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He grew dexterous by practice, and every sheet enabled him to write the next with more facility. The books of Fenton have very few alterations by the hand of Pope'. Those of Broome have not been found; but Pope complained, as it is reported, that he had much trouble in correcting them 2.

135 His contract with Lintot was the same as for the Iliad3, except that only one hundred pounds were to be paid him for each volume. The number of subscribers was five hundred and seventy-four, and of copies eight hundred and nineteen; so that his profit, when he had paid his assistants, was still very considerable. The work was finished in 1725, and from that time he resolved to make no more translations 5.

136

137

The sale did not answer Lintot's expectation, and he then pretended to discover something of fraud in Pope, and commenced, or threatened, a suit in Chancery".

On the English Odyssey a criticism was published by Spence, at that time Prelector of Poetry at Oxford; a man whose learning was not very great, and whose mind was not very powerful'.

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The total amount received was
£4,500, out of which Pope reserved
for himself over £3,700.' Pope's
Works (Elwin and Courthope), v.
204, viii. 129 n.

It was a day of glorious subscrip-
tions. Pope wrote to Lord Oxford:
'I have set down the Duchess and
Duke of Buckingham for five sets.
Will you allow me to do the same to
yourself and Lady Oxford? Mr.
Walpole and Lord Townshend are
set down for ten each.' Lord Oxford
replied:-'I would be for ten sets,
my wife for five sets, and Peggy [his
daughter] for one.' Ib. viii. 203-4.

At the present day they would subscribe to Mudie's. The subscribers were not all satisfied. There were loud complaints of the extravagant prices for bad paper, old types, and journey-work poetry.' Ib. v. 202.

5 He wrote to Swift on Sept. 14, 1725:-'I mean no more translations, but something domestic, fit for my own country and for my own time.' Ib. vii. 50. His next great work was The Dunciad, which can scarcely be called domestic.

For the probable grounds of this suit see ib. v. 202, viii. 94, 136. Pope attacked Lintot in The Dunciad, i. 40, ii. 53. Dr. Young described him as a great sputtering fellow,' whom it would have been very amusing to see in his rage.' Spence's Anec. P. 355.

Ante, DRYDEN, 203. Spence published Part i of his Essay on the Odyssey about June, 1726, and Part ii in 1727. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), viii. 119 n. He was appointed Professor of Poetry in 1728. Spence's Anec. Preface, P. 18.

'I mentioned Pope's friend, Spence. JOHNSON. He was a weak, conceited

His criticism, however, was commonly just; what he thought, he thought rightly, and his remarks were recommended by his coolness and candour. In him Pope had the first experience of a critick without malevolence, who thought it as much his duty to display beauties as expose faults; who censured with respect, and praised with alacrity.

With this criticism Pope was so little offended, that he sought 138 the acquaintance of the writer', who lived with him from that time in great familiarity, attended him in his last hours, and compiled memorials of his conversation. The regard of Pope recommended him to the great and powerful, and he obtained very valuable preferments in the Church 2.

Not long after Pope was returning home from a visit in 139 a friend's coach, which, in passing a bridge, was overturned into the water; the windows were closed, and being unable to force them open, he was in danger of immediate death, when the postilion snatched him out by breaking the glass, of which the fragments cut two of his fingers in such a manner that he lost their use 3.

man. BOSWELL. A good scholar, Sir? JOHNSON. Why, no, Sir. BosWELL. He was a pretty scholar. JOHNSON. You have about reached him.' Boswell's Johnson, v. 317.

Johnson, in 1748, recommended Spence's Essay. Works, v. 240. The poet Pitt called him 'the sweetesttempered gentleman breathing.' J. Hughes Corres. 1773, ii. 13. Somervile praised him in lines beginning 'While Spence presides, and candour holds the scale.'

Eng. Poets, xl. 221. For Gray's contemptuous mention of his pretty book' Polymetis see Gray's Letters, i. 164, and for Gibbon's praise of it in his youth see his Misc. Works, iv. 6. On a copy of the Essay he wrote:-'Pleased Pope, and can please none else; dry and narrow.' Ib. v. 583.

''Did some more sober critic come abroad,

If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.' Prol. Sat. 1. 157. Warton had seen a copy of Spence's Essay, with marginal observations in Pope's own hand, . . . in a few instances pleading humorously enough

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that some favourite lines might be
spared.' Warton's Essay, ii. 301.

For an anecdote of Pope sending
from the Cross Inn at Oxford for
Spence see Spence's Anec. Preface,
P. 22.

