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DRYDEN VERSUS POPE: A CONTROVERSY IN LETTERS TO

THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, 1789-1791

By

Gretchen M. Foster

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF ENGLISH

Department of English

1988
Copyright by
Gretchen M. Foster

1987
ABSTRACT

DRYDEN VERSUS POPE: A CONTROVERSY IN LETTERS TO

THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, 1789-1791

By

Gretchen M. Foster

In 1789 British poetess, Anna Seward entered into a debate
about the relative merits of Pope and Dryden with an obscure
organist and lover of poetry, Joseph Weston. Weston had written

"An Essay of the Superiority of Dryden's Versification over that

of Pope and of the Moderns," in which he deplored the pernicious
effect Pope's style had had on English poetry. He called on his
readers to join him in restoring "to Drydenical Purity that

Pierian Spring which Pope corrupted, and which his more daring

imitators have Poisoned!" (WA xxiv). Anna Seward, ae great
admirer of Pope, challenged Weston's thesis and wrote a long

letter to The Gentleman's Magazine refuting his charges.

Sewards's and Weston's paper war captured the reading public's
notice. Literary amateurs, Cambridge dons, the renowned and the
unknown, the young and the old followed, joined and finally
wearied of the flood of words this two-year conflict brought
forth. Seventeen correspondents, in addition to Seward and
Weston, wrote one or more letters to the GM on the subject.

This dissertation is a critical edition of those letters.
In the introduction, I discuss the major comparisons of Dryden

ana@ Pope made by earlier critics such as John Dennis, George
Shiels, Joseph Warton, and Samuel Johnson. I discuss how the
concept of sublimity, which Warton insisted was the _ sole
criterion of great poetry, changed throughout the eighteenth
century, and I trade the development of the nature/art and
wit/judgment paradigms on which critics tended to base their
comparisons of Dryden and Pope. I outline the positions of the
various controversialists and give pertinent background
information about those whose identities we know. I describe The

Gentleman's Magazine and discuss the policies of its editor John

Nichols regarding poetry and letters from readers.

The issues debated included Pope's character as well as his
poetry. I discuss these in some detail, especially the issue of
poetic diction, which Weston accused Pope of abusing. The
controversy made no lasting critical impression, but it does give
us a close and fascinating look at eighteenth centry literary
culture in action at a time when poetry was about to undergo a

major revolution.
To Arthur Sherbo
mentor, colleague and friend,

who made this project possible.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their guidance and support, I wish to thank Victor

Paananen, Donald Rosenberg and Bob Uphaus.

For his patience, I wish to thank my husband, Richard

Foster.

v1
John Oldershaw and Hugh Wade, Fellows of Emmanuel College,
wagered a bottle of wine "That the dispute about Pope and
Dryden was not a fortnight ago."

Emmanuel College Wager Book
Cambridge University, January 10, 1792

vil
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ............ . .iX
The Text . . . 2. 2. 2 2 6 © © e ew we 6 CXXVIIL
Short Titles and Abbreviations ... .cxxx
Table of Letters ........ . ¢xxxili
The Letters. . .........64.86.08.1
Appendix A ........ 2. © «© «© «© © 236
Appendix B.......... +. « « « 237

Bibliography ............. 240

viil
INTRODUCTION

The Nobel laureate in physics, Werner Heisenberg, has
written that there are two kinds of scientists--the great
theorists and those who do the practical work of making the

theories work. To this effect he recalls what Schiller said

about Kant: "‘When kings go a-building, wagoners have more
work.'"1! We might say the same thing about literary
criticism. An Aristotle or a Coleridge lays claim to new
theoretical territory, but without the wagoners who

construct the interpretations, auxiliary theories, and close
readings, or who describe and analyze historical and social
contexts, these territories would remain remote and barren.

When, in 1789, Anna Seward and Joseph Weston entered
into a debate about the merits of Alexander Pope and John
Dryden, they became minor wagoners in the province of
educated literary taste. Their extended paper war captured
the reading public's notice. Literary amateurs, Cambridge
dons, the renowned and the unknown, the young and the old
followed, joined, and finally wearied of the flood of words
their two-year conflict called forth. Tedious and trivial
as it may seem to the twentieth-century reader, the Seward-
Weston controversy touches on significant issues in eigh-
teenth-century poetic theory and contributes substantially

to our understanding of polite literary taste just before

1 Physics and Beyond (NY: Harper, 1971) 22.

ix
the Romantic revolution.

Background of the Controversy

In the closing decades of the eighteenth century,
Joseph Weston, an obscure organist in the small town of
Solihull just southeast of Birmingham, translated into
English a Latin poem, Philotoxi Ardenae (The Woodmen of
Arden, 1788), by Birmingham attorney and amateur poet John
Morfitt. Weston rendered Morfitt's poem first in blank verse,
then in heroic couplets “in the manner of Dryden." He
prefaced the translation with "An Essay on the Superiority of
Dryden's Versification over that of Pope and of the Moderns."
Deploring the pernicious effect Pope's style had had on
English poetry, he called on his readers to join him in
restoring "to Drydenical Purity that Pierian Spring which
Pope corrupted, and which his more daring Imitators have
Poisoned!" (xxiv).

Anna Seward, a poetess and lady of letters who lived
with her father in Lichfield, Samuel Johnson's birthplace,
had met Weston during the winter of 1788 and found him to be
a bit odd in appearance and mannerisms but also "a mine" of
"wit, intelligence, and poetic genius,” with "taste and real
accuracy in criticism" which "enable him to cut the rich ore
they produce brilliant."? Word that Joseph Weston had

translated Morfitt's poem reached Anna Seward later that

1WA, title page.
2Letters 2:92.
X1

year, and in December she wrote to him saying:

I long to see your two translations of the Latin poem
on the Woodmen of Arden, being fully conscious of Mr.
Morfitt's responsibility for all the classic excellence
you tell me it possesses. I wish every translator of
beautiful Greek, Latin, and Italian poetry, knew as
well as yourself how to transfer its gold, unalloyed by
any dross in the process (2:206).

By January, 1789, she had seen the poem and preface and
wrote to Weston:

As to my anger, whatever my wonder may be at your
strong prejudices in favour of my muse, and against the
sweet Swan of Twickenham, anger is out of the question.
It would be affectation, in the first instance, in the
last injustice; for have you not a right to assert your
own opinions, whatever they may be? I, however,
devoutly wish, that, for your own sake and mine, you
would greatly soften the hyperbole of your praise of
me, and the warmth of your censure upon Pope, since
there is such an inevitably large majority of opinions
against yours in both instances (2:209-10).

In February, she wrote to thank Morfitt for the
"elegant copy" of his poem with Weston's translations and
preface. Here she began marshalling the objections to
Weston's opinions on which she expanded in her initial long
letter to the Gentleman's Magazine (GM), serialized in its
April, May, and June, 1789, issues. "I admire our friend's
genius," she began mildly,

but, in the same degree, do I lament the strength of

his prejudices, andthe errors of his system. They

have betrayed him, through the preface to this work,
into mistakes the most glaring, and into injustice to
the illustrious band of poets, that, with redoubled
rays, have warmed the nation within the last half-

century (2:238).

Two months later, the GM published the first installment of

what it called her "Strictures on the Preface to the Woodmen

of Arden." Her strictures ran to more than 2,700 words; the
Xil

controversy which they began lasted two years and drew let-
ters from seventeen correspondents in addition to herself and
Joseph Weston. During 1789 and 1790, each issue of the GM
carried something about the controversy, if only a short note
from Joseph Weston delaying his rebuttal because of illness.
Many issues carried two or more letters. In all, the letters
ran to some 30,000 words of reasoning and opinion, quotation
and counter quotation, and heated attack, rebuttal, and rere-
buttal.

Although the debate may not add a great deal to our
critical understanding of Pope and Dryden, it introduces us
to one sector of polite literary taste which existed only a
few years before Wordsworth published his prefaces to the
Lyrical Ballads in1798 and 1800. The correspondents'
discussion of such topics as poetic diction, sublimity,
Pope's effect on poetry, and the state of poetry in the
1780s reveals no general sense that poetry is exhausted or
that a major revolution is in the making. At the same time,
it does show that the literati were thinking about the need
for changes in poetry.

Although Wordsworth's prefaces provide a convenient
end-of-the-century date for the revolution in poetry that
the Romantics brought about, interest in the more private
and emotive poetry of sensibility had been growing for at
least fifty years. Anna Seward's list of eminent poets
(Letter la, p. 5) of her generation contains the names of

many who were writing such poetry: Gray, Thomson, Collins,
X1lil

Akenside, Cowper, Burns, and Chatterton. And Weston,
despite some ledqalistic joking about reserving his right to
challenge "every mother's son of them," finds that the
contents of Anna Seward's April letter "will give me no
great trouble" (Letter 4, p. 26).

The debate between Anna Seward and Joseph Weston does
not remain tidily within the neo-classical era in which
literary historians normally place Dryden and Pope--Dryden
as the innovator and Pope as the perfecter. It raises the
essential question asked by readers in every generation and
answered in as many ways as there are literary periods and
interpreters: What 1S poetry, and who is the true poet? By
the time this debate takes place, the literary taste and
ideals which supported the neo-classical point of view were
already history.!

Yet beth Dryden and Pope were still considered by many
critics and readers to be among England's areatest poets.
Pope's reputation. especially, continued to grow after his
death and remained strong with many critics and readers
through the end of the century despite the increasing support

for the more private poetry of sensibility. In Pope and His

Critics, W. L. MacDonald notes that editions of Pope's writ-

ings "swelled to [their] most impressive fortissimo" between

1751 and 1769.? The Cambridge Bibliography of English

Literature lists "Seventeen editions or issues of the poet's

1See Appendix A for my definition of neo-classical.
2(London: Dent, 1951) 264.
X1V

Works, besides separate pieces, making in all upwards of 130
volumes" for this period, and the "list is not necessarily
complete." MacDonald observes that, despite Joseph Warton's
two-volume Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope with its
relegation of Pope to the second rank of poets, "within four
years of the turn of the century, critical delirium at the
height of frenzy shrieked the praises of Pope” (314).

In The Reputation and Writings of Alexander Pope, James
Reeves disagrees with MacDonald's estimate of Pope's
supremacy. He writes: "The notion that Pope was supreme. . .
throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century, and
was only dethroned with the triumph of Romanticism has SO
often been repeated that it is still regarded as a truism,"™!
and one which ignores Warton's critical insights at
midcentury and glosses over the extent to which Samuel
Johnson had reservations about Pope. Reeves goes on to say,
however, that "justice has never, so far as I know, been
done to Warton," and that, although Johnson is not Pope's
“unequivocal, rapturous admirer,” "he is usually taken to
be" just that (6, 12).

William MacClintock's Joseph Warton's Essay on Pope: A
History of the Five Editions (1933), which Reeves apparently
did not’ know, supports Reeves's contention that Pope's
reputation was not supreme during the last half of the

eighteenth century. MacClintock writes, "When the Essay

1 (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1976) 2, 12.
XV

appeared in 1756, it made a decided impression--indeed, it

almost created a sensation. It challenged the supremacy of

Pope, whose reputation was still high. We shall see

elsewhere that it was widely read and that the second volume

was eagerly awaited."! MacClintock estimates "cautiously"

that “between four and five thousand copies of the Essay

must have been printed during Warton's lifetime" (16), that

is, before 1800 when Warton died. This is a large edition by
18th-century standards.

Anna Seward's and Joseph Weston's debate mirrors’ this
split in the assessment of Pope's’ reputation. It also
indicates where the majority lay among those who read _ the
GM. Miss Seward assumes she has opinion on her side, and
Joseph Weston agrees. He anticipates that his objections to
Pope's supremacy will meet with opposition:

I am not unaware that a Sentiment so unfavourable to

most of my Contemporaries, and so opposite to

Prejudices long received and obstinately retained,

will, probably, be considered as the rash and romantic

Assertion of a vain and presumptuous Innovator, and be

treated with all the Severity usually exercised against
Notions which are looked upon as heterodox.?

In the course of this debate Miss Seward, Weston, and
all those who join in, touch on many of the major critical
topics that eighteenth-century comparisons of Pope and
Dryden usually brought up. To appreciate the context of

their arguments we must examine these earlier comparisons.

1 (North Carolina: U of NC Press, 1933) 4.

Z2Letter 9c, pp. 60-61. Weston quotes most of his Pre-
face in this letter, so most references to his Preface will
be to Letter 9c.
XVi

Previous Comparisons of Pope and Dryden

Comparing Pope and Dryden was ae frequent critical
activity during the eighteenth century. The two poets wrote
in the same verse form and approached many of the same
subjects from similar vantage points. As Pope said to Joseph
Spence, "'T learned versification wholly from Dryden's
works.'" ! Pope also followed Dryden's example in translat-
ing a major classical epic, in writing satire, and even in
writing an ode to music. A glance at the footnotes to the
Twickenham Works reveals how often he borrowed or echoed
lines, phrases, and images from Dryden. The assiduous col-
lector could no doubt add many more. Pope's poetry called
out for comparison with Dryden's, and the critics were quick

to oblige.

Dennis through Shiels (1711-1753)

The earliest comparison by a major critic was John
Dennis's. A fine critic in many ways, and one who shared many
of Pope's views about poetry, Dennis combined his legitimate
insights into Pope's work with a violent personal antipathy.?
He had believed himself attacked as the tyrannical and easily
inflamed critic Appius in An Essay on Criticism (1711).
Accordingly, he opened fire, calling it "a most notorious

Instance of this depravity of Genius and Tast" which has

1Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and

Men, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966) 1:24.
2Maynard Mack discusses this in Life 178-9.
XV1il

invaded English culture. Of Pope himself, he remarked,
"there is a great deal of Venom in this little Gentleman's
Temper....As there is no Creature in nature s0 venomous,
there is nothing so stupid and so impotent as a hunch-back-d
Toad."!

Dennis went on to charge Pope with hypocrisy and impu-
dence in pretending to praise Dryden while actually seeking
to undermine him:

The appearing in Mr. Dryden's behalf now is too late.
‘Tis like offering a Man's self for a Second, after the
Principal has been whipp'ed through the Lungs. Now Mr.
Dryden is dead, he commends him with the rest of the
World. But if this little Gentleman had been his Con-
temporary thirty Years ago, why then I can tell a very
damn'd shape that Pride and Malice, and Folly would
have appear'd in against Mr. Dryden (28).

Four years later, ina letter to Jacob Tonson, Dennis pursued
this point more explicitly:

When I had the good Fortune to meet you in the City, it
was with concern that I heard from you of the Attempt to
lessen the Reputation of Mr. Dryden; and ‘tis with
Indignation that I have since learnt that that attempt
has chiefly been carried on by small Poets, who un-
gratefully strive to eclipse the Glory of a great Man,
from whom alone they derive their own faint Lustre...
: But when I heard that that Attempt was in favour of
little Pope, that diminutive of Parnassus and of human-
ity, ‘tis impossible to express to what a height my
Indignation and Disdain were rais'd.?

Dennis went on to express his admiration for Dryden,
whom I infinitely esteem'd when living for the Solidity

of his Thought, for the Spring, the Warmth, and the
beautiful Turn of it; for the Power, and Variety, and

1John Dennis, Reflections Critical and Satyrical upon a
Late Rhapsody, call'd, An Essay upon Criticism, 1711
(Yorkshire, England: Scolar Press, 1971) Preface and 26.

2E.N. Hooker, ed., The Critical Works of John Dennis

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1939), 2:399-401. The following
quotations are from that letter.
XVill

Fulness of his Harmony; for the Purity, the Perspicuity,
the Energy of his Expression; and (whenever the follow-
ing great Qualities are requir'd) for the Pomp and
Solemnity and Majesty of his Style.

He then compared this portrait with his low estimate of Pope:
But Pope is the very reverse of all this: he scarce
ever thought once solidly, but is an empty eternall
babbler: and as his thoughts almost always are false or
trifling, his expression is too often obscure, ambi-
guous, anduncleanly. He has indeed a smooth verse and
a rhyming jingle, but he has no power or variety of
harmony; but always the same dull cadence, and a
continuall bagpipe drone. Mr. Dryden's expressions are
always worthy of his thoughts: but Pope never speaks nor
thinks at all; oor, which is all one, his language is
frequently as barbarous, as his thoughts are false.

As for Dryden's faults, Dennis declared, “Wherever Genius

runs thro' a Work, I forgive its Faults, and where that is

wanting no Beauties can touch me. Being struck by Mr.

Dryden's Genius, I have no Eyes for his Errors; and I have no

Eyes for his Enemies Beauties, because I am not struck by

their Genius."

Dennis's adverse criticism of Pope ran to an extreme

even for an era that did not soften its critical blasts. J.

V. Guerinot has pointed out the "virulence" of Dennis's

attack on Pope in the Reflections, coupled with the unusual

number of inaccuracies in his quotations from Pope's Essay on

Criticism. And of the letter to Tonson he says’ that this

charge "is, as far as I know, unique."! This appears’ to

have been so, both during Pope's lifetime, when adverse

response was at its bitterest, and for some forty-five years

afterwards, until Joseph Weston, possibly remembering

1 Pamphlet Attacks on Alexander Pope 1711-1744 (London:

Methuen, 1969) xxviii, 5.
X1xX

something of Dennis, made the same charge. }

Not all the early comparisons with Dryden were so. un-
favorable. When Pope published the first samples of his
translation of the Iliad into heroic couplets, Joseph Addison
compared them favorably with Dryden's Virgil.? Later, how-
ever, when Thomas Tickell published his translation of Book

One of the Iliad, Addison apparently revised his estimate of

Pope downward. If we can credit John Gay's roundabout intel-
ligence, Addison "'said that Tickell's translation was’ the
best that ever was in any language.'"? By this time, how-
ever, Pope had angered the Whiggish group that congregated
around Addison at Button's Coffee House, and this reported
opinion of Addison's reflects literary politics as much as it
does literary criticism.

It was to be expected that various members of Addison's
"little Senate" and its sympathizers would consistently com-
pare Pope unfavorably to Dryden. A letter to Mist's Weekly

Journal in June of 1728 (a month after The Dunciad appeared),

Signed by "W.A." and believed by Pope to be by "some or
other of the Club of Theobald, Dennis, Moore, Concanen,
Cooke,'" said:

The Model of his Poem seems copied from Mack-Flecknoe,
and the Dispensary; but is as different from Dryden, if
compared with that pointed Satyr, as it is below the
admir'd and elegant Reflections, which are the Beauties
of Garth. The smooth Numbers of the Dunciad are all

1Letter 9c, pp. 57-58.

2Freeholder 40, Works of Joseph Addison, ed. Richard
Hurd (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854) 5:48-49.

’The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. George Sher-
burn, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958) 1:305.
XX

that recommend it, nor has it any other Merit.!
An anonymous letter to the Daily Journal, attributed to
Dennis by his editor, E. N. Hooker, summarized the case

against Pope and for Dryden:

In the Ode which the same Pantomimical Creature wrote
upon St. Caecilia's Day, an Ode which was vainly and

foolishly writ in Emulation of Mr. Dryden's Feast of
Alexander, he has not the least Shadow of any of Mr.
Dryden's great Qualities, neither of his Art, his Vari-
ety, his Passion, his Enthusiasm, or his Harmony. The
very Numbers in Mr. Dryden's incomparable Ode, are them-
selves incomparable, and are always adapted and adjusted
by that great Poet to his Passion and his Enthusiasn.?
Pope himself, as part of the critical apparatus for The
Dunciad (A), presented "A Parallel of the Characters of Mr.
Dryden and Mr. Pope, As drawn by certain of their Cotempo-
raries [sic)" (5:231-35). He collected similar opinions from
hostile critics and grouped them under parallel headings.
These critics had castigated Dryden and Pope for everything
from their politics, religion, and morals to their smooth but
empty verse, inept translations of Virgil and Homer, ignor-
ance of classical languages, and misrepresentations to sub-
scribers. The parallel concluded with an alphabetical list
of names they had both been called, beginning with Ape and
ending with Thing.
In presenting this "Parallel," Pope implied that to be
insulted in the same way, and even with the same epithets, as

Dryden was praise indeed. Pope's collection of insults also

revealed how relative criticism could be. Yesterday's

1John Barnard, ed., Pope: The Critical Heritage (London:
Routledge, 1973) 212.
2Works 2:526.
XX1

sinner was today's saint. Dryden's contemporaries had
charged that his "Genius did not appear in any thing more
than his Versification"™ (5:232). A century later, Joseph
Weston and his supporters, in charging Pope with the same
flaw, pointed to Dryden's verse as the model of all that
poetry should be.

Just as Pope's enemies consistently ranked him far below
Dryden, so his sympathizers, especially his early biogra-
phers, while recognizing his debt to Dryden, typically
ranked him above the older poet. William Ayre wrote that
Pope "exceeded [Dryden] as well in the Copiousness of his
Subject, as in the Sharpness of his Pen." Of their respec-
tive habits of writing and revision, Ayre was one of the
earliest writers to note that Dryden was obliged

to write for his Bread. . .so that his Works were some-

times made publick in a Week after they were wrote,

whereas Mr. Pope would keep a Piece Years by him, and
have the Approbation of all whose Judgments he depended
upon, before he would let the publick Eye pass over it.!

A much more extended and significant comparison by
Robert Shiels (one of Samuel Johnson's amanuenses for. the
Dictionary) appeared at mid-century, just a few years before
the first volume of Joseph Warton's Essay on the Genius and
Writings of Pope. Shiels began by affirming that Pope

is allowed to have been one of the first rank amongst

the poets of our nation, and to acknowledge the

superiority of none but Shakespear, Milton, and Dryden.

With the two former, it is unnatural to compare him, as
their province in writing is so very different.?

1Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Alexander Pope,
Esg.(London, 1745) 1:274, 275. |

2Shiels in Theophilus Cibber's Lives of the Poets f
Great-Britain and Ireland (London, 1753) 5:247.

XX1i

This left Dryden, with whom "there is a great similarity of
writing, and a very striking coincidence of genius." He then
compared Pope's and Dryden's versification and invention,
together with their relative merits as satirists, lyric
poets, and translators in order "to discover to whom the
superiority is justly to be attributed, and to which of them
poetry owes the highest obligations" (5:247, 248).

Like critics before and after him, Shiels found that,
although Dryden had done much to smooth and polish English
verse, Pope had done still more. Dryden's lines "with all
their smoothness were often rambling, and expletives were
frequently introduced to compleat his measures." Pope's
genius was to make verse "compleatly musical" as well as
"minutely correct." Shiels seemed to view this as a mixed
blessing and wondered "whether the ear is not apt to be soon
cloy'd with this uniformity of elegance, this sameness of
harmony." (5:248, 249). Thirty-five years later, Joseph
Weston and his adherents did more than wonder about this.
John Morfitt spoke for the anti-Pope side when he asserted
that Pope's "cuckoo notes disgust my ear; the interminable
level tires; andtI pant for hill and dale" (Letter 10, pp.
68).

As Joseph Warton and Edward Young were to do a few years
later, Shiels noted that "the grand characteristic of a poet
is his invention, the surest distinction of a great
genius." But, while Warton and Young would charge Pope with
lack of imaginative invention, Shiels found that

nothing is so truly original as [Pope's] Rape of the
XX1lil

Lock, nor discovers so much invention. In this kind of
mock-heroic, he is without a rival in our language, for
Dryden has written nothing of the kind. His other work
which discovers invention, fine designing, and

admirable executicn is his Dunciad (5:249).
Comparing Pope and Dryden as satirists, Shiels named Pope the
Superior because "his Dunciad; which, tho' built on Dryden's
Mac Flecknoe, is yet so much superior, that in satiric writ-
ina, the Palm must justly be yielded to him. Even the "poig-
nant strokes of satire” in Dryden's "Absalom and Achitophel"
could not overbalance Pope's superiority in this qenre.

When he considered their performances in lyric poetry, as
exemplified in their odes on St. Cecilia's Day, Shiels gave
Dryden the overwhelming superiority. Anna Seward would say
much the same thing in two letters written at the beginning
of the GM controversy, but not published as part of it.!
Indeed, no eighteenth-century critic, no matter how partisan,
ever suggested reversing the lyric rankinda. For Shiels,
Superiority in lyric poetry categorically raised Dryden over
Pope because "it hath been aqenerally acknowledged that the
Lyric is amore excel.cnt kind of writing than the Satiric;
and consequently he who excells in the most excellent
species, must undoubtedly be esteemed the greatest poet"
(5:249). Shiels based his judgment on the traditional
Classical and neo-classical idea of the hierarchy of genres,
according to which the form itself determined the rank of the

poetry. A poet who wrote ina lower form such as satire

1Letters 2:281, 324-25.

XX1LV

would generally rank lower than one who wrote in ae higher
form such as the lyric ode.

Such ranking by genre increasingly posed a problem for
eighteenth-century critics in the face of new, not easily
Classified forms. For instance, Shiels called Pope's "Eloisa
to Abelard" and the "Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady"
"occasional pieces," although there were classical precedents
for their forms in the verse epistle and elegy. He compared
them with Dryden's Fables, which he said show "perhaps a
greater variety," as well as a "great extent of invention,
and a large compass of genius" (5:250), but he did not
explain why he chose to compare these particular poems of
Pope's with Dryden's Fables, which were not only different
genres but translations of much longer works. Shiels tries
to look beyond genre classifications, but he lacks’ the
critical vocabulary to do so and falls back on such neo-
Classical generalities as "variety," "invention" and "ge-
nius."

In Pope's and Dryden's translations of Homeric and Vir-
gilian epic, Shiels found it hard to elevate one poet over
the other. He seemed to want to give Dryden the preference,
but finally conceded that Pope "was the greatest translator."
He was quick to add that Dryden's "dramatic works," to which
Pope has nothing to oppose, "turn the ballance greatly in
favour of Mr. Dryden" (5:251). His final comparison of the

two took the same course as that which Samuel Johnson would
AXV

pursue some thirty years later:!

Perhaps it may be true that Pope's works are read with

more appetite, as there is greater evenness and correct-

ness in them; but in perusing the works of Dryden the
mind will take a wider range, and be more fraught with
poetical ideas: We admire Dryden as the greater genius,

and Pope as the most pleasing versifier (5:252).

Shiels's comparison highlighted the art versus nature
and judgment versus wit paradigms of which eighteenth-century
critics were so fond. In finding Pope's highly articulated
and refined art inferior to Dryden's robust and varied poetry
with its "poignant discoveries of wit" and its "general
knowledge of the humours and characters of men," he extended
to Dryden and Pope the popular comparison in which Homer was
superior to Virgil and Shakespeare to Ben Jonson because’ the
former had more nature and wit while the latter had more art
and judgment.?

Three years after Shiels's comparison of Pope and Dryden
appeared, Joseph Warton published the first volume of his
two-volume Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope. He
dedicated it to Edward Young, who shared many of his views
about poetry and who, a few years later, published his own
Conjectures on Original Composition.? In his dedicatory let-
ter to Young, Warton sounded the keynote of his criticism of
Pope: "The sublime and the pathetic are the two chief nerves
of all genuine poesy. What is there transcendently sublime

or pathetic in Pope?" (l:vi). In order to understand the

the significance of this question, we must first examine what

1For Johnson's comparison see pp. lxiv-1lxxiii.
2These terms are discussed below, pp. liii-lxiv.
3Discussed at pp. li-lii.
XXV1

the term sublime meant to critics and philosophers during the

eighteenth century.

The Sublime in the Eighteenth Century

The concept of the sublime! evolved during the eigh-
teenth century from a theory about elevated writing to a
theory about human perception and imagination. For poets it
changed from an objective goal which they might achieve
through exercising and improving on their natural gifts to a
subjective, somewhat mysterious, process which they, as
poets, must inevitably undergo.

Samuel Johnson's definition of sublime epitomized the
neo-classical view which dominated the early decades of the
century. The sublime is “the grand or lofty style," and
sublimity is "Loftiness of style or sentiment" (Dictionary).
To illustrate this, he quoted Joseph Addison's definition:
""The sublime rises from the nobleness of thoughts, the
magnificence of the words, or the harmonious and lively turns
of the phrase; the perfect sublime arises from all three
together.'" This definition emphasized the origin of the
sublime in human nature and art--in elevated thought and
elevated rhetoric. It derived from Longinus's Treatise n

the Sublime, translations of which were becoming readily

1For this discussion of the sublime, I am indebted to
Samuel H. Monk, The Sublime (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P,
1960); Walter J. Hipple, The Beautiful, The Sublime and The
Picturesque in Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetic Theory
(Carbondale, I1ll.: Southern Illinois UP, 1957); and wW. J.
Bate, From Classic to Romantic: Premises of Taste in Eigh-
teenth Century England (NY: Harper, 1946.)
XXV1il

available in England in the early 1700s.

Longinus based the sublime on both nature and art.
Nature bestowed “boldness and grandeur in the Thoughts" and
"the power of raising the passions to a violent and even
enthusiastic degree." Art accounted for how the sublime was
expressed in writing through "a skilful application of fi-
gures. . .of sentiment and language"; "a noble and graceful
manner of expression, which is not only to chuse out signi-
ficant and elegant words, but also to adorn and embellish the
stile, by the assistance of Tropes"; and "the Structure or
composition of all the periods, in all possible dignity and
grandeur."! The sublime which neo-classical writers derived
from Longinus was an art of writing, supported by natural
gifts. Longinus emphasized that, although nature bestowed
the gifts, man could nurture then: “we ought to spare no
pains to educate our souls to grandeur, and impregnate them
with generous and enlarged ideas"(27). In the sublime, the
man and his work became one, just as "bold Longinus. . .Is
himself that great Sublime he draws" (EOC, 1:680).

Early in the century, John Dennis developed the subjec-
tive and emotional implications of Longinus's treatise into a
theory of the sublime based entirely on what he called
enthusiasm. This was no ordinary enthusiasm, but a passion

that embraced the most intense feelings of desire, sorrow,

1 Longinus fe) the Sublime, trans. William Smith
(Baltimore, 1810) 23-24. |
XXVili

terror, joy and awe. Such enthusiasm was evoked by reliaion
and in that case led to transcendent ecstacy. Although
Dennis did not distinguish the sublime from the beautiful, he
attributed qualities to it, such as terror and horror, that
led to its later separation.!

Addison made such a separation. distinguishing the great
(his term for the sublime) from both the uncommon and the
beautiful. The sublime evoked the feeling of "a rude kind of
Magnificence"? such as we feel in the vast works of nature
like deserts, mountains, oceans, cliffs, and precipices. The
arts exhibited greatness in architectural wonders like the
Parthenon or literary masterpieces like Paradise Lost. Poet-
ry, especially the descriptive poem, was especially favorable
to the sublime because poets could use their powers of
selection and combination to present "Things more Great,
Strange, or Beautiful than the Eye ever saw."3 Tragic poets
could make great but unpleasant events produce pleasure
partly through the faithfulness with which they imitated an
action and partly through their audience's consciousness of
its own security from the dangers and terrors represented.
Addison's ideas about the sublime were given wide circulation

by Mark Akenside's poem The Pleasures of Imagination (1744)

which made the distinction between beauty and sublimity

clearer and more memorable.

1Hooker, Works 1:358-63.
2Spectator 412.
3Spectator 418.

XX1X

Meanwhile, the philosopher David Hume had carried the
analysis of greatness and beauty further than Addison, giving
them a basis in sensation and perception. He did not set them
in opposition, but viewed greatness (i.e., sublimity) as a
larger kind of beauty. He emphasized that beauty and great-
ness lie not in the object perceived but in the mind of the
perceiver. Vastness or distance increase rather than dimin-
ish the feeling of sublimity. Even though the mind experi-
ences difficulty in perceiving a vast or distant object,
rather than “extinguishing [the mind's] vigor and alacrity"
Gifficulty "has the contrary effect of sustaining and en-
creasing it."™!

A decade before Joseph Warton published the first volume
of his Essay on the Genius and Writing of Pope, Dr. John
Baillie published An Essay on the Sublime, in which he set
aside all rhetorical considerations and explored the origin
of the sublime in natural objects and their effect on the
mind. Making vastness the essential quality of the subline,
he anticipated Edmund Burke in giving it a sensationalist
basis, but stood apart from him and from the rest of the
century in separating the sublime from the pathetic.

The year after volume one of Warton's Essay appeared,
Edmund Burke published his Philosophical Enquiry into the

Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757).

Burke located the sublime in human passions: "The passions

1Treatise on Human Nature (1739) in Philosophical
Works, ed. Green and Grosse (London, 1784) 2:212, 213.
which belong to self-preservation, turn on pain and danger...
they are delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger
without being actually in such circumstances. ... Whatever
excites this delight, I call sublime," and these "are _ the
strongest of all passions."! Nature in upheaval or in its
great manifestations produces the sublime: storms, floods,
earthquakes, deep abysses, great waterfalls, oceans, the
heavens.

When Burke distinguished the sublime from the beautiful,
he opened the path for new ways of viewing poetry that would
culminate in the Romantics' repudiation of neo-classical
standards. Burke said that the beautiful was clear, regular,
smooth, and harmonious--all the neo-classical attributes.
The sublime was directly opposite to this. It was indis-
tinct, irregular, vast, and rough--characteristics which neo-
Classical poets had generally avoided. For Burke the sublime
"always dwells on great objects, and terrible": the beauti-
ful, "on small ones, and pleasing" (113). It originated in
things which seemed infinite or almost infinite and had a
splendid profusion that was magnificent. Burke went so far
as to say that "the apparent disorder" of something like the
heavens augments the grandeur, for the appearance of care is
highly contrary to our ideas of magnificence." He qualified
this by adding that this kind of disorder is "to be very
Cautiously admitted: because "in many cases this’ splendid

confusion would destroy all use, which should be attended to

1J. T. Boulton, ed. (London: Routledge, 1958) 51.
XXXi

in most of the works of art with the greatest care" (78).
Even with these qualifications, Burke's description of the
sublime departs from neo-classical ideals of clarity,
harmony, and order. The neo-classical assumption that human
Nature is essentially uniform and that poetry's goal is
delightful instruction was no longer adequate in the face of
a theory based on "the effect of objects" and “the
individual response"! to those objects. Burke and those who
followed him opened the way to an aesthetic of the sublime
which focused on the individual's psychological response, on
the internal subjective process rather than on the external
objective product.

From Burke's Essay onward to the last decade of the
century, the idea of the sublime became increasingly subjec-
tive and tied to natural objects. Sublime poetry was no
longer a matter of high-flown rhetoric and elaborate orna-
mentation. Those who wrote and thought about the sublime
frequently cited the Bible, especially the opening chapters
of Genesis and parts of Isaiah, Milton's Paradise Lost, and
the primitive poetry of Ossian. Gothic fiction benefitted
from the idea that horror, terror, mystery, grief and melan-
choly were sources of the sublime. This reached its ridicu-
lous extreme when one writer classed Mrs. Radcliffe with
Dante as the great artists of sublime horror. Whatever the
aberrations, the concept of the sublime was evolving into

something far different from simply "the grand or lofty

1Monk, 85.
XXX1i

style" of writing.

During the second half of the century Hugh Blair's
lectures as Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the
University of Edinburgh did much to spread this more subjec-
tive, nature-based idea of the sublime. Blair began reading
his lectures on sublimity and taste about 1762 and continued
for twenty-four years. The published Lectures on Rhetoric
and Belles Lettres (1783) ran to more than sixty editions as
well as numerous abridgments and translations. Blair wrote
that the sublime depended on nature not artifice and that it
"must come unsought, if it come at all; and be the natural
offspring of a strong imagination."! In writing, the sublime
depended on the object and the thought connected with it, not
on the words used. Simplicity of description, not ornate
decoration, produced the sublime. Primitive poets writing in
rude and unpolished societies were more likely to achieve
the sublime than those writing in highly polished civiliza-
tions. For Blair, Ossian, with his irregularity, bold expres-
sion, violent passions, and lack of polish, was the supreme
sublime poet. Blair added little to the psychology of the
sublime, but he did make it widely known as an idea intimate-
ly connected with natural objects and the primitive--in short
as an idea at the opposite pole from the neo-classical ideal.

By the closing decades of the eighteenth century, poets
seeking the sublime would turn to those natural objects and

events which raised strong feelings such as terror, awe,

1 (New York: Scott and Seguine, 1819) 43.
XXX1L1i

astonishment, and religious reverence. Because sublimity
resided not in the objects themselves but came about through
the individual's physical and psychological response, poets
became far more interested in the uniqueness than in the
uniformity of human response.

In 1790, Archibald Alison discussed the sublime in his
Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste. In words which
could almost be Wordsworth's, he wrote:

When we feel either the beauty or sublimity of natural

scenery. . .we are conscious of a variety of images in

our minds, very different from those which the objects
themselves can present to the eye. Trains of pleasing or
of solemn thoughts arise spontaneously within our minds;
our hearts swell with emotions, of which the objects
before us seem to afford no adequate cause; andwe are
never so much satiated with delight, as when, in
recalling our attention, we are unable to trace either
the progress or the connections of those thoughts, which
have passed with so much rapidity through our
imagination.!
Alison, aided by David Hartley's associationist psychology,
defined the sublime as a complex aesthetic experience which
took place within the human imagination. The effect of the
sublime was greater than the sum of the objective qualites
which produced it. Imagination, working powerfully and mys-
teriously on the mind's complex associations, made the dif-
ference.

As ideas about the sublime were changing, especially

during the second half of the eighteenth century, so were

ideas about what constituted poetry. Just as philosophers

had begun placing the idea of the sublime inside the human

1Abraham Mills, ed. (NY: Harper, 1844) 20.
XXXLV

mind, critics were looking for the sources of poetry inside

the human imagination. At mid-century, Joseph Warton wrote
the first volume of his Essay on the Genius and Writings of

Pope, in which he distinguished between the moral and di-
dactic poetry of Pope and Dryden and what he called "true
poetry,” which arose from a "warm and glowing imagination"
(ls:iii). In 1782, a few years before the Seward-Weston
controversy, Warton published the second volume of his Essay,

so his comparison of Pope and Dryden would have been fresh in

the controversialists' minds.

Joseph Warton's Essay (1756-1782)

Warton's comparison of Pope and Dryden combined tradi-
tional views with new ideas about the importance of imagina-
tion, sublimity, and emotion or, as he put it, pathos.
Warton found that comparing Pope with Dryden was particularly
appropriate because Dryden “was the constant pattern of Pope"
(2:12). The terms in which he characterized them followed
the familiar eighteenth-century models of nature versus art,
wit versus judgment. Accordingly, he found Pope's poetry
showed great judgment and art. His language was elegant and
appropriately elevated, although he could use simple language
to good effect at times. His versification could become
monotonous, as in his translation of the Jliad, in which his
scrupulous avoidance of the Alexandrine caused it to fall
"into an unpleasing and tiresome monotony” (1:143). Dryden,

by contrast, was sprightly, witty, flexible, exuberant, and
XKKV

natural. Although Pope used "common and familiar words" from
time to time, Dryden used them more freely, giving "a secret
charm, anda natural air to his verses, well knowing of what
consequence it was sometimes to soften and subdue his tints,
and not to paint and adorn every object he touched with
perpetual pomp, and unremitted splendor” (2:170-71).

Warton found Pope's early compositions to be his best.
He gave his highest praise to The Rape of the Lock, comparing
Pope favorably with Shakespeare: "It is in this composition
Pope principally appears a Poet; in which he has’) displayed
more imagination than in all his other works taken together"
(1:244). Dryden's finest work was his last: "It is to his
Fables, though wrote in his old age, that Dryden will owe his
immortality" (2:11).

In his final assessment of Pope as compared with Dryden,
Warton commented on Pope's "correctness" (2:404). Earlier,
he had noted that the "principal merit of the Pastorals of
Pope consists, in their correct and musical versification"
and that in this form of poetry he had "lengthened the
abruptness of Waller, and at the same time contracted the
exuberance of Dryden" (1:10). Is there a note of regret here
for that contracted and corrected exuberance?

Elsewhere in his Essay, Warton discussed Walsh's advice
to Pope about the importance of being correct, and took that
opportunity to discuss "the nauseous cant of the French
critics" about correctness:

If it means, that, because their tragedians have avoided
the irregularities of Shakespeare, and have observed
XXXV1

juster oeconomy in their fables, therefore the Athalia,

for instance, is preferable to Lear, the notion is

groundless and absurd (1:196).
Although Warton did not accuse Pope of subscribing to the
French "cant," he did make Pope the occasion for discussing
the fallacy of correctness. By doing so, he may have im-
plied that Pope's own correctness was a potential if not an
actual drawback. Dryden, of course, was open to no such
criticism. Whether by choice or necessity, he had avoided
the stultifying effects of too much refining and reworking.
This does not mean that Dryden was by nature careless about
the use of language. Warton noted that Dryden was the Earl
of Roscommon's “principal assistance” in planning "a_ society
for the refining and fixing the standard of our language”

(1:192).

In his Life, Maynard Mack has’7 speculated about what

Walsh meant by correctness, noting that Pope's account of
Walsh's advice "leaves us quite in the dark as to what Walsh
meant by correctness." Perhaps he meant technicalities of
versification, or the "keeping of various decorums” in dic-
tion, genre, harmony of subject and style, or “avoidance of
low, indelicate, or specialized locutions. Or perhaps both."
Mack has concluded that the only thing we know for certain is
that Walsh “stressed the taking of infinite pains" and that
this included everything from changing words and phrases’ to
suit tone or genre to subtle modulations in sound patterns.
Whatever he meant by correctness, Walsh had his’ greatest

influence on Pope's early work and his lasting legacy was
XXXV1il

probably the skill with which Pope played off the sounds of
certain consonants one against the other (112-17). It seems
probable that Pope took only as much from Walsh as suited his
nature, so that whatever the advantages or limitations of his
concern with correctness, they are ultimately his own.

Comparing Dryden's MacFlecknoe with Pope's Dunciad,

Warton found Dryden's satire superior. The Dunciad was’ too
violent and extreme. Its satire would "sour the temper of
the reader." It was "much laboured, and encumbered with
epithets," and its numbers "have something in them of stiff-
ness and harshness." The case was otherwise with "that very

delightful and beautiful poem, MacFlecnoe, from which Pope

has borrowed so many hints, and images, and ideas." In
versification Dryden's poem was "particularly and exquisitely
sweet and harmonious" (2:377n.).

Warton carefully compared the two poets in every possi-
ble genre, sometimes finding Pope superior, sometimes Dryden
and sometimes just noting that their achievements differed,
without one necessarily being superior to the other. In
translating Ovid's "Epistle of Sappho to Phaon," Pope's ver-
sion was produced with “faithfulness and with elegance, and
much excels any that Dryden translated in the volume he
published" (1:284). Similarly, Pope's “alterations of
Chaucer are introduced with judgment and art" and “are more
in number, and more important in conduct, than any Dryden has
made of the same author" (1:395). In the lyric, Dryden's

“Alexander's Feast" is "at the head of modern lyric
XXXV1iil

compositions," while Pope's "Ode for Musick on St. Cecilia's
Day" is "the second of its kind" (1:50). And in the epistle,
Pope's "Epistle to Mr. Jervas," “however elegant and fin-
ished this epistle must be allowed. . . does not excel that
of Dryden, addressed to Sir Godfrey Kneller" (2:387). Their
achievements in writing prologues differed because their aims
differed:

The prologues of Dryden are satirical and facetious;
this [to Addison's Cato) of Pope is solemn and subline,
as the subject required. Those of Dryden contain gener-
al topics of criticism and wit, and may precede any play
whatsoever, even tragedy or comedy. This of Pope is
particular, and appropriated to the tragedy alone which
it was designed to introduce (1:254).

When he finally assessed each poet's works as a whole, Warton
wrote of Pope:

considering the correctness, elegance, and utility of
his works, the weight of sentiment, and the knowledge of
man they contain, we may venture to assign him a place,
next to Milton, and just above Dryden. Yet, to bring
our minds steadily to make this decision, we must for-
get, for a moment, the divine Music Qde of Dryden; and
may, perhaps, then be compelled to confess, that though
Dryden be the greater genius, yet Pope is the. better
artist (2:404).

Pope excelled Dryden in craftsmanship, artistry, and
consistent moral reasoning, but in one poem at least, Dryden
revealed the genius of a true poet. And this was enough to
make Warton's final ranking inconclusive. Although we cannot
be certain when Warton wrote the closing portions of the
second volume of his Essay, it may well have been during the
time he was immersed in Dryden's poetry. Warton died before
he could complete his edition, but his notes were included in

the 1811 edition of Dryden's Poetical Works.
XXX1X

Warton's ambivalent assessment of Pope and Dryden re-
vealed the emotional approach to poetry in him vying with the
formal, more classical approach. Reason told him to prefer
Pope; his heart urged him to choose Dryden. Neither Dryden
nor Pope, however, could join the top rank of "true poets."
Although, had more of Dryden's work been like his "divine
Musick Ode," Warton would have probably placed him in the
highest category.

It is not so much the comparison of the two poets’) that
makes Warton's Essay important, but rather his underlying
assumption that the species of poetry in which he places Pope
and Dryden, that of wit and sense, of the "moral, ethical,
and panegyrical,"” excellent as it may be, still “is not the
most excellent one of the art" (l:vii, ii). In his prefatory
letter to Young, Warton made clear his position about’ the
various kinds of poetry:

all I plead for, is, to have their several provinces

kept distinct from each other; and to impress on the

reader, that a clear head, and acute understanding, are
not sufficient, alone, to make a Poet; that the most
solid observations oon human life, expressed with the
utmost elegance and brevity, are Morality, and not Poet-
ry; that the Epistles of Boileau in Rhyme, are no more
poetical, than the Characters of La Bruyere in Prose;
and that it is a creative and glowing Imagination, "acer

Spiritus ac vis," and that alone, that can stamp a

writer with this exalted and very uncommon character,

which so few possess, of which so few can properly judge

(l:ii-iii).

Through this creative and glowing imagination the true poet

created "genuine poesy," and the "two chief nerves" of such

poetry were "the sublime and the pathetic" (1l:vi). When
x1

Warton found Pope's poetry lacked these essential "nerves,"
and that Pope and Dryden were in the second rank of poets, he
might as well have said, as Matthew Arnold would say a
century later, that the eighteenth century had no major poets
and that much of its most esteemed poetry was not poetry at
all.

As we have seen, at this very time, the concept of the
sublime was taking on new meaning and philosophical depth.
Burke's Enquiry was still a year away from publication, but
critics and philosophers had already established the ground-
work for his theory. Dennis, drawing on the emotional impli-
cations of Longinus, had made the sublime, and the passionate
"enthusiasm" it evoked, the central criterion for poetry.
Addison and Akenside had distinguished the sublime from. the
beautiful, and Hume and Baillie had given it a basis in human
perception and sensation.

When Warton called on poetry to return to its true basis
in the creative imagination and its true expression in subli-
mity and emotion, he linked the already developing idea of
the sublime with one that was just beginning to gain ground--
the creative imagination. Philosophers and critics had been
searching for ways of viewing man that could better explain
the world being revealed by science and its methods. The
imagination seemed to provide them. As James Engell has
pointed out:

the Great Chain of Being could no longer take the full

brunt of philosophical inquiry, nor support a view of

man and nature, or of God, that squared with empiricism,
psychology, and the new sciences of chemistry,
xli

astronomy, geology, and biology. The imagination offers
the dynamic and active. It is a force, an energy, not a
state of being. It more easily explains the interchange
of state andthe transforming, organic qualities of
psyche and nature. The imagination better solved the
problem why God would create the boundless diversity of
nature if He were self-sufficient unto himself.!
By mid-century the creative imagination was just beginning to
be developed as a way to "unify man's psyche and, by exten-
Sion, to reunify man with nature, to return by the paths of
self-consciousness to a state of higher nature, a state of
the sublime where senses, mind, and spirit elevate the world
around them even as they elevate themselves.'"?

In the "Advertisement" to the first edition of his Odes

on Various Subjects (1746), Joseph Warton had declared, that

he, as the author of the poems, "is convinced that the fash-
ion of moralizing in verse has been carried too far, and as
he looks upon Invention and Imagination to be the chief
faculties of a Poet, so he will be happy if the following
Odes may be look'd upon as an attempt to bring back Poetry
into its right channel."

Warton looked for guidance to Spenser, Shakespeare, and
Milton. His subjects included fancy, liberty, superstition,
despair, the rural and pastoral scene with its fountains,
dryads, bowers, woods, and caverns--emotions and natural
objects which poets” connected with the sublime. In an

earlier blank-verse poem "The Enthusiast: or, the Lover of

1The Creative Imagination: Enliqhtenment to Romanticism
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1981) 6.

ZEngell, 8.

3(Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles, 1977).

Xlii

Nature," "Written in 1740," Warton expressed his’ longing
to flee the artifice of "gardens deck'd with art's vain
pomps" and return to unimproved, unspoiled Nature with her
"unfrequented meads, and pathless wilds."! He sought’ the
feelings evoked by nature in all her forms from the "true
bliss" of "dashing wave, and sea-mew's clang" to the "de-
light" of "the rough mountain shagg'd with horrid shades”
(74, 75). As for poets, "What are the lays of artful
Addison,/ Coldly correct, to Shakespear's warblings wild?"
(78).

Warton could not always realize his goals for poetry in
his own verse, but in "The Enthusiast," as his editor has
noted, “he is intrinsically at his best and historically most
Significant." The nineteenth-century critic Sir Edmund
Gosse picked "The Enthusiast" as the first example of

""what was entirely new in literature, the essence of roman-

tic hysteria'”" and "'the earliest expression of complete
revolt against the classical attitude.'" Despite Gosse's dig
at Warton's "romantic hysteria," "The Enthusiast" is cer-

tainly an early expression of the desire to effect a
fundamental change in poetry, and his Essay, especially the

dedicatory letter to Young, continues this theme.

1EBric Partridge, ed., The Three Wartons: A Choice of

their Verse (London: Scholartis, 1927) 72.
2Partridge, 14.

x1111

From the time it was published until today, critics have
disagreed about the significance of Warton's Essay. Twen-
tieth-century critic W. L. MacDonald finds Warton often
inconsistent and vague, "seldom saying why an image is good
or bad."! James Reeves, admittedly unsympathetic with the
current academic "infatuation with Pope," disagrees with
MacDonald. He finds that Warton "is as precise as _ most
critics of his time (Johnson, for instance) and he writes of
Pope with firm conviction, though without dogmatism.
MacDonald fails to give Warton full credit for the earliness
of his views." Nor is Warton simply "a somewhat ineffectual
pioneer of Romanticism, ‘a revolutionary without conviction’,
in Macdonald's phrase. ... It was not Romanticism [(Warton]
was concerned with, it was what he called true poetry."?

From our twentieth-century vantage point, we cannot
determine exactly how Warton's Essay influenced the literary
tastes and aspirations of mid- and late-eighteenth-century
England. Certainly, it was well known in literary circles,
but because of its diffuseness, readers and critics could
respond to it in a wide variety of ways. The three leading
literary journals reviewed it, and the GM printed several
pages of excerpts, or "epitomes." Generally the reviewers
of both volumes of the Essay found it informative,
entertaining, and impartial. They said little about Warton's

call for reviving "true poetry" or about his placing the

1Pope and His Critics 273.
2The Reputation and Writings of Alexander Pope 2, 6.
xliv

century's two poetic giants, Dryden and Pope, in the second
rank of poets.

The reviewer for The Critical Review found it "‘a work
of taste and learning, animated with many strokes of manly
criticism, replete with knowledge, and diversified with a
number of amusing incidents and observations.'"! The anony-
mous author failed to mention Warton's ideas about true
poetry, sublimity, pathos, and originality, although he disa-
greed with Warton on many minor points. When he reviewed
Volume 2, he described the contents at length, and ended by
quoting Warton's final ranking of Pope so that "his idea of
the merits of the great English poet may be precisely known
and ascertained" (53:107). Beyond this enigmatic statement,
the reviewer made no comment. He may have meant just what he
said, but he may also have implied that we must take a_ hard
critical look at someone who denigrates Pope, "the great
English poet."

The critic for The Monthly Review, Dr. James Grainger,
was equally open to various interpretations. He quoted from
the 1756 Essay at even greater length (his remarks were
continued for two issues), but seemed not to have known
Warton's name, referring to him as "our unknown Essayist."?
He disagreed with a number of Warton's specific points, and
unlike the other reviewers, took exception to Warton's

calling Pope's poetry "‘'Morality and not Poetry.'" In this

1 “Art. V. An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope,"
The Critical Review 1:240. Quoted in MacClintock, 25.
214:528.
xlv

connection he asked,
what then makes Pope's version [of the Iliad] so greatly
preferable to those of the others [Ogilby, Chapman, and
Hobbes] ? His versification. Burnet of the Charter-
house had a sublime imagination, but he was no poet; he
wanted numbers” (14:529).
Presumably a great poet must have a sublime imagination, but
without "numbers," or versification, he is still "no poet."
And given the same material, such as the Iliad, superior
versification will swing the balance, and the reviewer as-
sumed that Pope's highly wrought heroic couplets were the
Superior form.
Dr. Grainger also disagreed with Warton's statement
that Pope's reputation will depend on three works: Windsor

Forest, The Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard. Pope's

other pieces, such as Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate

Lady and the Ode for Musick on St. Cecilia's Day, "have

secured [him] the character of a Sublime and Pathetic Poet"
(15:77). He concluded that Warton's "Essay is partly calcu-
lated to sink Mr. Pope's reputation to a lower degree in the
poetical scale than he has hitherto been stationed at"
(15:77-78). The reviewer seems to have disagreed with this
lowering, but also hoped "that the ingenious Author will
continue his Observations" (15:78). He appreciated Warton's
Essay as lively and provocative reading, but remained vague
about its implications for what constitutes true poetry and
where Pope should rank.

The reviewer for the GM limited himself to "epitomes"
(examples from the text) of Warton's 1756 Essay, together

with very general comments such as “entertaining and useful"
xlvi

and "candid criticism, containing censure without acrimony,
and praise without flattery."™! Of the second volume, he
noted that it "has been impatiently expected," again went on
to devote most of his review to "epitomes," and concluded
that the second volume would "contribute largely to the
entertainment and information of the reader."2 The reviewer
also expressed his belief that Pope would have approved of
Warton's Essay just as he had approved of "Spence's Essay on
his Odyssey" (52:240). We might wonder if the reviewer had
fully appreciated the significance of Warton's placing Pope
in the second rate of poets because of his concentration on
moral and didactic poetry--the very poetry that Pope had felt
was his highest achievement.

In his review of the 1756 Essay for the Literary Mag-
azine, Samuel Johnson was less enthusiastic than his fellow
critics. He began by commending it as "a very curious) and
entertaining miscellany of critical remarks and literary
history" and ended by repeating this commendation and adding
"if there be any too learned to be instructed in facts or
Opinions, he may yet properly read this book, as a just

specimen of literary moderation." Between these generally

approving remarks, he proceeded to note specific points of
agreement and disagreement. Some of these were so minor as
126:251.
252:240.

7"Review of an Essay on the Writing and Genius of Pope"

from The Literary Magazine, 1756, in Dr. Johnson's Works,
Oxford English Classics (Oxford, 1825) 6:37 and 46.
Xlvil

to seem "like pure quibbling."! Many were minor but insight-
ful. Some were major, such as Johnson's conclusion that, in
his remarks about The Rape of the Lock, Warton “is indeed
commonly right but has discussed no difficult question
(6:44)." Johnson made no comment on the Dedicatory letter to
Young. Perhaps he judged Warton's opening call for a return
to “true poetry” as pronouncement not discussion, and as such
beyond the reach of practical, analytical criticism.

Johnson gave more enthusiastic endorsement to Warton's
comment that "‘In no polished nation, after criticism has
been much studied, and the rules of writing established, has
any very extraordinary book ever appeared'”" (6:43-44). This
reflects the growing concern with the effect of increasing
literary refinement on poetry. The popular nature/art
paradigm similarly emphasized the tension between the rugged
originality of nature and the refinements of art. Thus, if
natural Homer is superior to artistically refined Virgil,
then the less civilized societies produced great poetry,
while the rule-conscious eighteenth century seemed doomed to
produce the second rate. And this is Warton's conclusion
about Pope.

Johnson's review is strangely silent about Warton's
placing Pope outside the realm of “true poets." His silence
was not consent, however. It must have been in his mind
when, some years later he wrote in The Life of Pope:

After all this [examination of Pope's versification] it

is surely superfluous to answer the question that has
once been asked, Whether Pope was a poet? otherwise

I1MacClintock, 26.
Xlviiil

than by asking in return If Pope be not a poet, where is
poetry to be found? To circumscribe poetry by a defini-
tion will only shew the narrowness of the definer,
though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not
easily be made. Let us look round upon the present
time, and back upon the past; let us enquire to whom the
voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let
their productions be examined and their claims stated,
and the pretensions of Pope will be no more disputed

(3:251).

Warton had attempted such a definition--the true poet has "a
creative and glowing imagination" and his poetry's primary
chararacteristics are the sublime and pathetic--and found
Pope wanting. Johnson's practical approach to literature
admitted no such definition, except as a revelation of the
definer's narrowness. Of the attempt to define poetry, he
had originally written more acerbically that it “is the
pedantry of a narrow mind" (3:251n).

Overall, Johnson's review of Warton's 1756 Essay seems
limited and uneven. He did not come to grips with what seem
to us now its most interesting features, but he did recognize
its importance by devoting a fair amount of space to it in
the Literary Magazine. Nonetheless, his apparent dismissal
of Warton's challenge to poetry seems to reveal a lack of
vision as well as insensitivity to the currents that were
moving poetry toward a major revolution.

A few years later, in his Essay on the Life and Genius
of Henry Fielding (1762), Arthur Murphy, branching out from
his discussion of what a "fair-dealing" critic should do,

challenged Warton's "unjust sentence" that "Mr. Pope had

little invention."™! Warton's concept of invention was not

1The Works of Henry Fielding 1:28.
x1l1ix

comprehensive enough, and it failed to take the complex
nature of invention into consideration:

Thus then we see the two provinces of Invention; at one

time it is employed in opening a new vein of thought; at

another, in placing ideas, that have been pre-occupied,
in a new light, and lending them the advantages of
novelty by the force of a sublimer diction, or the turn

of delicate composition (1:35).

Murphy called the first kind of invention “primary and ori-
ginal" and the other “secondary and subordinate." He
asserted that "there has not been so much [primary invention]
in any one poet (not even excepting Homer) as has been gener-
ally imagined" (1:34-5,36). Voicing the neo-classical belief
that a poet drew not only on his imagination or fancy but
also on learning and tradition, Murphy stated that, like
Homer, Pope "enriched his mind with all the knowledge that
subsisted in his time; all that could be furnished by the
valuable remains of antiquity”™ (1:36), together with morality,
theology, and philosophy.

Murphy went on to reject the idea that invention "solely
consists in describing imaginary beings" or in constructing
"what the Critics call a Fable, that is to say, an unity of
action." Rather, invention includes how the poet uses his
imagination to put his "acquired ideas" to use. It includes
"the apt allusion which illustrates, the metaphor which
raises his language into dignity, the general splendor of his
diction, the harmony of his numbers, and in short the poetic
turn of his pieces." And these surely "were all his [Pope's]

own" (1:36, 37). On this basis, Murphy rejected Warton's

judgment that Pope's The Rape of the Lock showed "'more
imagination than all his other works taken together'"(1:29).
Imagination, and its offspring invention, was as manifest in
The Dunciad or The Essay on Man as in The Rape of the Lock.
Murphy was writing during the time that imagination as
the central organizing force in art was just beginning to
develop,! and his defense of Pope reflected this change. It
was no longer enough to assert Pope's supremacy in taste,
knowledge, dignity of language and harmony of verse. Murphy
seems to have recognized that imagination and invention were
becoming the key criteria for poetry, and he skillfully
defined these terms to make them apply to all of Pope's work,
not just those pieces, The Rape of the Lock and Eloisa, which
had been traditionally granted "imagination" and "sublimity."
Of all those who praised or censured Warton's Essay, only
Arthur Murphy seems to have grasped its significance and
attempted to rebut it in its own terms. But, as James Engell
has pointed out, the imagination as a term that subsumed all
previous critical terms for poetic inspiration did not come
into its own until the 1780s. When Arthur Murphy made a
Gigression on Pope's invention a part of his Essay on the
Life and Genius of Henry Fielding, British philosophers and
critics were just beginning to work out their ideas about

creativity and genius. Alexander Gerard's "Essay on Taste

(1759) and, even more important, An Essay on Genius (1774)

move({d] associationism and the theory of imagination onto a

1See Engell, viii.
li

higher and richer plane." William Duff, in his Essay on
Original Genius (1767), attained “a view of the imagination
as a broad and natural power whose scope in poetry is ‘abso-
lute and unconfined.'"™! Murphy was a playwright and critic
not a philosopher, and he was a neo-classicist at heart.
Nevertheless, he had sensed the temper of the time enough to
attempt to reconcile Pope's poetry to it, albeit during a
digression buried in the Life of a writer who was primarily a
novelist.

Arthur Murphy and Joseph Warton were by no means alone in
responding to the powerful currents moving poetry away from
neo-classical ideals. Edward Young, to whom Warton had
dedicated his Essay, published his Conjectures on Original
Composition in 1759. In it he briefly compared Pope and
Dryden. Although neither Pope nor Dryden revealed the ori-
Ginality of the true poetic genius, Young saw more possibi-
lity in Pope. Had Pope not become “pre-engaged with Imita-
tion," which "is inferiority confessed," and attempted emu-
lation, which "is superiority contested, or denied," he
might have been another Homer.? Dryden, on the other hand,
worked in a medium (drama) that "demands the heart; and
Dryden had none to give. - » « But the strongest demonstra-
tion of his no-taste for the buskin, are his’ tragedies
fringed with rhyme; which, in Epic poetry, is a sore disease;

in the Tragic, absolute death. To Dryden's enormity, Pope's

1Engell, 84, 79.
2 (Leeds: The Scolar Press, 1966) 65-9 passin.
1ii

was a light offence" (83). Although Young followed Aris-
totelian tradition in ranking tragedy above all other forms,
he did so not because of the form itself but because it
"demands the heart." Dryden was more to blame than Pope
because he had sinned against the noblest form.

Young reacted as a poet, condemning those fellow poets
who in his view had perverted their talents. He showed none
of Warton's moderation and fair-mindedness. Such qualities
became irrelevant when one's art was at stake. Warton's
Essay was a carefully documented analysis of the supreme neo-
classical poet. Young's Conjectures was a manifesto and a
call to arms. He may also have wanted to make public his own
view of Pope and Dryden, which readers of Warton's first
volume might have assumed reflected Young's judgment of them.

Many of the critics who compared Dryden and Pope found
Dryden's poetry more natural and spontaneous than Pope's.
Pope was often criticized as being too artificial, as lacking
that unpremeditated fire which only natural genius can pro-
vide. Those who supported Pope found Dryden's poetry too
subject to excess and to gross defects in tone, language and
versification. He may have had abundant natural wit, but he
lacked artistic judgment and consistency. As we have seen,
Robert Shiels found Pope's work more even and correct’ than
Dryden's, but Dryden had a wider range and his verse was

"more fraught with poetical ideas."! Samuel Johnson enlarged

1See above, XxXV.
liii

On this comparison in this famous passage from the Life of

Pope:
[Dryden's] mind has a larger range. ... The style of
Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cau-
tious and uniforn. Dryden observes the motions of his
own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of
composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid;
Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. . .. .
Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls
below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment,
and Pope with perpetual delight. (3:222).

Like his predecessors, Johnson drew on the traditional para-

digms of nature versus art and wit versus judgment. In order

to appreciate what these terms had come to mean by Johnson's

time, we must review briefly their origins and history.

Nature and Art; Wit and Judgment

We have been discussing these pairs of terms as if they
opposed each other: nature versus art; wit versus judgment.
But we can also see them as cooperating with or complementing
each other: nature and art; wit and judgment. Historically,
they have been viewed both as cooperating and opposing.!

Conflicting interpretations of the relationship between
nature and art stem from the ways in which thinkers conceived
of them. Today, we rely on the definitions developed

during the Renaissance that nature is what God makes, and art

is what man makes. These become more complicated when we

1For this discussion of nature and art, I am indebted to
Edward Tayler, Nature and Art in Renaissance Literature
(NY: Columbia UP, 1964) and Arthur 0. Lovejoy, Essays in the
History of Ideas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1948).
liv

consider the possible relationships between nature and art.
The cooperating or complementary view conceives of nature as
God's art, and art as man's imitation of what God does in
nature. The conflicting or noncomplementary position
conceives of nature as solely God's province and of man's art
is an attempt to usurp God's powers.

These two extremes are epitomized in the conflicting
interpretations of the Promethean myth which began with the
ancient Greeks. On the one hand, Prometheus was the hero
who, along with fire, brought all the arts to mankind. On
the other, he was the villain who, by introducing the
luxuries that art made possible, softened humanity's natural
vigor by interposing artificial objects or institutions
between man and nature.

These opposing interpretations opened up a large range
of possibilities for viewing the nature/art relationship.
Between the extremes of ideal balance and irreconcilable con-
flict, Greek and Roman philosophers developed a wide range of
views. Stoicism, for instance, held up Nature as the ideal,
identifiying "God and everything valuable with it" and looked
with "respectful nostalgia”! to the unspoiled Golden Age
which needed no art to make it perfect. More sophisticated,
as well as more representative, thinkers such as Cicero (and
the Stoic Seneca as well) conceived of nature and art as more
complexly related. Thus, in the moral sphere, philosophers

could view nature as the instinctive, spontaneous, and

i1fTayler, 49.
lv

nonrational aspect of human life which needed the art of
rational thought and reflection in order to be complete.
Seneca wrote, "For Nature does not bestow virtue; it is an
art to become good."

In classical literature, the pastoral became the ideal
form for embodying the nature/art dichotomy. Authors con-
trasted natural country life with artificial court or city
life. Here again, the relationship varied from writer to
writer. Theocritus held the two in a balance in which each
qualified or corrected the other. Virgil created "the green
world of Arcadia, in which ideal Nature has no need of Art"?
because nature was already perfect. On the other hand,
Longus, the author of Daphnis and Chloe, placed nature and
art in active philosophical opposition in which the "pastoral
world of Nature" was "fundamentally opposed to the corrupt
and decadent world of Art."

