FOOTNOTES:
[1] In all editions till that of Warburton it was thus: "For as long as one side despises a well meant endeavour, the other will not be satisfied with a moderate approbation." The first sentence of the next paragraph is expanded in the manuscript: "Indeed they both proceed in such a manner as if they really believed that poetry was immediate inspiration. It were to be wished they would reflect that this extraordinary zeal and fury is ill placed, poetry and criticism being by no means the universal concern of the world. I do not say this to imitate those people who make a merit of undervaluing the arts and qualifications without which they had never been taken notice of. I think poetry as useful as any other art, because it is as entertaining, and therefore as well deserving of mankind."
[2] Until the edition of Warburton the reading was slightly different: "Yet sure upon the whole a bad author deserves better usage than a bad critic; a man may be the former merely through the misfortune of an ill judgment, but he cannot be the latter without both that and an ill temper."
[3] The instance of Pope himself is a refutation of his theory that the world was almost exclusively composed of flatterers and detractors, and chiefly of the last. Where he could count the deniers of his genius by tens he could number his admirers by thousands.
[4] What is here said of the privileges of the poetic character will not, I believe, bear the test of truth and experience. Surely a poet is not particularly allowed "the freedom of saying careless things," and his moral character and manners are to be estimated, as well as his talents, before he is entitled to a certain station in society.—Bowles.
[5] In the MS. it followed thus: "For my part, I confess, had I seen things in this view at first, the public had never been troubled either with my writings, or with this apology for them. I am sensible how difficult it is to speak of one's self with decency: but when a man must speak of himself, the best way is to speak truth of himself, or, he may depend upon it, others will do it for him. I will therefore make this preface a general confession of all my thoughts of my own poetry, resolving with the same freedom to expose myself, as it is in the power of any other to expose them. In the first place, I thank God and nature that I was born with a love to poetry; for nothing more conduces to fill up all the intervals of our time, or, if rightly used, to make the whole course of life entertaining: Cantantes licet usque (minus via lædet). It is a vast happiness to possess the pleasures of the head, the only pleasures in which a man is sufficient to himself, and the only part of him which, to his satisfaction, he can employ all day long. The muses are amicæ omnium horarum; and, like our gay acquaintance, the best company in the world as long as one expects no real service from them. I confess there was a time when I was in love with myself, and my first productions were the children of self-love upon innocence. I had made an epic poem, and panegyrics on all the princes in Europe, and thought myself the greatest genius that ever was. I cannot but regret those delightful visions of my childhood, which, like the fine colours we see when our eyes are shut, are vanished for ever. Many trials and sad experience have so undeceived me by degrees, that I am utterly at a loss at what rate to value myself. As for fame, I shall be glad of any I can get, and not repine at any I miss; and as for vanity, I have enough to keep me from hanging myself, or even from wishing those hanged who would take it away. It was this that made me write. The sense of my faults made me correct: besides that it was as pleasant to me to correct as to write."—Warburton.
Spence relates that Pope said to Mr. Saville: "If I was to begin the world again, and knew just what I do now, I would never write a verse." In the passage from his manuscript preface, he intimates that he would have amused himself by writing poetry, but would have forborne to publish what he wrote. Either he was not honest in the opinion, or he was self-deceived. He valued his fame above all things, and left no means untried to protect and promote it.
[6] As was the practice of his master Dryden, who is severely lashed for this in the Tale of a Tub.—Warton.
[7] Pope was not justified in his boast. He dropped the practice of fulsome dedications, but he made the most of his distinguished friends in the body of his pieces, and though no "names of great patrons" are given in this preface, he could not abstain from announcing in the final sentence how much they had countenanced him. This, moreover, was to proclaim the "recommendations" he repudiated, and in every issue of his works the preface, which contained the inconsistency, was followed in addition by a series of Recommendatory Poems.
[8] The passage in inverted commas was first added in 1736.
[9] One of Pope's favourite topics is contempt for his own poetry. For this, if it had been real, he would deserve no commendation; and in this he was certainly not sincere, for his value of himself was sufficiently observed; and of what could he be proud but of his poetry? He writes, he says, when "he has just nothing else to do;" yet Swift complains that he was never at leisure for conversation, because he "had always some poetical scheme in his head." It was punctually required that his writing-box should be set upon his bed before he rose; and Lord Oxford's domestic related that in the dreadful winter of 1740, she was called from her bed by him four times in one night to supply him with paper lest he should lose a thought.—Dr. Johnson.
[10] For the next sentence the manuscript has this passage: "But I fear it is far otherwise with modern poets. We must bring our wit to the press, as gardeners do their flowers to the market, which if they cannot vend in the morning are sure to die before night. Were we animated by the same noble ambition, and ready to prosecute it with equal ardour, our languages are not only confined to a narrow extent of country, but are in a perpetual flux, not so much as fixed by an acknowledged grammar, while theirs were such as time and fate conspired to make universal and everlasting."
