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POPE, ALEXANDER (1688–1744)
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See also:POPE, See also: There were, among the Roman Catholic families near See also:Bin-See also: It says something for Pope's docility at this See also:stage that he recognized so soon that a See also:long course of preparation was needed for such a magnum See also:opus, and began steadily and patiently to discipline himself. The epic was put aside and afterwards burnt; versification was industriously practised in See also:short " essays "; and an elaborate study was made of accepted critics and See also:models. He learnt most, as he acknowledged, from Dryden, but the See also:harmony of his See also:verse also owed something to an earlier writer, See also:George See also:Sandys, the translator of See also:Ovid. At the beginning of the 18th See also:century Dryden's success had given great See also:vogue to translations and modernizations. The See also:air was full of theories as to the best way of doing such things. What Dryden had touched Pope did not presume to meddle with—Dryden was his hero and See also:master; but there was much more of the same See also:kind to be done. Dryden had rewritten three of the See also:Canterbury tales; Pope tried his See also:hand at the See also:Merchant's Tale, and the See also:Prologue to the Wife of See also:Bath's Tale, and produced also an See also:imitation of the House of Fame. Dryden had translated See also:Virgil; Pope experimented on the Thebais of See also:Statius, Ovid's Heroides and Metamorphoses, and the Odyssey. He knew little Latin and less Greek, but there were older versions in English which helped him to the sense; and, when the correspondents to whom he submitted his versions pointed out mistranslations, he could See also:answer that he had always agreed with them, but that he had deferred to the older translators against his own See also:judgment. It was one of Pope's little vanities to try to give the impression that his metrical skill was more precocious even than it was, and we cannot accept his published versions of Statius and See also:Chaucer (published in " miscellanies " at intervals between 1709 and 1714) as incontrovertible See also:evidence of his proficiency at the age of sixteen or seventeen, the date, according to his own assertion, of their See also:composition. But it is indisputable that at the age of seventeen his skill in verse astonished a See also:veteran critic like Walsh, and some of his pastorals were in the hands of Sir George See also:Granville (afterwards Lord See also:Lansdowne) before 1706. His metrical See also:letter to Cromwell, which Elwin dates in 1707, when Pope was nineteen, is a brilliant feat of versification, and has turns of wit in it as easy and spirited as any to be found in his mature satires. Pope was twenty-one when he sent the " See also:Ode on Solitude " to Cromwell, and said it was written before he was twelve years old. Precocious Pope was, but he was also industrious; and he spent some eight or nine years in arduous and enthusiastic discipline, reading, studying, experimenting, taking the advice of some and laughing in his See also:sleeve at the advice of others, " poetry his only business," he said, " and idleness his only See also:pleasure," before anything of his appeared in See also:print. In these preliminary studies he seems to have guided himself by the See also:maxim formulated in a letter to Walsh (dated See also:July 2, 1706) that " it seems not so much the perfection of sense to say things that had never been said before, as to See also:express those best that have been said oftenest." His first publication was his " Pastorals." See also:Jacob See also:Tonson, the bookseller, had seen these pastorals in the hands of Walsh and See also:Congreve, and sent a polite See also:note (See also:April 20, 1706) to Pope asking that he might have them for one of his miscellanies. They appeared accordingly in May 1709 at the end of the See also:sixth See also:volume of Tonson's Poetical Miscellanies, containing contributions from See also:Ambrose See also:Philips, See also:Sheffield, See also:Garth and Rowe, with " See also:January and May," Pope's version of Chaucer's " Merchant's Tale." Pope's next publication was the Essay on Criticism (1711), written two years earlier, and printed without the author's name. " In every See also:work regard the writer's end " (1. 