Because medieval thinkers and writers were far more
concerned with the relationship between nature and grace than
with that between nature and art, the nature/art relationship
lost most of its philosophical impact during the middle ages.
The nature/art division remained important primarily for
rhetoric. Horace had answered the age-old question of
whether nature or art is more powerful in writing poetry by
stating that both were essential. Medieval writers accepted

this commonplace which descended pretty much unchanged to the

1The Epistles of Seneca 2:429.
2Tayler, 69.
°Tayler, 69.
lvi

sixteenth century. The nature/art relationship gained some
new philosophical life from the twelfth-century thinker John
of Salisbury. He conceived of art as "'a system that reason
has devised'" to expedite “'our ability to do things within
our natural capabilities.'"! His thinking put the kind of
emphasis on man and his work that the Renaissance was to
revive and expand on.

With this Renaissance interest in man came renewed
interest in Classical ideas about how nature and art worked
together or against each other. This relationship became a
key organizing force in philosophy and literature. Renais-
sance writers and thinkers arguing about man's position in
the universe used nature and art as focal points for organ-
izing their ideas, much as we use terms like nature and
nurture, heredity and environment, today. Starting from the
Christian view that God makes nature and man makes art, they
drew on classical texts to redefine and revivify the
nature/art relationship. The "orthodox moral philosophers"?
viewed it as cooperating. Because nature is God's art, when
man exercizes his own art, he is in tune with God's plan. In
this view, art was a positive help to fallen man in his
attempt, as Milton put it, "to repair the ruin of his first
parents."

The opposing view held that nature and art conflicted

and that any attempt by man to interfere with God's handiwork

1Metalogicon (c. 1159), quoted in Tayler, 79.
2Tayler, 21.

$"Of Education,™ Paradise Lost and Selected Poetry and
Prose, ed. Northrop Frye (NY: Rinehart, 1956) 439.
lvii

(His art with nature) corrupted it. Fallen man had had to
develop arts in order to survivie, but his ultimate goal
should be to cast these aside and return to unsullied na-
ture--Eden before the fall. This subsumed Virgil's green
Arcadia and gave revewed strength to primitivist admiration
for man in his savage, or natural, state, uncorrupted by
society.

As in classical times, pastoral literature became the
primary means’ for developing the nature/art relationship.
With their humanistic approach, Renaissance authors adapted
the pastoral to a wide array of human concerns from the
personal to the political to the spiritual, whether as co-
operation or conflict. The Medieval concern with nature and
grace had Christianized the pastoral, making possible reli-
gious and allegorical interpretations of the old pagan
stories about shepherds and their sheep, rustic swains and
their brides. Poets could identify the Golden Age and Arcadia
with Eden, Pan with Christ, the shepherd with the king or
priest. The Song of Songs could be read both as celebrating
the courtship and wedding of a king (who was also a religious
leader) and also as embodying the mystery of Christ's love
for and union with His church.

Turning to the art of writing itself, Renaissance auth-
ors rediscovered Quintillian's dictum that the "‘height of
art is to conceal art.'"! Art as nature's essential, yet
invisible, handmaid dominated Renaissance aesthetic thought

and continued as an important view through the first half of

iTayler, 34.
lvii

the eighteenth century, after which it faded into the bac-
kground as new concerns with the sublime, the picturesque and
the power of the imagination emerged.

By the eighteenth century, the nature/art relationship
had become a commonplace, an accepted model from which most
of the life had been drained. Poets and critics invoked it

to support various, even opposing, views of human life. For

the neo-classicist, nature was regular and uniform. When
Pope said that the poet should "first follow nature" (EOC
69), he assumed that nature was the source of the aesthetic,

and conversely that art was the handmaid of nature. His view
was similar to that of the Renaissance's ideal balance  be-
tween art and nature. Ironically, this view carried the
seeds of its own decay because "nearly all norms of the
revolt against neo-classical standards invoked the same
catchword"! of keeping close to nature. Those who followed
nature into its wild and irregular recesses emerged with the
view that far from being orderly, uniform, and harmonious,
nature was full of diversity and uniqueness. The cult of the
picturesque in painting and gardening, the Gothic Revival in
architecture, and the Gothic novel in literature all mani-
fested this new taste for the wild, the rough, and the dis-
cordant. Primitive nature, unspoiled by the arts of man,
which had always attracted thinkers and writers, reasserted
its claims. This changing view the the nature/art relation-

ship was reflected in the concept of the sublime as

i1Lovejoy, 76.
lix

manifested in nature at its wildest and most gigantic.

While the nature/art dichotomy had become fossilized by
the eighteenth century, the wit/judgment relationship emerged
as a paradigm that, though narrower in focus, took on some of
its meaning. As Renaissance thinkers had given new vigor to
the nature/art dichotomy, the seventeenth century philoso-
phers developed the wit/judgment relationship. In doing so,
they narrowed the definition of wit so that it no longer
meant the intellect or mental powers in general but referred
to a specific kind of mental activity. Thomas Hobbes’~ shows
this change in the making.

In 1640, he described the activities of a "quick rang-
ing" mind or wit "under which fancy and judgment are compre-
hended."! Fancy consists in "comparing the things that
come into the mind, one with another: in which comparison, a
man delighteth himself either with finding uexpected simili-
tude of things, otherwise much unlike." It produces "those
grateful similies, metaphors, and other tropes, by which both
poets and orators have it in their power to make _ things
please or displease." By contrast, judgment consists in

"discerning suddenly dissimilitude in things that otherwise

appear the same." By making distinctions among things, it
leads "to exact and perfect knowledge." A decade later,
Hobbes began to narrow his definition of wit. Retaining the

1Human Nature in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed.
Sir William Molesworth (London, 1860) 4:55-6. The quotations
in this paragraph are from the same place.
1x

Old idea of wit as mental powers, he offered a second defini-

tion of wit as "one certain ability," which, when strong, he
called "good wit.” This was identical to "good fancy" and
like it observes "Similitudes." Judgment continued to dis-

cern "dissimilitudes," and "good judgment,” like "good wit,"
showed itself in difficult cases.!

In his "Answer to Davenant's Preface before Gondibert”"
(1650), Hobbes seemed to denigrate the role of fancy (as he
was still calling it) in relation to its "severer sister,"
judgment: "judgment begets the strength and structure, and
fancy begets the ornaments of a poem." Fancy is agile and
swift, but "her wonderful celerity, consisteth not so much
in motion, as in copious imagery discreetly ordered, and
perfectly registered in the memory." He softened this view
by admitting that "so far forth as the fancy of man has
traced the ways of true philosophy, so far it hath produced
very marvelous effects to the benefit of mankind."* Going
even futher, he depicted fancy, or wit, as the faculty which
supports true philosophy when its "precepts fail, as they
have hitherto failed in the doctrine of moral virtue." It
becomes finally "the architect" which "must take the philoso-
pher's part upon herself." Such a concept of wit gives it a
breadth and power that resembles the creative imagination,

which, as James Engell has shown, emerged during the second

1 Leviathan, ed. Michael Oakeshott (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1960) 43.

2Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry, ed. Alexander M.
Witherspoon and Frank J. Warnke (NY: Harcourt, 1982) 213.

1x1

half of the eighteenth century. Hobbes's own development
within his “Answer to Davenant" of the power of fancy from
literary ornamenter to philosophic guide foreshadows, in
Miniature, the next century's development of the power of
imagination as the chief force for organizing “the unity of
all creation and implanting the divine in man."™!

In his History of the Royal Society (1667), Thomas Sprat,
like Hobbes, moved from the general definition of wit as
mental powers to a more specific one. And like Hobbes, he
defined wit as the mental power that discovers similitudes,
or the “resemblance of one thing to another."* It depended
on "the Works of Nature, which are one of the best and most
fruitful Soils for the growth of Wit" (415). Those men who
perform experiments on nature will contribute to the stock of
poets' images because "the Comparisons which these
[experimenters] may afford will be intelligible to all, be-
caus they proceed from things that enter into all ~=mens
senses" (416). In this connection, Sprat distinguished be-
tween the trivial wit of "Raillery" which comes from "obser-
vation of the deformity of things" and the "nobler" pleasure
which wit produces when it discerns the "Order and Beauty” in
Nature (418). He both followed and extended Hobbes's view of
wit as a powerful quality that could organize and revitalize

men's understanding of their world.

1Engell, viii.

2Jackson Cope and Harold Jones, eds. (St. Louis:
Washington U Studies, 1958) 413. The anomalies in spelling
are Sprat's.
lxii

Sprat devoted much less space to discussing judgment
than he did to wit. He did not follow Hobbes in defining
judgment as the power that makes distinctions, but viewed it
as the force which carries on the conceptions which wit dis-
covers. Judgment is not wit's critic, or as Hobbes put it,
its "severer sister," but its enabler and extender. Hobbes
had seen them as neatly balanced opposites, Sprat emphasized
their emotional differences. "Great wits" were often "fiery"
and "Impetuous men" whose work needed "the more judicious,
who are not so soon possess'd with such raptures" to "carry
on the others strong conceptions, by soberer degrees, toa
full accomplishment" (85-86).

Later in the century, John Locke restated the relation-
ship between wit and judgment in terms that recalled Hobbes
and set the pattern for eighteenth-century critics, especial-

ly Addison:

For Wit lying most in the assemblage of Ideas, and
putting those together with quickness and vyariety,
wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity,
thereby to make up pleasant Pictures, and agreeable
Visions in the Fancy: Judqment, on the contrary, lies
quite on the other side, in separating carefully, one
from another, Ideas, wherein, can be found the least
adifference, thereby to avoid being misled by Similitude,
and by affinity to take one thing for another.!

Addison quoted this definition in Spectator 62 and added that
resemblance of ideas is not wit unless it also gives "Delight
and Surprize to the Reader." Addison shared the view begun
by Hobbes and Sprat that wit leads to truth and is allied

with the majesty and simplicity of nature.

1An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H.
Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975) 156.
1x1112

Dryden and Pope followed this general view of wit and
judgment. Dryden emphasized the liveliness of wit, its
energy, broad range, and delightfulness. He saw it as the
"product of imagination" which both mirrors and goes beyond
Mature because "it sets before your eyes that absent object
as perfectly and more delightfully than nature."™! For
Dryden, judgment retrenched the excesses of wit. Ideally it
balanced these excesses, restraining wit's tendency to run
exuberantly into error.

Pope followed Dryden's lead in defining the relationship
between wit and judgment. Wit is powerful, free, and wide-
ranging. It "May boldly deviate from the common Track" and

"snatch a Grace beyond the Reach of Art" (EOC 151, 154).

Similarly, Pope agreed with Dryden that wit run wild needed
the control of judgment. Dryden had viewed the relationship
as vigorous, even violent. Judgment curbed wit as the horse-
man curbed a "hot-mouthed jade." In Pope's more refined
image judgment guides and checks "the Muse's Steed," and
produces not just control but a kind of cooperation in which
wit, "like a gen'rous Horse,/ Shows most true Mettle when you
check his Course" (EOC 84, 86-87).

The wit and judgment paradigm reached its height during
the neo-classical era, just as the art/nature dichotomy had
reached its during the Renaissance. Eighteenth-century cri-

tics often saw the two models as parallel pairs, thus linking

1Dramatic Poesy 1:98.
2Dramatic Poesy 1:225.
lxiv

the nature/art model to their own times and turn of mind.
Nature and wit resembled each other in being vital and crea-
tive, akin to imagination and invention, and were exemplified
by Homer and Shakespeare. Similarly, art and judgment
shared the power to order and refine their respective part-
ners and were exemplified by Virgil and Ben Jonson. Dryden
wrote:
If I would compare him [Jonson] with Shakespeare, I must
acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare
the greater wit. Shakespeare was the Homer or father of
our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern
of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shake-
speare.!
Joshua Reynolds made the same distinction between Michel-

angelo, whom he termed sublime, and Raphael, whom he saw as

more balanced and artistically correct.?

Johnson's Comparison of Pope and Dryden

When Samuel Johnson compared Dryden and Pope, he made
the same kind of distinction former critics had made between

Homer and Virgil, Shakespeare and Jonson, and Michelangelo

and Raphael. Dryden was freer, broader ranging, and more
vigorous than Pope. Pope was more consistent and "steadier
on the wing" than Dryden. Johnson's contrast of the two

conformed to the paired models of nature and art, wit and
judgment, but his conception of those terms--especially wit

and judgment--bore his distinctive mark.

1Dramatic Poesy 1:79.
2Discourses on Art, ed. Robert R. Wark (San Marino,
CA: Huntington Library, 1959) 83-84.
1xv

In discussing nature and art, he followed the main lines
of tradition. He took the neo-classical view that nature was
uniform, underlying everything. Whatever the accidental
appearance of things, nature itself was as stable as truth.
Shakespeare was the "poet of nature," because his characters
and their actions were “the genuine progeny of common humani-
ty." 1! Like his predecessors, Johnson saw nature as beyond
human control. A poet could not learn it. Only his God-
given instinct or intuition could lead him to "snatch a grace
beyond the reach of art" (EOC 155).

Art contrasted with nature in being “the power of doing
something not taught by nature and instinct; as, to walk is
natural, to dance is an art" (Dictionary). Not only was
dancing learned, it conformed to specific rules. Still, it
built on the natural ability to walk, refining and elevating
it. Johnson saw the reciprocal relationship between nature
and art as essential in any great human undertaking. In the
greatest literature, art and nature joined as partners in a
particularly organic way: "Fame cannot spread wide or endure
long that is not rooted in nature, and manured by art. That
which hopes to resist the blast of malignity, and stand firm
against the attacks .of time, must contain in itself some
original principle of growth."2 Johnson's organic imagery
reflects his concern with both the fundamental and the ordi-

Nary. It shows his tendency to merge pairs into a third idea

i"Preface to Shakespeare," Works 7:62.

2Rambler 5:154.

lxvi

that contains their qualities but expresses them in a new
entity. The plant, fame, is the growth of root and manure,
not just their mechanical combination.

In discussing wit and judgment, Johnson resisted his
contemporaries' tendency to restrict wit to a particular kind
of mental power. He seized on the first two lines of Pope's
famous definition of true wit ("What oft was Thought, but
ne'er so well Exprest" (EOC 298), charging that it "depresses
it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of
thought to happiness of language."! Even when he defined wit
more narrowly than "the powers of the mind," he included
judgment within it. The Dictionary's definitions include
“imagination; quickness of fancy. . .sense; judgment." Con-
versely, his definition of judgment is broad enough to in-
clude contemporary concepts of wit. The Dictionary states
that judgment is "the power of discerning the relations
between one term or proposition and another." In his Life of
Pope, Johnson further defined judgment as that aspect of an
author's genius "which selects from life or nature what the
present purpose requires, and, by separating the essence of
things from its concomitants, often makes the representation
more powerful than the reality."? For Johnson, judgment
both discerned relations and made distinctions. It operated
somewhat like wit in enhancing an author's depiction of

nature rather than retrenching wit's excesses. Its

1Lives (Cowley) 1:19.
Z2Lives 3:247.
lxvil

relationship to wit resembled art's to nature. It used the
human ability to think, select, join, and distinguish to
enhance the poet's native wit.

Although Johnson's principal comparison of Dryden and

Pope appeared in his Life of Pope (1781), he had formed his

Opinion years earlier. Boswell reported this conversation

from February, 1766:

I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had
distinguished Pope and Dryden thus:--'Pope drives a
handsome chariot, with a couple of neat trim nags;
Dryden a coach, and six stately horses.: Johnson. ‘Why
Sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but
Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling:
Pope's go at a steady even trot.'!

A few years later, Johnson noted "that in Dryden's poetry
there were passages drawn from a profundity which Pope could
never reach."

In his Life of Pope, abandoning or not recalling the

earth-bound carriage metaphor which Voltaire had started, he

summed up the differences between the two poets:
If the flights of Dryden therefore are higher, Pope
continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the
blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular
and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and
Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent
astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.

Flight and fire are fused with human thought and feeling in

this powerful and comprehensive image. Shiels had covered

the same ground and had started some of the images. Pope's

1James Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. G.B. Hill (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1934) 2:5.
2Boswell, 2:85.

3Lives 3:223.
lxviil

"evenness" contrasted with Dryden's “wider range." Pope was
"the most pleasing versifier; Dryden, "the greater genius."™!
But Johnson transformed the comparison as he said Dryden had
transformed English poetry, "He found it brick, and he left
it Marble."

Johnson's evaluation recalls Shiels's, but his approach
differed. Shiels examined the poets' works; Johnson explored
their minds.? Dryden's "mind has the larger range."4 "The
notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation,
and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity
in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of
Pope." Their poetic geniuses differed as wit unbounded dif-
fered from wit circumscribed by judgment. Dryden had more of
"that energy which collects, combines, amplifies and ani-
mates," but “it is not to be inferred that of this poetical
vigour Pope had only a little because Dryden had more."
Dryden's vigor was intense but sporadic: "What his mind could
supply at a call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he
sought and all that he gave." Pope's "dilatory caution" led
to long and consistent labor "to accumulate all that study
might produce, oor chance supply." For their prose styles,
Johnson turned to the popular eighteenth-century landscape

image, with its juxtaposition of nature and art: "Dryden's

1Above, XXVv.

ZLives 1:469.

3M.H. Abrams traces the shift in criticism from
"Pragmatic" to “Expressive," from works to writer, in The
Mirror and the Lamp (NY: Oxford UP, 1953) 14-26.

‘Lives 3:222. The quotations in the rest of the
paragraph are from 222-23.
1xix

page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diver-
sified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation;
Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled
by the roller."

Johnson's comparison of Dryden and Pope received little
or no critical comment when the Lives of the Poets was first
reviewed. The volumes themselves were widely reviewed, and
despite sharp criticism of Johnson's harsh treatment of spe-
cific poets like Milton, Collins and Gray, the judgment was
generally favorable. From 1779-1782 The Monthly Review
devoted some sixty-four pages to reviewing the twelve-volume

Lives and quoted the Pope-Dryden comparison without making

any comment on it. Although its reviewer found much to
admire in the Lives, he deplored the frequency with which
"the Critic's judgment seems altogether under the dominance
of predilection or prejudice."™! The Critical Review allot-
ted about eleven pages to each of the two six-volume. sets.
It did not quote or comment on the Pope-Dryden comparison.
In the Gentleman's Magazine, Robert Potter, who signed him-
self "W.B." made a few generally favorable comments about the
Lives and then proceeded to discuss selected passages from
the Lives in detail, breaking off in the middle of Pope
without having reached the Pope-Dryden comparison. The arti-
Cle ended with the notice "to be continued," but no further
essays appeared. Potter's rather bland remarks in the GM

drew a response from an unnamed contributor ("H.") who

166:126.
1xx

objected to Johnson's prejudices coupled with his
authoritative manner that led them to be “adopted as
truths." Several years later, Anna Seward voiced a similar
opinion in a letter to William Hayley (July 15, 1787):
I have always despised the admirers of Johnson as_ an
equitable critic, assured that they had not strength of
understanding to think, or sensibility to feel for them-

selves (1:306).

Anna Seward did not like the Lives. In 1786, she had con-

demned the effect Johnson's Lives had had in turning public
taste against contemporary poets:

I know there is a great falling off since Johnson's
Lives of the Poets appeared. It is in the taste of the
public, however, not in the genius of individuals; but
the induration [hardening] on the sensibililty of excel-
lence in the higher walks of poetry, which that work has
so generally produced, will, in future, create the

paucity it does not meet. Who takes the trouble of
Singing to the deaf, or of painting for the blind?
(1:187).

Anna Seward was not alone in her charge of insensitivity.
John Hawkins considered Johnson to have a “talent for criti-
Cism both perceptive and corrective” which was "justly cele-

brated"? and recognized the greatness of the Lives. Yet he

concluded that Johnson's physical limitations, especially his
poor eyesight, caused a "defect in his imaginative faculty,"
which resulted in his "frigid commendation” (473) of the
highly descriptive poetry that was becoming increasingly
popular. This together with Johnson's avowed prejudice

against blank verse andin favor of rhyme caused him to

152:19.
2Life of Samuel Johnson (Dublin, 1787) 243.
1xxi

devalue poets like Milton, Gray, and Thomson.

Johnson's Lives of Dryden and Pope escaped such criti-
cism. From the time they appeared, they were considered
among his best, and his comparison of the two poets has been
quoted repeatedly. The basis for Johnson's comparison was
probably familiar to many readers from Shiels's work. And
it was uncontroversial. It drew on the popular paradigms of
nature and art, wit and judgment in language that is among
Johnson's most eloquent and humane. If Johnson's Lives has
"often been taken as a book of wisdom,"! the Dryden-Pope
comparison strikes most readers as sounding one of its finest
notes.

Its wisdom still survives, but the paradigms that
underlay the comparison were engulfed by the nineteenth
century's emphasis on creative imagination and individual
expressiveness. The nature and art model had been losing its
vitality since the Renaissance. The eighteenth-century kept
it alive mainly by linking it with wit and judgment, terms
which reflected their concern with the rational mind and its
workings. To the Romantic poets, however, these terms
represented everything they disliked about the eighteenth
century, with its mechanical rules, its love of ornament, its
joy in artifice, and its nonorganic compartmentalizing of the
human mind. As a paradigm for poetic composition, the

interrelation of wit and judgment disappeared. In the

1Robert Folkenflik, Samuel Johnson, Biographer (Ithaca:
Cornell UP, 1978) 27.
Llxxii

twentieth century, perhaps we find its descendant in the
complex view of scientific discovery as both creative and
analytical. New theories spring from man's intuitive wit
which works in a nonrational way that resembles the operation
of nature itself. Such leaps of wit alone do not make new
science. Critical judgment, an art scientists learn through
years of study and experience, constantly tests and refines

the discoveries of wit.

If Johnson wrote the most memorable eighteenth-century
words about Pope and Dryden he did not write the last. From
April 1789 through April 1791, some thirty thousand more were
expended in the pages of The Gentleman's Magazine. In addi-
tion to the two principals, seventeen others joined in the
paper war. Most were relatively obscure; a few were well

known. Some were temperate; others were vehemently partisan.

The Controversialists

The Various Sides

Anna Seward and Joseph Weston were the originators and
principal combatants in the controversy about whether Pope or
Dryden was the superior poet. Their letters begin and end the
debate and occupy most of the space. Weston's letters, which
include a transcription of most of the Preface to the Woodmen

ef Arden, run to more than 150 pages. Miss Seward's take up
1xx111

less than 50 pages and end midway through the exchange.
Weston not only has the last word, but promises more to come.
It never does. Of the seventeen other letter writers, six
support Miss Seward's position and five side with Weston.
The remainder refute or agree with both sides' arguments, add
information of their own, or call for peace.

The unidentified "M. F."! is Miss Seward's most prolific

champion, contributing six letters to the controversy. "M.
F." both supports Miss Seward and attacks Weston, forcing
Weston to fight on two fronts at once. "W." (Letter 27), an

Edinburgh correspondent, supports Miss Seward's defense of
Pope's character. "J. S." (Letter 30) gives learned support
to the defense of Pope against Weston's charges in Letter 17

about Pope's treatment of Thomas Burnet and George Duckett.

"Obadiah Meanwell" (Letter 28), who sounds like a Quaker,
joins in as the friend of "M. F.," who has commissioned him
to explain the pro-Pope side further because "M. F." has

promised to write no more himself.

A particularly scathing attack on Weston comes from "B.
L. <A." (Letter 35). With a good deal of Greek and Latin
fanfare, he undertakes to refute "by chronology" (232) Wes-
ton's assertion that Pope "incited Swift to ridicule Dryden

in ‘The Tale of a Tub'" (233). The final defense for the

1Most of the letter writers signing initials or
pseudonyms remain unidentified. Some are positively or
tentatively identified by James Kuist in The Nichols File of
The Gentleman's Magazine (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1982),
and in all but one of those cases I have given his
identification.
lxiv

Seward camp comes from "Norfolciencis" (Letter 41). Although
he is tentatively identified by Kuist as G. Aiken, it seems
more likely that he may be John Aikin. There is no record of
a G. Aikin in Nichols's Anecdotes or Illustrations, and Anna
Seward's Letters do not mention him. John Aikin, however,
was practicing medicine in Yarmouth in 1791, and "Norfol-
ciencis's" letter comes from there. Aikin knew Dr. Erasmus
Darwin and was known to Anna Seward, who referred to him
several times in her Letters. She took special notice of Dr.
Aikin's interest in poetry.! "Norfolciencis"™ supports "B. L.
A.'s" position and reproves those calling for peace by
noting that Miss Seward has long since retired from the
debate, leaving Weston, like Garrick's Richard III "stabbing
the air at the feet of Richmond" (247).

On Weston's side are John Morfitt (Letter 10), whose
poem was the occasion for the controversy; "M----s," (Henry
Francis Cary, Letters 5 and 12); and Philip Thicknesse,
(Letter 26) who agrees with Weston about Pope's’ character.
The unidentified "L. M." contributes a sonnet, complete with
Drydenic triplet and Alexandrine, praising Weston "whom Vir-
tue and the Muses fire" (220). "R. W.." or Bardus Ordovi-
censis (poet of North Wales) writes from Flintshire in North
Wales (Letter 37) supporting Weston, but restores the balance
by commenting that Weston has been vanquished in the debate
not by Miss Seward's arguments but by the "resistless power

of her eyes (239).

1See 1:20, 73; 2:5; 6:145, 157.
L1xxv

Among the remainder, "Impartial" (Letter 14) lives up to
his pseudonym by agreeing with and praising both Miss Seward
and Weston. "M(atthew)]) G[lreen]" (GM editor John Nichols,
Letter 24) agrees with Weston about Pope's treatment of
Leonard Welsted, and even contributes a hitherto unobtainable
poem by Welsted to his own magazine's poetry section. Then
to even things up, he sides with Miss Seward by pointing out
that Pope became "so convinced of the injustice with which he
had treated Welsted" that he withdrew "the most offensive
lines" from later editions of the Dunciad (189). Nichols
pleases readers on both sides and gives a boost to that
month's poetry section. "R. B." (Letter 38) contributes a
brief note commending Pope's wit and Welsted's patience.

Calls for peace or at least for silence come from "Remi-
gius" (Letter 36); David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes, Letter 39)
who also adds some incorrect information about the pamphlet
"Homerides;:" and "D. R.," who writes in the penultimate
letter (42) that “Pope will be read long after he [Weston)
will be forgotten" (252).

"Maria" (Letter 31) takes a different approach to the
controversy. She tacitly sides with Weston by asserting that
Miss Seward is defending "a bad cause," but she also conjec-
tures that "these two literary Geniuses" have collaborated
"to show themselves off" (219). Her real interest lies
elsewhere, however. In challenging Philip Thicknesse's as-
sumption that he knows how Miss Seward's mind works, she

comments wryly on the position of women: “Women can read
1xxvi

women better than men even of superior understanding, as
fools can find fools better than wiser heads" (219). She

goes on to support this with a fable about how Esquire Fox's
fool found Esquire Hare's fool. Her letter becomes more
interesting if I am right in suggesting that she is Maria
Edgeworth.

Maria Edgeworth was connected with Anna Seward both
through her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and her step
mother, Honora Sneyd Edgeworth. Richard Edgeworth met Anna
Seward in 1766 when he visited Dr. Erasmus Darwin and was
entertained by the Lichfield circle. Subsequently, he vis-
ited Lichfield often, staying with his close friend Thomas
Day. Day and Edgeworth both courted Anna Seward's foster
sister and intimate friend, Honora Sneyd. In 1773, the newly
widowed Edgeworth married Honora, who became the stepmother
of his children by his first marriage. One of them was
Maria, who was then six years old. Although Anna Seward
remained estranged from Honora, probably because she _ was
jealous of Richard Edgeworth's superior claim to Honora's
love, Honora may well have talked of her to Maria. Her own
past relationship to Anna Seward was somewhat parallel to her
new one with Maria. Honora went to live with the Sewards
when she was a child of five. Anna, nine years her senior,
had been her early teacher and later friend. Honora took "a
most tender and motherly interest in Maria."™! Maria, in

turn, was greatly impressed by Honora, and "she remembered

1Grace A. Oliver, A Study of Maria Edgeworth (Boston,
1882) 63.

1xXxxvil

always" her "minutest advice."! Through their relationship,
so reminiscent of the past, Miss Seward's presence may
have been often felt in the Edgeworth household. Although
Anna Seward and Maria Edgeworth did not meet as adults' until
after the controversy (1800), Maria and her sister Emmeline
had been in Seward house as children. Later, as Anna Seward
recorded ina letter, Maria "spoke with apparent delight of
my attentions" to them in their infancy, and of the hours
they called happily spent beneath my father's roof."™2

At the time of the "Maria" letter, Maria Edgeworth was
in her early twenties. She already had a reputation as a
storyteller. Her first published work, The Parent's Assis-
tant; or, Stories for Children would appear five years later,
in 1795. "Maria" begins her letter "Let me tell you a sto-
ry." Further, Maria Edgeworth, as her mature work shows, had
a well developed sense of irony. "Maria" writes with gen-
tle, but unmistakable, irony both about the position of women
and about Miss Seward: "This Lady could no where find a
fairer channel to make her virtues and her talents known to
all the world, than by engaging in such a dispute in the
Gentleman's Magazine" (219-20). Here is a gentle dig at Anna
Seward's well-known vanity and perhaps an oblique fling at
the value a "Lady's" opinions gain from being printed in the
"Gentleman's" magazine. Considering Maria Edgeworth's con-

nection with Anna Seward, her penchant for creating tales

1Oliver, 61.
2Letters 6:207.
lxxviii

with a moral, and her strong sense of irony, I think it is

at least possible that she is "Maria."

Individual Backgrounds

Anna Seward (1742-1809) was well known as a _  poetess,
informal essayist, letter writer and literary critic.! Al-
though she is usually referred to as "the Swan of Lichfield,”
no one knows how the epithet originated. ‘Lichfield's proxi-
mity to Stratford-upon-Avon may have made Lichfield's citi-
zens think "it should have a Swan, even as Stratford had a
hundred years before." Today, we may wonder that the epi-
thet was not attached to a more famous Lichfield native such
as Samuel Johnson or David Garrick. That Anna Seward became
the Swan of Lichfield attests both to her poetic reputation
during her own time as well as to the arresting physical
impression she made with her auburn eyes, majestic figure,
and melodious voice.

Today we do not read the poetry which made her famous,

and we smile at her unceasing enthusiasm conveyed in yards of

relentlessly elevated verse. But she was popular in her day
for those very qualities. As one GM reviewer wrote of her:
"There is. . .a poetess of the age, in whom almost’ every

poetical excellence seems to be united. .. .her merit is so

universally acknowledged, that I trust that I shall not be

1For biographical information about Anna Seward I am
especially indebted to Margaret Ashmun's The Singing Swan
(NY: Greenwood Press, 1931).

2S. Addleshaw, "The Swan of Lichfield: Anna Seward and

Her Circle," The Church Quarterly Review 247 (April-June
1937): 15.

1xx1ix

suspected of flattery, even to a female!"! By the time the
GM controversy occurred, she had become "the most famous
poetess in England."?

One of Anna Seward's earliest and best remembered poems,

Monody on the Death of Major André (1781), which bitterly

denounced his execution as a spy by the Americans, elicited a
response from George Washington. A few years after peace had

been made, he sent an officer to call on Miss Seward with

proofs of Washington's efforts to save André. Washington,
the officer assured her, had found no "'circumstance of his
life... -so mortifying as to be censured in the Monody on
Andre.'"3 Most of Anna Seward's works were very popular.

Her poetical novel Louisa (1784) ran to five editions in
England and one in America. Her translations of Horace's
Odes, which were actually paraphrases in verse of English
prose translations, appeared regularly in the GM during the
mid 1780s and were later included in Original Sonnets on
Various Subjects, and Odes Paraphrased from Horace (1799),
which ran to two editions. Although strict scholars criti-
cized them because Miss Seward knew no Latin, others praised
them as graceful paraphrases. Their appearance in the GM
swelled the fame which had been started by her monodies9 and

elegies and continued by Louisa. Even Samuel Johnson, her

1Ashmun, 92.

2Samuel Holt Monk, "Anna Seward and the Romantic
Poets," Wordsworth and Coleridge: Studies in Honor of George
McLean Harper, ed. Leslie Griggs (Princeton: Princeton UP,
1939) 128.

7Ashmun, 85.

1xxx

lifelong literary and personal antagonist, had praised a

section of her Elegy on Captain Cook (1780), which had ex-

tended to four editions. Her collection of one hundred of her
own sonnets (1799) drew praise from several of the literary
journals. In these she is at her best in the minutely ob-
served descriptions of nature. Her Memoirs of the Life of
Dr. Darwin (1804), although "severely criticised by some
reviewers," "remains an eminently readable book," especially
the sections about Erasmus Darwin's life, personality, and
friends.!} After her death, The Beauties of Anna Seward?
continued her fame into the first quarter of the nineteenth
century.

Anna Seward was a prolific letter writer and shows’ to
advantage in this form. Her letters still provide eighteenth-
century researchers with information about a wide variety of
literary figures. The biographers of people as diverse as
Henry Francis Cary and Maria Edgeworth quote her extensive-
ly.? The six volumes of letters which she chose for publica-
tion are by her own reckoning "only a twelfth part of what
she had written." Inflated enthusiasms, stilted diction
and verbosity mar some of her letters, especially those _ to
authors or critics whom she wanted to impress. But even

parts of these letters, together with others to humbler

1Addleshaw, 22.

2W. CC. Oulton, ed. (1813, 1822).

3R. W. King, The Translator of Dante: The Life, Work
and Friendships of Henry Francis Cary (London: Martin
Secker, 1925) and Oliver, A Study of Maria Edgeworth.

“Addleshaw, 26.

1xxxi

recipients, show her more direct and sensible side. Although
too often carried away by enthusiasm for the poets of her
time, she could be a sharp critic and judge of both litera-
ture and people. When she allowed herself to speak frankly,
her opinions are worth reading.

She loved to talk and argue about poets and poetry. Of
the four controversies published in the GM in which she was
involved, three revolve around this favorite topic, and the
fourth concerns the related topic of pulpit oratory. She
believed passionately in the progress of poetry. She read
her contemporaries, good and bad alike, with pleasure and
pride. Her third list of poets, those of the “modern” period
which began with Pope's death in 1744 (Letters la and 1b)
shows her overwhelming preference for her contemporaries.
Perhaps this also reflects her lack of academic training. No
one had set her a course of reading in seventeenth-century
poetry that might have brought more poets from earlier times
to her notice. However, her choices from the past reflect
those of her compatriots. We hear little even from Johnson
about Donne, Herbert, Traherne, Vaughan, Marvell or the Cava-
lier poets. Of the more than fifty contemporary poets’ she
sees as the geniuses of her day, less than a dozen are still
read with any frequency. Many of the remainder have been
relegated to the ranks of "pretenders" and “poetasters" (Let-
ter la, p. 3) from which Miss Seward felt her lists to be
free. Indeed, the poet she names second (after Gray) is
William Hayley, whose works have long been consigned to the

poetaster trash heap. Her inclusion of Thomson and Collins
1xxx1i

in the modern period is questionable, because their dates
(1700-1748 and 1721-1759 respectively) place them in Pope's
time.} She admits her mistake with Thomson, but defends
Collins's placement because his fame came after midcentury
(Letter 8, p. 36).

At the time the Pope-Dryden controversy began, Anna
Seward was forty-seven. She lived with her seriously i11
father in the bishop's palace (former home of Gilbert Walmes-
ley, mentor of the young Johnson and Garrick) in Lichfield's
Cathedral Close. As the daughter of Canon Thomas’ Seward,
Anna was socially and economically secure. She played a
central role in Lichfield society not only because of her
position but also because of her personality. People liked
her and enjoyed her company. Her fame as a poetess was
increasing and would increase further. Her circle included
Dr. Erasmus Darwin, author of the Botanic Garden (1789-1791)
and grandfather of Charles Darwin; kLucy Porter, Samuel John-
son's step-daughter; Richard Lovell Edgeworth, father of

Maria Edgeworth; Thomas Day, author of Sandford and Merton

(1783-1786), a didactic novel for children which contained
advanced theories about child-rearing and education; and the
youthful Henry Francis Cary, translator of Dante. Dr. Dar-
Win had encouraged her early verse writing and she subse-

quently composed some seventy lines of verse on his actual

1The correspondent "M----s" (Henry Francis Cary), with-
out commenting on their presence on the list of moderns,
deplores their omission from the list of Pope's contempor-
aries (Letter 5, p. 29).
1xxxi1ii

botanic garden which was printed in the GM in 1783 and which
Darwin appropriated for the exordium to his Botanic Garden.!
Although she opposed most of Johnson's opinions about poetry
and deplored his rough treatment of those whom he considered
intellectually inferior and pretentious (including Miss
Seward's father), she knew him all her life and visited him
often during the closing months of his life.

Anna Seward was passionately fond of music, especially
Handel. Lichfield choirmaster, John Saville, was her dear
friend (some even said lover, but this is doubtful). Her
acquaintance with Joseph Weston began through Saville and was
probably furthered by his being an organist. In a sense Anna
Seward was also a musical performer. She was often asked to
read poetry (her own or others') aloud, and her voice was so
musical that wherever she went she was asked to perform. Her
own poetry benefited greatly from her fine reading in which
tone and expression masked poetic shortcomings.

Her world extended beyond Lichfield. William Hayley,
arbiter of literary taste and thought by many to be the
leading poet of his day, was her friend and literary comrade
for much of her life. She met and corresponded with a number
of literary figures, including Sir Walter Scott, Robert
Southey, Hannah More, Helen Maria Williams, and Hester
Thrale. The advocate of abolition, William Wilberforce,
visited her, as did Thomas Erskine, the famous Whig orator

who became Lord Chancellor. Dr. Samuel Parr, who was, in

1Ashmun, 67-68.
1lxxxiv

Hesketh Pearson's words, "a sort of whig Dr. Johnson,"
called on her. Romney painted her. Scott sent her his early
works for comment and edited her literary remains, which
included his memoir of her and extracts from her letters.

As aocritic and arbiter of taste, she was listened to
and respected, as the contributors to the controversy all
attest. Joseph Weston is guilty of less hyperbole than we
might at first think in calling her "one of the finest Writ-
ers of the Age" (Letter 4, p. 24). Granted, Weston was
unknown and of a humbler origin than Miss Seward, and thus
might view her with more awe than was warranted. Yet much of
the public shared his view and might well have agreed that
his position in dueling with Miss Seward was doubly danger-
ous. Whether he fights or flees,

disgrace awaits me on either hand. If I defend myself,

who can tell that, in the warmth of argument, a stren-

uous defence may not undesignedly be converted into an

Attack? And what a pitiful figure does one of Homer's

Heroes make while wounding a Goddess! If, to avoid this

danger, I give ground to my fair Antagonist, will the

World give me credit for my Magnanimity? No (Letter 4,

p. 24).

Joseph Weston was an organist in the small town of
Solihull, a few miles southeast of Birmingham. His humble
origin and general obscurity probably added to his
apprehension about debating with Anna Seward. As she notes,

"He was by no means calculated to the meridian of our pompous

gentry."? Anna Seward's letters provide most of our

1The Swan of Lichfield (NY: Oxford UP, 1937) 150n.
2Letters 2:90.
LXXXV

information about him. Apparently, he had long wanted to
meet her and introduced himself to her after having been
encouraged by John Saville, with whom “he had lately passed
an evening."! Her vivid description of the comic yet
intellectually impressive figure he cut not only gives us a
distinct picture of Weston but also shows how direct and
lively she can be when she descends from her Parnassian
elevation:

- . ehis height and proportion mighty slender, and well
enough by nature, but fidgeted and noddled into an
appearance not over prepossessing; nor are his’ sharp
features and very sharp little eyes a whit behind them
in quizzity. Then he is drest--ye gods, how he is
drest!--in a salmon-coloured coat, sattin waistcoat, and
small-clothes of the same warm aurora-tint; his violen-
tly protruded chitterlin [chitterling, a frill on his
shirt front], more luxuriant in its quantity, and more
accurately plaited than B. B.'s [Beau Brummel's) itself,
is twice open hemmed. .. . A hat furiously cocked and
pinched, too small in the crown to admit his head,
sticks upon the extremest summit of the full-winged
caxon [wig]... .

His voice has a scrannel-tone [(harsh, unmelodious
sound) --his articulation is hurried, his accent dis-
tinguished by Staffordshire provinciality; andit is
aifficult to stand his bow with any discipline of fea-
ture. He talks down the hours, but knows nothing of
their flight. ...

Now look on the other side the medal. His wit,
intelligence, and poetic genius are a mine; and his
taste and real accuracy in criticism enable him to cut
the rich ore they produce brilliant.

He knows of every body, and has read every thing.
With a wonderfully retentive memory, and familiar with
the principles of all the sciences, his conversation is
as instructive as it is amusing; for his ideas are
always uncommon and striking, either from absolute ori-
ginality, or from new and happy combination. ...

The heart of this ingenious and oddly compounded
being, is open, ardent, and melting as even female-
tenderness (2:91-93).

The peculiarities which Miss Seward noticed on first

1Letters 2:94.
Lxxxvil

meeting Weston show in the letters he writes during the
controversy. He displays a stereotypically feminine hyper-
sensitivity to criticism. He responds to his adversaries
with floods of words, endlessly quoting himself and them, as
he writes "down the hours." His nervous prose is studded
with italics, capitals, and dashes. Yet he appears to have
read almost as much as Miss Seward, and remembers it more
accurately. He catches her several times in her customary
practice of imprecise quotation.

At the time of the controversy, Weston had published a
few poems in the GM, including one to Miss Seward's young
protegés Henry Francis Cary and Thomas'7 Lister.! He had
translated John Morfitt's Philotoxi Ardenae (1788) into blank
verse and Drydenic couplets. To this he added as preface "An
Essay on the Superiority of Dryden's Versification over that
of Pope and of the Moderns," which started the controversy.
This is his only work to extend to a second edition (1885).
In the early 1790s, the GM published several patriotic poems
in which Weston deplored Napoleonic France's “tyrant Liberty
and anarch laws."2 Preoccupation with the events in France
may explain Weston's failure to finish his proofs of Pope's
villainous character. He continued his connection with the
Lichfield circle at least through 1793 when he wrote an

"Occasional Prologue, For the Opening of the New Theatre,

158:823.
2"On the King's Refusal of his Sanction to the Decree
against the Emigrants," GM 62.2:654.
1xxxvil

Lichfield."™! In it, he describes a "drop scene" with a
statue of Shakespeare having medallions on its pedestal pic-
turing Miss Seward, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Garrick. With undi-
minished gallantry, he refers to Anna Seward as "The bright-
ey'd Champion of mellifluous Pope." In 1794 he and John
Morfitt contributed poetical sketches to a volume of Poems by
Mrs. Pickering. Several of Weston's sonnets in this volume
are in "imitation of Milton," causing Dr. Samuel Parr to
comment, "'Tho had it been poor Milton's fate to see thee
strive to imitate him t'would sure have driven him mad.'"?2

In addition to his connection with Lichfield literary
society, Weston seems to have mingled to some extent in
Birmingham literary society. His name is joined with Bir-
mingham resident John Morfitt's in two of his three published
works, both of which were published in Birmingham. At some
time during his life, probably after the Pope-Dryden contro-
versy, he became a close friend of the Suffolk peasant poet
Robert Bloomfield. He edited the poet's Remains (1824) and
in his preface called Bloomfield, “one of the most perfect
poets of his day" (viii). He admired the "extreme purity of
his taste" and sounded a Johnsonian note in remarking that,
"his rural scenes are never infested with dryads, or fauns,

or genii, or any other phantoms of foreign extraction" (ix).

1GM 63.1:559-60.

7"Additional Poems" section of Pickering, Poems, 25.
Parr's handwritten comments appear inthe margin of the
British Library's copy.

7Bloomfield's biographers describe Weston as the man
“who knew him so well." William Wickett and Nicholas Duval,
The Farmer's Boy (Lavenham, England: Terence Dalton, 1971)
62.
UxXxxxviii

The defender of Dryden's "full resounding Line" and "long,
majestic march" (2HE1 4:268-69) apparently became attracted
to the “simple and unaffected" (x) style of Romantic nature
poetry. In his prefatory essay and during the controversy,
Weston calls for a return to a simpler style. At some point
he stopped looking for models in the past and began finding
them in the present. His individual movement from the cause
of Drydenic purity to that of Romantic rusticity unites him
with the great revolution in poetic taste that was taking
place even as the paper war about Dryden and Pope extended
through 24 issues of the GM. Whatever his faults as a crit-
ic, he saw what was coming sooner than many and devoted
himself as zealously to the Romantic cause as he had to the
Drydenic.

When Anna Seward and Joseph Weston met in 1788, she
described him as being in "middle life,” most likely the mid-
forties.! Thus, Weston was probably born between 1743 and
1745. He was still alive in 1824, when he would have been

in his late seventies.

Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844) was a schoolboy of fif-
teen at the time of the controversy. He grew up to become
"the greatest Italian scholar of his age."? His translation

of Dante, initially made famous by Coleridge's lectures, has,

iLetters 2:90. When Anna Seward met Hester Thrale
Piozzi's husband Gabriel in 1787, she described him as being
"tin middle life'" (Ashmun, 150); he was then 46.

2King, The Translator of Dante 7.
1xxx1ix

according to the DNB, "remained the translation which, on
Dante's name being mentioned, occurs first to the mind."
Born in Gibralter, Cary was raised in Staffordshire. He
attended various local grammar schools including The King
Edward VI School in Birmingham, which he was attending at the
time he contributed his letters to the controversy. He may
have met Joseph Weston through this school. He was educated
at Christ Church, Oxford, took orders in 1796, and became
the vicar of Abbot's Bromley. He began translating Dante's
Inferno in 1800. When it was published five years later, it
attracted little notice, partly because Dante himself was out
of fashion but also because of "Cary's own independence of
the corrupt poetical taste of the day." Unlike his one-time
mentor, Anna Seward, he had embraced the homely expressions
Dante had used in the Italian. She reproved him for his
"familiarity and even vulgarity" (DNB).

Cary first attracted Anna Seward's notice through the
poetry he contributed to the GM in 1787. His close friend
and fellow-poet, Thomas Lister, who lived just outside Lich-
field, had also drawn Miss Seward's notice. Through Lister,
Cary met Miss Seward in the spring of 1788 and "was enrolled
among her disciples and adorers."! Cary's biographer de-
plores the "Sewardian” influence on Cary's early poetry,
which consists of odes and sonnets, most of which were
ornate and sentimental, together with translations of a nun-

ber of Horace's odes, some Greek pieces and one Italian poem.

iKing, 22.
XC

Despite his great admiration for the Swan of Lichfield, Cary
had an independent mind and showed it in the letters he wrote
as "M----s" (short for his adopted poetic name "Marcellus"! )
while still her devoted protegé. In these letters he dis-
agreed with Miss Seward about her three lists of poets,
finding the list from Milton's time too scanty and that from
the present far too long. Showing admirable discernment even

for a precocious adolescent, Cary wrote:

But it must be more than common excellence which can
insure a reputation of an hundred years; and probably in
that space many of those luminaries, which contribute to
the splendour of the present day, will be extinguished
and forgotten (Letter 5, p. 35).

In his second letter, he displayed something of the critical
bent that was to inform his work with Dante. He adopted the
garden metaphor begun by Johnson and used by Miss Seward to
attack Dryden's unpruned and weedy "wilderness" (Letter lc,
p. 18). With the glee of a student tripping up his mentor,
he turned the metaphor to Dryden's support:

While Dryden, studying to render his poetic garden
rather spacious than nicely beautiful, suffered the
rankest weeds to spring up among the most luxuriant
flowers, and entirely neglected the assistance of art;
Pope, with deliberate leisure, was employed in banishing
every appearance of disorder, in adjusting his delicate
plants in the most striking dispositions, and in check-
ing, sometimes too severely, the sportive wantonness of
Nature. There are some, who (to preserve the metaphor)
are on the whole more delighted with the wilderness of
the former, than with the regular, yet elegant parterres
of the latter; andI profess myself to be one of the
number (Letter 12, p. 116-17).

1Cary's biographer can find no clear reason why he
adopted this particular name (King, 18-19).
xci1

Miss Seward gives no indication that she recognizes Cary's
hand in the "M----s" letters. In her letters to him, she is
quick to correct what seem to her to be his errors in poetic
taste, but the letters from this period contain no mention of
the controversy. We may assume she did not recognize "M----s"
as her protegé.

As Cary matured, he left the Seward fold and devoted
himself to the exact and unostentatious form of translation
for which he is still known. He married in 1796, upon taking
orders, and in 1807 moved to London where he completed his
translation of Dante. In 1812, while his translation was
still languishing in obscurity, he met Coleridge, who was so
impressed with Cary's work that he included it in his course
of lectures and helped to make it well-known. Through
Coleridge, Cary met Charles Lamb who became an intimate
friend. In addition to translating Dante, Cary wrote a good
deal of prose--essays on French and Italian poets and a
series of lives of English poets supplementing Johnson's

work. He translated Aristophanes' The Birds and Pindar's

odes and edited several standard English poets "with much
judgment" (DNB). In 1826, Cary obtained a position at the
British Museum as assistant-keeper of printed books in the
poetry section but retired after eleven years when he failed
to be appointed head of the library. He died at 72 and was

buried in Westminster Abbey next to Samuel Johnson.

John Morfitt had a good deal in common with his’7 trans-

lator Joseph Weston. They both admired Dryden, feared the
xcil

menace of the French Revolution and Napoleon's imperialisn,
and used their literary talents to express their patriotism.
Like Weston, he was relatively obscure and is known to us
primarily through the letters of Anna Seward, to whom he sent

a copy of The Woodmen of Arden. Morfitt was a barrister at

law in Birmingham, where he took an active part in public
affairs. He wrote essays on legal matters affecting Bir-
mingham! and exhorted his countrymen to patriotic efforts
during the Napoleonic wars. His Observations on the present
alarming crisis: addressed to the Nobility and Clergy (1797)
ran to four editions. During the early 1800s, he continued
to sound the call to arms against the French.? He died in
Birmingham in 1809, the same year as Anna Seward. It seems
likely that he was close to Weston's age, so he would have
been about 45 when he wrote his single letter in the contro-

versy, and about 65 when he died.

John Nichols (1745-1826), printer, editor, antiquarian,
and contemporary historian, was the GM's editor during the
controversy. He rose from very modest origins to become a
leading figure in publishing and literature. Having missed a
chance at a naval career, he was apprenticed as a boy of
twelve to the printer William Bowyer from whom he received "a
very fair classical training" (DNB). Bowyer encouraged him

to write poetry, which he began publishing when he was

that relate to the town of Birmingham (1791).
7The British Tocsin or the charge sounded, concluding
with An address to the regulars, militia, yeomanry and volun-

teers of Great-Britain (1803).

xcili

eighteen. In 1766, Bowyer took Nichols into partnership. By
the mid 1770s Nichols was beginning to do significant
literary work, including editing a volume of Swift's Works

(1775) and producing a two-volume Supplement to Dr. Swift's

Works, with Explanatory Notes (1776 and 1779). When Bowyer

died in 1777, he left Nichols the residue of his estate which
allowed him to buy a share in the GM, where he joined with
David Henry in its editing and management. From 1792 until
his death, Nichols had sole charge of the magazine and con-
tinually wrote for it as well.

Nichols had strong antiquarian interests which led to
substantial work in that field and influenced his conduct of
the GM. He became a close friend of Samuel Johnson, to whom

he often appealed for copy for his magazine and whose Lives

of the English Poets he printed. Among his many and varied

publications were Biographical Anecdotes of Mr. Hogarth, with

a Catalogue of His Works, with occasional Remarks; The Prog-

resses of Queen Elizabeth; and The History and Antiquities of

the Town and County of Leicester, which he considered his

"'most durable monument'" (DNB). Today, eighteenth-century

scholars find his most useful works to be the Literary Anec-

dotes of the Eighteenth Century and Illustrations of the

Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, both of which

furnish a wealth of information about literature and literary
figures.
At the time of the controversy, Nichols was in his

prime, and his magazine had become the most widely-read
XC1V

journal of its day.! His contribution to the debate ad-
G@resses his own editorial persona, "Mr. Urban." Init, he
flatters both of the principal combatants and touts his own
work as well as the GM's poetry section by mentioning that it
contains a poem by Leonard Welsted, "which the industrious
Editor [Nichols] of his Works laments that he never could

obtain” (Letter 24, p. 188).

Philip Thicknesse (1719-1792) spent most of his adult
life in military or government service. Plain-spoken and
often contentious, he combined great integrity and generosity
with "'the faculty of lessening the number of his friends and
increasing the number of his enemies'" (DNB). His quixotic
behavior affected his entire life. As a young man of six-
teen, he went to Georgia with General Oglethorpe, but left
that service because he criticised the colony's management.
While he was lieutenant governor of Landguard Fort, Suffolk
(1753-66), he quarreled with the colonel of the Suffolk mili-
tia for which he was fined and imprisoned for three months.
During this time, he also met and attached himself closely to
the painter Thomas Gainsborough, but again a squabble ended
their friendship.

After leaving Landguard Fort, Thicknesse moved around a
good deal, a pattern he was to continue throughout his life.
In 1775 he went to Spain where he intended to settle because

of resentment toward the House of Lords. He had appealed for

1For further discussion of the GM see below, xcvii-civ.
xCV

reversal of a chancery suit denying him L12,000 which he felt
due him from his first wife's family. Upon losing the ap-
peal, he considered himself "'driven out of his own coun-
try'" (DNB). He returned to England the next year, however,
and settled first at Bath and later at Sandgate, near Hythe,
where he could see the shores of France. He was living there
at the time he contributed his letter to the controversy.
Thicknesse's writings are as diverse as they are numer-
ous and lengthy. They range from Man-Midwifery Analysed to
Useful Hints to those who make the Tour of France (8 vols.)
to A Sketch of the Life and Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough
(8 vols.) to he Speaking Figure and the Automaton Chess
Player exposed and detected. He wrote particularly interest-

ing accounts of his experiences in Georgia, Jamaica, and

Europe. His eight-volume Observations on the Customs and

Thicknesse's contribution to the controversy was written
November 4, 1790, presumably from Sandgate. For the next two
years he traveled back and forth between France and England,
spending some time in Paris while the revolution was in its
early stages. He died suddenly in France in the fall of

1792.

Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes (1726-1792) was a
renowned Scottish judge, scholar, and author. His knowledge
of legal history equaled that of his distinguished

contemporary Lord Monboddo. He was acquainted with many of
xcvi

the leading thinkers and writers of his day and was known as
a judicious and broad-minded man. As a judge he was
"distinguished for humanity at a time when the criminal bench
was disgraced by opposite qualities" (DNB). Although inef-
fective as an orator because of a speech defect, he was known
for the learning and accuracy of his written pleadings and
opinions.

Dalrymple was a friend of Johnson, Burke, William War-
burton (editor of Shakepeare and Pope), and Boswell, in whom
he had first inspired the desire to meet Johnson. He was ac-
quainted with the learned men of Edinburgh, including Adam

Smith and David Hume, who asked him to revise his “Inquiry

into the Human Mind," even though Hailes, an "earnest be-
liever in christianity" (DNB), was not sympathetic to Hume's
skepticism. His numerous publications were related almost

entirely to the history of Christianity and of Scotland.
Many were short pamphlets, poems or biographical sketches,
and his shorter pieces often appeared in the GM. His most
important work was a three-volume Annals of Scotland (1776-
1779), which ran to three editions. He died of apoplexy ten
months after his call for peace in the controversy.

A magazine that would publish such ae controversy--
30,000-words of debate about two deceased poets--without
fear of losing its readers is a peculiarly eighteenth-century
phenomenon. The origin and history of the GM bears’ looking

at in more detail.
xevil

The Gentleman's Magazine

The Gentleman's Magazine was the first and longest-lived

periodical of its kind. When the Pope-Dryden controversy
began, it was 58 years old and destined to continue publica-
tion for another century and beyond, finally ceasing in 1922.
Founded by printer Edward Cave in 1731, it began as a miscel-
laneous collection of articles reprinted or digested from
other sources. As Edward Cave wrote in the Preface to the
GM's first volume, he proposed

to give a Monthly View of all the News-Papers (which of

late are so multiplied as to render it impossible,

unless a Man makes it a Business, to consult them all)
and in the next Place, we shall join there with some
other Matters of Use or Amusement that will be communi-
cated to us. . . . This Consideration has induced
several Gentlemen to promote a Monthly Collection, to
treasure up, as ina Magazine, the most remarkable

Pieces on the Subjects abovementioned [public affairs

and entertaining essays), or at least impartial Abridg-

ments thereof, as a Method much better calculated to
preserve those Things that are curious, than that of
transcribing.!

The GM was more than just an eighteenth-century Readers'
Digest. Even before it began including original material,
it attempted to cover the current history of its day, and it
soon grew into a periodical which combined the features of

today's Time, U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times

Book Review, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Science

1Quoted in C. Lennart Carlson, The First Magazine: A
History of The Gentleman's Magazine (Providence: Brown U,
1938) 29-30. For information about the GM, I am indebted to

this book and to John Nichols, "The Rise and Progress of The
Gentleman's Magazine," General Index to The Gentleman's

Magazine (1821) 3: ii1-1xxx.
XCV1ilil

Digest and The Farmer's Almanac. Edited by the fictitious
Sylvanus Urban, whose name comprehended both country and
city, it was intended for a large and varied audience. At its
inception it reported: "Publick Affairs, Foreign and Domes-
tick, Births, Marriages, and Deaths of Eminent Persons, Pre-
ferments, Ecclesiastical and Civil, Prices of Goods, Grain
and Stocks, Bankrupts declar'd and Books Publish'd, Pieces
of Humour, Disputes in Politicks and Learning," together with
advertisements, civil and military lists, “Instructions in
Gardening," and notices of fairs.! It soon added poetry and
book reviews, and from 1735 on also depended increasingly on
correspondence from its readers. Albert Pailler estimates
that during Cave's time the GM had between six and seven
hundred correspondents and that most of them submitted only
one piece. This dependence on its readers as contributors
fostered the close connections between reader-authors and the
GM's editor which continued throughout Nichols's tenure as
editor (he died in 1826) and was a major factor in keeping
the Pope-Dryden debate going for two years.

The GM's original title indicates the breadth of its
potential audience: The Gentleman's Magazine; or Trader's
Monthly Intelligencer. The rather touchingly explicit "Trad-
er's" was dropped after the first issue, but the audience

remained a broad group of literate Britons (including

1Carlson, 30.
Z2Arthur Sherbo, "Additions to the Nichols File of the
Gentleman's Magazine," Studies in Bibliography (1984) 37:229.
xCc1xX

colonists) who certainly did not fit within the Johnson's

Classical definition of gentleman: "homo gentilis, a man of

ancestry. All other derivations seem to be whimsical" (Dic-
tionary). A wide range of men and women--landed gentry and

manufacturers, clergymen and office clerks, scholars’ and
governesses, civilians and military men--read the GM.

Because of its wide appeal and Cave's industry and good
management, the GM prospered. Cave encouraged contributions
from his readers, which cost him nothing, and he also secured
the services of some excellent professional writers and edi-
tors, the most outstanding being Samuel Johnson. Throughout
most of his career, Johnson contributed essays, biographies,
and poems. He took over the accounts of parliament's
doings, immortalizing them as the "Debates in the Senate of
Magna Lilliputa," thus sidestepping the law against directly
reporting parliament's activities, while appealing to the
public's curiosity about what went on there. For about seven
years from 1738 on, Johnson was also probably the GM's chief
editor and ae key figure in making the magazine far more
intellectual than it had been at its outset.! It depended
less and less on digests from other sources and began publis-
hing important literary and scientific essays. Cave's sense
of what made news, together with his interest in science, led

him to publish the first report of Benjamin Franklin's

1In "The Rise and Progress of The Gentleman's Magazine,"
John Nichols calls Johnson “my illustrious Predecessor,"
General Index to the Gentleman's Magazine, 3:ii1i.

Experiments and Observations in Electricity, after the Royal
Society had "barely condescended" to notice it.! Although
many imitators sprang up in the wake of the GM's success,
Cave kept his magazine ahead of the competition. His figures
for 1746 show a circulation of 3,000 copies a month, a very
large one for the time, and one which presumably increased
throughout the remainder of the century. When Cave died, he
left behind a well-established magazine that "was within the
next century destined to become one of the most important
influences on literature and on the reading of persons of all
classes."?

After Cave's death, his brother-in-law David Henry took
over as editor. In 1778, John Nichols bought a share of the
magazine. He and Henry were co-editors until Henry's death
in 1792, when Nichols became sole editor until his own death
thirty-four years later. A few years before the Pope-Dryden
controversy, the GM had expanded both in coverage and size.
With the 53rd volume, it began appearing in two parts, each
of almost 600 pages each as contrasted with the previous
year's single 600-page volume. Under Nichols's influence it
had increased its antiquarian side to such an extent that the
preface for 1783 announced: "'The Antiquary who may purchase
these Volumes will find materials sufficient to gratify the

amplest curiosity.'"3 And by the next year, these included

1Carlson, 27.
2Carlson, 28.
¢7Nichols, "Rise and Progress of the GM" 3:1xi.
ci

accounts of ancient families, cities, churches and
monasteries; old maps; antique furniture; bygone domestic
customs including old recipes; "antient modes of internal
Carriage"; and old crafts, arts and sciences (3:1lxiv).
Among things modern, it continued to cover all its original
subjects and had greatly expanded its pages on literature and
science. It gave attention to "the mineral and fossil King-
doms," physics and metaphysics, mathematics, the "Phaenomena
of Nature," and medical news of all sorts: "Prescriptions in
the Medical Art," "Extraordinary cases in Surgery," and anal-
ysis of "the most celebrated Nostrums" (3:1x-1xi).

Such was the magazine which John Nichols was managing
and editing during the Pope-Dryden controversy. Although
David Henry may have owned the larger share of the magazine,
by 1789 he was nearing the end of his life and had probably
turned much of the editor's job over to Nichols. Nichols
had taken over the printing in 1781, and in 1782 because of
"the extensive literary connexions of the present Editor
(Nichols]," expanded the GM's scope and size (3:11x).! In
1790, the GM's fictional editor, Mr. Urban, proudly reported
his magazine and its staff "to stand conspicuous in the
foremost rank of Monthly Journalists," where they functioned
as "the brief, but faithful, reporters of the Chronicle of

the Times" (3:lxvii).

1In his account of the GM, Nichols scarcely mentions
Henry beyond saying that he gave up the printing in 1778.
cil

The Pope-Dryden controversy involved two things which
the GM had always featured--poetry and Pope. From its early
years, the GM had published poetry. As was true of all the

magazines during the 1730s and 40s, the verse was second or

third rate, "without individualized expression or original
talent," and revealing all too clearly “the inward decay of
Neo-Classicism."! Most of the verse was short, much of it

occasional, and was often sent in by readers either named or
anonymous. The GM's verse, like everything else in the
Magazine, was calculated for wide public appeal. As Carlson
points out, "it was popular with great numbers of its read-
ers" and "is still valuable as an index to the tastes of an
age."?2 Also, Cave's' policy favored bland poetry free of
extreme tendencies in either thought or versification. Con-
troversial material was for the magazine's prose essays.

The GM did publish some first-rate poetry, but almost
always as lengthy extracts from an established author's

n Man was extracted at length,

works. Thus, Pope's’ Essay
and Pope himself was the single most frequently quoted poet
during Cave's' time. The "Poetical Essays" during the
Nichols years continued Cave's tradition--short unremarkable
pieces showing none of the ferment that was about to produce
the Romantic revolution. Generally, it favored variety over
excellence, although it did publish short pieces by Swift,

Pope, Johnson, Akenside, Thomson, and Shenstone, to name a

1Carlson, 197.
2Carlson, 196.
cilil

few.! But also like Cave, Nichols favored lively controversy
in the magazine's prose essays, particularly in the contribu-
tions from readers which accounted for many of these essays.
The Pope-Dryden controversy shows how Nichols managed
the GM as a literary forum. By publishing the letters from
the two principals, Weston and Seward, in installments) and
dividing them at provocative junctures, while simultaneously
feeding in contributions from other combatants at strategic
intervals, Nichols kept his readers eagerly awaiting each
monthly issue. This practice angered some of the correspon-
dents, especially when letters were held for a long time or
when dates were changed, as with "M.F.'s" first letter which
was actually written before Anna Seward's first letter. Ac-
cording to Nichols's note (Letter 7, p. 33), the date was
changed by accident. Although it is not clear when the
letter was received, it could well have arrived before Anna
Seward's, but didn't capture Nichols's interest until after
he saw hers. Anna Seward was well-known to the GM's readers
as a poetess as well as a lively controversialist (the first
four letters in her debate with Boswell and others about
Samuel Johnson had appeared just two years earlier), and her
long, wide-ranging letter promised to capture readers' inter-
est more securely than the unknown "M.F.'s." Whether
"M.F.'s" letter was accidentally or purposely delayed, the

result was better for circulation.

1See Donald Bond, "The Gentleman's Magazine" rev. of The
First Magazine, by Lennart Carlson, Modern Philology (1940-
41) 38:89-100.
Civ

As the controversy dwindled down to Weston's’7 single
combat against a variety of Pope supporters, Nichols called a
halt to contributions from "all but the principals" (Letter
36, p. (237)). Even after this, he printed letters from five
correspondents besides Weston, one of them being from David
Dalrymple, Lord Hailes. But the interest was waning. Anna
Seward had dropped out of the debate six months earlier (her
last letter apeared in the June 1790 issue). Weston was
repeating himself and others without producing "Pope's
Evidence Against Himself" (Letter 43, p. (261)). In a note
to this letter, Nichols declined to insert anything further
except another letter from Weston which Nichols noted "is to
appear in our next" (262), but does not. We cannot tell if
there was such a letter or if Nichols was just holding out
bait. If the letter existed and was just more of the same,
Nichols probably decided that his readers would stand no
more. The twenty-four month talk show was over.

