He requited them bitterly; for he seems to have broken the heart of the one, and worn out that of the other; and he had his reward, for he died a solitary idiot in the hands of servants.
For my own part, I am of the opinion of Pausanias. that success in love depends upon Fortune. "They particularly renounce Celestial Venus, into whose temple, &c. &c. &c. I remember, too, to have seen a building in Ægina in which there is a statue of Fortune, holding a horn of Amalthea; and near her there is a winged Love. The meaning of this is, that the success of men in love affairs depends more on the assistance of Fortune than the charms of beauty. I am persuaded, too, with Pindar (to whose opinion I submit in other particulars), that Fortune is one of the Fates, and that in a certain respect she is more powerful than her sisters."—See Pausanias, Achaics, book vii. chap.26. p.246. Taylor's "Translation."
Grimm has a remark of the same kind on the different destinies of the younger Crebillon and Rousseau. The former writes a licentious novel, and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh Review of Grimm's correspondence, seven or eight years ago.
In regard "to the strange mixture of indecent, and sometimes profane levity, which his conduct and language often exhibited," and which so much shocks Mr. Bowles, I object to the indefinite word "often;" and in extenuation of the occasional occurrence of such language it is to be recollected, that it was less the tone of Pope, than the tone of the time. With the exception of the correspondence of Pope and his friends, not many private letters of the period have come down to us; but those, such as they are—a few scattered scraps from Farquhar and others—are more indecent and coarse than any thing in Pope's letters. The comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Cibber, &c., which naturally attempted to represent the manners and conversation of private life, are decisive upon this point; as are also some of Steele's papers, and even Addison's. We all know what the conversation of Sir R. Walpole, for seventeen years the prime minister of the country, was at his own table, and his excuse for his licentious language, viz. "that every body understood that, but few could talk rationally upon less common topics." The refinement of latter days,—which is perhaps the consequence of vice, which wishes to mask and soften itself, as much as of virtuous civilisation,—had not yet made sufficient progress. Even Johnson, in his "London," has two or three passages which cannot be read aloud, and Addison's "Drummer" some indelicate allusions.
The expression of Mr. Bowles, "his consciousness of physical defect," is not very clear. It may mean deformity or debility. If it alludes to Pope's deformity, it has been attempted to be shown that this was no insuperable objection to his being beloved. If it alludes to debility, as a consequence of Pope's peculiar conformation, I believe that it is a physical and known fact that hump-backed persons are of strong and vigorous passions. Several years ago, at Mr. Angelo's fencing rooms, when I was a pupil of him and of Mr. Jackson, who had the use of his rooms in Albany on the alternate days, I recollect a gentleman named B—ll—gh—t, remarkable for his strength, and the fineness of his figure. His skill was not inferior, for he could stand up to the great Captain Barclay himself, with the muffles on;—a task neither easy nor agreeable to a pugilistic aspirant. As the by-standers were one day admiring his athletic proportions, he remarked to us, that he had five brothers as tall and strong as himself, and that their father and mother were both crooked, and of very small stature;—I think he said, neither of them five feet high. It would not be difficult to adduce similar instances; but I abstain, because the subject is hardly refined enough for this immaculate period, this moral millenium of expurgated editions in books, manners, and royal trials of divorce.
This laudable delicacy—this crying-out elegance of the day—reminds me of a little circumstance which occurred when I was about eighteen years of age. There was then (and there may be still) a famous French "entremetteuse," who assisted young gentlemen in their youthful pastimes. We had been acquainted for some time, when something occurred in her line of business more than ordinary, and the refusal was offered to me (and doubtless to many others), probably because I was in cash at the moment, having taken up a decent sum from the Jews, and not having spent much above half of it. The adventure on the tapis, it seems, required some caution and circumspection. Whether my venerable friend doubted my politeness I cannot tell; but she sent me a letter couched in such English as a short residence of sixteen years in England had enabled her to acquire. After several precepts and instructions, the letter closed. But there was a postscript. It contained these words:—"Remember, Milor, that delicaci ensure everi succés." The delicacy of the day is exactly, in all its circumstances, like that of this respectable foreigner. "It ensures every succès," and is not a whit more moral than, and not half so honourable as, the coarser candour of our less polished ancestors.
To return to Mr. Bowles. "If what is here extracted can excite in the mind (I will not say of any 'layman', of any 'Christian', but) of any human being," &c. &c. Is not Mr. Gilchrist a "human being?" Mr. Bowles asks "whether in attributing an article," &c. &c, "to the critic, he had any reason for distinguishing him with that courtesy," &c. &c. But Mr. Bowles was wrong in "attributing the article" to Mr. Gilchrist at all; and would not have been right in calling him a dunce and a grocer, if he had written it.
Mr. Bowles is here "peremptorily called upon to speak of a circumstance which gives him the greatest pain,—the mention of a letter he received from the editor of 'The London Magazine.'" Mr. Bowles seems to have embroiled himself on all sides; whether by editing, or replying, or attributing, or quoting,—it has been an awkward affair for him.
Poor Scott is now no more. In the exercise of his vocation, he contrived at last to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest. But he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. I knew him personally, though slightly. Although several years my senior, we had been schoolfellows together at the "grammar-schule" (or, as the Aberdonians pronounce it, "squeel") of New Aberdeen. He did not behave to me quite handsomely in his capacity of editor a few years ago, but he was under no obligation to behave otherwise. The moment was too tempting for many friends and for all enemies. At a time when all my relations (save one) fell from me like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and my few friends became still fewer,—when the whole periodical press (I mean the daily and weekly, not the literary press) was let loose against me in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions (from their usual opposition) of "The Courier" and "The Examiner,"—the paper of which Scott had the direction was neither the last nor the least vituperative. Two years ago I met him at Venice, when he was bowed in griefs by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the bitterness of domestic privation. He was then earnest with me to return to England; and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a different opinion, he replied to me, 'that he and others had been greatly misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been taken to excite them.' Scott is no more, but there are more than one living who were present at this dialogue. He was a man of very considerable talents, and of great acquirements. He had made his way, as a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. Poor fellow! I recollect his joy at some appointment which he had obtained, or was to obtain, through Sir James Mackintosh, and which prevented the further extension (unless by a rapid run to Rome) of his travels in Italy. I little thought to what it would conduct him. Peace be with him!—and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as readily forgiven him, as the little injury which he had done to one who respected his talents, and regrets his loss.
I pass over Mr. Bowles's page of explanation, upon the correspondence between him and Mr. S——. It is of little importance in regard to Pope, and contains merely a re-contradiction of a contradiction of Mr. Gilchrist's. We now come to a point where Mr. Gilchrist has, certainly, rather exaggerated matters; and, of course, Mr. Bowles makes the most of it. Capital letters, like Kean's name, "large upon the bills," are made use of six or seven times to express his sense of the outrage. The charge is, indeed, very boldly made; but, like "Ranold of the Mist's" practical joke of putting the bread and cheese into a dead man's mouth, is, as Dugald Dalgetty says, "somewhat too wild and salvage, besides wasting the good victuals."