have been, not below the works which actually CHAP. exist. XVIII. TURE.. On the whole then, I would not forego any beauty LITERAof description, or developement of character for the sake of the unities. But where, without loss or detriment, it is possible to maintain them, I certainly think them an additional charm to the public, an additional merit in the poet. I would advise a writer to seek them, not to sacrifice to them. is on the same principle, that in versifying he should make every attempt to find a perfect rhyme before he uses a defective one. But if he cannot find any of the former, I would rather bear a faulty rhyme than lose a noble thought. It In our own times, not merely has the depreciation of the unities gained ground, but the poets of the age of Anne have been censured as carrying too far the smoothness and correctness of versification. Pope especially, as the foremost of this class, has been nibbled at by men whom, when alive, a single brandish of his pen would have silenced and struck down. He has been denied imagination, variety, true poetic genius, and allowed scarce any thing beyond the talent of harmonious numbers! But his defence has been promptly undertaken by gifted hands, and conducted in a manner worthy of himself and of them. Mr. Thomas Campbell has, with generous spirit and admirable sense, vindicated our British Horace.* Lord Byron point * Essay on English Poetry, pp. 260-268. ed. 1819. XVIII. TURE. CHAP. edly observes, that Pope is the only poet whose very faultlessness has been urged as his reproach, LITERA- and that he is only blamed as Aristides was banished, because the world are weary of hearing him called the Just. Nay, so eager was Byron to do justice to his predecessor, that he became unjust to himself: he compares the poetry of the last century to the Parthenon, and that of his own times to a Turkish mosque, and boasts, that though he had assisted in rearing the gaudy and fantastic edifice, he had ever refrained from defacing and despoiling the monuments of a purer taste.* The real truth seems to be, that Pope's was not the highest class of poetry, but that in the second class he deserves to hold the very highest rank. It may also be observed, that this class, though inferior in the scale of merit, is perhaps more generally and permanently pleasing than any other. Milton was undoubtedly a far greater poet than Pope; yet Paradise Lost too often remains praised but unread upon the shelf, while the Moral Essays are turned over by a thousand eager hands. I am far from saying that this is a right taste; but I do say that it is, and I believe ever will be, the taste of the larger number of readers. When Pope is blamed for wanting the highest poetic flights, we should remember that such flights did not accord with the subjects he had chosen, and that sublimity misplaced would only become ridiculous. Still less *Letter on the Rev. W. Bowles. XVIII. TURE. should he be condemned, as appears his frequent CHAP. fate, only because his imitators, for the following fifty years, were for the most part tasteless and insipid LITERAcopyists of his harmony without his sense; or, to adopt his own expression, "word-catchers that live on syllables" — who wrote, in very even-balanced numbers, very chilling love-verses and very innocent satires! All this is true, yet all this reflects no discredit upon Pope. It is the fate of all great writers to produce many wretched imitations, and to become the model of all the aspiring dunces of their day. How many ponderous epics have come forth still-born from the press in imitation of Milton! In our own time, what fooleries have been perpetrated, with Byron for their model! What shoals of would-be Laras and Harolds! How many an accomplished young lady, with a richly bound album, has thought it fashionable to describe herself in it as plunged in the lowest depths of despair and hatred to mankind; as one "who dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light"-who claims the "brother"hood of Cain"-whose hours are "all tortured "into ages!" But do all these mincing dainty miseries recoil against the illustrious source of them, and tarnish his great poetic name? And why then is Pope alone to be held responsible for the faults and follies of his copyists? The writers of the age of Anne, by descending from the highest but less popular flights of poetry, and by refining the licentiousness which had heretofore prevailed, greatly extended and enlarged the XVIII. LITERA TURE. CHAP. field of literature. The number of readers grew more and more considerable. Books were no longer confined either to the studious or to the dissolute. Education and reflection spread by degrees throughout all classes; and though several other causes concurred to this end, the new style in literature was, perhaps, the foremost. To women, especially, the change was of importance; there had hitherto been few books for their suitable amusement, and scarcely any medium between pedantry and ignorance. Amongst the ladies who lived in the time of Pope, nay even in his society, we find a want of that common information, which is seldom acquired but in youth, and which, beyond doubt, their daughters afterwards possessed. Thus, to give one instance, Mrs. Cæsar, whose husband was member of Parliament for Hertford, and had filled offices under Harley, and who was herself a correspondent of Swift, could not spell English; and was so far from considering this deficiency as a matter of shame, that she treats it as a subject of jest. She admits that her spelling is bad, but boasts that her style is terse; and quotes a saying of Pope, that he sometimes finds too many letters in her words, but never too many words in her letters! * In the next generation, I apprehend, many might have misspelt, but would have blushed at it; in the next again, nearly all would have spelt rightly. At the present time, perhaps, some persons might fear that *Mrs. Cæsar to Swift, August 6. 1732. XVIII. we are passing over into the opposite extreme, and CHAP. that, so far from mis-spelling, a young lady would now be more likely to indite a learned Essay on Orthography. There is another praise to which the age of Anne seems justly entitled; it awakened public attention to the age of Elizabeth. Our noble English ballads had remained forgotten, until Addison quoted and applauded Chevy Chace.* Thus also the Fairy Queen was proclaimed, and at length acknowledged as "agreat land-mark of our poetry."+ Thus the great old dramatists once more resumed their reign, having in this century first excited praise from-eminent men as readers, and next again attracted applauding thousands on the stage. During the reigns of William, of Anne, and of George the First, till 1721, when Walpole became Prime Minister, the Whigs and Tories vied with each other in the encouragement of learned and literary men. Whenever a writer showed signs of genius, either party to which his principles might incline him was eager to hail him as a friend. The most distinguished society, and the most favourable opportunities, were thrown open to him. Places and pensions were showered down in lavish *Spectator, Nos. 70. and 74. †This was the expression of Pope. (Spence, p. 171.) He said, on another occasion:-"There is something in Spenser "that pleases one as strongly in one's old age as it did in one's "youth. I read the Fairy Queen when I was about twelve, "with infinite delight, and I think it gave me as much when I "read it over about a year or two ago." (Ibid. p. 296.) LITERA TURE. |