255) is one of its sensible precepts, and one that is often neglected by critics of the essay, who comment upon it as if Pope's end had been to produce an See also:original and profound See also:treatise on first principles. His aim was simply to condense, methodize, and give as perfect and novel expression as he could to floating opinions about the poet's aims and methods, and the critic's duties, to " what oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed " (1. 298). " The town " was interested in belles lettres, and given to conversing on the subject; Pope's essay was simply a brilliant contribution to the fashionable conversation. The youthful author said that he did not expect the See also:sale to be See also:quick because " not one See also:gentleman in sixty, even of liberal education, could understand it." The sales were slow until Pope caused copies to be sent to Lord Lansdowne and others, but its success was none the less brilliant for the delay. The town was fairly, dazzled by the See also:young poet's learning, judgment, and felicity of expression. Many of the admirers of the poem doubtless would have thought less of it if they had not believed all the See also:maxims to be original. " I admired," said See also:Lady See also:Mary Wortley See also:Montagu, " Mr Pope's Essay on Criticism at first very much, because I had not then read any of the See also:ancient critics, and did not know that it was all stolen." Pope gained See also:credit for much that might have been found, where he found it, in the Institutes of See also:Quintilian, in the numerous See also:critical writings of Rene See also:Rapin, and in Rene le See also:Bossu's treatise on epic poetry. See also:Addison has been made responsible for the exaggerated value once set on the essay, but Addison's See also:paper (Spectator, No. 253) was not unmixed praise. He deprecated the attacks made by Pope on contemporary literary reputations, although he did full See also:justice to the poet's metrical skill. Addison and Pope became acquainted with one another, and Pope's sacred See also:eclogue, " See also:Messiah," was printed as No. 378 of the Spectator. In the Essay on Criticism Pope provoked one See also:bitter personal enemy. in John See also:Dennis, the critic, by a description of him as Appius, who " stares, tremendous, with a See also:threat'ning See also:eye." Dennis retorted in Reflections . . upon a See also:late Rhapsody . . (1711), abusing Pope among other things for his personal deformity. Pope never forgot this brutal attack, which he described in a note inserted after Dennis's See also:death, as late as 1743, as written " in a manner perfectly lunatic." The See also:Rape of the See also:Lock in its first See also:form appeared in 1712 in See also:Lintot's Miscellanies; the " machinery " of sylphs and See also:gnomes was an afterthought, and the poem was republished as we now have it See also:early in 1714. William, 4th See also:Baron See also:Petre, had surreptitiously cut off a lock of See also:Miss Arabella Fermor's See also:hair, and the See also:liberty had been resented; Pope heard the story from his friend John Caryll, who suggested that the See also:breach between the families might be healed by making the incident the subject of a See also:mock-heroic poem like Boileau's Lutrin. Pope caught at the hint; the mock-heroic treatment of the See also:pretty frivolities of fashionable life just suited his freakish sprightliness of wit, and his studies of the See also:grand epic at the See also:time put him in excellent vein. The Rape of the Lock is admitted to be a masterpiece of airiness, ingenuity, and exquisite finish. But the poem struck See also:Taine as a piece of harsh, scornful, indelicate buffoonery, a See also:mere See also:succession of oddities and contrasts, of expressive figures unexpected and grinning, an example of English insensibility to French sweetness and refinement. Sir See also:Leslie See also:Stephen objected on somewhat different grounds to the poet's See also:tone towards See also:women. His_ See also:laughter at Pope's raillery was checked by the fact that women are spoken of in the poem as if they were all like Belinda. The poem shows the hand of the satirist who was later to assert that " every woman is at See also:heart a See also:rake," in the See also:epistle addressed to Martha See also:Blount.
