The Age of Pope Part 5

'TO A LADY: SHE REFUSING TO CONTINUE A DISPUTE WITH ME, AND LEAVING ME IN THE ARGUMENT.

'In the dispute whate'er I said, My heart was by my tongue belied; And in my looks you might have read How much I argued on your side.

'You, far from danger as from fear, Might have sustained an open fight; For seldom your opinions err; Your eyes are always in the right.

'Alas! not hoping to subdue, I only to the fight aspired; To keep the beauteous foe in view Was all the glory I desired.

'But she, howe'er of victory sure, Contemns the wreath too long delayed; And, armed with more immediate power, Calls cruel silence to her aid.

'Deeper to wound, she shuns the fight: She drops her arms, to gain the field; Secures her conquest by her flight; And triumphs, when she seems to yield.

'So when the Parthian turned his steed, And from the hostile camp withdrew; With cruel skill the backward reed He sent; and as he fled, he slew.'

Wit and a ready command of verse are the characteristics of Prior's poetry. Both of these gifts are to be seen in his lively _English ballad on the Taking of Namur by the King of Great Britain_, in which he travesties Boileau's _Ode sur la prise de Namur_. As an epigrammatist he reaped his advantage from a study of Martial, and in this department of verse Prior is often successful. If brevity be a prominent merit in an epigram, he sometimes excels his master, as, for example, in this stanza:

'To John I owed great obligation; But John unhappily thought fit To publish it to all the nation; Sure John and I are more than quit.'[25]

This is half the length of the original Latin, and what it loses in elegance it gains in point.

It may be hoped that the next quotation is a libel on Bishop Atterbury; if so, the lines have every merit but truth. The epigram is on the funeral of the Duke of Buckingham, who died in 1721.

'I have no hopes,' the duke he says, and dies; 'In sure and certain hopes,' the prelate cries: Of these two learned peers, I prithee say, man, Who is the lying knave, the priest or layman?

The duke he stands an infidel confest; 'He's our dear brother,' quoth the lordly priest.

The duke, though knave, still 'brother dear,' he cries; And who can say the reverend prelate lies?

Prior, it may be observed here, could say pointed things in prose as well as in verse, and nothing can be happier than his reply to the Frenchman's inquiry whether the King of England had anything to show in his palace equal to the paintings at Versailles ill.u.s.trating the victories of Louis XIV: 'The monuments of my master's actions,' said the poet, 'are to be seen everywhere except in his own house.'

It is always interesting to link poet with poet, and in relation to Prior many readers will recall the pathetic incident related of Sir Walter Scott when the wonderful intellect which had entranced the world was giving indications of decay. Lockhart relates how, as they were travelling together, a quotation from Prior led Scott to make another, slightly altered for the occasion, and he adds:

'This seemed to put him into the train of Prior, and he repeated several striking pa.s.sages both of the _Alma_ and the _Solomon_. He was still at this when we reached a longish hill, and he got out to walk a little. As we climbed the ascent, he leaning heavily on my shoulder, we were met by a couple of beggars, who were, or professed to be, old soldiers both of Egypt and the Peninsula. One of them wanted a leg, which circ.u.mstance alone would have opened Scott's purse-strings, though, _ex facie_, a sad old blackguard; but the fellow had recognized his person as it happened, and in asking an alms bade G.o.d bless him fervently by his name. The mendicants went on their way, and we stood breathing on the knoll. Sir Walter followed them with his eye, and planting his stick firmly on the sod, repeated, without break or hesitation Prior's verses to the historian Mezeray. That he applied them to himself was touchingly obvious, and therefore I must quote them.

'"Whate'er thy countrymen have done, By law and wit, by sword and gun, In thee is faithfully recited; And all the living world that view Thy work, give thee the praises due, At once instructed and delighted.

'"Yet for the fame of all these deeds, What beggar in the _Invalides_, With lameness broke, with blindness smitten, Wished ever decently to die, To have been either Mezeray, Or any monarch he has written?

'"It strange, dear author, yet it true is, That down from Pharamond to Louis All covet life, yet call it pain: All feel the ill, yet shun the cure; Can sense this paradox endure?

Resolve me Cambray[26] or Fontaine.

'"The man in graver tragic known (Though his best part long since was done), Still on the stage desires to tarry; And he who played the Harlequin, After the jest still loads the scene, Unwilling to retire, though weary."'

[Sidenote: John Gay (1685-1732).]

