His first trick was calculated to vex an editor’s soul. Ambrose Philips, as I have said, had published certain pastorals in the same volume with Pope’s. Philips, though he seems to have been less rewarded than most of his companions, was certainly accepted as an attached member of Addison’s “little senate;” and that body was not more free than other mutual admiration societies from the desire to impose its own prejudices upon the public. When Philips’s Distressed Mother, a close imitation of Racine’s Andromaque, was preparing for the stage, the Spectator was taken by Will Honeycomb to a rehearsal (Spectator, January 31, 1712), and Sir Roger de Coverley himself attended one of the performances (Ib., March 25) and was profoundly affected by its pathos. The last paper was of course by Addison, and is a real triumph of art as a most delicate application of humour to the slightly unworthy purpose of puffing a friend and disciple. Addison had again praised Philips’s Pastorals in the Spectator (October 30, 1712), and amongst the early numbers of the Guardian were a short series of papers upon pastoral poetry, in which the fortunate Ambrose was again held up as a model, whilst no notice was taken of Pope’s rival performance. Pope, one may believe, had a contempt for Philips, whose pastoral inanities, whether better or worse than his own, had not the excuse of being youthful productions. Philips has bequeathed to our language the phrase “Namby-pamby,” imposed upon him by Henry Carey (author of Sally in our Alley, and the clever farce Chrononhotonthologos), and years after this he wrote a poem to Miss Pulteney in the nursery, beginning, —
“Dimply damsel, sweetly smiling,”
which may sufficiently interpret the meaning of his nickname. Pope’s irritable vanity was vexed at the liberal praises bestowed on such a rival, and he revenged himself by an artifice more ingenious than scrupulous. He sent an anonymous article to Steele for the Guardian. It is a professed continuation of the previous papers on pastorals, and is ostensibly intended to remove the appearance of partiality arising from the omission of Pope’s name. In the first paragraphs the design is sufficiently concealed to mislead an unwary reader into the belief that Philips is preferred to Pope; but the irony soon becomes transparent, and Philips’s antiquated affectation is contrasted with the polish of Pope, who is said even to “deviate into downright poetry.” Steele, it is said, was so far mystified as to ask Pope’s permission to publish the criticism. Pope generously permitted, and accordingly Steele printed what he must soon have discovered to be a shrewd attack upon his old friend and ally. Some writers have found a difficulty in understanding how Steele could have so blundered. One might, perhaps, whisper in confidence to the discreet, that even editors are mortal, and that Steele was conceivably capable of the enormity of reading papers carelessly. Philips was furious, and hung up a birch in Button’s Coffee-house, declaring that he would apply it to his tormentor should he ever show his nose in the room. As Philips was celebrated for skill with the sword, the mode of vengeance was certainly unmanly, and stung the soul of his adversary, always morbidly sensitive to all attacks, and especially to attacks upon his person. The hatred thus kindled was never quenched, and breathes in some of Pope’s bitterest lines.
If not a “devilish trick,” this little performance was enough to make Pope’s relations to the Addison set decidedly unpleasant. Addison is said (but the story is very improbable) to have enjoyed the joke. If so, a vexatious incident must have changed his view of Pope’s pleasantries, though Pope professedly appeared as his defender. Poor old Thersites-Dennis published, during the summer, a very bitter attack upon Addison’s Cato. He said afterwards — though, considering the relations of the men, some misunderstanding is probable — that Pope had indirectly instigated this attack through the bookseller, Lintot. If so, Pope must have deliberately contrived the trap for the unlucky Dennis; and, at any rate, he fell upon Dennis as soon as the trap was sprung. Though Dennis was a hot-headed Whig, he had quarrelled with Addison and Steele, and was probably jealous, as the author of tragedies intended, like Cato, to propagate Whig principles, perhaps to turn Whig prejudices to account. He writes with the bitterness of a disappointed and unlucky man, but he makes some very fair points against his enemy. Pope’s retaliation took the form of an anonymous “Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis.” It is written in that style of coarse personal satire of which Swift was a master, but for which Pope was very ill fitted. All his neatness of style seems to desert him when he tries this tone, and nothing is left but a brutal explosion of contemptuous hatred. Dennis is described in his garret, pouring forth insane ravings prompted by his disgust at the success of Cato; but not a word is said in reply to Dennis’ criticisms. It was plain enough that the author, whoever he might be, was more anxious to satisfy a grudge against Dennis than to defend Dennis’s victim. It is not much of a compliment to Addison to say that he had enough good feeling to scorn such a mode of retaliation, and perspicuity enough to see that it would be little to his credit. Accordingly, in his majestic way, he caused Steele to write a note to Lintot (August 4, 1713), disavowing all complicity, and saying that if even he noticed Mr. Dennis’s criticisms, it should be in such a way as to give Mr. Dennis no cause of complaint. He added that he had refused to see the pamphlet when it was offered for his inspection, and had expressed his disapproval of such a mode of attack. Nothing could be more becoming; and it does not appear that Addison knew, when writing this note, that Pope was the author of the anonymous assault. If, as the biographers say, Addison’s action was not kindly to Pope, it was bare justice to poor Dennis. Pope undoubtedly must have been bitterly vexed at the implied rebuff, and not the less because it was perfectly just. He seems always to have regarded men of Dennis’s type as outside the pale of humanity. Their abuse stung him as keenly as if they had been entitled to speak with authority, and yet he retorted it as though they were not entitled to common decency. He would, to all appearance, have regarded an appeal for mercy to a Grub-street author much as Dandie Dinmont regarded Brown’s tenderness to a “brock” — as a proof of incredible imbecility, or, rather, of want of proper antipathy to vermin. Dennis, like Philips, was inscribed on the long list of his hatreds; and was pursued almost to the end of his unfortunate life. Pope, it is true, took great credit to himself for helping his miserable enemy when dying in distress, and wrote a prologue to a play acted for his benefit. Yet even this prologue is a sneer, and one is glad to think that Dennis was past understanding it. We hardly know whether to pity or to condemn the unfortunate poet, whose unworthy hatreds made him suffer far worse torments than those which he could inflict upon their objects.
