Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) by Thomas Moore

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"You have _hit the nail in_ the head, and * * * *
[Pope, I presume] _on_ the head also.

"I _remain_ yours, affectionately,
"(Five _Asterisks_.)"

And in asterisks let him remain. Whoever this person may be, he
deserves, for such a judgment of Midas, that "the nail" which Mr.
Bowles has "hit _in_ the head," should he driven through his own
ears; I am sure that they are long enough.

The attempt of the poetical populace of the present day to obtain an
ostracism against Pope is as easily accounted for as the Athenian's
shell against Aristides; they are tired of hearing him always called
"the Just." They are also fighting for life; for, if he maintains his
station, they will reach their own by falling. They have raised a
mosque by the side of a Grecian temple of the purest architecture;
and, more barbarous than the barbarians from whose practice I have
borrowed the figure, they are not contented with their own grotesque
edifice, unless they destroy the prior, and purely beautiful fabric
which preceded, and which shames them and theirs for ever and ever. I
shall be told that amongst those I _have_ been (or it may be, still
_am_) conspicuous--true, and I am ashamed of it. I _have_ been
amongst the builders of this Babel, attended by a confusion of
tongues, but _never_ amongst the envious destroyers of the classic
temple of our predecessor. I have loved and honoured the fame and
name of that illustrious and unrivalled man, far more than my own
paltry renown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of "Schools" and
upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even surpass him. Sooner than a
single leaf should be torn from his laurel, it were better that all
which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever written,
should

"Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam, or Soho!"

There are those who will believe this, and those who will not. You,
sir, know how far I am sincere, and whether my opinion, not only in
the short work intended for publication, and in private letters which
can never be published, has or has not been the same. I look upon
this as the declining age of English poetry; no regard for others, no
selfish feeling, can prevent me from seeing this, and expressing the
truth. There can be no worse sign for the taste of the times than the
depreciation of Pope. It would be better to receive for proof Mr.
Cobbett's rough but strong attack upon Shakspeare and Milton, than to
allow this smooth and "candid" undermining of the reputation of the
most _perfect_ of our poets, and the purest of our moralists. Of his
power in the _passions_, in description, in the mock heroic, I leave
others to descant. I take him on his strong ground as an _ethical_
poet: in the former, none excel; in the mock heroic and the ethical,
none equal him; and in my mind, the latter is the highest of all
poetry, because it does that in _verse_, which the greatest of men
have wished to accomplish in prose. If the essence of poetry must be
a _lie_, throw it to the dogs, or banish it from your republic, as
Plato would have done. He who can reconcile poetry with truth and
wisdom, is the only true "_poet_" in its real sense, "the _maker_"
"the _creator_,"--why must this mean the "liar," the "feigner," the
"tale-teller?" A man may make and create better things than these.

I shall not presume to say that Pope is as high a poet as Shakspeare
and Milton, though his enemy, Warton, places him immediately under
them.[1] I would no more say this than I would assert in the mosque
(once Saint Sophia's), that Socrates was a greater man than Mahomet.
But if I say that he is very near them, it is no more than has been
asserted of Burns, who is supposed

"To rival all but Shakspeare's name below."

[Footnote 1: If the opinions cited by Mr. Bowles, of Dr. Johnson
_against_ Pope, are to be taken as decisive authority, they will also
hold good against Gray, Milton, Swift, Thomson, and Dryden: in that
case what becomes of Gray's poetical, and Milton's moral character?
even of Milton's _poetical_ character, or, indeed, of _English_
poetry in general? for Johnson strips many a leaf from every laurel.
Still Johnson's is the finest critical work extant, and can never be
read without instruction and delight.]

