Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series

by Alexander Pope

  In reality, one so finely endowed as Alexander Pope, could not easily lose his way in the most extensive or ill-digested library. And though he tells Atterbury, that at one time he abused his opportunities by reading controversial divinity, we may be sure that his own native activities, and the elasticity of his mind, would speedily recoil into a just equilibrium of study, under wider and happier opportunities. Reading, indeed, for a person like Pope, is rather valuable as a means of exciting his own energies, and of feeding his own sensibilities, than for any direct acquisitions of knowledge, or for any trains of systematic research. All men are destined to devour much rubbish between the cradle and the grave; and doubtless the man who is wisest in the choice of his books, will have read many a page before he dies that a thoughtful review would pronounce worthless. This is the fate of all men. But the reading of Pope, as a general result or measure of his judicious choice, is best justified in his writings. They show him well furnished with whatsoever he wanted for matter or for embellishment, for argument or illustration, for example and model, or for direct and explicit imitation.

  Possibly, as we have already suggested, within the range of English literature Pope might have found all that he wanted. But variety the widest has its uses; and, for the extension of his influence with the polished classes amongst whom he lived, he did wisely to add other languages; and a question has thus arisen with regard to the extent of Pope’s attainments as a self-taught linguist. A man, or even a boy, of great originality, may happen to succeed best, in working his own native mines of thought, by his unassisted energies. Here it is granted that a tutor, a guide, or even a companion, may be dispensed with, and even beneficially. But in the case of foreign languages, in attaining this machinery of literature, though anomalies even here do arise, and men there are, like Joseph Scaliger, who form their own dictionaries and grammars in the mere process of reading an unknown language, by far the major part of students will lose their time by rejecting the aid of tutors. As there has been much difference of opinion with regard to Pope’s skill in languages, we shall briefly collate and bring into one focus the stray notices.

  As to the French, Voltaire, who knew Pope personally, declared that he “could hardly read it, and spoke not one syllable of the language.” But perhaps Voltaire might dislike Pope? On the contrary, he was acquainted with his works, and admired them to the very level of their merits. Speaking of him after death to Frederick of Prussia, he prefers him to Horace and Boileau, asserting that, by comparison with them,

  ”Pope approfondit ce qu’ils ont effleura.

  D’un esprit plus hardi, d’un pas plus assure,

  Il porta le flambeau dans l’abeme de l’otre;

  Et l’homme avec lui seul apprit a se connoetre.

  L’art quelquefois frivole, et quelquefois divine,

  L’art des vers est dans Pope utile au genre humain.”

  This is not a wise account of Pope, for it does not abstract the characteristic feature of his power; but it is a very kind one. And of course Voltaire could not have meant any unkindness in denying his knowledge of French. But he was certainly wrong. Pope, in his presence, would decline to speak or to read a language of which the pronunciation was confessedly beyond him. Or, if he did, the impression left would be still worse. In fact, no man ever will pronounce or talk a language which he does not use, for some part of every day, in the real intercourse of life. But that Pope read French of an ordinary cast with fluency enough, is evident from the extensive use which he made of Madame Dacier’s labors on the Iliad, and still more of La Valterie’s prose translation of the Iliad. Already in the year 1718, and long before his personal knowledge of Voltaire, Pope had shown his accurate acquaintance with some voluminous French authors, in a way which, we suspect, was equally surprising and offensive to his noble correspondent. The Duke of Buckingham [Endnote: 5] had addressed to Pope a letter, containing some account of the controversy about Homer, which had then been recently carried on in France between La Motte and Madame Dacier. This account was delivered with an air of teaching, which was very little in harmony with its excessive shallowness. Pope, who sustained the part of pupil in this interlude, replied in a manner that exhibited a knowledge of the parties concerned in the controversy much superior to that of the duke. In particular, he characterized the excellent notes upon Horace of M. Dacier, the husband, in very just terms, as distinguished from those of his conceited and half-learned wife; and the whole reply of Pope seems very much as though he had been playing off a mystification on his grace. Undoubtedly the pompous duke felt that he had caught a Tartar. Now M. Dacier’s Horace, which, with the text, fills nine volumes, Pope could not have read except in French; for they are not even yet translated into English. Besides, Pope read critically the French translations of his own Essay on Man, Essay on Criticism, Rape of the Lock, &c. He spoke of them as a critic; and it was at no time a fault of Pope’s to make false pretensions. All readers of Pope’s Satires must also recollect numerous proofs, that he had read Boileau with so much feeling of his peculiar merit, that he has appropriated and naturalized in English some of his best passages. Voltaire was, therefore, certainly wrong.

