University of Virginia Library

POPE.

That system of compensation which is thought by
many to balance the apparent inequalities of human destiny,
is strikingly illustrated in the case of Alexander
Pope. Born in obscurity, he achieved a great reputation,
extremely feeble in frame, his mind was singulurly energetic,
cut off by deformity from many accomplishments,
he gave to his intellectual efforts an unrivalled elegance.
Who would have imagined, in contemplating the delicate
and misshapen child, that life, by any possibility, could
prove any thing to him but a weary experience, whose monotony
would be totally unrelieved? Yet glance at the adventures
of his poetical career, and in number and variety
they will be found equal to those of many a hale knight
or wild votary of fashion. At what a tender age he renounced
the dictation of masters, assumed the reins of
education, and resolutely launched into the profession of
a poet! How soon he was engaged in a quarrel with Ambrose
Phillips, and what a long satirical contest ensued
with Dennis and Cibber! Then followed his intimacy

with Lady Montague; their fierce encounters of wit;
their friendship, correspondence, and mutual enmity.
These and similar scenes of literary animosity, were
brightened by friendly intercourse with Gay, Swift, and
Bolingbroke: and relieved by long periods of study and
composition, visits to noblemen, short journeys, and domestic
duties. And thus the weak and diminutive poet
managed to rise above the dull existence his organization
seemed to ensure, and to find abundance of interest in
the excitement of critical warfare and the pursuit of poetical
renown. It is a wonderful evidence of the power of
mind, that this blighted germ of humanity—who was
braced in canvass in order to hold himself upright—put
to bed and undressed all his life like a child—often unable
to digest the luxuries he could not deny himself, or to
keep his eyes open at the honorable tables to which his
talents alone gave him access—should yet be the terror of
his foes, the envy of his rivals, and the admiration of his
friends. He could not manage the sword he so ostentatiously
displayed in society, but he wielded a pen whose
caustic satire was amply adequate to minister either to his
self-defence or revenge. He was `sent into this breathing
world but half made up,' and calls his existence `a
long disease;' but nature atoned for the unkindness, by
endowing him with a judgment marvellous for its refined
correctness. He could not enjoy with his neighbors the
healthful exercises of the chase; but while they were pursuing
a poor hare, with whose death ended the sport, his
mind was borne along in a race of rhyme destined to carry
his name with honor to posterity. He never laughed
heartily; but while weaving his heroics, forgot pain,
weariness and the world. In the street, he was an object
of pity—at his desk, a king. His head was early deprived
of hair, and ached severely almost every day of his life;
but his eyes were singularly expressive, and his voice
uncommonly melodious. In youth he suffered the decrepitude
of age, but at the same time gave evidence of mental
precocity and superior sense. He was unequal to a
personal rencontre with those who ridiculed his works;
but he has bestowed upon them an immortal vengeance in
the Dunciad. His unfortunate person shut him out from
the triumphs of gallantry, but his talents and reputation
long secured him the society and professed friendship of
the most brilliant woman of the day; and obtained for
him, during most of his life, the faithful care and companionship
of Martha Blount. He never knew the buoyancy
of spirit which good health induces, but was very familiar
with that keen delight that springs from successful
mental enterprize. He could not command the consideration
attached to noble birth; but, on the strength of his
intellectual endowments, he was always privileged to tax
the patience of his titled acquaintance for his own convenience
and pleasure.

Men of letters have been called a race of creatures of
a nature between the two sexes. Pope is a remarkable
exemplification of the idea. There is a tone of decided
manliness in the strong sense which characterizes his
productions, and a truly masculine vigor in the patient
application with which he opposed physical debility. His
disposition on the other hand was morbidly vain. He

