Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

by William Makepeace Thackeray

And the proof that this description is delightful and beautiful is, that the great Mr. Pope admired it so much that he thought proper to steal it and to send it off to a certain lady and wit, with whom he pretended to be in love in those days—my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to Mr. Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople.

We are now come to the greatest name on our list—the highest among the poets, the highest among the English wits and humourists with whom we have to rank him. If the author of the Dunciad be not a humourist, if the poet of the Rape of the Lock be not a wit, who deserves to be called so? Besides that brilliant genius and immense fame, for both of which we should respect him, men of letters should admire him as being the greatest literary artist that England has seen. He polished, he refined, he thought; he took thoughts from other works to adorn and [pg 595] complete his own; borrowing an idea or a cadence from another poet as he would a figure or a simile from a flower, river, stream, or any object which struck him in his walk, or contemplation of Nature. He began to imitate at an early age;[123] and taught himself to write by copying printed books. Then he passed into the hands of the priests, and from his first clerical master, who came to him when he was eight years old, he went to a school at Twyford, and another school at Hyde Park, at which places he unlearned all that he had got from his first instructor. At twelve years old, he went with his father into Windsor Forest, and there learned for a few months under a fourth priest. “And this was all the teaching I ever had,” he said, “and God knows it extended a very little way.”

When he had done with his priests he took to reading by himself, for which he had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry. He learned versification [pg 596] from Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of Alcander, he imitated every poet, Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statius, Homer, Virgil. In a few years he had dipped into a great number of the English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. “This I did,” he says, “without any design, except to amuse myself; and got the languages by hunting after the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the books to get the languages. I followed everywhere as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and woods, just as they fell in his way. These five or six years I looked upon as the happiest in my life.” Is not here a beautiful holiday picture? The forest and the fairy story-book—the boy spelling Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, battling with the Cid for the love of Chimène, or dreaming of Armida's garden—peace and sunshine round about—the kindest love and tenderness waiting for him at his quiet home yonder—and Genius throbbing in his young heart, and whispering to him, “You shall be great; you shall be famous; you, too, shall love and sing; you will sing her so nobly that some kind heart shall forget you are weak and ill-formed. Every poet had a love. Fate must give one to you too,”—and day by day he walks the forest, very likely looking out for that charmer. “They were the happiest days of his life,” he says, when he was only dreaming of his fame: when he had gained that mistress she was no consoler.

That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, about the year 1705, when Pope was seventeen. Letters of his are extant, addressed to a certain Lady M——, whom the youth courted, and to whom he expressed his ardour in language, to say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious, and affected. He imitated love compositions as he had been imitating love poems just before—it was a sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, expressed as became it. These unlucky letters found their way into print years afterwards, and were sold to the congenial Mr. Curll. If any of my hearers, as I hope they may, should take a fancy to look at Pope's correspondence, let them pass over that first part of it; over, perhaps, almost all Pope's letters to women; in which there is a tone of not pleasant gallantry, and, amidst a profusion of compliments and politenesses, a something which makes one distrust the little pert, prurient bard. There is very little indeed to [pg 597] say about his loves, and that little not edifying. He wrote flames and raptures and elaborate verse and prose for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; but that passion probably came to a climax in an impertinence and was extinguished by a box on the ear, or some such rebuff, and he began on a sudden to hate her with a fervour much more genuine than that of his love had been. It was a feeble, puny grimace of love, and paltering with passion. After Mr. Pope had sent off one of his fine compositions to Lady Mary, he made a second draft from the rough copy, and favoured some other friend with it. He was so charmed with the letter of Gay's, that I have just quoted, that he had copied that and amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary as his own. A gentleman who writes letters à deux fins, and after having poured out his heart to the beloved, serves up the same dish rechauffé to a friend, is not very much in earnest about his loves, however much he may be in his piques and vanities when his impertinence gets its due.

But, save that unlucky part of the Pope Correspondence, I do not know, in the range of our literature, volumes more delightful.[124] You live in them in the finest company in [pg 598] the world. A little stately, perhaps; a little apprêté and conscious that they are speaking to whole generations who [pg 599] are listening; but in the tone of their voices—pitched, as no doubt they are, beyond the mere conversation key—in [pg 600] the expression of their thoughts, their various views and natures, there is something generous, and cheering, and [pg 601] ennobling. You are in the society of men who have filled the greatest parts in the world's story—you are with [pg 602] St. John the statesman; Peterborough the conqueror; Swift, the greatest wit of all times; Gay, the kindliest laugher—it is a privilege to sit in that company. Delightful and [pg 603] generous banquet! with a little faith and a little fancy any one of us here may enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures out of the past, and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind that there is always a certain cachet about great men—they may be as mean on many points as you or I, but they carry their great air—they speak of common life more largely and generously than common men do—they regard the world with a manlier countenance, and see its real features more fairly than the timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through blinkers, or to have an opinion when there is a crowd to back it. He who reads these noble records of a past age, salutes and reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may go home now and talk with St. John; you may take a volume from your library and listen to Swift and Pope.

Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say to him, Try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly. I know nothing in any story more gallant and cheering, than the love and friendship which this company of famous men bore towards one another. There never has been a society of men more friendly, as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the society of men great and famous? and for liking them for the qualities which made them so? A mere pretty fellow from White's could not have written the Patriot King, and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, whom the great St. John held to be one of the best and greatest of men: a mere nobleman of the Court could no more have won Barcelona, than he could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,[125] [pg 604] which are as witty as Congreve: a mere Irish Dean could not have written Gulliver; and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To name his friends is to name the best men of his time. Addison had a senate; Pope reverenced his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always. His admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when some one said of his friend, “There is something in that great man which looks as if he was placed here by mistake,” “Yes,” Pope answered, “and when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possibly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for visitors.” So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club-table, so faithful and so friendly.

We have said before that the chief wits of this time, with the exception of Congreve, were what we should now call men's men. They spent many hours of the four-and-twenty, a fourth part of each day nearly, in clubs and coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by word of mouth; a journal of 1710 [pg 605] contained the very smallest portion of one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faithful habitués sat round; strangers came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden had his head quarters at Will's, in Russell Street, at the corner of Bow Street, at which place Pope saw him when he was twelve years old. The company used to assemble on the first floor—what was called the dining-room floor in those days—and sat at various tables smoking their pipes. It is recorded that the beaux of the day thought it a great honour to be allowed to take a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. When Addison began to reign, he with a certain crafty propriety—a policy let us call it—which belonged to his nature, set up his court, and appointed the officers of his royal house. His palace was Button's, opposite Will's.[126] A quiet opposition, a silent assertion of empire, distinguished this great man. Addison's ministers were Budgell, Tickell, Philips, Carey; his master of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who was what Duroc was to Napoleon, or Hardy to Nelson; the man who performed his master's bidding, and would have cheerfully died in his quarrel. Addison lived with these people for seven or eight hours every day. The male society passed over their punch-bowls and tobacco-pipes about as much time as ladies of that age spent over Spadille and Manille.

For a brief space, upon coming up to town, Pope formed part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather too eager and obsequious humble servant.[127] Dick Steele, the editor [pg 606] of the Tatler, Mr. Addison's man, and his own man too—a person of no little figure in the world of letters, patronized the young poet, and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope did the tasks very quickly and smartly (he had been at the feet quite as a boy of Wycherley's decrepit reputation, and propped up for a year that doting old wit): he was [pg 607] anxious to be well with the men of letters, to get a footing and a recognition. He thought it an honour to be admitted into their company; to have the confidence of Mr. Addison's friend, Captain Steele. His eminent parts obtained for him the honour of heralding Addison's triumph of Cato with his admirable prologue, and heading the victorious procession as it were. Not content with this act of homage and admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself by assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highly offended his lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed to write to Mr. Dennis and inform him that Mr. Pope's pamphlet against him was written quite without Mr. Addison's approval.[128] Indeed, The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Phrenzy of J. D. is a vulgar and mean satire, and such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire to see any partisan of his strike in any literary quarrel. Pope was closely allied with Swift when he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has been printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the foul marks of the master hand. Swift admired and enjoyed with all his heart the prodigious genius of the young Papist lad out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a university in his life, and came and conquered the Dons and the doctors with his wit. He applauded, and loved him, too, and protected him, and taught him mischief. I wish Addison could have loved him better. The best satire that ever has been penned would never have been written then; and one of the best characters the world ever knew would have been without a flaw. But he who had so few equals could not bear one, and Pope was more than that. When Pope, trying for himself, and soaring on his immortal young wings, found that his, too, was a genius, which no opinion of that age could follow, he rose and left Addison's [pg 608] company, settling on his own eminence, and singing his own song.

It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer of Mr. Addison; nor likely that after escaping from his vassalage and assuming an independent crown, the sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him amicably.[129] They did not do wrong to mislike each other. They but followed the impulse of nature, and the consequence of position. When Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was naturally Napoleon's enemy. “There are many passions and tempers of mankind,” says Mr. Addison in the Spectator, speaking a couple of years before their little differences between him and Mr. Pope took place, “which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind. All those who made their entrance into the world with the same advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, are apt to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. Those who were once his equals envy and defame him, because they now see him the superior; and those who were once his superiors, because they look upon him as their equal.” Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking that, as young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university education, he couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his young friend Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid him with his own known scholarship and skill?[130] It was natural that Mr. Addison should doubt of the learning of an amateur Grecian, should have a high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, [pg 609] and should help that ingenious young man. It was natural, on the other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends should believe that this counter-translation, suddenly advertised and so long written, though Tickell's college friends had never heard of it—though, when Pope first wrote to Addison regarding his scheme, Mr. Addison knew nothing of the similar project of Tickell, of Queen's—it was natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, having interests, passions, and prejudices of their own, should believe that Tickell's translation was but an act of opposition against Pope, and that they should call Mr. Tickell's emulation Mr. Addison's envy—if envy it were.

And were there one whose fires