  Of Italian literature, meantime, Pope knew little or nothing; and simply because he knew nothing of the language. Tasso, indeed, he admired; and, which is singular, more than Ariosto. But we believe that he had read him only in English; and it is certain that he could not take up an Italian author, either in prose or verse, for the unaffected amusement of his leisure.

  Greek, we all know has been denied to Pope, ever since he translated Homer, and chiefly in consequence of that translation. This seems at first sight unfair, because criticism has not succeeded in fixing upon Pope any errors of ignorance. His deviations from Homer were uniformly the result of imperfect sympathy with the naked simplicity of the antique, and therefore wilful deviations, not (like those of his more pretending competitors, Addison and Tickell) pure blunders of misapprehension. But yet it is not inconsistent with this concession to Pope’s merits, that we must avow our belief in his thorough ignorance of Greek when he first commenced his task. And to us it seems astonishing that nobody should have adverted to that fact as a sufficient solution, and in fact the only plausible solution, of Pope’s excessive depression of spirits in the earliest stage of his labors. This depression, after he had once pledged himself to his subscribers for the fulfilment of his task, arose from, and could have arisen from nothing else than, his conscious ignorance of Greek in connection with the solemn responsibilities he had assumed in the face of a great nation. Nay, even countries as presumptuously disdainful of tramontane literature as Italy took an interest in this memorable undertaking. Bishop Berkeley found Salvini reading it at Florence; and Madame Dacier even, who read little but Greek, and certainly no English until then, condescended to study it. Pope’s dejection, therefore, or rather agitation (for it impressed by sympathy a tumultuous character upon his dreams, which lasted for years after the cause had ceased to operate) was perfectly natural under the explanation we have given, but not otherwise. And how did he surmount this unhappy self-distrust? Paradoxical as it may sound, we will venture to say, that, with the innumerable aids for interpreting Homer which even then existed, a man sufficiently acquainted with Latin might make a translation even critically exact. This Pope was not long in discovering. Other alleviations of his labor concurred, and in a ratio daily increasing.

  The same formulae were continually recurring, such as,

  “But him answering, thus addressed the swift-footed Achilles;”

  Or,

  “But him sternly beholding, thus spoke Agamemnon the king of men.”

  Then, again, universally the Homeric Greek, from many causes, is easy; and especially from these two:

  1 st, The simplicity of the thought, which never gathers into those perplexed knots of rhetorical condensation, which we find in the dramatic poets of a higher civilization.

  2 dly, From the constant hounds set to the expansion
of the thought by the form of the metre; an advantage of verse which makes the poets so much easier to a beginner in the German language than the illimitable weavers of prose. The line or the stanza reins up the poet tightly to his theme, and will not suffer him to expatiate. Gradually, therefore, Pope came to read the Homeric Greek, but never accurately; nor did he ever read Eustathius without aid from Latin. As to any knowledge of the Attic Greek, of the Greek of the dramatists, the Greek of Plato, the Greek of Demosthenes, Pope neither had it nor affected to have it. Indeed it was no foible of Pope’s, as we will repeat, to make claims which he had not, or even to dwell ostentatiously upon those which he had. And with respect to Greek in particular, there is a manuscript letter in existence from Pope to a Mr. Bridges at Falham, which, speaking of the original Homer, distinctly records the knowledge which he had of his own “imperfectness in the language.” Chapman, a most spirited translator of Homer, probably had no very critical skill in Greek; and Hobbes was, beyond all question, as poor a Grecian as he was a doggerel translator; yet in this letter Pope professes his willing submission to the “authority” of Chapman and Hobbes, as superior to his own.