was weak enough to indulge an ambition for distinguished
acquaintance, and a most effeminate caprice swayed
his attachments and enmities. Another prominent trait
increased his resemblance to the female sex. I allude to
a quality which the phrenologists call secretiveness. In
its healthy exercise its operation is invaluable. To its
influence is ascribed much of that address and tact, in
which women are so superior to men. The latter, in ordinary
affairs, generally adopt a very direct course. They
confide in strength rather than policy. They overlook
lesser means in the contemplation of larger ends. This,
indeed, is partly owing to their position. Nature always
gives additional resources where the relation is that of the
pursued rather than the pursuer. Hence, the insight into
character, the talent for observation, the skill in tracing
motives and anticipating results, which belong to women.
It is the abuse, however, of this trait that is obvious
in Pope. There seems little question that he was an
artful man. He made use of the most unnecessary stratagems
to compass a simple favor. His cunning, indeed,
was chiefly directed to the acquisition of fame; but nothing
subtracts more from our sense of reputation, than
a conviction that it is an exclusive end to its possessor.
Truly great men never trouble themselves about their
fame. They press bravely on in the path of honor and
leave their renown to take care of itself. It succeeds as
certainly as any law of nature. All elevated spirits have
a calm confidence in this truth. Washington felt it in
the darkest hour of the revolution, and Shakespeare unconsciously
realized it, when he concluded his last play,
and went quietly down to finish his days in the country.
Pope was a gifted mortal, but he was not of this calibre.
He thought a great deal about his reputation. He was
not satisfied merely to labor for it, and leave the result.
He disputed its possession inch by inch with the critics,
and resorted to a thousand petty tricks to secure its enjoyment.
The management he displayed in order to publish
his letters, is an instance in point. No one can read
them without feeling they were written for more eyes
than those of his correspondents. There is a labored
smartness, a constant exhibition of fine sentiment, which
is strained and unnatural. His repeated deprecation of
motives of aggrandizement, argues, `a thinking too precisely'
on the very subject; and no man, whose chief ambition
was to gain a few dear friends, would so habitually
proclaim it. These tender and delicate aspirations live
in the secret places of the heart. They are breathed in
lonely prayers, and uttered chiefly in quiet sighs. Scarcely
do they obtain natural expression amid the details of a
literary correspondence. True sentiment is modest. It
may tinge the conversation and give a feeling tone to the
epistle, but it makes not a confessional of every sentry-box,
or gallery. The letters of Pope leave upon the
mind an impression of affectation. Doubtless they contain
much that is sincere in sentiment and candid in opinion,
but the general effect lacks the freedom and heartiness
of genuine letter-writing. Many of the bard's
foibles should be ascribed to his bodily ailments, and the
indulgence which he always commanded. Nor should
we forget that he proved himself above literary servility—
and was, in many instances, a most faithful friend, and
always an exemplary son. Pope was the poet of wit
and fancy, rather than of enthusiasm and imagination.
His invention is often brilliant, but never grand. He
rarely excites any sentiment of sublimity, but often one of
pleasure. There is little in his poetry that seems the offspring
of emotion. He never appears to have written
from overpowering impulse. His finest verses have an
air of premeditation. We are not swept away by a torrent
of individual passion as in Byron, nor melted by a natural
sentiment as in Burns, nor exalted by a grandeur of
imagery as in Milton. We read Pope with a regular
pulse. He often provokes a smile, but never calls forth a
tear. His rationality approves itself to our understanding,
his fancifulness excites our applause; but the citadel
of the soul is uninvaded. We perceive, unawares perhaps,
that books have quickened the bard's conception far
more than experience. It may be fairly doubted whether
Pope possessed, in any great degree, the true poetical sensibility
to nature. He thought more of his own domains
than becomes a true son of the muse, and had a most
unpoetical regard for money, as well as contempt for poverty.
His favorite objects of contemplation were Alexander
Pope and Twickenham. We cannot wonder that
he failed as an editor of Shakspeare. Few objects or
scenes of the outward world awoke feelings in his bosom
“too deep for tears.” He never claimed such fellowship
with the elements as to fancy himself `a portion of the
tempest.' It is true he describes well; but where the
materials of his pictures are not borrowed, they resemble
authentic nomenclatures more than genial sketches. He
does not personify nature with the ardor of a votary. He
never follows with a lover's perception the phases of a
natural phenomenon. The evening wind might have
cooled his brow forever, ere he would have been prompted
to trace its course with the grateful fondness of Bryant.
He might have lived upon the sea coast, and never revelled
in its grandeur as did the Peer, and passed a daisy every
day, nor felt the meek appeal of its lowly beauty, as
did the Ploughman. Even in his letters, Pope depicts
scenery with a very cool admiration; and never seems
to associate it with any sentiment of moral interest.
Where any thing of this appears, it is borrowed. The
taste of Pope was evidently artificial to the last degree.
He delighted in a grotto decked out with looking-glass and
colored stones, as much as Wordsworth in a mountain-path,
or Scott in a border antiquity. The Rape of the
Lock is considered his most characteristic production, and
abounds with brilliant fancy and striking invention.
But to what is it devoted? The celebration of a trivial
incident in fashionable life. Its inspiration is not of the
grove, but the boudoir. It is not bright with the radiance
of truth, but with the polish of art. It breathes not the
fragrance of wild-flowers, but the fumes of tea. It displays
not the simple features of nature, but the paraphernalia
of the toilet. We know what the heroine wears and
what she does, but must conjecture her peculiar sentiments,
and make out of the details of her dress and circumstances,
an idea of her character.

Faultless lines indeed, and they ring most harmoniously;
but the poet of feeling would have thrilled us with
his description of Belinda's charms, and the poet of imagination
would have carried us beneath both the cross and
the bosom it adorned, to the young heart of the maiden,
and made us `leap on its pants triumphant.' Yet this
poem is an extraordinary proof of Pope's fancy. He has
invented a long story out of a single and not very interesting
fact; and he has told this tale in language the most
choice, and rhymes the most correct. The poem is like
the fruits and flowers of precious stones set in the exquisite
pietra dura tables of Italy,—clear, fanciful, rarely
combined, but unwarmed with any glow of nature; and
better calculated to awaken admiration than excite sympathy.

