The Works of Alexander Pope

poetry. There cannot be a paltrier poetic effect than to mimic the roll of stones, the trickling of blood, and the dragging motion of wounded snakes.

994

"He

Hazlitt took the

"Mr. Walsh used to tell me," says Pope, "that there was one way left of excelling; for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct, and he desired me to make that my study and aim." Warton calls this "very important advice," ," and both he and Pope seem to assume that it had been effectual. The notion has been generally accepted. "To distinguish this triumvirate from each other," says Young, "Swift is a singular wit, Pope a correct poet, Addison a great author. is the most perfect of our poets," said Byron ; "the only poet whose faultlessness has been made his reproach." opposite side. "Those critics who are bigoted idolisers of our author, chiefly on the score of his correctness, seem to be of opinion that there is but one perfect writer, even Pope. This is, however, a mistake; his excellence is by no means faultlessness. If he had no great faults, he is full of little errors. His grammatical construction is often lame and imperfect. His rhymes are constantly defective, being rhymes to the eye instead of the ear; and this to a greater degree, not only than in later, but than in preceding, writers. The praise of his versification must be confined to its uniform smoothness and harmony. In the translation of the Iliad, which has been considered as his masterpiece in style and execution, he continually changes the tenses in the same sentence for the purposes of the rhyme, which shows either & want of technical resources, or great inattention to punctilious exactness. De Quincey confirms Hazlitt; but, with his profounder knowledge of the characteristics of Pope's poetry, he saw that the incorrectness was spread wider, and went deeper. "Let us ask," he says, "what is meant by correctness? Correctness in developing the thought? In connecting it, or effecting the transitions? In the use of words? In the grammar? In the metre?" In all these points he maintains that Pope, "by comparison with other great poets, was conspicuously deficient." For an example of incorrectness in developing the thought De Quincey refers to the character of Addison :

995

Who would not laugh, if such a man there be ?
Who but must weep if Atticus were he?

"Why must we laugh? Because we find a grotesque assembly of

1 Spence, p. 212.

2 Essay on the Genius of Pope, vol. i. p. 195. Works of Edward Young, ed. Doran, vol. ii. p. 578. Moore's Life of Byron, 1 vol. ed., p. 699.

5 Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets, p. 145.
6 De Quincey's Works, vol. xv. p. 141; xii. p. 58.

noble and ignoble qualities. Very well; but why, then, must we weep? Because this assemblage is found actually existing in an eminent man of genius. Well, that is a good reason for weeping; we weep for the degradation of human nature. But then revolves the question, Why must we laugh? Because, if the belonging to a man of genius were a sufficient reason for weeping, so much we know from the very first. The very first line says,

Peace to all such but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame aspires.

Thus falls to the ground the whole antithesis of this famous cha-
racter. We are to change our mood from laughter to tears upon a
sudden discovery that the character belonged to a man of genius;
and this we had already known from the beginning. Match us this
prodigious oversight in Shakspeare."1 Pope was still more deficient
in logical correctness, in the power of preserving consistency, and
coherency between congregated ideas. "Of all poets," says De
Quincey, "that have practised reasoning in verse he is the one
most inconsequential in the deduction of his thoughts, and the most
severely distressed in any effort to effect or to explain the de-
pendency of their parts. There are not ten consecutive lines in Pope
unaffected by this infirmity. All his thinking proceeded by insulated
and discontinuous jets, and the only resource for him, or chance of
even seeming correctness, lay in the liberty of stringing his aphoristic
thoughts, like pearls, having no relation to each other but that of
contiguity."2
Many of his arguments are capable of a double con-
struction; absolute contradictions are not uncommon; and when we
try to get a connected view of his principles we are irritated by their
discordance, indefiniteness, and obscurity. As little will his grammar
bear the test of correctness. "His syntax," says De Quincey, "is
so bad as to darken his meaning at times, and at other times to
defeat it. Preterites and participles he constantly confounds, and
registers this class of blunders for ever by the cast-iron index of
rhymes that never can mend." Another defect of language was, in
De Quincey's opinion, "almost peculiar to Pope." "The language
does not realise the idea: it simply suggests or hints it. Thus, to
give a single illustration :

Know God and Nature only are the same;
In man the judgment shoots at flying gamo.