But what had it been about and what did it decide? The
short answers are Pope's poetry and character, and nothing.
For a more complete answer, we must turn to the issues raised
and debated by Joseph Weston, Anna Seward, "M. F.", and the

others.
The Issues

The issues in the controversy appear broad because they
touch on everything a critic might discuss about a poet--his
work and its interrelation with his personal character. Ac-
tually, the issues come down to the specific charges Weston
makes against Pope's character and poetry in his Preface. He
accuses Pope of bad character in both his professional and
personal life. As John Dennis had done some _ seventy-five
years earlier,! he charges Pope with enhancing his own repu-
tation at the expense of Dryden's and allowing his friends to
do likewise. Throughout the controversy, Weston maintains he
has evidence of "the insidious Arts which he [Pope] suffered
his Friends to practice, in order to undermine the Reputation
of the deceased Poet and to asperse the Characters of his
living Supporters" (Letter 9c, p. 57). Challenged repeatedly
by Anna Seward and "M.F." to bring forth these proofs, Weston
fails to produce the pamphlet in which he says he has
convicted Pope out of his own mouth. He does attempt to
prove that Pope incited Swift to denigrate Dryden in A Tale
of aTub, and becomes embroiled in a debate over chronology
with "B. L. A.," who by comparing dates concludes that Pope
was "from five to nine years of age when Dr. Johnson thinks

it [Tale of a Tub) was written; and when it was printed he

was sixteen" (Letter 35, pp. (235-36)).

1See above, xvii-xix.
cvi

Weston also attacks what he sees as Pope's' personal
vindictiveness. Like John Dennis and a number of other
eighteenth-century critics, he is convinced that Pope’ used
his satire not to chastise fools and knaves for the good of
literature and society, but to pay off personal scores. In
his Life of Pope, Johnson accepted the tradition of Pope's
vindictiveness and irritability and recorded it with such
authority that it continued to be the prevailing view for
almost two centuries. Recently, in preparation for his monu-
mental Alexander Pope: A Life (1985), Maynard Mack investi-
gated the accuracy of Johnson's judgments about Pope's char-
acter. "Reading Johnson," he notes, “one is struck by the
ease with which he resorts to such terms as proud, vain,
mean, niggardly, ungrateful, resentful, fretful, irritable,
petulant, peevish, arrogant, malignant, capricious, mali-
cious, and treacherous."! Mack found Johnson's account full
of misstatements and misinterpretations. In some cases,
Johnson "actually makes up scenarios out of whole cloth," as
when he perpetuated the myth that Pope was proving to be his
usual ungrateful and waspish self by satirizing the Duke of
Chandos's country estate Cannons in the conspicuous consump-
tion and bad taste of "Timon's Villa" (Epistle to Burling-
ton) (xxx). If an admirer of Pope's poetry like Johnson

could be so seduced by the myths about his character that he

1"Alexander Pope: Reflections of an Amateur Biograph-
er," Modern Language Review (October 1984) 79.4: xxix.
cvil

failed to examine them with his usual keenness, we cannot be
surprised that the non-admiring Weston should seize on them
as proof that Pope was indeed "execrable."

Anna Seward defends Pope's character mainly by attacking
Dryden's. She dismisses Weston's charges as "“impolitic”
because the crimes imputed to Pope "must be only
conjectural" and are "as a passing cloud of Summer" compared
to the “December's darkness" of Dryden's sins. His
"writings prove that he was wholly without fixed principles
in Religion, Politics, or Criticism; that his Interest was
his Legislator, his Guide, and his God" (Letter lc, p. 19)
"M. F.," whose Letter 2, which predates Anna Seward's, was
written especially to object to Weston's epithet "execrable,"
shoulders the defense for Pope's character. This defense is
moderate enough, for "M. F." willingly admits what no one was
prepared to challenge, that at times, Pope may have been too
irritable and acrimonious. As Weston's charges escalate from
"execrable”" to “foe to human kind" (Letter 9b, p. 51), “™M.
F." steadily repels his attack, drawing testimony from "no
less a man than Lord Orrery" and even from Addison (Letter
19, pp. 130-31). Finally he takes on the case of Thomas
Burnet and George Duckett.

In Letter 17, Weston addresses "M. F.," laying out the
case against Pope. In Dunciad (A), Pope wrote:

"Behold yon Pair, in Strict Embraces join'd;
How like in manners, and how like in mind!
cvili

Fam'd for Good-Nature, Burnet, and for Truth;
Ducket! for Pious Passion to the Youth" (5:3.173-76).
Weston accuses Pope of slandering Burnet and Duckett in this
passage and in his notes to it, which include a scurrilous
epigram about Burnet and Duckett, that the Twickenham editors
ascribe to Pope. In it Burnet and Duckett appear as an
"Amphisboena" (a two-headed snake) which "At either end as-
Sails;/ None knows which leads, or which is led,/ For both
heads are but tails." Weston says:
Here is a Charge of the most atrocious, the most
unnatural, the most detestable Kind, brought against
Colonel Ducket; for it is not possible for any one
possessed of common Sense, and common Modesty, to sign
his name to an Opinion that Pope meant really to praise
Burnet for Good-nature and for Truth, or that he
intended to celebrate the Wit or the Politeness of
either Party (121).
Weston concludes that Pope intended his readers to believe

that Burnet was "famed for Ill-nature and Falsehood: and that

Ducket was famed for an impious Passion for the Youth” (144).

Pope had reason to be annoyed with Burnet and Duckett.
Both had attacked him in print as early as 1715. George
Duckett, in the words of the Twickenham editor, "probably
wrote two numbers of Pasquin which annoyed Pope (Nos. 12 and
13)" (5:439). Pope clearly believed he had. The offending
numbers had dwelt on Pope's relationship with his patron John
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, whose works Pope had edited.

Three days after Pope published them in January of 1723, they

1In the first edition of Dunciad (A) (1728a), only ini-

tials are used for Burnet and Duckett. Pope supplied names
in later editions (1729d-42), and Weston refers to one of
those.

2For the entire epigram, see Letter 17, p. 121.
cix

were "seized on account of Jacobite principles and expres-
sions" which they contained, and "Pope thus found himself, as
the editor of a seditious work, in an awkward situation"
(5:168n.).

Thomas Burnet attacked Pope in the Grumbler in 1715. He
and Duckett ridiculed Pope's forthcoming translation of the
Iliad in a pamphlet originally entitled The Hump Conference
(1715) and altered, "at Addison's suggestion," to Homerides
(1716).1 A decade later, Pope "retaliated on Burnet, though
not very sharply, in ‘Sandys' Ghost' (1727)" and on Duckett
in Peri Bathous (1728) (5:432). Burnet was a member of Addi-
son's circle at Button's coffee house. Both he and Duckett
were active in Whig politics and no friends to Pope. Duckett
was also a friend of John Dennis's, who was writing violently
against Pope. Pope believed that Duckett was responsible for
engraving the frontispiece to Pope ‘Alexander's Supremacy
(1729), which portrays Pope's head on the body of an monkey
and is signed "G.D.," which the Twickenham editor notes seems
fairly conclusive proof of Duckett's authorship (5:439).
Mack makes the same conjecture.? When this pamphlet first
appeared, Pope thought Burnet had written it, but later (c.
1735) he believed it to be Dennis's and Duckett's work. The
Twickenham editor concludes that based on Burnet's letters to
Duckett, "It is unlikely that Burnet had any part in it"

(5:432). Who actually wrote the pamplet remains unclear.

1Mack, Life 277.
2Life 474.
CX

George Sherburn points out that Pope's description of the
author as a “Person who has great obligations to me"! does
not fit Dennis. E. N. Hooker, editor of Dennis's critical
works, thinks Dennis did not write the piece, and D. Nichol
Smith thinks Duckett had no part in it.?

Whatever the truth of all this, Pope's animosity toward
Burnet and Duckett seems justified, although his method of
paying them off in The Dunciad may be questioned. Burnet and
Duckett had attacked first, andif Pope scores more heavily
than they, their hands were none too clean. They had happily
publicized his accidental connection with treason in his

publication of Buckingham's Works and had attempted to under-

cut his Homer. Unfortunately for them Pope was more powerful

with pen and innuendo than they, and his verses in Dunciad
(A) with their attendant notes slid the stiletto in with
deadly effect. Duckett "is said to have demanded and ob-
tained satisfaction from Pope"? for the implications of
homosexuality in these lines and the scurrilous epigram in
the notes. Pope's own notes to the passage in Dunciad (A)
show he was aware of its implication. John Dennis had drawn
the inference, and Pope quotes his interpretation at length

in order to deny its truth.‘ The Twickenham editors note

1The Correspondence of Alexander Pope (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1956) 3:33n.

2J. VV. Guerinot, Pamphlet Attacks on Alexander Pope
1711-1744 166.

3Twk 5:439.

4Weston quotes Pope's note, Letter 17, pp. 120-22.

cx1

that "Pope may have been sincere in his protestations; but he
never suppressed the passage, nor the note calling attention
to Dennis's interpretation of it" (5:3.176n.) In Dunciad
(B), Pope ommitted the lines containing the names~7 and
deleted the epigram (5:3.179-84 and note), but in his note to
the lines he reminded the reader of the previous’ version.
Weston is certainly right that the compliments are insults
and the epigram is scurrilous, and Pope tacitly admitted this
by his modifications in both Dunciad (A) and (B). But in
the pamphlet wars few holds were barred, and Burnet and
Duckett had struck first.

Pope's defenders in the controversy struggle to clear
him of all scandalous intent. "M. F." (Letter 22) notes. that
neither of the injured parties, Burnet or Duckett, first drew
the implication of homosexuality, but that John Dennis "took
it into his head to annex such an idea to the fourth line
(though a literal translation from a Latin classick) as _ no
one else had thought of" (150). "M.F." rather naively
accepts Pope's denials of any guilty intention and fails to
notice that although Pope altered the passage, the new ver-
sion still recalled the earlier one. "J. S." (Letter 30)
enlarges on "M. F.'s" reference to a classical source. He
points out that since Pope was writing a mock epic or “comic
epopee”" in order to parody "the young Chiefs" in one of the

Aeneid's "most interesting" (185) episodes, he needed a pair

1Weston quotes Pope's note, Letter 17, pp. 120-22.
cxii

of contemporary writers who were ripe for. satire. "J. S."
also touches on, but does not develop, another possibility
for Pope's overlooking the scurrilous interpretation of the
Burnet-Duckett passage. The passage is set up as part of
hack-poet Elkanah Settle's long speech to chief dunce Colley
Cibber. The lack of discrimination it reveals could be part
of Pope's parody of Settle's mushy thinking and expression.
But, Pope could also have used the Settle persona as a cover
for slipping in nasty suggestions.

Taken at its worst, the implication of homosexuality was
as demeaning to Pope as to its intended victims. It allied
him with the likes of playwright William Kenrick whose fail-
ure to get one of his plays produced led him to write the
Slanderous poem, "Love in the Suds," in which he tried to
brand David Garrick as a homosexual (Letter 23, p. 154n). If
Pope fully intended such an implication about Burnet and
Duckett, he slipped into a much cruder kind of vindictiveness
than was his custom. If, on the other hand, he was concen-
trating primarily on the classical allusion and its potential
for comic reversal, he may truly have overlooked the full
implications of "pious passion." Maynard Mack notes, "Pub-
lishing the Dunciad was in many ways the greatest folly of
Pope's life."! He concludes that both "sheer arrogance" and
"legitimate resentment" played their parts. If we view the

Dunciad'’s excesses in the context of Pope's entire life and

1Life 476. The quotations in the rest of the paragraph
are from the same place.
cxiii

work, Mack makes a persuasive case that: "Though he was
sometimes vengeful and could hate with the best, the stereo-
type that he was a monster of spleen, or decidedly unlike the
rest of us, it is time we outgrew." Except for Weston, the
GM controversialists would agree.

Weston's complaints about Pope's poetry center around
what he saw as Pope's obsessive correctness, his monotonously

regular couplets, and above all his overly refined poetic

diction. In contrast to this, Weston applauded Dryden's
variety, exuberance, and energy. Even Dryden's "flats" in
thought and expression were deliberate: "He, therefore sub-

Gdued his Style occasionally--to burst upon his Reader with

greater Splendour, when the Subject demanded a Loftier Lay"
(Letter 9c, p. 55). Discussing this point in Letter 94d,
Weston cites a passage from Joseph Warton's Essay which says
in part that Dryden's practice was "'"sometimes to soften and
subdue his tints, and not to paint and adorn every Object he
touched, with Perpetual Pomp, and unremitted Splendor'"
(84) .} Weston charges that Pope's overrefinement had a dev-
astating effect on his successors, whose Pope-inspired obses-
Sion with brilliance led them to "torture [poetry] into
Obscurity, and refine [it] into Imbecility” (Letter 9c, p.
58).

To this Anna Seward again counters, in Letter 1b, by
attacking Dryden. She cites his "incongruous metaphor, in-

consistent fable, and prating familiarity of expression" as

1Warton's comparison of Pope's and Dryden's styles is
discussed above, xxxiv-xlviii.
CcX1iv

well as his poorly placed Alexandrines and "“botching"
triplets (8, 11). Although prepared to defend Pope's versi-
fication, she sees it as a minor part of his or any author's
poetry because:

A poem has little merit if it does not remain fine

poetry after having been taken out of all measure.

Where there is loftiness of thought, ingenuity of allu-

sion, and strength of imagery, to stand that test, true

lovers of the art allow an author to do almost what he
pleases with the numbers, provided he does not insist
upon their preference of the slovenly to the polished
ones, readily promising that such a work shall be dear

to them in any dress (Letter lc, p. 19).

At first glance we might take this for a revolutionary
poetic manifesto, with its suqgestion that the poet's thought
anc expression are the core of his poem and that the form is
shaped by them. But Miss Seward soft pedals the revolution-
ary tone with her proviso that the numbers be "polished."
Polish to her, as to William Hayley and the other poetasters
whom she admired, was just what it sounds like--laid on from
the outside and the more the better. Polish, along with
ornament, was the second-rate poet's downfall. Also, Anna
Seward's dictum overlooks what makes Pope's poetry great--
stunningly successful integration of thought and feeling with
sound and rhythn.

The debate narrows down to what Weston had written in
the Preface (most of which he reproduces in Letter 9c) about
Pope's influence on poetic diction: "Let me not be misunder-
stood.--Poetic Diction, and that Alone, is the Object of my

Reprobation" (58). Weston argues that poetic diction has

seriously declined since Dryden's time, largely because of
CXV

Pope's influence; Seward maintains that under Pope's influ-
ence, it has improved. Weston contrasts Dryden's simplicity,
variety, and unaffected sublimity with the "modern System"
which "appears decisively to exclude every Mode of Expression
from Poetry which is so unlucky as to find a Place in Prose”
(58). As examples of the new poetic diction he cites, "harsh
Construction and fantastic Inversion--Tinsel Phrases and
tinkling Compound-Epithets"™ (57).

The use and abuse of poetic diction was a major concern
for eighteenth-century critics. Samuel Johnson wrote:
"There was therefore before the time of Dryden no poetical
diction: no system of words at once refined from the gross-
ness of domestick use and free from the harshness of terms
appropriated to particular arts."™! For Johnson, poetic
diction was "those happy combinations of words which distin-
guish poetry from prose." Such diction should be appropriate
to its context, clear to the general reader and unobtrusive.
It should contribute to the reader's pleasure and thus should
avoid "those sounds which we hear on small or on _ coarse
occasions" from which “we do not easily receive strong im-
pressions or delightful images." If it is to be both elegant
and clear, it must avoid technical words "to which we are

nearly strangers" and which "draw that attention on them-

selves which they should transmit to things." Johnson con-
siders poetic diction a positive attribute of poetry. His
terms, "strong impressions or delightful images," call to

1Lives 1:420. The following quotations are from the
same place.
cXvi1

mind the words of the twentieth-century critic Owen Barfield:
"When words are selected and arranged in such a way that
their meaning either arouses, or is obviously intended to
arouse, aesthetic imagination, the result may be described as

poetic diction."™! Like John Locke, Johnson saw words as

arbitrary symbols, "words are but the signs of ideas."
Moreover, they are dependent on their context:

No word is naturally or intrinsically meaner’. than
another; our opinion therefore of words, as of other
things arbitrarily and capriciously established, depends
wholly upon accident and custom. .. . Words become low
by the occasions to which they are applied, or the
general character of them who use them.?

Poetic diction was also subject to abuse, and Johnson
details some of its pitfalls. He objects to adjectives
formed from nouns and given participial endings such as "the
cultured plain, the daisied bank" and to "arbitrarily com-
pounded" words such as Thomas Gray's "'many-twinkling,'"
which he censured as "not analogical; we may say many-spot-
ted, but scarcely many-spotting."‘ But such comments”) are
occasional rather than systematic. Other eighteenth-century
critics attempted to systematize the abuses of poetic dic-

tion.

James Beattie, in An Essay on Poetry and Music as They

Affect the Mind (1776), warned against abusing the "‘English

poetical dialect'"5 which poets relied on to heighten’ the

1Poetic Diction (London: Faber, 1952) 41.

z"Preface” to the Dictionary [2].

3Rambler 5:168.

4Lives, 3:436-37.

S5Quoted in Arthur Sherbo, English Poetic Diction from
Chaucer to Wordsworth (E. Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1975)
1. I am indebted to this book for much of my understandng of
eighteenth-century poetic diction.

cxvil

effect of their work. He enumerated seven features of poetic
language, and uncommon or obsolete expressions and compound
epithets were among them. Beattie noted that both Pope and
Dryden were usually "‘good authority for the use of a poet-
ical word.'"! At the same time he noted that in his’ trans-
lation of Homer, Pope "'sometimes, for the sake of his nun-
bers, or for fear of giving offence by too close an imitation
of Homer's simplicity, employed tropes and figures too quaint
or too solemn for the occasion.'" Overused, Beattie warned
poets in general, this can lead to "‘the finical style'"

which

"is in part characterised by the writer's dislike of
literal expressions, and affectedly substituting in

their stead unnecessary tropes and figures. With these
authors a man's only child must always be his only hope,
a country-maid becomes a rural beauty, or perhaps a

nymph of the groves; if flattery sing at all, it must be
a syren song; the shepherd's flute dwindles into an
oaten reed, and his crook is exalted into a scepter; the
Silver lillies rise from their golden beds, and languish
to the complaining gale. A young woman, though a_ good
Christian, cannot make herself agreeable without sacri-
ficing to the Graces; nor hope to do any execution among
the gentle swains, till a whole legion of Cupids, armed
with flames and darts, and other weapons, begin to
discharge from her eyes their formidable artillery. For
the sake of variety, or of the verse, some of these
figures may now and then find a place ina poem... ."

Joseph Weston would have recognized the tinsel phrases~ and
imbecile refinements in this list of abuses. Unfortunately,
both he and Anna Seward sprinkle their own works with them
far oftener than "now and then." |
Looking into the origin of stock phrases and images in

poetry, Joseph Warton found that beginning in Classical

1Sherbo, 2. The following quotations are from the same
place.
exviii

times, poets had created "'a set of hereditary objects
(which) has been continued from one poet to another, without
any propriety either as to age or climate.'™! Descriptive
and epic poetry lent themselves to this kind of poetic
diction. Traditional objects and phrases helped establish “an
epic tone," just as stock features in natural description
evoked the ideal landscapes handed down from classical
times.? Anyone who translated the classics into English
found repeated words, phrases and objects used by the orig-
inal author as well as by those who had previously translated
him. Sherbo documents how Dryden inherited and transmitted
English poetic diction "especially in its two main divisions,
epic diction and the diction of poetry of natural des-
cription"™ (129). Pope continued in Dryden's path, drawing on
earlier translators' language in his translation of Ovid and
carrying this diction over into his own translation of Homer.
Samuel Johnson noticed this when he wrote, "Homer doubtless
owes to his translator many Ovidian graces not exactly suit-
able to his character."3

Poets attempting to create an original English poem
worthy of carrying on the classical tradition also used these
resonant words, phrases and objects to establish an epic or
pastoral tone whether or not they were appropriate to the
English scene. Sherbo points out how, in descriptive poetry,
shady scenes, which were grateful in the hot, dry climate of

Greece and Italy were carried over wholesale to cool, cloudy

1Sherbo, 24-25.
2Sherbo, 22-23.
SLives 3:239.

cxix

England (24). Geoffrey Tillotson points out that such dic-
tion enriched a poem's meaning for the eighteenth-century
reader because of its associations with the classics.!

Poetic diction is not necessarily a term of opprobriun.

Pope used it admiringly in his Preface to the Iliad, where he

called Homer

the Father of Poetical Diction, the first who taught
that Language of the Gods to Men. ... ‘Tis the Senti-
ment that swells and fills out the Diction, which rises
with it, and forms itself about it. And in the’ same
degree that a Thought is warmer, an Expression will be
brighter; as That is more strong, This will become more
perspicuous: Like Glass in the Furnace which grows to a
greater Magnitude, and refines to a greater Clearness,
only as the Breath within is more powerful, and the Heat
more intense (7:9-10).

As an aid to this heightened diction and to "throw his’ Lan-
guage more out of Prose," Pope notes that Homer adopted
compound-epithets: "This was a sort of Composition peculiar-
ly proper to Poetry, not only as it heighten'd the Diction,
but as it assisted and fill'd the Numbers with greater Sound
and Pomp, and likewise conduced in some measure to thicken
the Images." Compound epithets provided the most economical
way of fleshing out or thickening images without "diverting
the Reader too much from the principal Action or Figure. As
a Metaphor is a short Simile, one of these Epithets is a
short Description" (7:10). Anna Seward echoes this idea in
her rebuttal of Weston's objection to "tinkling compound-

epithets." She finds that such epithets when badly chosen

1"Eighteenth-Century Poetic Diction,”" Essays and Studies
by Members of the English Association, 1939 25 (1940): 59-80.

CK

"cannot tinkle on the ear" because "their merit is not to

the ear, but to the understanding, by their condensing and
energetic power" (Letter 1b, p. 6).

Overall, Pope finds that Homer's poetic diction "is
indeed the strongest and most glowing imaginable, and touch'd
with the greatest Spirit" (7:9). Again, this recalls Owen
Barfield's definition of poetic diction as what results "when
words are selected and arranged in such a way that their
meaning either arouses, or is obviously intended to arouse,
aesthetic imagination. "!

Joseph Weston thinks of poetic diction ina much nar-
rower sense, one that suggests it is an abuse rather than a
description of the language peculiar to poetry. This allies
him with the predominant thought of the nineteenth rather
than of the eighteenth century. Wordsworth voiced his cen-
tury's view when he called poetic diction a "distorted lan-
guage” which stems from "mechanical adoption” of "figures of
speech" by poets who seek to emulate earlier great poetry
without experiencing the powerful feelings that originally
gave rise to their language.? Wordsworth's charge that
poetic diction was “a motley of tricks, quaintnesses,
hieroglyphics, and enigmas" (466) could be read as a

heightened version of Weston's complaint against "tinsel

1Above, p. cxvi.

2"Preface” to Lyrical Ballads, 1802, Appendix on Poetic
Diction, Selected Poems and Prefaces by William Wordsworth,
ed. Jack Stillinger (Boston: Houghton, 1965) 465.

CXX1

phrases," "fantastic inversion, " "obscurity," and
"“imbecility."

Anna Seward is firmly rooted in the eighteenth-century
outlook regarding poetic diction. Like Johnson, she decries
using low or common expressions and approves of elegance.
But unlike Johnson she too often confuses lowness with
simplicity and ludicrous inflation with elegance. In Letter
18, she gives her improved translation of Juno's speech in
Book I of the Aeneid. Her version makes Dryden's clear and
forceful language turgid and weak. Dryden's "“Cou'd! angry
Pallas, with revengeful spleen,/ The Grecian navy burn, and
drown the men?" becomes, “Shall injur'd Pallas, with avenging
aim,/ O'erwhelm the Greeks, and wrap their fleets in flame?"
(126). Such revisions underscore what Weston was objecting
to: second-rate poets (and poetesses) who thought they were
carrying on Pope's tradition when they were actually bed-
izening poetry with tinsel phrases.

Like many mediocre poet/critics, Anna Seward talks about
poetry better than she writes it. Her general principles
seem unexceptionable. She agrees with Weston's quotation
from Joseph Warton in praise of Dryden's use of "'common and
familiar words'" (Letter 9d, p. 84). Although Warton's com-
ment "perfectly meets (Miss Seward's] sentiments," she will
not allow it to apply to the passage from the Aeneid because

there the common words do not suit the character of the

1Miss Seward's quotation has "Shall." Even in quoting
Dryden, she unconsciously revises his diction.
cxxii

speaker" (Letter 18, p. 127). For Anna Seward a goddess is
an elevated being who must always speak in elevated language.

In his dissatisfaction with contemporary poetry, we have
seen how Joseph Weston partially anticipates the kind of
stand Wordsworth takes only a decade later. Whatever the
accuracy of his critical insights, however, Weston is neither
the poet nor revolutionary theorist that Wordsworth is. In
looking backward for a fixed model and insisting that simply
a change in poetic diction and versification can refresh
poetry, he recommends an external cure for an internal
disease. He wants to fight the stultifying effects of Pope's
correctness with a correctness of his own.

By the 1780s, the philosophers Alexander Gerard and
William Duff were emphasizing the idea that the power of
imagination was central to poetic genius. Young and Warton
had called attention to the importance of the imagination.
Burke had given a physiological basis to the ideas .of the
sublime and the beautiful, and Hume had noted the "reciproci-
ty of inner and outer sense when the imagination operates
between them."! Then, the German philosopher J. N. Tetens,
who influenced both Kant and Coleridge, connected imagina-
tion, which he saw as the "only source of everything origqi-
nal," with external physical sensations and the internal
"workings of the mind."2 Thus,

imagined sensations, hopes, and fears become real to us,

1Engell, 126.
Z2Engell, 125, 126.
Cxxiii

and we experience physical sensation of what may only be
in our minds. We grow cold and sweat, supposing as
Theseus says, "each bush a bear."!
Weston is either unaware of these ideas or, in his narrow
concern with style and diction, fails to explore their impli-
cations. As we noted at the outset, he and Anna Seward are
minor agents in the debate about what poetry is and should
be. Miss Seward read and supported the poets who were
making the new kind of poetry that led to the Romantic revo-
lution. At some time after this controversy, Weston strongly
supported the peasant-poet Robert Bloomfield. But neither
Miss Seward nor Joseph Weston had the philosophic or aesthet-
ic grounding to describe their appreciation of Romantic
poetry in terms that go much beyond enthusiastic exclamation.
Despite its shortcomings as literary criticism, the
debate between Anna Seward and Joseph Weston reveals some-
thing about debating technique in polite society, together
with a good deal more about what we now call sexual politics.
Combat with "the Swan of Litchfield," upsets Joseph Weston.
His illness during the first summer of the controversy may
well have been aqgqravated or even caused by the debate. His
hypersensitivity leads him to conduct his side of the con-
flict with an uneasy combination of sugary flattery and
bitter acrimony. He does not hesitate to brand Pope as
devious, self-serving, and "execrable," while simultaneously
addressing Pope's ardent defender, Anna Seward, as a "Thales-

tris" who "discovers a countenance that melts down all

1Engell, 126.
CXX1iV

opposition, and eyes that dim the radiance of the gems’ that
spangle-o'er her burnished helmet" (Letter 4, p. 25).

As the debate warms up, Weston's chivalry suffers. De-
Spite his initial delicacy in refusing to discuss Burnet and
Duckett's imputed homosexuality ina letter to Miss Seward,
he presents all the details in his letter to "M. F." which,
he sends to the GM for all to read. He also levels some
telling sarcasms at his bright-eyed Thalestris's diction.
Discussing her rewriting of Dryden's description of Juno's
wrath, he notes her translation is neither faithful to. the
original in Virgil's Aeneid, nor is it good poetry. Without
saying a word about tinsel phrases or bombast, he writes:

As Dryden has contrived it, Juno pours out the

Effusions of her Wrath in a regular Climax. One sees
the offended Goddess working herself into a Passion by
very natural Gradations. But Miss Seward has begun in

so lofty a Strain, that I have little Doubt of the
Effect which would have been produced had she translated
the whole Soliloquy! (Letter 25, p. 69).

Continuing with a subtle irony worthy of Jane Austen, he

notes:

The chief Blemish in modern poetic Diction is
Inflation. If that Blemish is undiscoverable in Miss
Seward's Works, it is probably owing to the Grandeur and
Sublimity of her Conceptions, which justify the uniform
Majesty of her Style. The Shortness of her Poems is a
Circumstance also much in her Favour (169-70).

Anna Seward has an easier job of managing her tone. She
is not obliged to be elaborately and artificially polite to
her opponent while demolishing his arguments. Thus she man-

ages to sound more sincere and balanced, more "masculine,"

than Weston. Whether she intentionally exploits this
CXX1V

advantage or not, her more consistent and simpler approach
undercuts Weston's hyperbole. In the battle of the sexes,
Anna Seward maintains a rational, "masculine" tone, while
Joseph Weston, with his italics, his dashes, his plethora of
capitals, reveals a highly emotional, "feminine" approach.

Weston's tendency to become excited, even irrational,
leads him to ignore a fundamental rule of debate--to sound
judicious and remain cool. He commits the very sins of which
he accuses Pope in his Preface: attempting "to undermine the
Reputation of the deceased Poet, and to asperse the Charac-
ters of his living Supporters" (Letter 9c, p. 57). While
charging Pope with using "Means not very honourable" to
undermine Dryden's reputation and place himself on the
throne, Weston himself uses the questionable means of making
a damning accusation and withholding the proof. As we have
seen, he never produces the "Work" he has held so long which
would render "Pope's Goodness of Heart... no longer problem-
atical" (57-58). What he and all the other letter writers do
produce are tens of thousands of words on a question which we
still find intriguing today--how do we assess poets”) and
poetry?

Perhaps'7 the most striking feature of the debate is’ the
importance which the controversialists ascribe to poetry and
the time they are willing to spend reading and writing about
it. In part this reflects their more leisured era. But
reading and talking about poetry was far more central to

their time than to ours. Yet, even today, we share their
CXXVi

concern with what makes writing effective. And we share
their fascination with how an author's character influences

his work.
THE TEXT

Arrangement of the Letters

The letters are numbered consecutively in the order in

which they appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine. This does

not always correspond to their dates. The GM usually printed
the long letters from Anna Seward and Joseph Weston when they
were received or, if they were too long for a single issue,
in consecutive issues. Letters from other correspondents
were not always printed when received, but were sometimes
held for several months. For further discussion of this

point see above, cili.

Reproduction of the Letters

I have preserved the spelling, punctuation, and capital-
ization of the originals in the GM. ‘I have modernized the
eighteenth-century's long "s." Typographical limitations do
not allow reproduction of the large and small capital letters
often employed in the eighteenth century for proper names and
emphasis; therefore, I have used only initial capitals. I
have been unable to reproduce the elided "Ae" as in Aeneas.

I have followed modern practice of indenting and
Single-spacing long quotations, but I have reproduced the
quotation marks as printed in the GM. I have reproduced
quotations in foreign languages exactly as they appeared in
the GM, because it is not possible to ascertain from which

text the writer is quoting.

CxXXV11
CXXV1ili

I have collated the quotations from Dryden and Pope with
the standard twentieth-century editions (James Kinsley's
edition of Dryden's poetry and the Twickenham edition of
Pope's poetry). I have noted all the variations in wording
but not in accidentals such as spelling, capitalization,
italics, and punctuation. Corrections of short misquotations
appear in brackets in the text. Longer ones appear in foot-
notes. Illegible words which I have deciphered from the
context are followed by a question mark in brackets [?). I

have put corrections of obvious printing errors in brackets.

Annotation of the Text

I have reproduced the GM's notes at the foot of the page
directly beneath the text. My own notes begin below them.
In all but one instance, the notes appearing in the GM are
indicated by asterisks or daggers. In the letter from
"B.L.A." (No. 35), the writer used arabic numerals, so I have
separated his notes from mine by a solid line and put
parentheses around his’ numbers. When a GM footnote has
called for annotation, I have added my note to it in
brackets.

The correspondents quoted freely from each other's let-
ters. Often they transposed words, changed verb tenses or
form, and otherwise adjusted the original to fit into their
own writing. I have not noted such alterations unless’ they
changed the meaning of the original.

I have followed the revised (1984) MLA Handbook's form

for annotation. Its most significant changes are omitting
cxx1xX

"py." and "pp." before page numbers and abbreviating
publishers' names: e.g.: UP = University Press, Holt = Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston.

For frequently cited works, I have used short titles, a
list of which follows. All references to Pope's poetry are

to The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, ed.

John Butt, et. al., 11 vols. (London: Methuen, 1961-1969).
All references to Dryden's poetry are to The Poems of John
Dryden, ed. James Kinsley, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958).
In the text of the letters, references to Dryden's and Pope's
poetry appear in brackets following each quotation. They are
in this order: title, volume, book or part if appropriate,
and line(s). For example [Il 8:23.141-49.] refers to Pope's
Iliad, Twickenham edition volume 8, book 23, lines 141-49.
In the case of volumes with several parts, the volume number
is separated from the part number by a period (e.g., 3.2 is
volume three, part two).

I have used the New Cambridge Bibliography of English

Literature as the authority for publication information, and

where that is incomplete or unclear, the British Museum

Catalogue. For biograhical information, I have used _ the

Dictionary of National Biography, unless otherwise noted.

Definitions from Samuel Johnson's Dictionary are from _ the
1755 edition.

I have used the Loeb Classical Library editions for’ the
following authors: Cicero, Horace, Livy, Ovid, Plutarch,

Seneca, and Virgil.
SHORT TITLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations of Dryden's and Pope's poems correspond to

those used in the concordances: Guy Montgomery, ed., Concor-

dance to the Poetical Works of John Dryden (Los Angeles: U of

California P, 1957); Emmett G. Bedford and Robert J. Dill-
igan, eds., A Concordance to the Poems of Alexander Pope, 2

vols. (Detroit: Gail Research Co., 1974).

»
@
i)

The Aeneid, Dryden.

AF = Alexander's Feast; or The Power of Musique. An Ode, In
Honour of St. Cecilia's Day, Dryden.

Arbu = An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot, Pope.

CA Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ceyx and Alcyone, Dryden.

oO
ul

Ovid's Epistles, Dido to Aeneas, Dryden.

DNB = Dictionary of National Biography.

Dramatic Poesy = John Dryden, Of Dramatic Poesy and Other
Critical Essays, ed. George Watson, 2 vols.

(London: Dent, 1962).

DunA = The Dunciad (A), Pope.

c
2
wo
i)
J
>
ft)

Duncaid (B), Pope.

ElAb = Eloisa to Abelard, Pope.

OC = An Essay on Criticism, Pope.
Epl = Epistle I, To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Viscount

Cobham, Pope.

Ep4 = Epistle IV, to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington,
Pope.

OM = An Essay on Man, Pope.
EpJ = Epistle to Mr. Jervas, Pope.
GM = The Gentleman's Magazine, vols. 1-63 (1730-1793).

CXAX
CXXX1

AP = The Hind and the Panther, Dryden.

2ZHE1 = Horatian Epistle, Book 2, Epistle 1, Pope.
P

ss
rg
il

Ovid's Epistles, Helen to Paris, Dryden

S2 = Horatian Satire, Book 2, Satire 2, Pope.

Il = The Iliad, Pope.

Johnson, Works = The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel
Johnson, various editors, vols. i1-10, 14-15 (New
Haven: Yale UP, 1958-1985).

Kinsley = The Poems of John Dryden (See p. cxxix for full
reference).
Letters = The Letters of Anna Seward; Written between the

Years 1784 and 1807, ed. A. Constable, 6 vols.
(Edinburgh: G. Ramsay, 1811).

Lives = Johnson's Lives of the English Poets, ed. G. B. Hill,
3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905). Lives 1 = Life
of Dryden; Lives 2 = Life of Addison; Lives 3 =
Life of Pope or Life of Gray.

Mack, Life = Maynard Mack, Alexander Pope: A Life (New Haven:
Yale UP, 1985).

ad = The Odyssey, Pope.

ED = Oxford English Dictionary (1970).

NCBEL = New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.

Wi = The Pastorals, Winter, Pope.

SG = Sigismonda and Guiscardo, from Boccace, Dryden.

TJD = To My Honour'd Kinsman, John Driden. Dryden.

TF = The Temple of Fame, Pope.

|
<
x
it

4 The Twickenhan Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope
(see p. cxxix for full reference).
UDH = Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings, Dryden.
VP4 = Virgil's Pastorals, The Fourth Pastoral. or, Pollio,
Dryden.
WA = The Woodmen of Arden from the Latin of John Morfitt with

"An Essay on the Superiority of Dryden's
Versification over that of Pope and of the
Moderns," by Joseph Weston (Birmingham, 1788).

CXXX11

Warton, Essay = Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Genius and
Writings of Pope, 2 vols. (London, 1806).

TABLE OF LETTERS
Ltr.# GM Vol. Issue GM P.# Author Ltr. Date Text P.#
la 59.1 April 291-2 Seward | Apr.25,1789 1-4
1b 59.1 May 389-91 Seward Apr.25,1789 5-13
le 59.1 June 510-12 Seward Apr.25,1789 13-20
2 59.1 June 512 M. F. May 30,1789 20-22
3 59.2 July 583 Weston Jul.20,1789 22-23
4 59.2 Aug. 680-2 Weston Aug.23,1789 23-29
5 59.2 Aug. 682-3 M{arcellu]Js Aug.5,1789 29-31
6 59.2 Sept. 780 Weston Sept.25,1789 32
7 59.2 Sept. 818 M. F. Sept.8, 1789 32-34
8 59.2 Sept. 818 Seward Sept.15,1789 35-42
9a 59.2 Oct. 875-6 Weston Oct.26, 1789 43-49
9b 59.2 Nov. 971-2 Weston Oct.26, 1789 49-52
9¢ 59.2 Dec. 1101-6 Weston Nov.23, 1789 53-64
10 60.1 Jan. 6-7 Morfitt Jan.11, 1790 64-69
9d 60.1 Jan. 26-33 Weston Nov.23, 1789 70-89
11 60.1 Feb. 118-20 Seward Feb.13, 1790 90-96
12 60.1 Feb. 120-21 M[arcelluJs Oct.11, 1789 96-100
13 60.1 Feb. 122-23 M. F. Oct.14, 1789 101-105
14 60.1 Feb. 123 Impartial Oct.31, 1789 105-107
15 60.1 Feb. 160-3 Weston Feb.22, 1790 108-115
16 60.1 Mar. 196 Weston Mar.26, 1790 115-116
17 60.1 May 386-8 Weston Apr.25, 1790 117-123
18 60.1 June 523-25 Seward June 16, 1790 124-129
19 60.2 July 583-4 M. F. Jan. 15, 1790 129-134
20 60.2 July 697-8 M. F. Feb. 8, 1790 134-137

cxxxiil
CXXX1V

Ltr.# GM Vol. Issue GM P.# Author Ltr. Date Text P.#

21 60.2 Sept. 777-80 Weston Sept. 25, 1790 137-148

22 60.2 Sept. 786-7 M. F. June 15, 1790 149-152

23 60.2 Oct. 903-5 Weston Oct. 11, 1790 152-161

24 60.2 Oct. 905-6 M(atthew] Oct. 10, 1790 161-162
G{reej)n

25 60.2 Nov. 974-7 Weston Oct. 11, 1790 163-173

(continues 23)

26 60.2 Nov. 993 P. T. Nov. 4, 1790 174-175
/(Philip Thicknesse)

27 60.2 Nov. 1005-6 W. Nov. 9, 1790 175-177

28 60.2 Nov. 1006-7 Obadiah Nov. 10, 1790 177-180
/Meanwell

29 60.2 Dec. 1067-8 Weston Dec. 23, 1790 180-185

30 60.2 Dec. 1070-1 J.S. Nov. 30, 1790 185-189

31 60.2 Dec. 1097-8 Maria Dec. 20, 1790 190-191

32 60.2 Dec. 1132 "Sonnet" by L.M. 191

33 60.2 Suppl. 1169-72 Weston Dec. 23, 1790 191-201

(continues 29)

34 60.2 Suppl. 1172 Weston Jan. 3, 1791 201-202

35 60.2 Suppl. 1177-8 B.L.A. Oct. 27, 1790 202-206

36 60.2 Suppl. 1193 Remigius Jan. 10, 1791 206

37 60.2 Suppl. 1197-8 R.W. or Sept. 22, 1790 207-209
/Bardus Ordovicensis

38 60.2 Suppl. 1198 R.B. Nov. 27, 1790 210

39 61.1 Jan. 8 David Jan. 1, 1791 211-212
/Dalrymple (Lord Hailes)

40 61.1 Feb. 138-40 Weston Feb. 22, 1791 212-216

41 61.1 Mar. 224-5 Norfol- Mar. 5, 1791 216-221
/ciensis

42 61.1 Mar. 232 D.R. Mar. 16, 1971 221-222

43 61.1 Apr. 300-4 Weston Apr. 15, 1791 222-235
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4
'II'II'I'I'I'

 

 

lIBRARY
Michigan State
University

 

 

THE LETTERS

la.

Mr. Urban, April 25.
A Publication has lately appeared, intituled, The Wood-

men of Arden. It consists of an ingenious Latin poem by Mr.

Morfitt, with two translations of it by Mr. Weston;1 one
literal, in blank verse: the other paraphrastic, and in
rhyme. I think highly of Mr. Weston's genius; I know that he
has many virtues: and I cannot but be grateful for that
partiality to me which his writings have more than once
displayed. In the close of a systematic Preface to his
translation in rhyme, mentioned above, appears a phantom of
imputed perfection, to which he has most inapplicably given
my name. Mr. Weston is a being whose prejudices are as
strong as his talents. In this same Preface, he accuses Pope
of having meanly influenced his friends to exalt his composi-
tions above their just level, for the purpose of Dryden's.
and tearing the laurels from his brow.2 I believe Pope
injured by this accusation: and I am afraid that my acquain-

tance with Mr. W. and the hyperbole of his encomium, should

 

1(Birmingham, 1788). For biographical information about
John Morfitt see the Introduction, pp. xci-xcii, and for
Joseph Weston, pp. lxxxiv-lxxxviii.

2Letter 9c. Miss Seward paraphrases Weston's words,
‘which were that he had traced "the insidious Arts which he
[Pope] suffered his friends to practise, in order to
Lundermine the Reputation of the deceased Poet and to asperse
the Characters of his living Supporters" (5'7).

subject mg to a similar imputation, and induce many to be—
lieve that the general assertions of that Preface have my
concurrence.

Hence it is that I wish you would allow a place in your
Magazine to the ensuing strictures. In combat with the
Opinions of a man I esteem, to whom I am obliged, they were
drawn from me by jealousy, "even to a Roman strictness,"1 for
the poetic glory of the last half-century.

It is probable the length of these observations may
render it inconvenient to comprise them in one, or even in
two Magazines. Should you divide them, and should Mr. W.
reply before their course is finished, I declare that I will
n9; be led into new paths of controversy. My business is
with the Preface to The Woodmen of Arden.

In the first place, it asserts the Author's opinion,
that English Rhyme was brought to the £23; of perfection by
Dryden; that, since his time, it has been gradually declining
from gggg to indifferent, and from indifferent to bag; and
this gag, Mr. W. calls the modern style 9; versification.
Farther on in the Essay, he avows an ardent desire to see the
Pierian spring restored to what he calls Drydenical purity;
asserting, that it was corrupted by Pope, and has been poi—
soned by his successors.2

In this, in every age, since first the light of Poesy

Idawned, there have been fifty pretenders to its inspirations

 

1Unidentified.
aLetter 9c, pp. 54, 59.

 

 

for one that has been really inspired: but no person in their
senses will affirm, that the poetic character of any period
takes its colour from the poetasters who infest it. Mr. W.
cannot be so absurd as to bring gggh of our scribblers into
comparison with the illustrious bards of Milton and Dryden's
day, and of Pope's and Prior's.

By the Moderns, therefore, Mr. W. must be supposed to
mean the celebrated poetic writer's [sic] from Pope's decease
to the present hour. Let us look at the distinct lustre of
the three periods to which he alludes.1

The first shone by the light of Milton's genius, of
Dryden‘s, Otway's, Cowley's, Waller's, Davenant's, Butler's,
Denham's, Lee's, Lord Roscommon's.

The second, generally called the Augustan age, by that
of Pope, Prior, Young, Gay, Swift, Addison, Tickell, Rowe,
Congreve, Parnell, Arbuthnot, Steele, Philips, Watts, Lady M.
W. Montague.

guys, by that of Gray, Hayley, Mason, Thomson, Collins,
Akenside, the two Wartons, Cowper, Jephson, Goldsmith,
Johnson, Beattie, Churchill, Shenstone, Langhorne, Sir
William Jones, Pye, Mallet, Owen Cambridge (whose epic satire
on Antiquarianism, The Scribleriad,2 is, perhaps, the best
:mock-heroic poem in the language except the Dunciad), Sheri-

dan, Lowth, Sarjent, Whalley, Mathias, Jerningham, Whitehead,

Inorace Walpole, and Cha. Fox (whose poetic brilliants, though

 

1See Appendix B.1
2London, 1751.

 

 

small, are of the first water), Lloyd, Wesley (author of the
noble allegoric poem The Battle of the Sexes),1 Dyer, Potter,
the two Hooles, Hawkins Browne, Somervile, Crabbe, Cawthorne,
Home, Crowe, Stevens [Steevens] (author of a fine poem in
blank verse called Retirement),2 Garrick, Murphy, De la
Crusca, Cumberland, Greathed, Swift (a spirited satiric

poet), Barry, Butt (whose fame has been blighted by too free

 

an use of the Drydenic licences as to versification), the
witty, but irreverent, Peter Pindar, the two Cunninghams, the
Seven* celebrated Female Poets, Barbauld, More, Williams,
Piozzi, Carter, Cowley, Cath. [Charlotte] Smith, the rising
poetic lights, Cary and Lister, the unschooled sons of
genius, Burns (who is our new Allen Ramsay), Newton,
Yearsley, Reid, and the greatest of these wonders, the ill-
starred Chatterton, who, had he lived, and his ripe years
borne proportionate fruits, must have been the first Poet in
the world.

Yours, &c. Anna Seward.

(12 be continued.)

 

*Fear of offending an amiable correspondent prevents our
Changing this to Eight. Edit.

1London and Dublin, 1724.

8Published in The Repository, ed. Isaac Reed (London.
1777-1783.

 

1b.
Miss Seward's Strictures on the Preface to the Woodmen of

Arden; (continued from 2.292)

 

If I had not been in some sort addressing him, I should
certainly have added the name of Weston to the last*, and
(Milton excepted) far the brightest, as well as greatly the
most numerous, of the three lists: for Mr. W. has genius to
vie with most of his contemporaries, if Prejudice had not
chained him to Dryden's car, and persuaded him to take the
dirt upon its wheels for studs of jet, placed ’purposely
there, as foils to its golden axis [sic].

Have they of this third list collectively "poisoned the
Pierian Spring,"1 either respecting sentiment, imagery, or
style? The imputation is injurious, and demands public refu-
tation.

In order to prove Pope's long-confessed refinements to
have been real corruptions, Mr. W. asks some ingenious ques-
tions concerning the eligibility of keeping down certain
parts in poetic composition, upon the painter's system, to

give more effect to the brilliant passages.2 Judgement will

 

*The author of these Strictures is shocked to perceive
that she had, through haste, omitted to mention the dis-
tinguished names, Lyttleton, Anstey, Mickle, Jekyll, [see
Appendix 8.2] amid her former enumeration of the Poetic
Wiriters in the last half-century. She will probably feel
fixture pain from recollecting several others, whom the incom-
pe tence of her memory alone prevented from being named to the
honour of the times in which she has lived.

*Letter 9c, p. 59, read "that Pierian Spring which Pope

W3“
“Letter 9c, pp. 55-56.

readily confess, that the system should be adopted by the
sister science: but the manly and graceful plainness of
style, such as frequently occurs in Milton's poetry, form its
judicious shades; nor is Pope's by any means destitute of
these mellowings; but incongruous metaphor, inconsistent
fable, and prating familiarity of expression, instead of
softening down, at intervals, the too obtrusive lights of

composition, blot, and defile it. With such errors did the

 

QEQEE Dryden oo often corrupt the living waters of that
Pierian Spring, to which his genius gave him perpetual ac-
cess.1

The Essay in question enumerates what it calls tinkling
compound epithets amongst the fancied improvements of the
Moderns.2 Tinkling is a most inapplicable adjective: since
when, lll chosen compound epithets may be stiff, may gregg,
but cannot tinkle on the ear. When yell chosen, their merit
is not to the eeg, but to the understanding, by their con-
densing and energetic power. They are of the Miltonic, not
of the Popeian school, and are too seldom used by its dis-
ciples.

Our Drydenic enthusiast has certainly convicted Prior
and Montague's able criticism upon the Hind and Panther, of

cuie trivial mistake, viz. their idea that the words fated and

1Anna Seward says substantially the same thing in a
Iletter to John Morfitt, dated Feb. 7, 1789. Letters 2:239-40.
2Letter 9c, p. 58.

doomed are exactly synonymous.1 He calls that criticism a

 

wretched abortion: with what justice, let the following
quotation from it decide. It is given from memory, and
therefore perhaps not verbatim: but the sense is faithful.

"Though the fables of the ancients carry a double
meaning, the story is one and entire, the characters not
broken and changed, but always conformable to the nature
of the creatures they introduce. They never tell us
that the dog which snapt at a shadow lost his troop of
horse; that would be unintelligible. It is Dryden's new
way of telling a story, to confound the moral and the
fable together. How can we conceive a panther reading
in a Bible? and what relation has the hind to our Sa-
viour? If you say he means the ancient church, how can
we imagine an eating and walking church, feeding on
lawns, and ranging in forests? Let it, at least, be
always a church, or always a cloven-footed beast; common
sense cannot endure his shifting the scene every line."2

 

Extreme must be the prejudice that can induce a man of
genius to deem observations, so indisputably just, the abor-
tive effects of malice. Where the understanding is thus
outraged, can it be in melody, sweet as even Pope's, to make
compensation? and in the Hind and Panther we only find some

harmonious and picturesque lines amidst a tedious number of

 

pages, filled with dry, prolix jingles of senseless
controversy.
1Matthew Prior and Charles Montagu, The Hind nd t e

 

Panther Transvers' d to the Story of The Country Mouse aand he
Qity-Mouse in lee Literary Works 9; Matthew Prior, ed. H.
Bunker Wright and Monroe K. Spears (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959),
1:40.

2Prior Works, 1:35—6. Miss Seward has remembered the
sense and much of the wording accurately. She conflates two
Passages from the original and changes a few words here and
there. Her greatest deviation from the original occurs in
the: two sentences beginning "How can we conceive a panther
reading" and ending "ranging in forests." Instead, read
"What relation has the Hind to our Saviour? or what notion
have we of a Panther's Bible? If you say he means the

Church, how does the Church feed on lawns, or range in the
Forest?‘

 

 

 

It is curious that Mr. W. should have selected the eight
charming verses, which open the Hind and Panther, as
specimens of glee epyle,l since they are not in erden's
general manner, but exactly in that of Pepe and his gle;
giples,--without one Alexandrine or triplet: with much point
and antithesis, and with the sense only once, and that
slightly, but very beautifully, overflowing the couplet.

It always appeared to me, that Pope formed his style
upon a few of the best passages in Dryden. Mr. W. is very
angry with him for separating the dross from the gold.

Pope's numbers seem to have but one fault: viz. the
sense, as Mr. W. observes, is too generally confined within

the boundary of the couplet:2 but that is surely better than

 

its overflowing too often, as in Dryden's.--My ear dislikes
the drag occasioned in the versification of the latter by his
placing Alexandrines so frequently in the middle of senten-
ces: when harmoniously constructed, they have a majestic
effect on closing them, even in the heroic measure; but
surely the frequent triplets are very botching. I find more
samenees in Dryden's everlasting Iambics than in that which
results from the sense being too seldom allowed to float into
the first line of the ensuing couplet for its pause, as in
Pope. He uses the spirited accent upon the first syllable in
a verse twenty times for once that it occurs in Dryden; and

where several objects are to be described in succession, he

 

’EA. xix.
*Letter 9c, p. 57. Weston wrote, "The Thought is so
seldom suffered to stray peygpg the Bounds of the Couplet."

 

generally takes the inverted order of the words and the
natural one alternately, as in the following passage from a
recently published poem of infinite beauty:

Pale shoot the stars across the troubled night:

The timid Moon withdraws her conscious light;

Shrill scream the famish'd batts, and shivering owls,

And loud and long the dog of midnight howls.1

Another species of superior excellence in Pope's verses
over those of Dryden; the former describe in the lively
dramatic present tense much oftener than the latter. The
passage quoted above is in Pope's style. Had it run thus, it
had been in Dryden's, and perhaps not in his worst manner:

The stars shot pale across the troubled night,

And the affrighted Moon withdrew her light:

And hungry batts, and owls, and ravens prowl'd,

And, to increase the din, the dog of midnight howl'd.

By this alteration the lines are all Iambics, and have
therefore less solemn force of sound.

Mr. Weston complains that Pope is too regularly harmo-
nious.2 I have selected, [out of countless instances, the
following passage, in proof that he spared not, occasionally,
to use harsh numbers for picturesgue purposes.

First march the heavy mules, securely slow,

O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go;

Jumping high o'er the shrubs of the rough ground,

Rattle the clattering cars, and the shock'd axles bound.

But when arriv'd at Ida's spreading woods,

Fair Ida! water'd with descending floods,

Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes,

On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks;

Headlong, deep echoing, groan the thickets brown,

And rattling [Then rustling], cracking,

crashing, thunder down: Ill. 8:23.140-49.)

Let us look at a passage in Dryden. whose harshness of

 

1Unidentified.
aLetter 9c, p. 57.

10

numbers is pot picturesque.

Was there no milder way but the small-pox,

The very filthiness of Pandora's box?

So many spots, like naeves in Venus' soil!1

One jewel set off by [with] so many foil*!

Blisters, with pride swell'd, that [which] through's
flesh did sprout,

Like rose-buds stuck i'th' lily skin about.

Each little pimple had a tear in it,

To wail the fault its rising did commit;

Which, [Who] rebel-like, with its [their] own lord at
strife,

Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.

Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,

The cabinet of a richer soul within?

No comet need foretell his change drew on,

Whose corpse might seem a constellation. [Q_§ 1:53-66.]

To say nothing of the odiousness of these ideas, or
rather conceits, let the passage be viewed as style merely: a
specimen of the purity of Dryden's Pierian Spring, which Pope
is accused of having corrupted. If it be urged, that this
extract is from a juvenile poem of Dryden's, be it remembered
that Pope wrote his Pastorals, and the first part of sweet
Windsor Forest, two years earlier in life. Thus, at sixteen,

did Pope corrupt the Aonian fountain.

His Pastorals.

Thyrsis, the music of the [that] murmuring spring

Is not so mournful as the lays [Strains] you sing;

Nor rivers, winding through the vale [vales] below,

So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.

Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie,

The moon,serene in glory, mounts the sky:

While silent birds forget their tuneful lays,

Sing [Oh sing] of thy Daphne's fate, thy [and] Daphne's
praise. [EiE£. 1:1-8.]

*Bad grammar.

1Read ”like naves, our Venus soil?"

11

As an instance that Dryden, in his riper years, was
prone to let his style fall below the poetic level where the

subject called aloud for elevation, observe how the Empress

 

of Heaven is made to open her indignant soliloquy, in his
translation of the Aeneid:

Then am I vanquish'd, must I yield, said egg.
And must the Trojans reign in Italy?

So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force,
Nor can my power divert their happy course.
Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,
The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men,

And cannot I, &c.1 [le 1:56-62.)

 

Six lines after, Juno says,

The wretch, yet hissing with her father's flame; [67.]

and thus describes the victim of Minerva's wrath, as Falstaff
describes himself reeking from the buck-basket,

Hissing hot, Master Ford, hissing hot.”

Now let us compare the style of the two poets, assuming
the persons of females, and addressing their lovers,--Helen

her Paris, Eloisa her Abelard.

Dryden's Epistle from Helen to Paris.

The crown of Troy is powerful, I confess,

Yet [But] I have reason to think ours no less:

But 'tis your love moves me, which made you take
Such pains, and run such hazards for my sake.

I have perceiv'd, though l gissembled too,

A thousand things that Love has made ygg g9:

Your eager eyes would almost dazzle mine,

In which, wild man, your wanton thoughts would shine.
Sometimes you'd sigh, sometimes disorder'd stand,

And with unusual ardour press my hand

 

 

”Read "She for the Fault of one offending Foe“.

”Shakespeare, The Merpy Wives pi Windsop III.v.124. For
"Master Ford" read "Master Brooke."

from

12

Contrive, just after me, to take the glass,

Nor would you let the least occasion pass;

When oft I fear'd l gig_pgp mind alone.

But [and] blushing sat for things which you have done.

Then murmur'd to myself, "he'll for my sake

Do any thing,"--l hope 'twas pg mistake.

Oft have I read, within this pleasing grove,

Under my name, [those] charming words, "I love!"

I, frowning, seem'd not to believe your flame,

But now, alas! em come pg write pge same.

For 0! your fece has such peculiar charms,

That who pep hold from flying to your arms? [_§ 1:61-62,
73-90, 93-94.]

 

 

This is the style to which Mr. W. seeks to draw us back

 

the corruptions of the following.

Eloisa to Abelard.

Thou know’st how guiltless first I met thy flame,

When Love approach'd me under Friendship's name.

My fancy form'd thee of angelic kind,

Some emanation of th' all-beauteous mind:

Those smiling eyes, attempering every ray,

Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day.

From lips like those what precepts fail'd to move?

Too soon they taught me, 'twas no sin to love.

Dim and remote the joys of saints I see,

Nor envy them that heaven I lose for thee. [2:59-64, 67-
68, 71-72.]

A little more from Dryden's Cheapside Miss, married to

Menelaus:

ard

0

ion.

Your Trojan wealth, believe me, I despise,

My own poor native land has dearer ties:

I cannot doubt [Nor can I doubt] but, should I follow
you,

The sword would soon our fatal crime pursue:

A wrong so great my husband's race [rage] would rouse,

And my relations would hie cause espouse.

You boast your strength and courage, but alas!

Your words receive small credit from your face. [_3 1:
220-21, 238-43.]

So Helen tells her lover he looks like a sneaking cow-

so ill does she exppeeg this compliment to his complex-

13

A little more from Pope's charming Nun:

No weeping orphan saw his father's stores
Our shrines irradiate, or emblaze our floors!
But such plain roofs as Piety could raise,
And only vocal with their Maker's praise.
In these lone walls (their day's eternal bound)
These moss-grown domes, with spiry turrets crown'd,
Where aweful arches make a noon-day night.
And the dim windows shed a solemn light,
Thy eyes diffus'd a reconciling ray,
And gleams of glory brighten'd all the day.
But now no face divine contentment wears,
'Tis all blank sadness and [or] continual
tears. [ElAb 2:135-36, 139-48.]

 

The lines which, in the poem, succeed to the above
passage, and form a description of the Paraclete scenery,
yield to no poetry as landscape painting. Dryden never
equaled, and Milton has not excelled, them. The landscape is
as original as it is solemn and striking, and the sound of
the versification breathes the very spirit of elevated melan-

choly.

(lg e concluded i our next.)

 

 

1c.

Miss Seward's Strictures on the Preface to the Woodmen of

Arden; (concluded from pl 321.)

Few, Mr. Urban, that attend to the extracts in your last
number, will think Mr. Weston yige ip peiegpipg the excuse
which Friendship, less blinded by injudicious zeal, alledges
for the frequent coarseness of Dryden's ideas, and the fre-

Quent bathos of his style, viz. "writing for bread, he had

not time to choose and reject his thoughts, to polish and
refine his language."1 But it being known that he never
expunged, or even altered, a single passage in the course of
those various editions of his Poems that passed under his
eye, prove that the pruning knife and the chissel were pp;
voluntarily withheld: since it is impossible to conceive
that there ever lived a man so notoriously conceited as that,
in repeated revision of so many volumes he could see no
passage, nor even expression, that he wished to omit or
alter. It is therefore plain that Dryden found his wilder-
ness so weedy, that to attempt clearing it would be an Hercu-

lean labour, swallowing up that time which he wanted to

employ in pressing on with new publications, for whose prof-
its his necessities so loudly called. -- He trusted to the
majestic trees of this wilderness, "laden with blooming

gold,"” for the preservation of his fame and they gill
preserve it. But he little dreamt that their fruits should
so far intoxicate the brain of a brother poet, in future
time, as that he should assert the superior beauty of this
wilderness on account of its weeds, and abuse the majestic
parks and lawns of succeeding bards, from which the nettles

and switch-grass have been rooted up.

 

”Probably a conflation of various eighteenth-century

authors. David Erskine and Isaac Reed wrote that Dryden was
driven to "writing for mere bread," Biographica Dramatica
(London, 1812) 1:202. Pope's biographer, Owen Ruffhead,

reported that Pope used to say of Dryden's poetry that he
"would have been perfect in it had he not been so often
obliged to write with precipitation," Tpe Life pi Alexander
Pope, Esg, (London, 1769) 23. William Ayre noted the same
thing in his Memoirs pi ppe Life egg Writings pi Alexander
Pope 1:247.

”Milton, A Mesk (Comus) 349.

15

It is also terribly impolitic in Mr. Weston to bring
Dryden and Pope in to view ep pppe, and then to attack the
moral character of the latter, whose imputed crime must be
only conjectural; and whose errors are, compared with the
mean faults of Dryden, but as a passing cloud of Summer to
December's darkness.

Pope did every justice to Dryden's genius: witness one
amongst many lines in his praise:

And what Timotheus yep is Dryden now. [§_Q l:383.]

But in that style in which they both chiefly wrote (for Pope
was pp; a master of lypip composition) he felt his own super-
iority: not vainly, because thousands felt, and still feel it
also. He probably wished to see it asserted. Why should
that wish be deemed proof of a bad heart, even if he did
finesse a little to obtain it?

Dryden's writings prove that he was wholly without fixed
principles in Religion, Politics, or Criticism; that his
Interest was his Legislator, his Guide, and his God. Witness
his mean and profane renunciation of the religion in which he
had been educated, and had ably defended, for the idolatries
he had stigmatised! A Popish King just then mounted on the
throne, yep discerns not the court parasite in the new apos-
tate? Witness his hyperbolic praise of the deceased
Cromwell, to please the Republicans, whose downfall he did
not then foresee!--and witness his subsequent gpppe of
Cromwell, who being dead when he extolled him, the Poet had
no excuse, from any after-conduct of the imputed epgel, for

chBDGing him into a devil. Even Mr. W. allows that he formed

16

his critical opinions according to the interest of the hour,
callous to all the self-contradictions into which such mean-
ness betrayed him.

How inconceivable is it, that beneath the obtrusive
prominence of such faults in Dryden, the writer, who compares
the two poets, pep be severe upon the human frailities of
Pope, relieving the necessities of his abusive foe, and
watching, with filial tenderness, by the couch of his aged
mother!

Mr. W's observation is just upon Dryden's Alexandrine,1
reprobated by Dr. Johnson, in his Life of that Poet.” But to
reprobate poetic excellence was Dr. Johnson's custom: a
thrice dangerous one to the public taste, since it requires
unusual strength of mind to escape the pernicious influence
of that wit and force of language,

which can make the yppee appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
True criticism.”

The line reprobated by the despot is this:

And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne.4 [ AP
2:2.537.]

Mr. W. justly defends its dignity of sound.

And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy, [5: 3:150,
154.]

 

is upon the game construction. But it appears to me that

 

1Letter 9c, pp. 58-59 and EA xx.

”Liyee 1:469.

”Unidentified.

”Read "And with paternal thunder vindicates her crown."

Johnson had remembered the line incorrectly. See Lives
1:469n.

17

this is the only variation from its perfect model that the

 

ear endures in the Alexandrine: though Mr. W. affirms that
the pause may be placed after emy of its syllables, without
injury to the harmony.1

The next line, quoted in pippi of that assertion, is to
my ear a doleful drag, little resembling a yeiee:

By many follow'd, lov'd by most, admir'd by all.
There are several of kindred imperfection in Guiscard and
Sigismunda: for instance:

Like Libertyi indulg'd with choice pi gppg emg Lpil ill,

A ppm%::0§reggg'? ip giepe ime present _e design'd. [§_

Those lines, if read with proper emphasis, are not verse,

though they may scan as such, since the sense allows no pause

 

after the words indulg'd and giepe,

Mr. W. asserts the poetic right of intermixing, at
pleasure, lines of fourteen syllables into the common heroic
couplet.” The first line quoted from Dryden, to illustrate
the claim,

But Maurus sweeps whole parishes, and peoples every
grave, [TJD 4:83.]

has such strength of thought and imagery, that they atone for
any liberty, however generally unjustifiable, that may be

taken with the numbers; but the next citation,

 

The tedious [nauseous] qualms of nine [ten] long
months, and travail, to requite, [VP4 4:75.]

possessing nothing stiking or poetic in the thought, it

 

”WA xxi-xxii.
”WA xxii-xxiii.

18

cannot surely be in the mere echo of its sound to its sense
to recompense the bad effect of putting a line and three
quarters, of eight feet measure, into one, and then drawing
it through the texture of the couplet numbers, like a hoop,
five yards wide, stuck across the limbs of an elegant maid of
honour!

This last Drydenic licence sounds to me like ludicrous
ballads, part of which are sung, and then a line said.

Captain Colvert's gone to sea, heigh boys! ho boys!

Captain Colvert's gone to sea, 0!

Captain Colvert's gone to sea, with all his company,

In the great Benjamin, ho!

Now you shall hear how he was cast upon an uninhabited

island, and married the governor‘s daughter.

Captain Colvert's gone to sea, &c.”

Mr. W. gives to Pope's patrons amongst the nobility the
title of wou'd pe Maecenases.” The phrase is invidious; and
his poetic brethren of this day are not much obliged to him
for thus discouraging poetic patronage; for assisting to
spread that Gothic mantle over the Muses which the dark huge
hands of the envious Colossus first unfurl'd in the Lives of
the Poets. Either Horace has had more injustice from his
translators, Cowley, Dryden, and even Milton of the number,
than ever poet met, or those whom Mr. W. calls the wou'd-be

Maecenases patronised a greater poet than Horace.