2 He was Prebendary of Durham and Rector of Great Horwood, Bucks. In 1742 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. He lived chiefly at Durham or at Byfleet in Surrey. Ib. pp. 30, 32. For his eminent virtues as a nonresident Rector see ib.

3 The accident happened in Sept. 1726, as Pope was returning from Bolingbroke's. Bolingbroke wrote to Swift: A bridge was down, the coach forced to go through the water, the bank steep, a hole on one side, a block of timber on the other, the night as dark as pitch.' Gay added that 'Pope was up to the knots of his periwig in water.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 77. For the accident to his fingers see ib. p. 86.

Bishop Burnet had much the same escape. Hist. of my own Time, 1818, Preface, p. 39.

140 Voltaire, who was then in England, sent him a letter of con

141

solation'. He had been entertained by Pope at his table, where he talked with so much grossness that Mrs. Pope was driven from the room. Pope discovered, by a trick, that he was a spy for the Court, and never considered him as a man worthy of confidence 2.

He soon afterwards (1727) joined with Swift, who was then in England, to publish three volumes of Miscellanies3, in which, amongst other things, he inserted the Memoirs of a Parish Clerk, in ridicule of Burnet's importance in his own History1, and a Debate upon Black and White Horses, written in all the formalities of a legal process by the assistance, as is said, of Mr. Fortescue, afterwards Master of the Rolls. Before these Miscellanies is a preface signed by Swift and Pope, but apparently written by Pope', in which he makes a ridiculous and romantick complaint of the robberies committed upon authors by the clandestine seizure and sale of their papers. He tells, in tragick strains, how the cabinets of the Sick and the closets of the Dead have been broke open and ransacked'; as if those

He dated his letter:-'In my Lord Bolingbroke's House, Friday at noon, Nov. 16, 1726.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), x. 132.

Ruffhead (Life of Pope, p. 213) tells these anecdotes on the authority of one of Pope's 'most intimate friends.'

Voltaire wrote in 1772:- Ceux qui ont crié que tout est bien sont des charlatans. Shaftesbury, qui mit ce conte à la mode, était un homme très malheureux. J'ai vu Bolingbroke rongé de chagrins et de rage, et Pope, qu'il engagea à mettre en vers cette mauvaise plaisanterie, était un des hommes les plus à plaindre que j'aie jamais connus, contrefait dans son corps, inégal dans son humeur, toujours malade, toujours à charge à lui-même, harcelé par cent ennemis jusqu'à son dernier moment. Qu'on me donne du moins des heureux qui me disent, tout est bien.' Œuvres, xxix. 164.

For Voltaire's attack on Johnson see Boswell's Johnson, i. 499 n.

3 For Pope's being 'prodigiously pleased with this joint volume' see

Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 94. For the payment for the copyright see ib. ix. 525; Swift's Works, xviii. 322; ante, SWIFT, 84 n.

In the Prolegomena to The Dunciad Pope asserted, falsely no doubt, that these Memoirs were written many years before the appearance of that History. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 64, x. 335. Gay 'had some hand in these Memoirs.' Ib. vi. Introd. p. 47. They are included also in Swift's Works, xiii. 156. For Burnet see ante, MILTON, IOI; SWIFT, 50.

5 Stradling versus Stiles. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), x. 430.

To him Pope addressed the first Satire in Imit. Hor. For their correspondence see Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ix. 96-146.

For this querulous and apologetical Preface' see ante, SWIFT, 84. I do not find it included in Pope's Works. It is printed among Swift's Works, xiii. 1, though evidently not his.

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violences were often committed for papers of uncertain and accidental value, which are rarely provoked by real treasures, as if epigrams and essays were in danger where gold and diamonds are safe. A cat hunted for his musk is, according to Pope's account, but the emblem of a wit winded by booksellers.

His complaint, however, received some attestation, for the 142 same year the Letters written by him to Mr. Cromwell in his youth were sold by Mrs. Thomas to Curll, who printed them 1.

In these Miscellanies was first published The Art of Sinking 143 in Poetry, which, by such a train of consequences as usually passes in literary quarrels, gave in a short time, according to Pope's account, occasion to The Dunciad2.

In the following year (1728) he began to put Atterbury's 144 advice in practice 3, and shewed his satirical powers by publishing The Dunciad, one of his greatest and most elaborate performances, in which he endeavoured to sink into contempt all the writers by whom he had been attacked, and some others whom he thought unable to defend themselves.

