The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 2
CONTENTS
Few poets during their lifetime have been at once so much admired and so much abused as Pope. Some writers, destined to oblivion in after-ages, have been loaded with laurels in their own time; while others, on whom Fame was one day to wait like a menial, have gone to the grave neglected, if not decried and depreciated. But it was the fate of Pope to combine in his single experience the extremes of detraction and flattery—to have the sunshine of applause and the hail-storm of calumny mingled on his living head; while over his dead body, as over the body of Patroclus, there has raged a critical controversy, involving not merely his character as a man, but his claims as a poet. For this, unquestionably, there are some subordinate reasons. Pope's religious creed, his political connexions, his easy circumstances, his popularity with the upper classes, as well as his testy temper and malicious disposition, all tended to rouse against him, while he lived, a personal as well as public hostility, altogether irrespective of the mere merit or demerit of his poetry. We cannot bear a Papist to be our principal bard, said one class. No Tory for our translator of Homer, cried the zealous Whigs, Poets should be poor, and Pope is independent, growled Grub Street. The ancients could not endure that a poet should build an house, but this varlet has dug a grotto, and established a clandestine connexion between Parnassus and the Temple of Plutus. Pope, said others, is hand-in-glove with Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, and it was never so seen before in any genuine child of genius. He is a little ugly insect, cried another class; can such a misbegotten brat be a favourite with the beautiful Apollo? He is as venomous and spiteful as he is small; never was so much of the 'essence of devil' packed into such a tiny compass, said another set; and this, to be sure, is England's great poet! Besides these personal objections, there were others of a more solid character. While all admitted the exquisite polish and terse language of Pope's compositions, many felt that they were too artificial—that they were often imitative—that they seldom displayed those qualities of original thought and sublime enthusiasm which had formed the chief characteristics of England's best bards, and were slow to rank the author of Eloisa and Abelard, with the creator of Hamlet, Othello, and Lear; the author of the Rape of the Lock with the author of Paradise Lost; the author of the Pastorals, with the author of the Faery Queen; and the author of the Imitations of Horace, with the author of the Canterbury Tales. On the one hand, Pope's ardent friends erred in classing him with or above these great old writers; and on the other, his enemies were thus provoked to thrust him too far down in the scale, and to deny him genius altogether. Since his death, his fame has continued to vibrate between extremes. Lord Byron and Lord Carlisle (the latter, in a lecture delivered in Leeds in December 1850, and published afterwards) have placed him ridiculously high; while Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Bowles, have underrated him. It shall be our endeavour, in our succeeding remarks, to steer a middle course between the parties.
Alexander Pope
THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE
THE GENIUS AND POETRY OF POPE.
MORAL ESSAYS.
VERTUMNUS AND POMONA, FROM THE FOURTEENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
THE FIRST BOOK OF STATIUS'S THEBAIS. TRANSLATED IN THE YEAR 1703.
THE WIFE OF BATH, HER PROLOGUE. FROM CHAUCER.
PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUES
PROLOGUE TO MR ADDISON'S 'CATO.'
PROLOGUE, DESIGNED FOR MR D'URFEY'S LAST PLAY.
PROLOGUE TO 'THE THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE'
EPILOGUE TO MR ROWE'S 'JANE SHORE.' DESIGNED FOR MRS OLDFIELD.
MISCELLANIES
VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU. UN JOUR DIT UN AUTEUR, ETC.
ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MRS HOWE.
OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
MACER: A CHARACTER.
SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY, WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.
ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.
ROXANA, OR THE DRAWING-ROOM. AN ECLOGUE.
TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE.
LINES SUNG BY DURASTANTI, WHEN SHE TOOK LEAVE OF THE ENGLISH STAGE.
UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK.
THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS.
THE TRANSLATOR.
A FAREWELL TO LONDON IN THE YEAR 1715.
SYLVIA, A FRAGMENT.
EPIGRAM.
EPIGRAM ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL AND BONONCINI.
ON MRS TOFTS, A CELEBRATED OPERA SINGER.
THE BALANCE OF EUROPE.
EPITAPH ON LORD CONINGSBY.
EPIGRAM.
EPIGRAM FROM THE FRENCH.