Mr. Weston writes in this Preface as if the excellence

 

”The ballad "Captain Chilver's Gone to Sea"
closely resembles this, except for the prosaic fifth line,
which Miss Seward may have invented to reinforce her point.
See Imp goxburghe pallads, ed. J. Woodfall Ebsworth,
(Hertford: Ballad Society, 1890) 7.1:529.

”Letter 9c, p. 56.

19

or worthlessness of a poem depended wholly upon the construc-
tion of its measure: and as if the couplet was the only order
of rhyme. He seems to forget that the lyric, with its count-
less varieties, and almost unlimited privileges, affords
ample field for his alexandrines and triplets, whose frequent
intermixture suits not the chastity of the heroic couplet:
though it appears to me that it is by no means an advantage
to make the sense so generally end with the second line, as
in the otherwise perfect style of Pope's versification.

After all, it is a small part of the intrinsic
excellence of poetry that the elegant style of Pope, or the
slovenly one of Dryden, can give or take away. A poem has
little merit if it does not remain fine poetry after having
been taken out of ell measure. Where there is loftiness of
thought, ingenuity of allusion, and strength of imagery, to
stand imei test, true lovers of the art allow an author to do
almost what he pleases with the numbers, provided he does not
insist upon their preference of the slovenly to the polished
ones, readily promising that such a work shall be dear to
them in emy dress. They will by no means wish that eyeiy
part should blaze: but would pmeee that there should be
"interstices of black velvet between the gems:"” desiring,
however, to be excused from applauding the custom of erden‘s
Muse, to put on "soiled linen with her diamonds."”

Several of Mr. W's poetic friends, as well as himself,

 

”Letter 9c, p. 56.
. ”This is probably Miss Seward's reply to Weston's remark
.7 us t quoted .

20

are surprised that any person can prefer his close transla-

 

tion of Mr. Morfitt's fine Latin poem to his more ingenious
parephrestic one. He and they, must however expect that
preference from those who agree with him in thinking that
Pope has degenerated from Dryden in the beauty and purity of
style. My friend will find many who, because the latter-
named poet lived a degree more remote from the present day
than the former, will decree the palm of pre-eminence to mim:
but whatever author shall be rash enough to resume the slip-
shod licences of Dryden, eee if they will applaud the result.
Not they; even though it should be adorned with all the
riches of allusion and imagery which glow through the writ-
ings of Mr. Weston. His Miltonic Sonnets appear to me models
of perfection in that arduous order of poetic composition.

Anna Seward.

 

2.

Mr. Urban, mey 30. [1789]
I was much concerned to observe, vol. LVIII, p. 1060,

that Mr. Weston, in his very just and reasonable appeal to

the publick on the premature, incorrect, and clandestine

appearance of his poetry, in the conclusion should apply such

an harsh epithet as "execrable"” to Mr. Pope, that favourite

 

”In this letter to the pm of November 6, 1788, Weston
wrote in a P.S.:

Before I entirely conclude this long appeal, I must, in

the name of every friend to worth and ingenuity, justice

and humanity, thank your indefatigable Editor, for

having so generously and spiritedly rescued the writings

21

of the Muses, whose harmonious numbers, elegant sensibility,
condensation of good sense, poignant wit, delicacy and taste,
have, and will continue to charm thousands, as long as our
language has existence. I doubt not Mr. Welsted had his
excellencies. I am willing to allow him every merit, as Poet
and a Man, that Mr. Weston attributes to him, and that he has
been too severely satirised by Mr. Pope;” and in abatement of
Mr. Pope's character, will allow he might have a spark of
envy in his composition; that he might be too irritable, too

peevish, that he would

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. [Ep-
lipi 4:198.)

Yet who does not know that exalted genius and first-rate
talents generally have too high a sense of their own
superiority, and are too apt to bear hard on those a few
degrees below them, and, from a fear or envy of their rising
merit, will depreciate that they really possess? Undoubtedly
it is wrong: and in the particular instance under considera-
tion, Mr. Pope might and did diffuse his satiric wit with

unmerited acrimony: yet, though I blame, I cannot execrate

 

of a worthy and most elegant poet, from that oblivion to
which they were hastening, through the vile arts of a
jealous tyrant, not less remarkable for meanness than
for malignity, equally distinguished by cowardice and by
cruelty! It is almost unnecessary to add, that, by the
former, I mean the excellent Welsieg: and, by the
latter, the execrable gppe!

”Pope had satirized Leonard Welsted in Qpppieg(A). com-
paring him to his " inspirer, Beer,/ Tho' stale, not ripe;
tho' thin, yet never clear: (5:3.163-64). Welsted and James
Moore Smythe, whom Pope had also consigned to the dunces.
retaliated in pee Epistle ip mil gppe (1730) in which they
chastised Pope for being a spiteful and vicious satirist.

22

him for it. My Dictionary says the word means hateful,
destestable, abominable, very wicked, odious, or impious:
surely Mr. P. cannot deserve all these; if he did, he might
as justly be said to deserve a halter. I hope Mr. Weston, on
a retrospect, will regret that the word escaped him; and I
wish he may think a gentler term more just and applicable in
the comparison of Pope and Welsted.

Yours, &c. M. F.

 

3.
Mr. Urban, Solihull, gely 20. [1789]

Assailed by so powerful an antagonist as Miss Seward--
called upon in so earnest a manner by your correspondent
M.F.--misunderstood by the Monthly, and misrepresented by the
Critical, Reviewers” --I cannot remain entirely silent,
though unable, .EE present, to enter into a defence either of
my Poetry, my Preface, or my letter inserted in your Magazine
for December last.

An indisposition of many months continuance renders
every task, that requires even a moderate share of attention,
exceedingly irksome, difficult, and dangerous: I must, there-
fore, unwillingly defer my reply to these various attacks
till I shall have recovered, in some degree, my strength and

spirits: and I will then endeavour to prove, that my fair and

 

”Weston's translation of [me Woodmen pi Arden, together
'with his preface, was reviewed unfavorably in lee Monthly
Beview (Jan.—June, 1789) 80:329-31 and in lee Critical Review
(March 1789) 68:200-202.

 

23

most respectable opponent has been for once mistaken--that
the Critical Reviewers deserve a scourge--and that Pope,
however the assertion may shock M. F., really pie deserve--
What He Mentions.

Yours,&c. Joseph Weston.

 

4.
Mr. Urban, SolihullL egg. 23. [1789]

When I published the Woodmen of Arden I was perfectly
aware that, unless the Poem should steal quietly along into
the Vale of Oblivion, the Preface would furnish an ample
subject for animadversion. My dislike to Pope's Versifica-
tion, my detestation of his Principles, and the indignation
which I felt that so many wise and so many worthy persons
should have become the Dupes of an Imposter, hurried on my
pen with a degree of vehemence that set Fear at defiance.
But, though, on cool reflection, I entertained some doubts of
the prudence of my conduct, I had none of the justice of my
cause; and, reposing with confidence on arguments which I
conceived would not easily be confuted, I felt little appre-
hension that any Antagonist would start up in a yeiy formida-
ble shape.

But I was too blindly secure. An Antagonist pee started
up in a most formidable shape indeed--viz. that of a Friend;
armed too with weapons of the most formidable kind--Candour,
Politeness, and Generosity: and, to form a regular climax of

distress, that candid, polite, and generous Friend, is a

24

Woman: a beautiful, accomplished, and amiable Woman! Can a
more perplexing dilemma be imagined than that disagreeable
predicament be invented than that in which I stand?

I am attacked by one of the finest Writers of the Age,
with the united force of brilliant Wit, magnificent Metaphor,
and critical Acumen. What must I do? Must I defend myself,
or must I fly the field? Disgrace awaits me on either hand.
ii I defend myself, who can tell that, in the warmth of
argument, a strenuous defence may not undesignedly be
converted into an Attack? And what a pitiful figure does one
of Homer's Heroes make while wounding a Goddess! If, to
avoid this danger, I give ground to my fair Antagonist, will
the World give me credit for my Magnanimity? No.-- Will my
fair Antagonist herself give me credit for it? No.--To
decline the proffered combat would, in her eyes, as well as
in those of the publick, betray a consciousness of a weak
cause: and, perhaps, seem an insolent affectation of
superiority: and both her sense and her spirit would, I am
sure, reject with scorn the idea of being indebted to my
forbearance or compassion.

Such, Mr. Urban, have been my reflections for the four
last months; and ridiculous as the assertion may appear to
some, whose minds are strangers to those trebly-refined sen-
sations which constitute the extreme degree of human Happi-
ness or Misery, I aver that I have passed many an unpleasant
hour in vain attempts to form some resolution on the subject.
Weakened and dispirited by reiterated attacks of a nervous

fever, I looked forward, with an anxiety bordering on terror.

25

to the time when, on the closing of Miss Seward's correspon-
dence, I should no longer be able to delay my choice of

combat or of flight. Nor do I know which mode of conduct I

 

might ultimately have adopted, had not a new opponent rushed
into the field, to offer his assistance to one who is herself
An Host!

"Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis
"Seward eget."”

I feel so grateful for this strange Knight's unexpected
interference (which has so considerably lessened my
embarrassment), that I am not much disposed to enquire if I
am obliged, by the laws of chivalry, to accept the challenge
of one who has slept for six months over the supposed provo-
cation: nor will I urge the still stronger objection that
this unknown Adversary comes in disguise, and refuses to
declare his name and rank in arms. Though, from the gentle
and courteous terms in which his defiance is couched, I be-
lieve him to be of no vulgar degree, I cannot but think the
behaviour of my first Opponent infinitely more intitled to
respect, who, with the grace and dignity of a Thalestris,
while with one hand she shakes her glittering spear, with the
other lifts her beaver, and discovers a countenance that
melts down all opposition, and eyes that dim the radiance of
the gems that spangle-o'er her bunished helmet.

I may now, Mr. Urban, content myself with parrying some

of this literary emezon's most dangerous thrusts, and secure

” eneid, 2:521-22. For "Seward" read "tempus." "Not
such the aid nor these the defences the hour craves."

26

a not inglorious retreat, to try my strength upon her Auxi-
liary.

As the Strictures on my Preface are extended to imiee
Numbers, I shall extend my observations on them to three
Numbers also: a method which, in the present state of my
health, I shall find peculiarly convenient. Letter the
first, in your Magazine for April, will give me no great
trouble, as there is very little business done in ihei.
except summoning the Court, opening the Commission, and call-
ing over the names of the Jurymen: to every one of which I
object, however. from motives of sound policy. Though they
may be all gppg mem emg pipe, I claim the privilege (allowed
in the court of Apollo at least) of challenging every
mother's son of them, lest those, whom as interested persons
I reject, should deafen the Court with the clamours of their
resentment.-- No.--If I meei be put upon my defence, e'en let
my fair lccuser, whom, as Mr. Hayley has acknowledged her to

be "the leader of the female Train,"” I will also allow to be

my Judg , make up her Seven female Poets a Dozen, and let me
be tried by Them! I shall then stand a chance of a favour-

able Verdict, as I can conscientiously affirm, that imeii
share of the Censure which I have bestowed on the Moderns
will be very trifling indeed.

Two Mistakes occur in Miss Seward's Exordium. I have
neither imputed to Her a single Perfection which she does not

Possess, nor have I accused Pope "of having meanly influenceg

g

”William Hayley, Essay pm_§pip Poetry, Epems egg glaye
(Dublin, 1788) 3:4.91. Read "lovely Train."

27

his friends to exalt his Compositions above their just Level,
for the purpose of lowering Dryden's and tearing the Laurels
from his his Brow."”

All who have the Honour and Happiness of Miss Seward's
Acquaintance, must own that I might have considerably
enlarged the Catalogue of her Virtues without the least
violation of Truth; and, on a reference to my preface (p.14),
it will be found that I only glanced at "the insidious arts
which Pope suffered his Friends to practise, in order to
undermine the Reputation of the deceased Poet, and to asperse
the Characters of his living Supporters."” But I will not
insist on the Distinction; for, although the difference be-
tween influencing and permitting may appear at first sight
material, I will frankly confess, that i should be inclined
to consider the person who commits a crime, and the person
who, with the power to prevent it, suffers that crime to
committed, for the sake of his own advantage, as nearly upon
an equality.

I shall reserve to a more proper place” what I have
further to say on this point, and proceed to remark, that
Miss Seward is perfectly right when she supposes, that by the
Moderns I mean the celebrated Poetic Writers from Pope's
decease to the present hour-- (indeed I could not possibly
mean the Poetasters): and a most tremendous Phalanx, in

Battle-array, has she brought against poor me!

 

”Letter 1a, p. 1.
”Letter 9c, p. 57.
”See Letter 21, pp. 147-148.

28

The plan which I have proposed to myself will not permit
me to reply mpg to the question which she so triumphantly
asks, in the beginning of her second letter; but I most
sincerely admire her spirit and good-sense in restoring to
that rank, from which Dr. Johnson so unjustly degraded him,
Sir William Davenant,” who, in spite of the illiberal ridi-
cule of the profligate Villiers,” and in spite of the
instances of false Taste which may be found in his Writings,
had yet Spirit, Sense, Genius, and Morality, sufficient to
secure for him a very high place among the Bards of Charles's
days.

Had our Arch-critic read, or at least recollected, a
Stanza with which I shall conclude this Address, its superla—
tive merit (doubly endeared to Him by the nature of the
Subject) would have pleaded hard for the unfortunate Author's
admission into the Poetic Corps, even though, to make room
for him, Johnson should have been obliged to thrust from
their unmerited situations gimmeL Stepneyl YaldenI Pomfret,”
and many more, whom the good Doctor seems to have lugged out
of Oblivion, for the mere Purpose of "exalting the humble,

and bringing the mighty low!"”

 

”Joseph Weston is mistaken. Johnson did not comment on
Davenant.

”Johnson noted that Villiers' play, lee Rehearsal,
initially had Davenant as its satirical target, Lives 1:369.
Villiers was also credited with an anonymous poem ridiculing
Davenant's gondibert, "Verses on the Preface of Gondibert."
This is no longer believed to be by Villiers. See
Buckingham: Public egg Private Mem., ed. Christine Phipps
(NY: Garland, 1985) 260.

”See Appendix B.3.

”Probably a paraphrase of Luke 1.52: "He hath put down
the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree."

 

29

Q, harmless Death, whom still the Valiant preve.
The Wise expect, the Sorrowful invite,

And all the Good embrace, who know the Grave
A short, dark passage to Eternal Light!

The Dying Reply ip the Philosopher.”

Yours, &c. Joseph Weston.

 

Mr. Urban, leg. 5. [1789]

The publick could not but be obliged to Mr. Weston, if
he had no other merit than that of having called forth those
animated and ingenious strictures which have lately graced
the pages of your Miscellany. Yet, much as I admire the good
sense and taste of the fair writer, I cannot help thinking
that she has overstepped the limits of justice, and that, in
endeavouring to vindicate Pope and the moderns from some
undeserved accusations, she has been too hard upon Dryden,
and totally unfair in her estimation of the poets of preced-
ing times. Is not the lustre of Pope's period considerably
diminished by the absence of the names of Akenside, Hammond,
Collins, Thomson, Mallet, Lyttelton, A. Philips, Welsted,
Allen Ramsay, Glover, Broome, Shenstone, Somervile, Pomfret,
Hughes, Garth, the Duke of Buckingham, and Dennis?” The list
of poetic writers in Milton's age might be swelled to an
equal amount, if all those who were admired during their

lives were admitted. But it must be more than common

 

”William Davenant, Stanza 10, "The Christian's Reply to

ige Phylosopher," Epems pm Several Occasions, Epikp (London.
73) 334-35.

”See Appendix B.4

 

30

excellence which can insure a reputation of an hundred years:
and probably in that space many of those luminaries, which
contribute to the splendour of the present day, will be ex-
tinguished and forgotten. That Dryden purposely kept down
certain parts of his writings, in order to serve as foils to
the rest, is an assertion in which Mr. W. will not, perhaps,
find a single advocate; as the prematurity in which pecuniary
circumstances compelled him to hurry his publications into
the world is known and lamented by every one. Had he pol-
ished with the minute skill and diligence of Pope, he would
have been without an equal in his line. But since the unfor-
tunate state of his affairs denied him leisure to do so, let
us throw a veil over his blemishes, and exhibit with con-
scious pride the numerous beauties of our noble countryman.
Instead of this, Miss S. has extracted the most dark and
blotted passages, which are contrasted with the most splendid
and graceful lines of his rival. What would she say if a
critic, as a specimen of Shakespeare's genius, should produce
some of that vile ribaldry which is so plentifully inter-
spersed in the works of our immortal bard? Permit me to shew
how Dryden could sometimes write. In his Epistle to Sir
Godfrey Kneller are these lines:
"More cannot be by mortal art exprest,

But venerable Age shall add the rest:

For Time shall with his ready pencil stand,

Retouch your figures with his rip'ning hand,

Mellow your colours, and imbrown the teint,

Add ev'ry grace which time alone can grant,

To future ages shall your fame convey,
And give more beauties than he takes away." [1:174-81.]

 

31

A description of a storm:

"The cries of men are mix' with rattling shrouds.

Seas dash on seas and clouds encounter clouds;

At once from East to West, from pole to pole,

The forky lightnings flash the roaring thunders roll."
[pi 4:121-24.]

Again:

"No star appears to lend his friendly light,
Darkness and tempest make a double night;
But flashing fires disclose the deep by turns,
And while the lightnings blaze, the water burns." [
4:157-60.]

IS

Nothing can go beyond the following passage in his

translation from the Metamorphoses.--The House of Sleep:
"An arm of Lethe, with a gentle flow,

Arising upwards from the rock below,

The palace moats, and o'er the pebbles creeps,

And with soft murmurs calls the coming sleeps;

Around its entry nodding poppies grow,

And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow,

Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains

And passing sheds it on the silent plains." [pi 4:282-

89.]

We cannot wonder at any enthusiasm offered up to the
author of the foregoing lines. But, as a friend to the
Muses, I regret that Mr. W. should carry his admiration of
Dryden so far, as even studiously to imitate his defects. He
will find his account, if he has the resolution to make a
sacrifice of his own judgement to the public taste, since
private prejudice should always give way, in such matters, to
universal and established opinion. With pleasure I seize
this opportunity of adding my vote to Miss Seward's with

respect to Mr. W's Sonnets, which are extremely elegant and

highly finished. M[arcellu]s [Henry Francis Cary]

 

 

32

6.

Mr. Urban, SolihullI iepi 2;. [1789]
My indisposition, though it seems inclined to leave me,

removes by such gentle gradations, that I still find Writing

and Study insupportably fatiguing, and am most reluctantly

compelled to request your own and your Readers' indulgence

till next month; by which time I hope I may be enabled to

resume, perhaps to finish, the justification of my Preface to

 

the Woodmen of Arden. Joseph Weston.
7.
Mr. Urban, Sep . 8. [1789]

Mr. Weston, in his answer to Miss Seward, p. 680,” is
pleased to take umbrage at my presuming to think his execra-
iipm of Mr. Pope harsh and unjustifiable. In the exuberance
of his fancy, he is pleased to denominate me "a strange
knight," wants to know my "rank in arms," and calls me his
"unknown adversary." I am not insensible that gentlemen of
Mr. Weston's genius and literary abilities are "tremblingly
alive" at any arraignment of their productions; I am well
aware they nearly approach to infallibility in their own
estimations: yet I had no idea when I sent you those few
candid remarks inserted in p. 512” couched, as I thought, in

terms both respectful and inoffensive, that they would so far

 

”Letter 4, Pp. 23-29.
”Letter 2, pp. 20-22.

33

have excited Mr. Weston's spleen; I could not suppose those
observations on the justice and propriety of a single word
would have so much discomposed him. Mr. Weston seems to
possess the geppe irritabile” in a very superlative degree,
and to be happy in a very comfortable sense of his own impor-
tance. On the one hand, he ranks me as an auxiliary of the
elegant Seward, and, on the other, pushes me back with his
flourish of ppp ieli auxilio,” &c.; but, when the truth of
the matter appears, the sentence will be found totally inap-
plicable to me: I have not the least claim to the honour he
has unwittingly assigned me. Mr. Urban can inform him my
letter was transmitted at least four months before its inser-
tion*, and previous to the appearance of Miss Seward's ele-
gant strictures on Mr. Weston's Preface: why the date was al-
tered+, Mr. Urban can also best tell him. He may assure
himself I had not "slept six months over the supposed provo-
cation."

Does Mr. W. suppose it enhances his magnanimity by
insulting over the ashes of the venerable dead, and execrat—
ing the man who has almost universally been esteemed in the
foremost rank of poets, and among the best of men? Would Mr.
W. have adventured on the sentence had the admired Pope been

living? If so, his hardihood might have excited our

 

*True. Edit.
+By chance.

”"Genus irritabile vatum," "fretful tribe of bards."
Horace, Epistle; 2.2.102.

1 ”Letter 4, p. 25. The next quotation is from the same
D ace.

34

astonishment, though I question whether his prudence would
have acquired our applause.

Mr. W. is perfectly right in saying I an "unknown, and
in disguise."” I acknowledge myself a son of obscurity, "a
fellow whom nobody knows:"” but in this, as well as in my
estimation of Mr. Pope, I plead a majority on my side; I
believe more than two-thirds of Mr. Urban's correspondents
make use of initials or anonymous signatures. But this is
nothing to the matter in hand. What does it avail to the
justice of the cause who or what I am? The whole dispute
between us is, whether Mr. Pope can be justly deemed Execra-
ble or not, I hold the latter: Mr. W. has pledged himself to
prove the former: and, if I mistake not, a very tough piece
of work he will have of it. When he has brought forth his
"strong reasons," his valid evidences, and laid them before
us with those shining talents he is confessedly master of, if
they are satisfactory, I shall retain to myself a liberty of
yielding to superior evidence, changing my opinion, and be-
coming his convert: until which time I hope he will let me
quietly enjoy my present sentiments, as I have no intentions
of occupying Mr. Urban's valuable columns or troubling him or
the publick on this subject again. Thus far I thought neces-

sary in my own vindication. Yours, &c. M. F.

 

”Letter 4, p. 25.
”These are not Weston's words. ”M.F." may have ascribed
them to Weston by accident.

35

8.
Mr. Urban, LichfieldI iepi. 15. [1789]

You will permit a few comments on the letters in your
last number, from my polite antagonists, concerning the sub-
ject of Dryden and Pope. Mr. Weston imputes to the latter
the meanness of at least suffering those preferences of
himself to Dryden to get abroad, which appeared so frequently
in the public prints during his life-time.

Reflecting one instant coolly on the subject, he must
have the generosity to withdraw this charge. I have avowed
my opinion, that the two writers possessed great and equal
genius, and that Pope became, upon the whole, much the finest
poet, from that superior taste and judgement which banished
those prosing redundancies, those disgusting images, those
low expressions, which so often sully and debase the writings
of Dryden. Can Mr. W. suppose, were Pope alive, I should
have been indelicate enough to consult him before I pub-
lished my vindication of his character and of his claims?
How very improbable that he had power to prevent the appear-
ance of similar assertions!

When prejudice and personal enmity peruse Mr. Weston's
hyperbolic praise of me, they may with equal justice, de-
claim, as he does against Pope, upon the meanness and vanity
of my suffering its appearance. They will ungenerously con-
ceal their consciousness that it was probably out of my power
to suppress what it is certain I never saw till I saw it in
Print. Knowing ipei truth, he would be shocked at ipeii

injustice. I hope, therefore, that he will awaken to a sense

36

of his pyp.

In reply to the observation of your ingenious correspon-
dent M----s p. 682,” that the lustre of Pope's period is
diminished by the absence of the names of Akenside, Hammond,
Collins, Shenstone, with some others of considerable celebri-
ty, I alledge, that the personal existence of those writers
during that of Pope is of no consequence. He heard Dryden
converse in a coffee-room when he was twelve years old, and
boasted of the circumstance through life with generous plea-
sure; but a poet cannot be said to exist till his writings
become known. Akenside died so lately as the year 1770, aged
forty-nine. His great work, The Pleasures of Imagination,
was not published till forty-four, in which year Pope died.
Akenside's poetic lustre cannot, therefore, be said to gild
the period in which the Bard of Twickenham flourished; it
descended upon the leiei times, where the poets are placed
whom we mention to the honour of our pyp day. Collins also
was not heard of in Pope's life-time. His Odes, descriptive
and moral, were first published in the year forty-six, and it
was many years before they had either sale or fame. The
blindness of the age to their ppm celebrated excellence cost
their unfortunate author his reason and his life. His glory,
so long eclipsed, first shone on the aera in which I placed

the last, and by no means the least, powerful division of the

 

bards. The same plea justifies the placing of Shenstone,

”Letter 5, pp. 29-31.

37

Hammond, Somervile, Mallet,” &c. in the last set, namely,
their celebrity not being risen in the meridian of Pope, in
the reigns of Anne and George the First, in the age that is
styled Augustan. Allen Ramsay and the Duke of Buckingham”
were omitted through forgetfulness in the second list: and in
the third, from the same cause, Lyttelton, Ansty, Mickle,
Jekyl[l], Polwhele, and our present Tickell.” If the poetas-
ters Pomfret and Dennis” ought to have been found in the
second enumeration, there are an eimy of better writers not

mentioned in the third. I did not chuse to bring forward,

 

for the honour of Pope's period, any of the heroes of his
inimitable Dunciad. On examination, I find Thomson ought to
have graced the second instead of the third galaxy.”

I cannot think with M----s, that only very superior
poets survive their century. On the contrary, it has always
seemed to me that antiquity induces the generality of readers

to set a double value on every beauty, and to pass over

 

”Most of William Shenstone's works were published before
1744. James Hammond, who is not on Miss Seward's third list,
published his elegies during the 17305. William Somervile's
poems gained in popularity after his death in 1742. At least
half of David Mallet's works were published before 1744,
including his collected Works in 1743. Also see Appendix
B.1.

”George Villiers. See Appendix B.1 and 8.4.

”Miss Seward added Lyttleton, Ansty, Mickle, and Jekyll
to her third list in Letter 1b, p. 5n. See Appendix 8.2.
Richard Polwhele and Thomas Tickell are listed in the NCBEL
and the gap.

”The pup describes John Pomfret as poet and John Dennis
as a critic, poet, and playwright. They are both listed in
HCBEL.

”James Thomson's major work, The Seasons, was published
in individual parts between 1726 and 1728, and as a whole in
1730. It had run to many editions before his death in 1748.

38

defects with indulgence. Had Dryden's contemporaries, Den-
ham, Lee, Roscommon, and even Waller, whose names have out-
lived the centennial limits: had they lived and produced
their poems Now, I do not believe they would have many ad-
mirers. Denham's verses are in general heavy, laboured,
inharmonious: and Waller's have more courtly wit than poetic
fire. In the second division, Parnell, Gay, Addison, Watts,
and the two Philips, soar not to the highest eminences of the
Aonian mountain; yet each of them have written some things in
verse that will probably preserve the honour of their mem-
ories so long as our language shall remain. Amongst the
least celebrated of the third list, there are few who have
not written as well as those second-rate bards of the preced-
ing periods.

Suffer me to assure M----s, that I produced some of the
many bald passages from Dryden, not to lower his name on the
ground of possessing a genius creative, rich, and luxuriant,
but merely to confute an assertion which, if believed Just,
might tempt our young writers into a coarse and weedy style,
Viz. that Dryden's gross defects are happy negligences, vol-
untarily adopted for the Judicious repose of composition, and
in themselves preferable to the chaste, graceful, and pol-
ished numbers of Pope.

M----s says, I have selected the most dark and blotted
passages of the elder bard, contrasting them with the most
splendid ones of his rival. That was by no means my design:

but I thought it fair to make the first selection from the

39

earliest compositions of each: and the Pastorals of Pope,
from which the first quotation was made, are the least es-
teemed of any thing he wrote.

If from Pope‘s Homer lines can be produced mean and
wretched as those which Dryden has, in his Aeneid, put into
the mouth of the Empress of Heaven,” and if it cannot be
proved that such vulgar language occurs on almost every page
in Dryden, I will give up the point in contest: which, on my
part, goes no farther than to assert, that the poetic writers
of This day have done honour to their art, by avoiding the
botching vulgarities of Dryden's style, and emulating the
polished graces of his successor.

It was surely fair to place in one point of view the
enamoured epistle by Dryden from Ovid, and that by Pope from
Eloisa's Letters to Abelard. All who have sense and taste
enough to Attend to the subject, know that Both these poets
translated upon the only plan which makes translations worth
any thing, Viz. to abandon every idea of closeness, and to
interweave any new sentiment or imagery that occurs, if it
can add grace or spirit to the theme. It is thus that trans-
lations justly procure for those who give them the honours of
original composition. The most beautiful of Dryden's poetry,
in the heroic couplet, is from Ovid, Chaucer, and Boccace.
In the epistles from Helen, and Eloisa, their respective
translators took similar subjects; and if it is fair to

compare the Odes on the Power of Music, for the purpose of

 

”Letter 1b, p. 11. Miss Seward's references are to that
letter unless otherwise noted.

4O

decreeing the Lyric palm to Dryden, it is equally fair to
compare the two love epistles, where Pope's superiority over
his rival in the Heroic measure is even more distinguished.

Neither did I, in that comparison, extract the Most
splendid lines from the Eloisa. Those in which she describes
herself and Abelard in the hour of her profession; those
where she presents herself officiating as priestess amidst
the solemnities of the mass; the Paraclete scenerey; the
impersonization of Melancholy sitting amongst the twilight
groves, dusky caverns, long-sounding ailes, and intermingled
tombs of the monastery, and breathing over them a gloom,
which shades the flowers, and darkens the umbrage; all those
are passages of great poetic superiority to those I quoted
from that poem in contrast to the vapid effusions of Helen's
ideas from the pen of Dryden. Scarce any traces of the
picturesque beauties can be found in the original letters
between Abelard and Eloisa: they are the rich creations of an
imagination, which, setting style apart, I have not seen
transcended by Dryden.

M----s has quoted some extremely beautiful passages from
that confessedly great poet. We often find them interspersed
in his writings; but we also find them surrounded and dis-
graced by verses below mediocrity. The following lines, from
Pope to Jervas, are not less excellent that those which M----
s has given us from Dryden's Epistle to Kneller. Speaking of
the beautiful women whose pictures had been drawn by Jervas,
the Poet says,

"0! lasting as those colours may they shine,

41

Free as thy stroke, and faultless as thy line:

New graces hourly, [yearly] like thy works, display,

Soft without weakness, without glaring gay:

Led by some rule that guides, but not constrains,

And finish'd more thro' happiness than paips.

The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire,

One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre." [gpi
6:63-70.]

The ensuing verses, describing seastorms, by Pope, have
an equal right to our admiration with those quoted in the

last Magazine from Dryden. Both are free translations:

 

Dryden's from Ovid, Pope's from Homer.

"He spoke, and high the forky trident hurl'd,
Rolls clouds on clouds, and wakes [stirs] the watry
world:
At once the face of sea and sky [earth and sea] deforms,
Swells all the winds, and rouses all the storms; lee.
9:5.375-78.)
Wide o'er the waste the rage tempestuous sweeps,

And Night rush‘d headlong on the shaded deeps. [pe.
9.77-78.)

With what a cloud the brows of Heaven are crown'd! (pp.
9:78.306.)

What raging winds, what roaring waters round! (pp.
9:5.389-90.)

Now here, now there, the giddy ships are borne, [QQ.
9:79.306.)

And all the whirling [rattling] shrouds in fragments
torn; (pg. 9:80.306.)

For, [While] by the howling tempest, rent in twain,

Flew sail and sail-yards rattling o'er the main.“ [
9:407-08.]

Q.

Dryden's House of Sleep, from the Ceyx and Alcyone of
Ovid, is exquisite versification: but, in ipei passage, ell
the imagery and invention is Ovid's. As allegoric painting,
Pope's portrait of Dulness, where all the features are origi-
pel, has equal happiness of invention, equal strength of
colouring. How often, in the great work from whence it is
quoted, do we find the most beautiful flowers of fancy en-

twined around the rod of satire!

 

42

"Dulness o'er all possess'd her ancient right,

Daughter of Chaos, and eternal Night:

Fate, in their dotage, this fair idiot gave,

Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave:

Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind.

She rules in native anarchy the mind.

Her ample presence fills up all the space,

A veil of fogs dilates her aweful face." [_ppB 5:1.11-
16 and 261-62.]

A local description, what can be more charming than the

 

following lines from the same poem?

"Lo! where Maeotis sleeps, and scarcely [hardly]
flows,

The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows,

The North by myriads pours her might sons,

Great nurse of Goths, of Alans, and of Huns.

See, where the morning gilds the palmy shore,

The soil that arts and infant letters bore.

His conquering tribes th' Arabian prophet draws,

And saving Ignorance inthrones by laws." [QppB 5:3,87-
90 and 95-99.]

We may apply to the above extracts from Pope what M----s
says after his quotations from Dryden: "we cannot wonder at

any enthusiasm offered up to their author."”

Yours, &c. Anna Seward.

 

”Letter 5, p. 31.

 

43

9a. [continues Letter 4)
Mr. Urban, SolihullI Qpi. 26. [1789]
Unpleasant as the task of answering Miss Seward's objec-
tions to my unfortunate Preface proves to be: interrupted as
I am by perpetual returns of my fever: that task is rendered
still more unpleasant by interruptions of a different kind.
One correspondent, and another, and yet another, urges objec-
tion after objection, before I have advanced three steps in
my defence*.
I might, perhaps, without much impropriety, wave a reply
to ippee objections until I shall have finished my reply to
Miss Seward: but I must take the liberty of suspending, pppe

more, my principal design, that I may set M. F. right in a

 

matter which I can with truth aver that he has totally mis-
taken: for, though I hope I do not possess ell that Irritabi-
lity, and ell that Self Sufficiency which, in a moment of
vexation, he has thought proper to ascribe to me, I certainly
pp possess so much Sensibility as to feel exceedingly hurt at
his remarkable misconception of my intentions; and flatter
myself with the idea of possessing just so much Importance as
entitles me to a vindication, when unjustly accused.

I did ppi "take umbrage"” at my execration of Mr. Pope

being deemed by M. F. harsh and unjustifiable. On consulting

 

*After this affecting exordium we have no doubt but our
other correspondents (particularly the benevolent M----s)
will excuse our omitting their favours on this subject till
Mr. Weston has concluded. Edit.

”The quotations in this paragraph are from "M.F.'s"
Letter 7, pp. 32-34.

44

my letter in your Magazine for August, it will be found that
I professed myself (and with evident sincerity) very "grate-
ipl" for M. F.'s unexpected interference. True it is, that I
denominated him a "strange knight:" but, if he ever read a
single romance, he could not be ignorant that the epithet
"strange" is used seldom, if ever, in the language of Chival-
ry, in an invidious sense (as if it were synonymous to
gpeei). "Strange knight" means ipeie neither more nor less
than stranger-knight, but is rather better grammar.--He is
again mistaken in supposing that I "want to know his rank in
arms." I have expressed no such wish. I gig call him my
"unknown adversary:" and where was the crime? Is he ppi
unknown? Is he ppi my adversary?

Whoever will take the trouble of glancing over the
paragraph which has given so much offence to M. F. will find
that good-humoured raillery has been misapprehended by pim
for virulent invective. "I had no idea (says M. F.) when I
sent you those few candid remarks inserted in p. 512,
couched, as I thought, in terms both respectful and inoffen-
sive, that they would so far have excited Mr. Weston's
spleen: I could not suppose those observations on the jus-
tice and propriety of a single word would have so much dis-
composed him."” Why all this parade? In the paragraph
alluded to above, I had done this "strange knight,"” this

"unknown adversary," the justice to own that, from the gentle

 

”Letter 7, pp. 32-33.
”This, and the references which follow, are from Letter
4, p.25.

45

and courteous terms in which his defiance was couched, be-
lieve him to be of mg vulgar degree: and I had already con-
fessed, in an apologetical address, inserted in your Magazine
for July,” that the manner in which he called upon me was
"candid"” and I appeal, Mr. Urban, to your ingenious Editor,
whether I did not make a similar acknowledgement in the
postscript of a private letter which accompanied that which
was intended for publication*: and a compliment which was
never meant to meet the eye of your correspondent could
neither be intended [to] conciliate his favour, nor to depre-
cate his further censure.

Expressions thus favourable betrayed, one would think,

no very large portion of spleen, no very violent degree of

discomposure! Oh! but (says M. F.) the "ppm ieli auxilio,"
&c.!” True. There is no getting rid of that. Fatal quota-
tion! There yep an implication of inferiority in the sup-
posed auxiliary:-- "that's the truth on't."” But, in some

measure to soften the never-to-be-forgiven censure, permit me
just to hint to M. F. that his talents may be much above
mediocrity, and yet have no right to range themselves in the
same rank with the transcendent abilities of a Seward!

If M. F. imagines my flourish (as he calls it) was

introduced merely at random, and without apparent reason, let

 

* This was certainly the case. Edit.

”Letter 3, p. 22.

”"Without malice: without deceit, fair: open: in-
genuous," Johnson, Dictionary. Actually, Weston called "M.
F.'s" manner "earnest," not "candid."

”Letter 7, p. 33.

”Unidentified.

46

him reconsider one paragraph toward the beginning, and one
toward the conclusion, of his first letter, and he may
possibly retract his opinion. In the former of those
passages he will find an enuumeration of the excellencies of
the Poet, seemingly intended to prove the injustice of my
execration of the Man: and in the latter he will find a list
of various meanings which his Dictionary affixes to the word
"execrable," followed by a grave exclamation of "surely Mr.
Pope could not deserve All these!"”

Every classical reader of the book of Job knows that the
naughty word which our translators have put into the mouth of
his wife, viz. "ppiee," might, with equal probability, and
with greater politeness, have been rendered "pleee."” Had
Miss Seward commented on this circumstance, she might prob-
ably have complained of the hardship which Job's unfortunate
helpmate has sustained, thus stigmatised as an impious vixen,
when, for aught that appears to the contrary, she might be a
very religious and very peaceable kind of a woman: but, most
assuredly, Miss Seward, after informing Mr. Urban's readers
that the verb in the original admits of different, nay oppo-
site significations, and, in reality, means either "to bless"
pm "to curse," would never have exclaimed, "surely the good

lady could not mean Both!"

 

”Letter 2, pp. 20-22.

”Miss Seward may be referring to the double meaning of
the Hebrew cherem, "a thing devoted to god,“ "whether for His
service, as sacrifices" or "for its destruction, as an idol,"
W.E. Vine, M.F. Unger, and William White, pp Expository
Dictionary pi Biblical Words (NY: Thomas Nelson, 1984) 254.

47

Had my spleen been roused, even in the least degree, by
M. F.'s reprehension of the term "execrable," what prevented
me from bringing forward these hasty inaccuracies, these
accidental slips of a not inelegant pen, while under the
influence of that spleen? Nor are they blazoned even ppm
(when Candour itself must allow that I have received epme
provocation) in the unmanly wantonness of triumph, nor in the
mean spirit of revenge: but only to pipye that my implication
of the inferiority of M. F. to Miss Seward originated not
from rancour or from pride.

I do ppi "insult over the ashes of the venereble dead."”
The man whom, had he been living, I should have regarded with
horror, I cannot allow to have become venerable by ceasing to
exist. His ypiee exist; and many whose abilities have chal-
lenged admiration, and many whose virtues have excited es-
teem, are consigned to contempt and infamy as long as those
works endure. Shall I be deterred by the foolish adage of
"2e mortpis pil piei Bonum"” from entering my protest against
such injustice? Shall an assertion, that "Pope has almost
universally been esteemed in the foremost rank of poets, and
among the best of men,"” strike me with such awe, that,
though I pep prove both claims to be unjust, I must not geie

to do it, lest I should find the Universe in arms against me?

 

”Letter 7, p. 33.

”"Speak no ill of the dead," Plutarch, Liyep (Solon),
Sec. 21.

”Letter 7, p. 33.

48

Whatever may be the risk, however. I shall do it. Fiat

 

Justitia, ipei Coelum!”

Shall this Cromwell, who has injured that poetical
constitution which he pretended to amend, trampled on the
rights of those fellow-citizens whom he ought to have loved
and protected, and, by dint of the most hypocritical pre-
tences to piety and morality, imposed on the understandings,
and seduced the affections of the rich and the powerful,
making them his stepping-stones to the highest seat in the
realms of Parnassus: shall this Usurper, I say, who, having
thus wickedly gained the throne, vilified the abilities, and
assassinated the reputations of those whose claim to it might
interfere with his own, and gibbeted all their adherents and
abettors, rest undisturbed in the dust? Can the office of
tearing him from his grave, that he may be exalted for an
example to all succeeding tyrants, though disagreeable, be
deemed sacrilegious? .Is it not even meritorious? Seeming
cruelty to the dead is real humanity to the living.--- Who,
endued with poetic genius and classical erudition, though.
perhaps, not blest with sufficient application, or suffcient
leisure, to produce works of an elaborate or an exalted kind.
will venture to amuse the world with the light and elegant
effusions of Taste and Sensibility, through the medium of
your very respectable Miscellany, if some Leviathan of liter-

ature, suspecting that the young fry may, some time or other,

 

”"Let justice be done, though the heavens fall," prover-
bial.

49

prove rivals, is at hand, with his enormous jaws distended,

to swallow them at a gulp? Joseph Weston.[* *]
*

 

9b.
Continuation pi mi. Weston's Vindicetion pi himself liipm_pi
.87_6-_).

M. F. exultingly asks, if "I would have adventured on
the sentence had the admired Pope been living?"-- I certainly
would: and M. F. migpi have stared with "astonishment at my
Hardihood" and "Imprudence."” I might perchance, Mr. Urban,
have been rewarded with a place in the Temple of Dulness: and
would then have consoled myself for present Disgrace, by the
Consciousness of Rectitude, and the Hope that some future
Writer might be as just and as generous to Me, as the Conduc-
tor of your Magazine has been to the injured and insulted
Welsted: for which I pppe mpie thank him. Were it necessary.
I could evince the Sincerity of my Thankfulness, by producing
a Poem,” written more than a Dozen Years since, 300 Lines of
which are appropriated to the honest purpose of rescuing from
unmerited Obloquy not only Welsted, but also many other

Heroes of the inimitable Dunciad. That Dunciad, upon whose

 

* t

* We must apologize to our readers for this letter's
breaking off abruptly.--Mr. W. will know that we were so
closely urged in respect of time, that it is not without
difficulty we have made room for so much of it. Edit.

”In this letter, all the quotations from "M.F." are from
Letter 7, pp. 32-34.

”This poem does not appear in Weston's published works.
I have been unable to find any record of his unpublished
Papers.

50

rotten, pestilential Carcase, even the embalming Art of the
admirable Seward is exercised in vain!--Inimitable?--Ay, that
it is: and so, I believe, will long remain!--Inimitable in
its Wit--inimitable in its Malevolence!--But let it rest for
the present! I shall pay it another Visit, as soon as I have
fulfilled my Engagement with Respect to my Preface to the
Woodmen of Arden: from which no more Interruptions from M. F.
nor from any one else shall divert me.

When I have dispatched that essential business, I shall
endeavour to convince M. F. that he is egeip mistaken; for I
shall assuredly find no "yeiy tough piece of work" in proving
Mr. Pope to be--what no honest man Can be.--Nor shall I
derive any Assistance from those "shining Talents," of which
M. F. obligingly supposes me possessed. I shall state a
plain Fact, in plain Language.--My Reasons, it is true, yill
be "strong:" and my Evidence pill be "valid:"--eppp Reasons
and eppp Evidence as M. F. will scarcely controvert: since
the single Witness whom I shall produce on the Occasion will
be--Pope himself!--a Witness who will settle the affair much
more effectually than the train of Lords and Commons united
could have done, whom he has so ostentatiously called to his
Character: and who, it seems, esteemed him "to be in the
foremost Rank of Poets, and among the best of Men."

If, in my Journey through Life, I have met with Monsters
of Selfishpess, Inhumanity, Hypocrisy, and lpgretiipde (and
God knows that such monsters I peye met with!), who, with not
the tenth part of Mr. Pope's Cunning, have yet had the Ad-

dress to impose themselves on very good, nay, very wise

51

Persons, for Models of the opposite Virtues--can I wonder
that so great a Master of the Art of Dissimulation contrived
to blind those whom the lustre of his Talents had already
dazzled?

I acknowledge M. F. to be right, when he remarks that,
"who or what he is" avails little to the Justice of the

Cause: but I must observe that Mr. Urban's anonymous Corres-

 

pondents have, in some respects, greatly the Advantage of

 

those who sign their real Names.

M. F., for Instance, can give ample Vent to pig Spleen
in snug Security: since, however just, however severe a
Retort he may meet with, if he has Prudence enough to keep
his own Secret, no friend can insult him with Pity--no enemy
with Derision: but no such Refuge remains for Me. If I leave
an Opening for Censure, my Friends* --but verbum eei:” my
Enemies, however (and I should be ashamed to think that I had
not epme), may be reasonably supposed to feel no slight
Gratification, when they see me charged in Print with being
"tremblingly alive at any Arraignment of my Productions"--
with "nearly approaching to Infallibility in my own Estima-
tion" with "possessing the peppe irritabile in a very super-
lative Degree"--and with being "happy in a very comfortable
Sense of my own Importance:"--and all this Abuse (for what

gentler Term does it deserve?) occasioned by my having had

 

*No iiue [barely legible] Friends Can merit the implied
Sarcasm: pietepded ones are welcome to it.

”A brief version of "yeippm eepiepii eei eei 'a word is
sufficient to the wise person,'" OED. Originally used by both
Plan tus and Terence .

52

the Impiety to execrate a "Foe to Humankind"” the Absurdity
to call a Stranger a Stranger--an Adversary an Adversary--and
(above all) the audacious Illiberality to intimate, that the
literary Talents of M. F. are not gpiie equal to those of

(pardon me, Miss Seward! but I must still repeat) "one of the

 

finest Writers of the Age!"”

Joseph Weston.+

 

+Mr. W.'s Second Letter next month.

”Pope, pp 10:14.320.
”Letter 4, p. 24.

53

9c.

Mr. Urban, Solihull, upy. 23. [1789)

Unwilling as I am (for Reasons sufficiently obvious) to
quote my own Authority, I know not how I can contrive to
render my Defence of the Preface to the Woodmen of Arden
intelligible to such of your Readers as may entertain no
great Fondness for turning backward and forward very many
Pages of your Publication, unless I request Admission for
some copious Extracts from the Work itself.

Loathing every Species of Affectation, I will not insult
your Understanding, by making any long Apology for the Room
which they will take up in your valuable Miscellany: since,
however erroneous the Opinions contained in the Essay may be
thought, however feeble my Justification of them may prove,
the Subject, at least, can never be deemed uninteresting to a
large Proportion of your Readers, which has had the painful
Distinction of arresting the Attention, and of calling forth
the critical powers of a Correspondent, whose occasional
Contributions so beautifully irradiate the Gentleman's Maga-
zine!

But, left the Liberty which I claim should be construed
Licentiousness, I intend to select pply such Passages as have
been the immediate Cause of drawing down upon me Miss
Seward's Animadversions: nor shall I select ell those: con-
scious that the Parts which are absolutely necessaiy to be
adduced will occupy more of your Columns than you can con-
veniently spare, overwhelmed as you evidently are by such a

Multiplicity of Communications.--Give me Leave to suggest. by

54

Way of reconciling you, in some Measure, to the uncommon
Length of the Quotations of which I am soliciting the Inser-
tion, that (containing in themselves, as I hope they do, an
almost complete Apology) they will materially lessen my pres-
ent Labour; and, perhaps, engross no larger Portion of your
Paper than those Observations probably would, which I must be
obliged to make, if I should be refused this more summary,
and, of course, more eligible Mode of Vindication.

Without further Preamble, then, I proceed to the Essay
which is prefixed to ipei Translation of Mr. Morfitt's admir-
able Latin Poem, which I profess to be attempted in the
Manner of Dryden.

"To neglect the modern Style of Versification--to
overlook even that which Pope introduced--and, pro-
fessedly, to copy from the old fashioned Model of
Dryden--will excite some Degree of Surprize among those
who take for granted that Poetic Diction has, since his
Time, received considerable improvement.--But, to con-
fess the Truth, I cannot help thinking that English
Rhyme was brought by that wonderful Man to the Acme of
Perfection: and that it has been, for many Years, grad-
ually declining from Good to indifferent--and from ip;
different to Bad.

”I am not unaware that a Sentiment so unfavourable
to most of my contemporaries, and so opposite to
Prejudices long received and obstinately retained,
will, probably, be considered as the rash and romantic
Assertion of a vain and presumptuous Innovator, and be
treated with all the Severity usually exercised a-
gainst Notions which are looked upon as heterodox.--
But such Severity would be flagrant Injustice.-- The
Opinion which I have expressed is neither dictated by
Vanity, nor prompted by an Affectation of Singularity:
but is, in Fact, the Result of much Reflection, and of
very minute Investigation.

"To do Justice to the Subject would be to extend a
Ereface--to a Volume: but it may not be unnecessary to
prove, that I have not hazarded so bold a Declaration on
plight Grounds: and that, while I endeavor to convince
my Reader. I am, at least, convinced mysel .

"The Poetry of Dryden, though allowed to be, in
geperal, Correct, Energetic, and Harmonious, is also

55

said to be sometimes Careless, Languid, and Prosaic: in
Fine (to use his own Words, when speaking of Milton), he
is charged with having ‘Flats among his Elevations.[']”
--They who bring the Charge usually accompany it with an
Exclamation of ‘how unfortunate was the poo; Me_, whose
Necessities compelled him to precipitate his Works to
the Press in pp unfinished a State!'”

"I will admit the Justice of the Accusation, but
wave [sic], as entirely unnecesary, the Apology.--Poor
he certainly was--to the never-dying Infamy of the
Age which he so splendidly adorned: but his Poverty
has little to do with the Question in Debate.--Many of
his Lines seem, it is true, to have wanted his last
Touches: but those last Touches, I am persuaded, were
not hastily Neglected--but deliberately Denied. His
intuitive Judgement, doubtless, suggested, that all
Things figure ppi by Comparison: and that even Excel-
lence, undiversified, must, at length, Fatigue. He,
therefore, subdued his Style occasionally--to burst upon
his Reader with greater Splendour, when the Subject
demanded a Loftier Lay.

"But how reconcile this Supposition to his Remark
respecting Milton--which seems to imply, that no Flats
should be admitted among the Elevations?--Very easi-
ly.--Steadiness and Consistency were, by no Means,
Characteristics of the Doctrines which Dryden promul-
gated in his numerous Prefaces:--Doctrines which he
varied, without much Scruple as Times or Circumstances
changed: and, in the present Case, Dread of Milton's
superior Genius, and Detestation of his political
Principles, might, reasonably, be supposed somewhat to
pervert his natural Candour, and somewhat to bias his
wonted Impartiality.

"The Poetry of Pope, though less enriched with [by]
Classical Knowledge, and less illumined by Vivid Ima-
gination, appears, however, at first Sight, to greater
Advantage than that of Dryden: as it is, certainly,
more elaborately correct, and more mechanically iegu-
lei--more delicately poliphed, and more systematically
gignified,--But are these ieally Advantages?--Let us
examine.

 

 

 

”Dramaiic £peey, 2:84. Dryden wrote of Milton, "his
thoughts are elevated, his words sounding. . . . 'Tis true.
he runs into a flat of thought, sometimes for a hundred lines
together."

”"M----s" says in Letter 5, p. 30, "That Dryden
purposely kept down certain parts of his writings, in order
to serve as foils to the rest, is an assertion in which Mr.
W. will not, perhaps, find a single advocate: as the
prematurity in which pecuniary circumstances compelled him to
hurry his publications into the world is known and lamented
bY every one."

56

"Does the skilful Painter bring ell his Figures
forward on the Canvas, and bestow the last Hand upon
every Part of the Picture?

"Does the Musician cloy The Ear with an eternal
Succession of harmonious Sounds,uncontrasted by the
dire,but necessary. Discords?

"Does the Ornament of the Stage lavish Emphasis.
Expression, Attitude, and Action, upon every Line of
every Sentence?

"Does the Beauty of a Birth-Night” concentrate ell
her Jewels (unrelieved by Interstices of black Velvet)
in one Intolerable Blaze?

"Would the Face of Creation appear more lovely,
were it--instead of 'rising into Inequalities, diversi-
fied by the varied Exuberance of abundant Vegeta-
tion'--to exhibit one immensurable 'Velvet Lawn,
shaven by the Scythe, and levelled by the Roller?'”

"Why then must Poetry adopt a preposterous Plan of
Egualisation which her Sister Muses reject with Scorn--
and aspire to an imeginary perfection, alike unknown
to Nature and to Art?

"The Question seems to lie in so small a Compass,
and to be so easy of Determination, that one feels
inclined to enquire how so absurd a Notion could
possibly gain a Footing, and maintain its Ground, in
an Age so polished and enlightened as to have acquired
the Title of Augustan?-- Great Events, 'tis certain,
arise sometimes from very trivial Causes: but never,
surely, was so important a Revolution in the Bernes-
pian Realms produced by Means so utterly contemptible!

"When Dryden's Sun was set, darting its* brightest
Ray at its Departure, Pope was beginning to dawn on the
poetical Hemisphere,--A young Man of lively Talents,
with a peculiar 'Knack at Rhyming,'” could not fail to
attract the Notice of many would-be Maecenases: among
others, one Walsh undertook to usher this rising Genius
into the World: he did more: he affected to point out a
Way, by which his Pupil should surpass all who had gone
before him.--'Mr. Pope (said he), there is ppe Path as
yet entirely untrodden--the Path of gorrectness:

 

”Dryden's inimitable Ode is said to have been his last
Production. ["Alexander‘s Feast: or the Power of Musique. An
Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia's Day" (1697). This is Dryden‘s

last lyric poem. Eebles Ancient epg Mpgeip (1700) was his
final work. See Kinsley 1: Table of Contents.)

”"The evening of a royal birthday. . .the court-festi-
val held thereon," QEQ.

”Livep 3: 222.

”John Dennis, A True Character pi Mr. Pope. Woiks, ed.
E. N. Hooker, 2:108.

57

Dryden was a great Poet--but he had not Leisure to be
correct.--Seize the glorious Opportunity: supply the
Deficiency, and be immortal!['J”

"In an evil Hour did the ambitious young Bard
hearken to the fatal Advice of 'knowing Walsh' (as he
somewhere calls him):” and, hoping to supply this
supposed Deficiency, he began to labour, and stiffen,
and polish, and refine: till, having discarded whatever
seemed loose, or languid, or harsh, or prosaic, his
Verse Flowed in one equal, smooth, mellifluous Stream:
marked by an almost total Want of that Variety of Pause,
Accent, Cadence, and Diction, so eminently conspicuous
in his imcomparable Predecessor, and so absolutely es-
sential to the Harmony of true Poetry.

"The Thought is so seldom suffered to stray beyond
the Bounds of the Couplet, and so frequently wire-
drawn merely to end with it--ppe Part of a Line so
exactly reflects the other--[and] there is such a Pauci-
ty of Triplets and of Alexandrines (the Break too, in
the latter, so regularly at the sixth Syllable),--that
even the most ingenious Allusions, the most striking,
beautiful, and graceful Imagery, the most perspicuous
and pointed good Sense, and the most elegant and nervous
Expression--with all their Powers united--find it diffi-
cult to render the tiresome Uniformity of his Versifica-
tion supportable.

"To the officious Interposition of this same Walsh,

 

 

then, we are indebted for the Contamination of the
Heliconian Fountain for near a Century! Risum tene-
atis?” "But so material a Change in the Constitution of
Poetry could not be expected to take Place without

some literary Convulsions.--The Disciples of Dryden
were ardent in their Veneration, formidable by their
Numbers, and respectable by their Rank.--Violent was
the Clamour, and tedious was the Contest.--Pope, how-
ever, in the End--by Means not very honorable indeed--
proved triumphant.

"In the Course of my Researches, I have found
considerable Amusement (though alloyed, in no small
Degree, by a Mixture of Scorn and Indignation), in
tracing and developing the insidious Arts which he
suffered his Friends to practise, in order to undermine
the Reputation of the deceased Poet and to asperse the
Characters of his living Supporters: and if a Work,

 

”Weston seems to be freely paraphrasing what Joseph
Spence recorded that Pope said of Walsh, ”He encouraged me
much, and used to tell me, that there was one way left of
excelling: for though we had several great poets, we never
had any one great poet that was correct: and he desired me to
make that my study and aim," Spence, 32.

”pipe 4:136.

”Horace, ipe Ami pi Eoeiry 5, ”Could you refrain from
laughing?"

 

58

which, for a longer Term of Years than that prescribed
by Horace”, has been incerceieted in my Closet, should
ever escape into Light, Pope's Goodness pi Heart would
be no longer problematical:--at present, I shall content
myself with observing, that He, while the injured Dryden
sunk in the public Estimation, was exalted to the
vacant Chair, and proposed as a bright Exemplar to all
succeeding Bards.

"But, as He was supposed to have improved upon pie
Master, Our Poets seem ambitious of improving upon
theirs.--He rejected every Thing that was not rich: They
reject every Thing that is not brilliant.--He is every
where clear and manly: They not unfrequently torture
into Obscurity, and refine into Imbecillity.

"To confirm and illustrate my Observation, by se-
lecting Instances of harsh Construction and fantastic
Inversion--Tinsel Phrases and tinkling Compound-Epi-
thets--were a Task as easy as it were unpleasant and
unwise.--The Genus irritable Vatum” is proverbial: and I
shall, probably, find Inconvenience enough, from having
disturbed the Hornet's Nest, by a General Censure, with—
out the additional Imprudence of pulling it about my
Ears by a Particular Enumeration.--Suffice it, there-
fore, to observe, that the modern System appears de-
cisively to exclude every Mode of Expression from Poetry
which is so unlucky as to find a Place in Prose.

"Let me not be misunderstood.--Poetic Diction and
that Alone, is the Object of my Reprobation: nor, even
in that Department, am I insensible of some very splen-
pip Exceptions: but flatter myself, as the Influence of
their Example gradually expands, that I shall still live
to see the apparent Negligence but real Art--the digni-
fied Simplicity--the unaffected Sublimity--and the end-
less Variety of the Prince of Rhyme (as Mr. Hayley
justly styles him),” once more shine forth, in the
Fullness of Beauty--the Admiration of all--but cold,
mechanical Versifiers, and tasteless, blind Idolators!"”

I then proceed to combat Dr. Johnson's Assertion, that

 

an Alexandrine "invariably requires a Break at the sixth
”Horace advised, "put your parchment in the closet and

keep it back till the ninth year," Ihe Art pi goetry, 388-
89.

”See Letter 7, p. 33n.

”I have been unable to identify the source of this in
William Hayley's works. In his "Essay on Epic Poetry," Hayley
wrote: "Milton's Verse, and Dryden's Rhyme,/ Are proof alike

against the rage of Time," Poeme end Plays (1788), 3: 5.233-
34.

”!p vii-xv.

59

Syllable;"” and, after endeavouring to prove that the Pause
may be introduced, with considerable Effect, at the fifthl
seventh, and eighth Syllables*, thus conclude the Subject:

"To multiply Instances would be superfluous: enough
has been said to demonstrate what many have supposed to
be incapable of Demonstration--yie. that Pope is not
infallible, nor his Biographer invulnereble.

"If this should seem the Language of Exultetion.
let it be remembered that it is, likewise, the Language
of Conviction: and--to repress the gathering Sneer,
which an Introduction so disproportioned to the Size of
the Poem may tempt--let ill-natured Criticism be in-
formed, that to justify the Style of the following
Translation is but a subordinate Object: my principal
Design in this Prefatory Essay being to seize an apt
Occasion--unexpectedly presented--of co-operating with
those who so meritoriously endeavor to restore to Dry-
denical Purity that Pierian Spring which Pope corrupted,
and which his more daring Imitators have Poisoned!"”

You will please to observe, Mr. Urban, that the Opinions
which I have here expressed, when divested of their figura-
tive Dress, are briefly these.--That Rhyme was brought by
Dryden to the utmost Pitch of Perfection: that it was injured
by Pope: and still mpie injured by his Successors.

The Reasons on which I ground these Opinions are stated,
I am sure, with Sincerity and Candour: and, I hope, with good
Manners. If they will not plead for themselves, they must

stand condemned: for I have neither Health nor Spirits (as I

 

*Miss Seward has inadvertently quoted me as affirming,
"that the Pause may be placed after epy of the Syllables,
without Injury to the Harmony." [Letter 1c, p. 17.] such
Affirmation appears in my Essay: and I can only account for
the Mistake, by supposing that I must have dropped some such
Remark in Conversation: for I am as confident as I am of my
Existence that Miss Seward is incapable of inteptional Mis-
representation.

”"A Grammar of the English Tongue," Diptionary (1755).
Read, "The pause in the Alexandrine must be at the sixth
syllable."

”We xxiii-xxiv.

6O

fear I have already too often hinted) to exert myself, at
present, in their Support.--To Miss Seward's Strictures,
however, I have pledged myself to reply: and, in the first
Place, I own that I do not readily apprehend with what Pro-
priety Sentiments sustained by Argument pep be styled Preju-
dices: but, well aware how easily a Person may be deceived.
when judging of himself, I will not obstinately contest the
Point: nay, I will freely confess that, having been, for more

than twenty Years, in the Habit of admiring Dryden, I may,

 

possibly, entertain a greater Predilection in his Favour than
his Merit will justify.--But can my fair Opponent be gpiie
certain that she is entirely free from a similar Influence
with Respect to Pope.

Ingenious and ingenuous as I know her to be, she has
more than once misunderstood my Meaning, and more than once
misquoted my Words: partly, perhaps, from trusting too
implicitly to a wonderful Memory, and partly from having her
Attention divided between literary Labours and an Employment

of a much more amiable and exalted Kind+.

 

+I ought to be very cautious, Mr. Urban, how I condemn
with too much Acrimony, Want of Attention, or Reliance on
Memory; as they have jointly contributed to a Mis-quotation
of my pep. I have scarcely been so much surprized, and, I
may add, shocked, as I was Yesterday: when, on accidentally
referring to the Magazine for July, I was unable to find the
Word "candid" in the apologetical Letter [No. 3. PP. 22-23.)
which I mentioned in your last Number [Letter 9a, p. (51) and
note#] I instantly examined the rude Draught (for I have so
great a Respect for the public Eye, that I submit nothing to
its Perusal which has not been twice written), and found the
Passage to stand thus--"called upon in so earnest and ep
candid a Manner by your Correspondent M. F."--This rude
Draught, which I fortunately shewed to a Gentleman, while the
Ink was yet wet, and who perfectly remembers the Circum-
stance, I ipclpse. I would willingly flatter myself that the

 

61

She has produced three Lists of Authors,” to prove what
I never denied, yie. that the Writers of Verses are more
plentiful ppy than they were in the Days of Dryden or of
Pope: and, after observing that "the last is (Milton except-
ed) far the brightest, as well as greatly the most numerous,
of the three Lists," she demands--"have they of this third
List collectively 'poisoned the Pierian Spring,‘ either res-

pecting Sentiment, Imagery, or Style?"” --I am firmly per-

suaded that they have--with Regard to "Style;" but why must

 

"Sentiment" and "Imagery" be introduced?--l had not mentioned
either.--"Poetic Diction, and that alone, is the Object of my
Reprobation: nor even in ipei Department am I insensible of
some very splendid Exceptions.“” --These were my Words.--
Miss Seward cannot expect me to be so daringly imprudent as
to specify particularly” those "splendid Exceptions."--My
Preface assigns a Reason for my Reluctance to select "lp;
stances of harsh Construction and fantastic Inversion, Tinsel
Phrases, and tinkling Compound-Epithets:" and, indeed, meme I
to be so rash, what would be the Use?--to point them out to

those who gp possess a true poetic Taste--would ‘be

 

Omission was the Fault of your Compositor, but I fear it
would indeed be Flattery: for I perceive that there are other
Parts of the Letter which vary from the Copy: so the Blame
will probably rest on Me. I feel, however, some Consolation
in learning, from your Note to my last Communication, that my
,Acknowledgement of M. F.'s Candour was retained in the Pri
vate Letter, though iorgotten in the Public One: as that
Acknowledgement sufficiently acquits me of his Charge of
Splenetic Resentment.

”Letter 1a, pp. 3-4.

”Letter 1b, p. 5.

”Above, p. 58. The following quotations are from the
same place.

62

unnecessary: and to those who do ppi--would be ridiculous!--
Who talks of Music--to the Deaf--or of Painting--to the
Blind?

Miss Seward observes, that my Essay "enumerates what it
calls tinkling Compound-Epithets amongst the fancied Improve-
ments of the Moderns."---"Tinkling (she adds) is a most
inapplicable Adjective; since, when ill-chosen, Compound-
Epithets may be stiff, may gieie, but cannot tinkle, on the
Ear. When yell-chosen, their Merit is not to the Eei, but to
the Understanding--by their condensing and engergetic
power."”--To the latter Part of this Paragraph no Objection
can be made: but, with great Deference to such high Author-
ity, I must beg Leave still to retain my Opinion, that epme
ill-chosen Compound-Epithets may Tinkle if others may Grate:

and I shell. for once, risk a modern Quotation, that I may

 

confirm my Position, and prove that I am not accustomed to
deal in unfounded Assertions.
"Each Change of Many-colour'd Life he drew." Johnson.”

"Shakes o'er the darken'd Throne her Blood-distilling
Plumes." Hayley.”

"Glance their many-twinkling Feet." Gray.”

Judgement must own that the first of these Compound-Epithets

 

”Letter 1b, p. 6.

”"Prologue, Spoken at the Opening of the Theatre in
Drury-Lane, 1747," Works 6: 3.

”William Hayley, "Revolution Ode." This line and the
one before it are quoted in the pp 59: 27. I have been
unable to find the entire poem.

”Thomas Gray, "The Progress of Poesy," 35. Samuel John-
son noted, "Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.
'Many-twinkling' was formerly censured as not analogical: we

may say many-spotted, but scarcely meny-spottipg" (Liypg.
:437).