[11] In place of the remainder of the sentence he had written in the manuscript, "is but to live twenty years longer than Quarles, or Withers, or Dennis." The doctrine of Pope was unworthy the countryman of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton. The first three had not been "thrown aside at the end of one age," and no one who was capable of comprehending the last could seriously believe that his reputation would be ephemeral. The hypothesis, that the writers in a dead tongue can alone secure a worthy audience, is altogether chimerical. The literature of living languages has the ascendancy, and Shakespeare is more read, and better appreciated, than Æschylus and Sophocles.
[12] I have frequently heard Dr. Young speak with great disapprobation of the doctrine contained in this passage, with a view to which he wrote his discourse on Original Composition.—Warton.
The assertion of Pope is in the face of the facts. All the greatest names in modern literature have a marked originality, and those authors who have imitated the ancients, except in subordinate circumstances, have usually produced tame and lifeless compositions, which were speedily forgotten.
[13] The sophistry is transparent. A man may be a scholar without being a plagiarist or an imitator.
[14] Here followed in the first edition, "and that I expect not to be excused in any negligence on account of youth, want of leisure, or any other idle allegations." This was inconsistent with his request, at the conclusion of his preface, that those who condemned his poems would remember his youth when he composed them. After the omitted sentence he had added in the manuscript, "I have ever been fearful of making an ill present to the world, for which I have as much respect as most poets have for themselves. What I thought incorrect I suppressed; and what I thought most finished I never published but with fear and trembling."
[15] From hence to the end of the paragraph the manuscript continues thus: "A man that can expect but sixty years may be ashamed to employ thirty in measuring syllables, and bringing sense and rhyme together. We spend our youth in the pursuit of riches or fame in hopes to enjoy them when we are old, and when we are old we find it is too late to enjoy anything. I have got over the mistake pretty early. I therefore hope the wits will pardon me if I leave myself time enough to save my soul, and some wise men will be of my opinion even if I should think a part of it better spent in the enjoyment of life than in pleasing the critics."
[16] This sentence was in the manuscript, but Pope omitted it in the edition of 1717, and restored it in 1736.
[17] In the manuscript he added, "which indeed was my chief view in making it, for in the present liberty of the press, a man is forced to appear as bad as he is, not to be thought worse." The assertion is qualified in the text, but he could not entirely abandon the affectation of pretending that he collected his works to escape the disgrace of the pieces which were falsely attributed to him, and not to obtain credit from his own performances.
[18] "I am always highly delighted," said Addison in the Spectator, No. 523, Oct. 30, 1712, "with the discovery of any rising genius among my countrymen. For this reason I have read over, with great pleasure, the late Miscellany published by Mr. Pope, in which there are many excellent compositions of that ingenious gentleman." The announcement referred to the first edition of Lintot's Miscellany, and from the literary intercourse which existed between Addison, Steele, and Pope at the time, the compilation was not likely to have been ascribed to the latter in the Spectator without sufficient authority. The language of Pope seems carefully selected to avoid the direct denial that he was the editor. The work was published anonymously, and he only asserts that he had "never lent his name to recommend any miscellanies." The disclaimer was probably directed against the device adopted by Lintot in the second edition, 1 vol. 8vo, 1714, which bore this title, "Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. By several hands. Particularly, etc." Here followed a list of Pope's contributions, and his alone. Underneath the list a line was drawn across the page, and below this line was printed in capital letters, "By Mr. Pope." The complete separation between the list of pieces and the name of the poet disconnected them to the eye, and left the impression that Pope was the editor of the entire work. The same plan was continued till the fifth edition, 2 vols. 12mo, 1727, when Lintot grew bolder, and inserted bastard title-pages with the words, "Mr. Pope's Miscellany." The poet, who corrected the proofs of his own pieces for the fifth edition, assured Christopher Pitt, in a letter of July 23, 1726, that he had never had anything to do with the remainder of the work; but the private assurance, after many years, of a man who had no regard for truth does not outweigh the assertion in the Spectator, when coupled with the peculiar wording by which he evaded the public contradiction of the statement.
[19] In 1721 he broke through his rule by recommending the poems of Parnell to Lord Oxford in an Epistle in verse.—Cunningham.
[20] A few sentences before he had said, "for what I have published I can only hope to be pardoned," and already he has forgotten his mock modesty, and admits he has a hope that his works may prove "a monument."
[21] The commendation of his own goodness is a theme which constantly recurs in Pope, as if he hoped to conceal his delinquencies by his loud profession of the contrary qualities. The topic is introduced into this preface in a forced manner, and treated with singular weakness. Intellectual capacity and literary pre-eminence are no security for moral excellence; and it was idle to ask the public to forget his reputation as a poet, which was his sole claim to fame, and to commemorate him for virtues of which the world had no proof, and which, if they were real, he shared with thousands.
[22] This was written in 1716; did our author recollect this sentiment in 1729[8]?—Warton.
Warton alludes to the Dunciad, but to have "insulted adversaries with ill language" was only one out of several particulars, in which Pope's subsequent career belied the protestations in his preface.
[23] This far-fetched excuse of Pope for rebuking the vanity of contemporary poets, was a clumsy expedient to gratify his own vanity in proclaiming to the world that "he had been encouraged by the great, and commended by the eminent." He had not much title to reprove the vanity of his brethren, when, in the same sentence, he recorded the praise which the different orders of mankind had bestowed upon himself.