Windsor Forest, modelled on Sir John See also:Denham's See also: . . Frenzy of Mr John Dennis (1713), which, though nominally in See also:defence of Addison, had for its See also:main purpose the gratification of Pope's own hostility to L• See also:ennis. Addison disavowed any connivance in this coarse attack in a letter written on his behalf by See also:Steele to Lintot, saying that if he noticed Dennis's attack at all it would be in such a way as to allow him no just cause of complaint. Coolness between Addison and Pope naturally followed this See also:episode. When the Rape of the Lock was published, Addison, who is said to have praised the poem highly to Pope in private, dismissed it in the Spectator with two sentences of patronizing faint praise to the young poet, and, coupling it with See also:Tickell's " Ode on the Prospect of Peace," devoted the See also:rest of the article to an elaborate puff of " the pastorals of Mr Philips." When Pope showed a leaning to the Tories in Windsor Forest, the members of Addison's coterie made insidious war on him. Within a few See also:weeks of the publication of the poem, and when it was the talk of the town, there began to appear in the Guardian (Nos. 22, 23, 28, 30, 32) a See also:series of articles on " Pastorals." Not a word was said about Windsor Forest, but everybody knew to what the See also:general principles referred. See also:Modern See also:pastoral poets were ridiculed for introducing Greek moral deities, Greek See also:flowers and fruits, Greek names of shepherds, Greek See also:sports and customs and religious See also:rites. They ought to make use of English rural See also:mythology—hobthrushes, fairies, goblins and witches; they should give English names to their shepherds; they should mention flowers indigenous to English See also:climate and See also:soil; and they should introduce English proverbial sayings, See also:dress, and customs. All excellent principles, and all neglected by Pope in Windsor Forest. The poem was fairly open to criticism in these points; there are many beautiful passages in it, showing See also:close though somewhat professional observation of nature, but the mixture of See also:heathen deities and conventional archaic fancies with modern realities is incongruous, and the comparison of See also:Queen See also:Anne to See also:Diana was ludicrous. But the sting of the articles did not See also:lie in the truth of the oblique criticisms. The pastorals of Ambrose Philips, published four years before, were again trotted out. Here was a true pastoral poet, the eldest born of See also:Spenser, the worthy successor of See also:Theocritus and Virgil! Pope took an amusing revenge, which turned the laugh against his assailants. He sent Steele an anonymous paper in continuation of the articles in the Guardian on pastoral poetry, reviewing the poems of Mr Pope by the See also:light of the principles laid down. Ostensibly Pope was censured for breaking the rules, and Philips praised for conforming to them, quotations being given from both. The quotations were sufficient to dispose of the pretensions of poor Philips, and Pope did not choose his own worst passages, accusing himself of actually deviating sometimes into poetry. Although the Guardian's principles were also brought into ridicule by See also:burlesque exemplifications of them after the manner of Gay's Shepherd's See also:Week, Steele, misled by the opening sentences, was at first unwilling to print what appeared to be a See also:direct attack on Pope, and is said to have asked Pope's consent to the publication, which was graciously granted. The links that attached Pope to the Tory party were strengthened by a new friendship. His first letter to See also:Swift, who became warmly attached to him, is dated the 8th of See also:December 1713. Swift had been a leading member of the See also:Brothers' See also:Club, from which the famous Scriblerus Club seems to have been an offshoot. The leading members of this informal literary society were Swift, See also:Arbuthnot, Congreve, See also:Bishop See also:Atterbury, Pope, Gay and Thomas See also:Parnell. Their See also:chief See also:object was a general war against the dunces, waged with great spirit by Arbuthnot, Swift and Pope. The estrangement from Addison was completed in connexion with Pope's translation of Homer. This enterprise was definitely undertaken in 1713. The work was to be published by subscription, as Dryden's Virgil had been. Men of all parties subscribed, their unanimity being a striking See also:proof of the position Pope had attained at the age of twenty-five. It was as if he had received a See also:national See also:commission as by general consent the first poet of his time. But the unanimity was broken by a discordant note. A member of fhe Addison clique, Tickell, attempted to run a See also:rival version. Pope suspected Addison's instigation; Tickell had at least Addison's encouragement. Pope's famous See also:character of Addison as " See also:Atticus " in the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (ii. 193–215) was, however, in-spired by resentment at insults that existed chiefly in his own See also:imagination, though Addison was certainly not among his warmest admirers. Pope afterwards claimed to have been magnanimous, but he spoiled his See also:case by the See also:petty inventions of his account of the See also:quarrel. The translation of Homer was Pope's chief employment for twelve years. The