conceptions, what was to be chosen, and what to be rejected; and, in the works of others, what was to be shunned, and what was to be copied '. But good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which 294 manages its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collects few materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains supremacy. Pope had likewise genius; a mind active, ambitious, and adventurous, always investigating, always aspiring; in its widest searches still longing to go forward, in its highest flights still wishing to be higher; always imagining something greater than it knows, always endeavouring more than it can do. To assist these powers he is said to have had great strength 295 and exactness of memory 3. That which he had heard or read was not easily lost; and he had before him not only what his own meditation suggested, but what he had found in other writers that might be accommodated to his present purpose. These benefits of nature he improved by incessant and un- 296 wearied diligence; he had recourse to every source of intelligence, and lost no opportunity of information; he consulted the living as well as the dead; he read his compositions to his friends, and was never content with mediocrity when excellence could be attained. He considered poetry as the business of his life, and, however he might seem to lament his occupation, he tarch's De Iside et Osiride, the four 4 6 'Johnson had accumulated a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which was so arranged in his mind as to be ever in readiness to be brought forth.' Boswell's Johnson, iv. 427. 5 In his twentieth year he wrote:'Every day with me is literally another to-morrow; it is exactly the same with yesterday; it has the same business, which is poetry, and the same pleasure, which is idleness.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vi. 67. 297 298 299 followed it with constancy: to make verses was his first labour, and to mend them was his last 1. From his attention to poetry he was never diverted. If conversation offered anything that could be improved he committed it to paper; if a thought, or perhaps an expression more happy than was common, rose to his mind, he was careful to write it 2; an independent distich was preserved for an opportunity of insertion, and some little fragments have been found containing lines, or parts of lines, to be wrought upon at some other time. He was one of those few whose labour is their pleasure3; he was never elevated to negligence, nor wearied to impatience; he never passed a fault unamended by indifference, nor quitted it by despair. He laboured his works first to gain reputation, and afterwards to keep it. Of composition there are different methods. Some employ at once memory and invention, and, with little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish large masses by continued meditation, and write their productions only when, in their own opinion, they have completed them 5. It is related of Virgil that his custom was to pour out a great number of verses in the morning, and pass the day in retrenching exuberances and correcting 3 Ante, J. PHILIPS, 32; DRYDEN, 201. 'JOHNSON. No man loves labour for itself. BOSWELL. Yes, Sir, I know a person who does. He is a very laborious Judge, and he loves the labour. JOHNSON. Sir, that is because he loves respect and distinction. Could he have them without labour he would like it less. BOSWELL. He tells me he likes it for itself. JOHNSON. Why, Sir, he fancies so, because he is not accustomed to abstract.' Boswell's Johnson, ii. 99. 'JOHNSON. It has been said there is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have pleasure from writing after it is over, if you have written well; but you don't go willingly to it again.' Ib. inaccuracies'. The method of Pope, as may be collected from his translation, was to write his first thoughts in his first words, and gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, and refine them. With such faculties and such dispositions he excelled every 300 other writer in poetical prudence; he wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few hazards. He used almost always the same fabrick of verse; and, indeed, by those few essays which he made of any other, he did not enlarge his reputation 3. Of this uniformity the certain consequence was readiness and dexterity. By perpetual practice language had in his mind a systematical arrangement; having always the same use for words, he had words so selected and combined as to be ready at his call. This increase of facility he confessed himself to have perceived in the progress of his translation *. But what was yet of more importance, his effusions were 301 always voluntary, and his subjects chosen by himself. His independence secured him from drudging at a task, and labouring upon a barren topick: he never exchanged praise for money, nor opened a shop of condolence or congratulation. His poems, therefore, were scarce ever temporary. He suffered coronations and royal marriages to pass without a song, and derived no opportunities from recent events, nor any popularity from the accidental disposition of his readers. He was never reduced to the necessity of soliciting the sun to shine upon a birth-day, of calling the Graces and Virtues to a wedding, or of saying what multitudes have said before him. When he could produce nothing new, he was at liberty to be silent. 'See the Life of Virgil attributed to Donatus, Delphin Virgil, 1822, Preface. 2 Ante, POPE, 94. 'In translating both the Iliad and the Odyssey my usual method was to take advantage of the first heat; and then to correct each book, first by the original text, then by other translations; and lastly to give it a reading for the versification only.' POPE, Spence's Anec. p. 270. 'After writing a poem, one should correct it all over, with one single view at a time. Thus for language; if an elegy" these lines are very good, but are not they of too heroical a strain?" and so vice versa.' POPE, 302 303 304 His publications were for the same reason never hasty'. He is said to have sent nothing to the press till it had lain two years under his inspection: it is at least certain that he ventured nothing without nice examination. He suffered the tumult of imagination to subside, and the novelties of invention to grow familiar. He knew that the mind is always enamoured of its own productions, and did not trust his first fondness.) He consulted his friends, and listened with great willingness to criticism; and, what was of more importance, he consulted himself, and let nothing pass against his own judgement 3. He professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liberality; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration if he be compared with his master. Integrity of understanding and nicety of discernment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shewn by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgement that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration'; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when In The Rambler, No. 169, Johnson says that'Pope's compositions were delayed more than once till the incidents to which they alluded were forgotten, till his enemies were secure from his satire, and, what to an honest mind must be more painful, his friends were deaf to his encomiums.' See ante, POPE, 212. 2 Ante, MILTON, 146. 3 "That "true deacon of the craft,” as Scott often called Pope.' Lockhart's Scott, iv. 163. 'I learned versification wholly from Dryden, who had improved it much beyond any of our former poets, and would probably have brought it to its perfection, had not he been once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude'. Pope was not content to satisfy; he desired to excel, and 305 therefore always endeavoured to do his best: he did not court the candour, but dared the judgement of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from others, he shewed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven 2. For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, 306 while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might hasten their publication, were the two satires of Thirty-eight3; of which Dodsley told me that they were brought to him by the author, that they might be fairly copied. Almost every line,' he said, 'was then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time afterwards to me for the press, with almost every line written twice over a second time".' ་ His declaration that his care for his works ceased at their 307 publication was not strictly true 5. His parental attention never abandoned them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the Iliad, and freed it from some of its imperfections; and the Essay on Criticism received many improvements after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that 1 Ante, DRYDEN, 227, 340-1. 2 For Pope's 'correctness' see ante, POPE, 30. 'It is enough for those who make one poem the business of their lives to leave that correct; yet, excepting Virgil, I never met with any which was so in any language.' DRYDEN, Works, ii. 291. Pope wrote to Broome in 1722:'You do not need any man to make you a good poet. You need no more than what every good poet needs, time and diligence, and doing something every day. Nulla dies sine linea. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), viii. 49. 'To touch and retouch is the secret of almost all good writing, especially 4 Ante, POPE, 217. Dodsley gave Warton the same Pope in Epil. Sat. i. 3 makes his 5 In The Guardian, No. 40, he • For corrections due to Dennis's criticism see ante, POPE, 39; Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), v. 43, vi. 146. |