I say nothing against this opinion. But of what "_order_," according
to the poetical aristocracy, are Burns's poems? There are his _opus
magnum_, "Tam O'Shanter," a _tale_; the Cotter's Saturday Night, a
descriptive sketch; some others in the same style: the rest are
songs. So much for the _rank_ of his _productions_; the _rank_ of
_Burns_ is the very first of his art. Of Pope I have expressed my
opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect which the present attempts
at poetry have had upon our literature. If any great national or
natural convulsion could or should overwhelm your country in such
sort, as to sweep Great Britain from the kingdoms of the earth, and
leave only that, after all, the most living of human things, a _dead
language_, to be studied and read, and imitated by the wise of future
and far generations, upon foreign shores; if your literature should
become the learning of mankind, divested of party cabals, temporary
fashions, and national pride and prejudice; an Englishman, anxious
that the posterity of strangers should know that there had been such
a thing as a British Epic and Tragedy, might wish for the
preservation of Shakspeare and Milton; but the surviving world would
snatch Pope from the wreck, and let the rest sink with the people. He
is the moral poet of all civilisation; and as such, let us hope that
he will one day be the national poet of mankind. He is the only poet
that never shocks; the only poet whose _faultlessness_ has been made
his reproach. Cast your eye over his productions; consider their
extent, and contemplate their variety:--pastoral, passion, mock
heroic, translation, satire, ethics,--all excellent, and often
perfect. If his great charm be his _melody_, how comes it that
foreigners adore him even in their diluted translations? But I have
made this letter too long. Give my compliments to Mr. Bowles.

Yours ever, very truly,

BYRON.

_To John Murray, Esq_.

_Post Scriptum_.--Long as this letter has grown, I find it necessary
to append a postscript; if possible, a short one. Mr. Bowles denies
that he has accused Pope of "a sordid money-getting passion;" but, he
adds, "if I had ever done so, I should be glad to find any testimony
that, might show he was _not_ so." This testimony he may find to his
heart's content in Spence and elsewhere. First, there is Martha
Blount, who, Mr. Bowles charitably says, "probably thought he did not
save enough for her, as legatee." Whatever she _thought_ upon this
point, her words are in Pope's favour. Then there is Alderman Barber;
see Spence's Anecdotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax when
he proposed a pension; his behaviour to Craggs and to Addison upon
like occasions, and his own two lines--

"And, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive;"

written when princes would have been proud to pension, and peers to
promote him, and when the whole army of dunces were in array against
him, and would have been but too happy to deprive him of this boast
of independence. But there is something a little more serious in Mr.
Bowles's declaration, that he "_would_ have spoken" of his "noble
generosity to the outcast Richard Savage," and other instances of a
compassionate and generous heart, "_had they occurred to his
recollection when he wrote_." What! is it come to this? Does Mr.
Bowles sit down to write a minute and laboured life and edition of a
great poet? Does he anatomise his character, moral and poetical? Does
he present us with his faults and with his foibles? Does he sneer at
his feelings, and doubt of his sincerity? Does he unfold his vanity
and duplicity? and then omit the good qualities which might, in part,
have "covered this multitude of sins?" and then plead that "_they did
not occur to his recollection_?" Is this the frame of mind and of
memory with which the illustrious dead are to be approached? If Mr.
Bowles, who must have had access to all the means of refreshing his
memory, did not recollect these facts, he is unfit for his task; but
if he _did_ recollect and omit them, I know not what he is fit for,
but I know what would be fit for him. Is the plea of "not
recollecting" such prominent facts to be admitted? Mr. Bowles has
been at a public school, and as I have been publicly educated also, I
can sympathise with his predilection. When we were in the third form
even, had we pleaded on the Monday morning, that we had not brought
up the Saturday's exercise, because "we had forgotten it," what would
have been the reply? And is an excuse, which would not be pardoned to
a schoolboy, to pass current in a matter which so nearly concerns the
fame of the first poet of his age, if not of his country? If Mr.
Bowles so readily forgets the virtues of others, why complain so
grievously that others have a better memory for his own faults? They
are but the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitted from
his catalogue are essential to the justice due to a man.

Mr. Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of
authorship. There is a plaintive dedication to Mr. Gifford, in which
_he_ is made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterly. Mr.
Southey, it seems, "the most able and eloquent writer in that
Review," approves of Mr. Bowles's publication. Now it seems to me the
more impartial, that notwithstanding that "the great writer of the
Quarterly" entertains opinions opposite to the able article on
Spence, nevertheless that essay was permitted to appear. Is a review
to be devoted to the opinions of any _one_ man?

