POPE’S EARLIEST SATIRE.
We find by the first edition of Lintot’s “Miscellaneous Poems,” that the anonymous lines “To the Author of a Poem called Successio,” was a literary satire by Pope, written when he had scarcely attained his fourteenth year. This satire, the first probably he wrote for the press, and in which he has succeeded so well, that it might have induced him to pursue the bent of his genius, merits preservation. The juvenile composition bears the marks of his future excellences: it has the tune of his verse, and the images of his wit. Thirty years afterwards, when occupied by the Dunciad, he transplanted and pruned again some of the original images.
The hero of this satire is Elkanah Settle. The subject is one of those Whig poems, designed to celebrate the happiness of an uninterrupted “Succession” in the Crown, at the time the Act of Settlement passed, which transferred it to the Hanoverian line. The rhymer and his theme were equally contemptible to the juvenile Jacobite poet.
The hoarse and voluminous Codrus of Juvenal aptly designates this eternal verse-maker;—one who has written with such constant copiousness, that no bibliographer has presumed to form a complete list of his works.[247]
When Settle had outlived his temporary rivalship with Dryden, and was reduced to mere Settle, he published party-poems, in folio, composed in Latin, accompanied by his own translations. These folio poems, uniformly bound, except that the arms of his patrons, or rather his purchasers, richly 334 gilt, emblazon the black morocco, may still be found. These presentation-copies were sent round to the chiefs of the party, with a mendicant’s petition, of which some still exist. To have a clear conception of the present views of some politicians, it is necessary to read their history backwards. In 1702, when Settle published “Successio,” he must have been a Whig. In 1685 he was a Tory, commemorating, by a heroic poem, the coronation of James II., and writing periodically against the Whigs. In 1680 he had left the Tories for the Whigs, and conducted the whole management of burning the Pope, then a very solemn national ceremony.[248] A Whig, a pope-burner, and a Codrus, afforded a full draught of inspiration to the nascent genius of our youthful satirist.
Settle, in his latter state of wretchedness, had one standard elegy and epithalamium printed off with blanks. By the ingenious contrivance of inserting the name of any considerable person who died or was married, no one who had gone out of the world or was entering into it but was equally welcome to this dinnerless livery-man of the draggled-tailed Muses. I have elsewhere noticed his last exit from this state of poetry and of pauperism, when, leaping into a green dragon which his own creative genius had invented, in a theatrical booth, Codrus, in hissing flames and terrifying-morocco folds, discovered “the fate of talents misapplied!”
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TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED “SUCCESSIO.”
Begone, ye critics, and restrain your spite; Codrus writes on, and will for ever write. The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone, As clocks run fastest when most lead is on.[249] 335 What though no bees around your cradle flew, Nor on your lips distill’d their golden dew; Yet have we oft discover’d in their stead, A swarm of drones that buzz’d about your head. When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre, Attentive blocks stand round you, and admire. Wit past through thee no longer is the same, As meat digested takes a different name;[250] But sense must sure thy safest plunder be, Since no reprisals can be made on thee. Thus thou mayst rise, and in thy daring flight (Though ne’er so weighty) reach a wondrous height: So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly, And pond’rous slugs move nimbly through the sky.[251] Sure Bavius copied Mævius to the full, And Chærilus[252] taught Codrus to be dull; Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o’er This needless labour, and contend no more To prove a dull Succession to be true, Since ’tis enough we find it so in you. |