Dennis tells the whole story. “At his first coming to town he was importunate with Mr. Cromwell to introduce him to me. The recommendation engaged me to be about thrice in company with him; after which I went to the country, till I found myself most insolently attacked in his very superficial ‘Essay on Criticism,’ by which he endeavoured to destroy the reputation of a man who had published pieces of criticism, and to set up his own. I was moved with indignation to that degree, that I immediately writ remarks on that essay. I also writ upon part of his translation of ‘Homer,’ his ‘Windsor Forest,’ and his infamous ‘Temple of Fame.’” In the same pamphlet he says:—“Pope writ his ‘Windsor Forest’ in envy of Sir John Denham’s ‘Cooper’s Hill;’ his infamous ‘Temple of Fame’ in envy of Chaucer’s poem upon the same subject; his ‘Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day,’ in envy of Dryden’s ‘Feast of Alexander.’” In reproaching Pope with his peculiar rhythm, that monotonous excellence, which soon became mechanical, he has an odd attempt at a pun:—“Boileau’s Pegasus has all his paces; the Pegasus of Pope, like a Kentish post-horse, is always upon the Canterbury.”—“Remarks upon several Passages in the Preliminaries to the Dunciad,” 1729.
Two parties arose in the literary republic, the Theobaldians and the Popeians. The “Grub-street Journal,” a kind of literary gazette of some campaigns of the time, records the skirmishes with tolerable neutrality, though with a strong leaning in favour of the prevailing genius.
The Popeians did not always do honour to their great leader; and the Theobaldians proved themselves, at times, worthy of being engaged, had fate so ordered it, in the army of their renowned enemy. When Young published his “Two Epistles to Pope, on the Authors of the Age,” there appeared “One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope, in Answer to two of Dr. Young’s.” On this, a Popeian defends his master from some extravagant accusations in “The Grub-street Memoirs.” He insists, as his first principle, that all accusations against a man’s character without an attestor are presumed to be slanders and lies, and in this case every gentleman, though “Knight of the Bathos,” is merely a liar and scoundrel.
“You assure us he is not only a bad poet, but a stealer from bad poets: if so, you have just cause to complain of invasion of property. You assure us he is not even a versifier, but steals the sound of his verses; now, to steal a sound is as ingenious as to paint an echo. You cannot bear gentlemen should be treated as vermin and reptiles; now, to be impartial, you were compared to flying-fishes, didappers, tortoises, and parrots, &c., not vermin, but curious and beautiful creatures”—alluding to the abuse, in this “Epistle,” on such authors as Atterbury, Arbuthnot, Swift, the Duke of Buckingham, &c. The Popeian concludes:—
“After all, your poem, to comfort you, is more innocent than the Dunciad; for in the one there’s no man abused but is very well pleased to be abused in such company; whereas in the other there’s no man so much as named, but is extremely affronted to be ranked with such people as style each other the dullest of men.”
The publication of the Dunciad, however, drove the Theobaldians out of the field. Guerillas, such as the “One Epistle,” sometimes appeared, but their heroes struck and skulked away. A Theobaldian, in an epigram, compared the Dunciad of Pope to the offspring of the celebrated Pope Joan. The neatness of his wit is hardly blunted by a pun. He who talks of Pope’s “stealing a sound,” seems to have practised that invisible art himself, for the verse is musical as Pope’s.
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TO THE AUTHOR OF THE DUNCIAD.
“With rueful eyes thou view’st thy wretched race, The child of guilt, and destined to disgrace. Thus when famed Joan usurp’d the Pontiff’s chair, With terror she beheld her new-born heir: Ill-starr’d, ill-favour’d into birth it came; In vice begotten, and brought forth with shame! In vain it breathes, a lewd abandon’d hope! And calls in vain, the unhallow’d father—Pope!” |
The answers to this epigram by the Popeians are too gross. The “One Epistle” is attributed to James Moore Smyth, in alliance with Welsted and other unfortunate heroes.