63

is appropriative, easy, and elegant: that the second is
picturesque, aweful, and sublime: and that the third is
affected, tinkling, and nonsensical.

My candid Antagonist owns that I have convicted Prior
and Montague” of one Mistake: but calls that Mistake
trivial.--With Submission, it appears to me to be of the
highest Importance.--Can she possibly suppose that the two
Associates were such Blockheads, as to believe the Words
"doomed" and "fated" were intended by Dryden to express the

same Thing?---If they were such Blockheads, they were, sure-

 

ly, ill qualified for Critics: and if, on the other Hand,
they did ppi believe the Words to be synonymous, their Con-
sciences must, of course, give the Lye to their Criticism.--
In short (for why should I mippe the matter?), they must be

deficient in Sense, or in Honesty: and, in either Case,

 

totally unfit for Judges! Great indeed must be the Abilities
which can reasonably hope to extricate them from this deplor-
able Dilemma!

Granting the Observations, which Miss Seward has em;
treated, to pe "indisputably just," it does not follow that
"my Prejudice must be extreme," because I denominated their
Production a "wretched Abortion of silly Malevolence.“--There
are but few Rules without Exceptions: and I trust that they
who will take the Trouble of wading through their muddy
Pamphlet will find, that the general Tenour of the Work will

amply justify the Severity of my language.

”Letter 1b, pp. 6-7. The quotations in this and the
next paragraph are from the same place.

64

I pie "select" the eight charming Verses, which open the
Hind and Panther, as Specimens of iipe iiyle:"” to prove that
Pope did not "heighten the Magic of that Versification which
he acknowledged to have learned from Dryden."” --I own that
they eie Almost "exactly in the Manner of Pope:"” but I think
that they differ widely from that of his Disciples. The
Lines are much too unaffected, and much too intelligible, to
resemble mepy of Modern Fabrication:--I also confess that
they are ppi in Dryden's general Manner.--Beautiful as they
are, the Artfulness of their Construction is rather ipp
apparent: and, had he uniformly written so mechanically, I
should have been as much fatigued with pie Virgil, as I have
been with his Pupil's Homer.
Joseph Weston.

(1p pe concluded ip the Supplement.)

 

10.

Mr. Urban, Birmingham. iep. 20. [1790]
My interference in the literary engagement between Miss

Seward and Mr. Weston will not, I hope, be imputed to

improper views. In my prefatory advertisement to the Woodmen

of Arden, I alledged that "the judicious sentiments contained

in Mr. Weston's manly essay, which accompanied it, chiefly

prompted me to submit to the public eye, what was originally

 

”Letter 1b, p. 8.
”We xviii.
”Letter 1b, p. 8.

65

intended for a private circle." The approbation which I then
gave, justice stimulates me now to support. Mr. W. I am
certain, neither wishes, nor wants, my assistance: I am well
acquainted with the extent of his reading, the vigour of his
intellect, the correctness of his taste, and his persevering,
though candid, firmness. Animated by the cause of justice
and truth, though he may be dazzled, he will not be dismayed,
by the "celestial Panoply"” of his fair antagonist. As for
myself, I feel no terrors in encountering the formidable Miss
Seward: her very censure will give celebrity. But I will not
praise her. Panegyric is exhausted upon the varied excel-

lence of her character: and I have no leisure to collect the

scattered sweets. It is useless to "gild refined gold, or
cast a perfume on the violet."--”
Your correspondents M----s and M.F. are well entitled to

the attention of the public: but I beg leave to confine
myself to your two leaders in this interesting dispute.

With respect to Dryden and Pope, I feel no inclination
to join the* AEgyptian Inquest that has for some time been
sitting on their moral characters. Dryden might be lax in
his religious, and flexible in his political principles:

Pope might be querulous, petulent, envious, malignant. The

 

*Diodorus Siculus tells us, that it was a custom in
AEgypt, for judges to sit on every man's life at his inter-
ment. [Qiodorus pi Sicily, trans. C. H. Oldfather (NY:
Putnam, 1933) 1:313-15.)

”Pope. ll 8:10.511.

”Shakespeare, King John, IV.ii. 11-12. Read "to gild
refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the
violet."

66

former might be meanly lavish of his praise, and the latter
shamefully prodigal of his abuse, crying, like his parrot,
"Cuckold" to every man in the street.” But the one might

plead in his excuse the malesuada fames,” the almost irresis-

 

table persuasions of penury: and the latter, his natural, and
perhaps incurable, irritability of disposition, inflamed by
perpetual disease. It may not be improper on this occasion
to quote the reply of Lord Bolingbroke, when appealed-to
[sic] respecting the avarice of the celebrated Duke of Marl-
borough: "He was so great a man, I have forgot his faults."”
"C'est une consolation," says Voltaire, "pour un esprit aussi
borne que le mien, d'etre bien persuade, que grands hommes se
trompent comme le vulgaire."”--

As to the political [poetical]” merits of the rival
bards, I am compelled to give the palm to Dryden. I admit
the general inequality of his poems, the occasional coldness
of his conceptions, and the not unfrequent depressions of his
style. I allow that he sometimes sinks lower than Pope: but
he sinks to rise proportionably higher, and, like Antaeus.
gathers strength from touching the ground.

I am abundantly convinced from the philosophy of the

human mind, that without contrast and variety, the greatest

 

”Epl 3.2:6.
”Virgil, Aeneid 6.276, "ill-prompting hunger." Dryden
rendered it "Famine's unresisted rage," pe 3:6.387.

”Written source unidentified.
”Unidentified.

”Weston corrects this "evident Blunder" in Letter 29, p.
184n.

67

intellectual efforts fail of their effect. This principle,‘
Mr. Weston justly observes, pervades the whole circle of the
fine arts: it also governs our corporeal sensations. We
must fall below safe to rise above it: "The Indian Sickens
amidst his grove of fragrance:"” and a perpetual spring,
however it may charm in the page of poetry, would be intoler-
able. The ever-darting polish of Pope hurts my eye: his
cuckoo notes disgust my ear: the interminable level tires:
and I pant for hill and dale. I know not whether the
sinkings in Dryden proceeded from neglect, accident, or ge;
£192: I speak merely of the effect, without being capable of

assigning the cause. Some of them undoubtedly took their

 

rise from the infirmity of the human mind. The highest
flights of genius necessarily produce a temporary languor:
the lark, after soaring in the clouds, reposes in the furrow.

Miss Seward seems to reason from peiie, and Mr. W. from
the 32212: and I am convinced, from my personal knowledge of
the former, that she does great violence to her feelings in
the mode of conducting this dispute. It is certainly repug-
nant to her usual candour, to expose the dirty alleys, and
neglected passages, in a magnificent city, and industriously
hide from view its spacious streets, splendid squares, and
”gorgeous palaces."”--

Longinus, in enumerating the sources of the sublime,
mentions in the first place, an elevation of mind which makes

us think nobly and happily: and in the second, the natural

 

”Unidentified.
”Shakespeare, Tpe Tempest IV.i.152.

68

vehemence or enthusiasm which strikes and moves us. These,
says he, are the gifts of nature:” and in these Dryden seems
to me to have the advantage over Pope. Figurative language
and the arrangement of words are the province of ei_. Miss
S. with ingenious anxiety, endeavours to confound what Mr. W.
wishes to separate. The question which he agitates, is not
whether Dryden is more chaste and congruous in his figures
than Pope, but whether he is not on the whole superior in the
effect produced by the structure of his verse. And, upon the
whole I agree with Mr. Weston, though I think Dryden too
licentious in the use of his Alexandrines, particularly in
the middle of sentences. When properly managed, they add
much to the sonorous swell of English rhyme, and bring it
nearer to the majesty of the Greek and Latin Hexameter, which
contains no less than seventeen syllables. Triplets certain-
ly do not deserve the opprobrious epithet "botching:"” they
tend to relieve a painful uniformity, and are of singular use
in translations. To make the sense invariably terminate with
the couplet, which is Pope's constant manner, not only im-
poses unnecessary fetters on rhyme, but loses that bewitching
undulation of sound, which winds through the pages of Milton,

and is the same to the ear as the "magic curve of beauty to

 

the eye."” I allow blank verse admits of it with greater
”Lppginps pm the Sublime, trans. William Smith

(Baltimore, 1810) 23-27.

”Letter 1b, p. 8.

”Letter to John Morfitt dated February 7, 1789, Letters
2:237. Miss Seward's actual words were "the magic curve, so
dear to beauty."

69

facility, and to a greater extent than rhyme: but I would not
have the latter entirely discard a grace for the absence of
which no regularity can atone. With some of the points
discussed by the two contending critics, the understandng has
nothing to do: but an appeal lies to the ear only. [For] my
own part, I cannot read 200 pages of Pope together, without
satiety: the Ee gpetibue non eei disputandum. The formal ppi
of the verse disgusts one like the taste in gardening, Noth-
ing can be more irksome to my ear, than the lullaby oc-
casioned by the caesura filling so frequently on the 4th and
5th syllable. The mellifluous melodies put me in the situa-
tion of a man half smothered with roses. No one, says Lord
Kames, contracts a constant habit of taking honey.”

But I have lain "on these primrose beds too long:"” the
fascinating smiles of poetry cannot long detain me from
severer studies.

"Discedam, explebo numerum, reddarque tenebris."”

J. Morfitt.

 

 

”Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements pi Criticigm (Edin-
burgh, 1762) 2:88. "No man contracts a habit of taking sugar,
honey, or sweet-meats, as he doth of tobacco."

”Probably a paraphrase of "upon faint primrose beds were

*wont to lie," Shakespeare, A midsummer-night's Dieam
I.i.215.

”Virgil, Aeneid 6.545, "I will go my way: I will fill
'uplthe tale and get me back to the darkness."

70

9d.
Conclueion pi Mr. Weston's Reply ip Miss Seward's Strictures

pp the Preface ip the Woodmen of Arden (from vol. LIX pi

 

llgpi). [Continues Letter 9c, pp. 59-75.)

"It always appeared to me," says Miss Seward, "thathope
formed his Style upon a few of the best passages in Dryden.
Mr. W. is very angry with him for separating the Dross from
the Gold."” --Pope was indebted to Dryden for his Style, and
something mpie than Style, the astonishing number of Phrases.
Half lines and Whole-lines, which he has, most unblushingly,
transferred from Dryden's Works to his own abundantly
evinces.--I am not angry with him for rejecting the Dross--
but for not admitting a Portion of Alloy, sufficient to give
to his pyp Coin Strength, Permanence and Currency.--That

Dryden's Gold is entirely free from Dross I will not be so

 

absurd as to affirm: but, whatever may be found reprehensible
in his Sentiments or Imagery, his Style, I will still con-
tend, is pure.--With "incongruous Metaphor" and "inconsistent
Fable"” I meddle not: my business is merely with his Diction.

Miss Seward allows that Pope too generally confines the
Sense within the Boundary of the Couplet: but thinks that
Dryden permits it to overflow too often, and that he is too
fond of Iambics.--Though l think otherwise, I know of no
argument which can establish as a Eepi what, I fear, must
remain Matter of Qpipion: and I have Humility enough to

recollect Whose Opinion it is, from which I am so unfortunate

 

”Letter 1b, p. 8.
”Letter 1b, p. 6.

71

as to dissent.

She further observes that Pope "uses the spirited Accent
upon the first syllable in a Verse twenty Times for once that
it occurs in Dryden:" and that the Verses of the "former
describe in the lively dramatic present Tense much oftener
than the latter."”--These assertions I feel no inclination to
controvert: perfectly satisfied that my cautious Opponent
examined before she affirmed.--I allow that Alexandrines are
not piiep graceful in the Middle of Sentences: but I shall
presently have occasion to produce an Exception to this
Rule.--Why She, who reasons so ably on the condensing Power
of Compound-Epithets, should conceive such a dislike to
Dryden's Triplets, I do not readily comprehend: since the
Latter assuredly possess ipei Power, in an eminent Degree:
compressing into ipiee Lines the Sense which, though refusing
to be confined within imp, would become too much enfeebled

were it wire-drawn into four: not to mention the additional

 

Dignity which the majestic Alexandrine Derives, from being
preceded by imp Relatives, instead of ppe.

The Quotation from the Iliad, in Point of picturesque
Harmony, may have been rivalled, but will never be ex-
celled.--But why contrast this utmost effort of Pope's long-
practised Wing with the first weak attempt of Dryden's un-
fledged Pinion?--That the Genius of Pope was at its Zenith,
at an Age when that of Dryden was yet below the Horizon, is

«granted.--And what then?--The Former (in the Opinion of Dr.

 

”Letter 1b. Pp. 8-9.

 

72

Johnson,” at least,) never exceeded his Essay pp Criticism,
written at Seventeen: and the Latter (in the Opinion of all
the World) never equalled his incomparable Music Ode--pro-
duced at Seventy!--A Reflection not very much to the Advan-
tage of the Premature Poet!

If Dryden, in his eighteenth Year, afforded such faint
Glimmerings of that Poetic Flame which afterward blazed so
bright, what Hope would Miss Seward have entertained of the
celebrated Jonathan Swift, had she seen his first Performance
in Verse, (if it deserves the Name,) when he was twenty-four
years old--from which the following extracts are taken?

"The first of Plants after the Thunder, Storm, and Rain,

And thence with joyful, nimble Wing,

Flew dutifully back again.

Who by that, vainly talks of baffling Death,

And hopes to lessen Life, by a Transfusion of Breath.

And seen (almost) transform'd to Water, Flame, and Air,

So well you answer all Phaenomenas there."

Anecdotes ancient and modern,
Ey James Petit Andreme, Em A. S.

page 295. ”
Miss Seward proceeds to select six or seven Lines from
Juno's Soliloquy, in the first Book of the Aeneid: to prove
"that Dryden, in his iipei Years, was prone to let his Style
fall below the poetic Level, where the Subject called elppg
for Elevation."” --To prove that he does not, however, fall

below his Qriginal will,” I apprehend, be deemed ample

 

”Lives 3: 229.
”(1790) Andrews, Fellow of the Antiquarian Society,

wrote, "The great Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's made
his 'debut' in the literary world, by one of the wretchedest
odes which ever disgraced Grub-street," (295).

”Letter 1b, p. 11.

73

justification--Permit me, therefore, Mr. Urban, to copy the

whole Speech from Virgil, to subjoin a literal Version (for

the Information of such of your Readers as may have neglected

their Latin) and then to add the Translation in Question.
----Me-ne incepto desistere victam?

Nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem?

Quippe vetor fatis. Pallas-ne exurere classem.

Argivum, atque ipsos potuit submergere ponto,

Unius ob noxam & furias Ajacis Oilei?

Ipsa Jovis rapidum jaculata e nubibus ignem,

Disjecitque rates, evertitque aequora ventis:

Illum exspirantem transfixo pectore flammas

Turbine corripuit, scopuloque infixit acuto.

Ast ego, quae Divum incedo regina, Jovisque

Et soror, & conjux, una cum gente tot annos

Bella gero: & quisquam numen Junonis adoret

Praeterea, aut supplex aris imponat honorem? [Aeneid

1:36-48.)

Must I, overpowered, desist from my enterprise? And
cannot I drive the Trojan King from Italy? I am forbidden by
the Fates, forsooth! Could Pallas burn the Fleet of the
Greeks, and drown them in the Sea, for the Crime of one
alone--for the mad Passion of Ajax Oileus? She hurled the
rapid Fire of Jupiter from the Clouds, and shattered the
Ships, and” turned the Sea up from the Bottom with the Winds,
and seized him with a Whirlwind, expiring Flames from his
transfixed Breast, and fastened him to a pointed Rock--But I,
who walk the Queen of the Gods, both the sister and the Wife
of Jove, wage War so many years with one Nation: and who
will, hereafter, adore the power of Juno, or, suppliant,

place Honours on her Altar?

Then am I vanguish'd, must I yield, said she,

* Up from the Botton turn'd
By furious Winds. Milton. [Earadise Lost 7.213.]

 

74

And must the Trojans reign in Italy?

So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his Force:

Nor can my Power divert their happy Course.

Cou'd angry Pallas, with revengeful Spleen,

The Grecian Navy burn, and drown the Men?

She, for the Fault of ppe offending Foe,

The Bolts of Jove Himself presum'd to throw:

With Whirlwinds from beneath she toss'd the Ship,

And bare expoelg the Bosom pi ipe Deep:

Then, ee ep eegle gripes the tremblipg GameI

The Wretch yei hissing with her Father‘s Flame.

She strongly seiz'd, and, with a burning wound
Transfix'd, epg naked, on a Rock she bound.

But I, who walk in awful State above.

+The Mejeeiy pi_Heav'n, the Sister-Wife of Jove,
For Length of Years my fruitless Force employ
Against the thin Remaipe pi ruin'd Troy.

What Nations now to Juno's Pow'r will pray,

Or Off'rings on my slighted Altars lay? [pe 3:1.56-75.)

 

If Miss Seward's Observation, in your Magazine for
September, (page 820)” be just--viz. that "the only Plan
which can make Translations worth any thing is--to abandon
every idea of closeness, and to interweave epy pem Sentiment
pi Imagery that occurs, if it can add Grace or Spirit to the
Theme"--then will this masterly Translation procure for its
Author "the Honours of original Composition:" the English
will be found, on Comparison, nowhere Inferior, and in man
Places greatly Superior to the Latin.

My facetious Antagonist laughs at the Hissing which the
poor Devil made, whom the Heavenly Virago sous'd redhot into
the Sea: and adverts to Shakespear's Jolly Knight and his

Buckbasket: but I must beg leave to decline being a partaker

 

+Does not the unexpected Length of this Line convey to
the Eei a very lively Idea of the Empress of Heaven, swelling
with self-importance? And does not this Example prove that
an Alexandrine mey sometimes be introduced with Propriety in
the Middle of a Sentence?

”Letter 8, p. 39.

75

of the Merriment--until it shall be proved that the expres-
sion is inapplicable, and until I shall be convinced that Wit
and Humour have lost their acknowledged prerogative, of mak-
ing epy Phrase, however just, however pertinent, appear ridi-
culous, for a Time--by exhibiting it in a ludicrous Point of
View, or by contriving for it an unlucky association.

But Sense survives, when merry Jests are peep,”

Apropos.--What a glorious Use has the ingenious Critic
made of the Coalition of Dryden with Lord Mulgrave,” in a
translation from Ovid!”--Nor can I blame her.--The Cause
which she had undertaken to support required eyeiy Exertion
of her multifarious Pen: and pp Expedient that was not abso-
lutely disingenuous was to be rejected: (for of Disin-
genuousness I know her to be incapable).--Stratagems are
lawful in a poetical as well as in a political Warfare; and
though it was impossible that Sagacity like peie could, for
one Moment, be imposed upon by the Lustre of a Eeme--though
She could not ppi be sensible that the Translator of the
Epistle from Canace to Macareus, and of that from Dido to
Aeneas, could not possibly scribble one Line of that paltry
Stuff which she has extracted from Helen's Epistle to Paris--
she certainly was not obliged to render that Justice to

Dryden which he did not think proper to claim--nay, which he

 

”"But Sense surviv'd, when merry Jests were past." E29

 

460.

”In 1679, Dryden collaborated with John Sheffield (Earl
of Mulgrave and Marquis of Normanby, later Duke of
Buckingham) on a translation of Ovid's epistle, Helen ip
Paris.

”For excerpts from Eelen ip Paris, see Letter 1b, pp.
11-12.

 

 

 

76

actually renounced.--As he suffered his Credit to be so
shamefully prostituted, for the mean Purpose of tickling the
Vanity of a rhyming Peer, he well deserved the disgrace of
having that meagre and ricketty Brat, to which he acted the
Part of Midwife as well as of Father, brought forward, as a
Foil to the beautiful and elegant offspring of his more
prudent Competitor.

By the Way, how are we to prove, unless by internal
Evidence, whether Dryden gig--or did ppi-- write the Lines in
Dispute?--The right Honourable the Earl of Mulgrave's Name
appears to the Eiim of the Eppee.--How are we to ascertain,
with Precision, mpei Share each contributed to the joint-
stock, unless by comparing, Article by Article, the various
Kinds of Goods thus strangely jumbled together, with the yeiy
different Qualities of ippee fabricated in the respective
Manufactories which eepp of the quondam Associates estab-
lished, after the preposterous Partnership was dissolved?

Upon the Ground of ipie Species of Examination, I may
venture to affirm (without the slightest Hazard of Contradic-
tion from any one possessed of discriminating Taste) that
Mulgrave was the Author of every Syllable of the Translations
from Ovid, which Miss Seward has ascribed to Dryden.

This Mezentian Combination,” this unnatural junction of
the living with the peep, provoked the Waggery of contempo-

rary Wits.--One Couplet I recollect.

 

”"Comparable to the cruel action of Mezentius, a mythi-
cal Etruscan king, who caused living men to be bound face to
face with corpses, and left to die of starvation, Virgil, pp;
peid 8.485-88," QE_.

 

77

"How [But how] did [could] this learned Brace employ
their Time?
"One construed sure--while t'other pump'd for Rhyme!"”

The pecuniary Advantages which the Poet might reap from

 

his Connexion with the Epig (and they surely must have been
gieei, to atone for peep a Sacrifice!) were not without their
Alloy.--The abandon'd and cowardly Rochester hired Ruffians
to cudgel Dryden, in Revenge for an admirable Portrait of
him, in the Essay on Satire: a Work in which Mulgrave was
egeip permitted to claim a Share.”--If the peer may be be-
lieved, (but no Judge of Poetry pep believe him) the Laureat
was "prais'd and beaten for another's Rhymes."” --No, no,
Lord Mulgrave me know better: and Rocheeter knew better.--Aut
Erasmus aut Diabolus.” --The Cudgel was certainly applied to
the Author of the Rhymes. If Dryden's Poverty and Pope's
Avarice induced them to lavish upon you unmerited Honours,
for which Posterity will pity one and despise the other, as
much as l do--your Lordship's critical and poetical abili-
ties, rest assured, (in spite of their lying Praises.) are
beneath all Contempt!

I cannot, Mr. Urban, forbear smiling at the Slyness

 

”Matthew Prior, "A Satyr on the Modern Translators," 39-
40.

”The Essay upon Satire, which contained an unflattering
portrait of John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, circulated
in manuscript in November 1679. When Dryden was assaulted in
Rose Alley a few weeks later, people asssumed that Rochester
had hired the assailants. Dryden's biographer has concluded
that Rochester was not involved. See Charles Ward, Ipe Life
pi John Dryden (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1961)
353n.

”Unidentified. In 1681, Mulgrave admitted he was the
author of the Essay (Ward, 144).

”"Either Erasmus or the Devil," proverbial.

78

with which Pope, while affecting to commend this same Earl of
Mulgrave for that Miserable Farrago of common-place Cant.
called the Art pi Poetry,” carefully points out the vilest

Line among the vile--as an Example of its Excellence.

"Nature's chief Master-piece--is Writing well." [EOC
1:724)”

Whether his Grace smoked” the Jest I know not: but it is
cetain that, in those vapid, water-gruel Verses which he has
prefixed to Pope's Works,” for one Commendation which he
condescends to bestow on the Eeie, he wastes ten on himself:
ostentatiously informing the Reader that he has been distin-
guished as a Courtier, a Soldier, and a Poet--considering his
"launching forth" in his Service as an immense Obligation--
and declaring (with princely Generosity) that the Merit even
of the Iliad should not have made him eipg--without the
additional Recommendation of "a good Companion and as firm a
Friend."”--As if the Works of a late eminent Engraver were
intitled to no Applause, because the wretched Artist was
convicted of Forgery! Or as if we were to withhold our
Admiration from the Georgics and the Aeneid, because their
Divine Author was suspected of indulging a very atrocious

Passion!

 

”Essay upon Poetry published anonymously (Dublin, 1682).

”Pope's note to this line ascribes it to the Duke of
Buckingham's Essay pp Poetry (1717).

”"To smell out: to find out," Johnson, Eipiionary.

”(London, 1717).

”"On Mr. Pope and His Poems." Tpe Works pi flip Grace
John Duke pi EuckinghamI ip Verse epg Prose, ed. Alexander
Pope (The Hague, 1726) 1:20.

79

Permit me, Mr. Urban, to risk a conjecture.--After Dry-
den‘s charming Version of Ovid's Epistle from Dido to Aeneas,
we are favoured with a Translation of the same Epistle by
another Hand--Bald, spiritless, and unfaithful as it is, one
cannot help wondering "how the Devil it came there!"--Ee;
flecting Readers will suppose that no ordinary Motive induced
the *Editor, whose Reputation was too well established to
render a Foil necessary, to disgrace his Work by Such a
hideous Excrescence.--The Other Hand, who twittered, it
seems, for those Laurels which he was half-conscious that he
did not deserve, was afraid to hazard his meme! Ergo, it was
a Name of Importance.--The very Quintessence of Conceit could
not have the Impudence to suggest to the Other Hand that pie
Translation would not appear to a Disadvantage, "Cheek by
Jowl"” with that of Dryden. Yet still this bald, spiritless,

and unfaithful Translation must have a Place! Ergo, the

 

Translator was of Importance.--

"But when a Lord once owns the happy lines!" [E C
1:420.)

The needy Poet could not refuse the affluent Peer: but what
Dryden could not sanction with his Name (having translated

the Whole, himself,) the real Author durst not attempt to

 

sanction with his.
In short--the right Honourable the Earl of Mulgrave was,

meo periculo,” the Doer of the second Version of Dido's

 

*Dryden.

”A commonplace. See QEE and also Shakespeare, p Mid-
summer Night's Dream III.ii.338.

”"At my risk," a commonplace found in Plautus and
Cicero.

80

Epistle to Aeneas!”--Let the Doubtful compare the uniform
Style of ipei with "Helen to Paris+."

As a striking Proof of the Superiority of Dryden, not
only to his contemptible Coadjutor, but also to his elegant
Original, give me Leave, Mr. Urban, to present your Readers
with the Conclusion of the Epistle, as it appears in Ovid--in
Mulgrave--and in Dryden! accompanied by a close Translation,
for the Reason before assigned.

Pro meritis, & siqua tibi debebimus ultro,

Pro spe conjugii tempora parva peto,
Dum freta mitescunt & amor: dum tempore & usu

Fortiter edisco tristia posse pati.
Sin minus: est animus nobis effundere vitam.

 

+That the Author of one Version was perfectly conversant
with the other the Number of Lines which bear strong Marks of
Imitation incontestably prove.--To select only two Instan-
ces--

"So, on Maeander's Banks, when Death is nigh,

"The mournful Swan sings her own Elegy." Dryden. [E_
1:1-2]

"So in unwonted Notes, when sure to die

"The mournful Swan sings her own Elegy." Mulgrave.

Perfect Resemblance, Mr. Urban!

"But now with Northern Blasts the Billows roar,
"And drive the floating Sea-Weed to the shore." Dryden.
[El 1:186-7]

"These Winds have driv'n the Floating Sea-Weed so.
"That your intangled Vessel cannot go." Mulgrave.

"Levis"--which Both have agreed to render "floating"--
signifies light.--The Lightness of the Sea-Weed is, undoubt-
edly, the Cause of its floating: but--that two Persons.
translating the some Word, and ignorant of each other's
Intention, should pii upon the same elegant Mode of substi-
tuting the Effect ipi the Cause, exceeds my Portion of Credu-
lity!--'Twas no cepual Coincidence.--The Translators were
well acquainted, and had compared Notes, ‘tis plain.

”Weston seems to be mistaken. I can find no record of
this among John Sheffield's (Mulgrave's) workss. The Em
Catalogue does not list it.

81

In me crudelis non potes esse diu.

Adspicias utinam, quae sit scribentis imago!
Scribimus: & gremio Troicus ensis adest:
Perque genas lacrymae strictum labuntur in ensem:

Qui jam pro lacrymis sanguine tinctus erit.
Quam bene conveniunt fato tua munera nostro!
Instruis impensa nostra sepulcra brevi.
Nec mea nunc primo feriuntur pectora telo:
Ille locus saevi vulnus Amoris habet.
Anna soror, soror Anna, meae male conscia culpae,
Jam dabis in cineres ultima dona meos.
Nec, consumta rogis, inscribar Elissa Sichaei:
Hoc tamen in tumuli marmore carmen erit:
Praebuit Aeneas & causam mortis & ensem
Ipsa sua Dido concidit usa manu.”

On account of what I have merited, and if l am to be indebted
to thee for any voluntary Kindness, on Account of my Hope of
Marriage, I implore a little Time: until the Seas and my
affections grow calm: until by Time and Habit I learn to
bear my Sorrows with Fortitude. But if ppi--I am resolved to
shed my Blood. Thou canst not be cruel to me long. I wish
thou could'st witness my Appearance while writing! I write:
and in my Lap lies the Trojan Sword: and Tears glide down my
Cheeks upon the drawn Blade: which will instantly be stained
with Blood instead of Tears. How well thy Gifts agree with
my Fate! Thou preparest my Sepulchre at a small Expence.

Nor is my Breast now pierced with the first Weapon: that

 

place already bears the Wound of cruel Love!* Oh Anna! O my

 

*"0 Anna my Sister! 0 my sister Anna! would have been

rather a ludicrous--though certainly a literal--Translation
of "Anna soror, soror Anna."__Thompson [James Thomson] must
surely have had this passage in his Eye, when he ventured
upon that tragic Line which made his audience so merry! "Oh
Sophonisba! Sophonisba Oh!" [lpe Tragedy pi Sophonisba

(Dublin. 1730) III.ii.19.]

”Ovid, Heroides 7.177-96.

82

sister! Unhappily conscious of my Crime! Thou wilt soon pay
the last Tribute to my Ashes. Nor, when consumed on the
Funeral pile, will I be styled Sichaeus's Elissa: but this
Verse shall be on the Marble of my Tomb: "Aeneas supplied
both the Motive of Death, and the Sword. Dido fell by her
own Hand."

Mulgrave's Translation.

By all I suffer, all I've done for you,
Some little Respite to my Love allow.
Time and Calm Thoughts may teach me how to bear
That Loss, which now alas 'tis Death to hear.
But you resolve to force me to my Grave,
And are not far from all that you would have.
Your Sword before me, whilst I write, does lye,
And by it, if I write in vain, I die.
Already stain'd with many a falling Tear,
It shortly shall another Colour wear.
You never could an apter Present make,
'Twill soon the Life you made uneasy take.
But this poor Breast has felt your Wounds before,
Slain by your Love, your Steel has now no Pow'r.
Dear guilty sister, do not you deny
The last kind office to my Memory:
But do not on my Fun'ral Marble join
Much wrong'd Sichaeus' sacred Name with mine.
"Of false Aeneas let the Stone complain: I
"That Dido could not bear his fierce Disdain, I
"But by his Sword, and her own Hand was slain.” )

Dryden's Translation.

If by no Merit I thy mind can move,
What thou deny'st my merit give my Love.
Stay 'till I learn my Loss to undergo:
And give me Time to struggle with my Woe.
If ppi: know This, I will not suffer long,
My Life's too loathsome, and my Love too strong.
Death Holds My Pen, and dictates what l epy.
While cross my Lap the [thy] Trojan Sword I lay.
My Tears flow down: the pharp Edge cuts their Flood,
And drinks my Sorrows, that must drink my Elood
How well thy Gift does with my Fate agree!

 

 

”See above p. 80n.

83

My Fun'ral pomp is cheaply made by thee.

To no pew Wounds my Bosom I display:

The Sword But enters where Love Made the Way.

But thou, dear Sister, and yet dearer Friend,

Shalt my cold Ashes to their Urn attend.

Sichaeus' Wife let not the Marble boast,

l lost that Title when my Fame l lost.

This short Inscription only let it bear,

"Unhappy Dido lyes in Quiet Here.

"The Cause of Death, and Sword by which she dy'd

"Aeneas gave: The rest her arm supply'd." [EA 1:191-212.)

I am, at length, arrived at Miss Seward's third and last
Letter: and, if I should not trace "her every step" so mi-
nutely as I have hitherto done, suffer me to plead, in Ex-
cuse, the unaffected Aversion which I feel (and which every
Moment's Reflection contributes to strengthen) to prolong a
Contest, in which the Politeness the sacred Sex may so justly
claim is in constant Danger of Violation.--If I am told that
my amiable Adversary‘s Abilities are Masculine--I reply that
her Sensibility is, nevertheless, extreme: and, were I sure,
by the compleatest Victory, to secure Immortal Renown, I
should esteem it dearly purchased, at the Risk of losing her
invaluable Friendship! That Light Of Life, which once with-
drawn the Blaze of Noon would seem to _e Egyptian Darkness.
and Creation a dreary Blank!--But I am still further wearying
the patience of your Readers--and must descend from my Alti-
tudes.

I only rejected the Apology commonly made for Dryden
(viz. Poverty) because I thought and continue to think it
unnecessary.--I am still firmly of Opinion that--whatever
Alterations a deliberate Revisal of his hasty Publications

Inight have produced, in his Images and Sentiments, his Style

would have remained untouched: its striking Inequality being,

84

I sincerely believe, the Result of Choice rather than of
Necessity.--Having sufficiently discussed this Point, in my
Preface, I shall content myself with producing an Authority
in my Favour, which Miss Seward, I am sure, will acknowledge
to be highly worthy of Attention.

In Warton's celebrated Essay on the Genius and Writings
of Pope, (Vol. ii. p. 175.) after some Remarks on the well-
known Lines of the Man Of Ross, the learned and ingenious
Writer thus proceeds.

”The particular Reason for which I quoted them, was to

observe the pleasing Effect that the Use of common and fami-
liar Words and Objects, judiciously managed, produce in Poet-

 

 

 

 

ry. Such as are here the Words, Causewayi. Seatey Epire,
Market-place, Alme-housei apprentielg. A fastidious Deli-
cacy, and a false Refinement, in order to avoid Meanness,

have deterred our Writers from the Introduction of such
Words: but Dryden often hazarded it, and gave by it a secret
Charm, and a natural Air to his Verses, well knowing of what
Consequence it was sometimes to soften and subdue his tints.
and not to paint and adorn every Object he touched, with
perpetual Pomp and unremitted Splendor."”

Your polite Correspondent M----s (to whom I am indebted
for a very handsome Compliment) either had not read, or had
forgotten this remarkable paragraph, when he expressed an
Apprehension that I should not, perhaps, find a single Advo-
cate for what he, inattentively, styles my "Assertion"--
though I had, in Fact, only given it as my Opinion.

I certainly have attacked Pope's moral Character, and
shall as certainly make good my Charge: but I cannot recol-

lect that I have praised that of Dryden, and, therefore, am

not compelled to defend it from Miss Seward's weighty

 

”Warton 2:170-71.

85

Accusations.--Strongly tempted, however, to extenuate, in
some Degree, such Parts of his erroneous Conduct as will
egmii of Extenuation, Fear of lenghtening that which is
already too long elppe restrains my Pen.

Had I not been convinced by a very serious Investiga-
tion, that the Disposition of Pope was peee epe rancorous in
the Highest Degree, and that his” Example has been attended
with pernicious effects, his Memory would have remained un-
disturbed by Me.--I never heard that he "relieved the neces-
sities of his abusive Foe"” otherwise than by+ writing a
delightful Prologue to a Play” acted for the Benefit of the
poor old Man, after he had lost his sight: unless a couple of
Guineas which he paid, as a Subscription, for two Volumes of
Epistolary Correspondence, which Dennis published,” may be
placed to the Account of Charity.

They who shall peruse the following Letter, written by

 

*A more ample Explanation of my meaning would here
occupy too much Room: and may not improperly be reserved till
the "Ides of March:" [Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 1.2.18] at
which Time I intend to answer the Challege of M.F. respecting
the uncourtly Epithet which I applied to Pope.

+Though it may appear somewhat invidious to assign to a
good Action an unamiable Motive, I cannot help suspecting
that there might be more of Parade than of Humanity in the
Case.--Vanity less enormous than that which fell to pie Share
might have grasp'd with Greediness at so lucky an opportunity
of purchasing a very valuable Species of Fame at a very
trifling Expence.

 

”Letter 1c, p. 20. Mack notes that according to a letter
from Pope to David Mallet in 1733 "Pope had, it seems clear,
been contributing financial aid to Dennis surreptitiously
through Mallet," Life 588.

”Prologue, QQE. ipe Eenefit pi mil Dannie, 1733 at a
performance of Colley Cibber's lpe_Provok'd Eusband, Dec. 18,
1733, IEE 6:355.57.

”Qriginal Letters, Eamiliar, floral and Critical (1721).

86

Pope, though (for very miee Reasons) not inserted in his pmp
artful and mutilated Edition of his Works,” may possibly
attribute his seeming Liberality to a Motive less exalted
than that suggested by his generous Apogolist.
To Mr. Dennis.
Sir, May 3, 1721.

I called to receive the two Books of your Letters from
Mr. Congreve, and have left with him the little Money I am in
your Debt. I look upon myself to be Much More So, ipi ipe
Omissions ypp have peen pleased ip make lip those Lettersl
ip my Favour, and sincerely join with you in the Desire that
ppi ipe Least www Traces may remain pi that Difference pe;
tween us, which indeed I Am Sorry For. You may therefore
believe me, without either Ceremopy or Falseness, Sir, Your
most obedient humble Servant,

 

A. Pope.”

The Consideration of his "Filial Tenderness"” I shall.
at present, wave: having introduced my Sentiments of that
pleasing Part of his Character in a Poem,” with which I mean
to conclude this long-protracted Defence: but, having
intruded so yeiy iei on your Good-nature, Mr. Urban, I cannot
solicit for the Admission of between two and three Hundred

Lines more--This Month.

 

In treating of the Alexandrine, Miss Seward has been
witty, if not argumentative;” but, indeed, Argument has but

little to do in the business. The proper Places for the

 

”Probably the 1735 edition.

”George Sherburne, ed., Correspondence pi Alexander Pope
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1956) 2:75-76. The letter was originally
published by John Dennis in his Remarks Upon ppe Dunciad,
Hooker 2:370-71.

”Letter 1c, p. 16.

”Letter 15, poem "To Miss Seward," 11. 148-57, pp. 112-
13.

”Letter 1c, pp. 16-18.

87

Eieem must, after all, be settled by the Ear; and, having
appropriated so many Pages of my Essay to the Elucidation of
this subject, I think any addition to my former Remarks
superfluous.

When I mentioned "Wou'd be Maecenases"” I alluded to
Hallifax, Buckingham, Walsh, and the rest of the "Mob of
Gentlemen, who wrote with Ease,"” and prated about Poetry and
Criticism: undignified by Genius, and unadorned by Taste:--of
Walsh I have spoken, in my Preface: Buckingham's Pretensions
may be nearly ascertained, from the Specimens which I have
adduced: and they, who (unsatisfied by my Quotation from the
City Mouse and the Country Mouse) are curious to learn yet
more of the critical Talents which Hallifax possessed, may
obtain entire Satisfaction, by referring to an Anecdote, of
unquestionable Authenticity, related in Dr. Johnson's Life of
Pope.”--Surely I could not intend to discourage Poetic Pa-
tronage, in an age like ipie that seems to plume itself on
patronizing eyeiy Art liberal and illiberal except Poetry.

Have I really written "as if the Excellence or Worth-
lessness of a Poem depended wholly upon the Construction of

its Measure: and as if the Couplet was the only order of

 

”Letter 9c, p. 56.

”EE 4:2.1.08.

”Lives 3:126-27. Johnson recounts how Halifax told Pope
to revise passages in the first three books of his lliad to
give them ”'a little [better] turn.'" Dismayed, Pope asked
Garth's advice, and Garth recommended that Pope leave the
passages untouched and reread them to Halifax in a few months
as if he had changed them. Pope did so, and Halifax "was
extremely pleased with them, and cried out, 'Ay, now [Mr.
.POpe] they are perfectly right: nothing can be better.'"

 

88

Rhyme?"” I must then have written in my Sleep--and am not yet
awake: for I have searched, with the most rigid Scrutiny, for
a single Passage that could, by any mode of Construction, be
supposed to convey such a Meaning--but searched in vain.--I
have said mppp about Diction, ‘tis true, and little about any
thing else: because Diction, and that alone, was my Object.
But, so far from thinking Measure the pply Essential, I
cordially agree with Miss Seward, that "a Poem has little
Merit if it does not remain fine Poetry after having been
taken out of ell Measure:"” and Horace must have been of the
same Opinion: or he would scarcely have recommended the
Transposition and Inversion of the Order of the Words, as a
Criterion, by which to distinguish whether the Compositions
(thus deprived of Measures and Numbers) contained the vital
essence of Poetry!”

A Gleam of Satisfaction darts across the Gloom which
has, for such a length of Time, hung upon my Spirits--as I
approach the Conclusion of my irksome Task. A Task--so very
irksome, that not the Honor of a public Correspondence with
Miss Seward--not the Pleasure which Her parting Epige in-
spired whose Praise is Fame--no, nor even the Consciousness
of having embarked, from the purest Motive, in the justest

Cause, could reconcile me to a Situation, in which I would

 

”Letter 1c. Pp. 18-19.

”Letter 1c, p. 19.

”Weston may be partially remembering Horace's words,
"Take from the verses which I am writing now . . . their
regular beat and rhythm--change the order of the words,
transposing the first and the last--and it would not be like
breaking up . . . where, even when he is dismembered, you
would find the limbs of a poet," Satires 1.4.56-62.

89

not wish my bitterest Enemy to be placed!

Though I have now finished all I intend to urge--in
Eipee, I will not, Mr. Urban, take a formal Leave: as the
Winding-up of the subject is reserved for the Veises to which
I have adverted: and which, Being expressly composed in
humble Imitation of my ever-honoured Master's Style, may
serve for a Commentary on my Text--an Illustration of my
Remarks.

Believing that well-meant, though, perhaps, weak and
ineffectual Endeavours to entertain the Public may reasonably
hope for Pardon, if not intitled to Praise--and conscious
that those Lines which may seem to have been the least la-
boured would, on the Drydenic Plan of Light and Shade, have
been denied an higher Polish--had I even been blest with
better Health and greater Leisure--I will not insinuate a
Lye, though in the Epige of Truth. I will not meanly attempt
to soften the Severity of Criticism, by alledging, ee_ ep
Apology for the Inequalities which will be found in the
Poetical Epistle to Miss Seward, that far the greater Part of
it was written, (to borrow the pathetic Language of Dr.
Johnson,) "not in the soft Obscurities of Retirement, or
under the Shelter of Academic Bowers, but amidst Inconven-

ience and Distraction, in Sickness and in Sorrow."”

Joseph Weston.

”"Preface" to the Eictionary (1755) 11.

9O

11.
Mr. Urban, Lichfield, Eep. 13.[l790)

Polite as are my ingenious Drydenic antagonists, I must,
in justice to myself, disavow a sensibility which Mr. Morfitt
affects to take for granted, and a stratagem for which Mr.
Weston affects to forgive me. I have suppressed pp sensibi-
lities during my investigation of this subject. I scorn to
suppress involuntary consciousness because it may militate
against my argument. For the imputed stratagem, my combat
with prejudices of such demonetrable futility, could not peep
the aid of auxiliary stratagem: and were it possible to have
wanted, I would have disdained to pee it. Solemnly do I
disavow the least suspicion that the Epistle from Helen to
Paris was not pie whose name is prefixed to it. No one.
impartial enough to be disgusted with bold and vulgar style
in a favourite author, and who has read all Dryden's works,
pep feel internal evidence that a work is not pie, which
bears his name, because it is written ill.

I did no violence to my feelings in producing instances
of wretched style in the great, the illustrious Dryden.
because the nature of my dispute with Mr. W. obliged me to
produce them, and because I thought it incumbent upon me,
though he acts otherwise by Pope, to bring my proofs miip my
accusations. As gieei, as illustrious, with all his sins
against sincerity and poetic elegance, I have ever considered
Dryden: as such I have mentioned him through the whole course

of those strictures, which defend the pointed, polished, and

91

harmonious style of Pope, and the judgment with which he
shunned whatever was turgid or vulgar in its conception,
false or absurd in its metaphoric sense, awkward or slovenly
in its expression.

Mr. Morfitt confesses that Dryden's imagination, which.
by allusion, he justly terms a "magnificent city,"” has its
giiiy alleys and neglected passages, but thinks it uncandid
to search them out. Never had they been searched out by me.
if his friend had not publickly denied their existence in any
such squalid form, and falsely termed them well-disposed
shades amidst lights, and judicious flats amidst elevations:
if he had not renounced all pardon extended to Dryden for the
frequent defects of his style, on the score of pecuniary
necessity; and if I had not apprehended a possibility of
mischief to our young writers from Mr. Weston's erroneous
assertions--mischief, that Mr. Morfitt will find stated in a
letter of mine to M----s, in the Gentleman's Magazine for
September last, p. 818.”

To prevent such mischief, and without a wish to rob
Dryden of those luxuriant laurels, won by the rich fertility
of his ideas, by the frequent grandeur of his conceptions,
and by the frequent mellifluence of his numbers, did I pipye
that they meie blind alleys, and lamentably neglected pas-
sages in the magnificent city. I sought ppi to hide, as Mr.

Morfitt more than insinuates I did, its spacious streets,

”Letter 10, p. 67. Anna Seward's references to Morfitt
are to this letter.
”Letter 8, Pp. 35-42.

92

splendid squares, and gorgeous palaces. Have I not said that
Dryden trusted to the majestic trees of his wilderness.
"laden with blooming gold,"” for the preservation of his
fame? Was ipei the language of one who sought to suppress
the recollection of his excellences? But I here repeat a
conviction, which I sincerely feel, namely that he never
dreamed that their fruits should so far intoxicate the brain

of a Brother Poet, as to make him assert the superior beauty

of the wilderness on account of its weeds, and abuse the
majestic parks and lawns of succeeding Bards, from which the
nettles and switch-grass have been rooted up. Flats amidst

elevations do certainly promote the general beauty of the
. scene: but it is very undesirable that they should be over-
grown with weeds, "unsightly, and unsmooth."” I have asserted
that Pope's poetry is not destitute of this contrasting
plainness and simplicity of style. It may be found in suffi-
cient plenty in his Epistles, in his Essay on Man, on Criti-
cism, on Fame: in his Iliad: still more in his Odyssey: and
even in the glowing, impassioned, and highly-coloured poem,
the Eloisa to Abelard.

If in this disquisition I have produced parts, (and what
pep parts ppplg I produce?) I have judged from the mpple--
thus--that Dryden was in the lyiip style greater than Pope,
but inferior to him in that of the ten feet couplet. I
acknowledged that it was a fault in the latter so eeldom to

float his pause into the middle of the next line: but that

‘

”Letter 1c, p. 14 and note 2.
”Milton, Paradise Lost 4.631.

93

Dryden's floating it too often, his Alexandrines in the
middle of sentences, his perpetual triplets, which hurt the
ear by prolonging the jingle of the rhyme, his everlasting
expletives, with which, in particular, his elegy on Cromwell
is so much deformed, his "eeye pee, and eeye_epee," [sic]
instance:

The Panther smil'd at this, and when said she
Were these first councils disallow'd by me?

 

 

and again:

Why all this war [these wars) to win the book, if we
Must not interpret for ourselves but she?

pipe epg Panther. [2:2.168-69, 283-84)

That these, I mean the habitual use of these, formed in the
opposite scale of defect so much an heavier preponderance, as
to give the superiority, in point of diction, clearly to
Pope. I produced my proofs that Dryden often wrote ipp ill
to write ep ill from any other motive than necessitous haste.

Mr. Morfitt observes that "figurative language, and the
arrangement of numbers, are the province of eii." The
latter certainly: but the former, if justly figurative, is
the constituent, the vital principle of Genius, that combina-
tion of remote resemblances, whose peppy union mere art will
strive to effect in yeip. When Shakespear, describing a
summer night, exclaims:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon the bank!”

and says that it tips with eilver the tops of the fruit-

 

”Eerchant pi Venice V.i.54. Read "this bank."

94

trees:” and, in painting wintry darkness, tells us,
Now the loud howling wolves arouse the hours [jades],
That drag the tragic, melancholy night,
And, with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings,
Clip dead men's graves;” '
he speaks figureiively, but with such figures as art alone

had never brought him.

 

That Dryden perpetually sinks below, 0 how mppp below
Pope! I willingly agree with Mr. Morfitt: but that he ever
rises proportionably higher I utterly deny, and would under-
take to equal the noblest and most beautiful passages from
Dryden's poems, in the couplet measure, with selections from
those of his rival. Their genius was equal: but Pope would
not abuse his talents, and Dryden lived in the perpetual
prostitution of pie.

lpei ear must be oddly modeled, to which Pope's harmo-
nious and flowing verses appear formal. It is not allowed to
the couplet rhyme to wind the pause through whole passages,
as Mr. Morfitt beautifully expresses it. Dryden did not
attempt it. lpei grace belongs to blank verse, as he allows.
Hence the superiority of exguisite blank verse to the mpei
exquisite rhyme.

Mr. Morfitt calls Pope's numbers "geckoo-noiee:"
if he had termed them Blackbird notes, he had spoke more
justly: since the blackbird's, sweet beyond a name, and
beyond all power of satiety to a musical ear, have ppi the

Varieties of the nightingale's melodies. Neither does the

g

”Romeo and Juliet II.ii.108.
2g Henry El IV.i.3.

 

95

couplet measure admit great variety in the flow of the
numbers: that grace belongs to Ode-writing, and to blank
verse.

With such "Cuckoo-notes" as the following, I confess
myself incapable of being cloyed, or of perceiving in them
any resemblance to folding doors, or to Dutch gardening:

So Zembla's rocks, the beauteous work of frost,

Rise high [white] in air, and glitter on the coast:

Pale suns [unfelt] at distance roll unfelt away,

And on th' impassive ice the lightnings play.

Eternal snows the growing mass supply,

Till the bright mountains prop th' incumbent sky:

Like [As] Atlas fix'd each hoary pile appears

The gather'd winter of a thousand years. [IE 2:53-60.)

Pope's severity to the Dunces, who had maligned him, was

just chastisement. They gave the provocation: they distilled

their venom upon his immortal laurels, though it had no power

to canker them. He formed a mock-heroic poem in consequence
of thei[r) malice, and made his enemies ridiculous to all
ages. Such ever be the doom of Envy aspersing Virtue, and

endeavouring to shroud the light of Genius!

Mr. Weston still procrastinates his proofs, that Pope
was an execrable villain, the insidious underminer of pie
fame, whom he professed to honour. My antagonist has closed
the correspondence with me, without producing them. He owed
it to his own character, and to the demand I made upon him

for those proofs, to have produced them in the first page of

 

his reply. To assert Dryden's style advantaged by its fre-
quent vapidness and vulgarity, is but want of taste for pure
and elegant composition. From unsupported accusation,

brought against the moral character of a fine writer, every

 

96

one will turn indignant, who can feel his beauties, and be
grateful for the delights they have afforded.

Ere I make any comments upon Mr. Weston's letter in the
last Magazine,” where every position he advances is open to
confutation, I shall wait the promissory Ides of March for
those proofs which my friendship for Mr. Weston almost
induces me to wish he may be eple to produce. It behooves
him to take especial care that they be unguestionable.

Yours, &c. Anna Seward.

 

12.

Mr. Urban, Qpi. 11. [1789]

I am much flattered by he notice which your fair cor-
respondent (vol. LIX. p. 820)” has paid to my remarks on her
poetical strictures*: but, as they were ventured at the time,
not without some conviction of their justice, I am still
ready to maintain them.

Pope was one of the first who gave praise to Akenside's

chief work:” and perhaps his word conduced greatly to

 

*This and the following letters, received in October,
were kept back till Mr. Weston had compleated his vindica-
tion. Edit.

”Letter 9d, pp. 70-89.

”Letter 8. pp. 35-42. "M----s's" references are to this
letter, except where noted.

”Pope praised Pleasures pi ppe Imagination when it ap-

peared in 1744. Maynard Mack, Life 924 cites Johnson's Lives
(Akenside) 3:412.

97

establish its reputation. Hammond's death happened two years
before Pope's, Collins published his epistle to Sir T, Han-
mer, and his Persian eclogues, some time before that event.”
Miss Seward herself allows of Thomson's claim to a place in
the Augustan aera, as it is sometimes called: and this being
the case, Mallet's follows of course, since he frequently
wrote in conjunction with that charming poet: Lyttelton” as
well had the honour of being intimate with him. The name of
Welsted” next occurs, which is mentioned by the Satirist in
the following terms:

Flow, Welsted, flow, like thine inspirer beer:

Tho' stale, not ripe: tho‘ thin, yet never clear:

So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull,

Heady, not strong, o'er flowing, tho' not full. [EppB

5:3.169-72.)

Yet the person thus stigmatized is now beginning to obtain
attention, and even respect. Miss S. however, thus expresses
herself: "I did not chuse to bring forward, for the honour of
Pope's period, any of the heroes of his inimitable Dunciad."
Something like indignation arises on the perusal of this
sentence. Will then the admirers of this allowedly great
writer consent to sacrifice the same of every one whom this

splenetic and vindictive spirit has marked out as the object

of ridicule or detestation? It may be hoped, that, on

 

”1743 and 1742 respectively.

”For Hammond and Mallet see p. 36 note 2: for Thomson
and Lyttleton p. 37 notes 5 and 3 respectively. George
Lyttleton's works began appearing in 1728, but no collection
was published until the year after his death in 1773.

”Leonard Welsted is not on Miss Seward's lists. He
is listed in NCBEL and Egg.

98

reflexion, so rash an opinion will be revoked. The fair
critic does not think proper to notice the name of Garth,”
though surely of some consideration, even from having gained
the lavish praises of her favourite, yet, on this plea, Lord
Lansdowne, Walsh, Wycherley, Trumball [sic),” and others,
will obtain respectable seats in the poetic synod. Fenton
and Broome assisted the translator of Homer in his version of
the Odyssey: and executed their parts with such spirit, that
they are scarcely to be distinguished from the pen of their
master. This will be admitted as an undeniable claim.

It is the opinion of my respectable opponent, that Time,
instead of stamping their real estimation on admired writers,
has rather a contrary effect: and "induces the generality of
readers to set a double value on every beauty, and to pass
over defects with indulgence." instances, she brings among
Dryden's contemporaries Denham, Lee, Roscommon, and Waller:
and, from the second division, Parnell, Gay, Addison, Watts,
and the two Philipps.” This assertion is incontrovertibly
just: but it must be remembered, that while antiquity puts
more than their intrinsic price on the few writers she pre-
serves, as great, or even a greater number of equal value, at

first are overwhelmed by her in oblivion.

 

”Sir Samuel Garth (c. 1660-1718). "M----s" refers to
Miss Seward's three lists of poets in Letter 1a, pp. 1-4.

”George Granville, Baron Lansdowne: William Walsh,
Pope's early mentor: William Wycherley: and Sir William
Trumbull (died c. 1716-17), Pope's neighbor and "second fa-
ther," see Mack, Life pi Pope (104-09). All these, together
with Elijah Fenton and William Broome, are listed in the Egg
and all, except for Trumbull, are listed in the NCBEL.

”Letter 1a, p.3. Miss Seward lists only one "Philips."

 

99

It is very probable, that if those selected from the
first class "had lived, and produced their poems ppm, they
would not have had many admirers." Yet this must not be
attributed to any natural deficiency in their genius, but
rather to the difference of tastes in the two ages. Had Lee
been placed in the present times, he would have been obliged
to discard his bombast, and might still have preserved his
pathetic powers. Waller in the same case might have been
prompted to despise the conceitedness of thought, which in
his day was so much esteemed: and would have found that
species of versification already perfect to his hand, which
he spent so much labour in improving, while yet in its rude
and unpolished infancy: and, by these means, Denham's verses
would not have incurred the imputation of being in general
"heavy, laboured, and inharmonious." So necessary is it to
consider, not only the writers themselves, but the ages in
which they existed. We now come to the comparative merits of
our two poetic rivals. Every one knows, and laments, (let me
again repeat) that Dryden, from the unfortunate and pressing
state of his affairs, was frequently obliged to be hasty and
negligent, and had not time to make selections from the
multiplicity of images and expressions, which constantly
crowded on his pen. For this reason I thought it hard and
ungenerous that his most defective passages should be con-
trasted with the lively and polished graces of the younger
Bard. As for the fear of "our young writers being tempted
into a coarse and weedy style," there is not the shadow of a

‘danger that Mr. Weston's sentiments on this subject will have

100

so great a prevalence over the rising generation, which is
more inclined to degenerate into the contrary extreme.

While Dryden, studying to render his poetic garden ra-
ther spacious than nicely beautiful, suffered the rankest
weeds to spring up among the most luxuriant flowers, and
entirely neglected the assistance of art: Pope, with deliber-
ate leisure, was employed in banishing every appearance of
disorder, in adjusting his delicate plants in the most strik-
ing dispositions, and in checking, sometimes too severely,
the sportive wantonness of Nature. There are some. who ( to
preserve the metaphor) are on the whole more delighted with
the wilderness of the former, than with the regular, yet
elegant parterres of the latter: and I profess myself to be
one of the number. I conclude with adding the testimonies of
two deservedly celebrated modern poets in favour of Dryden.
Gray, finishing one of his letters to Dr. Beattie, has these
remarkable words, "Remember Dryden, and be blind to all his
faults."” And Mr. Warton calls Palamon and Arcite "the most
animated and harmonious piece of versification in the English
language." History of English Poetry, chap. 23, p. 364.”

Yours, &c. M----s.

 

 

”Letters pi Thomas Gray, ed. Duncan C. Tovey (London: G.
Bell and Sons, 1912) 3:95. Gray made the remark in a letter
to Thomas Wharton. He was repeating what he had said to
James Beattie in conversation.

”Thomas Warton (London, 1870) 243.

 

101

13.

Mr. Urban, Qpi. 14. [1789]

I had no intention of troubling you again on the little
controversy with Mr. Weston, especially as I wish not to
increase his embarrasments, or in any wise impede his return-
ing health, (you will therefore publish this at your own
convenient and proper time): but some assertions in his
letter, p. 875” seem to demand a further reply.

Mr. W. thinks I have totally mistaken his meaning, and
taken that as "virulent invective." which he intended for
"good-humored raillery:" if I have so misconceived him, I am
sorry for it: but certainly, from the whole aim of the para-
graph, I did conceive of it, in the light of a contemptuous
sneer, intended to affright me from the field at once, as an
opponent too puny for the trial of his acknowledged strength.

I am much concerned he should continue to deem me his
adversary. I cannot think it either fair or candid, because
we differ in opinion about the merit of another, that I
should be called his adversary: the term is most opprobrious:
even the Arch Apostate Spirit himself is emphatically denomi-
nated, "The Adversary;"” most certainly Mr. W. is mistaken, I
am ppi his adversary, I hold him no enmity: I have an high
opinion of his talents, and in this, I suppose, I think with

himself: but perhaps this supposition constitutes part of my

 

”Letter 9a. Pp. 43-49. Except where noted, all of
"M.F.'s" quotations are from this letter.

”See the King James Version of the Bible (Esther 7.6.
Psalms 74.10, Lamentations 1.10, 4.12, 1 Timothy 5.14) and
Milton, Eaiadise Eosi 2.629, 3.156, 9.947.

 

102

crime: I see much to commend, and have only to except his
unreasonable, and very singular prejudice, against an excel-
lent and admired Poet, a Poet who has many a time and oft
administered to my pleasure, at whose harsh treatment I felt
myself hurt, and in the absence of an abler pen (for at that
time I was ignorant of Miss Seward's taking up the matter)
found myself inclined to add my mite in his favour.

Mr. Weston sends me to Romances, for the true explana-
tion of a "Strange Knight:" I am obliged to him, he may have
defined it justly: but this reminds me of Sydenham's answer
to Blackmore, when the latter, commencing the study of phys-
ick, requested the opinion of the former what books he had
best read, replied, "Don Quixote: 'tis a very good book I
read it still."”

I cannot think it strange, or savouring of knight er-
rantry, to offer a few words in vindication of him who is now
unable to defend himself. It is neither attacking windmills,
or storming enchanted castles, to parry off any rude assault
on his fair fame. From what has yet appeared, I am not
inclined to esteem him that execrable impostor Mr. W. is
endeavouring to make him appear: but it may be Mr. Weston is
in possession of secret anecdotes, of some private history,
that the world is hitherto a stranger to: if so, I suppose we
.shall be shortly indulged with them, and have to new-modify

our opinions of this yet-esteemed Poet.

 

”George Sydenham was warning Blackmore against the
romantic approach to medicine. Sir Richard Blackmore, p
Ireatise upon ipe Small-Pom (London. 1723), quoted in Bertram
H. Davis, iii Richard Elackmoie Boston: Twayne, 1980, 23.

 

103

I now proceed to this "fatal quotation," as Mr. W. is
pleased to term it, this "non tali auxilio," this vivid
retaliating paragraph. I assure him, he proceeds on a mis-
taken idea, if he supposed it excited my chagrin: I am as
sensible of the justice of it as Mr. W. can be: I well know
that Miss Seward is "herself an host,"” and wants no such
poor assistance as mine: she is fully adequate to her gener-
ous undertaking, and hath incontestably appreciated the dis-
tinctive merits of Dryden and Pope. If I had vainly aimed at
any contest with her, I might justly be accused of most
egregious folly. I wish Mr. Weston to be aware, that tho' I
am groveling in the Prosaic vale beneath, I can look up with
admiration to this elegant Poetess, justly seated on the top
of the Aonian mountain: yet without envy, or the vain hope of
ever attaining even the midway.

I can scarce comprehend Mr. Weston's drift, on his
introduction of Job's wife: and, as he has it, the synonymous
terms of "bless and curse."” Would he insinuate that we can
annex no distinct ideas to words, that they mean any thing,
or nothing, and a matter totally indifferent, whether we call
a man excellent or execrable? Words I know are supple, but I
had no idea of such pliancy.

I am under much obligation to Mr. W's candour for his
mild attention to my "slips and inaccuracies," I am sensible
of my defects: I boast not of genius: I am but little used to

the press, my only aim was the vindication of what I thought

 

”Letter 4, p. 25.
”46n.

104

an injured character. I wish to convince Mr. W. of his
unreasonable prejudice: and in this I have done no more than
what Miss Seward has avowed as her intention: I have the
honour to think with her, and where is the crime?

Mr. W. objects mostly to Mr. Pope's satirical pieces:
their acrimony he thinks too severe on many worthy charac-
ters. This may in part be true: I think I have before ac-
quiesced to it: but we ought to consider Mr. Pope's provoca-
tions, his abilities, and the swarm of minor Poets that were
constantly nibbling at him: and "many with his provocations,
and many with his abilities"” would, like him, have consigned
them to everlasting fame.

I am yet to learn in what Pope "injured the poetical
constitution," in what respect "he trampled on the rights of
those citizens he ought to have loved and protected." I know
nothing of this sort in Pope's history, nor that he had any
"pretences to piety and morality" that were unreal: he must
have been very artful and very wicked, to "impose on the
understandings, and seduce the affections, of the rich and
powerful:" though it must be acknowledged, that riches and
power do not at a dead certainty produce wisdom and caution.
Mr. Pope, it seems, was too hard for them, and made them his
"stepping stones" to the highest seat on the Parnassian

mount: for to that highest seat he certainly did attain. And

 

”Exact source unidentified. This may be "M.F.'s"
reference to what had become a commonplace about Pope. See
Ayre, 1:242. Even Colley Cibber wrote that Pope appeared "to
have had personal provocation" for his satire in the Dunciad.

pp Apology ior the Life pi Qolley Cibpei, ed. B. R. S. Stone.
(Ann Arbor: The U of Michigan P, 1968, 26.)

 

105

shall he rest quietly in his grave for this? No: Mr. W. is
determine to gibbet him ip terrorem” to all future tyrants.
Pardon me, my good Sir: but this too is like the Roman big-
ots, manfully attacking the ”cerements"” of the venerable

Wickliff, and wreaking their vengeance on his passive re-

 

mains, after their peaceable interment forty years.

Yours, &c. M. F.
14.
Mr. Urban, Oct. 31. [1789)

Our great Poetess, in her late ingenious, but partial,
estimate of Pope and Dryden, asserts of the first-mentioned
Poet's description of the monastic solitude, where the graces
of his amiable recluse pined in sorrow, that as landscape
painting it is entitled to the highest praise, not having
been equalled by Dryden, nor surpassed by Milton. I shall
not examine the justness of her remark, with respect to
Milton and Dryden: but shall only observe, that much as I
admire the breathing colours awakened by the bold pencil of
sad Eloisa's Poet, the following landscape, from her sublime
and tender Louisa, has a still more forcible influence on my
feelings:

'Twas here, e'en here! where now I sit reclin'd,

And Winter's sighs sound hollow in the wind;

Loud, and more loud, the blast of ev'ning raves,

And strips the oaks of their last ling'ring leaves.
The eddying foliage in the tempests flies,

 

”Livy, Book 34, Ch. 28, sec. 3.

”Religious reformer John Wycliffe was buried in 1384.
In 1428, by order of the Council of Constance, his body was
disinterred, burnt and thrown into a nearby river. (23E).

106

And fills with duskier gloom the thickning skies.

Red sinks the sun behind the howling hill,

And rushes, with hoarse stream, the mountain rill:

And now with ruffling billows, cold and pale,

Runs swoln and dashing down the lonely vale:

While to these tearful eyes, Grief's faded form

Sits on the cloud, and sighs amid the storm.”

It may be thought impossible to have exceeded Pope in
the allegorical parts. But though the figures of Grief and
Melancholy are marked with the same grandeur of conception,
Miss Seward has not, like Pope, sought to embellish what was
already great. That nice finishing, which so well accords
with an elegant subject, a lofty one disdains. The winding
valley derives new charms from the bloom scattered over it by
the hand of spring: but such beautifying would ill become
the majestic foliage of the mountain forest*.

I agree with your elegant and ingenious, and, as far as
one can judge from his writings, your upright and amiable
correspondent, Mr. Weston, in giving up to the detestation of
the considerate Pope's treatment of Leonard Welsted. And
what shall we say to his satire on that profound scholar and
virtuous man Dr. Samuel Clarke?” Had a writer of inferior

abilities to Pope been guilty of such conduct, he would have

been damned to everlasting infamy. And yet, great talents,

 

*It must be evident that this parallel is confined to
the delineation of nature; for the monastic painting itself,
which all will allow to be one of the highest efforts of
fancy in the chiaro scuro, has nothing to correspond to it in
the picture this lady has given us.

