276 TRANSLATION OF HOMER. the five cantos that tell the woes of Belinda. The machinery of the poem, as critics call the introduction of supernatural beings into the action of the plot, Pope took from the Rosicrucian doctrine, that the four elements are filled with sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and salamanders. Most comically does this airy by-play come to act upon the progress of the story, reaching, perhaps, the climax of its humour in the exquisitely absurd idea of a poor sylph who was so eager to save the imperilled lock that she gets between the scissor blades and is snipped in two. After a fierce battle, in which Belinda, armed with a deadly bodkin, leads the van, the severed tress flies up to take its place among the golden stars. In The Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard we find the poet wasting his pathos upon an unhappy theme. The Temple of Fame, a fine piece of descriptive writing founded on Chaucer's "House of Fame," though written earlier, was published about this period of his life. At twenty-four Pope undertook his most extensive, most profitable, yet assuredly not his greatest work. "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer," was the terse and true remark of the great scholar Bentley upon the volumes sent him by the poet. Many hundred verses were written on backs of letters and chance scraps of paper, sometimes at the rate of fifty lines a day. Begun in 1712 and finished in 1725, the Iliad and the Odyssey together, after deducting the cost of some help which he got in the notes and the translation of the latter, brought the poet a handsome fortune. Not sixty years before, a blind old man in the same great city had sold the greatest epic of modern days for £18. Pope, whose poetic fame grows pale before the splendour of Milton's genius, as the stars die out before the sun, pocketed more than £8000 for a clever translation. Like Dryden translating Virgil, Pope did little more than reproduce the sense of Homer's verse in smooth and neatly balanced English couplets, leaving the spirit behind in the glorious rough old Greek, that tumbles on the ear like the roar of a winter sea. With the money thus obtained Pope had the good sense to buy a villa at Twickenham, standing on five acres of land. The hours QUARREL WITH ADDISON. 277 which were not given to his desk, were spent in laying out his flower-beds, and adorning his famous grotto with such things as red spar, Cornwall diamonds, Spanish silver, and lava from Vesuvius. Here, by the gentle Thames, his later years were spent ; here Swift, Bolingbroke, Gay, Arbuthnot, and a host of the most brilliant men of the day, paid him frequent visits; and it is, at least, one tender trait in the character of a poet who has not had very many kind sayings lavished on him, that here his old mother found a warm welcome and a well-cushioned chair in her declining days. Pope's love-making was as artificial as his verse, but not so successful. His professed passion for Lady Mary Montagu, of letter-writing renown, suddenly changed its hue, rosy love turning into pallid rage. So bitter, indeed, did the little man's remarks grow after his repulse, that the lady used to call her quondam swain "The wicked wasp of Twickenham." Of course, Pope and Addison often met. When the poet first came to town, a boy and little known, he danced attendance for a good while upon the great Oxford scholar. He wrote an admirable prologue for the tragedy of "Cato." But gradually a coolness arose between these celebrated men. Some think that Addison was jealous of Pope's brightening fame; others think that Pope's peevish temper, often the accompaniment of a sickly frame, took offence at some slight censures passed upon his "Essay on Criticism." Whatever may have been its cause, the estrangement grew to a crisis, when Pope issued a spiteful pamphlet against old John Dennis, who had published certain "Remarks on the Tragedy of Cato." Addison, vexed at the tone of the reply, although the lance was broken in his own quarrel, hastily said, that if he answered the "Remarks" at all, he would do it as a gentleman should. This Pope never forgave; and the gulf grew wider when Tickell, Addison's close friend, began a translation of Homer, which seemed to the suspicious eyes of Pope a wilful rivalry of his great work, secretly done by Addison, but put out for appearance' sake under Tickell's name. The Odyssey and the editing of Shakspere occupied the pen of Pope for some years after his removal to Twickenham in 1718. His weakly frame could not stand the wear and tear of city life, as authors then lived. Thoroughly sick of spending night after night till two or three o'clock over punch and Burgundy, in rooms choking with tobacco smoke, the poet wisely separated himself from the hard-living set, to which he had at first belonged, and gave up his spare hours to the pure enjoyments of his garden and his grotto. The