Must it not vary according to circumstances, and according to the
subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must take the sweets
and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so
long a standing as Mr. Bowles might have become accustomed to such
incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. I have been
reviewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr. Bowles, and have had
as pleasant things said, and some _as unpleasant_, as could well be
pronounced. In the review of "The Fall of Jerusalem" it is stated,
that I have devoted "my powers, &c. to the worst parts of
Manicheism;" which, being interpreted, means that I worship the
devil. Now, I have neither written a reply, nor complained to
Gifford. I believe that I observed in a letter to you, that I thought
"that the critic might have praised Milman without finding it
necessary to abuse me;" but did I not add at the same time, or soon
after, (a propos, of the note in the book of Travels,) that I would
not, if it were even in my power, have a single line cancelled on my
account in that nor in any other publication? Of course, I reserve to
myself the privilege of response when necessary. Mr. Bowles seems in
a whimsical state about the author of the article on Spence. You know
very well that I am not in your confidence, nor in that of the
conductor of the journal. The moment I saw that article, I was
morally certain that I knew the author "by his style." You will tell
me that I do _not know_ him: that is all as it should be; keep the
secret, so shall I, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. He is
not the person whom Mr. Bowles denounces. Mr. Bowles's extreme
sensibility reminds me of a circumstance which occurred on board of a
frigate in which I was a passenger and guest of the captain's for a
considerable time. The surgeon on board, a very gentlemanly young
man, and remarkably able in his profession, wore a _wig_. Upon this
ornament he was extremely tenacious. As naval jests are sometimes a
little rough, his brother officers made occasional allusions to this
delicate appendage to the doctor's person. One day a young
lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discussion, said, "Suppose
now, doctor, I should take off your _hat_,"--"Sir," replied the
doctor, "I shall talk no longer with you; you grow _scurrilous_." He
would not even admit so near an approach as to the hat which
protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches Mr. Bowles's
laurels, even in his outside capacity of an _editor_, "they grow
_scurrilous_." You say that you are about to prepare an edition of
Pope; you cannot do better for your own credit as a publisher, nor
for the redemption of Pope from Mr. Bowles, and of the public taste
from rapid degeneracy.

OBSERVATIONS UPON "OBSERVATIONS"

A SECOND LETTER TO JOHN MURRAY, ESQ. ON THE REV. W.L. BOWLES'S
STRICTURES ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF POPE.

* * * * *

_Now first published_.

* * * * *

Ravenna, March 25. 1821.

Dear Sir,

In the further "Observations" of Mr. Bowles, in rejoinder to the
charges brought against his edition of Pope, it is to be regretted
that he has lost his temper. Whatever the language of his antagonists
may have been, I fear that his replies have afforded more pleasure to
them than to the public. That Mr. Bowles should not be pleased is
natural, whether right or wrong; but a temperate defence would have
answered his purpose in the former case--and, in the latter, no
defence, however violent, can tend to any thing but his discomfiture.
I have read over this third pamphlet, which you have been so obliging
as to send me, and shall venture a few observations, in addition to
those upon the previous controversy.

Mr. Bowles sets out with repeating his "_confirmed conviction_," that
"what he said of the moral part of Pope's character was, generally
speaking, true; and that the principles of _poetical_ criticism which
he has laid down are _invariable_ and _invulnerable_," &c.; and that
he is the _more_ persuaded of this by the "_exaggerations_ of his
opponents." This is all very well, and highly natural and sincere.
Nobody ever expected that either Mr. Bowles, or any other author,
would be convinced of human fallibility in their own persons. But it
is nothing to the purpose--for it is not what Mr. Bowles thinks, but
what is to be thought of Pope, that is the question. It is what he
has asserted or insinuated against a name which is the patrimony of
posterity, that is to be tried; and Mr. Bowles, as a party, can be no
judge. The more _he_ is persuaded, the better for himself, if it give
him any pleasure; but he can only persuade others by the proofs
brought out in his defence.

After these prefatory remarks of "conviction," &c. Mr. Bowles
proceeds to Mr. Gilchrist; whom he charges with "slang" and
"slander," besides a small subsidiary indictment of "abuse,
ignorance, malice," and so forth. Mr. Gilchrist has, indeed, shown
some anger; but it is an honest indignation, which rises up in
defence of the illustrious dead. It is a generous rage which
interposes between our ashes and their disturbers. There appears also
to have been some slight personal provocation. Mr. Gilchrist, with a
chivalrous disdain of the fury of an incensed poet, put his name to a
letter avowing the production of a former essay in defence of Pope,
and consequently of an attack upon Mr. Bowles. Mr. Bowles appears to
be angry with Mr. Gilchrist for four reasons:--firstly, because he
wrote an article in "The London Magazine;" secondly, because he
afterwards avowed it; thirdly, because he was the author of a still
more extended article in "The Quarterly Review;" and, fourthly,
because he was NOT the author of the said Quarterly article, and had
the audacity to disown it--for no earthly reason but because he had
NOT written it.

