The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-07 00:00:00

was one way in which he might excel any of his prede
comers, which was by correctness, for, though he had
before him several great poets. he could boast of none
that were perfectly correct. Pope justified the advice,
and if correctness is not the highest praise to which a
poet can aspire, it is no mean distinction to show how
an author can be almost faultlessly correct, and almost
us invariably the reverse of all that is tame, mean, or
flat. There come, however, among compositions which
in any on'else would most strictly be called early, a tew
which will not bear to be dismissed with such a hasty
or superficial notice. The" Essay on Criticism" was
written when he was twenty or twenty-one years old,
and as such it appears a positive marvel. But he had
now entered a field on which he was quite a master—
the domain of good sense and of good taste, applied to
the current literature of a scholar, and the common
topics of life. Very soon after, however, as if to show
that if be had willed it he could have exercised as full
a mastery over the region of light, fancy, and sportive
imagery as of sober reflection and practical wisdom,
he wrote what is termed a heroic-comic poem,
the Rape of the Lack. Dr. Johnson calls this the most
exquisite example of ludicrous poetry, though I do not
think the word ludicrous a happy epithet of the Doctor's;
Dr. Warton calls it the best satire extant, and we are told
that Pope himself considered the intermixture
of the machinery of the sylphs with the action
of the story, as the most successful exertion of his art.
As my business to-night is more with Pope on the whole
as a poet, than with the details and the conduct of his
single poems, I must not suffer myself to linger on the
details of this delicious work. It is so finished and
nicely fitted together that it would scarcely answer to
separate any isolated passages from the context; be-
sides, exquisite as the entire poem is, yet the subject
being professedly trivial, any single extract might ap-
pear deficient in importance and dignity. The whole is
as sparkling as the jewelled cross upon the bosom of the
heroine— -

