by Thomas Moore
“Grimm has a remark of the same kind on the different destinies of the younger Crebillon and Rousseau. The former writes a licentious novel, and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh Review of Grimm’s Correspondence, seven or eight years ago.
“In regard ‘to the strange mixture of indecent, and sometimes profane levity, which his conduct and language often exhibited,’ and which so much shocks the tone of Pope, than the tone of the time. With the exception of the correspondence of Pope and his friends, not many private letters of the period have come down to us; but those, such as they are — a few scattered scraps from Farquhar and others — are more indecent and coarse than any thing in Pope’s letters. The comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Gibber, &c. which naturally attempted to represent the manners and conversation of private life, are decisive upon this point; as are also some of Steele’s papers, and even Addison’s. We all know what the conversation of Sir R. Walpole, for seventeen years the prime-minister of the country, was at his own table, and his excuse for his licentious language, viz. ‘that every body understood that, but few could talk rationally upon less common topics.’ The refinement of latter days, — which is perhaps the consequence of vice, which wishes to mask and soften itself, as much as of virtuous civilisation, — had not yet made sufficient progress. Even Johnson, in his ‘London,’ has two or three passages which cannot be read aloud, and Addison’s ‘Drummer’ some indelicate allusions.”
To the extract that follows I beg to call the particular attention of the reader. Those who at all remember the peculiar bitterness and violence with which the gentleman here commemorated assailed Lord Byron, at a crisis when both his heart and fame were most vulnerable, will, if I am not mistaken, feel a thrill of pleasurable admiration in reading these sentences, such as alone can convey any adequate notion of the proud, generous pleasure that must have been felt in writing them.
“Poor Scott is now no more. In the exercise of his vocation, he contrived at last to make himself the subject of a coroner’s inquest. But he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. I knew him personally, though slightly. Although several years my senior, we had been schoolfellows together at the ‘grammar-schule’ (or, as the Aberdonians pronounce it, ‘squeel’) of New Aberdeen. He did not behave to me quite handsomely in his capacity of editor a few years ago, but he was under no obligation to behave otherwise. The moment was too tempting for many friends and for all enemies. At a time when all my relations (save one) fell from me like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and my few friends became still fewer — when the whole periodical press (I mean the daily and weekly, not the literary press) was let loose against me in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions (from their usual opposition) of ‘The Courier’ and ‘The Examiner,’ — the paper of which Scott had the direction, was neither the last, nor the least vituperative. Two years ago I met him at Venice, when he was bowed in griefs by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the bitterness of domestic privation. He was then earnest with me to return to England; and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a different opinion, he replied to me,’that he and others had been greatly misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been taken to excite them. Scott is no more, but there are more than one living who were present at this dialogue. He was a man of very considerable talents, and of great acquirements. He had made his way, as a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. Poor fellow! I recollect his joy at some appointment which he had obtained, or was to obtain, through Sir James Mackintosh, and which prevented the further extension (unless by a rapid run to Rome) of his travels in Italy. I little thought to what it would conduct him. Peace be with him! and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as readily forgiven him, as the little injury which he had done to one who respected his talents and regrets his loss.”
In reference to some complaints made by Mr. Bowles, in his Pamphlet, of a charge of “hypochondriacism” which he supposed to have been brought against him by his assailant, Mr. Gilchrist, the noble writer thus proceeds: —
“I cannot conceive a man in perfect health being much affected by such a charge, because his complexion and conduct must amply refute it. But were it true, to what does it amount? — to an impeachment of a liver complaint. ‘I will tell it to the world,’ exclaimed the learned Smelfungus: ‘you had better (said I) tell it to your physician. ‘There is nothing dishonourable in such a disorder, which is more peculiarly the malady of students. It has been the complaint of the good and the wise and the witty, and even of the gay. Regnard, the author of the last French comedy after Molière, was atrabilarious, and Molière himself saturnine. Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Burns, were all more or less affected by it occasionally. It was the prelude to the more awful malady of Collins, Cowper, Swift, and Smart; but it by no means follows that a partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs. But even were it so,
“‘Nor best, nor wisest, are exempt from thee; Folly — Folly’s only free.’ PENROSE.
“Mendelsohn and Bayle were at times so overcome with this depression as to be obliged to recur to seeing ‘puppet-shows,’ and ‘counting tiles upon the opposite houses,’ to divert themselves. Dr. Johnson, at times, ‘would have given a limb to recover his spirits.’