”Anna Seward, "Epistle 1," Louisa, A Poetipel Novel ip
Four Epistles (Lichfield, 1784), verse 23, p. 12.

”This classical scholar and author of religious works
may be the "gloomy clerk" referred to in EppB 5:4.459ff. and
note.

 

107

instead of softening the harsh feature of vice, should only
serve to make them appear the more deformed. Dryden may have
flattered Guilt, but I do not know that he has degraded

Excellence. Yours, &c. Impartial.

 

108

15.
Mr. Urban, Solihulli Feb. 22. [1790)

The Opening of the following little Poem would be some-
what obscure, were I not to inform your Readers that, on the
Commencement of my Acquaintance with Miss Seward, the compar-
ative Merits of Pope and Dryden becoming a Subject of our
Discussion, I was so strangely disconcerted by the Archness
of her Smile, the Vivacity of her Repartees, epg the indes-
cribable Brightness of such Eyes as I never before beheld,
that I was actually dumbfounded.--The Circumstance mentioned
in the iiiei Triplet” (ludicrous as it may seem to such as
"wear Flints in their Bosoms, by way of Hearts,"”) was
literally a Fact.

Despairing, therefore, to confute my fair Opponent yiye
yppe, I chose the more prudent Method of epistolary Debate:
but, after making some Progress, I dropped or at least post-
poned, my Design, for Reasons unnecessary to recite: and the
Verses would, probably, never have been compleated, but for
her public Attack on my Poetic Opinions.

So long fastened as I have been on the Rack of Contro-
versy, I shall not be thought to make an ill Use of my
Emancipation, by shewing my Charity for my Amiable Tormentor:
and, though I cannot be supposed to relish, in any high
Degree, the peepe she has employed for my Conversion, I am

not displeased with an Occasion of expressing my unaffected

 

”Below, p. 110, ll. 19-21.

”Possibly a paraphrase of "from brassy bosoms and rough
hearts of flint," Shakespeare, The Merchant pi Venice,
IV.i.31.

 

109

Approbation of her Motives.

My Contemporaries may reproach me (and, perhaps, justly)
with my Temerity, in daring to delineate what none of them
have attempted--viz. a whole-Length Protrait of a Lady who is
as much the Glory of the present Age as she will be the
Admiration of all succeeding ones.--They who have ppi wit-
nessed her Triumphs in the Drawing-room, nor seen her in
those happier Hours of Domestic Retirement when the less
glaring but not less valuable Graces unfold themselves, will
be apt to suspect me of hyperbolical Adulation: they who peye
will be inclined to wonder that such animating Scenes should
have inspired me with no greater Portion of Enthusiasm, and
that from so glowing an Original so cold a Copy ppple be
drawn!

Truth guides my Pencil, and describes a faithful pee;

line: Genius and Skill vouchsafe not their Aid--t fill it

 

 

Joseph Weston.

 

To Miss Seward.

Boast not, fair Victress, that so soon were gain‘d
The Honours of a Field so ill maintain'd!
Boast not: for most unequal were our Arms:
Mine--feeble Vocals: thine--Almighty Charms!
My Flight (be this my Comfort, this my Pride!)
Nor Friend shall pity, nor shall Foe deride:
No Force terrestiial cou'd my Soul dismay:
Arms of eiherial Temper urge Resistless Way!
Not all the Wonders of that witching Tongue,
Whose every Accent breathes the Soul of Song [10)
--Not all th' Effulgence of that mighty Mind,
Enrich'd by Fancy, and by Taste refin'd--

110

Not the soft Blush, which on that glowing Cheek
Can speak--what Words must never hope to speak--
Not the sly Sophistry of that sweet Smile,
Which might the Pierce disarm-—the Wise beguile--
No--nor the Magic of that Air sublime--
Cou'd shake my Duty to the Prince of Rhyme:
'Twas the electric Glance, which flashing, flies, I
On Wings of Lightning, from those ardent Eyes, ) [20]
That wither'd every Pow'r--and snatch'd
th'unyielded Prize! I
Illustrious Dryden! O forbear to blame
My half-desertion of thy righteous Claim!
Were every Nerve of Elocution mine--
How weak to th' Eloquence of Eyes divine!
Thy own great Mexican”--his Cause though just,
His Host though countless, and though firm his Trust--
Found Justice, Confidence, and Myriads vain,
When Strange Artillery o'er th' embattled Plain
In beauteous--fatal Coruscations play'd, [30]
And Fire from Heav'n appear'd the Foe to aid!
Like Me admiring, and like Me amaz'd,
(His plumy Diadem guivering as he gaz'd!)
Dazzled, confounded, aw'd, he left the Field--
Unskilful to resist--untaught to yield!
The Wonder ceas'd.--The Purple Tide return'd
To his blanch'd Cheek: with pristine courage burn'd
His swelling Breast: his Country's Wrongs to right,
And guard his ancient Gods, he brav'd the' unequal
Fight.
Though, more than Cortes fear'd, a Foe is mine, [40]
Who of a greater Pope the Right Divine
Dauntless maintains, yet, since (fond Terrors o'er)
I feel that Voice--I feel those Eyes no more--
True to myself, and to my Idol true,
The dangerous Conflict, distant, I renew:
Waging, like Montezuma*, ieather'd war,
With Her whom I revere--with Him whom I abhor!
Once, once again the Rival Bards survey:
In Candour's equal Scale, one Moment, weigh

Each glittering Ore: the Hero of my Theme [50]
Ponderous shall sink, and light Pope strike the Beam.
First view "the God of thine Idolatry."--”

What airy Car, what winged Steed has He?
None.--Aims he, then, a nobly-painful Flight,
Up some rough, craggy Rock's stupendous Height?
Or cleave his potent Spells the yawning Ground,

 

*"Lauriger Edvardus, pennato Marte timendus." Morfitt's
Ppilotoxi Ardenae [Line 33. Weston translates it "By lau-
rell'd Edward's winged Weapons slain!" (60).]

 

”Montezuma in The Indian Emperour (1665).
”Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.115. Read "the
god of my idolatry."

 

111

T'explore, with daring Foot, the vast, the fathomless
Profound?

No.--O'er the flowery Level of the Plain,

In pompous Indolence, he sweeps his Train:

Like Israel's Tribes, in Egypt's fatal Day, [60]

With borrow'd Gold and Jewels cheaply gay,

Solemn and slow, the verdant Vale along.

With measur'd March he moves, and sings his Cuckow-song.

Now mark great Dryden! From the vile, vile Earth,

That own'd--yet not rewarded--modest Worth,

He bounds indignant: on a Whirwind's Wings

He mounts sublime: the vast Empyreum rings

With Sounds that might a Seraph's Self entrance!

The list'ning Spheres their everlasting Dance

Suspend: to wonder at the Strains unknown: [70]

At mortal Strains--harmonious as their own!

Amaz'd to find his Fingers, all on Fire, I
Elicit Sparkles from a living Lyre, I

And rouze to vengeful Rage, and sooth to soft Desire! I

Now, like a Meteor, with eccentric Flight,

He shoots along: and leaves a Trail of Light:

Now on the fleecy Bosom of a Cloud

Reposes: while beneath him, murmuring loud

Its jealous Fears, the Thunder rolls away:

And innocent around him envious Light'nings play. [80]
0 Thou, who (free from Pride, from Envy free,

If not from Prejudice) art wont to see

This genuine Sun of the Parnassian Sky

Through Glass distain'd--attentive to descry

Those grateful Spots that not deform, but grace,

With softening Shade, his too refulgent Face--

Triumphant pointing to that spurious Light,

That Theban Prodigy,” so vainly bright,

On whose portentous Glare, (of Vapour form'd,

And magnified by Mist.) uncheer'd, unwarm'd,” [90]

The gaping Vulgar gaze--can Taste like Thine

Deem Earth-born Exhalations--Fires Divine?

What more than Talismanic Charm can bind

In Error's Fetters thy energic Mind?

'Tis Sympathy, with melting, dove-like Eye--

Who drops th'incessant Tear, and heaves th' eternal
Sigh.
Have I not seen thee?--Yes--with Terror seen

That gentle Bosom--which nor Rage, nor Spleen,

Nor Guilt shall ever ruffle--throb with Pangs

Convulsive!--Lo!--in awful Balance hangs [100]

 

”Probably a monstrous prodigy, as in the Sphinx, or
"Theban Monster," Milton, Earadise Regained 1.572.

”Compare Pope's description of Dulness EunB 5:1.261-62.
"Her ample presence fills up all the place:/A veil of fogs
dilates her awful face." Miss Seward quotes these lines in
Letter 8, p. 42.

112

A Parent's precious Life!”--What Force has Fear,
That, ere it fall, congeals that starting Tear!
What Force Despair, that steals from Eyes so bright
Each Scintillation of Celestial Light--
Till, beamless, motionless, they ppi Illume
--But prove how deep the Tinge of Grief's impervious
Gloom! .
'Tis past!--The Prayers of Piety prevail--
A Daughter's Prayers--and turn the wavering Scale.
Now melt, thou sable Cloud, in beauteous Tears!
Now, lovely Mourner, hush thy frantic Fears! [110)
While Sleep's balsamic Dews his Eyelids close,
Give Thy sad, suff'ring Breast to taste Repose!
Ah! 'twill not be!--A Thousand fond Alarms
Sick Fancy fright with visionary Harms:
And every filial Fibre is in Arms!
Sleep Thou, then, good old Man! Securely sleep,
While thy parental Offspring wakes to weep,
Dubious Pulsation tremblingly to trace.
And mark each Muscle of the varying Face!
Sleep on: an Host of virtues is thy Guard-- [120]
Of a fond Father's Toils the Fruit--and sweet Reward!
Know hence, vile Scoffers--bold Blasphemers know--
Virtue pep find a Recompense Below:
One Gem from that bright Crown, in purer Skies,
That waits the plainly Good, and simply Wise!
Had not thy watchful Zeal, Time-honour'd Sage,
Op'd on her infant-view the Sacred Page.
And stor'd the fertile Eden of her Mind
With Vegetation of immortal Kind--
(Guarding each Avenue, with anxious Care, [130)
Lest Serpent-Vice should find an Entrace there,)--
Sinking with Weakness, and opprest with Pain,
Thine Eye had eloquently ask'd--in vain:
No duteous Fondness had thy Wish presag'd,
Thy Weakness Strengthen'd, and thy Pain assuag'd:
No Daughter's Praises, from a Thousand Tongues
Echoing, had charm'd thine Ear, like Syren's Songs:
No Daughter's Glories had, reflective, shed
A radiant Circle round thy hallow'd Head!
When Phebus thus, has run his lengthen'd Race,[140]
And Evening Clouds obscure his beauteous Face,
While his faint transient, Occidental Gleams
Contrast the Brightness of his Orient Beams,
In mournful Majesty, the Night's fair Queen
Ascends, to solemnize his closing Scene:
Mingles her rising with his setting Rays,
And the blest Light He lent, all-gratefully, repays.
With Fear--with Grief--with Tenderness like thine,
Saw Pope his doting Parent's Day decline.
0 wonder-working Pow'r, whose strong Controul [150]

 

”Miss Seward had recently nursed her father through a
critical illness. He died in March of 1790.

113

Can tame the fiercest Savageness of Soul!

He, whom nor Pity, Truth, nor Justice sway'd,

Great Nature's Call omnipotent obey'd:

Life's melancholy Evening Hour to sooth,

And restless Languor's thorny Couch to smooth,

His pious Task:--how cheerfully, how Well

That Task he plied--his own sweet Numbers tell.”
0 when the fearful, the tremendous Day

Of Retribution shines--when deep Dismay,

With Fiend-like Fang, shall fasten on his Breast, [160)

While All whom his despotic Pride opprest,

All whose fair Fame his Envy undermin'd,

All whom his Hate, with Cruelty refin'd,

Stretch'd on the Mind's dire Rack, shall, pointing,
rise,

And view his shuddering Form with pitying Eyes--

May Penitence have purg'd each Crimson Stain

--But this bright Feature of the Soul remain

Full in the sight of that Eternal Son,

Who cried "not mine--but ipy great Will be done!"

Who 'gainst unutterable Tortures strove-- [170)

With dying Voice to perfect Filial Love--

And may this Godlike Attribute alone

For Human Errors plead, for Human Crimes atone!

Well (lovely Sophist!) well have Sages said,

"The tenderest Heart can dupe the wisest Head!" ”

One Solitary Star, the dark, dark Mind

Of the fell Tyrant brightning, joy'd to find--

When call'd to shine in more congenial Skies--

Its dear* Twin Copetellation, sparkling, rise:

Its dear Twin-Sparkles with impassion'd Gaze, [180]

Sighing, laments the last--lov'd--lingering Rays!

And, sure, one lingering, lov'd, fraternal Ray

Has to thy inmost Bosom wing'd its Way!

For, did not Sympathy's seductive Charm

Thy trait'rous Feeling 'gainst thy Judgement arm.

Could'st Thou the Lord pi Lyric Lays asperse,

And praise--a Weaver pi Mechanick Verse?

Thou! Who, with Dryden's, nay, with Milton's Fire,

Sweep'st the bold Chords of a Cherubic Lyre--

While Sounds Celestial undulate along, [190]

Now sweetly soft, and now sublimely strong!

Thou! Who, when Wit and Worth resign their Breath,

Bidst them deride the pointless Dart of Death--
The Meed bestowing Bards alone can give--

To Live--till Nature's Self shall cease to live!

Thou! who, from Fancy's rich exhaustless Stores,

 

 

*Criticism may object that my Castor and Pollux are of
different Sexes: unjustly though:--Filial Piety is of pp Sex.

”Arbu 2:408-13.
”Possibly Weston's versification of La Rochefoucauld.
Eaximes, No. 102, "The head is always the dupe of the heart."

 

114

Hast form'd what, spurn'd by Folly, Sense adores!
(Nor was it strange Louisa,” Angel-bright.
Should blind dull Critics--with Excess of Light!)
Never, t'exalt the Soul with generous Pride, [200]
And win rebellious Passion to the Side
Of bleeding Duty, Malice must confess,
Did Fiction shine in a diviner Dress.
But 'Tis Not Fiction.--Friend of Humankind,
It finds a faithful Mirror--in thy matchless Mind!
An Hour must come (but far, 0 wondrous far.
Avert that hour, each tutelary Star!)
When Thou, to whom--magnetic as the Pole--
Turns every Eye, and Ear, and Heart, and Soul--
Shalt fascinate no more: all powerless, laid [210]
In Death's cold Arms, and black Oblivion's Shade!
Well hast thou chosen, then, with wisest Art,
To thy undying Verse thy Charms t'impart;
Each Flash of Fancy, every sparkling Grace,
Each nameless Energy of Mind and Face,
Each perishable Beauty, to transfuse--
To bloom, and bloom for Ever--on th'immortal Muse!
Thus in some Room, that mourns excluded Day,
At one small Inlet darts th' indignant Ray,
While, through a Crystal Medium, faithful shewn, [220]
Creation shines--in Glories all her own.
Here Valleys smile, in Robes of tenderest Green!
There Mountains frown a Horror o'er the Scene!
Wak'd by a Zephyr's Wing, the ruffled Stream.
Emitting Diamonds to the Noon-tide Beam,
Trembles: or, hush'd in Silence and Repose,
The blue Expense its glassy Bosom shews!
Nature's fair Miniature, serenely bright,
In one illumin'd Circle's mellow'd Light,”
With unfatiguing Lustre, captivates the Sight! [230]
To late Posterity's admiring Eyes '
Thus thy Own Beauties shall, reflected, rise:
While many a wiser, many a worthier Age
Shall view Thyself--in thy transcendent Page:
That Page--which Envy's venom'd Shafts shall soil,
And mock Time's cankering Tooth's unceasing Toil--
That Page--which, like Vesuvius, flows in Flame!
Type of the Soul that animates thy Frame!
That Page--by every Virtue deep imprest,
Which lights thy Countenance, and warms thy Breast![240]
Sweet as thy Smile, and as thy Speech refin'd--
Pure as thy Heart, elastic as thy Mind--”

 

”For the critics' cool reception of Louise, see Ashmun,
129-30.

”See ppp 1:70-71.

”In this line, Weston may be paying tribute to Miss
Seward's admiration for Pope's practice of taking "the in-
verted order of the words and the natural one alternately."
Also, in this and the following two lines, he uses another

115

Bright as those Living Gems "of Ray serene"-- ”
Melodious as thy Voice, majestic as thy Mein!

But what avails all Beauty? Genius? Worth?
Daughters of Heav'n! Bow down to sons of Earth!
Mere Clods of Clay, (whose Minds, inert and dark,
No Beam illumes--no vivifying Spark!)

When Luna fills her Horne, in judgement plac'd

O'er the wide Realms of Science--Fancy--Taste--

In airy Vatican sit, triple-crown'd,

Indulgences to sell--or deal Damnation round!

Their venal Code admits no saving Clause [250]
For Merit--scorning to suborn Applause:

All--All they doom--unkowing how to spare--

The Great, the Wise, the Good, the Brave, the Fair!

Thy chaste, thy moral, thy enchanting Page
Attracts full oft their Impotence of Rage:

And Let the Maniacs fulminate their Spleen
Against thy Laurels of eternal Green--

While, in the Graces'--in the Muses' Love--
Secure, thou smil'st--triumphant from above!
Thus some poor Ideot at the glorious Sun [260]

Lances the puny Lightning--of a Gun!

Vain of the momentary Thunder's Sound.

And wrapt in deep'ning Shades that wreathe around,

“Lo! yon proud Orb--(he cries) no longer proud--

"Shorn of his Beams, and glimmering through a Cloud!"

The God-~rejoicing in his Heavenly Way,

Shines On--and brightens still--to more Distinguish'd
Day! J. W.

 

16.

Mr. Urban, Solihull, March 6. [1790]

 

"The Ides of March are come:"” and I must still "procras-

 

tinate my Proofs," of Pope's "Villainy."”--I am not insen-

sible of the Triumph which I shall afford to M. F. and to

 

feature of Pope's poetry that Miss Seward admired: he places
"the spirited accent upon the first syllable," Letter 1b. p.
8.

”Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard,"
53.

”Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III.i.1. Quoted in response
to Miss Seward's reference to "The promissory "‘Ides of
March,'" Letter 11, p. 96.

”Letter 11. p. 95. Read "Mr. Weston still
procrastinates his proofs, that Pope was an execrable

villain."

116

those who fancy, with him, that the "Proofs" are only with-

 

held, because I am not able to produce them. That Triumph
will, however, be short.--The perfect Propriety, and extreme
Delicacy, of my procrastination will, on the Perusal of your
Magazine for April, be acknowledged by every Reader, pos-
sessed of Sense and Candour.

When I promised to answer M. F.'s Challenge in your
present Number, I could not possibly foresee the irremediable
Calamity which has fallen on my most amiable Opponent*: and
which, though so long expected, will require even all Her
Fortitude and Resignation to support.”

Her last very severe Letter must not pass unnoticed: and
I cannot (for Reasons which will appear) produce my "Proofs"
until my Correspondence with pep is finally closed.--The
present moment would be extremely improper for that Pur-
pose.--Far from Me be the Guilt of violating her sacred
Sorrows, by the unpleasant Remonstrances of injured Pride, or
by the peevish lamentations of lacerated Sensibility.

J. Weston.

 

 

*In my Poetical Epistle to whom, inserted in your last.
your Compositor, by mistaking a Letter, has rendered totally
unintelligible what was already, I fear, more than suffi-
ciently obscure.

"Its dear Twin sparkler, with impassion'd gaze,"

should have been

"Its dear Twin-sparkles," &c. [Poem "To Miss Seward,"
180, Letter 15, p. 113. Weston's memory fails him. The pm
printed "sparkles".]

”The death of Anna Seward's father. See p. 112n.

 

117

17.
Mr. Urban, Solihull, ppiil 2;. [1790)

I will not return the Compliment paid me by my fair
Antagonist, and say that eyeiy Position she advances in her
last Letter is open to Confutation: but I will venture to
affirm that mepy of them are so.--I am obliged to depart from
my first intention of closing my Correspondence with her,
previous to the Production of my Evidence of Pope's Baseness
of Heart--(for how pep I close it?). I shall, therefore, in
Imitation of Miss Seward, reserve my "Comments" on her latest
Remarks, until she shall have published the threatened Confu-
tation: and only state my real Reason for the Delay of my
promised "Proof."--That Reason was--Delicacy.

M. F's first Attack on me followed Miss Seward's third
Epistle, in your Magazine for June.--” The Lady had a prior
Claim to my Attention, and to pee I accordingly attended.--
Before I had made any great Progress in my Defence, M. F.
thought proper to renew the Attack: and in such a Way that I
found a tedious, and inglorious Paper-War, with anonymous
Correspondents, must ensue, if the "Proof" were to leave any
Room for Cavil or Contradiction: and I judged it necessary
”to take especial Care that it should be unquestionable."”

Discarding, of Course, every idea of bringing forward
Pope's Meanness to Broome, Hypocrisy to Hughes and Hill,

Treachery to Bolingbroke, Baseness to Welsted, Lord Harvey

 

”Letter 2, pp. 20-22 and Letter 1c. Pp. 13-20.
”Letter 11, p. 96.

 

118

[Hervey] and Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and Ingratitude to
Chandos” and Addison--(Facts--the Truth of which has been
disputed)--I determined to confine myself to one substantial
Instance of his Villainy, which, standing recorded by Him-
self, should laugh to Scorn the very Possibility of Denial.--
But the Subject unfortunately happened to be of a Nature so
peculiarly horrible and disgusting, as to render a Discussion
of it--in a Letter intended for the Perusal of a Lady--
impossible.

Joseph Weston.

To M. F.

Solihull, ppiil 25. [1790)

As this is the last Notice which I intend to take of an
enonymous Correspondent, I will endeavour to part with you,
in tolerable Good-humour, and restrain my Pen from that
Severity of Censure to which I cannot help thinking some
Parts of your last Letter entitled.--I know not from what
Cause, you chuse to persist in your Supposition that I have
an high opinion of my own Talents: but, whether your Conjec-
ture in that Respect be right or wrong, I hope your Charge of
Inhumanity is undeserved. I thought that I had alledged such
Reasons for my execrating the Memory of a jealous Tyrant as

would have secured me from a Eepetition of that Accusation.

 

”For John Hughes (or possibly Jabez Hughes) and Aaron
Hill see Appendix to EppA 5:2.283n.: for John Hervey, first
Baron of Ickworth, see fig 4:2.1.6: for James Brydges, Duke of
Chandos see Epe 3.2:99n.

 

119

As you think the Term "Adversary"” inapplicable to a
Person who maintains an Opinion adverse to one's own, you
have my free Leave to change it for any other which you may
like better.--If ypp, Sir, are ignorant of my "Drift," on "my
Introduction of Job's Wife,"” I fancy that you are the pply
Reader of Mr. Urban's unequalled Miscellany who is in that
Predicament!--Had You studied Pope‘s Character with Half the
Attention which l have, you might have spared your elegant
Sarcasms on that Subject.--Amidst that infamous Farrago of
bold Assertion, artful Equivoque, sly Subterfuge, and gross
Misrepresentation, which has rendered almost every Page of
the Preface, Advertisement, Letter to the Publisher.
Testimonies of Authors, and Notes, which accompany the Dun-
ciad, "inimitable"”--you might, perchance, have discovered
that very many of the supposed Dunces were ppi the Aggres-
sors: and that--of those Few who meme--the Punishment ip;
tended to be inflicted bore no Manner of Proportion to the
Degree of Provocation: a most flagrant Instance of which I
shall presently produce--to justify my Execration of your
Idol.

Although I cannot agree with you, Sir, you say that
Miss Seward "hath incontestably appreciated the distinctive
Merits of Dryden and Pope," yet I am far from contesting the
Propriety of your pemi Opinion--viz. that, "if you had vainly

aimed at any Contest with her, you might be accused of most

 

”Letter 13. p. 101.

”Letter 13, p. 103.

”Miss Seward first uses this adjective in Letter 8, p.
37, and "M----s" quotes her in Letter 12, p. 97.

120

egregious Folly."”
The poetic Department of the Magazine” which contains

your Abuse of myself, and Praise of my amiable Adversary,

 

evinces that "l can look up to this elegant Poetess, justly
seated on the Top of the Aonian Mountain," with as much
"Admiration," and with as little "Envy," as You can.”

But to the point in question.

The following is extracted from an early Edition of the
Dunciad, Book III.”

"Behold yon Pair, in Strict Embraces join'd:
How like in manners, and how like in mind!
Fam'd for Good-Nature, Burnet, and for Truth:
Ducket for Pious Passion to the Youth.
Equal in Wit, and equally Polite,
Shall this a Pasquin, that a Grumbler write;
Like are their merits, like rewards they share,
That shines a Consul, this Commissioner. [5:3.173-80.)

REMARKS.

V.175. Fam‘d for good nature, Burnet, &c.
Ducket for pious passion ip the youth]

The first of these was son of the late bishop of E.
Author of a weekly Paper called ppe Grumbler, as the other
was concerned in another called Pasguin, in which Mr. Pope
was abused with the late Duke of Buckingham and Bishop of
Rochester. They also joined in a piece against his first
undertaking to translate the Iliad, intitled Homeiides, by
Sir Iliad Dogrel, printed 1715.”

Mr. Curll gives us this further account of Mr. Eurnet.
"He did himself write a Letter to the E. of Halifax, inform-
ipg_ pie Loidship (as he tells him) pi what pe knew much

 

”Letter 13, p. 103. The poem 1p Miss Seward (Em 60:160-
63), is reproduced above, 109-15.

”February, 1790, Weston's poem "To Miss Seward." See
above pp. 109-15.

”Letter 13, p. 103.

”Weston quotes an edition of Eunciad A, other than the
first, in which letters were used instead of names. For
Pope's treatment of Thomas Burnet and George Duckett see the
Introduction, pp. cvii-cxiii. The "REMARKS" are Pope's note
to line 175 and include the epigram.

”Published as Ipe Hump Qonferepce in 1715, changed to

Eomeridee in 1716.

121

better before. And he published ip pie pmp name several
political pamphlets, A certain Information of a certain Dis-
course, a Second Tale of a Tub, &c. All which it is strongly
afirmed were written py Colonel Ducket. Curll, Eey, p. 17.
But the author of the Charactepe pi ppe Times tells us, the
political pieces were not approved of by his pmp father, the
Reverend Bishop.

Of the other works of these Gentlemen, the world has
heard no more than it would of Mr. Pope's, had their united
laudable endeavours discouraged him from his undertaking.
How few good works had ever appeared (since men of true merit
are always the least presuming) had there been always such
champions to stifle them in their conception? And were it
not better for the Publick, that a million of monsters should
come into the world, which are sure to die as soon as born,
than that the Serpents should strangle one Hercules in his
cradle?

 

 

The Union of these two Authors gave Occasion to this
Epigram:
Burnet and Ducket, friends in Spite,
Came hissing forth in verse:

Both were so forward, each would write.
So Dull, each hung an a--

Thus Amphisboena” (I have read)
At either end assails:

None knows which leads, or which is led,

For both heads are but tails. [5:3.175-76n.)

Here is a Charge of the most atrocious, the most unnatu-
ral, the most detestable Kind, brought against Colonel Duc-
ket: for it is not possible for any one possessed of common
Sense, and common Modesty, ip sign his name to an Opinion
that Pope meant really to praise Burnet for Good-nature and
for Truth, or that he intended to celebrate the Wit or the
Politeness of either Party. (The beastly Epigram settles
that Point beyond all Controversy.)--The whole Passage is
evidently ironical, and clearly calculated to impress the
Reader with an Idea that both were the Reverse of Witty--both

the Eeverse of Polite: that Burnet was famed for Ill-nature

 

and Falsehood: and that Ducket was iamed for an impious

 

”"A serpent supposed to have two heads." Johnson, 212;
tipnary.

122

Passion for the Youth.--It only remains to examine whether
this horrid Accusation was well-founded or not.

In Consequence of the Colonel's spirited Conduct on this
extraordinary Attack, Pope found it convenient to add the
following Note.

'V. 167. [176]--for pious Passion to the Youth--The
Verse is a literal Translation of Virgil, Nisus amore pi_
pueri--and here, as in the Original, applied to Friendship:
that between Nisus and Euryalus is allowed to make one of the
most amiable Episodes in the World, and surely never was
interpreted in a perverse Sense. But it will astonish the
Reader to hear, that on pp other Occasion than this Line, a
Dedication was written to this Gentleman to induce him to
think something further. "Sir, you are known to have all
that Affection for the beautiful Part of the Creation which
God and Nature designed--Sir, you have a very fine Lady--and.
Sir, you have eight very fine children"--&c. (Dedic. to
Dennis Rem. on the Rape of the Lock.)” The Truth is,the poor
Dedicator's Brain was turned upon this Article: he had taken
into his Head that ever since some Books were written against
the Stage, and since the Italian Opera had prevailed, the
Nation was infected with a Vice not fit to be named: He went
so far as to print upon the Subject, and concludes his argu-
ment with this Remark, "that he cannot help thinking the
Obscenity of Plays excusable at this Juncture: since, when
that execrable Sin is spread so wide, it may be of Use to the
reducing Men's Minds to the natural Desire of Women." Den-
nis, Stage defended against Mr. pem, p. 20.” Our Author
Solemnly Declared, he never heard any Creature ppi the Dedi-
cator mention That Vice and This Gentleman together.’ [DunA
5:3.176n.)

 

 

What Power of Language can do Justice to the Sentiments
of Indignation which this most impudent Attempt to impose on
the Understanding excites?--However, the Acknowledgment in
the last Line of this fallacious Note signs Pope's Passport

to Everlasting Infamy.--Confessing that he had not even the

 

”Works 2nd ed. (London, 1728). Read "You are known to
have that Respect, Esteem, and Affection for the most
beautiful Part of the Creation which God and Nature design'd
we should have. . .These Qualities which have recommended You
to a very fine Lady, to whom You have been married many
Years, and by Whom You had Eight Children."

”Hooker 2:314. Pope condensed Dennis's remarks.

 

123

smallest Ground for the Diabolical Charge, yet conscious
that, while the most obnoxious Couplet remained, none but
ideots ppplg avoid seeing the Matter in its true Light, he.
at last, thought it expedient to expunge it, and to alter the
Notes in the following Manner.

"Behold yon Pair, &c.) Qpe of these was Author of a
weekly Paper called The Grumbler, as the other was concerned
in another called Pasguin, in which Mr. Pope was abused with
the Duke of Buckingham, and Bishop of Rochester. They also
joined in a Piece against his first undertaking to translate
the Iliad, intituled Homerides, by iii Iliad Doggrel, printed
1715." (Eleven succeeding Lines are omitted.) "Of the other
Works of their Gentlemen, &c."--(to the End of the Paragraph.)

"The Union of these two Authors gave Occasion to this
Epigram:

" ----- and Ducket, friends in Spite, &c." (to the End of
the Epigram).

"After many Editions of this Poem, the Author thought
fit to omit the Names of these imp Persons, whose Injury to

him was of so old a Date. In the Verses he omitted, it was
said that one of them had a pious Passion for the other. It
was a literal Translation of Virgil, &c." [DunB 5:3.179n.)

Mark, gentle Reader, the curious Reason intimated for
the Omission of peep Names in the Poem, while ppe of them is
retained in the Note!--But Ducket was probably dead, and
Burnet was probably become a judge!”

And now, Mr. M. F. I take a final Leave!

If, after this unembellished Statement of facts, you pep
believe that Pope did ppi attempt to fix this most loathsome
and most horrible Stigma on an innocent Man--or, being con-
vinced that he pip attempt it, pep believe him to be less
than a Villain--you are welcome to ipipm Me as vile a Slan-
derer, and as consummate a Scoundrel, as I have proved Him to

be! Joseph Weston.

 

”Duckett died in 1732: Burnet was appointed a judge for
the court of common pleas in 1741.

124

18.

Lichfield Close. June lp. [1790]

 

 

Once for all, Mr. Urban, permit me to observe, that Mr.
Weston's original.charge against Pope remains wholly unsup-
ported. In the controverted Preface to the Woodmen of Arden,
its Author professes to have found "amusement, alloyed with
indignation, in tracing the insidious arts which Pope suf-
fered his friends to practise to undermine the fame of Dry-
den, and exalt himself into the vacant chair."”

Mr. Weston has been repeatedly called upon to exhibit

some of these numerous proofs. He closes the controversy

 

without producing one of them. It is plain, therefore, that
those proofs had only an imaginary existence in the strange
violence of his prejudices: and Pope stands clear of the
imputed meanness: for it is contrary to all justice, when a
person is arraigned of one crime, to condemn him upon evi-
dence of another, which is perfectly dissimilar.

That Pope, when incensed, was often vindictive to a
faulty extreme, has never been denied: but what has his
conduct to an absurd fellow, who had abused him, to do with

the imputed treachery to Dryden? How does that prove him the

 

artful source of those numerous critical decisions, which
pronounced Pope the brilliant reformer of Dryden's vulgari-
ties, and slovenly versification?

Mr. Weston once read to me an abusive poem of Welsted's

 

”Letter 9c. pp. 57-58. Miss Seward conflates Weston's
words.

125

upon Pope.” It was by no means ill-written: but it attempted
to deprive the latter of every pretension to genius and
worth. Mr. Weston acknowledged that this Philippic passed
the press before the Dunciad, and the priority acquits Pope
of every thing like baseness to Welsted. Where is the base-
ness of retorting the charge of poetic inability in lines
whose wit and spirit prove the injustice of the first accus-
er?

In p. 386,” my antagonist challenges me to produce that
confutation of his arguments in his letter, p. 27,” to which
I have said they are given. Thus then--he triumphantly
quotes the original in vindication of that vulgar harangue
which Dryden has made for the Empress of Heaven.

"When labouring still with endless discontent,

The Queen of Heaven did thus her fury vent:

Then am I vanquish'd, must I yield, said she,

And must the Trojans reign in Italy?

So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force,

Nor can my power divert their happy course.

Shall [Cou'd] angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,

The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men?

Shall [She)," &c. [pp 4:1.54-62.)

The original writer is certainly responsible for the
sentiments and imagery: but for the manner in which they are

expressed in another language the translator eolely. We all

know that vulgar expressions may convey the sense of a for-

 

eign author, though that sense may have been primarily given

 

”Palaemon ip Celia ei Bath, pm the Triumviiate (1717).
See DunA 5:2.293n.

”Letter 17, p. 117.

”Letter 9d. Pp. 70-89. The quotation from Dryden's
Aeneid which follows is on pp. 73-74. Weston quoted lines 56-
75. Miss Seward misquotes the beginnings of lines 60 and 62.

 

126

in words that have no congenial meanness. If Mr. Weston does

not feel the verbal bathos of the "said she" in the third

 

line, and the "burn the navy"--"drown the men," in the last,
his insensibility gives proof that poetic genius and poetic
taste may be disunited. How easy to express Virgil's sense
as faithfully with less inelegance!

When, with the dark'ning frown of angry pride,

In haughty tone, imperial Juno cried:

Then am I vanquish'd, shall the Trojans gain.

Triumphant empire on the Latian plain?

While gods and men my powerless efforts see.

Jove and the Fates this hated doom decree.

Shall injur'd Pallas, with avenging aim.

O'erwhelm the Greeks, and wrap their fleets in flame?

Shall she, &c.

If the above lines equally express Virgil's meaning.
without the ludicrous inelegance that disgrace Dryden's, Mr.
Weston's first argument is confuted.

His other pleas, which seek to prove the certainty that
Dryden was not the translator of the Epistle from Helen to
Paris, though he avows it solely his through all the
editions, are set aside by those passages, of egual
inelegance, which have been already cited in the course of
this controversy, from the Hind and Panther, Ode on the Death
of Anne Killigrew, the Virgil,” and other of his works. Upon

most of those quotations Mr. Weston wisely makes pp comment,

willing, doubtless, that his readers should forget them,

 

”Miss Seward quotes from lpe Hind epg ppe Panther (Let-
ter 11. p. 93), and from Dryden's Virgil (Letter 1b, p. 11).
She does not quote from the pie pp ppe Qeath pi Anne
Killigrew, but she does quote Upon ppe Eeath pi ppe

Hastings (Letter 1b, p. 10).

 

F;
”'1
O.-

127

being utterly destructive of his unfor[t)unate assertion,
that the style of the great Dryden is never injudiciously
debased. My edition of Dryden's Works contains no second
version of Dido to Aeneas: and the first, from which Mr.
Weston quotes, and calls charming,” appears to me a collec-
tion of vapid, stiff, inharmonious lines, interspersed with a
few beautiful couplets, but all along disgraced with such
- writing as the following, that certainly challenges the worst
lines in the Helen to Paris, and resembles them sufficiently
to leave no doubt, with the unprejudiced, that their origin
is the same.
"Built walls you shun, unbuilt you seek: that land

Is yet to conquer, but you this command.

Suppose you landed where your wish design'd,

Think what reception foreigners would find.

When will your towers the height of Carthage know?

Or when your eyes discern such crowds below?

If such a town and subjects you could see,

Still would you want a wife that [who] lov'd like me."

[me 1:13-16, 21-24.)

Lord Mulgrave could not jingle couplets that less de-
served the name of Poetry: nor is the general style of this
Epistle, which Mr. Weston calls charming, a whit more ele-
vated.

His quotation from Warton” perfectly meets my senti-
ments: the most ample and common expressions are frequently
beautiful when they harmonize with the general style, and

suit the character of the speaker. When they do pot, prosaic

flatness, or ridiculous vulgarity, results from their use.

 

”Letter 9d, p. 79. He quotes from the poem on pp. 82-
83.

”Letter 9d, p. 98.

 

128

The words peep, gipmp, mep, sound ludicrous as they are
applied and combined by the imperial Juno: yet the two first,
from being used in a metaphoric sense, and the last from
different combination, are capable of acquiring great digni-
ty: instance, Galatea on the Sea: vide that celebrated poem
lee Botanic Garden.

"And as the lustre of her eye she turns.
Soft sighs the gale, and amorous Ocean burns."”

Also Pope:
"As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns." [EOM
3.1:l:278.]

And so the word drown in Hayley's beautiful Ode on

 

Howard:
"See that [yon] sweet rustic drown'd in tears."”
And the word mep, in Pope's Homer:
"To gods and men to give the golden day." [pp 9:3.4]

If it is felt, from these examples, that the same words,

 

according to their sense and combinations, may be vulgarly
prosaic, or beautifully poetic, then it remains evident, that
Mr. Weston's observation was not meant to justify Dryden's
style, when it sunk so lpm as in passages frequently quoted
in my letters upon this subject. I question not its having,
in many places, acquired beauty from the use of those common
expressions, that very often were so applied as to disgrace

it.

 

”Erasmus Darwin (Lichfield and London, 1789) 2.425.26.
For Anna Seward's relations with Darwin see Introduction p.
76.

”William Hayley, "Ode Inscribed to John Howard," Eoems
and Plays (1788) 1:131.

129

And now, having produced that confutation of Mr. Wes-
ton's arguments in his former letter, which his latter chal—
lenged, I resolve never more to resume the subject: glad that
no proofs can be brought of meanness used to acquire fame.
which, in so great a writer as Pope, appeared utterly improb-
able. I confess it were to be wished that his disposition
had been as free from acrimony as his verse from imperfec-
tion: nor need such exemption to have robbed the world of the
inimitable Dunciad, since the generality of the corrections
inflicted there are no more incompatible with sweetness of
temper, than the prosecuting a thief who has robbed, or a
ruffian who has assaulted us.

If with a single being, ppi Mr. Weston, it can yei
remain a doubt, whether Dryden's style of versification in
the heroic couplet, or Pope's, be the most happy, let him
compare Dryden's Translation of the first book of Homer's
Iliad and Pope's. He will find the latter conveying, with
brilliant strength and harmonious sweetness, the same sense

in a less number of lines than Dryden, with his feeble Alex-

 

andrines in the middle of sentences, and botching triplets:

the superior conciseness is in a proportion of about eight to

 

twelve. Anna Seward.
19.
Mr. Urban, gan. l_. [1790]

Your known impartiality gives me to hope you will admit

a few more observations on Mr. Weston's defence, and in

130

vindication of Mr. Pope: whom Mr. W. intends to make the
great witness of his own infamous delinguency, and to con-
vince us that he was an "execrable impostor,"” "a foe to
human-kind."” Really, Mr. Urban, I do not see what harsher
terms could be applied to a Nero, a Borgia, a Catiline, a
Chartres,” or any other monster that ever disgraced humanity.
The bitterness of his animosity to Mr. Pope exceeds all
bound. We must suppose that, in Mr. Weston's estimation, Mr.
P. never entertained a good thought, uttered a good word, or
did a good action, through his whole life: and yet there are
abundant proofs to the contrary of all this: and by wit-
nesses, it may be, _e unexceptionable _e, mil. Weston. I
appeal to the candour of your readers in general, whether Mr.

W's prejudice is not most unreasonable and cruel, in suppos-

ing any man, especially such e_ one _e Mr. Pop , so desper-
ately and entirely wicked and infamous as he represents. He

is generally allowed by those who have most studied the human
heart, that no man is so entirely abandoned as totally to
exclude every ray of goodness, or none so perfect as to be
exempt from failings: but, when the balance of merit and
demerit has for its object eppp e mep _e Eppe, who can hesi-

tate to decide? for few, like him, have equal attestation

from the wise and good. With Mr. Urban's leave, my

 

”Weston simply called Pope "execrable," Letter 2, p.
20n. "M. F." lengthened the epithet to "execrable impostor,"
Letter 13, p. 102.

”Letter 9b, p. 52.

”Francis Chartres was Prime Minister Robert Walpole's
"runner and informer, known for good reason as 'Rape-Master
General' of Great Britain," Mack, Life 568.

 

131

recollection serves me with a few. No less a man than Lord
Orrery has asserted. "that this 'foe to human-kind, this
execrable Pope,‘ treated his friends with a politeness that
charmed, and a generosity that was much to his honour: every
guest was made happy within his doors: pleasure dwelt under
his roof, and elegance presided at his table."” Lord Orrery
knew the man: he would not hazard such an eulogium at random,
and without due conviction of its justice.

The excellent Addison, or at least a literary associate,
with his approbation, introduces that divine poem the Mes-
siah, in the Spectator, with the following terms: "I will
make no apology for entertaining the reader with the follow-
ing poem, which is written by e gieei genius, e friend pi
mime in the country, who is not ashamed to employ his wit in
the praise of his Maker."” Yet this friend of Addison's, who
thus praiseth his Maker, is Mr. Weston‘s "execrable impos-
ipi," his "ipe ip human-kind!"

It would be no difficult task to adduce testimonies in
favour of Mr. Pope from many of the greatest names of the

last age. Arbuthnot, Atterbury, Swift, Steele, Gay, and many

others, might be brought. But why mention what is so well-

known to all literary men? It would be occupying your valu-
able work unnecessarily. Mr. Weston's ipse dixit, like a
torrent, is to bear down all before it. These men were

nothing more than simple dupes to Mr. Pope's artful

 

”Quoted in Ruffhead, 500.
”Joseph Addison, §pectator 378.

132

duplicity and cunning: like Satan he beguiled them: and they
were foolish enough to esteem him an agreeable companion, an
elegant poet, and a very desirable friend. I felt no "exulta-
tion"” in asking Mr. W. whether he would have attacked Mr.
Pope, had they been contemporaries. I asked a simple ques-
tion, and he has answered it. He will, I hope, excuse me if
I have my doubts. I have known men talk of wonderful prowess
when danger has irreturnably passed by: whose "courage would
have ouzed out at every pore"” under the idea of immediate
contest.

Mr. W. has a very ingenious, I will not call it a happy,
turn, at seeing the worst side of every thing. For instance,
he thinks your anonymous correspondents may be so, for the
leudable purpoee of "venting spleen in snug security:"” and
this amiable motive he more particularly applies to me. He
might, with more truth, justice, and candour, have assigned a
different one: one I dare assert more congenial to the senti-
ments of the majority of your anonymous correspondents, viz;
e modest diffidence. It is not every one, like Mr. W, who
has a eufficient self-confidence to bear the piercing rays of

the meridian sun, or dare to think their Christian and sur-

 

name a sufficient shield pi security, and certain assurance
of applause. Those literary veterans who have attained to

 

”Letter 9b, p. 49. Read "M.F. exultingly asks.”
”Possibly a partial quotation of the speech by Acres,
"my valour is certainly going!--it is sneaking off!--I feel

it oozing out as it were at the palms of my hands!" Richard
Sheridan, The Rivals V.iii. 93-95.
”Letter 9b, p. 51. Read "M.F. . .can give ample Vent to

his Spleen in snug Security."

133

this confidence may properly avail themselves to it, and
their names undoubtedly add weight to their communications.
On the other hand, I am inclined to think that several pieces
are given to the publick by you, anonymously, and which are
thought well of, that would obtain but little notice, were
the obscurity and incelebrity of their authors known: there-
fore, you have very properly determined, that eyeiy pme ip
imie ieepect ought ip pee pie pmp pleasure.

Mr. W. has thought proper to honour some expressions in
my letter in your Magazine, vol. LIX. p. 818, ” with the term
of eppee,” I am not conscious of having betrayed any improper
warmth in that letter: if I have, he may justly blame himself
for it: his attack on my first fairly demanded the retort
courteous: I think I encroached not on the bound of justice
and candour. Had I any other motive than a friendly attempt
to rectify his most rooted prejudice? But if a Seward fails
to convince him, can there be any hope of success to me? If
he can justly call me abusive, what shall we say of the terms
he has applied to the inimitable Eppe? Has our language a
word equal to a just idea of it?

I am now come to Mr. W's favourite rub against me: that
in literary abilities I am not gpiie equal to Miss Seward. I

again and again acknowledge this heinous crime: but that is

 

nothing in extenuation. I may acknowledge, I may confess,
and repent as oft as I please of this enormous pifeppe: Mr.

W. will continue to introduce this favourite topick, and hoot

 

”Letter 7, pp. 32-34.
”Letter 9b, p. 51.

134

me with inferiority at his closing paragraphs: but it is his
way: and every man has his humour. However, there remains
some consolation to me in the thought that I have biethren im
imie inguity: nay, even Mr. W. himself, great as I confess he
is, I am somewhat inclined to think is also not gpiie immacu-
late of the charge. M. F.

* * Mr. Weston's final Answer to Miss Seward, from its

*

extraordinary length, and from its not arriving more early in

the month, is unavoidably postponed to our next.

 

20.
Mr. Urban, Eep. i. [1790]

With satisfaction I read Mr. Morfitt's letter in your
January Magazine.” We might reasonably expect his interfer-
ence in the interesting dispute between Miss Seward and Mr.
Weston. He has interfered, and that in a manly and candid
sort, in a manner that evinces him equally learned and ingen-
uous. I trust, from his mode of writing, he will not deem me
his adversary, though I may happen somewhat to differ from
him.

Notwithstanding Mr. Morfitt prefers the poetry of Dryden
to that of his successor, Pope, he does not acrimoniously
deem the latter execrable, but touches on the moral character

of each with a gentle hand, and kindly pleads in excuse for

both. In his opinion, Mr. Dryden was a greater, and yet a

 

”Letter 10, pp. 64-69. All "M.F.'s" references to
Morfitt are to this letter.

135

less, poet than Mr. Pope: greater in his sublime flights.
lesser in his depressive flats: and I believe his opinion is
founded on justice, and accurate discrimination.--Mr. Pope‘s
verses, though beautiful and excellent, he thinks tiresome,
from their uniformity, and he "pants for hill and dale."
Certainly contrast and variety are as necessary to relieve
the "mind‘s eye" as that of the body. With him and Mr.
Weston I agree, that an uniform, mellifluous flow of the
finest verse wearies the attention, and unavoidably brings on
satiety. Nature exhibits an inexhaustible variety in all
around us: we have light and darkness, good and evil, pleas-
ure and pain, and a thousand other contrasts: of which we
constantly experience the necessary alternation, and without
which, in our present state, we should undoubtedly be miser-
able, for we live but by change.

Mr. Morfitt complains of his satiety by the time he has
read 200 pages of Mr. Pope: but I cannot consider this as
decisive against the excellence of the poetry: that it evi-
dences the frailty of the human intellect, most certainly
must be allowed, and demonstrates our inability to bear a
long succession of beautiful ideas without approaching fa-
tigue. Sure I am, I never could read 200 pages of epy epim;
pip pm epy subject, poetry pi pipee, without a desire of
relieving the attention by a walk, or business of some kind.
Undoubtedly, the modern mode of printing poetry, especially
in our three-shilling and half-crown quartos, much favour

one's getting through a good number of pages at a sitting:

136

for

Deep margins, large letters, and lines at a distance.
Stead of Genius prolific, become their assistance:”

and, by-the-bye, Mr. Urban, they seem more calculated to
attack the pocket than to improve the head, or amend the
heart.

I cannot altogether agree with Mr. Weston, or Mr. Mor-
fitt, that Mr. Pope's poetry is so uniformly destitute of the
sublimer flights: nor can it plead a total exemption from the
"depressive flats" which these gentlemen think so essentially
necessary to constitute genuine poetry. No one appeared more
sensible of this necessary variety than Mr. Pope himself:
witness his letter to ppe flelem, July 2, 1706, where he says.
"I am convinced, as well as you, that one may correct too
much: for in poetry, as in painting, a man may lay colours,
one upon another, till they stiffen and deaden the piece.
Besides, to bestow heightening on every part is monstrous.
Some parts ought to be lower than the rest: and nothing looks
more ridiculous than a work where the thoughts, however
different in their own nature, seem all on a level. It is
like a meadow newly mown, where weeds, grass, and flowers are
all laid even, and appear undistinguished. I believe too,
that sometimes our first thoughts are the best, as the first
squeezing of the grapes makes the finest wine." Memoirs of
A. Pope, by Wm. Ayre, Esq. 1745, 12 mo. [sic] p. 25.”

A poet, who thus expresses himself in a letter to his

”Unidentified.
”1:24-25.

137

friend, I can never think would be so totally unmindful of
his own delcared sentiments as directly to give into that
extreme and never-varying uniformity he had so justly and so
properly condemned.

One might suppose this identical one Walsh was just now
announced to the world by Mr. Weston, who, from his deeper
researches into poetical anecdote, had made the discovery of
Pope's poetical adviser to correctness: yet this one Walsh,
this literary non-descript, is well known to have been a
gentleman of considerable merit and consequence, author of
several esteemed pieces in prose and verse, and, in the
opinion of Mr. Weston's favourite Bard, even Dryden himself
(in his Postscript to Virgil), the best critick of our nation
in his time.” That he was high in the estimation of Mr. Pope
is clear from the following lines:

"Walsh, the Muse's judge and friend,

Who justly knew to blame or to commend:

To failings mild, but zealous for desert,

The clearest head, and the sincerest heart,

This humble praise, lamented shade, receive,

This praise at least a grateful Muse may give.

The Muse whose early voice you taught to sing,

Prescrib'd her heights, and prun'd her tender wing,
(Her guide now lost) no more attempts to rise,

 

But in low numbers short excursions tries." [EOC 1:729-
38.]
Yours, &c. M. F.
21.
Mr. Urban, Solihull, Sept. 25. [1790]

As my fair Opponent, like the Czarina,” claims a

 

”Dramatic Eoesy 2:261.
”In the spring of 1790, the Russians, who were expanding

138

Victory, and sings 1e Eepm, for the supposed Destruction of
my Sail Of The Line, it remains for me to retaliate on her
Fleet Of Gallies: but, though certain of Success: I shall not
shout lp Triumphe, I assure you, Mr. Urban.--I am abundantly
too sensible of the Risk which I run, of losing that Friend-
ship which I prize above all Things--save Honour and Con-
science--to indulge even the smallest Degree of Exultation on
the Occasion.--And yet my Apprehensions may, perhaps, have no
solid Foundation: I imimm that I know Miss Seward suffi-
ciently to hope that, when she sees the List of imperfect
Selections, inaccurate Assertions, and erroneous Quotations,
which Self-defence, and Regard for Truth, oblige me to pro-
duce--however she may be pained at the Sight of so many
Inadvertencies of which she had no Suspicion, she will, with
that Nobleness of Mind which so eminently distinguishes her,
Forgive the Step which I am compelled to take.

She will probably be the more inclined to pardon when
she recollects that some of those Mistakes which I now bring
forward, with Sensations to which no Mode of Expression can
do Justice, I ppplg have brought forward long ago, had not
Tenderness to her Sex, and Veneration for her own Talents and
Virtues, induced me to waive those little Advantages which

superior Attention to the Subject had given me over her, and

 

their borders under the aggressive Czarina Catherine II, were
badly beaten in two battles with the Swedish. The first was
a sea battle: the second, on land. After the second defeat,
the Czarina claimed a victory, which the pp noted "has all
the marks of a fabricated account, to appease the Russian
people" (60:557). Weston seems to have conflated the two
battles.

139

made me desirous rather of a giemm Battle than of a Conquest.

Her Forgiveness, I would fain flatter myself, may be
complete--when she shall be convinced that, through the Un-
guardedness of some Expressions in her two last Letters, the
Person whom she has honoured with her Praise, and blest with
her Friendship, is in Danger of being considered by Posterity
as a tasteless, prejudiced, lying, envious Being, "aspersing
Virtue, and endeavouring to shroud the Light of Genius."”--
This undesirable Character would inevitably be my Lot, were I
silently to pass over those unfortunate Letters.--The Pro-
priety of the first Brace of Epithets I might indeed contest,
but not be able to disprove: nor would it be very material.
perhaps, to do so: but it is easy, and of infinite Impor-
tance to me, to demonstrate the Injustice of the latter Pair.

My gentle Antagonist may aver, that she is not conscious
of having attributed to me either Envy or Falshood: neverthe-

less my Enemies might very excusably infer that she has--from

 

the united Force of the following Paragraphs, in her Letter,
p. 120:”

"Pope's Severity to the Dunces, who had maligned
him, was just Chastisement. They gave the Provocations
[provocation".] they distilled their Venom upon his
immortal Laurels, though it had no Power to canker them.
He formed a mock-heroic Poem in Consequence of their
Malice, and made his Enemies ridiculous to all Ages.
Such ever be the Doom of Envy aspersing Virtue, and
endeavouring to shroud the Light of Genius!

"Mr. Weston still procrastinates his pioofs, that
Pope was an execrable Villain, the insidious Underminer
of pie Fame, whom he professed to honour. My Antagonist
has closed the Correspondence with me, without producing

 

”Letter 11, p. 95.
”Pp. 95-96.

140

them. He owed it to his own Character, and to the
Demand I made upon him for those Proofs, to have pro-
duced them in the first Page of his Reply. To assert
Dryden's Style advantaged by its frequent Vapidness and
Vulgarity is pmi Want of Taste for pure and elegant
Composition. From unsupported Accusation, brought
against the moral character of a fine Writer, every one
will turn indignant, who can feel his Beauties, and be
grateful to the Delights they have afforded.

"Ere I make any Comments upon Mr. Weston's Letter
in the last Magazine, where every Position [he advances]
is open to Confutation, I shall wait the promissory Ides
of March for those Proofs which my Friendship for Mr.
Weston almost induces me to wish he may be able to
produce. It behoves him to take especial Care that they

be unguestionable."

 

No Apropos, ’tis true, appears to sink the End of the
first Paragraph to the Beginning of the second:--but the
connective Chain (like the sympathetic one which binds Heart
to Heart), though unseen, is ieli. Permit me, therefore, Mr.
Urban, to justify the Motives which influenced me in my
Attack upon Pope's moral Character: and account for my Detes-
tation of his Principles and Conduct.

Miss Seward supposes that the Dunciad was written in
Consequence of Insults and Injuries received by him from the
Individuals whom he stigmatizes as Knaves and Fools. Such
once was my Opinion: but, on examining the Preface, Adver-
tisement, Notes, Testimonies of Authors, &c. more closely, I
found so much Reason to suspect the Truth of the Assertions.
and the Fidelity of the Quotations, that I employed much
Time, and no small Assiduity, in procuring the Works of these
same Knaves and Fools: and the Result was--a Total Conviction
of the Baseness and Malignity of the Duncifier's Disposition.

By far the greater Part of the supposed Delinquents (as I

 

141

remarked in a former Letter)” had given him mp reasonable
Cause for Resentment, and the intended Punishment of the
Remainder immeasurably exceeded the Offence.

I plainly discovered that many a disingenuous--nay, many
a Villainous Artifice was brought into Play--to degrade the
Abilities, and blacken the Characters, not only of those who
had spoken, or written, slightingly of himself or his Works,
but also of those who had mpi: and his Treatment of whom
must, therefore, arise from other Causes than those which he
thought proper to assign: partly, perhaps, from Envy or
Jealousy of those Talents which, if not timely crushed, might
one Day rival his own--and partly, perhaps, from a parasi-
tical Desire to please such of his Friends as hadbeen ani-
madverted upon by the Writers whom he affects to hold in
Contempt.

But, whatever might be his Inducement, his Conduct I
found to be such as inspired me with Horror and Indignation:
and I fancied that I should render an essential Service to
the Cause of Virtue and Humanity, by exposing the Hypocrisy
of his Pretences and the Villainy of his Practices.--Full of
this Idea, I constructed a Poem, a large Portion of which I
appropriated to the Vindication of those whom he has so
grossly traduced in that wicked Libel which my amiable but
misguided Friend calls the "inimitable Dunciad:"”--intending
to publish it with Notes and Illustrations.--But, when the

first Ebullitions of Resentment had subsided, and I came

 

”Letter 17, pp. 117-23.
”Letter 18, p. 129.

142

coolly to meditate on the Magnitude of the Undertaking, and
its probable Consequences, my Ardour for Publication was
somewhat abated.

I reflected on the Nature of the human Mind: I
considered that no one parts with a favourite Opinion, long
cherished, without Reluctance: that violent are the Struggles
against Conviction, when one is pre-disposed mpi to be
convicted:” that Arguments and Deductions produce Effects
only in Proportion to the Extent of Understanding possessed
by those on whom they are intended to operate: that, even
supposing I should surmount the difficulties which Pope's
consummate Cunning had thrown in my Way, and be eple, to
trace this Proteus through all his shifting Forms, and shew
him at last--to the candid and discerning--in his own proper
Shape, what Recompence was I to expect?--The most violent
Abuse from the Unconvinced--and very frigid Approbation from

my Proselytes.--'Tis hard to forgive an Attempt (and a suc-

 

cessful one) to appear more wise or more diligent than
ourselves: and they who could not decently deny the Force of
my Conclusions might doubt, or pretend to doubt, the Integri-
ty of my Motives:--they who were obliged to own that Pope mee
a bad Man might wonder, or affect to wonder, what good Pur-
pose could be answered by proving him one.

I was staggered by these and similar Reflections: and I
let year after Year pass away, without coming to any Resolu-

tion.--At length Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets appeared:

 

”Weston corrects "convicted" to "convinced" in Letter
25, p. 163.

143

and you may guess, Mr. Urban, my Surprize and Pleasure at
finding his Sentiments of Pope's Disposition in so many
respects Coincide with mine!”--But, attentively as he had
studied the Poet's Character, I had studied it yet mpie
attentively: and will frankly own that I felt no small Grati-
fication in the Consciousness of having anticipated almost
all his Observations, and of having made many others which
had escaped even pie scrutinizing Vigilance.

Ten Years more have elapsed: and I have had abundant
Reason to congratulate myself on my Prudence, in forbearing
to publish what would have subjected Me to twenty Times the
Obloquy to which his honest Investigtion of Pope's Merits
exposed Him: for not his venerable Age--not his exemplary
Piety--not even the Obligations which the Literature of his
Country owes him, and must for ever owe him, could secure him
from Abuse, which poured in Torrents from the polluted Pens
of ignorant and tasteless Scribblers: who chose to ascribe
that Conduct to Emyy which, my own Feelings tell me, sprung
from a very different Source.--What then had not I to appre-
hend, who, convinced of the Satyrist's radical Depravity,
could not condescend to disguse my Sentiments, and mention
what I looked upon as diabolical Villeiniee in such guarded
and temperate Terms as Johnson has used, while descanting on
what he considered as mpmem Frailites!

What Kind of Reception were such Observations as These

 

”Johnson discusses Pope's character in Lives 3:196-216.
For a critique of Johnson see Mack, "Reflections of an
Amateur Biographer," Modern Language Review (October 1984)
79.4: xxix-xxx.

144

likely to meet with, from those who had been taught to look
up to Pope, as to a Model of Moral Perfection?

"But--were the Tyrant's title to the Bays

"Of Right Divine, and Merit--past all Praise--

"By Crooked Paths, Posterity shall own,

"And Plottings dire he reach'd his tottering Throne:

"Wit, Wisdom, Worth, and Learning all hewn down,

"He mounted on their Necks, and seiz'd the Crown:

"Nor Rank, nor Innocence, nor Sex, nor Age,

"Could plead Exemption from his envious Rage?

"His jealous Malice aim'd the deadly Blow,

"Draw cansir-like, at Friend as well as Foe!"”

But, though I forbore to print--I did not forebear to
converse--on the Subject which had taken Possession of my
Thoughts so long: and I had the Satisfaction to find my
Arguments carry Conviction to the Breast of many a Worshipper
of Pope.--Even Miss Seward owned to me (many Months before
the Publication of the Woodmen of Arden) that her Favourite
had, through my Means, sunk in her Opinion-- (I mean, with
respect to his Moral Character): and her Attack on me for a
supposed Reflection in my Preface was caused (as I shall shew
presently) by a Misapprehension of my Meaning.

You may recollect, Mr. Urban, an expostulatory Letter
which I addressed to you, (I think in December 1788,)” soon
after your liberal-minded Editor favoured the Poetic World
with a Collection of Welsted's Works.--I took that Opportun-
ity of returning him those Thanks which were so justly his

Due. Pleased to find (from the Memoirs prefixed to the

Poems) that the Author's Disposition was as amiable as his

 

”"Name of a blustering, bragging, character in [George]
Villiers's burlesque 'The Rehearsal. . . . Formed as a
parody on Almanzor in Dryden's Conguest pi Gianada, perhaps
intended to suggest drawing e pem of liquor," QEE.

”Letter 2, p. 20n.

 

145

Poetry was elegant, and glowing with Indignation at the
Injustice and Inhumanity of his Persecutor, I could not
resist the Temptation of expressing unreservedly my Opinion
of the "Execrable Pope."--An anonymous Correspondent's Repre
hension of the Term, and my Justification of it, must be
fresh in your Readers Remembrance.”

Having thus deviated from that cautious Plan which I had
observed for Twenty Years, I went a little further: and, in
my prefatory Essay, which was published a Month or two after-
ward,--after lamenting the Alteration which Poetic Diction
had sustained since the Days of Dryden,--I ventured to insert
the following Paragraphs.

"But so material a Change in the Constitution of
Poetry could not be expected to take Place, without some
Literary Convulsions.--The Disciples Dryden were ardent
in their Veneration, formidable by their Numbers,and
respectable by their Rank.--Violent was the Clamour, and
tedious was the Contest.--Pope, however, in the End--by
Means not very honourable indeed--proved triumphant.

"In the Course of my Researches, I have found
considerable Amusement, (though alloyed, in no small
Degree, by a Mixture of Scorn and Indignation,) in
tracing and developing the insidious Arts which he suf-
fered his Friends to practise, in order to undermine the
Reputation of the deceased Poet, and to asperse the
Characters of his living Supporters: and if a Work,
which, for a longer Term of Years than that prescribed
by Horace, has been incarcerated in my Closet, should
ever escape into Light, Pope's Goodness pi Heart would
be no longer problematical:--at present, I shall content
myself with observing, that He, while the injured Dryden
sunk in the public Estimation, was exalted to the vacant
Chair, and proposed as a bright Exemplar to all succeed-
ing Bards."”

To Miss Seward's Misconstruction of a Passage in the

latter Paragraph the World is, in a great measure, indebted

 

”"M. F.'s" Letter 2, pp. 20-22, and Weston's Letters 9a
and 9b. Pp. 43-52, and 17, pp. 117-23.
”Letter 9c, pp. 57-58.

146

for those very ingenious Strictures which have embellished
your Miscellany: and I--for the painful--painful Task of
animadverting (and, perhaps, with a Degree of Bluntness of
which I am myself unaware) on the Productions of a Lady, my
Respect for whom can only be exceeded by my Reverence for
Truth!

I meant only to affirm, that Pope's Friends practised
insidious Arts, with a View to undermine the Reputation of
the deceased Poet, and to asperse the Characters of his
living Supporters: and that He suffered them so to do:--I did
Not say instigated:--I did Not say--assisted: merely Suf-
fered:--and I thought that I had expressed my Meaning so
clearly as not to eemii of Misconstruction: but I was mis-
taken.

Miss Seward,--in your Magazine for April 1789, Page
292,--says that I accuse Pope of "having meanly influenced
his Friends to exalt his Compositions above their just Level.
for the Purpose of lowering Dryden's and tearing the Laurels
from his Brow."”--lmie Quotation is evidently erroneous in
gypiy 2122: the principal Mistake I have formerly pointed
out, and need not repeat my Remarks.

In your Magazine for February 1790, Page l20--she ob-
serves, "Mr. Weston still procrastinates his Proofs, that
Pope was an execrable Villain, the insidious Underminer of

pie Fame whom he professed to honour."”

 

”Letter 1a, p. 1.
”Letter 11, p. 95. The next quotation is from the same
place.

147

Who, Mr. Urban, would not suppose, from this Sentence,
that I had asserted that Pope Was the insidious Underminer of
Dryden's Fame, and was Therefore an execrable Villain?--She
proceeds--"my Antagonist has closed the Correspondence with
me, without producing them. He owed it to his own Character,
and to the Demand I made upon him for those Proofs, to have
produced them in the iiiei Page of his Reply."

