[300] When Warburton published his Shakespeare in 1747, Edwards exposed, in his Canons of Criticism, the dogmatism and absurdity of many of the comments and conjectures. His book was unanswerable, and Warburton was reduced to display his spleen in such sneers as the present.
[301] The work which Warburton vaunts as the only honest piece of modern criticism, was by his friend and flatterer Hurd. Personal partiality might excuse the undue exaltation of a feeble production, but is no apology for calumniating men who were quite as candid and far more able.
[302] The objector was Warton. He justly intimated that the character which Pope had given of Petronius, conveyed an erroneous idea of the nature of his writings.
[303] Dennis's Remarks on the Rape of the Lock were written in 1714, and published in 1728. "To cure the little gentleman of his wretched conceitedness, by giving him a view of his ignorance, his folly, and his natural impotence," Dennis, in 1717, brought out a critical pamphlet on three of his works, and kept back the exposure of the Rape of the Lock "in terrorem, which had so good an effect, that the author endeavoured for a time to counterfeit humility, and a sincere repentance, but no sooner did he believe that time had caused these things to be forgot, than he relapsed into ten times the folly and the madness that ever he had shown before." The fresh provocation was the Dunciad, and the treatise on the Profound, and poor Dennis printed his awe-inspiring Remarks on the Rape of the Lock, to give "the little gentleman" another lesson in humility.
[304] Joseph Warton.
[305] In his Observations on the Poetic character of Pope, Bowles reiterates that the Rape of the Lock is "a composition to which it will be in vain to compare anything of the kind,—that it stands alone, unrivalled, and possibly never to be rivalled." "The Muse," he adds, "has no longer her great characteristic attributes, pathos or sublimity; but she appears so interesting that we almost doubt whether the garb of elegant refinement is not as captivating, as the most beautiful appearances of nature."
[306] "The small edition of Pope," writes Warburton to Hurd, June 30, 1753, "is the correctest of all; and I was willing you should always see the best of me." Warburton refers to his 12mo. ed. 1753, and in this corrected edition Pope's initial is omitted.
[307] Rape of the Lock, cant. i. ver. 3; Singer's Spence, p. 147.
[308] Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, vol. iii., p. 19; Boswell's Life of Johnson, I vol. ed., p. 462. Johnson's conversation with the Abbess took place in 1775. "She knew Pope, and thought him disagreeable."
[309] Warburton's Pope, ed. 1760, vol. iv. p. 27.