“In page 14. we have a large assertion, that ‘the Eloisa alone is sufficient to convict him (Pope) of gross licentiousness.’ Thus, out it comes at last — Mr. B. does accuse Pope of ‘gross licentiousness,’ and grounds the charge upon a poem. The licentiousness is a ‘grand peut-être,’ according to the turn of the times being: — the grossness I deny. On the contrary, I do believe that such a subject never was, nor ever could be, treated by any poet with so much delicacy mingled with, at the same time, such true and intense passion. Is the ‘Atys’ of Catullus licentious? No, nor even gross; and yet Catullus is often a coarse writer. The subject is nearly the same, except that Atys was the suicide of his manhood, and Abelard the victim.
“The ‘licentiousness’ of the story was not Pope’s, — it was a fact. All that it had of gross he has softened; all that it had of indelicate he has purified; all that it had of passionate he has beautified; all that it had of holy he has hallowed. Mr. Campbell has admirably marked this in a few words (I quote from memory), in drawing the distinction between Pope and Dryden, and pointing out where Dryden was wanting. ‘I fear,’ says he, ‘that had the subject of ‘Eloisa’ fallen into his (Dryden’s) hands, that he would have given us but a coarse draft of her passion.’ Never was the delicacy of Pope so much shown as in this poem. With the facts and the letters of ‘Eloisa’ he has done what no other mind but that of the best and purest of poets could have accomplished with such materials. Ovid, Sappho (in the Ode called hers) — all that we have of ancient, all that we have of modern poetry, sinks into nothing compared with him in this production.
“Let us hear no more of this trash about ‘licentiousness.’ Is not ‘Anacreon’ taught in our schools? — translated, praised, and edited? and are the English schools or the English women the more corrupt for all this? When you have thrown the ancients into the fire, it will be time to denounce the moderns. ‘Licentiousness!’ — there is more real mischief and sapping licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian hymn, or a German comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was penned or poured forth since the rhapsodies of Orpheus. The sentimental anatomy of Rousseau and Mad. de S. are far more formidable than any quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles by reasoning upon the passions; whereas poetry is in itself passion, and does not systematise. It assails, but does not argue; it may be wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to optimism.”
Mr. Bowles having, in his pamphlet, c
omplained of some anonymous communication which he had received, Lord Byron thus comments on the circumstance.
“I agree with Mr. B. that the intention was to annoy him; but I fear that this was answered by his notice of the reception of the criticism. An anonymous writer has but one means of knowing the effect of his attack. In this he has the superiority over the viper; he knows that his poison has taken effect when he hears the victim cry; — the adder is deaf. The best reply to an anonymous intimation is to take no notice directly nor indirectly. I wish Mr. B. could see only one or two of the thousand which I have received in the course of a literary life, which, though begun early, has not yet extended to a third part of his existence as an author. I speak of literary life only; — were I to add personal, I might double the amount of anonymous letters. If he could but see the violence, the threats, the absurdity of the whole thing, he would laugh, and so should I, and thus be both gainers.
“To keep up the farce, within the last month of this present writing (1821), I have had my life threatened in the same way which menaced Mr. B.’s fame, excepting that the anonymous denunciation was addressed to the Cardinal Legate of Romagna, instead of to * * * *. I append the menace in all its barbaric but literal Italian, that Mr. B. may be convinced; and as this is the only ‘promise to pay’ which the Italians ever keep, so my person has been at least as much exposed to ‘a shot in the gloaming’ from ‘John Heatherblutter’ (see Waverley), as ever Mr. B.’s glory was from an editor. I am, nevertheless, on horseback and lonely for some hours (one of them twilight) in the forest daily; and this, because it was my ‘custom in the afternoon,’ and that I believe if the tyrant cannot escape amidst his guards (should it be so written), so the humbler individual would find precautions useless.”
The following just tribute to my Reverend Friend’s merits as a poet I have peculiar pleasure in extracting: —
“Mr. Bowles has no reason to ‘succumb’ but to Mr. Bowles. As a poet, the author of ‘The Missionary’ may compete with the foremost of his contemporaries. Let it be recollected, that all my previous opinions of Mr. Bowles s poetry were written long before the publication of his last and best poem; and that a poet’s last poem should be his best, is his highest praise. But, however, he may duly and honorably rank with his living rivals,” &c. &c. &c.
Among various Addenda for this pamphlet, sent at different times to Mr. Murray, I find the following curious passages: —
“It is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about ‘in-door nature’ and ‘artificial images,’ Pope was the principal inventor of that boast of the English, Modern Gardening. He divides this honour with Milton. Hear Warton:— ‘It hence appears that this enchanting art of modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every nation in Europe, chiefly owes its origin and its improvements to two great poets, Milton and Pope.’
