Life of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 32

It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and he could ride (he rode to Oxford from London at a stretch), and he was famous for an exquisite eye. On a tree at Lord Bathurst's is carved "Here Pope sang,"--he composed beneath it. Bolingbroke, in one of his letters, represents them both writing in the hay-field. No poet ever admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has done, as I will undertake to prove from his works, _prose_ and _verse_, if not antic.i.p.ated in so easy and agreeable a labour. I remember a pa.s.sage in Walpole, somewhere, of a gentleman who wished to give directions about some willows to a man who had long served Pope in his grounds: "I understand, sir," he replied: "you would have them hang down, sir, _somewhat poetical_." Now, if nothing existed but this little anecdote, it would suffice to prove Pope's taste for _Nature_, and the impression which he had made on a common-minded man. But I have already quoted Warton and Walpole (_both_ his enemies), and, were it necessary, I could amply quote Pope himself for such tributes to _Nature_ as no poet of the present day has even approached.

His various excellence is really wonderful: architecture, painting, _gardening_, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered, that English _gardening_ is the purposed perfectioning of n.i.g.g.ard _Nature_, and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch, double-post-and-rail, Hounslow Heath and Clapham Common sort of country, since the princ.i.p.al forests have been felled. It is, in general, far from a picturesque country. The case is different with Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and I except also the lake counties and Derbys.h.i.+re, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear Harrow on the Hill, and some spots near the coast. In the present rank fertility of "great poets of the age," and "schools of poetry"--a word which, like "schools of eloquence" and of "philosophy," is never introduced till the decay of the art has increased with the number of its professors--in the present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts of Naturals;--the Lakers, who whine about Nature because they live in c.u.mberland; and their _under-sect_ (which some one has maliciously called the "c.o.c.kney School"), who are enthusiastical for the country because they live in London. It is to be observed, that the rustical founders are rather anxious to disclaim any connexion with their metropolitan followers, whom they ungraciously review, and call c.o.c.kneys, atheists, foolish fellows, bad writers, and other hard names not less ungrateful than unjust. I can understand the pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of Windermere to what Mr. Braham terms "_entusumusy_," for lakes, and mountains, and daffodils, and b.u.t.tercups; but I should be glad to be apprised of the foundation of the London propensities of their imitative brethren to the same "high argument." Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge have rambled over half Europe, and seen Nature in most of her varieties (although I think that they have occasionally not used her very well); but what on earth--of earth, and sea, and Nature--have the others seen? Not a half, nor a tenth part so much as Pope. While they sneer at his Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of Windsor except its _brick_?

The most rural of these gentlemen is my friend Leigh Hunt, who lives at Hampstead. I believe that I need not disclaim any personal or poetical hostility against that gentleman. A more amiable man in society I know not; nor (when he will allow his sense to prevail over his sectarian principles) a better writer. When he was writing his "Rimini," I was not the last to discover its beauties, long before it was published. Even then I remonstrated against its vulgarisms; which are the more extraordinary, because the author is any thing but a vulgar man. Mr. Hunt's answer was, that he wrote them upon principle; they made part of his "_system!!_" I then said no more. When a man talks of his system, it is like a woman's talking of her _virtue_. I let them talk on. Whether there are writers who could have written "Rimini," as it might have been written, I know not; but Mr. Hunt is, probably, the only poet who could have had the heart to spoil his own Capo d'Opera.

With the rest of his young people I have no acquaintance, except through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without my desire), and I confess that till I had read them I was not aware of the full extent of human absurdity. Like Garrick's "Ode to Shakspeare," _they "defy criticism_." These are of the personages who decry Pope. One of them, a Mr. John Ketch, has written some lines against him, of which it were better to be the subject than the author. Mr. Hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; but the rest of these poor creatures seem so far gone that I would not "march through Coventry with them, that's flat!" were I in Mr. Hunt's place.

To be sure, he has "led his ragam.u.f.fins where they will be well peppered;" but a system-maker must receive all sorts of proselytes.

When they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of Middles.e.x--when they have overpa.s.sed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not till then, can it properly he permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not _in Wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the "_artificial_" works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the "Man of Ross," whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could hardly have preserved his honest renown.