  Finally, in Latin Pope was a “considerable proficient,” even by the cautious testimony of Dr. Johnson; and in this language only the doctor was an accomplished critic. If Pope had really the proficiency here ascribed to him, he must have had it already in his boyish years; for the translation from Statius, which is the principal monument of his skill, was executed before he was fourteen. We have taken the trouble to throw a hasty glance over it; and whilst we readily admit the extraordinary talent which it shows, as do all the juvenile essays of Pope, we cannot allow that it argues any accurate skill in Latin. The word Malea, as we have seen noticed by some editor, he makes Malea; which in itself, as the name was not of common occurrence, would not have been an error worth noticing; but, taken in connection with the certainty that Pope had the original line before him —

  “Arripit ex templo Maleae de valle resurgens,”

  when not merely the scanning theoretically, but the whole rhythm is practically, to the most obtuse ear, would be annihilated by Pope’s false quantity, is a blunder which serves to show his utter ignorance of prosody. But, even as a version of the sense, with every allowance for a poet’s license of compression and expansion, Pope’s translation is defective, and argues an occasional inability to construe the text. For instance, at the council summoned by Jupiter, it is said that he at his first entrance seats himself upon his starry throne, but not so the inferior gods;

  ”Nec protinus ausi

  Coelicolae, veniam donee pater ipse sedendi

  Tranquilla jubet esse manu.”

  In which passage there is a slight obscurity, from the ellipsis of the word sedere, or sese locare; but the meaning is evidently that the other gods did not presume to sit down protinus, that is, in immediate succession to Jupiter, and interpreting his example as a tacit license to do so, until, by a gentle wave of his hand, the supreme father signifies his express permission to take their seats. But Pope, manifestly unable to extract any sense from the passage, translates thus:

  ”At Jove’s assent the deities around

  In solemn slate the consistory crown’d;”

  where at once the whole picturesque solemnity of the celestial ritual melts into the vaguest generalities. Again, at v. 178, ruptaeque vices is translated,” and all the ties of nature broke; “but by vices is indicated the alternate reign of the two brothers, as ratified by mutual oaths, and subsequently violated by Eteocles. Other mistakes might be cited, which seem to prove that Pope, like most self-taught linguists, was a very imperfect one. [Endnote: 6] Pope, in short, never rose to such a point in classical literature as to read either Greek or Latin authors without effort, and for his private amusement.

  The result, therefore, of Pope’s self-tuition appears to us, considered in the light of an attempt to acquire certain accomplishments of knowledge, a most complete failure. As a linguist, he read no language with ease; none with pleasure to himself; and none with so much accuracy as could have carried him through the most popular author with a general independence on interpreters. But, considered with a view to his particular faculties and slumbering originality of power, which required perhaps the stimulation of accident to arouse them effectually, we are very much disposed to think that the very failure of his education as an artificial training was a great advantage finally for inclining his mind to throw itself, by way of indemnification, upon its native powers. Had he attained, as with better tuition he would have attained, distinguished excellence as a scholar, or as a student of science, the chances are many that he would have settled down into such studies as thousands could pursue not less successfully than he; whilst as it was, the very dissatisfaction which he could not but feel with his slender attainments, must have given him a strong motive for cultivating those impulses of original power which he felt continually stirring within him, and which were vivified into trials of competition as often as any distinguished excellence was introduced to his knowledge.

  Pope’s father, at the time of his birth, lived in Lombard Street; [Endnote: 7] a street still familiar to the public eye, from its adjacency to some of the chief metropolitan establishments, and to the English ear possessing a degree of historical importance; first, as the residence of those Lombards, or Milanese, who affiliated our infant commerce to the matron splendors of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean; next, as the central resort of thrme jewellers, or “goldsmiths,” as they were styled, who performed all the functions of modern bankers from the period of the parliamentary war to the rise of the Bank of England, that is, for six years after the birth of Pope; and, lastly, as the seat, until lately, of that vast Post Office, through which, for so long a period, has passed the correspondence of all nations and languages, upon a scale unknown to any other country. In this street Alexander Pope the elder had a house, and a warehouse, we presume, annexed, in which he conducted the wholesale business of a linen merchant. As soon as he had made a moderate fortune he retired from business, first to Kensington, and afterwards to Binfield, in Windsor Forest. The period of this migration is not assigned by any writer. It is probable that a prudent man would not adopt it with any prospect of having more children. But this chance might be considered as already extinguished at the birth of Pope; for though his father had then only attained his forty-fourth year, Mrs. Pope had completed her forty-eighth. It is probable, from the interval of seven days which is said to have elapsed between Pope’s punishment and his removal from the school, that his parents were then living at such a distance from him as to prevent his ready communication with them, else we may be sure that Mrs. Pope would have flown on the wings of love and wrath to the rescue of her darling. Supposing, therefore, as we do suppose, that Mr. Bromley’s school in London was the scene of his disgrace, it would appear on this argument that his parents were then living in Windsor Forest. And this hypothesis falls in with another anecdote in Pope’s life, which we know partly upon his own authority. He tells Wycherley that he had seen Dryden, and barely seen him. Virgilium vidi tantum. This is presumed to have been in Will’s Coffee-house, whither any person in search of Dryden would of course resort; and it must have been before Pope was twelve years old, for Dryden died in 1700. Now there is a letter of Sir Charles Wogan’s, stating that he first took Pope to Will’s; and his words are, “from our forest.” Consequently, at that period, when he had not completed his twelfth year, Pope was already living in the forest.

