"THIS discourse in praise of temperance loses much of its grace and propriety by being put into the mouth of a person of a much higher rank in life than the honest countryman Ofellus; whose patrimony had been seized by Augustus, and given to one of his soldiers named Umbrenus, and whom, perhaps, Horace recommended to the Emperor, by making him the chief speaker in this very Satire. We may imagine that a discourse on temperance from Horace raised a laugh among the courtiers of Augustus; and we see he could not venture to deliver it in his own person. This Imitation of Pope is not equal to most of his others."-WARTON. "This Imitation will be valuable to a certain class of readers, because it is written without effort or ostentation; and, in a familiar, yet lively manner, brings us acquainted with the author's domestic establishment and way of life. After a philosophic lesson, which the poet puts into the mouth of his friend Mr. Bethel, as Horace did into that of Ofellus, Pope assumes the discourse at v. 129, and continues it through the remainder of the piece. He here introduces us in the most easy and unaffected manner to his own simple yet hospitable style of living, the result of those philosophic maxims which teach him not to refuse the blessings which Providence has left him, because he cannot accumulate riches; for the want of which he consoles himself by reflecting on the rapidity with which they frequently pass from one to another, or become the prize of the most worthless or the most ignorant of mankind. "To say, as his critics Warton and Bowles have done, that this imitation is not equal to others, and the least successful of any he has attempted, &c.' is to compare it with pieces, the merits of which are of a different kind, but not on that account necessarily greater. There is no kind of composition more pleasing than that which introduces us to the personal acquaintance of the Poet, and enables us to participate not only in his domestic concerns, but in his very thoughts, so as almost to place him in the list of our friends. The difficulty of attaining this, does not consist in style and manner only. Before a person can accomplish it, he must have formed for himself a temper and disposition which will bear to be represented, and this seems to be the true reason why, amongst the innumerable attempts that have been made in this style, so few of them have been attended with success."-Roscoe. Mr. Croker was of opinion that this was the Imitation mentioned by Pope in his letter to Swift of 16th February, 1733, as having been written with as little care as he ever gave to anything in his life, and that Warburton's reference in that passage to "1st Satire, 2nd Book" is a typographical error. The question was in his judgment decided by the allusion to the last twenty lines as containing something complimentary to Swift, which the imitation of the Second Satire does, and that of the first Satire does not. He thought also that the haste and want of finish which Warton and Bowles detected in the piece would be accounted for by Pope's statement. But this judgment is evidently founded on a misconception. It is plain that the poem which Pope sent to Swift with the Epistle to Bathurst was printed for publication, even if it was not published, for Swift -as we see from Pope's expressions in his letter of Feb. 16, and from what Swift says in his letter to Pope, to which the other is an answer-did not know who had sent it; whereas, if it had been in MS. he could not have doubted. The Imitation of the Second Satire was not published till July, 1734, it is therefore very improbable that it should have been in print early in 1733. Pope does not say in his letter that he intended a compliment to Swift, but merely that Swift would discover the motive of the Imitation in the last twenty lines, meaning the allusion to the poet's zeal for virtue, and to his noble friends. Besides, this would seem to be the Imitation mentioned in a letter to Swift, dated 2nd April, 1733, in which he says: "This week, exercitandi gratiâ, I have translated, or rather parodied, another Epistle of Horace, in which I introduce you advising me about my expenses, house-keeping, &c." Warton is right in thinking this Imitation inferior to most of the others, and Johnson's disparaging criticism on this class of Pope's compositions applies justly to Bethel's sermon. Horace's Satire has a dramatic propriety. The luxurious Romans of the day might admire in poetry, while they despised in real life, the "wise saws and rude mother wit" of the rustic Ofella, preserving as these did the flavour of the old Roman simplicity inculcated by Cato the censor. But to suppose that a society, like that of England under George II., which had by no means lost the principle of liberty, and which was working out a new order of taste and refinement, would listen to the common-place moralising of a country gentleman like Bethel, showed a curious absence of Pope's usual shrewdness and judgment. This criticism, however, does not apply to the latter part of the poem. Here we may doubtless discover the motive of the Imitation. The poet is again on personal ground, and, though we cannot credit him with all the virtue and philosophy that he claims for himself, Roscoe's observations on the pleasing character of the autobiographical allusions are perfectly just. This Imitation was registered at Stationers' Hall, 3rd July, 1734-5, together with a fresh edition of the preceding Imitation, as follows: "The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated in Dialogue between Alexander Pope of Twickenham in Com: Midd: Esqr., and his learned Councell 4°, and the Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace paraphrased in 4°;" the owner of the copyright being Lawton Gilliver. THE SECOND SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK ΤΟ MR. BETHEL.1 WHAT, and how great, the virtue and the art (A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine) Hear Bethel's sermon, one not versed in schools, 5 10 Bethel," and gracefully uses the asthma from which his friend suffered 1 No address is given to this Satire the Essay on Man as "blameless in any of the editions published during Pope's lifetime. The present address is one of Warburton's "improvements;" nothing can be more absurd than making Bethel listen to his own sermon. The poem is not an Epistle but a Satire. Hugh Bethel owned an estate in Yorkshire of £2000 a-year. He was one of Pope's earliest friends, and received from the poet a copy of the first edition of his works published in 1717, with a complimentary Latin inscription. Pope addresses him in VOL. III.-POETRY. as an illustration of his own moral argument. See note to Essay on Man, Book IV., ver. 122. In a letter to Allen, he says: "I have known and esteemed him (Bethel) for every moral virtue these twenty years and more. He has all the charity without any of the weakness of - - ; and, I firmly believe, never said a thing he did not think, nor a thing he did not tell." He died at Ealing, in Middlesex, on January 16, 1748. X |