" On her white breast a sparkling cross she bore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore."
It is as stimulating as the pinch of snuff he so com-
pactly describes—
" The pungent grains of tittilating dust."—(Laughter.)
But there was one other chord of the poetic lyre which
Pope, still young in years, had yet to show his power to
strike, and it is the most thrilling in the whole compass of
song—the poetry of the passions and the heart. To
this class I assign the Elegy to the Memory of an Un-
fortunate Lady, and the ever-memorable Epistle from
Eloisa to Abelard. A few words will suffice hero for
the Elegy; its moral tendency cannot be defended, as it
appears, incidentally at least, to excuse and consecrate
suicide. In its execution it combines in a high degree
poetic diction with pathetic feeling. I must pause
longer on the Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard. I ought,
however, before I give vent to the full glow of panegyric
to make two admissions; one, that a sensitive delicacy
would have avoided the subject; the other, that the mat-
ter is not original, but is supplied in great degree by the
actual letters of the distinguished and unfortunate pair
who gave their names to the epistle. Where the adap-
tion, however, is so consummate, this makes a very slight
deduction from the merit of the author. The poem is not
long, but in point of execution, it appears to me ono of the
most faultless of human compositions; every thought is
passion, and every line is music. The struggle between
aspiring piety and forbidden love forms its basis, and the
scenery and accessories of monastic life, and the Roman
Catholic ritual furnish a back-ground highly congenial,
solemn, and picturesque. I must endeavour to justify
my panegyric by a few quotations. [Here follows some
well-drawn passages.] It would be a strange omission
in an estimate of the poetical achievements of Popo
to make no mention of his translation of Homer, though
the fact of its being a translation, and its length, would
rather put it beyond the limits of my present criticism.
Dr. Johnson calls his Illiad, and I am inclined to believe
with no more than perfect truth, the noblest version of
poetry which the world has ever seen. The main objection
alleged against it is, that being a professed translation of
Homer it is not Homeric.—(Hear, hear.) That it is full
of grace and sparkle, but misses the unmatched simplicity
and majesty of that great father of verse—(Hear, hear);
—that, if I may so express myself, it has not the twang
of Homer. All this, I think, must be admitted; by some
the poems of Sir Walter Scott, and old ballads like Chevy
Chase, have been thought to convey a better notion of
this Homeric twang than can be gathered from all the po-
lished couplets of Pope. Cowper—an honoured name—
tried a more literal version in blank verse, which cer-
tainly may be said to represent more closely at least the
simplicity of the original. Let us, however, come to
the practical test—as Lord Byron has asked concerning
these two translations, " Who can ever read Cowper,
and who will ever lay down Pope, except for the origi-
nal? As a child I first read Pope's Homer with a rap-
ture which no subsequent work could ever afford; and
children are not the worst judges of their own language."
It is no mere praise that it is the channel which has con-
veyed the knowledge of Homer to the general English
public, not to our scholars, of course. Though it is far
less to the purpose how, felt about this as a child than
how Lord Byron felt. I, too, remember the days (I fear,
indeed, that the anecdote will savour of egotism, but I
must not mind the imputation if it illustrates my author)
when I used to learn Pope's Mad by heart behind a
screen, while I was supposed to be engaged on lessons of
more direct usefulness; and I fancy that I was under the
strange hallucination at the time that I had got by heart
the four first books.—(Cheers.) I do not mention
this as a profitable example, but in order to show
the degree in which this translation was -calculated to
gain the mastery over the youthful mind. All the poems
of Pope, to which I have already referred, belong to that
period of life which, in all ordinary cases, would be called
youth. I believe that they must have been nearly alto-
gether completed before he was thirty. Those which I
may further have to quote from (in doing which I shall
hardly think it necessary to observe so much separate
order between the different poems as heretofore) were
the fruits of his matured years and settled powers. They
henceforth fall under one class of composition, that
which treats of men, their manners, and their morals;
they are comprised under their titles of satires and moral
essays. He himself speaks of the bent which his genius
now adopted,
"That not in fancy's maze he wandered long,
But stooped to truth, and moralized his song."
Upon which I again feel happy to find myself in full ea-
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Bishop
Atterbury, certainly no mean judges of intellectual merit,
declared the strength of Pope's genius lay eminently and
peculiarly in satire. What shall I then single cut as an
illustration of his satiric vein? The c haracter of Lord
Hervey, under the name of Sporus, is cited by Lord
Byron as a specimen of his rich fancy (generally, but
most erroneously, assumed to be the quality in which
Pope was chiefly deficient), and with this specimen of
fancy Lord Byron defied all his own contemporaries to
compete. That it does manifest injustice at least to the
abilities of Lord Hervey, will be acknowledged by all
who have read his very entertaining memoirs lately
published; but, moreover, able and brilliant as it is, it
is too disagreeable to repeat. Let me quote, then, his
famous character of Addison, who had given offenoo to
him, whether with good reason or not it is no part of
my present purpose, nor would it be in my power to de-
cide. Pope thought that Addison had treated him
slightingly and superciliously, and I believe took espe-
cially amiss the kind of notice he had bestowed upon the
Rape of the Lock. He speaks of him under the name
of Atticus; you will remark the consummate skill with
which he first does justice to his genius, and then de-
tracts from its lustre. It is also a great proof of the
cleverness of the satire, that sincere as our respect is
both for the genius and character of Addison, it is im-
possible to go through this piece of dissection without
believing that it must have touched upon some point, of
real soreness,
" Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires

True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires ;
Blessed 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 caus'd 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 reserv'd to blame, or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend ;
Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieg'd ;
And so obliging, that he ne'er obligtd ;
Like Cato, give his little Senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and tempters ev'ry sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise—
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he !"--(Cheers.)
Then I will take the character of the able, versatile, and
unprincipled Duke of Wharton:—
" Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the last of praise;
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him, or he dies;
Tho' wondering senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke."
[This couplet has been applied to the celebrated Mr.
Sheridan, and does not ill suit the author of the speeches
on Warren Hastings's trial, and the School fur Scandal.]
" Thus with each gift of nature and of art,
And wanting nothing but an honest heart,
Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt ;
And most contemptible, to shun contempt ;
His passion still, to covet gen'ral praise,
His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways ;
A constant bounty which no friend has made ;
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade ;
A fool, with more of wit than half mankind,
Too rash for thought, for action too refin'd
A tyrant to the wife his heart approves :
A rebel to the very king he loves;
He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still, flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule?
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool."
(Cheers.) Ihave given the characters of two men dairness
domands that, at least, I should give one of a woman. I
take tbat.of Chloe, which, like the two last has not,
that I am aware, been ascertained to belong to any ac-
tual person, but most of us willf eel that we have known
people to whom some parts of it at least might fit:—
"'Yet Chloe; sure, was formed without a spot— .
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