At the head of the Dunces he placed poor Theobald, whom 145

1 Ante, POPE, 29. 'They were published in Curll's Miscellanea, of which the title-page says, "Printed in 1727"; but it was in 1726 that they appeared.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), Introd. p. 28.

Dr. Warton has the following curious note:-'We are surprised to see these critics and poets writing to each other with seriousness and earnestness about translations of Ovid's Elegies and Epistles; which the youths of our great schools would almost think it a disgrace to be employed about at present.' Warton, vii. 133.

2 Post, POPE, 356. Pope, writing to Swift in Jan. 1727-8 about what he calls the third volume of the Miscellanies,' says of The Art of Sinking:-'I have entirely methodised, and in a manner written it all.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 110. This volume was entitled, Miscellanies: The Last Volume. A fourth volume, brought out in 1732, 'has for a title-page, Miscellanies: The Third Volume, to avoid the contradiction of a volume later than "the

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last," which still left the blot that the last volume is dated 1728, and the nominal third volume 1732.' Ib. p. 296. Motte, the publisher, said in 1735 that Pope' disowned The Art of Sinking Swift's Works, xviii. 322.

For Pope's account' of the origin of The Dunciad see post, POPE, 148.

The Dunciad, as first published in 1728, was in three books; a fourth was added in 1742. Post, POPE, 229. The first edition contained 920 lines. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 271-97. To what Pope called 'the first correct edition' (1729) (ib. iv. 41) ninety-four lines were added, as well as Prolegomena, Notes, &c. In the final edition the poem contained 1,754 lines.

3

Ante, POPE, 116. When Atterbury read The Dunciad he wrote:'I think the writer has engaged himself in a very improper and troublesome scuffle, not worthy of his pen all. Atterbury Corres. iv. 136.

4

at

'It cost me,' he said, 'as much pains as anything I ever wrote.' Spence's Anec. p. 142.

146

he accused of ingratitude', but whose real crime was supposed to be that of having revised Shakespeare more happily than himself. This satire had the effect which he intended, by blasting the characters which it touched. Ralph, who, unnecessarily interposing in the quarrel, got a place in a subsequent edition2, complained that for a time he was in danger of starving, as the booksellers had no longer any confidence in his capacity 3.

The prevalence of this poem was gradual and slow*: the plan, if not wholly new, was little understood by common readers. Many of the allusions required illustration; the names were often expressed only by the initial and final letters, and, if they had been printed at length, were such as few had known or recollected. The subject itself had nothing generally interesting; for whom did it concern to know that one or another scribbler was a dunce 5? If therefore it had been possible for those who

Ante, POPE, 126; post, 357. 'Pope, in the 8vo ed. of The Dunciad, 1729, says in a note to Bk. i. ver. 106:-" During two whole years while Mr. Pope was preparing his edition [of Shakespeare], this restorer [Theobald, author of Shakespeare Restored], who was at this time soliciting favours of him by letters, did wholly conceal his design."' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), iii. 245. Theobald, Mr. Courthope points out, was aimed at in the following couplet :

'Three things another's modest wishes bound,

My friendship, and a prologue, and

ten pound.' Prol. Sat. 1. 47.

In The Censor (1717), No. 33, Theobald had said of Pope's Iliad:'The spirit of Homer breathes all through it.'

2 The Dunciad, iii. 165. Pope says in a note that Ralph's name was not known to him, till he abused him in 'a swearing-piece called Sawney? A curious account of him is given in Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, i. 5487,245.

3 He ended at last,' writes Warburton, in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, and received a small pittance for pay.' Warburton, v. 139.

Dodington recorded on Nov. 3,

1753: Mr. Ralph told me he had made his peace with the Ministry, and was to have £300 a year.' Diary, ed. 1809, p. 222.

'The poem,' writes Mr. Courthope, appeared on May 28, 1728.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), v. 215. A letter of Pope's to Lord Oxford, dated May 20, implies that it was in print. On May 27 Lord Oxford replied:-'I see Curll has advertised a Key to the Dunciad! Ib. viii. 235-6.

By July 16 Swift had read an Irish edition. Works, xvii. 1824, 200.

In The Daily Journal, May 11, 1728, it is mentioned that Pope is writing The Progress of Dulness. See A Complete Collection of Verses, &c. Occasioned by the Miscellanies of Pope and Company, 1728, p. 51.

56

'Johnson repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of The Dunciad. While he was talking loudly in praise of those lines, one of the company [no doubt Boswell] ventured to say, “Too fine for such a poem:-a poem on what?" JOHNSON (with a disdainful look), "Why, on dunces. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst thou lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits." Boswell's Johnson, ii. 84.

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