

57

Readers who remember Mr. Browning's estimate of 'sage Mandeville' in his Parleyings with Certain Persons may deem this criticism unjust; but the De Mandeville who speaks in that poem is the creation of the poet's imagination, or rather he is Mr. Browning himself.

58

Bolingbroke: a Historical Study, p. 133. By J. Churton Collins.

59

Walpole, p. 79. By John Morley. Macmillan.

60

Works of George Berkeley. Edited by George Sampson. With introduction by the Rt. Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, M.P. Vol. i., p. xxxi (London, 1897).

61

An Essay on Truth, 2nd edit., p. 298. 1771.

62

Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1842.

63

Sir James Macintosh, Encyclopædia Britannica.

64

The English Church and its Bishops. By Charles J. Abbey. Vol. i., p. 236.

65

See p. 194.

66

The Life and Opinions of the Rev. William Law, M.A. By J. H. Overton, M.A. P. 243.

67

Middleton's Miscellaneous Works, vol. i., p. 402.

68

The first edition of Edwards's work was entitled Supplement to Mr. Warburton's edition of Shakespeare, 1747. The third edition (1750) was called The Canons of Criticism and Glossary by Thomas Edwards. Of this volume seven editions were published. Edwards, who was born in 1699, died in 1757.