EPITAPH ON GAY.
EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, ANNO 1716.
TO A LADY, WITH THE 'TEMPLE OF FAME.'
ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING PAPER.
ON BENTLEY'S 'MILTON.'
LINES WRITTEN IN WINDSOR FOREST.
TO ERINNA.
A DIALOGUE.
THE LAMENTATION OF GLUMDALCLITCH FOR THE LOSS OF GRILDRIG. A PASTORAL.
MARY GULLIVER TO CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER. AN EPISTLE.
1740. A FRAGMENT OF A POEM.
ON AN OLD GATE. ERECTED IN CHISWICK GARDENS.
A FRAGMENT.
TO MR GAY, WHO HAD CONGRATULATED POPE ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND GARDENS.
ARGUS.
PRAYER OF BRUTUS. FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.
LINES ON A GROTTO, AT CRUX-EASTON, HANTS.
THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER, DEO OPT. MAX.
THE DUNCIAD. IN FOUR BOOKS.
DENNIS, REMARKS ON PR. ARTHUR.
CHARACTER OF MR P., 1716.
GILDON, PREF. TO HIS NEW REHEARSAL.
THEOBALD, LETTER TO MIST, JUNE 22, 1728.
CONCANEN, DED. TO THE AUTHOR OF THE DUNCIAD.
TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS CONCERNING OUR POET AND HIS WORKS.
M. SCRIBLERUS LECTORI S.
MR JOHN DENNIS.
MR OLDMIXON.
MR LEONARD WELSTED,
MR ADDISON.
MR JOHN DENNIS,
DR GARTH,
MR PRIOR
SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE, KT.,
MR OLDMIXON,
MR LEWIS THEOBALD
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8,
MR ADDISON, FREEHOLDER, NO. 40.
MR THEOBALD, MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728,)
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728,)
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728.
JAMES MOORE SMITH, GENT.
MR JAMES MOORE SMITH.
JOHN DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
MR JOHN DENNIS,
MR LEWIS THEOBALD
MR THEOBALD,
MR CHARLES GILDON,
MR OLDMIXON
THE AUTHOR OF A LETTER TO MR CIBBER
MR THOMAS COOKE,
H. STANHOPE,
MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728.
MR COLLEY CIBBER,
MR DENNIS AND MR GILDON,
MR LEONARD WELSTED
P.
MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS OF THE POEM.
P.
RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS OF THE HERO OF THE POEM.
ARGUMENT.
BOOK THE SECOND.
ARGUMENT.
BOOK THE THIRD.
ARGUMENT.
BOOK THE FOURTH.
ARGUMENT.
APPENDIX TO THE DUNCIAD.
I.—PREFACE
THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.
THE DUNCIAD.
II.—A LIST OF BOOKS, PAPERS, AND VERSES,
VERSES, LETTERS, ESSAYS, OR ADVERTISEMENTS, IN THE PUBLIC PRINTS.
AFTER THE DUNCIAD, 1728.
III.—ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION—WITH NOTES,
IN QUARTO, 1729.
WHEN PRINTED SEPARATELY IN THE YEAR 1742.
W. W.
VI.—ADVERTISEMENT PRINTED IN THE JOURNALS, 1730.
VII.—A PARALLEL OF THE CHARACTERS OF MR DRYDEN AND MR POPE,
AS DRAWN BY CERTAIN OF THEIR CONTEMPORARIES.
MR DRYDEN—HIS POLITICS, RELIGION, MORALS.
MR DRYDEN ONLY A VERSIFIER.
MR DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.
MR DRYDEN UNDERSTOOD NO GREEK NOR LATIN.
MR DRYDEN TRICKED HIS SUBSCRIBERS.
NAMES BESTOWED ON MR DRYDEN.
MR POPE—HIS POLITICS, RELIGION, MORALS.
MR POPE ONLY A VERSIFIER.
MR POPE'S HOMER.
MR POPE UNDERSTOOD NO GREEK.
MR POPE TRICKED HIS SUBSCRIBERS.
NAMES BESTOWED ON MR POPE.
INDEX OF PERSONS CELEBRATED IN THIS POEM.
FOOTNOTES:
P. W.]
END OF POPE'S WORKS.