By this time we may suppose that Pope must have been regarded with anything but favour in the Addison circle; and, in fact, he was passing into the opposite camp, and forming a friendship with Swift and Swift’s patrons. No open rupture followed with Addison for the present; but a quarrel was approaching which is, perhaps, the most celebrated in our literary history. Unfortunately, the more closely we look, the more difficult it becomes to give any definite account of it. The statements upon which accounts have been based have been chiefly those of Pope himself; and these involve inconsistencies and demonstrably inaccurate statements. Pope was anxious in later life to show that he had enjoyed the friendship of a man so generally beloved, and was equally anxious to show that he had behaved generously and been treated with injustice and, indeed, with downright treachery. And yet, after reading the various statements made by the original authorities, one begins to doubt whether there was any real quarrel at all; or rather, if one may say so, whether it was not a quarrel upon one side.
It is, indeed, plain that a coolness had sprung up between Pope and Addison. Considering Pope’s offences against the senate, his ridicule of Philips, his imposition of that ridicule upon Steele, and his indefensible use of Addison’s fame as a stalking-horse in the attack upon Dennis, it is not surprising that he should have been kept at arm’s length. If the rod suspended by Philips at Button’s be authentic (as seems probable), the talk about Pope, in the shadow of such an ornament,
is easily imaginable. Some attempts seem to have been made at a reconciliation. Jervas, Pope’s teacher in painting — a bad artist, but a kindly man — tells Pope on August 20, 1714, of a conversation with Addison. It would have been worth while, he says, for Pope to have been hidden behind a wainscot or a half-length picture to have heard it. Addison expressed a wish for friendly relations, was glad that Pope had not been “carried too far among the enemy” by Swift, and hoped to be of use to him at Court — for Queen Anne died on August 1st; the wheel had turned; and the Whigs were once more the distributors of patronage. Pope’s answer to Jervas is in the dignified tone; he attributes Addison’s coolness to the ill offices of Philips, and is ready to be on friendly terms whenever Addison recognizes his true character and independence of party. Another letter follows, as addressed by Pope to Addison himself; but here alas! if not in the preceding letters, we are upon doubtful ground. In fact, it is impossible to doubt that the letter has been manipulated after Pope’s fashion, if not actually fabricated. It is so dignified as to be insulting. It is like a box on the ear administered by a pedagogue to a repentant but not quite pardoned pupil. Pope has heard (from Jervas, it is implied) of Addison’s profession; he is glad to hope that the effect of some “late malevolences” is disappearing; he will not believe (that is, he is strongly inclined to believe) that the author of Cato could mean one thing and say another; he will show Addison his first two books of Homer as a proof of this confidence, and hopes that it will not be abused; he challenges Addison to point out the ill nature in the Essay upon Criticism; and winds up by making an utterly irrelevant charge (as a proof, he says, of his own sincerity) of plagiarism against one of Addison’s Spectators. Had such a letter been actually sent as it now stands, Addison’s good nature could scarcely have held out. As it is, we can only assume that during 1714 Pope was on such terms with the clique at Button’s, that a quarrel would be a natural result. According to the ordinary account the occasion presented itself in the next year.