Mr. Bowles declares, that "he will not enter into a particular
examination of the pamphlet," which by a _misnomer_ is called
"Gilchrist's Answer to Bowles," when it should have been called
"Gilchrist's Abuse of Bowles." On this error in the baptism of Mr.
Gilchrist's pamphlet, it may be observed, that an answer may be
abusive and yet no less an answer, though indisputably a temperate
one might be the better of the two: but if _abuse_ is to cancel all
pretensions to reply, what becomes of Mr. Bowles's answers to Mr.
Gilchrist?

Mr. Bowles continues:--"But as Mr. Gilchrist derides my _peculiar
sensitiveness to criticism_, before I show how _destitute of truth is
this representation_, I will here explicitly declare the only
grounds," &c. &c. &c.--Mr. Bowles's sensibility in denying his
"sensitiveness to criticism" proves, perhaps, too much. But if he has
been so charged, and truly--what then? There is no moral turpitude in
such acuteness of feeling: it has been, and may be, combined with
many good and great qualities. Is Mr. Bowles a poet, or is he not? If
he be, he must, from his very essence, be sensitive to criticism; and
even if he be not, he need not be ashamed of the common repugnance to
being attacked. All that is to be wished is, that he had considered
how disagreeable a thing it is, before he assailed the greatest moral
poet of any age, or in any language.

Pope himself "sleeps well,"--nothing can touch him further; but those
who love the honour of their country, the perfection of her
literature, the glory of her language--are not to be expected to
permit an atom of his dust to be stirred in his tomb, or a leaf to be
stripped from the laurel which grows over it.

Mr. Bowles assigns several reasons why and when "an author is
justified in appealing to every _upright_ and _honourable_ mind in
the kingdom." If Mr. Bowles limits the perusal of his defence to the
"upright and honourable" only, I greatly fear that it will not be
extensively circulated. I should rather hope that some of the
downright and dishonest will read and be converted, or convicted. But
the whole of his reasoning is here superfluous--"_an author is
justified in appealing_," &c. when and why he pleases. Let him make
out a tolerable case, and few of his readers will quarrel with his
motives.

Mr. Bowles "will now plainly set before the literary public all the
circumstances which have led to _his name_ and Mr. Gilchrist's being
brought together," &c. Courtesy requires, in speaking of others and
ourselves, that we should place the name of the former first--and not
"_Ego_ et Rex meus." Mr. Bowles should have written "Mr. Gilchrist's
name and his."

This point he wishes "particularly to address to those _most
respectable characters_, who have the direction and management of the
periodical critical press." That the press may be, in some instances,
conducted by respectable characters is probable enough; but if they
are so, there is no occasion to tell them of it; and if they are not,
it is a base adulation. In either case, it looks like a kind of
flattery, by which those gentry are not very likely to be softened;
since it would be difficult to find two passages in fifteen pages
more at variance, than Mr. Bowles's prose at the beginning of this
pamphlet, and his verse at the end of it. In page 4. he speaks of
"those most respectable characters who have the direction, &c. of the
periodical press," and in page 10. we find--

"Ye _dark inquisitors_, a monk-like band,
Who o'er some shrinking victim-author stand,
A solemn, secret, and _vindictive brand,
Only_ terrific in your cowl and hood."

And so on--to "bloody law" and "red scourges," with other similar
phrases, which may not be altogether agreeable to the above-mentioned
"most respectable characters." Mr. Bowles goes on, "I concluded my
observations in the last Pamphleteer with feelings _not unkind_
towards Mr. Gilchrist, or" [it should be _nor_] "to the author of the
review of Spence, be he whom he might."--"I was in hopes, _as I have
always been ready to admit any errors_ I might have been led into, or
prejudice I might have entertained, that even Mr. Gilchrist might be
disposed to a more _amicable_ mode of discussing what I had advanced
in regard to Pope's moral character." As Major Sturgeon observes,
"There never was a set of more _amicable_ officers--with the
exception of a boxing-bout between Captain Shears and the Colonel."

