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EPISTLE VIII.

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MR. JERVAS,

WITH DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY'S "ART OF PAINTING."

THIS beautiful Epistle first appears in print prefixed to an edition of Fresnoy's Art of Painting, published in 1716. As to the precise date of its composition we have no direct evidence, but there are some interesting circumstances bearing on the question which deserve careful examination. If Pope's statement, that the Epistle to Addison was written in 1715 (see note to that Epistle) could be trusted, it would appear likely that the Epistle to Jervas was composed, or at least begun, in 1713, as the poet tells us in a footnote (see note to this Epistle) that it was written "some years before the rest of the Epistles" (i.e., those to Addison, Craggs, and Lord Oxford), and we know that in 1713 Pope was receiving instruction from Jervas in painting. But, as has been already shown, it is more than probable that the Epistle to Addison was written specially for Tickell's edition of Addison's works published in 1721, and as the Epistle to Craggs must have been written after 1717, and that to Lord Oxford was the work of the year 1721, Pope, perhaps forgetting what he had said elsewhere about the Epistle to Addison, may have only meant by his footnote in this Epistle that the Epistles to Jervas and Miss Blount were written some years before the earliest of the other three.

Certain it is that the Epistle as it stands must have received its final shape after February, 1714, the month in which the Countess of Bridgewater died (ver. 46–54). But here arises a curious question. The first very rough draft of the composition was written by the "paper-sparing" poet on the reverse of a page containing the translation of part of the ninth book of the Iliad. This circumstance, taken by itself, only shows that the Epistle was written before the Translation. The ninth book of the Translation was not published till 1717, while this Epistle was printed the year before with the edition of Fresnoy's Art of Painting. But the rudimentary sketch, a facsimile of which is here inserted (see also Appendix IV.), was quite different in conception from the poem as it stands, and what is now ver. 46 ran

An angel's sweetness or a Berkeley's eyes.

From this it may be inferred that the Epistle in its first state was designed, and partially executed, before the death of Lady Bridgewater, whose name was afterwards substituted for that of Lady Berkeley ; that is to say before February, 1714.

Again, the original reading of ver. 60 seems to indicate that the poem received its present form about 1716. In Fresnoy's Art of Painting, as well as in the folio volume of 1717, the text stands,

And other beauties envy Wortley's eyes;

and in a letter from Pope to Lady M. W. Montagu, written

VOL. III.-POETRY.

P

November 10, 1716, the year in which the latter left England, we find the poet paying his correspondent a similar compliment:

Here stopped by hasty death Alexis lies,

- Who crossed half Europe led by Wortley's eyes.

As Pope's acquaintance with Lady Mary cannot have begun long before her departure for Constantinople, it appears not improbable that the line in the Epistle to Jervas, as at first printed, was written with a view to immediate publication.

On the whole I am inclined to infer from these circumstances that the Epistle, as it appears at the back of the Translation, was written to Jervas in 1713, as a tribute from Pope to the excellent instruction which his friend was giving him. As far as can be seen, the original design of the Epistle was different from that which was finally adopted. In the MS. draft the poet sends the painter a copy of Dryden's Translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting, and takes occasion to inform him that he considers his oral teaching superior to the written precepts which the book contains. He describes their common studies and mutual criticism, and travels with him in fancy to visit the artistic and antiquarian treasures of Italy. There is no sign that the Epistle would have ended in the vein of melancholy reflection which now gives it so much beauty and pathos.

But in 1716 the publication of Fresnoy's Art of Painting by Richard Graham, who appears to have been acquainted with Jervas, no doubt moved Pope to recast his work, and the comparatively recent death of the Countess of Bridgewater, whose beauty had so deeply impressed the painter's imagination, gave a new turn to his thought, and suggested to him the striking conclusion about the triumphs and the vanity of Art. His admiration for Lady M. W. Montagu, then at its height, led him to insert the compliment to her eyes, which in later editions, after his quarrel with Lady Mary, he transferred to Lady Worsley. He probably substituted Lady Worsley's name in the edition of 1735, in order to give the impression that "Wortley " in the early editions was a misprint.

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