It is usual to speak of Pope as a poet of the past—
one whose peculiarities have given place to a new order
of things. But we have ever representatives of his school,
both in literature and life. Men who have cultivated their
manners to an elegant degree of plausibility, orators who
have become masters of an engaging elocution, the
grace of which wins us from criticism and reflection,
poets who have perfectly learned how to versify, and have
more sense than sensibility, more wit than enthusiasm,
more fancy than imaginative power;—such are legitimate
disciples of Pope. They are useful, attractive, often delightful
beings, and effect much in their way; but humanity
can be `touched to finer issues' than these conventional

though brilliant accomplishments. The truthful aspirant,
the mind elevated by great views and aims, the
spontaneous and overflowing soul—such spirits as Milton,
Burns, Coleridge, and Lamb, awaken a profounder regard.
The Essay on Man contains many truisms, a long array
of common-place facts, and a few interesting truths. The
theory it unfolds, whether the poet's or borrowed, affords
little consolation to an ardent and sensitive mind. Pope
cherished no very tender or comprehensive views of his
race. His observation enabled him only to `catch the
manners living as they rise;' and accordingly many of
his couplets have passed into proverbs. He inquires
A curious query for a poet whose distinction it is to enjoy
the insight of a generous imagination, and whose
keen sympathies take him constantly from the narrow
limits of the actual, soften the angles of mere logical perception;
and `round them with a sleep'—the sweet and
dreamy repose of poetical reverie. Pope sings not of
The Epistle to Abelard breathes, indeed, the tremulous
faith of love, and paints, not uneffectively, the struggle of
that passion in a vestal's heart, but the bard himself refers
us to the original letter for the sentiment of the
poem. Even the pious invocation of `The Dying Christian
to his Soul,' was written with a view to other effusions
of a similar nature. The Translations and Imitations
of Pope, greatly outweigh his original pieces—a
sufficient proof that poetry was to him more of an art than
an impulse. The Iliad, however little it may credit his
scholarship and fidelity to the original, is truly an extraordinary
evidence of his facility in versifying, and of his
patient industry. Pope's ideal lay almost wholly in language.
He thought that

To him we are mainly indebted for a new revelation of
the capabilities of English heroic verse. He gave the
most striking examples of his favorite theory, that `sound
should seem an echo to the sense.' He carried out the
improvement in diction which Dryden commenced; and
while Addison was producing beautiful specimens of reformed
prose, Pope gave a polish and point to verse before
unknown. When the vast number of his couplets
are considered, their fastidious correctness is truly astonishing.
How many examples occur to the memory
of his correct and musical rhymes, ringing like the clear
chimes of a favorite bell through a frosty atmosphere!
How often do we forget the poverty of the thought—the
familiarity of the image—the triteness of the truths they
convey, in the fascinating precision of the verse! It becomes,
indeed, wearisome at length from sameness; and
to be truly enjoyed must be only resorted to occasionally.

The poetical diction of Pope resembles mosaic-work.
His words, like the materials of that art, are fitted together
with a marvellous nicety. The pictures formed are
vivid, exact, and skilful. The consummate tact thus displayed
charms the fancy, and suggests a degree of patient
and tasteful labor which excites admiration. The best
mosaic paintings have a fresh vivacity of hue, and a distinctness
of outline, which gratifies the eye; but we yield
a higher tribute to the less formal and more spiritual products
of the pencil. And such is the distinction between
Pope and more imaginative poets. The bright enamel
of his rhymes, is like a frozen lake over which we glide,
as a skaiter before the wind, surrounded by a glittering
landscape of snow. There is a pleasing exhilaration in
our course, but little glow of heart or exultation of soul.
The poetry of a deeper and less artificial school is like
that lake on a summer evening, upon whose tide we float
in a pleasure-boat, looking upon the flowering banks, the
warm sunset, and the coming forth of the stars. To appreciate
justly the perfection to which Pope carried the
heroic verse, it is only necessary to consider how few
subsequent rhymers have equalled him. He created a
standard in this department which is not likely soon to
be superseded. Other and less studied metres have since
come into vogue, but this still occupies and must retain
an important place. It is doubtless the best for an occasional
poem intended for oral delivery. Few can manage
the Spenserian stanza with effect, and blank verse often
wearies an audience. There is a directness in the heroic
metre admirably adapted for immediate impression.
The thought is converged to bright sallies within its brief
limits, and the quickly succeeding rhymes sweeten the
sentiment to the ear. Finely chosen words are very effective
in the heroic measure, and images have a striking
relievo. For bold appeal, and keen satire, this medium
is unsurpassed; and it is equally susceptible of touching
melody. Witness Byron's description of the dead Medora,
and Campbell's protest against scepticism. Rogers
and our own Sprague have won their fairest laurels in heroic
verse. With this school of poetry, Pope is wholly
identified. He most signally exhibited its resources, and
to him is justly ascribable the honor of having made it
the occasion of refining the English language. He illustrates
the power of correctness—the effect of precision.
His example has done much to put to shame careless
habits of expression. He was a metrical essayist of excellent
sense, rare fancy, and bright wit. He is the
apostle of legitimate rhyme, and one of the true masters
of the art of verse.