With regard to the last line, the only one upon which I shall venture for fear of infection, I would advise Mr. Gilchrist to keep out of the way of such reciprocal morsure—unless he has more faith in the "Ormskirk medicine" than most people, or may wish to anticipate the pension of the recent German professor, (I forget his name, but it is advertised and full of consonants,) who presented his memoir of an infallible remedy for the hydrophobia to the German diet last month, coupled with the philanthropic condition of a large annuity, provided that his cure cured. Let him begin with the editor of Pope, and double his demand.
Yours ever,
BYRON.
To John Murray, Esq.
P.S. Amongst the above-mentioned lines there occurs the following, applied to Pope—
"The assassin's vengeance, and the coward's lie."
And Mr. Bowles persists that he is a well-wisher to Pope!!! He has, then, edited an "assassin" and a "coward" wittingly, as well as lovingly. In my former letter I have remarked upon the editor's forgetfulness of Pope's benevolence. But where he mentions his faults it is "with sorrow"—his tears drop, but they do not blot them out. The "recording angel" differs from the recording clergyman. A fulsome editor is pardonable though tiresome, like a panegyrical son whose pious sincerity would demi-deify his father. But a detracting editor is a paricide. He sins against the nature of his office, and connection—he murders the life to come of his victim. If his author is not worthy to be mentioned, do not edit at all: if he be, edit honestly, and even flatteringly. The reader will forgive the weakness in favour of mortality, and correct your adulation with a smile. But to sit down "mingere in patrios cineres," as Mr. Bowles has done, merits a reprobation so strong, that I am as incapable of expressing as of ceasing to feel it.
Further Addenda.
It is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about "in-door nature" and "artificial images," Pope was the principal inventor of that boast of the English, Modern Gardening. He divides this honour with Milton. Hear Warton:—"It hence appears, that this enchanting art of modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every nation in Europe, chiefly owes its origin and its improvements to two great poets, Milton and Pope."
Walpole (no friend to Pope) asserts that Pope formed Kent's taste, and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted for diffusing "a taste in laying out grounds." The design of the Prince of Wales's garden was copied from Pope's at Twickenham. Warton applauds "his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres." Pope was the first who ridiculed the "formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in gardening," both in prose and verse. (See, for the former, "The Guardian.")
"Pope has given not only some of our first but best rules and observations on Architecture and Gardening." (See Warton's Essay, vol. ii. p. 237, &c. &c.)