new pieces in the miscellanies published in 1717, his " See also:Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady," and his "Eloisa to See also:Abelard," were probably written some years before their publication. His " Eloisa to Abelard " was based on an English translation by John See also:Hughes of a French version of the Letters, which differed very considerably from the original Latin. The Iliad was delivered to the subscribers in instalments in 1715, 1717, 1718 and 1720. Pope's own defective scholarship made help necessary. William See also:Broome and John See also:Jortin supplied the bulk of the notes, and Thomas Parnell the See also:preface. For the translation of the Odyssey he took See also:Elijah See also:Fenton and Broome as coadjutors, who between them translated twelve out of the twenty-four books.' It was completed in 1725. The profitableness of ,the work was Pope's chief temptation to undertake it. His receipts for his earlier poems had totalled about £150, but he cleared more than £8000 by the two translations, after deducting all payments to coadjutors—a much larger sum than had ever been received by an English author before. The translation of Homer had established Pope's reputation with his contemporaries, and has endangered it ever since it was challenged. Opinions have varied on the purely literary merits of the poem, but with regard to it as a translation few have differed from See also:Bentley's criticism, " A See also:fine poem, Mr Pope, but you must not See also:call it Homer." His collaboration with Broome (q.v.) and Fenton (q.v.) 2 involved him in a series of recriminations. Broome was weak enough to sign a note at the end of the work understating the extent of Fenton's assistance as well as his own, and ascribing the merit of their translation, reduced to less than See also:half its real proportions, to a regular revision and correction—mostly imaginary—at Pope's hands. These falsehoods were deemed necessary by Pope to protect himself against possible protests from the subscribers. In 1722 he edited the poems of Thomas Parnell, and in 1725 made a considerable sum by an unsatisfactory edition of See also:Shakespeare, in which he had the assistance of Fenton and Gay. Pope, with his economical habits, was rendered See also:independent by the pecuniary success of his Homer, and enabled to live near London. The See also:estate at Binfield was sold, and he removed with his parents to Mawson's Buildings, See also:Chiswick, in 1716, and in 1719 to See also:Twickenham, to the house with which his name is associated. Here he practised elaborate landscape gardening on a small See also:scale, and built his famous grotto, which was really a See also:tunnel under the road connecting the See also:garden with the See also:lawn on the See also:Thames. He was constantly visited at Twickenham by his intimates, Dr John Arbuthnot, John Gay, See also:Bolingbroke I, 4, 19 and 20 are by Fenton; 2, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 18, 23, with notes to all the books, by Broome. 2 The correspondence with them is given in vol. viii. of Elwin and Courthope's edition. (after his return in 1723), and Swift (during his brief visits to See also:England in 1726 and 1727), and by many other friends of the Tory party. With Atterbury, bishop of See also:Rochester, he was on terms of affectionate intimacy, but he blundered in his evidence when he was called as a See also:witness on his behalf in 1723. In 1717 his father died, and he appears to have turned to the Blounts for sympathy in what was to him a very serious bereavement. He had early made the acquaintance of Martha and Teresa Blount, both of them intimately connected with his domestic See also:history. Their home was at Mapledurham, near Reading, but Pope probably first met them at the house of his See also:neighbour, Mr Englefield of Whiteknights, who was their grandfather. He begun to correspond with Martha Blount in 1712, and after 1717 the letters are much more serious in tone. He quarrelled with Teresa, who had apparently injured or prevented his suit to her See also:sister; and although, after her father's death in 1718, he paid her an See also:annuity, he seems to have regarded her as one of his most dangerous enemies. His friendship with Martha lasted all his life. So long as his See also:mother lived he was unwearying in his attendance on her, but after her death in 1733 his association with Martha Blount was more See also:constant. In See also:defiance of the See also:scandal-mongers, they paid visits together at the houses of See also:common friends, and at Twickenham she spent part of each See also:day with him. His earlier See also:attachment to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was apparently a more or less literary See also:passion, which perished under Lady Mary's ridicule. The See also:year 1725 may be taken as the beginning of the third See also:period of Pope's career, when he made his fame as a moralist and a satirist. It may be doubted whether Pope had the staying See also:power necessary for the composition of a great imaginative work, whether his crazy constitution would have held together through the See also:strain. He toyed with the idea of See also:writing a grand epic. He told Spence that he had it all in his See also:head, and gave him a vague (and it must be admitted not very promising) See also:sketch of the subject and See also:plan of it. But he never put any of it on paper. He