  From this period, and so long as the genial spirits of youth lasted, Pope’s life must have been one dream of pleasure. He tells Lord Harvey that his mother did not spoil him; but that was no doubt because there was no room for wilfulness or waywardness on either side, when all was one placid scene of parental obedience and gentle filial authority. We feel persuaded that, if not in words, in spirit and inclination, they would, in any notes they might have occasion to write, subscribe themselves “your dutiful parents.”
And of what consequence in whose hands were the reins which were never needed? Every reader must be pleased to know that these idolizing parents lived to see their son at the very summit of his public elevation; even his father lived two years and a half after the publication of his Homer had commenced, and when his fortune was made; and his mother lived for nearly eighteen years more. What a felicity for her, how rare and how perfect, to find that he, who to her maternal eyes was naturally the most perfect of human beings, and the idol of her heart, had already been the idol of the nation before he had completed his youth. She had also another blessing not always commanded by the most devoted love; many sons there are who think it essential to manliness that they should treat their mother’s doating anxiety with levity, or even ridicule. But Pope, who was the model of a good son, never swerved in words, manners, or conduct, from the most respectful tenderness, or intermitted the piety of his attentions. And so far did he carry this regard for his mother’s comfort, that, well knowing how she lived upon his presence or by his image, he denied himself for many years all excursions which could not be fully accomplished within the revolution of a week. And to this cause, combined with the excessive length of his mother’s life, must be ascribed the fact that Pope never went abroad; not to Italy with Thomson or with Berkeley, or any of his diplomatic friends; not to Ireland, where his presence would have been hailed as a national honor; not even to France, on a visit to his admiring and admired friend Lord Bolingbroke. For as to the fear of sea-sickness, that did not arise until a late period of his life; and at any period would not have operated to prevent his crossing from Dover to Calais. It is possible that, in his earlier and more sanguine years, all the perfection of his filial love may not have availed to prevent him from now and then breathing a secret murmur at confinement so constant. But it is certain that, long before he passed the meridian of his life, Pope had come to view this confinement with far other thoughts. Experience had then taught him, that to no man is the privilege granted of possessing more than one or two friends who are such in extremity. By that time he had come to view his mother’s death with fear and anguish. She, he knew by many a sign, would have been happy to lay down her life for his sake; but for others, even those who were the most friendly and the most constant in their attentions, he felt but too certainly that his death, or his heavy affliction, might cost them a few sighs, but would not materially disturb their peace of mind. “It is but in a very narrow circle,” says he, in a confidential letter, “that friendship walks in this world, and I care not to tread out of it more than I needs must; knowing well it is but to two or three, (if quite so many,) that any man’s welfare or memory can be of consequence.” After such acknowledgments, we are not surprised to find him writing thus of his mother, and his fearful struggles to fight off the shock of his mother’s death, at a time when it was rapidly approaching. After having said of a friend’s death, “the subject is beyond writing upon, beyond cure or ease by reason or reflection, beyond all but one thought, that it is the will of God,” he goes on thus, “So will the death of my mother be, which now I tremble at, now resign to, now bring close to me, now set farther off; every day alters, turns me about, confuses my whole frame of mind.” There is no pleasure, he adds, which the world can give “equivalent to countervail either the death of one I have so long lived with, or of one I have so long lived for.” How will he comfort himself after her death? “I have nothing left but to turn my thoughts to one comfort, the last we usually think of, though the only one we should in wisdom depend upon. I sit in her room, and she is always present before me but when I sleep. I wonder I am so well. I have shed many tears; but now I weep at nothing.”