Modestly meaning, I suppose, he had a mind to have gone over himself! If he had gone, and had carried with him those polite Pieces, The What d’ye call it, and The Three Hours after Marriage (both which he had a hand in) how effectually had those elaborate Examples of the true Genius given, to the Dublin Theatre, the Glory of Dramatick Poetry restor’d? But Drury-Lane was not so favourable to him; for there alas! (where the last of them was unfortunately acted) he had so sore a Rap o’ the Fingers, that he never more took up his Pen for the Stage. But this is not fair, you will say: My shewing Mr. Pope’s want of Skill in Comedy, is no excuse for the want of it in myself; which his Satyr sometimes charges me with: at least, it must be owned, it is not an easy thing to hit by his missing it. And indeed I have had some doubt, as there is no personal Reflection in it, whether I ought to have mention’d his Objection to The Non-Juror at all; but as the Particularity of it may let one a good deal into the Sentiments of Mr. Pope, I could not refrain from bestowing some farther Notes upon it.
Well then! upon the great Success of this enormous Play, The Non-Juror, poor Mr. Pope laments the Decay of Poetry; though the Impoliteness of the Piece is his only insinuated Objection against it. How nice are the Nostrils of this delicate Critick! This indeed is a Scent, that those wide-mouth’d Hounds the Daily-Paper Criticks could never hit off! though they pursued it with the Imputation of every Offence that could run down a Play: Yet Impoliteness at least they oversaw. No! they did not disguise their real dislike, as the prudent Mr. Pope did; They all fairly spoke out, and in full Cry open’d against it, only for its so audaciously exposing the sacred Character of a lurking, treason-hatching Jesuit, and for inhumanly ridiculing the conscientious Cause of an honest deluded Jacobite Gentleman. Now may we not as well say to Mr. Pope, Hinc illæ lachrymæ! Here was his real Disgust to the Play! For if Impoliteness could have so offended him, he would never have bestowed such Encomiums upon the Beggars Opera, which whatever Beauties it might boast, Politeness certainly was not one of its most striking Features. No, no! if the Play had not so impudently fallen upon the poor Enemies of the Government, Mr. Pope, possibly, might have been less an Enemy to the Play: But he has a charitable Heart, and cannot bear to see his Friends derided in their Distress: Therefore you may have observed, whenever the Government censures a Man of Consequence for any extraordinary Disaffection to it; then is Mr. Pope’s time generously to brighten and lift him up with Virtues, which never had been so conspicuous in him before. Now though he may be led into all this, by his thinking it a Religious Duty; yet those who are of a different Religion may sure be equally excused, if they should notwithstanding look upon him as their Enemy. But to my Purpose.
Whatever might be his real Objections to it, Mr. Pope is, at least, so just to the Play, as to own it had great Success, though it grieved him to see it; perhaps too he would have been more grieved, had he then known, that his late Majesty, when I had the Honour to kiss his Hand, upon my presenting my Dedication of it, was graciously pleased, out of his Royal Bounty, to order me two hundred Pounds for it. Yes, Sir! ’tis true—such was the Depravity of the Time, you will say, and so enormous was the Reward of such a Play as The Non-Juror!
This brings to my Memory (what I cannot help smiling at) the bountiful Banter, you at this time endeavoured to put upon me. This was the Fact I had, not long before, been a Subscriber to your Homer: And now, to make up our Poetical Accounts, as you call’d it, you sent me a Note, with four Guineas inclosed, for four Tickets, for the Author’s Day of such a Play as The Non-Juror. So unexpected a Favour made me conclude, there must be something at the bottom of it, which an indifferent Eye might have overlooked: However I sent you the Tickets with a written Acknowledgment; for I was willing you should think the kind Appearance had passed upon me; though every Gentleman I told it to laugh’d at my Credulity, wondering I should not see, you had plainly done this, in scorn of my Subscription to your Homer. Which, to say the Truth, I never had the least doubt of, but did not think myself so far obliged to gratify your Pride, as to shew any sign of my feeling the Hurt you intended me. Though, as this was in the Infancy of your Disinclination to me, I confess, I might have been better pleased, would your Temper have suffered me to have been upon better Terms with you: But so it is! of such insensible Stuff am I made, that I have been rated by my Friends, for not being surprized, or grieved at Disappointments. This I only offer as an early Instance of our different Dispositions. My Subscription had no Disguise, I thought it due to the Merit of Mr. Pope: But that his Bounty to me rose from the same Motive, I am afraid would be Vanity in me to suppose.
There is another whimsical Fact relating to this Play, which common Fame, just after the Run of it, charged to Mr. Pope: Had I his Sagacity in detecting concealed Authors, or his laborious Curiosity to know them, I do not doubt but I might bring my Fact to a Proof upon him; but let my Suspicion speak for itself. At this time then there came out a Pamphlet (the Title I have forgot) but the given Name of the Author was Barnevelt, which every body believed to be fictitious. The Purport of this odd Piece of Wit was to prove, that The Non-Juror in its Design, its Characters, and almost every Scene of it, was a closely couched Jacobite Libel against the Government: And, in troth, the Charge was in some places so shrewdly maintained, that I almost liked the Jest myself; at least, it was so much above the Spirit, and Invention of the Daily-Paper Satyrists, that all the sensible Readers I met with, without Hesitation gave it to Mr. Pope. And what afterwards left me no doubt of it was, that he published the same Charge against his own Rape of the Lock, proving even the Design of that too, by the same sort of merry Innuendos, to have been as audacious a Libel, as the other Pamphlet had made The Non-Juror. In a word, there is so much Similitude of Stile, and Thought, in these two Pieces, that it is scarce possible to give them to different Authors. ’Tis true, at first Sight, there appears no great Motive for Mr. Pope to have written either of them, more than to exercise the Wantonness of his Fancy: But some People thought, he might have farther Views in this Frolick. He might hope, that the honest Vulgar would take literally, his making a Libel of The Non-Juror, and from thence have a good Chance of his turning the Stream of their Favour against it. As for his playing the same game with his Rape of the Lock, that he was, at least, sure could do him no harm; but on the contrary he might hope, that such a ludicrous Self-accusation might soften, or wipe off any severe Imputation that had lain upon other parts of his Writings, which had not been thought equally Innocent of a real Disaffection. This way of owning Guilt in a wrong Place, is a common Artifice to hide it in a right one. Now though every Reader is not obliged to take all I have said for Evidence in this Case; yet there may be others, that are not obliged to refuse it. Let it therefore avail no more, than in reality it ought to do.
Since, as you say, in one of your Letters to Mr. Addison, “To be uncensured and to be obscure is the same thing;” I hope then to appear in a better Light, by quoting some of your farther Flirts at The Non-Juror.
In your Correspondence with Mr. Digby p. 150. complaining of People’s Insensibility to good Writing, you say (with your usual sneer upon the same Play)
“The Stage is the only Place we seem alive at: There indeed we stare, and roar, and clap Hands for King George and the Government.
This could be meant of no Play, but The Non-Juror, because no other had made the Enemies of the King and Government so ridiculous; and therefore, it seems, you think the Town as ridiculous to roar and clap at it. But, Sir, as so many of the Government’s Friends were willing to excuse its Faults for the Honesty of its Intention; so, if you were not of that Number, I do not wonder you had so strong a Reason to dislike it. In the same Letter too, this wicked Play runs so much in your Head, that in the favourable Character you there give of the Lady Scudamore, you make it a particular Merit in her, that she had not then even
Seen Cibber’s Play of the Non-juror.