Gay, who enjoyed an unbroken friends.h.i.+p with the brotherhood of wits, and was treated by them like a spoilt child, was born at Barnstaple in 1685, and left an orphan at the age of ten. He was educated at the free grammar school in the town, and was afterwards, to his discontent, apprenticed to a mercer in London. He escaped from this uncongenial employment to be dependent on an uncle, and thus early exhibited his life-long disposition to rely upon others for support. 'Providence,'

Swift writes, 'never designed Gay to be above two-and-twenty by his thoughtlessness and gullibility. He has as little foresight of age, sickness, poverty, or loss of admirers as a girl of fifteen.' His weakness, it has been said, appealed to Swift's strength, and Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot were Gay's most faithful friends. They found something in him to laugh at and to love. Ladies, too, treated him with the kind of friendliness which has a touch of commiseration. In 1714 Gay was appointed secretary to Lord Clarendon, a post which he owed to Swift, but the death of Queen Anne in that year brought the Whigs into office, and destroyed the poet's prospects. Prior to this he had been secretary to the imperious d.u.c.h.ess of Monmouth. He was now left without money or employment, and owed much to the generosity of Pope. It was Gay's lot 'in suing long to bide,' to be always hoping, and nearly always disappointed. 'He seems,' says his latest biographer, 'to have begun his career under the impression that it was somebody's duty to provide for him in the world, and this impression clung to him through nearly the whole of a lifetime.'[27] Ten years before his death he was eagerly looking to others for support. Writing to Swift, he says: 'I lodge at present in Burlington House, and have received many civilities from many great men, but very few real benefits. They wonder at each other for not providing for me, and I wonder at them all.'

Gay's first poem of any mark was _The Shepherd's Week_ (1714), six burlesque pastorals, a subject proposed to him by Pope, who was then smarting from the praise Philips had received in _The Guardian_. But if Pope meant Gay to poke his fun at Philips in _The Shepherd's Week_, he must have been disappointed, for the poems were accepted as genuine bucolics, and although humorously absurd, are, to say the least, more true to rustic life than the pastorals either of Philips or of Pope.

_The Shepherd's Week_ was followed by _Trivia_ (1715), a piece suggested by Swift's _City Shower_. It is one of Gay's most notable productions, not as a poem, but as a vivid description of the streets of London nearly two hundred years ago. The great reputation he obtained as the author of _The Fables_ (1727), and still more of _The Beggar's Opera_ (1728), the idea of which was suggested to Gay by Swift, survived him for some years. _The Fables_ were written for and dedicated to the youthful Duke of c.u.mberland, who is asked to "accept the moral lay, and in these tales mankind survey." There is skill and ingenuity in the poems, but higher merit they cannot boast, and young readers are likely to prefer the ill.u.s.trations which generally accompany _The Fables_ to the letterpress. Many of Gay's allusions are beyond the apprehension of the young, and have a political flavour. _The Beggar's Opera_ was intended as a burlesque of the Italian opera, which had been long the laughing-stock of men of letters, and as the play was thought to have political significance, and the character of Macheath to be a portrait of Walpole, it was received with enthusiasm, and acted in London for about sixty nights. So popular did the opera become, that ladies carried about the songs on their fans.

Eight years before, Gay had published his poems by subscription, and in those happy days for vers.e.m.e.n had gained 1,000 by the venture. He put the money into South Sea stock, and lost it all. For _The Beggar's Opera_ he received about 800. It was followed by _Polly_, a play of the same coa.r.s.e character, which, for political reasons, was not allowed to be acted. The result was that it had a large sale, and put money in Gay's purse. Ten thousand five hundred copies are said to have been printed in one year, and the 1,200 realized by the sale were very wisely retained for the poet's use by the Duke of Queensberry, under whose roof he had at length found a warm nest. To the student Gay is chiefly interesting as the only noteworthy poet of the period, south of the Tweed, gifted with a lyrical capacity. Two or three of his songs and ballads, and especially _Black-Eyed Susan_, have a charm beyond the reach of the mechanical versifier. But the art of song is at a low level even in the hands of Gay. The lyric which the Elizabethan and Jacobean poets loved so well, and of which the present century has produced specimens to be matched only by Shakespeare, may be said to have been lost to English poetry for the first half of the last century, since neither Prior's verse, delightful though it be, nor the songs of Gay, have enough of the poetical element to form exceptions to this statement.

In his _Tales_ he follows Prior in grossness, while inferior to him in art. Like the greater number of the Queen Anne poets, Gay flatters with a free hand. In an epistle addressed to Lintot, the bookseller, he declares that Anacreon lives once more in Sheffield, and Waller in Granville, that Buckingham's verse will last to distant time; while Ovid sings again in Addison, and 'Homer's _Iliad_ s.h.i.+nes in his _Campaign_.'

One of the liveliest and most graceful of Gay's poems is addressed to Pope 'On his having finished his translation of Homer's _Iliad_.' It is called _A Welcome from Greece_, and describes the friends who a.s.sembled to greet the poet on his return to England.

Three stanzas from the Epistle shall be quoted:

'Oh, what a concourse swarms on yonder quay!

The sky re-echoes with new shouts of joy; By all this show, I ween 'tis Lord Mayor's day; I hear the voice of trumpet and hautboy-- No, now I see them near.--Oh, these are they Who come in crowds to welcome thee from Troy.

Hail to the bard, whom long as lost we mourned From siege, from battle, and from storm returned!

'What lady's that to whom he gently bends?