publication of his Miscellanies (1727-8), in which Swift also took a share, brought round the heads of the offending authors an angry swarm of scribblers, buzzing like wasps whose nest has been rashly invaded. Then the real power of the crippled poet flashed out in full lustre. Seizing each wretched insect with the firm yet delicate hold of a skilful entomologist, he ruthlessly pinned it, in the full gaze of the world's scorn, on the sheets of 1729 the immortal Dunciad. There the unfortunate creatures A.D. still hang and wriggle; and there, while English books are read, they shall remain. This epic of "Dunces" (hence its name) celebrates the accession of a king-at first Shaksperian Theobald, but in a later edition dramatic Cibber-to the vacant throne of Dulness, and describes the sports of authors, booksellers, and critics, before the newly crowned monarch. The fourth and last book is terribly severe upon the trifling education of the day, the "black blockade” of college dons suffering not a little from the satiric lash. The literary profession did not recover for many a day from the onslaught of this bitter pen. To starve in a Grub Street garret became, in the opinion of the public, the sure destiny of every man who took to letters for a livelihood; and even now, when poets sometimes get their guinea a line, the name has not altogether lost, in the minds of many an honest merchant or yeoman, its old associations with threadbare coats, a tendency to drink, and a general lack of half-crowns. The "Dunciad," first published in 1728, was enlarged in the following year; and in 1742 was completed by the addition of the fourth book. The dethronement of Theobald, to make room for Cibber, proved a great blunder; for the satiric lines, which PERSONAL TRAITS OF POPE. 279 pierced poor Theobald to the bone, fell blunt and pointless off a man of totally different character. A frequent visitor at the Twickenham villa was Lord Bolingbroke, well known as a politician, a libertine, and a sceptic. Gradually the poison of his talk found its way into Pope's mind, and a metrical system of morals, The Essay on Man, sprang from the envenomed seeds. Condemning the opinions of the Essay, we cannot but admire its versification; but let us not forget that deadly serpents often lie coiled under the freshest leaves and sweetest blossoms of poetry. Graceful and flowing Imitations of Horace were among Pope's latest works. Through all this poet's life of fifty-six years he was delicate and frail. The wonder is that soul and body kept together so long. When the poor little man got up in the morning, he had to be sewed into stiff canvas stays, without which he could not stand erect; his thin body was wrapped in fur and flannel; and his meagre legs required three pairs of stockings to give them a respectable look. After he grew bald, which happened early in life, a velvet cap became his favourite head-dress. On company days he wore a black velvet coat, a tie-wig, and a little sword. When he stayed with a friend, all the servants were kept in a bustle to answer Mr. Pope's never-ceasing calls. The house was roused up at night to make him coffee, or bring him paper, lest he might lose a happy thought. Poor fellow! his fussiness was a foible easily pardoned; and as to his temper, when we remember that his life-to use his own sad words66 -was one long disease," we can overlook the acid and the sting in remembrance of the pain. The little spider—so he describes his own meagre figure -that could spin webs of verse so brilliant and so deadly, lived with simple elegance upon £800 a year; paring his housekeeping with, perhaps, too close a hand, but cherishing to the last beneath his kindly roof the good old mother whom he loved so well. His death took place at Twickenham on the 30th of May, 1744. Asthma and other diseases had so worn away his strength, that the moment of his decease could not be perceived. 1744 A.D. 280 SPECIMEN OF POPE'S VERSE, Pope's Letters, first published, as he tried to make the world believe, against his will, are well worth the reading; but his finest piece of prose is the Preface to his edition of Shakspere. Two of his well-known works have not yet been named-Windsor Forest and the Dying Christian to his Soul. The former, bright with hues caught in woodland rambles, presents glowing pictures of the scenery and sports which he had witnessed in the green glades of Windsor during the days of his dreamy, studious boyhood. The latter, perhaps the feeblest effort of his great pen, is a stiff and puerile rendering of the Emperor Adrian's last trembling sigh. FROM "THE RAPE OF THE LOCK." For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned, The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze: And see through all things with his half-shut eyes) New stratagems the radiant lock to gain. Ah! cease, rash youth; desist ere 'tis too late; But when to mischief mortals bend their will, |