shrank as with instinctive repulsion from the stress and strain of complicated designs. Even his prolonged task of translating weighed heavily on his spirits, and this was a much less formidable effort than creating an epic. He turned rather to designs that could be accomplished in detail, See also:works of which the parts could be separately laboured at and put together with patient care, into which happy thoughts could be fitted that had been struck out at See also:odd moments and in See also:ordinary levels of feeling. See also:Edward Young's See also:satire, The Universal Passion, had just appeared, and been received with more See also:enthusiasm than any thing published since Pope's own early successes. This alone would have been powerful inducement to Pope's emulous See also:temper. Swift was See also:finishing Gulliver's Travels, and came over to England in 1726. The survivors of the Scriblerus Club—Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay—resumed their old amusement of parodying and otherwise ridiculing See also:bad writers, especially bad writers in the Whig interest. Two volumes of their Miscellanies in See also:Prose and Verse were published in 1727. A third volume appeared in 1728, and a See also:fourth was added in 1732. According to Pope's own history of the Dunciad, an Heroic Poem in Three Books, which first appeared on the 28th of May 1728, the idea of it grew out of this. Among the Miscellanies was a " Treatise of the See also:Bathos or the See also:Art of Sinking in Poetry," in which poets were classified, with illustrations, according to their See also:eminence in the various arts of debasing instead of elevating their subject. No names were mentioned, but the specimens of bathos were assigned to various letters of the See also:alphabet, which, the authors boldly asserted, were taken at See also:random. But no sooner was the treatise published than the scribblers proceeded to take the letters to themselves, and in revenge to fill the See also:news-papers with the most abusive falsehoods and scurrilities they could devise. This gave Pope the opportunity he had hoped for, and provided him with an excuse for the personalities of the Dunciad, which had been in his mind as early as 1720. Among the most prominent See also:objects of his satire were See also:Lewis
See also:Theobald, See also:Colley See also:Cibber, John Dennis, See also:Richard Bentley, See also:Aaron Hill and See also:Bernard Lintot, who, in spite of his former relations with Pope, was now classed with the piratical See also:Edmund See also:Curll. The See also:book was published with the greatest precautions. It was anonymous, and professed to be a reprint of a See also:Dublin edition. When the success of the poem was assured, it was republished in 1729, and a copy was presented to the See also: In the edition which appeared in Pope's Works (1742), he was dethroned in favour of Colley Cibber, who had just written his Letter from Mr Cibber to Mr Pope inquiring into the motives that might induce him in his satyrical writings to be so frequently fond of Mr Libber's name (1742). Warburton's name is attached to many new notes, and one of the preliminary See also:dissertations by Ricardus See also:Aristarchus on the hero of the poem seems to be by him.
The four epistles of the Essay on Man (1733) were also intimately connected with passing controversies. They belong to the same intellectual See also:movement with See also: Pope sur l'homme. Warburton now saw fit to revise his See also:opinion of Pope's abilities and principles—for what See also:reason does not appear. In any case he now became as enthusiastic in his praise of Pope's orthodoxy and his See also:genius as he had before beenscornful, and proceeded to employ his unrivalled See also:powers of sophistry in a defence of the orthodoxy of the conflicting and inconsequent positions adopted in the Essay on Man. Pope was See also:wise enough to accept with all gratitude an ally who was so useful a friend and so dangerous an enemy, and from that time onward Warburton was the authorized commentator of his works. The Essay on Man was to have formed part of a series of philosophic poems on a systematic plan. The other pieces were to treat of human reason, of the use of learning, wit, education and riches, of See also:civil and ecclesiastical polity, of the character of women, &c. Of the ten epistles of the Moral Essays, the first four, written between 1731 and 1735, are connected with this See also:scheme, which was never executed. There was much bitter, and sometimes unjust, satire in the Moral Essays and the Imitations of See also:Horace. In these epistles and satires, which appeared at intervals, he was often the mouth-piece of his political friends, who were all of them in opposition to Walpole, then at the height of his power, and Pope chose the object of his attacks from among the See also:minister's adherents. Epistle III., " Of the Use of Riches," addressed to See also:Allen Bathurst, Lord Bathurst, in 1732, is a direct attack on Walpole's methods of corruption, and on his See also:financial policy in general; and the two dialogues (1738) known as the " See also:Epilogue to the Satires," professedly a defence of satire, form an eloquent attack on the See also:court. Pope was attached to the prince of See also:Wales's party, and he did not forget to insinuate, what was indeed the truth, that the queen had refused the prince her See also:pardon on her