Part 37 (1/2)
FOOTNOTES:
[225] Sir William Blackstone's Discussion on the Quarrel between Addison and Pope was communicated by Dr. Kippis in his ”Biographia Britannica,” vol. i. p. 56. Blackstone is there designated as ”a gentleman of considerable rank, to whom the public is obliged for works of much higher importance.”
[226] Dennis a.s.serts in one of his pamphlets that Pope, fermenting with envy at the success of Addison's _Cato_, went to Lintot, and persuaded him to engage this redoubted critic to write the remarks on _Cato_--that Pope's grat.i.tude to Dennis for having complied with his request was the well-known narrative of Dennis ”being placed as a lunatic in the hands of Dr. Norris, a curer of mad people, at his house in Hatton-garden, though at the same time I appeared publicly every day, both in the park and in the town.” Can we suppose that Dennis tells a falsehood respecting Pope's desiring Lintot to engage Dennis to write down _Cato_? If true, did Pope wish to see Addison degraded, and at the same time take an opportunity of ridiculing the critic, without, however, answering his arguments? The secret history of literature is like that of politics?
[Dennis took a strong dislike to Addison's _Cato_, and his style of criticism is thus alluded to in the humorous account of his frenzy written by Pope: ”On all sides of his room were pinned a great many sheets of a tragedy called _Cato_, with notes on the margin by his own hand. The words _absurd_, _monstrous_, _execrable_, were everywhere written in such large characters, that I could read them without my spectacles.” Warton says that ”Addison highly disapproved of this bitter satire on Dennis, and Pope was not a little chagrined at this disapprobation; for the narrative was intended to court the favour of Addison, by defending his _Cato_: in which seeming defence Addison was far from thinking our author sincere.”]
[227] In the notes to the Prologue to the Satires.
[228] Pope's conjecture was perfectly correct. Dr. Warton confirms it from a variety of indisputable authorities.--Warton's ”Pope,”
vol. iv. p. 34.
[229] In the ”Freeholder,” May, 1716.
[230] Pope himself thus related the matter to Spence: ”Phillips seemed to have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations; and Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherly, in which he had abused both me and my relations very grossly.
Lord Warwick himself told me one day that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be well with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would never admit of a settled friends.h.i.+p between us, and to convince me of what he had said, a.s.sured me that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals, and had given him ten guineas after they were published.”--ED.
[231] The strongest parts of Sir William Blackstone's discussion turn on certain inaccurate dates of Ruffhead, in his statements, which show them to be inconsistent with the times when they are alleged to have happened. These erroneous dates had been detected in an able article in the Monthly Review on that work, April, 1769. Ruffhead is a tasteless, confused, and unskilful writer--Sir William has laid great stress on the incredible story of Addison paying Gildon to write against Pope, ”a man so amiable in his moral character.” It is possible that the Earl of Warwick, who conveyed the information, might have been a malicious, lying youth; but then Pope had some knowledge of mankind--he believed the story, for he wrote instantly, with honest though heated feelings, to Addison, and sent him, at that moment, the first sketch of the character of Atticus. Addison used him very civilly ever after--but it does not appear that Addison ever contradicted the tale of the officious Earl. All these facts, which Pope repeated many years after to Spence, Sir William was not acquainted with, for they were transcribed from Spence's papers by Johnson, after Blackstone had written.
[This is fully in accordance with his previous conduct, as he described it to Spence; on the first notification of the Earl of Warwick's news, ”the next day when I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak severely of him, in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; and that I should rather tell himself freely of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner: I then adjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my Satire on Addison. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever after, and never did me any injustice that I know of from that time to his death, which was about three years after.”]
[232] That Addison did occasionally divert Pope's friends from him, appears from the advice which Lady Mary Wortley Montague says he gave to her--”Leave him as soon as you can, he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appet.i.te to satire.” Malone thinks this may have been said under the irritation produced by the verses on Addison, which Pope sent to him, as described above. Pope's love of satire, and unflinching use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison's nervous dislike to it.--ED.
[233] From Lord Egmont's MS. Collections.--See the ”Addenda Kippis's Biographia Britannica.”
[234] The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable interview I have hitherto only traced to ”Memoirs of the Life and Writings of A. Pope, Esq., by William Ayre, Esq.,”
1745, vol. i. p. 100. This work comes in a very suspicious form; it is a huddled compilation, yet contains some curious matters; and pretends, in the t.i.tle-page, to be occasionally drawn from ”original MSS. and the testimonies of persons of honour.” He declares, in the preface, that he and his friends ”had means and some helps which were never public.” He sometimes appeals to several n.o.ble friends of Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publication, and that of its execution, are not in its favour. These volumes were written within six months of the decease of our poet; have no publisher's name; and yet the author, whoever he was, took out ”a patent, under his majesty's royal signet,” for securing the copyright. This Ayre is so obscure an author, though a translator of Ta.s.so's ”Aminta,”
that he seems to have escaped even the minor chronicles of literature. At the time of its publication there appeared ”Remarks on Squire Ayre's Memoirs of Pope.” The writer pretends he has discovered him to be only one of the renowned Edmund Curll's ”squires,” who, about that time, had created an order of literary squires, ready to tramp at the funeral of every great personage with his life. The ”Remarker” then addresses Curll, and insinuates he speaks from personal knowledge of the man:--”You have an adversaria of t.i.tle-pages of your own contrivance, and which your authors are to write books to. Among what you call _the occasional, or black list_, I have seen Memoirs of Dean Swift, Pope, &c.” Curll, indeed, was then sending forth many pseudo squires, with lives of ”Congreve,” ”Mrs. Oldfield,” &c.; all which contained some curious particulars, picked up in coffee-houses, conversations, or pamphlets of the day. This William Ayre I accept as ”a squire of low degree,” but a real personage. As for this interview, Ayre was certainly incompetent to the invention of a single stroke of the conversations detailed: where he obtained all these interesting particulars, I have not discovered. Johnson alludes to this interview, states some of its results, but refers to no other authority than floating rumours.
[235] The line stood originally, and nearly literally copied from Isaiah--
”He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes;”
which Steele retouched, as it now stands--
”From every face he wipes off every tear.”
Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks, has too much of modern quaintness. The difficulty of choice lies between that naked simplicity which scarcely affects, and those strokes of art which are too apparent.
[236] The last line of Addison's tragedy read originally--
”And oh! 'twas this that ended Cato's life.”
A very weak line, which was altered at the suggestion of Pope as it stands at present:--
”And robs the guilty world of Cato's life.”--ED.
BOLINGBROKE AND MALLET'S POSTHUMOUS QUARREL WITH POPE.