[129] The hint is taken from a passage in another part of the third book, but here more naturally made the conclusion, with the addition of a moral to the whole. In Chaucer, he only answers, "he came to see the place;" and the book ends abruptly, with his being surprized at the sight of a man of great authority, and awaking in a fright.—Pope.
This is an imperfect representation. While Chaucer is standing in the House of Fame, a person goes up to him,
And saide, Friend, what is thy name,
Artow come hither to have fame?
The poet disclaims any such intention, and protests that he has no desire that his name should be known to a single soul. He is then asked what he does there, and he replies that he who brought him to the place promised him that he should learn new and wonderful things, in which, he says, he has been disappointed, for he was aware before that people coveted fame, though he was not hitherto acquainted with the dwelling of the goddess, nor with her appearance and condition. His interrogator answers that he perceives what it is he desires to know, and conducts him to the house of Rumour. There he has revealed to him the falsehood of the world, and especially of pilgrims and pardoners, which was an important doctrine to be inculcated in those days. When the scene has been fully disclosed, "a man of great authority" appears, and the poet starts up from his sleep, by which he seems to intimate that the wise and serious frown upon those who listen to idle tales. His awaking "half afraid," is the result of his
Remembring well what I had seen,
And how high and far I had been
In my ghost.
Pope, by reserving the inquiry addressed to him for the end of the poem, represents himself as being asked in the temple of Rumour whether he has come there for fame, which, is not more, but much less natural than the arrangement of Chaucer, who supposes the question to be put in the temple of Fame itself. Nor would it have been congenial to Chaucer's modest disposition to make himself the climax of the piece.
[130] Garth, in the preface to his Dispensary: "Reputation of this sort is very hard to be got, and very easy to be lost."—Wakefield.
[131] Cowley's Complaint:
Thou who rewardest but with popular breath
And that too after death.—Wakefield.
Pope's moral is inconsistent with the previous tone of his poem. He has not treated the "second life in others' breath" as "vain," but speaks of the position of Homer, Aristotle, &c. in the temple of Fame as though it were a substantial triumph, a real dignity, and a glorious reward. The purport of his piece is to enforce, and not to depreciate, the value of literary renown. His whole life attests that this was his genuine opinion. He was not endowed with the equanimity which neither covets nor despises reputation, and it was pure affectation when he pretended, in the concluding paragraph, that he did not "call for the favours of fame," and that he held posthumous fame, in particular, to be a worthless possession.