The first line one would naturally construe into this: that God and
Nature were in harmony, whilst all other objects were scattered into
incoherency by difference and disunion. Not at all; it means nothing
De Quincey's Works, vol. xv. p. 142.
2 De Quincey's Works, vol. viii. p. 14.

His

of the kind; but that God and Nature only are exempted from the
infirmities of change. This might mislead many readers; but the
second line must do so for who would not understand the syntax to
be, that the judgment, as it exists in man, shoots at flying game?
But, in fact, the meaning is, that the jilgment in aiming its calcula-
tions at man, aims at an object that is still on the wing, and never
for a moment stationary." This, De Quincey contends, is the worst
of all possible faults in diction, since perspicuity, ungrammatical and
inelegant, is preferable to conundrums of which the solution is diffi-
cult, and often doubtful. He says that there are endless varieties of
the vice in Pope, and that "he sought relief for himself from half an
hour's labour at the price of utter darkness to his reader." De
Quincey was in error when he imputed the imperfections to indo-
lence. There never was a more painstaking poet than Pope.
works were slowly elaborated, and diligently revised. "I corrected,"
he says, "because it was as pleasant to me to correct as to write,"
and his manuscripts attest his untiring efforts to mend his compo-
sition. Language and not industry failed him. Happy in a multi-
tude of phrases, lines, couplets, and passages, his vocabulary and
turns of expression were often unequal to the exactions of verse.
Not even rhymes, dearly purchased by violations of grammar and a
false order of words, nor the imperfection of the rhymes themselves,
could always enable him to satisfy the double requirement of metre
and clearness. Most of his usual deviations from correctness are
especially prominent in the Essay on Criticism, and any one who
reads it with common attention might be tempted to think that the
claim which Warton and others set up for Pope, was an insidious
device to injure his reputation by diverting attention from his merits,
and basing his fame upon a foundation too unstable to support it.
The advice of Walsh was foolish. A poet who believed originality to
be exhausted, and who merely aspired to echo his predecessors, with
no distinguishing quality of his own beyond some additional correct-
ness, might have spared his pains. The correct imitator would be
intolerable by the side of the fresh and vigorous genius he copied.
The assumption that the domain of poetic thought had been traversed
in every direction, and that no untrodden paths were left for future
explorers, was itself a delusion, soon to be refuted by Pope's own
Rape of the Lock. Many immortal works have since belied the
shallow doctrine of Walsh, who made his dim perceptions the measure
of intellectual possibilities. The aspects under which the world,
animate and inanimate, may be regarded by the poet are practically
endless. The latent truths of science do not offer to the philosopher
a more unbounded field of novelty.

1 De Quincey's Works, vol. viii. p. 15–17.
2 Pope's Poetical Works, ed. Elwin, vol. i. p. 7.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

INTRODUCTION: That it is as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a
more dangerous one to the public, ver. 1-That a true taste is as rare
to be found as a true genius, ver. 9 to 18-That most men are born
with some taste, but spoiled by false education, ver. 19 to 25-The mul-
titude of critics, and causes of them, ver. 26 to 45-That we are to study
our own taste, and know the limits of it, ver. 46 to 67-Nature the best
guide of judgment, ver. 68 to 87-Improved by art and rules, which are
but methodised nature, ver. 88-Rules derived from the practice of the
ancient poets, ver. 88 to 110-That therefore the ancients are necessary
to be studied by a critic, particularly Homer and Virgil, ver. 120 to 138-
Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients, ver. 142 to 180-Reve-
rence due to the ancients, and praise of them, ver. 181, &c.

PART II. VER. 201, &c.

Causes hindering a true judgment—1. Pride, ver. 208-2. Imperfect learning,

ver. 215-3. Judging by parts, and not by the whole, ver. 233 to 288-

Critics in wit, language, versification, only, ver. 288, 305, 339, &c.—

4. Being too hard to please, or too apt to admire, ver. 384-5. Partiality,

too much love to a sect, to the ancients or moderns, ver. 394-6. Pre-

judice or prevention, ver. 408-7. Singularity, ver. 424-8. Inconstancy,

ver. 430-9. Party spirit, ver. 452, &c.-10. Envy, ver. 466-Against

envy and in praise of good nature, ver. 508, &c.-When severity is chiefly

to be used by critics, ver. 526, &c.

PART III. VER. 560, &c.

Rules for the conduct of manners in a critic-1. Candour, ver. 563-Modesty,