In the “Freeholder,” May, 1716.
Pope himself thus related the matter to Spence: “Phillips seemed to have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations; and Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherly, in which he had abused both me and my relations very grossly. Lord Warwick himself told me one day that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be well with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would never admit of a settled friendship between us, and to convince me of what he had said, assured me that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals, and had given him ten guineas after they were published.”—Ed.
The strongest parts of Sir William Blackstone’s discussion turn on certain inaccurate dates of Ruffhead, in his statements, which show them to be inconsistent with the times when they are alleged to have happened. These erroneous dates had been detected in an able article in the Monthly Review on that work, April, 1769. Ruffhead is a tasteless, confused, and unskilful writer—Sir William has laid great stress on the incredible story of Addison paying Gildon to write against Pope, “a man so amiable in his moral character.” It is possible that the Earl of Warwick, who conveyed the information, might have been a malicious, lying youth; but then Pope had some knowledge of mankind—he believed the story, for he wrote instantly, with honest though heated feelings, to Addison, and sent him, at that moment, the first sketch of the character of Atticus. Addison used him very civilly ever after—but it does not appear that Addison ever contradicted the tale of the officious Earl. All these facts, which Pope repeated many years after to Spence, Sir William was not acquainted with, for they were transcribed from Spence’s papers by Johnson, after Blackstone had written. [This is fully in accordance with his previous conduct, as he described it to Spence; on the first notification of the Earl of Warwick’s news, “the next day when I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak severely of him, in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; and that I should rather tell himself freely of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner: I then adjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my Satire on Addison. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever after, and never did me any injustice that I know of from that time to his death, which was about three years after.”]
That Addison did occasionally divert Pope’s friends from him, appears from the advice which Lady Mary Wortley Montague says he gave to her—“Leave him as soon as you can, he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appetite to satire.” Malone thinks this may have been said under the irritation produced by the verses on Addison, which Pope sent to him, as described above. Pope’s love of satire, and unflinching use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison’s nervous dislike to it.—Ed.
From Lord Egmont’s MS. Collections.—See the “Addenda Kippis’s Biographia Britannica.”