Who knows not her? Ah! those are Wortley's eyes: How art thou honoured, numbered with her friends!

For she distinguishes the good and wise.

The sweet-tongued Murray near her side attends; Now to my heart the glance of Howard flies; Now Hervey, fair of face, I mark full well, With thee Youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell.

'I see two lovely sisters hand in hand, The fair-haired Martha and Teresa brown; Madge b.e.l.l.e.n.den, the tallest of the land; And smiling Mary, soft and fair as down.

Yonder I see the cheerful d.u.c.h.ess stand, For friends.h.i.+p, zeal, and blithesome humours known; Whence that loud shout in such a hearty strain?

Why, all the Hamiltons are in her train!'

Gay's love of good living was known to all his friends. 'As the French philosopher,' Congreve wrote, 'used to prove his existence by _cogito ergo sum_, the greatest proof of Gay's existence is _edit ergo est_.'

For a long time his health compelled him to give up wine, and he tells Swift that he had also left off verse-making, 'for I really think that man must be a bold writer who trusts to wit without it.' He was dispirited, he told Swift not long before his death, for want of a pursuit, and found 'indolence and idleness the most tiresome things in the world.'

Gay died in 1732 at the Duke of Queensberry's house, and Pope grieved that one of his nearest and longest ties was broken. He was interred, to quote Arbuthnot's words, 'as a peer of the realm,' in Westminster Abbey.

The superficial character of the poet may be seen in his couplet transcribed upon the monument:

'Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, and now I know it.'

[Sidenote: Edward Young (1684-1765).]

Gay's moderate gift of song was withheld from the famous author of the _Night Thoughts_. Yet Young was vain enough to think that he possessed it, and wrote a patriotic ode called _Ocean_, preceded by an elaborate essay on lyric poetry. He also produced _Imperium Pelagi_ (1729), _A Naval Lyric written in Imitation of Pindar's spirit_. The lyric, which was travestied by Fielding in his _Tom Thumb_,[28] reads like a burlesque, and badly treated though Pindar was by the vers.e.m.e.n of the last century, there is perhaps not one of them who mocks him more outrageously than Young. He says that this ode is an original, and no critic is likely to dispute the a.s.sertion.

Young was born in 1684 at Upham, near Winchester, his father, who was afterwards Dean of Sarum, being at that time the rector of the village.

Edward was placed upon the foundation at Winchester College, and remained there until he was eighteen. He was then sent up to New College, and afterwards removed to Corpus. At the age of twenty-seven he was nominated to a law fellows.h.i.+p at All Souls, and took his degree of B.C.L. and his doctor's degree some years later. Characteristically enough he began his poetical career by _An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne_ (1712), who is praised for his heavenly numbers, and is said to have been born "to make the muse immortal." His next poem of any consequence, _The Last Day_, written in heroic couplets, and filling three books, is correct, or fairly so, in versification, and execrable in taste. Young, it may be supposed, wished to produce a sense of solemnity in the treatment of his theme, and he does so by lamenting that the very land 'where the Stuarts filled an awful throne' will in that day be forgotten. The want of taste which so often deforms Young's verse is also seen in the imagery he employs to ill.u.s.trate the fear which even good men may have on appearing before that 'dread tribunal.'

'Thus the chaste bridegroom, when the priest draws nigh, Beholds his blessing with a trembling eye; Feels doubtful pa.s.sions throb in every vein, And in his cheeks are mingled joy and pain, Lest still some intervening chance should rise, Leap forth at once, and s.n.a.t.c.h the golden prize, Inflame his woe, by bringing it so late, And stab him in the crisis of his fate.'

His next poem, _The Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love_, was suggested by the execution of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford, a subject chosen for a tragedy by John Banks (1694), by Rowe in 1715, and treated with considerable dramatic power in our own day by Ross Neil. In Young's hands this fine theme becomes a rhetorical exercise without poetry and without pathos. A few lines will suffice to show the style of the poem. Jane and Dudley, it must be premised, are imprisoned in a gloomy hall:

'What can they do? They fix their mournful eyes-- Then Guildford, thus abruptly: "I despise An empire lost; I fling away the crown; Numbers have laid that bright delusion down; But where's the Charles, or Dioclesian, where, Could quit the blooming, wedded, weeping fair?

Oh! to dwell ever on thy lip! to stand In full possession of thy snowy hand!

And thro' the unclouded crystal of thine eye The heavenly treasures of thy mind to spy!

Till rapture reason happily destroys, And my soul wanders through immortal joys!

Give me the world, and ask me, where's my bliss?

I clasp thee to my breast and answer, this."'

Verse of this quality, which might be amply quoted, is of interest to the student of literature, since in Young's day it pa.s.sed current for poetry. But in accepting his claims as a poet the faith of the age must have been often strained.

Walpole, who despised the whole tribe of poets, and cared nothing for literature, had by some strange chance awarded to Young a pension of 200 a-year, whereupon in a piece called _The Instalment_, addressed to Sir Robert, Britain is called upon to behold