I would also observe to my friend Hunt, that I shall be very glad to see him at Ravenna, not only for my sincere pleasure in his company, and the advantage which a thousand miles or so of travel might produce to a "natural" poet, but also to point out one or two little things in "Rimini," which he probably would not have placed in his opening to that poem, if he had ever seen Ravenna;--unless, indeed, it made "part of his system!!" I must also crave his indulgence for having spoken of his disciples--by no means an agreeable or self-sought subject. If they had said nothing of _Pope_, they might have remained "alone with their glory" for aught I should have said or thought about them or their nonsense. But if they interfere with the "little Nightingale" of Twickenham, they may find others who will bear it--_I_ won't. Neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration for him, who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence. The delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be the consolation of my age. His poetry is the Book of Life. Without canting, and yet without neglecting religion, he has a.s.sembled all that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, "that of all the members of mankind that live within the compa.s.s of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a _great poet_, there may be a _thousand_ born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any in story." Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: it is honourable to him and to the art. Such a "poet of a thousand years" was _Pope_. A thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in our literature. But it can _want_ them--he himself is a literature.

One word upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. "Dr.

Clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has _not been_ able to point out above three or four mistakes _in the sense_ through the whole Iliad. The real faults of the translation are of a different kind." So says Warton, himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst: they will never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and feeling.

The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is their _vulgarity_. By this I do not mean that they are _coa.r.s.e_, but "shabby-genteel," as it is termed. A man may be _coa.r.s.e_ and yet not _vulgar_, and the reverse. Burns is often coa.r.s.e, but never _vulgar_. Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. It is in their _finery_ that the new under school are _most_ vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as what we called at Harrow "a Sunday blood" might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes might be the better cut, and his boots the best blackened, of the two;--probably because he made the one, or cleaned the other, with his own hands.

In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. Of my friend Hunt, I have already said, that he is any thing but vulgar in his manners; and of his disciples, therefore, I will not judge of their manners from their verses. They may be honourable and _gentlemanly_ men, for what I know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me of Mr.

Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead a.s.sembly, in "Evelina." In these things (in private life, at least,) I pretend to some small experience; because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries, down to the London boxer, the "_flash and the swell_," the Spanish muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch highlander, and the Albanian robber;--to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian social life. Far be it from me to presume that there ever was, or can be, such a thing as an _aristocracy_ of _poets_; but there _is_ a n.o.bility of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly from education,--which is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's little chorus. If I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should say that it is only to be defined by _examples_--of those who have it, and those who have it not. In _life_, I should say that most _military_ men have it, and few _naval_;--that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers;--that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they are not pedants); that _fencing_-masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not an Iris.h.i.+sm to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never _make_ entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it. It is the _salt_ of society, and the seasoning of composition. _Vulgarity_ is far worse than downright _blackguardism_; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, "signifying nothing." It does not depend upon low themes, or even low language, for Fielding revels in both;--but is he ever _vulgar_? No. You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master, not its slave. Your vulgar writer is always most vulgar, the higher, his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidc.o.c.k's was wont to say,--"This, gentlemen, is the _eagle_ of the _sun_, from Archangel, in Russia; the _otterer_ it is, the _igherer_ he flies."

But to the proofs. It is a thing to be felt more than explained. Let any man take up a volume of Mr. Hunt's subordinate writers, read (if possible) a couple of pages, and p.r.o.nounce for himself, if they contain not the kind of writing which may be likened to "shabby-genteel" in actual life. When he has done this, let him take up Pope;--and when he has laid him down, take up the c.o.c.kney again--if he can.

_Note to the pa.s.sage in page_ 396. _relative to Pope's lines upon Lady Mary W. Montague_.] I think that I could show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was also greatly to blame in that quarrel, _not_ for having rejected, but for having encouraged him: but I would rather decline the task--though she should have remembered her own line, "_He comes too near, that comes to be denied_." I admire her so much--her beauty, her talents--that I should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name of _Mary_, that as Johnson once said, "If you called a dog _Harvey_, I should love him;" so, if you were to call a female of the same species "Mary," I should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the same s.e.x with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman: she could translate _Epictetus_, and yet write a song worthy of Aristippus. The lines,

"And when the long hours of the public are past, And we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last, May every fond pleasure that moment endear!

Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear!

Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud, Till," &c. &c.

There, Mr. Bowles!--what say you to such a supper with such a woman? and her own description too? Is not her "_champaigne and chicken_" worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that this stanza contains the "_puree_" of the whole philosophy of Epicurus:--I mean the _practical_ philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master; for I have been too long at the university not to know that the philosopher was himself a moderate man. But, after all, would not some of us have been as great fools as Pope? For my part, I wonder that, with his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, he did no more,--instead of writing some lines, which are to be condemned if false, and regretted if true.

THE END.