deathbed. The " Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot " contains a description of his personal attitude towards the scribblers and is made to serve as a " prologue to the satires." The See also:gross and unpardonable insults bestowed on Lord See also:Hervey and on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the first satire " to Mr See also:Fortescue provoked angry See also:retaliation from both. The description of See also:Timon's ostentatious See also:villa in Epistle IV., addressed to the See also:earl of Burlington, was generally taken as a picture of Canons, the seat of John See also:Brydges, See also:duke of See also:Chandos, one of Pope's patrons, and caused a great outcry, though in this case Pope seems to have been See also:innocent of express allusion. Epistle II., addressed to Martha Blount, contained the picture of Atossa, which was taken to be a portrait of Sarah Jennings, duchess of See also:Marlborough. One of the worst imputations on Pope's character was that he left this passage to be published when he had in effect received a bribe of £1000 from the duchess of See also:Marl-See also:borough for its suppression through the agency of See also:Nathanael See also:Hooke (d. 1763). As the passage eventually stood, it might be applied to Katherine, duchess of See also:Buckingham, a natural daughter of See also: Pope had gained See also:complete mastery over his See also:medium, the heroic See also:couplet, before he used it to express his hatred of the political and social evils which he satirized. The elaborate periphrases and superfluous ornaments of his earlier manner, as exemplified in the Pastorals and the Homer, disappeared; he turned to the uses of verse the ordinary See also:language of conversation, differing from everyday speech only in its exceptional brilliance and point. It is in these satires that his best work must be sought, and by them that his position among English poets must be fixed. It was ' In his edition of the Satires and Epistles (1866). the Homer chiefly that See also:Wordsworth and See also:Coleridge had in their eye when they began the polemic against the " poetic diction " of the 18th century, and struck at Pope as the See also:arch-corrupter. They were historically unjust to Pope, who did not originate this diction, but only furnished the most finished examples of it. At the beginning of the 19th century Pope still had an ardent admirer in See also:Byron, whose first satires are written in Pope's couplet. The much abused pseudo-poetic diction in substance consisted in an ambition to " rise above the vulgar See also:style," to dress nature to See also:advantage—a natural ambition when the arbiters of literature were See also:people of fashion. If one See also:corn- I pares Pope's " Messiah " or " Eloisa to Abelard," or an impassioned passage from the Iliad, with the originals that he paraphrased, one gets a more vivid idea of the consistence of pseudo-poetic diction than could be furnished by pages of See also:analysis. But Pope merely made masterly use of the established diction of his time, which he eventually forsook for a far more direct and vigorous style. A passage from the Guardian, in which Philips was commended as against him, runs: " It is a See also:nice piece of art to raise a See also:proverb above the vulgar style and still keep it easy and unaffected. Thus the old wish, ` See also:God rest his soul,' is very finely turned: " ' Then See also:gentle See also:Sidney liv'd, the shepherd's friend, Eternal blessings on his shade attend ! '
Pope would have despised so easy a See also:metamorphosis as this at any period in his career, and the work of his coadjutors in the Odyssey may be distinguished by this comparative cheapness of material. Broome's description of the clothes-washing by, See also:Nausicaa and her maidens in the sixth book may be compared with the original as a luminous specimen.
Pope's wit had won for him the friendship of many distinguished men, and his small fortune enabled him to meet them on a footing of See also:independence. He paid long visits at many great houses, especially at See also:Stanton See also:Harcourt, the home of his friend Lord See also:Chancellor Harcourt; at Oakley, the seat of Lord Bathurst; and at See also:Prior Park, Bath, where his See also:host was See also:Ralph Allen. With the last named he had a temporary disagreement owing to some slight shown to Martha Blount, but he was reconciled to him before his death.
He died on the 3oth of May 1744, and he was buried in the See also:parish See also: Secondly, men of letters were admitted to the inner circles of intrigue as they had never been before and as they have never been since. A See also:generation later Walpole defied them, and paid the rougher See also:instruments that he considered sufficient for his purpose in solid See also:coin of the See also:realm; but Queen Anne's statesmen, whether from difference of tastes or difference of policy, paid their See also:principal literary champions with social privileges and See also:honourable public appointments. Hence men of letters were directly infected by the See also:low political morality of the unsettled time. And the character of their poetry also suffered. The most prominent defects of the age—the lack of high and sustained imagination, the genteel liking for " nature to advantagedressed," the incessant striving after wit—were fostered, if not generated, by the social See also:atmosphere.