I have carefully examined Miss Seward's three Letters
for April, May, and June, 1789--” and cannot find any such
Demand.--I never Had asserted that Pope was the insidious
Underminer of Dryden's Fame--and, of course, never suspected
that I should be called upon for Proofs.--But, on reviewing
the Passage which gave Rise to this Controversy, I must
confess that it is liable to Misconception:--as the Words "in
order to undermine" mey, by a forced Construction, be made to
refer either to Pope Or his Friends: but, if I had intended
to accuse mim of undermining the Reputation of his great
Master, I should certainly--instead of "the insidious Arts
which he suffered his Friends to practise, in order to under-
mine, &c."--have written--"which he, in order to undermine,
&c. suffered his Friends to practise."

That I had called him "execrable" is true, and that I
have proved him so is equally true--if his accusing a Man of
the vilest Propensity which can debase human Naure, mmile
ponscious pi pie innocence, and then flying to the Sanctuary

of a paltry Equivocation, Can be deemed execrable.

 

”Letters 1a, b, and c, pp. 1-20.

 

148

To prove that Pope really did suffer his Friends to

depreciate the Person from whom he learned all that i valu-

 

 

able in the Structure of his Verse were a very easy Task
indeed.--To mention only One (but that one an Host!)--Miss
Seward cannot forget Swift--the Partner of Pope's Labours and
the Friend of his Bosom:--Nor can she forget his Comparison
of Dryden's Virgil to a Mouse under a Canopy of State:” no--
nor his grave assertion in his Dedication of his Tale of a
Tub to a Prince Posterity:
"I do affirm, upon the Word of a sincere Man, that
there is now actually in Being a certain Poet, called
John Dryden, whose Translation of Virgil was lately
printed in a large Folio, well-bound, and, if diligent

Search were made, for aught I know, is yet to be seen."”
(lg pe continued.)

 

 

”A Tale pi e imp with imp Battle pi imp Eooks, A.C.
Gulthkelch and D. Nichol Smith, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon,
1958) 247.

”Gulthkelch and Smith, 36.

 

149

22.

Mr. Urban, June 15. [1790]

 

Mr. Weston has taken his final leave of me somewhat in
dudgeon: although he says he is in tolerable good-humour,
from his manner I cannot but have my doubts. By addressing
his last letter particularly to me, he in some measure de-
mands of me a reply. His last arrow is now shot against Mr.
Pope: by an unnatural exertion he has drawn his bow to its
utmost stretch, overshot his mark, but the object of his
wrath remains unhurt.

What has Mr. W. told us more than every one acquainted
with Mr. Pope's writings knew before: the whole is extracted
from the notes to the Dunciad, save a few egregiously per-
verse comments, similar to those of his predecessor John
Dennis. It is not possible to confute this tale of slander
better than Mr. Pope's own notes confute it.

It is acknowledged on all hands, that Mr. Pope was
previously abused by Burnet and Duckett.” Mark, reader, they
threw the first stone. Aye: but then Pope ought to have been
passively obedient, perfectly non-resistent: how presumptuous
to defend himself! how execrable to retort! The abuse it
seems was from the firm of Ducket and Co.: they wrote Homer-
ides, Grumblers, Pasquins, &c. It was a sort of amphisboena

abuse: and the satiric retort properly included them both:

 

”Weston discusses the Burnet and Duckett issue in Letter
17. Pp. 120-23. Also, see the Introduction pp. cvii-cxiii.

 

150

"Behold yon pair in strict embraces join'd,

How like in manners, and how like in mind!

Fam'd for good-nature, Burnet, and for truth:

Ducket for pious passion to the youth.

Equal in wit, and equally polite,

Shall this a Pasquin, that a Grumbler write.

Like are their merits, like rewards they share,

That shines a Consul, this Commissioner." [DunA

3:3.173-80.)

The redoubtable John Dennis took it into his head to
annex such an idea to the fourth line (though a literal
translation from a Latin classick) as no one else had thought
of, and particularly pointed it out to the gentleman
concerned, who, it is wonderful, never discovered that mean-
ing himself, if that was the real intent of the satire. What
was the Colonel's "spirited conduct"” on this trying calumny?
No doubt the laws of his country would award him excessive
damages on so just an occasion: had he recourse to this mode?
if not, had he recourse to any? What man alive could be
passive under such obloquy?

I always take it for granted an author knows his own
meaning at least as well as any of his readers: and Mr. Pope
having solemnly declared he had never heard any such detest-
able report coupled with Mr. Ducket's name, or that any such
idea guided him when he penned the obnoxious lines, what
right had Dennis, or any of his successors, to point out to
Mr. Ducket, or to posterity, a meaning which the author

totally disavows, and has used every endeavour to do away?

It is certain, if the matter was as pointed out by Dennis and

 

”Letter 17, p. 120.

151

Mr. Weston, of loading an innocent man with such a vile
accusation, the attempt was a most villainous one, and de-
serving the severest censure. But, on his supposition, what
possible motive can be alledged for Mr. Pope's conduct in
this matter? He must know that the accusation would immedi-
ately confute itself, seeing no one had ever thought or
surmized any such thing, nor was there any possibility of
such a non-entity charge ever being made good, consequently
the ridiculousness and baseness of it must effectualy secure
him from making it: hence I conclude that, in this matter, he
is accused wrongfully.

Mr. Pope finding that Dennis's perverse comment was
certain to be espoused by all his (Mr. Pope's) enemies (and
his enviable talents had made them numerous), and perhaps, on
their authority, taken up by others, thought proper, in later
editions of the Dunciad, to expunge the obnoxious lines, as
the best reparation he could make the injured party: injured
by Dennis greatly more than by himself, whom though he in-
tended to lash for his prior abuse, he could not mean to cast
on him the most odious stigma possible to be cast on man: a
stigma which, as he had never heard surmized by any one, it
is next to impossible he should ever think of applying.

Mr. W, in his Poetical Address to Miss Seward, has
termed Mr. Pope "a weaver of mechanic verse."” We may safely
assert, that few poetical looms have produced such exquisite

work: the fineness of the tissue, the delicacy and durability

 

”Letter 15, poem "To Miss Seward," p. 113, 1.187.

 

152

of the materials, have been rarely equalled.

I shall now also take my final leave of this subject,
and Mr. W: yet in perfect good-will and good-humour, highly
respecting his talents as a poet, a man of learning, and a
gentleman, and wishing to forget his prejudices. If he is
disposed to add "more last words,"” he will meet with no
interruption or reply from me, and may enjoy the great satis-
faction of concluding the dispute. I shall continue to be of
opinion, notwithstanding all that has been alledged, from
John Dennis even to Joseph Weston, that the poetry of Mr.
Pope will continue to be read and admired when the comments
of his enemies are forgotten, or remembered but through the
medium of his celebrity.

Yours, &c. M. F.

 

23.
To M. F.
Sir, Solihull, Qpi. 11. [1790]
Not from a silly Desire to "enjoy the great Satisfaction
of concluding the Controversy,["]” but from a much more
rational Motive, do I depart from my declared Intention, and

once more "notice an anonymous Correspondent."”

 

Our Acquaintance commenced in a very inauspicious

 

”Weston actually wrote, "As this is the last Notice
which I intend to take of an anonymous Correspondent,"
Letter 17, p. 118.

”Letter 22 above, this page. Read "dispute.” Unless
noted otherwise, all references are to this letter.

”Letter 17, p. 118.

153

Manner. An unfortunate, but well-meant, Attempt at Pleas-
antry on my Part, ill-understood, and of Course ill-taken, on
yours, produced a Succession of Animadversions and Recrimina-
tions, the Recollection of which gives me Pain. But for that
little Mistake our Controversy might have been more agreeable
in its Progress, and shorter in its Duration!

Surprized at my Execration of a Man whom you had been
accustomed to contemplate with Reverence, and displeased at
an Expression which you thought disrespectful to yourself,
you have (with a very pardonable Degree of human Frailty)
observed my Conduct with an Eye somewhat jaundiced by Preju-
dice. In last Month's Miscellany you may see a candid State-
ment of my peel Inducement for attacking Pope, and, perhaps,
be inclined to think more favourably of me than you have
hitherto done.”

The chief Source of your Incredulity with Respect to the

 

horrible Tendency of the Lines which you have quoted from the
Dunciad seems to be--the implicit Confidence you repose in
Pope's Veracity: but that Confidence will be shaken to its
Foundation when in the Magazine for next November,” you shall
find Proofs on Proofs that he was in the Habit of slandering
Reputations, and afterwards denying, or explaining away, his
manifest Intention: then--feeling rather shocked than con-

vinced by his "solemn Declarations"--you will perceive that

 

”Weston wrote that he wished to "render an esential
Service to the Cause of Virtue and Humanity, by exposing the
Hypocrisy of [Pope's] Pretences and the Villainy of his
Practices," Letter 21, p. 141.

”Letter 25, pp. 163-73.

 

154

it Was possible for him to attempt the Ruin of a Character.
by an atrocious Artifice--and, on being threatened with per-
sonal Chastisement, that it was Also possible for him to
sneak behind a vile Subterfuge. Indeed, if "solemn Declara-
tions" were to be considered as tantamount to Exculpation.
Tyburn and Botany Bay would frequently have Reason to com-
plain that they were defrauded of their Due.

You "conclude that, in this Matter, Pope is accused
wrongfully--because his Accusation of Ducket would immediate-
ly confute itself, seeing no one had ever thought or surmized
any such Thing, nor was there any Possibility of such a non-
entity Charge ever being made good, consequently the Ridicu-
lousness and Baseness of it must effectually secure him from
making it."

This A[rgu]ment tends to prove that no Accusation pem be
brought unless there be previously Some Ground for it: that
the Impossibility of a Charge being made gppg is an effectual
Security from its being made ei_ell. Evey Day's Experience
evinces the Contrary. One Case, exactly in Point, I shall
produce: and it will settle imei Part of the Business com-
pletely.

An Attack on one of the most distinguished Characters in
the present Century--strikingly similar to that of Pope on
Ducket--was made, in a Poem called "Love in the Suds," by an

Author” whose Abilities and Disposition bore no remote

 

”William Kenrick, Love ip ime Suds, e Iown Eclogue,
”Being the Lamentations of Roscius for the Loss of His Nyky"
(1772). It ran to five printings that year. An unsuccessful
playwright, Kenrick blamed his failure on actor-manager David

 

155

Resemblance to those of your Favourite. The Person aspersed,
after fruitless Endeavours to procure a Retractation, or
personal Satisfaction, applied to the Court of King's Bench.
The Offender well knew that the Masquerade Habit, in which he
had disguised his infamous Charge, would There avail him
Nothing: and warded off impending Vengeance by signing his
Name to an Advertisement in the public Papers, denying that
he ever intended to convey the Meaning which was generally
affixed to his Words, and entirely acquitting the Object of
his unmanly Resentment of even the least Suspicion of the
Propensity with which every Reader of common Sense mmei_ know
he meant to brand him: and with which he owned, in private
Conversation, that he gie_mean to brand him: "I did not
believe him guilty (said he), but I did it ip plague imp
Fellow."” Is it not highly probable that Pope led the Way to
this, and many villainous Attempts of the same Kind? If so--

what has he not to answer for?

I never asserted--I never meant to assert--that Pope

 

ought to have been "passively obedient, perfectly non-resis-
tent," when his poetical Reputation was assailed: I did not
blame him for retaliating: it was only his Mode of Retalia-

tion which I condemned. If Burnet and Ducket Did "throw the

 

Garrick. In the poem, Kenrick insinuated that Garrick and
playwright Isaac Bickerstaff had a homosexual relationship.
Garrick sued Kenrick for libel, but before the case came to
trial, Kenrick published a full apology and Garrick dropped
the suit.

”Kenrick said this to bookseller Thomas Evans shortly
after his public apology in the newspapers in November 1772
(QEE).

 

156

first Stone,"” was a Stab i t e Dark a justifiable Retort?

 

 

 

Is an unjust Censure of one Man's Talents to be returned by a
more unjust Censure of another Man's Morals? Suppose, for
Instance, I were to call you, Sir, Weak--your Anger would
scarcely impel you to resent the Rudeness by calling me
Wicked!

But I forget myself. You think that Pope was mpi guilty
of this Baseness. Yet one, for whose Judgement you have
professed an uncommon Deference, thinks he mee. Consult Miss
Seward's last Letter, and you will find that (with a Degree
of Candour which excites Pleasure, but not Surprize), she
Admits the Charge: though she admits it only by Implication--

for no Lady could discuss such e Subject: but asks. "what it

 

has to do with the imputed Treachery to Dryden?"”

Though You, Sir, seem hardened in your Unbelief, I
flatter myself that not Many of Mr. Urban's Readers remain to
be convinced of Pope's Delinquency. My Remarks on the Pas-
sages which I extracted from the Dunciad, it is true, were
not numerous: partly because my Ideas revolted from the
hateful Subject, and partly because I did not believe man
Arguments necessary to convince even Mediocrity of Under-
standing of the Feebleness and Fallacy of the Pretences which
are furnished by the Notes, which You consider as containing
a complete Confutation of my Charge against Pope: and which I

consider as containing incontrovertible Evidence of his

 

”"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a
stone at her," John 8.7.
”Letter 18. p. 124.

 

157

Guilt.

I have One Inducement, and One only, which will suggest
itself to you before I conclude, for trying once more to set
you right: (for, on second Thoughts, you shall not remain in
your Error till November--unless it be your own Fault). Do
me the Justice, Sir, to believe this Work of Supererogation a
Mark of real Respect! If you chuse to reply, You will "enjoy
the great Satisfaction of concluding the Controversy:" for.
if you avow your Conversion, I peep not rejoin--and, if
otherwise, I mill not:--if, from the Very plain Arguments
which I shall Now urge, Conviction should not instantly flash
in your Face, I should consider the Case as hopeless: and.
reasonably despairing of finding a Cure for Total Blindness,
I should be as little desirous of a further Correspondence
with You, Sir, as I should be of a Conversation with an
Ideot!

You are compelled to grant--that Pope was Serious in his
Praise of Ducket's Attachment to Burnet--or--that he was Not
serious: that the Words "pious Passion" must mean Pure and
Virtuous Friendship--or must mean Gross and Vicious Inclina-
tion: in fine, that he intended to ascribe to Ducket a Virtue
which exalts Human Nature almost to angelic Excellence--or a
vice which degrades it below Brutality. To ascertain in
Which of these Senses the Words in Debate ought to be under-
stood, I shall consider Two Points: either of which would
singly decide the Dispute.

In the first Place, what was Pope's Design when he

constructed the Dunciad?

 

158

Miss Seward shall answer the Question,

"To make his Enemies Ridiculous to all Ages."” And How
was this charitable Purpose to be obtained? Could the Man
who, by laughing In Print at his intended Translation of the
Iliad,” attempted to injure him in Fame and in Fortune (and
whom Pope could not, therefore, be violently disposed to
compliment)--could this Man, I say, be made ridiculous to all
epcceeding Ages, by attributing to him a Virtue which had
been celebrated with enthusiastic Ardour by the Poets, Philo-
sophers, Orators, and Historians, of all former ones? a
Virtue--sanctioned by a bright Example, to which all Chris-
tians ought to look up with reverential Awe?--Impossible!

Shew me, Sir, a single Line in the Dunciad--shew me a
single Line in the "Prose Rubbish"” which encrusts it--in
which a Virtue, or the Shadow of a Virtue, is seriously
imputed to Any of its Heroes!

On this solid Basis, Sir, I might ieei my Argument, and
bid Defiance to Confutation: but, rather than leave a Scant-
limg of a Doubt on any Mind which Can be enlightened, I will
take the superfluous Pains of considering the Connexion of

the questionable Line with that which Precedes, and with that

 

which Follows it.

"Behold yon Pair, in Strict Embraces join'd:
How like in Manners, and how like in Mind!
Fam'd for Good-Nature, Burnet, and for Truth:
Ducket for Pious Passion to the Youth.

Equal in Wit, and equally Polite--"”

 

”Letter 11, p. 95.

”In Homerides, see Letter 17, p. 120.
”Unidentified.

”See Letter 17, p. 120n.

159

To prove the Praise in the imiie and iiiim Lines to be
Ironical--is to prove imei in the fourth Line to be Also
ironical: unless a single Passage in some Author--antient or
modern--can be produced, in which one Line of Serious Praise
is guarded, like a Deserter, before and behind, by two Lines
of Mock Panegyrick!

If you ppplg, sir, be so absurd as to believe that Pope,
smarting from the Perusal of "Homerides," meant to extol
Burnet, im Earnest, for Good-Nature, the auxiliary Epigram
would instantly confute your Absurdity. Are not the Col-
leagues imeie expressly termed "Friends in Spite?" Are they
not imeie expressly stigmatised for Dulness--in direct Oppos-
ition to the Verse which celebrates their Wit? How are these
apparent Inconsistencies to be accounted for?

I, Sir, as well as You, "take it for granted that an
Author knows his own Meaning at least as well as any of his
Readers:" but I do Not take it for granted that he can mean

Good and Evil ei the same Instant. Pope could Not mean that

 

his Enemies could be ei pmpe_Good-Natured and Spiteful--ei
pmpe Witty and Dull! He did know his own Meaning: he Well
knew it: and was willing that his Readers should likewise
know it. But he was treading on tender Ground, and Caution
was requisite. Therefore, to gratify present Resentment,
without making future Inconvenience, he wrapped that Meaning
in oracular Ambiguity--in the Text: and, to rectify Mistake
which inattentive Reader might fall into by supposing his

serious in his Praises, he added an epigrammatic Commentary.

 

160

which sufficiently developed his Intention: and, by contra-
dicting that Part of his Elogium which he Durst, instructed
those Readers to contradict for themeelvee that Part which me
durst Not.

This Supposition removes every Difficulty: the seeming
Incongruity vanishes; the Text and Commentary are reconciled
(irreconcileable on any pimei Principle): and his Conduct is
clear and consistent.

Since then you must allow, of Force, the imiig and iiiim
Lines to be demonstrably Ironical--reflect, Sir, how much out
of Place--out of Time--out of Character--would the fourth
Line appear, if designed to be understood literally as at-
tributing one of the most exalted Qualities which can ennoble
the human Mind to a Man whom he was aiming "to make ridicu-
lous to all Ages!"

The Absurdity is so palpably Gross, and the Inference so
inevitably Conclusive, that I should deem it an Insult to
yourself, Sir, as well as to a large Majority of Mr. Urban's
Readers, to offer another Syllable on the Subject.

And now, Sir. having travelled together one Stage more
than I expected, and each of us, after all our Bickerings on
the Road, having recovered our Good-humour, we will, if you
please, shake Hands, and exchange Forgiveness. Sick and
dejected at the Commencement of my Journey, I felt, perhaps
too sensibly the sarcastic Manner with which you resented a
supposed Affront, and possibly expressed my Sentiments in a
Way rather peevish than polite. If, on re-examining meme;

after what I have written (for I have not Time ei present), I

 

161

shall perceive that to be the Case, I am persuaded, Sir, that
I shall find it much less difficult to procure Your Pardon
than my Own!

Meanwhile be assured that I have already forgiven, and
shall instantly forget, every Expression of yppie that seems
ill-natured--every Inuendo that appears unjust:--even from
your early Intimation, that "I think highly of my own Tal-
ents,"” down to your late Association of me "with the re-
doubtable John Dennis."

Obliged as I feel myself by your parting Civilities, I
can, in Return, afford You, Sir, Praise of a much more exalt-
ed Kind: as I sincerely give you Credit for Goodness of
Heart: that inestimable Jewel, before whose living Lustre all
intellectual Endowments, all literary Attainments, the Ele-

gancies of Poetry, and the Subtleties of Criticism, fade

 

away--like Stars before the rising Sun! Joseph Weston.
24.
Mr. Urban, Oct. 10. [1790)

Without entering into the controversy between two excel-
lent Friends, of whom the one is universally esteemed, the
other universally beloved, I send you a Poem by Welsted,
which was unhandsomely sneered at by Pope, and which the

industrious Editor of his Works” laments that he never could

 

”"M. F." wrote, "those shining talents he is confessedly
master of," Letter 7, p. 34.
”John Nichols.

 

162

obtain*. To Eim also it may be acceptable to know. that
Welsted's comedy, "The Dissembled Wanton," was acted, at the
same period it was published, yii. 1726:” and that "The
present State of Poetry," which is mentioned in the Life, p.
xxiv,” is only a ridiculous attack on Welsted, in conjunction
with Blackmore, Steele, and Ambrose Philips, on the score of
vanity.--It may be fair to both parties to observe, that Pope
was himself so convinced of the injustice with which he had
treated Welsted, that, in all the later editions of the
"Dunciad," the most offensive lines against him were con-
stantly omitted.” Pope must have been unpardonable indeed
had he continued to persecute a Writer, who, whatever may be
thought of his poetical performances (and there are those,
and good judges too, who admire many of them), was universal-
ly allowed to be a gentleman of polished manners, unsuspected
integrity, and unbounded benevolence.

Yours, &c. M[atthew] G[reen]

 

 

*See it among our Poetry, p. 937. [Apparently the
unsigned poem, "A Hymn to the Creator, Written By A
Gentleman, On Occasion Of the Death Of His Only Daughter," pm
60:936-37.)

”The play was performed at the Lincoln's Inn Fields
Theatre on December 14-16, 19, and 21, 1726.

”The Present State pi Poetry: A Satire Address'd ip e

 

Friend emg Qedicated ip mil Welsted, dedication signed
"Alexis" (pseud.) (London, 1726). Perhaps the "Life" is
Nichols' "Memoir" attached to his edition of Welsted's Works.
I have been unable to examine this.

”Probably EunA 5:3.293-300. These lines, which
described Welsted's participation in the poets' diving
contest in Fleet Ditch, were omitted from 1735a onward.

 

 

163

25. (continues 21)

Mr. Urban, Solihull, Oct. 11. [1790]

 

Permit me to point out an Error of the Press in p.778”
of your last Number: where I am made to say, "violent are the
Struggles againt Convention, when one is pre-disposed mpi to
be Convicted."--The last Word should have been "Convinced."--
To resume my Answer to my fair Opponent.

I left off. if you recollect, with a Quotation from
Swift, expressive of the utmost Contempt for Dryden's Trans-
lation of Virgil.” But how (Miss Seward may ask) can Pope be
to blame?--Could He prevent Swift's Attack on Dryden any more
than She could prevent mine on Pope?--Probably not: but He
might have acted on that Occasion as she has on one nearly
similar--yie. have called pie Friend to a public Account for
his "Prejudice" and "Want of Taste"”--My generous Assailant
must surely allow that either She has done ipp,mppm or he--
_pp little!

Be that as it may, I must (and I hope I may without Ill-

manners) indulge one Smile at the Joy which she expresses on

my neglecting to bring Evidence of a Charge--which l never

made: she was "glad that no Proofs can be brought of Meanness

 

used to acquire Fame, which in so great a Writer as Pope.
appeared utterly improbable."” Miss Seward, I Am Confident,

will not deny that I had, 0 his Evidence. convicted him of

 

”Letter 21. p. 142.
”Letter 21. Pp. 148.
”Letter 8, p. 35, and Letter 11, p. 95.
”Letter 18, p. 129.

 

164

an infamous Slander, for which he so richly "deserved an
Halter" as the Object of his Slander would have done had the
Accusation been just: and one would have thought that but a
moderate Degree of Satisfaction could result from the con-
sideration that, though I certainly had proved him Base, I,
perhaps, had not proved him Mean!--But, in fact, while prov-
ing him the one I had also proved him the other: for the
Baseness of his Attack could be equalled pply by the Meanness
of his Retreat!

As Miss Seward thinks that I have wrongfully accused him
of Baseness to Welsted, I will substantiate imei charge also,
memi Month: and at the same Time (contrary to my first Inten-
tion), I will discuss the other Points which I mentioned in a
Letter, inserted in your Magazine for May.” viz. his Meanness
to Broome, Hypocrisy to Hughes and Hill, Treachery to Boling-
broke, Baseness to Lord Harvey and Lady Mary Wortley Monta-
gue, and Ingratitude to Chandos and Addison.

gem multis eliie gpee Nunc perscribere longum eeil”

And, if I am not strangely mistaken, the "inimitable
Dunciad" will lose epme of its Charms in mep Eyes. whose Mind
is--Rectitude, and whose Heart is--Tenderness. She will no
longer. I am persuaded, look with any great Complacency on
the magnificent Edifice, when she shall find, with Surprize
and Sorrow, that it has been erected on the insecure Founda-

tion of Fraud and Cruelty!

 

”Letter 17, pp. 117-18.

”"Which. along with many others, would take too long to
explore fully now." This unidentified hexameter line is
almost surely from a Renaissance poem: it is not Classical.

 

165

Previous to my Examination of the Dunciad, I shall clear
Accounts with Miss Seward. But one Caution, Mr. Urban, let
me give, in Justice to her and to myself. When it shall
appear (as I have already hinted) that some of her Selections
have been imperfect--some of her Assertions inaccurate--and
some of her Quotations erroneous, if Envy should feel in-
clined to sneer and Malice to exult, they would do well to
consider that her Criticisms would have been more perfect had
She been leee so.

This seeming Paradox will be easily explained by recol-
lecting what her Situation has been during almost the Whole
of the controversy. Eyes blinded with Tears, an Heart wrung
with Anguish, and an Imagination distracted with Apprehen-
sions. are totally incompatible with patient Attention, rigid
Inquisition, and cautious Collation. But, though Candour
will forgive, and Virtue applaud her. I cannot permit my just
Cause to suffer through her unintentional Misrepresentations.
After this necessary Apology for us both, I proceed. without
further Ceremony, to my unpleasant task.

In your Magazine for May. 1789 (p. 390).” Miss Seward
selects a Passage of uncommon Celebrity from Pope's Iliad,
and compares it with one from the first and least meritorious
of all Dryden's Productions--a Poem on the Death of Lord
Hastings: a Piece which I believe is not inserted in mepy
Editions of his Works: and, lest this inelegant Extract

should not appear to sufficient Disadvantage. she flanks it

 

”Letter 1b, p. 9.

 

166

by another celebrated Passage from Pope. Two against one,
you know, Mr. Urban, are odds!
Her Management of the next Example she produces is still

less advantageous to poor Dryden.” Extracting six Lines from

 

Juno's Soliloquy, in the first Book of the Eneid (which she
considers as unpoetical), she misquotes the Beginning of the
Seventh, and skips over that and the four succeeding Lines
(which are admirable), fastens on one which she thinks laugh-
able, and omits the remaining Eight, which are excellent. I
thought it but Justice to insert the entire Speech, accompan-
ied by the Original, in your Miscellany for January, 1790.”
Miss Seward seems to consider this as a silent Rebuke, from
the Manner in which she mentions my Quotation (p. 523)--"He
triumphantly quotes the Original in Vindication of that ypl;
gei Harangue which Dryden has made for the Empress of Heav-
en."”

Adverting a second Time to Juno’s Soliloquy, a second
Time she stops short at the seventh Line. But, to make
Amends for the Omission of the Rest of this reprobated
Speech, she has pressed into her Service the introductory
Couplet. which contains the word "vent"--to which (by her
Italicks) she seems to attach the idea of Flatness. She
appears to have conceived an unaccountable Dislike to the
Verbs "vent"--"burn"--and "drown"--unless used in a figura-

tive sense: but, surely. they seem just as musical as

 

”Letter 1b. p. 11.
”Letter 9d, PP. 73-74.
”Letter 18, p. 125. Weston's emphasis.

 

167

"yield--"reign"--"add"--(which escape uncensured)--or any
other Monosyllable Verbs!--The Substantive "Men" seems also
to have fallen under her Displeasure:--but mmy--is not easy
to discover. That it mey be so applied or combined as to
appear in a ludicrous light is true:--in the Mouth of a
Coquet (for Instance), who declares "she is teazed to Death
by these odious--Men"” it is ridiculous enough. But I cannot

grant that it sounds imelegant when opposed to " hips"--

although it may be more elegant when opposed to "Gods."

 

On Miss Seward‘s Substitution of the metaphorical Phrase
of "wrapping Fleets in Flame"--for "burning" them--I shall
only remark that Dr. Harwood, disapproving of the beautiful
Simplicity of "Jesus wept," altered it, in his Translation of
the New Testament, to "Jesus burst into a Flood of Tears."”
They who think pie Amplification an Amendment will, of
Course, be pleased with Miss Seward's.

Having sufficiently decried Dryden's Translation, she
introduces her own, by exclaiming, "How easy to express
Virgil's Eemee as iaithfully with less Inelegance!"” And.
after heightening every Line of the contested Passage into
splendid Versification, she adds. "If the above Lines egually
express Virgil's Meaning, without the ludicrous Inelegance
that disgraces Dryden's. Mr. Weston's iiiei Argument is

confuted."

 

”Possibly a partial quotation of Millamant's exclama-
tion, "odious men! I hate your odious provisos," William
Congreve, Imp fley pi imp World (1700) IV.i.247.

”John 11:35 in Edward Harwood, A Liberal Iranslation pi
imp pem Testament (London, 1768), 1:328.

”Letter 18. p. 126. The quotations in this and the next
paragraph are from this letter, except where noted.

168

Firm as Atlas stands my first Argument--for any Shock
which her Translation gives it. "If the above Lines equally
express Virgil's Meaning?"--But the above Lines unfortunately
do Not equally express Virgil's Meaning! And (which is still
more unfortunate) the only Resemblance which the first Coup-
let bears to the Original is couched in two Words--"when" in
the first Line, and "Juno" in the second.

To the Proof.

Cum Juno aeternum servans sub pectore vulnus
Haec secum:”

Dryden.

"When labouring still with Endless Discontent,
The Queen of Heaven did thus her Fury vent."

Miss Seward.

"When. with the dark'ning Frown of angry Pride,
In haughty Tone, imperial Juno cried."

The Reader of true Taste may possibly deem the brilliant
Additions of "dark'ning Frown"----"angry Pride" and "haughty
Tone"--an inadequate Recompence for the Loss of the much more
important Information--that an insatiable Desire of Revenge
unceasingly rankled in Juno's Breast. Virgil evidently re
fers to the "saevae memorem Junonis ob iram" in the Opening
of the Eneid:” a Circumstance on which the Machinery of the
Poem hinges: and, therefore, not to be omitted without mani
fest Detriment to the Poet's Plan. Besides--the Mantuan Bard

was much too judicious to say All that he could have said on

 

the Occasion: and paid his Reader's Imagination the

 

”1.36-37.
”1.4. "Through cruel Juno's unforgiving wrath."

 

I? _

169

Compliment of supposing that it would easily collect--from

her Words--the tone and that which accompanied them.

 

But, were Miss Seward's Translation as faithful as it is
erroneous, I should still remain unconfuted. I must beg
leave once more, Mr. Urban. to remind your Readers of the
principal Object of our Contention. I had expressed an
Opinion that the Style of Dryden is preferable to that of
Pope--On Account of the Inequalities which so frequently
occur. How does my ingenious Opponent endeavour to overthrow
that Opinion? Why truly, by proving that there Are those
Inequalities! A Mode of Confutation entirely mem--and not a
little comical!

But stay!--Miss Seward will allow Poetic Diction to
Sink--but not Too low. Now we come to the Point. Who is to
be the Judge of the Precise Degree to which it may be allowed
to descend?--Ah, Mr. Urban! Who indeed?--Until that question
me answered, Miss Seward and I may argue for ever, without

being one Jot nearer the Mark: for I cannot allow that call-

 

img Dryden's Translation a vulgar Harangue is proving it to
be one:--any more than I can acknowledge the Justice of those
severe Epithets with which she so plentifully besprinkles
most of the Passages which she has judged it expedient to
select.

As Dryden has contrived it, Juno pours out the Effusions
of her Wrath in a regular Climax. One eeee the offended
Goddess working herself into a Passion by very natural Grada-
tions. But Miss Seward has begun in so lofty a Strain, that

I have litle Doubt of the Effect which would have been

aw

I :A- Al

170

produced had she translated the mmple Soliloquy!

The chief Blemish in modern poetic Diction is Inflation.
If that Blemish is undiscoverable in Miss Seward's Works, it
is probably owing to the Grandeur and Sublimity of her Con-
ceptions: which justify the uniform Majesty of her Style.
The Shortness of her Poems is a Circumstance also much in her
Favour: for Pope's Version of the Iliad proves to every
unprejudiced Judge, that unvaried Sweetness and unvaried
Loftiness mill tire--in a Work of any considerable Length.
An Elegy and an Epic Poem demand very different Degrees of
Polish.

So much for Miss Seward's boasted Confutation of my
first Position!

In your Miscellany for May, 1789, p. 391, she has made
some Extracts from Ovid's Epistle from Helen to Paris.” She
did not chuse to quote from Canace to Macareus--nor from Dido
to Eneas---but pitched upon the very worst of the three.
Culling with uncommon Care the dullest Parts, she has made
Stupidity appear mpie stupid, by tacking together Passages
that were never intended to be joined, and which derive no
small Inconvenience from the Union.

After quoting Two Lines, she omits Ten, then quotes
Eighteen more,--then omits One Couplet--and then inserts
another: and all these mutilated Limbs, thus preposterously
jumbled together, and constituting one hideous Mass of

Deformity, are very gravely contrasted with some lovely Lines

 

”Letter 1b. pp. 11-13.

 

171

from Pope's highly-finished Eloisa to Abelard. She then
makes some more Extracts from Helen to Paris--selecting Two
Lines--then jumping over Sixteen--then chusing Six more--
linking them all together--and finally comparing them with

some other beautiful Lines form Eloisa.

 

Miss Seward remarks (p. 524), that my "other Pleas,
which seek to prove the Certainty that Dryden was not the
Translator of the Epistle from Helen to Paris, though me

avows ii Solely his through All the Editions, are set aside

 

by those Passages of egmel Inelegance. which have been
already cited in the Course of this Controversy, from the
Hind and Panther. Ode on the Death of Anne Killigrew, the
Virgil, and other of his Works."”

The Assertion, that Dryden avows the Epistle from Helen
to Paris Solely his through All the Editions, is inaccurate.
I had before asserted that the Names of the Poet and the Peer
were United in that Production: and I had quoted a satyrical
Couplet written on the Occasion:” Circumstances which, one
should suppose, might have induced My Friend to have
expressed a contrary Opinion with some Hesitation--Were I to
take the Trouble of a Search, I should, probably, find twenty
Editions that would confirm my Assertion: but imp will
suffice. In one, printed for Jacon Tonson in 1716 (the
Property of Hugford Hassall. Esq. of Solihull). and in

another, printed for J. Tonson 1725 (belonging to the Rev.

 

”Letter 18, p. 126. Weston adds some of the emphases.
”Letter 9d, p. 77.

 

172

Mr. Blyth of the same Place), the Earl of Mulgrave's Name is
joined to that of Dryden:” nor, to the best of my
Recollection, did I ever see or hear of emy Edition--the one
which Miss Seward mentions excepted--in which they were
disunited.

Whoever, Mr. Urban. will refer to your Magazine for
January, p. 29,” will find that--far from "seeking to prove
the Certainty that Dryden was mpi the Translator of the
Epistle from Helen to Paris"” pply sought to prove that he
was not the Author of those Parts of that Epistle which Miss
Seward has ascribed to him. I do not consider my supposed
Plea as set aside by the Passages she quoted from the Hind
and Panther, &c.--because I do mpi consider those Passages as
"of equal Inelegance!"

Miss Seward's Notion, that. because I made "no Comment,"

I was "willing your Readers should forget them," is not
founded. The Recollection of them could not have been

"utterly destructive of my unfortunate Assertion, that the
Style of the great Dryden is Never injudiciously debased"”--
because I had made no such Assertion. My Words, in your
Magazine for January. p. 27, were--"whatever may be found
reprehensible in his Sentiments or Imagery--his Style, I will
still Contend, is pure."” In the Preface to the Woodmen of

Arden (p. 9), I said "Many of his Lines seem, 'tis true, to

 

 

”The Eritish Museum Catalogue lists editions for 1683,
1701. 1705. 1712. 1720. and 1725.

”Letter 9d, p. 75.

”Letter 10, p. 126.

”Letter 18, p. 126-27.

”Letter 9d, p. 70.

 

173

have wanted his last Touches: but those last Touches, I Am
Persuaded, were not hastily Neglected--but deliberately
Denied."”

Contending for the Propriety of a Persuasion is not
equivalent to the asserting of a Fact: nor, if I mep made
such an Assertion, would the Quotations in Question have
utterly destroyed it:--because ludicrous Imagery, incongruous
Metaphor, and inconsistent Fable, are the Faults most
conspicuous in those Passages: Matters with which I had

Nothing to do:--"my Business being merely with his Diction."”

Joseph Weston.

 

 

”Letter 9c. p. 55.
”Letter 9d, p. 70.

 

174

26.
Mr. Urban. flpy, 4. [1790]
You will believe me, I doubt not, when I assert, that I
am an utter stranger to Mr. Weston, Miss Seward, and to M. F.
All I know of either is by their writings: and, if I could
indulge my own gratifications at the expense of another man's
repose, I could not wish Mr. Weston's correspondence with
you, Mr. Urban, at an end. But it grieves me to see a man of
rare talents, whose language is so correct, whose manners are
so polished, and whose talents are so great, employed in
endeavours to make Miss Seward publicly acknowledge what she
and all the world know to be true: namely, {that Pope was a
paltry fellow. But Mr. W. may rest satisfied that she will
never acknowledge it. She has said it: she has written it:
and, like Lord Lyttelton, she will no more give up her fa-
vourite poet, than the Noble Lord would his Scots historian
Bowler, [Bower).” Yet, after Dr. Douglas had proved him to

be as contemptible as Mr. Weston has proved Pope to be. his

Lordship stuck t his text, rather than give up himself.

 

Miss Seward is a lady of a respectable character, and Lord
Lyttelton was deemed a man of honour. But if such a Man as

Lord Lyttelton would not fess, what hopes can Mr. Weston have

 

”Archibald Bower (1686-1766) wrote History pi ime Popes.
representing himself to be a staunch protestant. Reverend
John Douglas proved that not only was Bower a Roman Catholic
but that he was "as little remarkable for his chastity as for
his love of the truth" (23E). George Lyttleton, who had
gotten a government post for Bower, continued to defend him
after Rev. Douglas's disclosure. Samuel Johnson noted that
Bower "did not want abilities" and when he attacked "his
adversaries retreated." (Lives 3:451).

 

 

 

175

of bringing a Woman to confession, unless she were e nun?”

 

If any apology can be offered for Miss Seward's want of
conviction of Pope's infamous charge upon Burnet and Ducket,
it must be her not understanding (and no wonder) the nature
of the charge. And if M. F. be not silenced by Mr. Weston's

letter in your last. p. 903,” how can he expect success with

 

the lady? Yours, &c. P. T.
27.
Mr. Urban, Edinburgh, Nov. 9. [1790]

I am one among many of your numerous readers who cannot
suppress my indignation at the cruel treatment the character
of Eppe continues to experience from one of your most re-
spectable correspondents. I have beheld with pain the eager,
but fruitless, efforts of that elegant writer to substantiate
some charge that might criminate him.

But I believe a majority of your readers will agree with
me, that what has been yet said or done are [sic] not suffi-
cient to effect that purpose, and that the Poet has now, as
heretofore, the multitude on his side. He is charged, but
surely not with justice, with envy and hatred to Dryden: the
man, of all others. whom he appears to have regarded with
cordial esteem and affection, and to whom, in all his writ-

ings. he pays the most unequivocal homage. But it seems he

 

”Italics probably used solely for emphasis.
”Letter 25, pp. 163-73.

1 —Y

-4

176

suffered the gentle and compliant Emiii to sneer at that
great Poet's translation of Virgil. in a satyrical romance
considered anonymous, I suppose, even by gppe himself. He is
also accused of having satirized certain authors, rather too
severely, in a poem called the Dunciad: but certainly not
from envy, or fear of rivality: for who envies or fears those
who are infinitely beneath them? We can crush a wasp with a
touch, though it may hurt us with its sting. _These are the
crimes, Mr. Urban, for which the character of Eppe is to be
damned to everlasting fame. But, admitting they were as
aggravated as his accuser is pleased to alledge, would the
Poet deserve for all that such epithets as "execrable."
"detestable," &c. &c. epithets only applied to the most
pernicious vipers of human kind--to a gpeee or a Jefferies!”
The pharisaical Addison, with a heart as cool as his writ-
ings, could be really guilty of the crime which Eppe is
accused of: and the pioue Johnepm well knew the use of the
literary stiletto: yet imeee were certainly virtuous men.
though not of immaculate virtue: imei, I suppose, is alone
the estimable lot of the accuser of Eppe. After all, Mr.
Urban, poets are observed to be more irascible and envious of
each other than any other sort of people, because a fine
imagination and philosophical understanding are seldom
united. Every one knows that Eppe had a remarkably infirm,

and consequently irritable, constitution. Is it any wonder

 

”The British judge, George Jeffreys (1648-1689). was
notorious for his arbitrary decisions and severe punishments
(DNB).

 

177

then, with the wanton and unceasing abuse he met with, that
he should be provoked to retaliate? But. while the general
tenor of his writings and of his life display the most strik-
ing traits of morality. benevolence, and noble independence.
we should ascribe any asperities in the one, or peevishness
of the other, to that unhappy frame of body, which irresisti-
bly governs even the greatest minds.

It has of late become fashionable to lower the estima-
tion which the writings of Eppe were heretofore universally
held in. This, however, will not change their qualities: for
me gustibus ppm eei gieputendum” is as applicable to poetical
as to any other taste: and the poetry of Eppe still continues
to please pimp out of iem readers, who can find no meaning in
the clinguant of modern rhimers.

If writers, whose fame is already established, are to be
opposed to each other, they should be compared. like Plu-
tarch's heroes, not with an intention of depreciating their
merits, but of displaying their excellencies in the fullest

point of view. Yours, &c. W.

 

28.
W M_on_th.

10th Day. [1790]
Friend Urban,
My friend M. F. in conformity with his declaration in

thy publication for the ninth month, of finishing his

 

”"There is no disputing about taste," proverbial.

 

178

controversy with thy friend Joseph Weston, on the merits of
the late Alexander Pope. intendeth not to write to thee again
on that subject: but he hath commissioned me to tell thee and
thy friend Joseph, that he taketh in good part what thy
friend hath written in thy last month‘s publication.” His
motive for defending Alexander Pope. was his verily believing
that thy friend Joseph had unjustly aspersed him both as a
ppei, and also as a mep: my friend had never heard any suffi-
cient reasons for questioning his genius as to the one, or
his integrity as to the other.

My friend's last letter to thee in defence of him. as to
the particular charge thy friend hath so strenuously accused
Alexander of, yie. of branding an innocent man with a vile
calumny, was founded, as thy friend Joseph justly conjectur-
eth, on my friend's opinion of the veracity of Alexander
Pope, and on the improbability of his making gppg, or making
any one belieye, a charge never before thought on.

My friend acknowledges the obvious connexion of the
satiric lines quoted doth seem to require the untoward mean-
ing thy friend Joseph hath annexed to them, he need not have
used so many words towards proving this: but on this supposi-
tion my friend is unable to account for the conduct of Alex-

ander Pope--he thinks it in this particular instance unac-

 

countable--this could not answer what is said to be the

intention of the poem, viz. of "rendering his enemies

TC?

 

 

”Letter 22, pp. 149-52. All references to "M. F." are to
this letter.

179

ridiculous to all ages:"” it might excite horror, but not
ridicule. My friend, willing to think and hope the peei of
ell men, his inclination swayed him to the favourable side,
and, more especially as Alexander Pope. being removed from
this world, was unable to plead his own cause, he did not
think he was doing an ill imimg in offering his mite in his
defence.

My friend never thought. or intended to assert. that
Alexander Pope was a perfect mep: he knoweth that mp mep is
so: he has always understood him to have been of a disposi-
tion somewhat too irritable; he hath before acknowledged
this. This temper might at times betray him to exceed the
bounds of justice in his retorts. But, my friend Urban, thy
impartiality will give thee to estimate his gppg gualties and
his eingular abilitiee in abatement of this soreness of
gi§poeition: and, on balancing the accounts, perhaps we shall
form a iipe estimate of the man on whom I must think thy
friend Joseph hath borne ipp meme.

Epem thy friend hath occasion to enter again into con-
troversy with any one, let him argue the matter coolly,
devoid of ire: let him not apply to his antagonist such

epithets as "ideotism, total blindness,"” and such like: by

 

abstaining from them thy friend will the sooner attain his
point. Let him also beware of shouting victory too early.

My friend thinks himself under much obligation to thy friend

 

”Originally in Anna Seward's Letter 11, p. 95, and also
quoted by Weston in Letters 21. p. 139 and 23, p. 157.
”Letter 23, p. 157.

 

180

Joseph for his good opinion: he thinks himself honoured that
thy friend thinks well of epy peii pi mim, or his conduct:
and if he hath offended thy friend in the warmth of argument,
he wisheth a mutual amnesty, a perpetual oblivion and peace:
and he will always attend to thy friend Joseph's productions
with much complacency I am thy friend, and thy friend Jo-
seph's friend, Obadiah Meanwell.

* * Bardus Ordovicensis and R. S. on imie subject are

*
unavoidably deferred.

 

29. (continues 25)
Continuation of Mr. Weston's Defence of the Preface to the
Woodmen of Arden.
Solihull, er. 23. [1790]
Who, Mr. Urban, that reads Miss Seward's Remark, page
120,--viz. "to assert Dryden's Style advantaged by its fre-
quent Vapidness and Vulgarity, is pmi to want Taste for pure
and elegant Composition"”--would not take for granted that I
had really made such an assertion?--And yet none such is to
be found.--To assert that epy Style could derive an Advantage
from Vapidness would be indeed Want of Taste: but that a
certain Degree of Vulgarity, occasionally introduced, is a
Disadvantage, I am not quite so sure.

I will concede to my too fastidious Antagonist--that

 

”Letter 11, p. 95.

181

many Low expressions may be picked out of Dryden's Works: and
let her make the most of this concession: it no way contra-
dicts my Opinion of the Purity of Dryden's Style--An apt
Example will save a World of Argument: and my Meaning will be
sufficiently explained by a single couplet.

In the Opening of the celebrated Absalom and Achitophel
we meet with the following lines.

"When Man on Many multiplied his Kind,

Ere One to One was, Cursedly, confin'd." [1:3-4]
Cursedly is ppm, and, probably, was imem, a Low word.--"I am
cursedly mortified"--"I was cursedly taken in"--are Modes of
Speech in very frequent use among the vulgar: but were Miss
Seward, on that score, to expel the honest, unaffected, and
forcible expression, and to supply its place by one of her
own elegant--or one of her Parnassian Brethren's finical
Phrases--the Line would, in my Opinion, be cursedly in-
jured.--"Fatally"--"cruelly"--and twenty other Substitutes
leQL. be found--and serve to liguify the Line. and lull
tasteless Readers to Sleep: but Memory, trust me, might be
ransacked long enough, before a Word would present itself so
nervously descriptive of the Poet's Meaning as that Vulgar
one which he has so judiciously chosen!

But to proceed.--Miss Seward quotes eight lines from
Dryden's Charming Version of Dido to Eneas as challenging the
"worst Lines in the Helen to Paris:"--"Lord Mulgrave," she

says, "could not jingle couplets that less deserved the Name

 

182

of Poetry:"” --let us examine the Justice of this Assertion.
But I shall take the Liberty of restoring to their Place

four Lines, which Miss Seward has omitted, and of adding four

more which complete the sense. and if Dryden's Translation

shall not be found equal, at least, to his Original, I will

 

for ever renounce all Pretensions to Knowledge or to Judg-
ment.
First for Ovid.

Facta fugis: facienda petis, quaerenda per orbem
Altera, quaesita est altera terra tibi.

Ut terram invenias, quis eam tibi tradet habendam?
Quis sua non notis arva tenenda dabit?
Alter habendus amor tibi restat, & altera Dido:

Quamque iterum fallas, altera danda fides.
Quando erit. ut condas instar Carthaginis urbem,
Et videas populos altus ab arce tuos?

Omnia ut eveniant, nec te tua vota morentur:
Unde tibi, quae te sic amet, uxor erit?
Uror, ut inducto ceratae sulfure taedae:
Ut pia fumosis addita thura focis.
Aeneas oculis semper vigilantis inhaeret:
Aenean animo noxque diesque refert.”

Dryden.

Built Walls you Shun, unbuilt you Seek: that Land
Is yet to Conquer: but you this Command.

Suppose you landed where your wish design'd,

Think what Reception Foreigners would find.

What People is so void of common Sense,

To vote Succession from a Native Prince?

Yet there new Scepters and new Loves you seek:

New Vows to plight, and plighted Vows to break.
When will your Tow'rs the height of Carthage? know?
Or when your Eyes discern such Crowds below?

If such a Town. and Subjects you could see,

Still would you want a Wife--who loyig like me.
For. oh, I burn, like Fires with Incense bright:
Not holy Tapers flame with purer Light:

Aeneas is my Thoughts perpetual Theme:

Their daily longing, and their nightly Dream. [1:13-28.)

 

”Letter 18, p. 127.
”Heroides 7:13-26.

183

Mulgrave*

On Carthage and its rising Walls you frown,

And shun a scepter, which is now your own:

All you have gain'd, you proudly do contemn,

And fondly seek a fancy'd Diadem.

And should you reach at last this promis'd Land.
Who'll give its Power into a Stranger's Hand?
Another easy Dido do you seek:

And new occasions new-made Vows to break?

When can you Walls like ours of Carthage build.

And see your Streets with Crowds of Subjects fill'd?
But tho' all this succeeded to your Mind,

So true a Wife no Search could ever find.

Scorch'd up with Love's fierce Fire my Life does waste,
Like Incense on the flaming Altar cast:

All Day Aeneas walks before my Sight:

In all my Dreams I see him ev'ry Night:”

To offer a single Observation on the respective Merits
of the two Translations would be to offer an Insult to every
liege of Poetry:--the pmly Readers for whom I wish to write.

To Miss Seward's Remarks on the Conciseness of Pope's
Version of first Book of Homer's Iliad I shall oppose the
masterly Criticism of a Correspondent who signs himself
"Impartial" (p.495):” and to her Censure of Dryden's
Translation of the same Book I shall oppose the Opinion of
Pope himself: who says. (in his preface to the Iliad.) "had
he translated the Whole Work+ I would no more have attempted
Homer after him than Virgil, his Version of whom

(notwithstanding some human Errors) is the most noble and

 

*My Reasons for conjecturing that He was the Author of
the second Version of Dido to Aeneas were given in the Maga-
zine for January, p. 30. [Letter 9d. PP. 70-89.]

+He translated only the first Book. and a small part of
the Sixth. [Hector's last parting from Andromache, 1:846.)

”Unidentified. This translation is not listed under
Mulgrave in the British Museum Catalogue.
”Letter 14. pp. 105-07.

184

spirited Translation I know in any Language." [7:22.]

"That Dryden (says Miss Seward, p. 120) Perpetually
sinks below, 0 how much below Pope! I willingly agree with
Mr. Morfitt: but that he ever rises proportionably higher I
utterly deny,--and would undertake to equal the noblest and
most beautiful Passages from Dryden's Poems, in the Couplet
Measure, with Selections from those of his Rival."”

That Miss Seward is justified in denying that what sinks
Perpetually pelpm Ever rises proportionably higher no one in
his senses will controvert: nor does there seem any very
great Hazard in undertaking to egpel what is confessedly
inferior: but ppple my respectable Associate and valued
Friend--could He whose Taste is equal to his Learning--let
such consummate nonsense as his fair Opponent has ascribed to
him escape his Pen?

With your Leave. Mr. Urban, we will turn to that Letter,
which (without disparaging your numerous and ingenious Cor-
respondents) never meg never pem have--a superior--that *Let-
ter--whose every Sentence is a Gem, and see what he really
wrote.

"As to the +political Merits of the rival Bards. I -am

compelled to give the Palm to Dryden. I admit the general

 

*Mr. Morfitt says (p.7) [Letter 10. p. 69] "I cannot
read 200 pages of Pope together, without satietyz" on which
Remark one of your Correspondents ["M. F.," Letter 20, p.
135) comments as gravely as if it were mpi a palpable Mis-
take of the Pen or of the Press--My Friend certainly wrote--
or meant to write--either 20 pages or 200 lines.

+ Another evident Blunder.--"poetical" is the word
intended.

 

”Letter 11. p. 94.

 

185

Inequality of his Poems, the occasional Coldness of his
Conceptions. and the not unfrequent Depressions of his Style.
I allow that he Sometimes sinks lower than Pope, but he sinks
to rise proportionably higher. and. like Antaeus, gathers
Strength from touching the Ground."”

When sometimes and perpetually--Time and Eternity shall
be proved to have the same Meaning, a Commentary on this
Passage may be necessary.

Meanwhile. I would not advise Miss Seward to be ipp
hasty in her Selection of Passages from Pope, to match with
"the noblest and most beautiful ones"” from his Master: lest
a Misfortune should befal [sic] her similar to one which
happened to Spence: and it should be found, that what she
produces, as specimens of the Richness of that Genius which
she pronounces equal to Dryden's, should only add to the
Proofs already extant of his Emepm at pilfering!

(1p pe concludeg im our next.)

 

 

30.

Mr. Urban, Epy. 30. [1790]
Every one, at all acquainted with modern poetry and

criticism. well knows that one of the principal

 

”Letter 10. p. 66.
”Letter 11. p. 94.

 

186

embellishments of the comic epopee is the introduction of
parodies on passages in ancient and modern classicks. If
Pope, among the host of bad or party-writers who attacked his
fame, had not been able to discover a peii who wrote against
him in partnerehip, he would have lost the opportunity of
introducing a parody on the young Chiefs who form the subject
of the most interesting episode, if episode it ought to be
called, in the Aeneid. But, luckily for our Poet, one Burnet
and Ducket published a joint-work against his first under-
taking to translate the Iliad, intituled. "Homerides, by Sir
Iliad Doggrel:"” and furnished him with a Nisus and a
Euryalus for his Dunciad. It is in the games in honour of
Anchises that the young heroes first make their appearance.
Nisus & Euryalus primi.

Euryalus forma insignis viridigue juventa:
Nisus emore pio pueri. Aen. V. 296.”

 

And when they appear in the character of warriors, we

are told.

Nisus erat portae custos,

Et juxta comes Euryalus.--

His amor unus erat, paritergue im bella ruebant.

Tunc quoque communi portam statione tenebant.
Aen.IX.183.”

Let us now see how Pope profited by these passages.

Elkanah Settle. after regretting to Cibber how unfortunate it

 

”See Weston's discussion in Letters 17. pp. 120-23 and
23, pp. 154-61: also see the Introduction, pp. cvii-cxiii.

”"Nisus and Euryalus foremost--Eurya1us famed for beauty
and flower of youth, Nisus for tender love for the boy."
5.294-96.

”"Nisus was guardian of the gate. . . . At his side was
Euryalus. . . . A common love was theirs: side by side they
charge in the fray: now too they together were mounting
sentry at the gate," 9.176, 179, 182-83.

 

187

was that two such great men of their party as Dennis and
Gildon” should wage war with each other, addresses himself to
the shades of those great Criticks, in a parody on the beau-

tiful lines in the Aeneid alluding to Caesar and Pompey:

Embrace, embrace, my sons! be foes no more!
Nor glad vile Poets with true Criticks' gore”.
[DunA 5:3.171-72.]

By way of contrast, he points out to Cibber the friend-

ship of two others:

Behold yon pair. in etrict embraces join'd+:
How like in manners, and how like in mind!
Eem'd for good-nature Burnet. emg for truth:
Ducket ipp pious passion ip ime youth+

Equal in wit, and equally polite,

Shall this a Pasquin, that a Grumbler write.
Like are their merits, like rewards they ehare:

 

 

That shines a consul, that commissioner. [DunA 5:3.173-
80.)
The Critick Dennis, a fellow sufferer, as we have seen.

in the cause, with the ingenuity of a commentator accustomed

to find meanings his author never thought of. insinuated in

 

*Ne pueri ne tanta animis assuescite [adsuescite] bella:

Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires. Aen. VI.
833. ["O my sons, make not a home within your hearts for
such warfare, not upon your country's very Vitals turn her
vigour and valour," 6.832-33.)

+Illae autem paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis Con-
cordes animae. Ib. 826. ["But they whom thou seest gleaming
in equal arms, souls harmonious now," 6.826-27.)

+Amore pip pueri. [See above. p. 186.]

”Settle (1648-1724) was a playwright and poet, as was
Colley Cibber (1671-1757). Charles Gildon (1665-1724) was
a poet. playwright and critic.

 

188

print,” that Pope had, in the above parody, attacked the
moral characters of Burnet and Ducket. But it is plain that
the persons themselves were not such Dunces as to misunder-
stand the Poet. If the charge had been true, the crime,
rendered notorious by the celebrity of accuser, must have
obliged them to leave their country: and, if false, a jury
would undoubtedly have adjudged heavy damages for so atro-
cious a calumny. But they were too wise either to fly their
country, or appeal to a jury: for, had they had recourse to
the latter, I think we may safely pronounce what would have

been the event in the words of Pope and Horace:

Solventur risu tabulae, tu missus abibis.”

In such a case the plaintiff will be hiss'd,

My Lords the Judges laugh, and you're dismiss'd. [_i

4:2.i.155-56.)

Such is my view of the above passage, on which a late
writer in your Magazine, who stands forward as the professed
accuser of Pope and defender of the heroes of the Dunciad.
has founded his grand charge against him. This writer, in
your present volume. p. 388, asserts, that. "in consequence

of the Colonel's (Ducket's) spirited conduct on this extra-

ordinary attack, Pope found it convenient to add the follow-

ing note."” M. F. (Ib. p. 786) asks, What was the Colonel's

§pirited conduct pm this occasion?” Mr. W. has replied to

 

 

”Letter 17, p. 122.
”Satire ii.1.86.

”Letter 17, p. 122.
”Letter 22, p. 150.

 

189

the letter of M. F. but has omitted to answer the above
question. This I now call upon him to do.

The introduction of the authority appealed to at p. 904,
col. i. para. 2, is highly indelicate, and totally inconsis-
tent with the declaration at p. 386, col. ii. para. 3, sen-
tence the last.” The supposed authority, too, is only that
of a silence apparently arising rather from delicacy than
conviction.

With regard to eigning names ( see p. 387, col. ii.
para. mli.),” I have long been of opinion, that the value of
original communications to your Miscellany, respecting facts
which require living testimony to support them, would be
greatly enhanced, if their authors would always sign their
real names and places of abode: as is done in the London
Medical Journal, and the Transactions of Literary Societies.
But in such kind of discussions as the present, where opin-

ions are founded on facts already known. I feel more disposed

to follow the example of M. F. Yours, &c. J. S.

 

 

 

”In discussing the Burnet/Duckett issue, Weston wrote.
"Consult Miss Seward's last Letter" (Letter 23, p. 156).
Previously he had declared the Burnet/Duckett subject was "so
peculiarly horrible and disgusting, as to render a Discussion
of it--in a Letter intended for the Perusal of a Lady--
impossible" (Letter 17, p. 118).

”Letter 17, p. 121. Weston was discussing the impossi-
bility of putting one's name to an opinion that Pope meant to
praise Burnet and Duckett in Dunciad A. "J.S." seems to think
Weston is attacking anonymous letter writers, as he had in
earlier letters to "M.F."

190

31.
Mr. Urban, Eep. 20. [1790]
Let me tell you a story, and then you may make the
application wherever you please. Your correspondent P.T.” is
all wrong relative to a certain dispute. so long and so
elegantly kept up in your Magazine. Women can read women
better than men even of superior understanding, as fools can
find fools better than wiser heads. So now to my story.”
Two neighbouring country esquires kept each a fool. Esquire
Hare's fool was lost, and all the town had been through all
the great woods in search of him, but without success. So,
when Esquire ipp heard it, he visited Esquire Hare, and
offered to lend him his fool to find the lost fool: "and I'll
warrant you," said the Esquire, "my fool will find yours."

So Fox's fool was sent into the wood alone: and, as he went

along, he continually called out, Aye,aye, l sees you, i sees

 

 

ypp: and at length he came within hearing of the other fool,
who instantly replied, Eeyy meyl mpi ypp epmli. Now, Mr.
Urban, I say that Miss ---- does not chuse to be convinced,
while she has such frequent opportunities of shewing not only
how well she can defend a bad cause, but procure so many high
compliments. at the same time. even from her adversary. In
truth, I should rather think it is a cohesion between these
two literary Geniuses to show themselves off. Certain it is.

this Lady could no where find a fairer channel to make her

 

”Letter 26, pp. 174-75.
”"Maria" probably invented or adapted this story to make
her point.

191

virtues and her talents known to all the world, than by
engaging in such a dispute in the Gentleman's Magazine.

Yours, &c. Maria.

 

32.

SONNET. [Dec.. 1790)

Weston, whom Virtue and the Muses fire,

Thy generous spirit with indignant vein,

Where Envy veils the Enthusiasts of the lyre,

Expell'd their laurel'd seats in Fancy's choir.

And blends her venom with its dulcet sounds:

Well might'st thou love the high Drydenic song.

Thou who hast made its vary'd graces thine,

And cloath'd thy measures with its strength divine.

Not like Art‘s stream its numbers move along,

Though in all Maia's charms the bank be deckt.

And its calm breast the splendid Heav'n reflect,

But like th' unequal flood great Nature guides,

That here soft flows, there rob'd in thunder rides,

Bold winding from its natal bud now little Art derides.
L. M.

 

33. (continues Letter 29)
Continuation of Mr. Weston's Defence of the Preface to the

Woodmen of Arden.

pep. 23. 1790.
In that Essay on the Odyssey which, affected and super-

ficial as it is. gained Spence much Reputation among the

Admirers of Pope, he observes:

"In these last Volumes, how finely are some
Thoughts wove into this Translation from the sacred
Pages? from the Iliad, and Aeneid: from Dryden. and
Milton among ourselves: and from several others, both
Ancient and Moderns?

"The Translator is sometimes as Artful in adding.
of himself, some short Strokes to what Homer has said.

 

'4
\D
L.)

We meet with several of these little insertions. which
are very just and improving. I shall mention but one.
As Mr. Addison proposes a Correction of Paradise Lost.
by cutting off the two last Lines: Mr. Pope improves
this Poem, by adding a Line in the Conclusion of it:
This Insertion possibly is better chose, than that Al-
teration so modestly proposed by Mr. Addison. The Read-
er, indeed, would willingly go off with some Hopes and
Satisfaction, after the melancholy Scene in Milton's
last Book: but it may be said that, -considering the
moral and chief Design of that Poem, Terror is the last
Passion to be left upon the Mind of the Reader. On the
contrary, the Odyssey ought on all Accounts to terminate
happily: and Mr. Pope's Addition, in the Close of it.
is therefore an Improvement, because it forwards the
Moral: it gives us a fuller* View and Confirmation of
the Happiness of Ulysses, and leaves it upon a firmer
Foundation."”

'Tis not easy for any one, who recollects the lasc Line
of Absalom and Achitophel,” to restrain a Smile, at this
pompous Parade--The Critic, by professing to give this Line
as one of those "short Strokes" which Pope added of Himself,

proclaims his Unconsciousness of his being indebted to Dryden

 

*"So Pallas spoke: The mandate from above
The King obey'd. The Virgin-seed of Jove
In Mentor's form confirm'd the full accord.

And willing nations knew their lawful Lord. [pp
10:24.628-31. The final line is enclosed in quotation
marks.)

"Homer himself does not end in so full and complete
a manner: his last line does not rest well: and Chapman
{seems resolved to shew the infirmness of it as much as
he could possibly in his Translation, which breaks off
in these lines:

"----twixt both parts the seed of Jove.
Athenian Pallas, of all future love
A league compos'd: and for her form took choice
Of Mentor's likeness, both in limb and voice." [George
Chapman. lme Twenty-Fourth Book pi Homer's Odysseys.
last 4 lines.) -

”Joseph Spence. pp Essay-pm Mr. Pope's Odyssey (London.
1737) 246-47.

”"And willing Nations knew their Lawfull Lord."

 

193

for every Syllable of this boasted Improvement on Homer!”
"That Ear, (says Miss Seward.) must be oddly modeled to
which Pope's harmonious and flowing Verses appear Formal."”
Verses, then, flow harmoniously,” and yet, from the Pause
being too seldom varied, appear mechanical and Formal? And
must that Ear, which relishes but in an inferior Degree what
gratifies Miss Seward's more highly, be Therefore queerly
constructed?--Is this sarcastic Remark gpiie consistent with
that amiable Humility which renders my candid Opponent so
lovely in the Eyes of all her Acquaintance?--Claims it not

rather too near an Affinity with Elizabeth's Reply to the

Ambassador of the unfortunate Mary?--"How tall (said the
Queen) is your Mistress?"--"Rather taller than your Grace"-—
"Indeed?--Then she must be too tall:--for I am neither too

high nor too low."”

"It is not allowed (continues Miss Seward) to the Coup-
let Rhyme to wind the Pause through Whole Passages, as Mr.
Morfitt beautifully expresses it. Dryden did not attempt it.
That Grace belongs to blank Verse, as he allows."”—-He
allows!--As mmp allows?--Dryden?--Surely not.--Morfitt?--
No.--He allows no such Thing.--I must again refer to his
admirable Letter. "To make the Sense invariably terminate

with the Couplet, which is Pope‘s constant Manner, not only

 

”Weston apparently forgot that the opening paragraph of
his quotation from Spence mentions "some Thoughts wove into
this Translation. . .from Dryden."

”Letter 11, p. 94.

”Reported by the Scottish Ambassador Sir James Melville.
See Mandell Creighton, Queen Elizabeth (London: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1920) 85.

”Letter 11, p. 94.

 

194

imposes unnecessary Fetters on Rhyme, but loses that bewitch-
ing Undulation of Sound, which winds through the Pages of
Milton, and is the same to the Ear as the 'magic Curve of

Beauty to the Eye.‘ I allow blank Verse admits of it with

 

greater Facility, and ip e greeier Extent than Rhyme: but I
would not have the latter entirely discard a Grace, for the
Absence of which no Regularity can atone."” Emei does Mr.
Morfitt allow?--Why--that blank Verse admits of it with
greater Facility, and to a greater Extent.--He does not
contend for its total Exclusion from Rhyme:--but even advises
the contrary.--Did not Dryden attempt it?--He certainly gig:
and (what is more) he eucceeded--"It is not allowed to the
Couplet Rhyme to wind the Pause through Whole Passages, ee
Mr. Morfitt Beautifully expieeees ii."”--Mr. Morfitt talks of
losing "that bewitching Undulation of Sound which winds
through the Pages of Milton."”--The Resemblance between the
two Paragraphs is not very striking!

