Posts themselves must fall like those they sung,
Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Ev'n he whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays.
Mr. Pope who had been always subjected to a variety of bodily infirmities, finding his strength give way, began to think that his days, which had been prolonged past his expectation, were drawing towards a conclusion. However, he visited the Hot-Wells at Bristol, where for some time there were small hopes of his recovery; but making too free with purges he grew worse, and seemed desirous to draw nearer home. A dropsy in the breast at last put a period to his life, at the age of 56, on the 30th of May 1744, at his house at Twickenham, where he was interred in the same grave with his father and mother.
Mr. Pope's behaviour in his last illness has been variously represented to the world: Some have affirmed that it was timid and peevish; that having been fixed in no particular system of faith, his mind was wavering, and his temper broken and disturb'd. Others have asserted that he was all chearfulness and resignation to the divine will: Which of these opinions is true we cannot now determine; but if the former, it must be regretted, that he, who had taught philosophy to others, should himself be destitute of its assistance in the most critical moments of his life.
The bulk of his fortune he bequeath'd to Mrs. Blount, with whom he lived in the strictest friendship, and for whom he is said to have entertained the warmest affection. His works, which are in the hands of every person of true taste, and will last as long as our language will be understood, render unnecessary all further remarks on his writings. He was equally admired for the dignity and sublimity of his moral and philosophical works, the vivacity of his satirical, the clearness and propriety of his didactic, the richness and variety of his descriptive, and the elegance of all, added to an harmony of versification and correctness of sentiment and language, unknown to our former poets, and of which he has set an example which will be an example or a reproach to his successors. His prose-stile is as perfect in its kind as his poetic, and has all the beauties proper for it, joined to an uncommon force and perspicuity.
Under the profession of the Roman-Catholic religion, to which he adhered to the last, he maintained all the moderation and charity becoming the most thorough and confident Protestant. His conversation was natural, easy and agreeable, without any affectation of displaying his wit, or obtruding his own judgment, even upon subjects of which he was so eminently a master.
The moral character of our author, as it did not escape the lash of his calumniators in his life; so have there been attempts since his death to diminish his reputation. Lord Bolingbroke, whom Mr. Pope esteemed to almost an enthusiastic degree of admiration, was the first to make this attack. Not many years ago, the public were entertained with this controversy immediately upon the publication of his lordship's Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, and the Idea of a Patriot King. Different opinions have been offered, some to extenuate the fault of Mr. Pope, for printing and mutilating these letters, without his lordship's knowledge; others to blame him for it as the highest breach of friendship, and the greatest mark of dishonour. It would exceed our proposed bounds to enter into the merits of this controversy; the reader, no doubt, will find it amply discussed in that account of the life of this great author, which Mr. Warburton has promised the public.
This great man is allowed to have been one of the first rank amongst the poets of our nation, and to acknowledge the superiority of none but Shakespear, Milton, and Dryden. With the two former, it is unnatural to compare him, as their province in writing is so very different. Pope has never attempted the drama, nor published an Epic Poem, in which these two distinguished genius's have so wonderfully succeeded. Though Pope's genius was great, it was yet of so different a cast from Shakespear's, and Milton's, that no comparison can be justly formed. But if this may be said of the former two, it will by no means hold with respect to the later, for between him and Dryden, there is a great similarity of writing, and a very striking coincidence of genius. It will not perhaps be unpleasing to our readers, if we pursue this comparison, and endeavour to discover to whom the superiority is justly to be attributed, and to which of them poetry owes the highest obligations.
When Dryden came into the world, he found poetry in a very imperfect state; its numbers were unpolished; its cadences rough, and there was nothing of harmony or mellifluence to give it a graceful of flow. In this harsh, unmusical situation, Dryden found it (for the refinements of Waller were but puerile and unsubstantial) he polished the rough diamond, he taught it to shine, and connected beauty, elegance, and strength, in all his poetical compositions. Though Dryden thus polished our English numbers, and thus harmonized versification, it cannot be said, that he carried his art to perfection. Much was yet left undone; his lines with all their smoothness were often rambling, and expletives were frequently introduced to compleat his measures. It was apparent therefore that an additional harmony might still be given to our numbers, and that cadences were yet capable of a more musical modulation. To effect this purpose Mr. Pope arose, who with an ear elegantly delicate, and the advantage of the finest genius, so harmonized the English numbers, as to make them compleatly musical. His numbers are likewise so minutely correct, that it would be difficult to conceive how any of his lines can be altered to to advantage. He has created a kind of mechanical versification; every line is alike; and though they are sweetly musical, they want diversity, for he has not studied so great a variety of pauses, and where the accents may be laid gracefully. The structure of his verse is the best, and a line of his is more musical than any other line can be made, by placing the accents elsewhere; but we are not quite certain, whether the ear is not apt to be soon cloy'd with this uniformity of elegance, this sameness of harmony. It must be acknowledged however, that he has much improved upon Dryden in the article of versification, and in that part of poetry is greatly his superior. But though this must be acknowledged, perhaps it will not necessarily follow that his genius was therefore superior.
The grand characteristic of a poet is his invention, the surest distinction of a great genius. In Mr. Pope, nothing is so truly original as his Rape of the Lock, nor discovers so much invention. In this kind of mock-heroic, he is without a rival in our language, for Dryden has written nothing of the kind. His other work which discovers invention, fine designing, and admirable execution, is his Dunciad; which, tho' built on Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, is yet so much superior, that in satiric writing, the Palm must justly be yielded to him. In Mr. Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, there are indeed the most poignant strokes of satire, and characters drawn with the most masterly touches; but this poem with all its excellencies is much inferior to the Dunciad, though Dryden had advantages which Mr. Pope had not; for Dryden's characters are men of great eminence and figure in the state, while Pope has to expose men of obscure birth and unimportant lives only distinguished from the herd of mankind, by a glimmering of genius, which rendered the greatest part of them more emphatically contemptible. Pope's was the hardest task, and he has executed it with the greatest success. As Mr. Dryden must undoubtedly have yielded to Pope in satyric writing, it is incumbent on the partizans of Dryden to name another species of composition, in which the former excells so as to throw the ballance again upon the side of Dryden. This species is the Lyric, in which the warmest votaries of Pope must certainly acknowledge, that he is much inferior; as an irrefutable proof of this we need only compare Mr. Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, with Mr. Pope's; in which the disparity is so apparent, that we know not if the most finished of Pope's compositions has discovered such a variety and command of numbers.
It hath been generally acknowledged, that the Lyric is a more excellent kind of writing than the Satiric; and consequently he who excells in the most excellent species, must undoubtedly be esteemed the greatest poet. —Mr. Pope has very happily succeeded in many of his occasional pieces, such as Eloisa to Abelard, his Elegy on an unfortunate young Lady, and a variety of other performances deservedly celebrated. To these may be opposed Mr. Dryden's Fables, which though written in a very advanced age, are yet the most perfect of his works. In these Fables there is perhaps a greater variety than in Pope's occasional pieces: Many of them indeed are translations, but such as are original shew a great extent of invention, and a large compass of genius.