A page and a half--nay only a page before--Mr. Bowles re-affirms his
conviction, that "what he has said of Pope's moral character is
_(generally speaking) true,_ and that his "poetical principles are
_invariable_ and _invulnerable_." He has also published three
pamphlets,--ay, four of the same tenour,--and yet, with this
declaration and these declamations staring him and his adversaries in
the face, he speaks of his "readiness to admit errors or to abandon
prejudices!!!" His use of the word "amicable" reminds me of the Irish
Institution (which I have somewhere heard or read of) called the
"_Friendly_ Society," where the president always carried pistols in
his pocket, so that when one amicable gentleman knocked down another,
the difference might be adjusted on the spot, at the harmonious
distance of twelve paces.

But Mr. Bowles "has since read a publication by him (Mr. Gilchrist)
containing such vulgar slander, affecting private life and
character," &c. &c.; and Mr. Gilchrist has also had the advantage of
reading a publication by Mr. Bowles sufficiently imbued with
personality; for one of the first and principal topics of reproach is
that he is a _grocer_, that he has a "pipe in his mouth, ledger-book,
green canisters, dingy shop-boy, half a hogshead of brown treacle,"
&c. Nay, the same delicate raillery is upon the very title-page. When
controversy has once commenced upon this footing, as Dr. Johnson said
to Dr. Percy, "Sir, there is an end of politeness--we are to be as
rude as we please--Sir, you said that I was _short-sighted_." As a
man's profession is generally no more in his own power than his
person--both having been made out for him--it is hard that he should
be reproached with either, and still more that an honest calling
should be made a reproach. If there is any thing more honourable to
Mr. Gilchrist than another it is, that being engaged in commerce he
has had the taste, and found the leisure, to become so able a
proficient in the higher literature of his own and other countries.
Mr. Bowles, who will be proud to own Glover, Chatterton, Burns, and
Bloomfleld for his peers, should hardly have quarrelled with Mr.
Gilchrist for his critic. Mr. Gilchrist's station, however, which
might conduct him to the highest civic honours, and to boundless
wealth, has nothing to require apology; but even if it had, such a
reproach was not very gracious on the part of a clergyman, nor
graceful on that of a gentleman. The allusion to "_Christian_
criticism" is not particularly happy, especially where Mr. Gilchrist
is accused of having "_set the first example of this mode in
Europe_." What _Pagan_ criticism may have been we know but little;
the names of Zoilus and Aristarchus survive, and the works of
Aristotle, Longinus, and Quintilian: but of "Christian criticism" we
have already had some specimens in the works of Philelphus, Poggius,
Scaliger, Milton, Salmasius, the Cruscanti (versus Tasso), the French
Academy (against the Cid), and the antagonists of Voltaire and of
Pope--to say nothing of some articles in most of the reviews, since
their earliest institution in the person of their respectable and
still prolific parent, "The Monthly." Why, then, is Mr. Gilchrist to
be singled out "as having set the first example?" A sole page of
Milton or Salmasius contains more abuse--rank, rancorous,
_unleavened_ abuse--than all that can be raked forth from the whole
works of many recent critics. There are some, indeed, who still keep
up the good old custom; but fewer English than foreign. It is a pity
that Mr. Bowles cannot witness some of the Italian controversies, or
become the subject of one. He would then look upon Mr. Gilchrist as a
panegyrist.

In the long sentence quoted from the article in "The London
Magazine," there is one coarse image, the justice of whose
application I shall not pretend to determine:--"The pruriency with
which his nose is laid to the ground" is an expression which, whether
founded or not, might have been omitted. But the "anatomical
minuteness" appears to me justified even by Mr. Bowles's own
subsequent quotation. To the point:--"_Many facts_ tend to prove the
peculiar susceptibility of his passions; nor can we implicitly
believe that the connexion between him and Martha Blount was of a
nature so pure and innocent as his panegyrist Ruffhead would have us
believe," &c.--"At _no time_ could she have regarded _Pope
personally_ with attachment," &c.--"But the most extraordinary
circumstance in regard to his connexion with female society, was the
strange mixture of _indecent_ and even _profane_ levity which his
conduct and language often exhibited. The cause of this particularity
may be sought, perhaps, in his consciousness of physical defect,
which made him affect a character uncongenial, and a language
opposite to the truth."--If this is not "minute moral anatomy," I
should be glad to know what is! It is dissection in all its branches.
I shall, however, hazard a remark or two upon this quotation.

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