A translation of the first Iliad by Tickell appeared (in June, 1715) simultaneously with Pope’s first volume. Pope had no right to complain. No man could be supposed to have a monopoly in the translation of Homer. Tickell had the same right to try his hand as Pope; and Pope fully understood this himself. He described to Spence a conversation in which Addison told him of Tickell’s intended work. Pope replied that Tickell was perfectly justified. Addison having looked over Tickell’s translation of the first book, said that he would prefer not to see Pope’s, as it might suggest double dealing; but consented to read Pope’s second book, and praised it warmly. In all this, by Pope’s own showing, Addison seems to have been scrupulously fair; and if he and the little senate preferred Tickell’s work on its first appearance, they had a full right to their opinion, and Pope triumphed easily enough to pardon them. “He was meditating a criticism upon Tickell,” says Johnson, “when his adversary sank before him without a blow.” Pope’s performance was universally preferred, and even Tickell himself yielded by anticipation. He said, in a short preface, that he had abandoned a plan of translating the whole Iliad on finding that a much abler hand had undertaken the work, and that he only published this specimen to bespeak favour for a translation of the Odyssey. It was, say Pope’s apologists, an awkward circumstance that Tickell should publish at the same time as Pope, and that is about all that they can say. It was, we may reply in Stephenson’s phrase, very awkward — for Tickell. In all this, in fact, it seems impossible for any reasonable man to discover anything of which Pope had the slightest ground of complaint; but his amazingly irritable nature was not to be calmed by reason. The bare fact that a translation of Homer appeared contemporaneously with his own, and that it came from one of Addison’s court, made him furious. He brooded over it, suspected some dark conspiracy against his fame, and gradually mistook his morbid fancies for solid inference. He thought that Tickell had been put up by Addison as his rival, and gradually worked himself into the further belief that Addison himself had actually written the translation which passed under Tickell’s name. It does not appear, so far as I know, when or how this suspicion became current. Some time after Addison’s death, in 1719, a quarrel took place between Tickell, his literary executor, and Steele. Tickell seemed to insinuate that Steele had not sufficiently acknowledged his obligations to Addison, and Steele, in an angry retort, called Tickell the “reputed translator” of the first Iliad, and challenged him to translate another book successfully. The innuendo shows that Steele, who certainly had some means of knowing, was willing to suppose that Tickell had been helped by Addison. The manuscript of Tickell’s work, which has been preserved, is said to prove this to be an error, and in any case there is no real ground for supposing that Addison did anything more than he admittedly told Pope, that is, read Tickell’s manuscript and suggest corrections.
To argue seriously about other so-called proofs, would be waste of time. They prove nothing except Pope’s extreme anxiety to justify his wild hypothesis of a dark conspiracy. Pope was jealous, spiteful, and credulous. He was driven to fury by Tickell’s publication, which had the appearance of a competition. But angry as he was, he could find no real cause of complaint, except by imagining a fictitious conspiracy; and this complaint was never publicly uttered till long after Addison’s death. Addison knew, no doubt, of Pope’s wrath, but probably cared little for it, except to keep himself clear of so dangerous a companion. He seems to have remained on terms of civility with his antagonist, and no one would have been more surprised than he to hear of the quarrel, upon which so much controversy has been expended.
The whole affair, so far as Addison’s character is concerned, thus appears to be a gigantic mare’s nest. There is no proof, or even the slightest presumption, that Addison or Addison’s friends ever injured Pope, though it is clear that they did not love him. It would have been marvellous if they had. Pope’s suspicions are a proof that in this case he was almost subject to the illusion characteristic of actual insanity. The belief that a man is persecuted by hidden conspirators is one of the common symptoms in such cases; and Pope would seem to have been almost in the initial stage of mental disease. His madness, indeed, was not such as would lead us to call him morally irresponsible, nor was it the kind of madness which is to be found in a good many people who well deserve criminal prosecution; but it was a state of mind so morbid as to justify some compassion for the unhappy offender.
One result besides the illustration of Pope’s character remains to be noticed. According to Pope’s assertion it was a communication from Lord Warwick which led him to write his celebrated copy of verses upon Addison. Warwick (afterwards Addison’s stepson) accused Addison of paying Gildon for a gross libel upon Pope. Pope wrote to Addison, he says, the next day. He said in this letter that he knew of Addison’s behaviour — and that, unwilling to take a revenge of the same kind, he would rather tell Addison fairly of his faults in plain words. If he had to take such a step, it would be in some such way as followed, and he subjoined the first sketch of the famous lines. Addison, says Pope, used him very civilly ever afterwards. Indeed, if the account be true, Addison showed his Christian spirit by paying a compliment in one of his Freeholders (May 17th, 1716) to Pope’s Homer.
Macaulay, taking the story for granted, praises Addison’s magnanimity, which, I must confess, I should be hardly Christian enough to admire. It was however asserted at the time that Pope had not written the verses which have made the quarrel memorable till after Addison’s death. They were not published till 1723, and are not mentioned by any independent authority till 1722, though Pope afterwards appealed to Burlington as a witness to their earlier composition. The fact seems to be confirmed by the evidence of Lady M. W. Montagu, but it does not follow that Addison ever saw the verses. He knew that Pope disliked him; but he probably did not suspect the extent of the hostility. Pope himself appears not to have devised the worst part of the story — that of Addison having used Tickell’s name — till some years later. Addison was s
ufficiently magnanimous in praising his spiteful little antagonist as it was; he little knew how deeply that antagonist would seek to injure his reputation.
And here, before passing to the work which afforded the main pretext of the quarrel, it may be well to quote once more the celebrated satire. It may be remarked that its excellence is due in part to the fact that, for once, Pope does not lose his temper. His attack is qualified and really sharpened by an admission of Addison’s excellence. It is therefore a real masterpiece of satire, not a simple lampoon. That it is an exaggeration is undeniable, and yet its very keenness gives a presumption that it is not altogether without foundation.
Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne: View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; 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; Alike reserved to praise or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; Dreading ev’n fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne’er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause: While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise; Who would not laugh if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?
Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series Page 159