“Walpole (no friend to Pope) asserts that Pope formed Kent’s taste, and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted for diffusing ‘a taste in laying out grounds.’ The design of the Prince of Wales’s garden was copied from Pope’s at Twickenham. Warton applauds ‘his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres.’ Pope was the first who ridiculed the ‘formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in gardening,’ both in prose and verse. (See, for the former, ‘The Guardian.’)
“‘Pope has given not only some of our first but best rules and observations on Architecture and Gardening.’ (See Warton’s Essay, vol. ii. , &c.&c.)
“Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in ‘Kendal green,’ and our Bucolical Cockneys, crying out (the latter in a wilderness of bricks and mortar) about ‘Nature,’ and Pope’s ‘artificial in-door habits?’ Pope had seen all of nature that England alone can supply. He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst the beautiful scenery of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at the country seats of Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough, Digby, and Bolingbroke; amongst whose seats was to be numbered Stowe. He made his own little five acres’ a model to Princes, and to the first of our artists who imitated nature. Warton thinks ‘that the most engaging of Kent’s works was also planned on the model of Pope’s, — at least in the opening and retiring shades of Venus’s Vale.’
“It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and he could ride (he rode to Oxford from London at a stretch), and he was famous for an exquisite eye. On a tree at Lord Bathurst’s is carved, ‘Here Pope sang,’ — he composed beneath it. Bolingbroke, in one of his letters, represents them both writing in a hayfield. No poet ever admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has done, as I will undertake to prove from his works, prose and verse, if not anticipated in so easy and agreeable a labour. I remember a passage in Walpole, somewhere, of a gentleman who wished to give directions about some willows to a man who had long served Pope in his grounds: ‘I understand, sir,’ he replied: ‘you would have them hang down, sir, somewhat poetical.’ Now if nothing existed but this little anecdote, it would suffice to prove Pope’s taste for Nature, and the impression which he had made on a common-minded man. But I have already quoted Warton and Walpole (both his enemies), and, were it necessary, I could amply quote Pope himself for such tributes to Nature as no poet of the present day has even approached.
“His various excellence is really wonderful: architecture, painting, gardening, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered, that English gardening is the purposed perfectioning of niggard Nature, and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch, double-post-and-rail, Hounslow-heath and Clapham-common sort of a country, since the principal forests have been felled. It is, in general, far from a picturesque country. The case is different with Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and I except also the lake counties and Derbyshire, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear Harrow on the Hill, and some spots near the coast. In the present rank fertility of ‘great poets of the age,’ and ‘schools of poetry’ — a word which, like ‘schools of eloquence’ and of ‘philosophy,’ is never introduced till the decay of the art has increased with the number of its professors — in the present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts of Naturals; — the Lakers, who whine about Nature because they live in Cumberland; and their under-sect (which some one has maliciously called the ‘Cockney School’), who are enthusiastical for the country because they live in London. It is to be observed, that the rustical founders are rather anxious to disclaim any connection with their metropolitan followers, whom they ungraciously review, and call cockneys, atheists, foolish fellows, bad writers, and other hard names, not less ungrateful than unjust. I can understand the pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of Windermere to what Mr. B * * terms ‘entusumusy’ for lakes, and mountains, and daffodils, and buttercups; but I should be glad to be apprised of the foundation of the London propensities of their imitative brethren to the same’ high argument.’ Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge have rambled over half Europe, and seen Nature in most of her varieties (although I think that they have occasionally not used her very well); but what on earth — of earth, and sea, and Nature — have the others seen? Not a half, nor a tenth part so much as Pope. While they sneer at his Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of Windsor except its brick?
“When they have really seen life — when they have felt it — when they have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of Middlesex — when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to its sources the Nile of the New River — then, and not till then, can it properly be permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not in Wales, been near it, when he described so beautifully the ‘artificial’ works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the ‘Man of Ross,’ whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could hardly have preserved his honest renown.
“If
they had said nothing of Pope, they might have remained ‘alone with their glory’ for aught I should have said or thought about them or their nonsense. But if they interfere with the little ‘Nightingale’ of Twickenham, they may find others who will bear it — I won’t. Neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration for him, who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence. The delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be the consolation of my age. His poetry is the Book of Life. Without canting, and yet without neglecting, religion, he has assembled all that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, ‘That of all the members of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a great poet there may be a thousand born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any in story.’ Here is a statesman’s opinion of poetry: it is honourable to him and to the art. Such a ‘poet of a thousand years’ was Pope. A thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in our literature. But it can want them — he himself is a literature.
“One word upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. ‘Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has not been able to point out above three or four mistakes in the sense through the whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a different kind.’ So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst; they will never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and feeling.