Pope's own ruling passion was the love of fame, and he had no scruples where this was concerned.. His vanity and his childish love of intrigue are seen at their worst in his petty manoeuvres to secure the publication of his letters during his lifetime. These intricate proceedings were unravelled with great See also:patience and ingenuity by See also: After manipulating his correspondence so as to place his own character in the best light, he deposited a copy in the library of Edward, second earl of Oxford, and then he had it printed. The sheets were offered to Curll by a See also:person calling himself P.T., who professed a See also:desire to injure Pope, but was no other than Pope himself. The copy was delivered to Curll in 1735 after long negotiations by an See also:agent who called himself R. Smythe, with a few originals to vouch for their authenticity. P. T. had See also:drawn up an See also:advertisement stating that the book was to contain answers from various peers. Curll was summoned before the House of Lords for breach of See also:privilege, but was acquitted, as the letters from peers were not in fact forthcoming. Difficulties then arose between Curll and P. T., and Pope induced a bookseller named Cooper to publish a Narrative of the Method by which Mr Pope's Private Letters were procured by Edmund Curti, Book-seller (1735). These preliminaries cleared the way for a show of indignation against piratical publishers and a " genuine " edition of the Letters of Mr Alexander Pope (1737, fol. and 4to). Unhappily for Pope's reputation, his'friend Caryll, who died before the publication, had taken a copy of Pope's letters before returning them. This letter-book came to light in the See also:middle of the 19th century, and. showed the freedom which Pope permitted himself in editing. The correspondence with Lord Oxford, preserved at Longleat, afforded further evidence of his tortuous dealings. The methods he employed to secure his correspondence with Swift were even more discreditable. The proceedings can only be explained as the See also:measures of a desperate man whose maladies seem to have engendered a passion for trickery. They are related in detail by Elwin in the introduction to vol. i. of Pope's Works. A man who is said to have " played the politician about cabbages and turnips," and who " hardly drank See also:tea without a stratagem," was not likely to be straightforward in a See also:matter in which his ruling passion was concerned. Against Pope's petulance and " general love of secrecy and cunning " have to be set, in any See also:fair judgment of his character, his exemplary conduct as a son, the See also:affection with which he was regarded in his own circle of intimates, and many well-authenticated instances of genuine and continued kindliness to persons in See also:distress. BIBL1oGaaPnY.—Various collected editions of Pope's Works appeared during his lifetime, and in 1751 an edition in nine volumes was published by a See also:syndicate of booksellers " with the commentaries of Mr Warburton." Warburton interpreted his editorial rights very liberally. By his notes he wilfully misrepresented the meaning of the allusions in the satires, and made them more agreeable to his friends and to the court, while he made opportunities for the gratification of his own spite against various individuals. See also:Joseph See also:Warton's edition in 1797 added to the See also:mass of commentary without giving much new elucidation to the allusions of the See also:text, which even Swift, with his exceptional facilities, had found obscure. In 1769–18o7 an edition was issued which included See also:Owen Ruffhead's Life of Alexander Pope (1769), inspired by Warburton. The notes of many commentators, with some letters and a memoir, were included in the Works of Alexander Pope, edited by W. L. See also:Bowles (io vols., 18o6). His Poetical Works were edited by Alexander See also:Dyce (1856); by R. Carruthers (1858) for See also:Bohn's Library; by A. W. See also: See also:Singer in 182o. See also:Samuel See also: Le Public et See also:les hommes de lettres en Angleterre au dixhuitieme siecle (1881); a See also:section of See also:Isaac D'See also:Israeli's Quarrels of Authors is devoted to Pope's literary animosities; and most important contributions to many vexed questions in the See also:biography of Pope, especially the publication of his letters, were made by C. W. Dilke in Notes and Queries and the See also:Athenaeum. These articles were reprinted by his See also:grandson, Sir Charles Dilke, in 1875, as The Papers of a Critic. (W. M.; M. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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