"It is not allowed!"--Why is it not allowed?--By Whom is
it not allowed--Who will venture to say what ie--or what is
mpi--to be allowed to the Couplet Rhyme?--"Neither (adds Miss
Seward) does the Couplet Measure egmii great Variety in the
Flow of the Numbers:"”--and so, because Pope's Verses exhibit
no great Variety in the Flow of the Numbers, every succeeding

Writer in the couplet Measure is condemned, like a Squirrel

 

”Letter 10, pp. 68-69.
”Letter 11, p. 94.
”Letter 10. p. 68.
”Letter 11. p. 95.

 

195

in a Cage, to jingle his ten Bells in the same everlasting
Tune!

"Mr. Morfitt calls Pope's Numbers 'Cuckoo-notes.'"”--
True.--He does so.--So does Welsted.”--So do I. (I am not
ashamed of the Association)--And what then?--Miss Seward "is
incapable of being cloyed with them.--Very likely.--She has
an indisputable Right to dine entirely on Sweetmeats. if she
pleases: but must they who deem Beef and Pudding comfortable
Additions be stigmatized for Prejudice and Want of Taste?

To conclude all which I think necessary to say in Vindi-
cation of that Part of my Preface to the Woodmen of Arden
which asserts the Superiority of Dryden's Versification over
that of Pope and of the Moderns.

Miss Seward seems to think that a Poet, like an Asiatic
Monarch, should never descend from his Dignity:--never be
visible, unless surrounded with the Paraphernalia of Royalty:
while I--(so essentially different is our Taste!) have felt
as much sincere Respect, as much loyal Affection, for our
gracious Monarch, when I have seen him. in Boots and Leather
Breeches, conversing with his Attendants, with that endearing
Condescention. and fascinating Affability, so conspicuous in
his Character, as ever I felt when I have beheld him, seated
on his Throne, in all the Pageantry of State, and looking (as

old Lear expresses it) "every Inch a King!"”

 

 

”Letter 10, p. 67.

”One Epistle ip Mr. pi Pope (1730) 20.
”Shakespeare, King Lear, IV.vi.107.

 

:1 r ”'N "a“; n-

196

Miss Seward is therefore perfectly right, in withdrawing
from a Contest, in which neither of us is likely to become a
Convert to the other's Opinion.

The Remainder of these Observations will be devoted to
the Vindication of that Part of my Preface which respects
Pope's Moral Character.

I have already mentioned a Work, which, ii published,

would leave his "Goodness of Heart"” no longer problem-
atical:--I have explained that Work to be a Poem, with Notes
and Illustrations:--I have stated the Motives which induced

me to geley the Publication.--Those Motives exist no longer.
My Fears are over.--The Poem, however, I shall still sup-
press: but the Notes. Mr. Urban, are at your Service. By
accepting of them, as an Acknowledgement of the respectful
Attention which you have paid to my Communications, you will
confer on me a Favour.

An Apology for occupying a few Pages of your Miscellany,
for some succeeding Months, would be such an Affectation of
unseasonable Modesty as you would despise. Highly interest-
ing, highly important as are many of the Subjects which fill
your valuable Columns--a Subject more interesting, or more
important, does not often occur than that which I am now
preparing to illustrate.

Here let me suggest one friendly Caution to such of
your Correspondents as feel indignant on the Occasion. Be-

fore they give further Vent to the Effusions of their Anger.

 

”Letter 9c, p. 58.

 

197

they would do well to consider in what Light their Abuse of
me will appear, even to themselves, when I shall have ex-
hibited mepy Proofs, in Addition to that which I have already
exhibited, that the Object of their blind Adoration was an
Hypocrite, a Liar, and a Slanderer! When it shall be dis-
covered that, pretending to Humility, Openness, Benevolencey
Morality, and Eieiy. he was, in Reality, erroganiy eitful,
malignant, obscene, and prOphane: when, with no other Mater-
ials than simple Facts and obvious Deductions, I shall have
levelled with the Ground the seemingly-impregnable poetical
Bastile, erected by that gloomy Despot--that Tormentor of
Minds. and Murderer of Reputations: when they shall find
that, by a mere Cross-examination of Pope's own Evidence, his
Baseness shall be so completely established. that to talk
hereafter of his Virtues would be as ridiculous as to assert
the Justice of a Jefferies. or the Chastity of a Chartres”--
what Then will my precipitate Censurers feel?--Shame, if they
be miee Men, for having indolently perused their Favourite's
Works, without Attention and Reflection!--Remorse, if they be
gppg Men, for having wantonly insulted a Person, of whose
Character they are, probably, ignorant--and of whose Motives
the aweful Ra (Inorwihf [Knower of Hearts] Himself alone can
judge!

Their indiscreet Zeal for the Sanctity of their Idol
seems to hagve swallowed up every Confideration of general

Justice. and universal Charity.

 

”Letter 27, p. 176n and Letter 19. p. 130n.

 

198

What?--Is it reasonable that a Man, blest with tran-
scendent Talents, but cursed with a cankered Heart, should be
suffered to condemn to perpetual Ridicule, or to perpetual
Infamy, all who were so unfortunate as to become the Objects
of his capricious Resentment?--Some who had offended him
slightly, and some who had not offended him at all--many of
whom he was envious, and many of whom he was jealous--every
one who interfered with his Interest, and every one who stood
in the Way of his Ambition?

What strange Species of Humanity is this,--which can
consent to sacrifice, without Examination, the fair Fame of
Fifty individuals. out of a tender solicitude for the Reputa-
tion of One? --Granting that One to have been, for more than
Half A Century, unlawfully in Possession of public Esteem--
must he Therefore keep Possession To All Eternity,--to the
Exclusion of those who have a legel Title to it?--If the
World mee been so long deluded, must I permit that Delusion
to continue with the Means of removing it in my Hands--lest I
should happen to irritate the delicate Nerves of some who are
marvelously loth to be convinced that they have been all
their Lives in Error?

If common Capacity, by Dint of patient Diligence, has
discovered that which exalted Abilities, for Eemi of patient
Diligence, has failed to discover, shall I be intimidated, by
the petulant Reproaches of ill-informed Bigots, from publish-
img the Result of my Enquiries. when the most salutary Ef-

fects may follow the Publication?

 

199

Who can tell, Mr. Urban, how many Works of Taste and of
Learning the Republick of Letters may have lost, in conse-
quence of the detestable Dunciad?--I mean not those Works
pply which meie produced, and are forgotten: but also those
which migmi have been produced, had not this pestilential
Blast blighted the Blossoms of Knowledge, and nipt the Flow—
ers of Fancy in the Emg?--For who ppplg write, when certain
that none would peep?

Who can tell how many ingenious. how many worthy Men.
whose daily Bread depended on the daily Exertions of their
Pen, might be doomed, with their unoffending Wives, and
innocent Offspring, to pine in hopeless Poverty, when their
Employers were taught to believe them Fools or Knaves?

To prevent, if possible, the Commission of similar Enor—
mities, is the meritorious Object I have in View. If I
succeed, Mankind may be more cautious of being duped by the
Artifices of future literary Tyrants: and no Wit. nor combi-
nation of Wits, under the specious Pretence of a Regard for
the public Welfare, may have again the Power of securely
libelling the Characters. destroying the Peace, shortening
the Lives, and hurling into Oblivion the Productions of Men,
whose Abilities, though, perhaps, not equal to theirs, may be
far above those of the swinish Herd, who, instructed by their
Example, trample on Pearls which they know not how to appre-
ciate.

And what shadowy Inconvenience can be trumped up, by Way
of counterbalancing such substantial Advantages?--What De-

scendants has this bad Man left, whose Sensibility may be

 

200

wounded by the Exposure of his Depravity?--None.--The Des-
cendants of his Patrons, indeed, may possibly blush to think
"their Fathers were his Friends:"” but ipem--what Pleasure
will the Relations of those who fell Victims to his Villainy
not feel, when they find the envious Cloud, which, for such a
Length of Time, obscured the Fame of their respectable Ances-
tors, gradually removing--and their Talents and their Integ-
rity preaking out with renovated Splendour!

The exquisite Gratification which arises from the last
Reflection will enable me to look on illiberal Strictures of
Initial Correspondents without a Moment's Pang:--Strictures--
which, sanctioned with no Name, shall be honoured with no
Reply.--For think not, Mr. Urban, that, in the Prosecution of
so great, so generous a Plan. I shall turn aside, to answer
the frivolous Objections of Inanity, or condescend to notice
the vulgar Sallies of Impertinence!--If a Blockhead choses to
expose his Stupidity, by proving himself incapable of compre-
hending the plainest Reasoning, what Emotion can I feel but
Pity?--If a Coxcomb longs to betray his Vanity by prating im
Eiimi, on a Subject of which he is totally ignorant, what
Sentiment should I entertain but Contempt?

Perfectly convinced myself. I trust that I shall ulti-
mately convince Thousands of your Readers: if I should be
disappointed in that Expectation. I shall wrap myself in the
Consciousness of my benevolent Intentions: and, being no

Cormorant of Praise, I shall think myself amply rewarded for

 

”Unidentified.

 

201

my Labour by the Approbation of the Candid and the Discern-
ing: and, with Respect to the Rest. I shall only say, "Si

Populus Vult decipi--Decipiatur*."

 

 

Yours, &c. Joseph Weston.

34.
Mr. Urban, Solihull, Jan. 3, 1791.
Had my communication of Dec. 23. reached you early

enough to be inserted Entirely my present Trouble had been
spared.--A Passage (yet unprinted) toward the Conclusion,
relative to Initial Correspondents, might, on its Appearance
in your next Magazine, be supposed to allude to "a Writer" in
your last, who signs himself T. S. [J. S.]” were you not to
inform your Readers, that the Whole of my Letter was in your
Possession a Week before pie was published.

Delicacy compels me, most unwillingly, yei pmpe mpie to
"notice an anonymous Correspondent:"” for I should blush to
be suspected of Personal Reflections on a Writer whom I
should disdain to answer.

He--who, with such hostile Intentions, wastes nearly two
Columns--only to prove, at last, my Charge against Pope Well-
Founded: He--who so unceremoniously "Calls" upon me to an-

swer another Man's Question (without being able to perceive

 

*"If [Since] the World will--why--Let it be deceiv'd."
Conscious Eovers.[Sir Richard Steele, III.434.]

”Letter 30, pp. 185-89. Weston's references are to that
letter, except as noted.
”Letter 17, p. 118.

 

202

that I had already answered it): He--who has so slender an
Acquaintance with the Subject on which he writes, as to be
yet to learn that Ducket Did understand "pious Passion" to
convey a scandalous Aspersion. and, by Threats of "Personal
Chastisement," obliged Pope to substitute "cordial Friend-
ship" in its Room, and to add a solemn Disavowal of his
malignant Meaning: He--who, by terming a Remark--"an Ap-
peal," changes Decency into Indelicacy, and Creates an Incon-
sistency where he cannot Find one--may take my Word for it,

that "he never shall force himself upon me for an Adver-

 

sary."” J. W.
35.
Mr. Urban, Oct. 27. [1790]

I have been for some time sickened with the affected and
verbose invectives against Pope of Mr. Weston, whose incorri-
gible absurdity, and inveterate malignity against that great
poet, are so conspicuous. as almost to justify the expres-
sions I have made use of.

Disquisitions of this kind are in their nature capable
of mathematical demonstration: and as Mr. W's perversion of
intellect seems to incapacitate him for conviction of any
sort, but such as appeals to the senses, my indignation would

have evaporated in silence. had he not in your last Magazine,

 

”Weston first uses the term "Adversary" for "M. F.".
Letter 4, p. 25. This quotation seems to be an extension of
his own.

 

203

p. 780,” advanced a position which may be refuted by chrono-
logy‘””. and of the falsehood of which, therefore, even he
must be convinced.

Pope. says Mr. W, incited‘”” Swift to ridicule Dryden in
"The Tale of a Tub,"””” and "Battle of the Books." One must

be very little acquainted with Swift's character, to suppose

 

”1” Dr. Bentley (Dissert. on Phalaris. p. 122.[Richard
Bentley, Dissertatione upon ime Epistles pi Phalaris. ed.
Wilhelm Wagner (London, 1883) 121-22.)) justly considers the
argument, drawn from discrepancy of time, to be the most
conclusive which can be adduced on subjects of this nature:

and in conformity hereunto Cicero says, "Non tu quidem tota
re (I cannot say so much for Mr. Weston), sed guod maximum
est, Temporibus errasti." Philipp. 2da. ["here you are mis-

taken, not indeed in the facts as a whole, but--what is most

important--in the dates," Philippics 2, p.87.) 7WL¢ [17.6

as Lil/£119] 00; I Ib./7‘7 va X owv Ava.“ ”f3” says Titian, ,[W’Jafct
0.

[Tm] Toz: {1115; 72,: zaL’TJogzar J 6); 95./[w f.uv4042
["With him 1(who is untrained in the ne t [skill of] time," says

Titian. "with these it is impossible to arrive at the truth
of medicine [the art of healing]." [I can find no record of a
Greek writer named Titian. The name may be a misprint. The

source remains unidentified.)

Judicis officium est. ut res. ita Tempora rerum

Quaerere. ["It is the duty of one who exercises judg-

ment to inquire both into the facts and their chrono-

logy." Unidentified.)

””” This is a rather stronger expression than that used
by Mr. Weston. Edit. [Weston wrote, "To prove that Pope
really gig suffer his Friends to depreciate the Person from
whom he learned ell that ie valuable. . . Miss Seward cannot
forget Swift," Letter 21. p. 147.)

””’ I have long had doubts of Swift's title to this
work: and my suspicions are much confirmed by observing that
Dr. Johnson (as Mr. Boswell, in his Journal, tells us.)
entertained the same idea. [Johnson stated. "I doubt whether
the "Tale of a Tub" be his [Swift's]: for he never owned it,
and it is much above his usual manner." Boswell's Life pi
Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1934). 1:452.
Boswell recorded Johnson's repitition of this opinion at
2:318-319 and at greater length at 5:44.] This was, however,
an esoterick doctrine of the Doctor: for, in his "Lives of
the Poets," he does not hint at such a thing. [In the Life pi
Swift, Johnson temporized judicially: ”That.Swift was its
[Tale pi e lpp's] author, though it be universally believed.
was never owned by himself. nor very well proved by any

 

”Letter 21. PP. 137-48.

204

for a moment that he would permit Pope to direct his pen upon
any subject. One must be very ignorant not to know, that
Swift's aversion to Dryden arose from a personal disgust”””:
and that Pope. as Dr. Johnson himself relates, always vin-
dicated Dryden from the censures of Addison, emg praised mim
through pie whole life with unyeried liberality‘”’.

But these observations are intended for readers of an-
other turn of mind than Mr. W.: who may however, it is possi-

ble, be ashamed‘”” when he reads that Swift was born in 1667,

 

evidence: but no other claimant can be produced, and he did
not deny it when Archbishop Sharpe and the Duchess of
by shewing it to the Queen, debarred him from a bishoprick."
Lives 3:10.) It is certain that Swift never owned the work:
which, to those who consider how much Swift prized his repu-
tation as a man of wit, and how little he regarded the opin-
ion which the world entertained of his religious character,
will appear pretty extraordinary: and I think there is more
learning in this than Swift has displayed in any of his
avowed publications. together with a very different strain of
humour. I have been inclined to give the work to Mr. Anthony

Henley (father of Lord Chancellor Northington): a man of wit
and learning, as appears by the IXth and Xth letters of
"Swift's Correspondence," [The Correspondence pi Jonathan

Swift, EiD., ed. F. Elrington Ball (London: G. Bell and Sons,
1910) 1:112-15] and to whom Dr. Garth dedicated "the

Dispensary." He was, however, the patron of Dennis, and
assisted him in his plays. [Henley (d. 1711) was a wit and
friend of Swift's. There is no evidence that he wrote Tale

pi e Tub. His son Robert was Lord Chancellor to George III.
who made him Earl of Northington in 1764.]

””” When Swift shewed to Dryden some specimens of his
early poetry, which are, to be sure, very bad, "Cousin
Swift," said Dryden, as he returned him his papers, "you will
never make a poet." [footnote, check Ehrenpreis] Hence

Swift's sarcasms.

””’ Lives, vol. IV. p 168. [Lives, 3:220.)

”””Crebillon, it is true, says, that some men are as
incapable of being ashamed of thinking wrong. as they are
incapable of thinking right. Agaremens de Coeur, par.2da.
[Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon, pee Egaiemens pp Coeur
ei pp L'Esprit, trans. by Barbara Bray as lme Wayward Head
emg Heart (London: Oxford UP, 1963) possibly p. 154. Because
of the difference in translations, I have been unable to find
"B. L. A.'s" exact words.

 

 

205

Pope not till 1688. Before 1688 Swift's chamberfellow is
said to have seen a copy of "The Tale of a Tub" in his own
handwritingI7’. Dr. Johnson thinks it was written between
1693 and 1697: and (not to trouble ourselves with considering
when. or by whom, it was written), we all know that it was
publiehed in 1704. The consequences in favour of Pope's
innocence arising from this chronological deduction are ob-
vious. Pope was born in the year when Swift's chum saw a
copy of the work which Mr. W. supposes him to have dictated:
he was from five to nine years of age when Dr. Johnson””’
thinks it was written: and when it was printed he was six-
teen. At what period the acquaintance of these great men
commenced, I have not learned: but it certainly was not till
after this time. because Pope had not then published his
Pastorals, with which his literary life commenced”9’: and we
know that he was recommended to the notice of Swift by his
growing celebrity only, which could not have been till some
time after 1704.

After this, I shall leave Pope's vindication from Mr.

W's other equally unmerited charges to abler hands.

 

”7” Dean Swift. p. 21. [Irvin Ehrenpreis cites evidence
that the Tale "was mainly composed about 1696." Swift: Ime
Man, Eie Works, eme ipp Age (London: Methuen, 1967) 2:333.
Ehrenpreis also mentions the belief of Swift's eighteenth-
century biographer, John Lyon, that several people saw a
draft of the Tale in Swift's handwriting while he was at
Trinity College, Dublin (1682-1686) 1:186n.)

””’ Lives of the English Poets, vol. III. p. 388. [John-
son places lme Tale pi e lpp's composition "in the four years
that passed between his (Swift's) return [to Sir William
Temple's employ) and Temple's death": i.e., 1696-99 not 1693-
97 as "B.L.A." says. Lives, 3:7 and note 5. Johnson gives
its publication date as 1704 (3:10).)

”9’ Ib. vol. IV. p. 12. [Eives 3:94.]

 

206

Accipe ..... insinias [insidias], & crimine ab uno
Disce omnes.”

Yours. &c. B. L. A.

 

36.

Mr. Urban.

c.

an. 10. [1791]

[I have omitted first and final paragraphs of this letter
because they are irrelevant to the controversy.)

Surely, Mr. Urban, you may be allowed to end the contest
between the Poet and Poetess by declaring the battle drawn.
Your readers have borne it patiently a long time. Let it end
with the last year: let the manes of Dryden and Pope rest in
peace; and let the favourers of each enjoy, uncontroverted,
those opinions respecting them and their works, which they
would continue to entertain were the antagonists to go on
disputing as many years as they have done months. It morti-
fies me, Mr. Urban, that the lady and gentleman I allude to
should misapply those talents, and mis-spend that time, in
wrangling, which might be so well employed in adding value to
your poetical department. I beseech you, Mr. Urban. to
proclaim silence* on the subject of the merits of Dryden and

Pope. Remigius.

 

 

*We proclaim it to all but the principals, who have a
right to be fully heard. Edit.

”Read "Accipe nunc Danaum." "Hear now the treachery of
the Greeks and from one learn the wickedness of all," Virgil,
Aeneid 2.65.

 

207

 

37.

Mr. Urban, Flintehire, Eepi. 22. [1790)
I have read with much attention, in your valuable Maga-

zine. the controversy respecting the poetical merits of Pope

and Dryden, begun by Miss Seward and Mr. Weston, and since
carried on by several anonymous correspondents. In addition
to the latter, I hope I shall not be deemed impertinent in
risking my humble opinion upon the subject: which I will
request the favour of you to insert whenever a proper oppor-
tunity shall be found. The dispute has been conducted, on
both sides, in a manner infinitely superior to any weak
attempt of mine to throw new light upon it: but I could not
resist the opportunity of publishing my sentiments respecting
two Poets deservedly held very high in the estimation of
their country. However loth I may be to differ from a lady
of Miss Seward's acknowledged taste, and although I admire
Pope very much, I must candidly confess that, upon the whole,
I subscribe to Mr. Weston's opinion: and think Dryden most
certainly merited a more exalted seat in the Temple of Fame
than his rival. One of your correspondents has observed,
that he could never read two hundred pegee of Pope without
satiety.” For my part, two hundred limee at one time, however
admirable in point of rhyme and cadence, are enough to dis-
gust my ears with their unvaried melody and uniformity of
construction: no flats, nor sharps: no happy mixture of

discord: no spirit or fermentation of thought or numbers,

 

”Letter 10, p. 69.

 

208

produced by a due combination of sweets and acids: few Alex-
andrines, or triplets (which I think very essential, at least
in a poem of any length), to break the constant monotony of
the cuckow--no, the blackbird-notes. so warmly vindicated by
Miss Seward.” Dryden, on the other hand, it must be con-
fessed, even by Mr. Weston. is frequently too careless, and

very unequal in his versification: "Nil fuit unquam sic impar

sibi."” But in regard to genius. originality, conception,
strength, and sublimity, there surely can be no comparison!
Pope, if I may be allowed the expression. may be said to

offend by his perfection: Dryden, to please by his imperfec-
iipp. I say nothing of Pope's moral character. because, in
my opinion, imei has nothing to do with the subject in dis-
pute: which I conceive at its commencement to have been, not
which of the two was the better mep, but the better gpei.
Besides, it is an invidious task: and I hasten with pleasure
to congratulate your fair and amiable correspondent upon the
very charming poem, p. 160.” her dazzling beauties* have
avowedly produced from the pen of her antagonist: and I
sincerely wish the contest may end here. unless Miss S.
should find her Muse willing to dispute the laurel, and Ito

answer Mr. W's Drypenic Imitation, by a poem in her favourite

 

*"Vultus nimium lubricus aspici." [Horace, Qgee 1.19.8.
"her face seductive to behold.”]

”Letter 11, p. 94.

”"Never was a creature so inconsistent," Horace, Satires
I.iii.18.

”Letter 15, pp. 109-15.

 

209

Bard's best manner: "Envy must own her equal to the task."”

After all that has been said upon the occasion, either
by Mr. W. or his coadjutors, he seems to consider himself in
the situation of Prior, when engaged in a similar dispute
with a lady:

Spare, gen'rous victor! spare the slave,

Who did unequal war pursue:

That more than triumph he may have.

In being overcome by you.”

I must however observe, that, whatever other motives he
might have for retiring from the combat, Mr. W. seems to have
yielded to the resistless power of her eyes,” more than to
the weight of her arguments.--I now take my leave of both
parties, with a consciousness of having delivered my free
sentiments without prejudice, disguise, or partiality: and my
utmost ambition is to be thought not altogether unworthy of
the notice of the triumphant Seward, and the reluctantly-
retreating Weston. . Yours, &c. R. W.

Or, Bardus Ordovicensis. [Poet of North Wales)”

 

 

”Perhaps a partial quotation of "Envy must own I like
among the Great," Pope mil 4:133.19.

”Matthew Prior, "To a Lady: She Refusing to Continue a
Dispute with me, and Leaving Me in the Argument," 1-4.

”See Weston's poem 2p Miss Seward. p. 110, 11.18-29.

”From Ordovicee, the "name of an ancient British tribe
in North Wales" (QEQ).

i

210

38.
Mr. Urban, E22- 27. [1790]
Mr. Pope's character may safely be trusted in the hands
of so able an advocate as Miss Seward: and her defence will
be no difficult business, if what those who best knew him
have affirmed, be true: "His meanest talent was his wit."”
As to Welsted, his patience under an infamous calumny
was wonderful in a man so irritable as he is represented, and
so admirably qualified to revenge the affront.

Full ten yerrs [years] slander'd. did he once reply?
Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie. [EpArb

 

 

4:374-75.]
Yours, &c. R. B.
”Jonathan Swift, "A Libel on the Reverend Dr. Delaney
and His Excellency John Lord Carteret." The Complete Poems pi
Johnathan Swift, ed. Pat Rogers (Harmondsworth, Eng.:

Penguin, 1983) 80.

211

 

39.
Nevhailes. near
Mr. Urban, Edinburgh. iem.1. [1791)
Had the controversy, as to Dryden and Pope, been carried
on by inferior writers, the publick might have been enter-

tained with it as long as the antagonists had any literary
ammunition left of paper and ink. But it must give pain to
considerate readers, when they see persons of genius bestow-
ing ipei_ time in fruitless altercation, which they might
employ more worthily, and more usefully. Will the combatants
agree to an armistice for twelve months, on the principle of
pii ppssidetis?” I dare say that, after the lapse of that
term, neither party will be disposed to renew hostilities.
The cause of Pope's censure is said to have originated
from a pamphlet, entitled "Homerides."” I will not assert
positively, but I think that the pamphlet was not aimed
against Mr. Pope, or his translation of Homer, which, by the
way, is no more to Homer, than I to Hercules. It is. if I
mistake not, a catalogue of the last House of Commons in the
reign of Queen Anne. composed in burlesque rhymes. As the

author was a zealous Whig, it may well be supposed that he

did not spare the Tory friends of Mr. Pope.”

 

”Read "Uti nunc possidetis," "Thus. as you now possess."
Sextus Pompeius Festus, me Veiporum Significatu Quae Super-
epnt Cum Paul Epitome, ed. Wallace M. Lindsay (Hildesheim,
Ger.: Georg Olms, 1965) 260.

”See Letter 17. pp. 118-23.

”David Dalrymple is mistaken. The original title, Imp
Hump Conference. clearly points to Pope. See Mack. Life 277.

 

212

[I have omitted the final paragraph of this letter because
it is not relevant to the controversy.)

Dav. Dalrymple. [Lord Hailes]

 

40.
Mr. Urban, Solihull, Eep.22. [1791]
I Mentioned, in your Supplement, my Intention of letting
Inanity and Impertinence pass unnoticed: but Falsehood and
Insolence demand a Reply: Truth and Civility geeerve one.--My
Remarks on Pope's Treatment of Lady M. W. Montague must,
therefore, with your Leave, be postponed till I have paid a
Debt of Gratitude to your Correspondent B.L.A. whose Letter,
Vol. LX. Page 1177,” exhibits such shining Specimens of
Candour. Elegance and Learning, as cannot fail to impress the
Reader with equal Admiration of the ingenious and amiable
Author's Head and Heart.

"I have been (says he) for some Time sickened with
the affected and verbose Invectives against Pope of Mr.
Weston, whose incorrigible Absurdity and inveterate
malignity against that great Epei, are so conspicuous,
2: "Almost to jpeiiiy the Expressions I have made Use
Suffer me, Mr. Urban, to contemplate. for a Moment. the

uncommon Excellence of this interesting Exordium: every part
of which may boast of peculiar and epprpprietive Beauty!--The

first Line gently intimates the extreme Delicacy of the

Author's critical Stomach: the second and third incontestibly

 

”Letter 35. Pp. 202-206. All quotations from "B.L.A."
are from this letter. Weston has added the emphasis and
capitals.

 

213

prove the Accuracy of his Discernment: the fourth and fifth
strikingly exemplify the Politeness of his Manners: but
how--How shall I do Justice to the Winding Up of this exqui-
site Paragraph?

An Orator, in the Heat of Declamation, may let fall an
Expression, for which he may afterwards deem it necessary to
apologize.--A Writer, too, in the Warmth of his Zeal for the
Reputation of a favourite Character, may be betrayed into
Language. which. on cooler Consideration, he may think proper
to retract.--But--to make Use of Expressions, which the Au-
thor, even in the Moment of Composition, is sensible cannot
be Entirely justified--and to permit those Expressions to
pass through the Press--for the sake. as it should seem, of
publicly epknowledqinq their Unjustifiableness--appears to be
such a Stretch of Modesty and Self-denial as I really believe
is without a Parallel!

"Disquisitions of this Kind (continues B.L.A.) are
in their Nature capable of mathematical Demonstration;
and as Mr. W's Perversion of Intellect seems to incapac-
itate him for Conviction of any sort, but such as ap-
peals to the Senses. my Indignation would have evapo-
rated in Silence, had he not, in your last Magazine,
p.780. advanced a Position which may be refuted by
Chronology, and of the Falsehood of which, therefore,
even He must be convinced."

The Remarker's Love of Mercy, and Regard for Justice,
are here displayed in the most vivid Colours!--My Verbosity.
Affectation, and Incorrigible Absurdity, which his profound
Penetration call him to discover. and which his inflexible
Integrity compelled him to censure, are benevolently attri-

buted to "Perversion of Intellect:"--and, being non compos

mentis, I should have escaped, it seems, unchastized, had not

 

 

214

my “inveterate Malignity" against the great Poet prompted me
to advance "a Position of the Falsehood of which even I must
be convinced!"

Considerate and tender-hearted B.L.A!--Rash and unfortu-
nate J.W!

But what Is this Position,--so demonstrative of my in-
veterate Malignity? "Pope (says Mr. W.) Incited Swift to
ridicule Dryden in 'The Tale of a Tub,’ and 'Battle of the
Books.'"

In Verity, Mr. Urban, if I Had advanced any such Posi-
tion, I must have been--not only the maddest of all Madmen--
but, also, the most foolish of all Fools: for well do I
remember that the express Purpose of the entire Page to which
B.L.A. adverts was to vindicate myself from a similar Charge
brought against me by Miss Seward--viz. that I had accused
Pope of "having meanly Influenced his Friends to exalt his
Compositions above their just Level, for the Purpose of
lowering Dryden's and tearing the Laurels from his Brow."”

Do me the Favour, Mr. Urban, to remark the pointed
Manner in which I disclaimed the imputed Intention.

*"I meant only to affirm. that Pope's Friends practiced

insidious Arts, with a View to undermine the Reputation

of the deceased Poet, and to asperse the Characters of
his living Supporters: and that He suffered them so to
do:--I did Not say instigated--I did Not say assisted:
merely Suffered:--and I thought that I had expressed my

Meaning so clearly as not to admit of Misconstruction:
but I was mistaken."

 

After so strenuously declaring that I never meant to

 

*See Vol. LX. p. 780. [Letter 21, p. 146.]

”Letter 1a, p.1.

 

 

 

215

affirm that Pope Instigated--to have affirmed, in the same

 

Eeg_, that he Incited any of his Friends to ridicule Dryden,
would have been droll enough!--Language so yeiy explicit one
would imagine left no Room for Misapprehension: but humanum
eei errare--A Reference to the Paragraph (p.780.) which
B.L.A. so candidly and so correctly quotes will prove that--
to whatever Quarter "Malignity" and "Falsehood" may be as-
cribed--they cannot with any great Propriety be attributed to

Me.

"To prove that Pope really pie suffer his Friends
to depreciate the Person from whom he learned ell that
ie valuable in the Structure of his Verse were a very
easy task indeed.--To mention only One (but that one an
Host!).--Miss Seward cannot forget Swift--the Partner of
Pope's Labours and the Friend of his Bosom:--nor can she
forget his Comparison of Dyden's Virgil to a Mouse under
a Canopy of State: no--nor his grave assertion in his
Dedication of his Tale of a Tub to Prince Posterity:

"[‘]I do affirm, upon the Word of a sincere Man,
that there is now actually in Being a certain Poet.
called John Dryden, whose Translation of Virgil was
lately printed in large Folio, well-bound. and, if dili-
gent Search were made, for aught I know, is yet to be
seen.'"”

Here, Mr. Urban. you find my Complaint against Pope to
be--mpi that he incited--but--that he Suffered Swift to ridi-
cule that Work which Pope himself pronounced to be "the most
noble and spirited Translation he knew in any Language."”

B.L.A. asserts (p. 1178) that I suppose Pope to have
Dictated the Tale of a Tub: but so far was I from entertain-

ing any such absurd Supposition that, in your Magazine for

 

5"” [‘NR
”Letter 21, pp? wttfi'ttfi.
”Pope, "Preface" to Homer's Iliad 5:22.

 

 

 

216

November (p.974.) I continued my Observations on Pope's
Conduct, in the following Manner.

"But how (Miss Seward may ask) can Pope be to
blame?--Could He prevent Swift's Attack on Dryden any
more than She could prevent mine on Pope?--Probably Not:
but He might have acted on that Occasion as She has on
one nearly similar--viz. have called his Friend to a
public Account for his 'Prejudice' and 'Want of
Taste.‘--My generous Assailant must surely allow that
either she has done too much or he--too little!"”

These Quotations, I fancy, will be more than sufficient
to exculpate me from the Imputations of inveterate Malignity,
and wilful Falsehood: and, if I Do feel Shame, on this Occa-
sion (of which B.L.A. obligingly allows the Bare Possibili-
ty), I certainly do not feel it on my Own Account!

By the Way, Mr. Urban. might it not tend to prevent. or.
at least, to shorten Disputes, if Critics, before they pre-
sumed to write. would condescend to read? In the present
Case, however, the Neglect of that Precaution has been even-
tually fortunate for your Readers: for--had B.L.A. but Read--
he, probably, would not have Written: and then--what a
delicious Olio of classical. critical. and chronological

Knowledge would the Literary World have lost!

Joseph Weston.

 

41.

Mr. Urban, Yarmouth, meipm 5. [1791]
Your Correspondent Mr. Weston. after he has been dis-

armed, and thrown to earth, struggling in vain to wound the

genius and character of the illustrious Pope, like Garrick's

 

”Letter_25, p. 163.

 

 

 

 

217

Richard” stabbing the air at the feet of Richmond. affords
melancholy proof of the strength of Prejudice, debasing a
mind which Imagination has adorned, and on which Benevolence
is allowed to have often shed her kindest influence.

Mr. W. is furiously angry at a letter in your last
Supplement, which does most certainly ruin his cause by dis-
arming the force of all the evidence which he can produce to
destroy the general esteem in which the memory of that exqui-
site Poet, that warm, Friend, that tender and pious Son, is
deservedly held: notwithstanding his too keen irritability
when the envious Troop threw their feeble darts against a
shield of proof.

B.L.A.'s letter is fatal to Mr. Weston, because whenever
a person has given, or at least refuses to retract an accusa-
tion, of which the accused is proved innocent, every previous
and succeeding evidence from such an inveterate enemy, natur-
ally and inevitably lose all force upon Minds of free and
candid enquiry.

Behold a passage from Mr. Weston's comment in your last
Mag. upon B.L.A.‘s undoing Letter.

"Here Mr. Urban you find my complaint against Pope
to be, not that he Incited, but that he Suffered Swift
to ridicule the Work, which Pope himself pronounced to
be the most noble and spirited Translation that he knew
in any language."”

B.L.A.'s letter observes that Dr. Johnson avows his

 

”Shakespeare. Richard lll V.v. The fight occurs at the
beginning of the scene.

”Letter 40, pp. 212-16. All quotations from Weston
are from this letter.

 

 

 

218

belief that the Tale of a Tub, which contains that ridiculous
spite of Swift's to the great Dryden. was written in an
interval when Pope was between five and nine years old.” He
proves that it was published when Pope was only sixteen--yet
Mr. Weston takes no shame to himself for having imputed it as
a proof of Pope's badness of heart that he did not influence
Swift to suppress it--What!--Could a Child of nine years old,
or a young Poet of sixteen, possess the power of influencing
the proudest Man existing, concerning what he should, or
should mpi write!!!

The word Suffer. applied to Swift, not only respecting
such a Child as Pope then was, but in reference to any Human
Being, is even more ridiculous than Incite. An Infant might
possibly tell Swift something which might incite him to
anger. or might soften his resentment: but it is impossible
to suppose a Man of his matchless pride, and obstinacy de-
pendant upon the Sufferance of any man living respecting his
Writings.

Mr. Weston's logic that either Miss Seward had done too
much in defending Pope against himself, or Pope too little in
not defending Dryden against Swift is demonstrably fallacious
from the evident difference of their respective situations.
Swift was twenty-one years older than Pope--his reputation
established--his wit awing the whole literary world--his
moroseness and the proof his injustice to Dryden afforded of

unsubsiding resentments: these considerations may be

 

”P. 203n.

 

219

supposed to have operated wisely upon Pope to let the
malevolent and impotent sneer, from the pen of Swift, remain
through life unnoticed: his pmp noble-minded praise suffi-
ciently evincing how much he disdained the malice of his
friend: expressions of contempt for Dryden equally virulent
and equally powerless, may be found in Lord Shaftesbury's
Characteristicks”--not merely against particular passages and
whole bombast plays, which lie open to the censure of ell
just Taste, but against the Author as a man of genius, and
against the whole of his compositions where good and bad,
sublime and fustian, are so strangely mingled: and where the
excellencies are so mpple, as to atone for all the defects,
prodigious as they are.

I apprehend Miss S. had no such reason to be silent upon
attacks more virulent on Pope, from the Pen of a Man she ie;
spected. but not feared. Perhaps Mr. Weston was not mpi
senior as to age: she probably did not believe him such an
unforgiving Despot. as Pope knew Swift to be. Mr. W. threw
down the gauntlet against the genius and worth of a writer
she adored. That she took it up does not convict herself of
presumption, or Pope of baseness, because me suffered Swift's
to lie unnoticed on the ground, being in so very different
line of connexion with the Offender.

Mr. Weston's advice to B.L.A. to peep before he writes

must put every body in mind of a very vulgar proverb about a

Pot and Kettle. If Mr. W. had read before he wrote, he had

 

”Anthony Ashley Cooper. Earl of Shaftesbury.
Characteristics pi Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. John M.
Robertson (NY: Hobbs-Merrill) 2:328-29.333.

 

 

 

220

not thus exposed himself by vilifying Pope at nine years old
for Suffering Swift to write that ridiculous sarcasm or at
sixteen for Suffering him to print it.

B.L.A.'s letter is accurate in point of information: it
makes no display of classical knowledge: it does not contain
one word of criticism: but it speaks with the most convinc-
ing good sense concerning the inference inevitable alike upon
that accusation against Pope, whether the word incited or
suffered be applied: and this from the plain chronological
facts it states. Mr. Weston, in sneer. calls that letter "an
olio of classical, critical, and chronological knowledge," as
if it had made false pretences to all three. To the two
first it makes mp pretences: and there must be proof that it
quotes ielee geiee before his satire can affect the last:
your Readers must have remarked how fortunately for the fame
of the accused and for the defensive arguments, Mr. Weston's
indiscreet violence lays him open, on every hand, to the
contempt of the Severe, and the pity of the Candid. Truth
and Justice, calmly secure in their own native strength,
never lose their dignity in vehement invective.

Some of your Correspondents seem as deficient in memory.
as Mr. W. in chronological knowledge, when they wish to see
the controversy ended between Miss S. and Mr. W. the former
having declared. in your Mag. for June last,” her resolve to
drop it.

Satisfied with having demonstrated that Dryden often

 

”Letter 18, p. 129.

 

 

221

wrote wretchedly, and that Pope was clear of every cause of
suspicion that he wished to lessen the fame of his admired
Predecessor, nothing her Antagonist has eimpe said upon the
subject, was likely to induce her to alter her resolution.
The poison. like Swift's exercised upon Dryden, carries its
own Antidote.

Mr. Weston may spare his comments upon Pope's abuse of
Lady M. W. Montague.” Its coarseness and personality were
unjustifiable, be the provocation what it might. Eyeiy body
allows it:” and all Mr. W. can say upon imei subject is but
like writing to prove the darkness of a moonless Midnight:
but Midnight has its Morning: and Pope had recompensing
virtues, chasing and brightening the gloom of that error.

Yours, &c. Norfolciensis. [John Aikin?)

 

42.

Mr. Urban. meipm 16. [1791]
Not for the sake of the mighty peep,” but in compassion

to the humble living readers of your valuable Repository,

have pity on the manes of Dryden and Pope. Mr. Weston may

 

”"From furious Sappho scarce a milder Fate,/P--x'd by
her Love, or libell'd by her Hate." Sappho is Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu. Eirst Satire pi_ime Second Book pi Horace.
Imitated 4:83-84.

”See William Ayre, Memoir pi ime Life emg Wriiings pi
Alexander Pope, Esg. (London, 1745). Discussing Pope‘s
imitation of First Satyr pi Horace, Ayre wrote that it was
said to be aimed at a "Lady of Quality," (Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu). but he does not cite the lines because they are
"too harsh" (2:197).

spe 9:11.776.

 

 

 

222

spare his temper, and his labours: Pope will be read long
after he will be forgotten.--He says triumphantly. Miss
Seward may dine upon sweets, but he likes substantial food.
I should be glad to ask his cook, whether he orders her to
make the sauce pee, that the dinner may be completely gppe?--
The controversy may be very grateful to the disputants, but
it is very tiresome to many of your readers.

Yours, &c. D. R.

 

43.
Mr. Urban, Solihull, Apiil_15. [1791]

The Cause which flies for Aid to Artifice and Misrepre-
sentation can be in no very flourishing Condition.--Of the
one I have already convicted your Correspondent B.L.A.
(p.139):” and I shall presently convict his Vindicator Nor-
folciensis of an Artifice even more reprehensible than direct
Misrepresentation: because--to present lipim to the Eye, and
to convey it Qppoeite to the Understanding--is the more
dangerous, in Proportion as it is the less liable to Detec-
tion.

Suffer me, Sir, just to hint the relative Situation of
my Adversaries and myself.--I stand forth, the undisguised
Champion of an unpopular Cause: the bold Accuser of the
Object of general Esteem and Admiration for half a Century.--

The doughty Defenders of this popular Character B.L.A. and

 

”Letter 40. PP. 212-16.

 

 

223

Norfolciensis. Wear A Mask!--An Inference will of Course, be
drawn, not much in their Favour.--But indeed they who attempt
to Deceive the Publick have no great Inducement to show their
Faces!--A slight Retrospect will suffice for my complete
Justification: and I shall then leave imem to console each
other as they may.

Miss Seward. mistaking the Meaning of a Passage in my
Preface to the Woodmen of Arden, publicly accused me of
asserting that Pope "meanly Influenced his Friends to exalt
his compositions above their just Level, for the Purpose of
lowering Dryden's, and tearing the Laurels from his Brow."”
--To this inconsiderate and unjust Accusation your Readers
will find an explicit, full, and decisive Answer Vol. LX p.
780: where it appears that the Expression I had used was mpi
"influenced," but "suffered."” B.L.A. overlooking my posi-
tive Denial and indeed entire Refutation of the Charge, re-
urged the Accusation--only substituting "incited” for "in-
fluenced:"” and, with a Degree of confidence to which every
one is not equal, pretended to prove my Guilt from the very
Page which evinced my Innocence. Somewhat surprized, but Not
"furiously angry,"” I contented myself with reiterating my
Denial, and with making the necessary References: bestowing
only a passing Smile on the "Chronological Deduction"” by

which it was attempted to be supported: Which--had it been

 

”Letter 1a, p. 1.

”Letter 21, p. 146.
”Letter 35, p. 203.
”Letter 41, p. 217.
”Letter 35, p. 205.

 

 

224

even as Clear and Consistent as it is Confused and Contradic-
tory--would still have been "nil ad Dionysium:"” as. in
Reality, I Never Brought the Accusation which it effects to
Refute.

However, since an Advocate for B.L.A. starts up, (by
whom the twice-exploded Charge is brought forward for the
third Time.) and. in Language the most peremptory and exult-
ing, asserts that I have been "disarmed, and thrown to
Earth"--that "my Cause is ruined"-- and that "the Force of
all the Evidence which I can produce is disarmed" by this
"fatal" and "undoing" Letter. I will. before I conclude,
appropriate a few Lines to the Purpose of proving that this
boasted "Statement of Chronological Facts,"” "strong Lance"
of Argument is nothing better than a "Pigmy's Straw."”

But, as the Old Ground was perceived to be no longer
tenable, and the fictitioue Phrases "influenced" and "in-
cited" were obliged to be abandoned, it was determined that
an Experiment should be tried with the peel Word "suffered:"
to find whether imei could not be meee to answer the Design
better.--And eppm an Experiment Was tried as never yet has
been. and probably never mill be, exceeded in the Annals of
Controversy!

You may believe me, Mr. Urban, when I assure you that I

feel no common Degree of Pain, while compelled to swell my

 

”Nothing to Dionysius. Unidentified.

”Letter 41. p. 220. read "the plain chronological facts
it states."

”Not direct quotations, but probably Weston's phrases
based on "Norfolciencis's" jousting metaphor.

 

 

225

Letter to a tedious Length by Quotations: but Necessity mmei
plead my Excuse.

In my Answer to B.L.A's Charge (p.140)” are the follow-
ing Passages:

"Here. Mr. Urban, you find my Complaint against
Pope to be--mpi that he Incited--but--that he Suffered
Swift to ridicule that Work which Pope himself pro-
nounced to be [']the most noble and spirited Translation
he knew in any Language.[']

"B.L.A. asserts (p.1178) that I suppose Pope to
have Dictated the Tale of a Tub: but so far was I from
entertaining any such absurd Supposition that. in your
Magazine for November (p.974) I continued my Observa-
tions on Pope's conduct. in the following Manner:

"[']But how (Miss Seward may ask) can Pope to
be to blame?--Could He prevent Swift's Attack on

Dryden any more than She could prevent mine on

Pope?--Probably Not: but He might have acted on

that Occasion as She has on one nearly similar--

viz. have called his Friend to a public Account for
his 'Prejudice' and 'Want of Taste.'--My generous

Assailant must surely allow that either she has

done too much or he--ipp little![']"

In the iiiei of these Paragraphs, you perceive. Sir.
that I complain of Pope for Suffering Swift to ridicule
Dryden's Virgil: and. in the leei, that I explain my full
Meaning, and guard against Misconstruction, by allowing the
geesibility--nay the Probability-- of his being unable to
Prevent Swift's Attack: and by pointing out the Manner in
which, in my Opinion. he ought to have Resented the Affront
offered to his great Master.

But to guard against Misconstruction is not to guard
against Misrepresentation.--lmei every one knows to be impos-

sible.--The Advocate for B.L.A. has quoted the first Para-

 

graph, which speaks in general Terms of "suffering," but has

 

”Letter 40, pp. 215-16.

 

226

omitted the explanatory Clause; Designedly omitted: for it
could not possibly escape this amiable Advocate's Attention--
as the latter Part of the very Paragraph which contains it is
replied to. at considerable Length (p.225).1

But, indeed, had my fair, open, unequivocal Acknowledg-
ment that Pope was probably Not able to prevent his Friend's
Insult to Dryden been quoted elep--with what Shadow of Decen-
cy could the following taunting Observations have been intro-
duced in the Letter from--Yarmouth?

*"B.L.A's. Letter observes that Dr. Johnson avows
his Belief that the Tale of a Tub, which contains that
ridiculous Spite of Swift's to the great Dryden, was
written in an Interval when Pope was between five and
nine years old. He proves that it was published when
Pope was only sixteen--yet, Mr. Weston takes mp Shame ip
himself for having imputed it as a Proof of Pope's
Badness of Heart, that he did not Influence Swift to
suppress ii--What!--Could a Child of nine Years old, or
a young Poet of sixteen, possess the Power of Influenc-
ing the proudest Man existing. concerning what he
should, or should mpi Write!!'

"The Word Suffer. applied to Swift, not only re-
specting such a Child as Pope then was, but in Reference
to any Human Being, is even more ridiculous than Incite.
An Infant might poseibly tell Swift something which
might incite him to Anger, or might soften his Resent-
ment: but it is impossible to suppose a Man of his
matchless Pride and Obstinacy, dependant upon the Suf-
ferance of any Man living respecting his Writings."

+ "Mr. Weston's Advice to B.L.A. to read before_he
writes must put every body in Mind of a very vulgar
Proverb about a Pot and Kettle. If Mr. W. had read
before he wrote, he had not thus exposed himself py
vilifying Pope ei nine Years QAQ,£2£ Suffering Swift ip
Write that ridiculous Sarcasm, pi ei sixteen ipi Suffer-
ing mim ip Print ii."

 

 

*P. 224. [Letter 41. pp. 217-18. Weston adds the empha-
sis in this and the following quotation.)
+ P. 225. [Letter 41, p. 219.)

”Letter 41, p. 219.

 

 

227

To what "very vulgar Proverb" this well-bred Vindicator
alludes, I, who am not much in the Habit of conversing with
the Vulgar, shall not take the Trouble of enquiring: but
where, Mr. Urban, Where have I "imputed it as a Proof of
Pope's Badness of Heart that he did not Influence Swift to
Suppress" the Tale of a Tub? Where have I "vilified Pope at
nine Years old for suffering Swift to Write that ridiculous
Sarcasm, or at sixteen for suffering him to Print it?"

However rash, however impudent it might have been for
"the young Poet of sixteen" to have entered his public Pro-
test against the Abuse of his immortal Master, I must contin-
ue to think that his neglecting to pay that Tribute of Jus-
tice and of Gratitude, when, by the Establishment of his pmp
Reputation, he was placed eppye the Dread of Swift's Resent-
ment, if it was a Proof of his Wisdom, was also a Proof of
his Meanness.

Such. Sir, are the Expedients to which the Supporters of
Pope's mouldering Reputation are driven--to prop a Little
Longer the tottering Fabrick!

But some may wonder why B.L.A. and his zealous Assistant
should take such giegraceful Pains to convict me of bringing

a Charge against their Favourite. which I never brought--of

 

trival Importance compared with that which I actually did
bring, and which neither of them have made the slightest

Attempt to disprove!--A Motive is suggested, p.224:”

 

”Letter 41. p. 217.

 

 

228

"B.L.A's. Letter is fatal to Mr. Weston, Because
whenever a Person has given, or at least refuses to
retract an Accusation. of which the Accused is proved
innocent, eyeiy Previous and Succeeding Evidence from
such an inverterate Enemy, naturally and inevitably lpee
All Force upon Minds of free and candid Enquiry."

So, if the Crime of refusing to retract One unjust
Accusation could have been iimeg upon me, by epy Means, eyeiy
Previous. eyeiy_Succeeding Evidence, respecting pimei Accusa-
tions--however reasonable, however incontestable--was to
stand for Nothing!

Most idle and delusory Expectation!

"Most lame and impotent Conclusion!"”

Had I treated Pope as his Avengers have treated Me, I
readily grant that I could not have hoped for much future
Confidence in my Word: but. as the Evidence which I have
brought against him was his Own and of Course fixed and
permanent, (for Scripta Manent) I do not see how my Want of
Veracity (had it been proved) could have affected my Argu-
ment.--Some Danger might. indeed, have been apprehended from
the Probability of False Quotation: but the insulted Public,
justly alarmed. would have regarded my Extracts with as wary
an Eye, as they will, henceforth, any Quotations which B.L.A.
or Norfolciensis may be pleased to make!

But the grand Object of my artful opponents is Procras-
tination.--Procrastination is a sure Card.--I have given a
List of Charges which I have promised to substantiate: they

feel most keenly, by what I have done, what I can do: and

they have Nothing left for it, but to weary me out, or to

 

”Shakespeare, Othello II.1.161.

 

 

229

make your Readers sick of the very Names of Pope and Dry-
den.--As long as you, Sir, will admit their unmannered and
unfounded Animadversions, they will not fail to ply you with
them.--You insert:--I answer:--I confute.--What then?--Shame
cannot reach whom Enquiry cannot.--The Signature, perhaps, is
changed, and the Charge repeated--I again answer:--I again
confute.--What follows?--Perserverance may possibly gain
Something: certainly can lose Nothing: and the Charge rears
yet again its Hydra-head.

Meanwhile the Trial of Pope is suspended: my Chain of
Evidence is broken: my Train of Reasoning interrupted. Then
comes in some petty Auxiliary, with his palty Jest, and his
pert exclamation--that "the Controversy is become Tiresome!"”
--Throwing, eystematipelly. perpetual Rubs in my Way, my
generous Adversaries affect to wonder at the Slowness of my
Progress!

But, if this wretched Trifling with the Patience of the
Public answers Their End, it does mpi answer Mine--I am not
ambitious of the Title of a "literary Gladiator:"” and.
though, in an open field and in open Day, I should not hesi-
tate to meet Any One--with whom it would not be mean or
infamous to contend--on the Subject of Pope's moral Charac-
ter, yet I have no Kind of Inclination to return every cow-
ardly Shot that may be aimed at me from behind Hedges or

Walls: nor, though I still deem myself Bound to prosecute To

 

”Letter 42. p. 222.
”Again. probably Weston's phrase using "Norfolciensis's"
metaphor.

 

 

230

Conviction the Libeller "who scattered his Ink without Fear
or Decency,"” will I Longer suffer the impertinent Cross
examination of those whose matchless Effrontery appears to be
their Only Qualification for the Task they assume: nor longer
permit my Cause to be injured, by the pitiful Machinations of
Anonymous Foes!

With your Leave, therefore, Mr. Urban, my Letter rela-
tive to Pope and Lady Mary shall be yet once more postponed;
and that Letter. next Month, shall close the Business--For
The Present:--resume it I Shall: but in a Way more likely to
forward my upright Design.”

After I have, (Without Interruption.) in a Pamphlet” of

which I shall think it my Duty to apprize your Readers, fully
stated Pope's Evidence Against Himself, (and to eieie will be
to convict.) the whole hostile Phalanx may discharge their
hoarded Shafts--and welcome”!
--My Point will have been established--my Cause--gained:--and
the Cavils and the Clamours of a Myriad of ignorant, stupid.
or malicious Critics will avail no more than Pebbles hurled
against the Monument!

But forget--I have not yet gpiie settled Accounts with

them.-—Commend me, therefore, to the Candour which softens

 

*Till Mr Weston's promised pamphlet shall be before the
publick, we think it fair to decline inserting any thing
further on the subject, except the Letter of Mr. W. which is
to appear in our next. Edit.

”Unidentified. -
”Weston wrote no further letters to the pp.
”Weston did not publish this pamphlet.

1.7

 

231

Pope's Villainy with respect to Lady Wortley into an "Error:"
and which affirms that he had recompensing Virtues which
chased and brightened the Gloom of that Error!"--Suppose Pope
(for a Moment) to be prosecuted for the Slander: and suppose
an Advocate to be pleading for a Remieeion of Punishment, in

some such Language as the following:

"I will not trouble the counsel for the prosecution
to call any Witnesses: but frankly confess that my
client‘s conduct is not to be justified.--I hope, never-
theless, the Court will reflect that, though he me too
keenly "irritable," he is an "exquisite poet;" and that
poets are proverbially so: and, when it is considered
that he is, likewise, a "warm Friend"--and a "tender and
pious son," I flatter myself that these "recompensing
virtues" will be allowed amply to atone for the "error"
which he has "committed."

Might not the advocate for the Lady reply thus?

"I applaud the Prudence of my learned brother, in
desiring to stop the production of that evidence which
must demonstrate what he mentions by the gentle appella-
tion of "error" to be a Crime of enormous magnitude!--
But I cannot suppose that the circumstances produced
with a view to extenuate this crime will have any great
weight with the Court.--From the Defendant's poetical
merit the scandal of which we complain obtains a more
extensive circulation, and makes a more durable impres-
sion: and, though ardent friendship and filial piety
certainly Be virtues. I see not the propriety of styling
them, im this case, recompensing ones: since they, in no
way. tend to Repair the damage sustained by my right
honourable, and most amiable Client's Reputation."

To examine yet further your Yarmouth Correspondent's

Remarks.

"B.L.A's letter is accurate in point of information."”--

 

”Letter 41. pp. 216-21. The following references are to
that letter unless otherwise noted.

 

 

232

Of this Accuracy my letter p.139” pointed out ppe shining
instance, and I shall presently produce another.--It makes no
display of classical knowledge: it does not contain one word
of ["]criticism:“ --consult "Johnson's Dictionary" (if neces

sary) for the meaning of the words classical and critical,”
then consult the text and notes of B.L.A's Epistle !--"But it
speaks with the most convincing good-sense concerning the
inference inevitably alike upon that accusation against Pope,
whether the word incited or suffered be applied: and this
from the plain chronological facts it states."--To the "con-
vincing good sense" I have already replied: and to the "plain
chronological facts" I am gpimg to reply:--but first for a
little more of quotation.

["]Mr. Weston. in sneer, calls that letter ‘an Olio of
cleesical, critical and chronlogicel knowledge,‘ as if it had
made false pretences to all three. To the two first it makes
_p pretences: (Again!) and there must be proof that it quotes
ielee geiee before his satire can affect the last:"--In-
deed?--May not, then, a "Chronological Deduction,"--even
supposing it does mpi "quote false dates." become ridiculous,
from the pomposity of its introduction, and the grossness of

its misapplication.

 

”Letter 40, pp. 212-16. Weston chastised B. L. A. for
misreading his letter (21) in which he explained that he had
not said Pope incited or instigated his friends to undermine
Dryden's reputation, but merely "suffered" them to do so.
”Johnson defined classical as "relating to antique authors:
relating to literature." He defined critical as "exact:
nicely judicious: accurate: diligent."

 

 

233

However, if proofs of "false dates" Must be produced,
they Shall.

*"But these observations are intended for readers
of another turn of mind than Mr. W. who may However, it
is Possible. be ashamed when he reads that Swift was
born in 1667, Pope Not Till 1688. Before 1688 Swift's
Chamber-fellow is said to have seen a copy of "The Tale
of a Tub" in his own hand-writing. Dr. Johnson thinks
it was written between 1693 and 1697: and (not to
trouble ourselves with considering when, or by whom, it
was written), we all know that it was published in 1704.
The consequences in favour of Pope's innocence arising
from this Chronological Deduction are obvious. Pope was
born In the year when Swift's Chum saw a copy of the
work, which Mr. W. supposes him to have dictated: he was
from five to nine years of age when Dr. Johnson thinks
it was written: and when it was printed he was sixteen.”

This "undoing" piece of chronology--so "ruinous" to my
cause--so "fatal" to my fame--is certainly (to use the words
of one of the characters in Foote's Bankrupt) "finely con-
fused" but surely mpi "very alarming!"” --At the Commence-

ment, we are informed that Pope was not born Till 1688: and

 

that Swift's Chamber-fellow is eeig to have seen a copy of
"The Tale of a Tub," in his pmp hand-writing, Before 1688.
At the Conclusion. we learn, with astonishment, that Pope was
born In the year when Swift's Chum saw the copy--consequently
that he mee born Before 1688.--Reconcile these passages who
Can!--Well.--We will not stickle for a year or two.--Swift's
Chum saw the copy, if not Before. at least In 1688: and Dr.
Johnson thinks it was written between 1693 and l697.--Here we

learn, with still greater astonishment, that, if the Doctor

 

*Vol. LX. p. 1178. [Letter 35. pp. 202-06. Most of the
emphasis is Weston's.)

”Samuel Foote (London, 1776) III.ii.1l9-20, p. 69. The
speaker is Margin.

 

234

be right, Swift's Chamber- fellow saw the Copy--eeveral yeeie
Before It Was Written!--To crown the whole of this incompre-
hensible statement, we are told, in a note, (p. 1177)” that
B.L.A. has long had doubts of Swift's Title to this work--
that his suspicions are much confirmed by observing that Dr.
Johnson (according to Mr. Boswell) entertained the same
idea--and that B.L.A. is inclined to give the work to Mr.
Anthony Henley!

Thus, Mr. Urban. we are presented--firstly, with a Re-
port--but the Lord knows from what authority: secondly, with
a Surmise the authority of Dr. Johnson,--and, thirdly, with a
Suspicion the authority of B.L.A!--and, by the united force
of the report--surmise--and suspicion--I am laid. it seems.
sprawling on the earth!--Now let us examine the component
parts of the complicated machine by which this utter "ruin"
has been accomplished.

From the Report it appears probable that Swift wrote the
Tale of a Tub Prior to the year 1688: form the surmise it
appears probable that it was not written till some years
Afterwards: and from the Suspicion it appears probable that
Swift Never Wrote It At All.

I know of nothing to set in absolute competiton with
this glorious climax of absurdity!--King Phyz's droll divi-

sion in the Rehearsal approaches near it.

 

”Letter 35. p. 203n.

235

"The question is--did they hear us whisper?--Which
I divide Thus:--into When they heard us whisper?--What
they heard us whisper?--end Whether They Heard Us Whis-

per Or No."”

Joseph Weston.

 

”George Villiers. Duke of Buckingham, II.iv.8-9. 15-16.
Weston conflates two speeches by the Gentleman-Usher.

Appendix A

By neo-classical point of view, I mean the attitude,
prevalent during the first half of the eighteenth century.
that the classics of Greece and Rome were the standards of
literary excellence. Neo-classical poets expected their
audiences to be familiar enough with the classics to respond
to their imitations of classical genres and recognize their
allusions to the great classical authors such as Homer,
Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. They concentrated on man in his
relationship to society rather than as an isolated
individual, and they viewed poetry as a public utterance and
social force that operated within a long tradition of such
poetry and should be judged accordingly.

Because they believed that the most important aspect of
human nature itself was its uniformity, not its uniqueness,
neo-classical poets emphasized those qualities that all men
share. Poetry expressed and appealed to this general human
nature and should both delight and instruct. It was an art
both useful and beautiful, one which required long study and
practice. Achieving excellence in it, as in human life
itself, required control, discipline and balance. In the
hands of many a would-be poet, this led to a concern for
correctness above all, and produced a herd of poetasters who
could versify endlessly. For this description of
neoclassicism, I am indebted to Albert C. Baugh. ed., A
Literary History pi England (NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts,
1948), Bk. 3, parts 1 and 2: and M. H. Abrams, A Glossary pi

Literary Terms, 3rd ed. (NY: Holt, 1971).

 

236

 

Appendix B

1. Regarding Anna Seward's three lists of poets, I
assume that Milton. Dryden, Pope. Prior, Gay, Swift, Addison.
Congreve, Steele, Gray. Thomson, Cowper, Goldsmith, Johnson,
Sheridan. Walpole. Crabbe. Garrick. Burns, and Chatterton
need no further identification. Of the remainder, all but
four can be found in the ppm. and most can also be found in
the EQEEE. Those names with asterisks can be found only in
the pup. For the four names not found in either source. I
have supplied dates and brief identifications.

Eiiei pie_: Thomas Otway, Abraham Cowley. Edmund
Waller, Sir William Davenant. Samuel Butler, John Denham,
Nathaniel Lee, Wentworth Dillon (Earl of Roscommon).

Second Lie_: Edward Young, Thomas Tickell, Nicholas
Rowe, Thomas Parnell, Dr. John Arbuthnot, either Ambrose
Philips or John Philips (M----s assumes it is not Ambrose
because .he reproves Miss Seward for omitting "A. Philips”
from her list (Letter 5, p.29I), Isaac Watts, Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu.

IBIIQ. Lie_: William Hayley, William Mason. William
Collins, Mark Akenside, Joseph Warton and Thomas Warton the
younger, Robert Jephson, James Beattie. Charles Churchill,
William Shenstone, John Langhorne, Sir William Jones, Henry
James Pye, David Mallet, Richard Owen Cambridge, Bishop
Robert Lowth or Louth. John Sargent (not Sarjent), died in
1831. (pp 1831. ii:285 amd Eipgi,niemi 1812. 3:43) He wrote

Ime Mine. a dramatic poem, which William Hayley commented on

237

238

in his memoiie as rivalling Milton's Qp_pe. Anna Seward
mentions Sargent's other two poems, both odes, in her Leiieie
2:259. Thomas Whalley, Thomas James Mathias. Edward Jerning-
ham, William Whitehead, Charles James Fox”, Robert Lloyd”,
Samuel Wesley the younger, John Dyer, John Hoole. Rev. Samuel
Hoole (c. 1758-1839), John Hoole's brother, published a vol-
ume of poems which included lpe Cprate (1788), a volume of

Sermons (1790), and Anecgotes (1804) of his brother John. He

also translated The Selected Woiks pi Al ven Eeepwenpoek,

pontaining mis Microspopical Eiecoveriee (1798). Isaac Haw-

kins Browne, William Somervile (or Somerville), probably
minor playwright John Home rather than Scottish judge and
scholar Henry Home (Lord Kames), William Crowe, George
Steevens (not Stevens), Arthur Murphy. De la Crusca (or
Della Crusca) is the pseudonym of Robert Merry, who adopted
it from the famous Florentine Academy. Richard Cumberland,
Bertie Greathead*, Theophilus Swift*, either Edward Barry” or
George Barry”, George Butt.* Peter Pindar was the pseudonym
of John Wolcot. John Cunningham and Thomas Mounsey Cunning-
ham”, Anna Barbauld, Hannah More, Anna Williams. Hester
Thrale Piozzi, Elizabeth Carter, Hannah Cowley. Charlotte
(not Catherine) Smith, Henry Francis Cary.” Thomas Lister
(1772-1828) lived in Lichfield and. along with Cary. contri-
buted poetry to the pm. At the time of this controversy,
Lister and Cary were schoolboy proteges of Anna Seward. John

Newton. Mrs. Ann Yearsley, and William Reid”.

239

2. George Lyttelton. Christopher Anstey. William Julius
Mickle, and Joseph Jekyll are listed in the pup and

all but Jekyll are listed in the NCBELa

3. Richard Duke, George Stepney, Thomas Yalden. and

John Pomfret are listed in the ENB and NCBEL.

4. Miss Seward puts Akenside, Collins, Thomson, Mallet,
Shenstone, and Somervile on her third list of poets in the
period succeeding Pope's. She defends this division in her
Letter 8. pp. 41-43. She adds George Lyttleton to the third
list in her Letter 1b, p. 7. She mentions Allan Ramsay in
her third list when she says Burns is his successor. She
mentions Philips in her third list, but ”M----s" assumes she
means John Philips. She makes no mention of James Hammond,
Leonard Welsted, Richard Glover, William Broome, John Pom-
fret, neither Jabez Hughes nor John Hughes. Sir Samuel Garth,
George Villiers (Duke of Buckingham). nor John Dennis. They
are all listed in the DEE and the EQEEE.

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