Pretty! in amber to observe the forms 169 Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! NOTES, whom I fhould have thought this Critic the likelieft to fpare, the redoubtable PRISCIAN, he impiously boasted that he had arms even against Christ himself. But Codrus Urcæus went further, and actually used those arms the other only threatened with. This man while he was preparing fome trifling piece of Criticifm for the prefs, had the misfortune to hear his papers were deftroyed by fire: On which he is reported to have broke out—" Quodnam ego tantum fcelus concepi, O Chrifte! quem ego tuorum unquam læfi, ut ita inexpiabili in me odio debae"cheris? Audi ea quæ tibi mentis compos, et ex animo dicam. Si "forte, cum ad ultimum vitæ finem pervenero, fupplex accedam ❝ ad te oratum, neve audias, neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum "Infernis Diis in æternum vitam agere decrevi." Whereupon, fays my author, he quitted the converse of men, threw himfelf into the thickest of a foreft, and wore out the wretched remainder of his life in all the agonies of despair. VER. 164. flashing Bentley] This great man, tho' with all his faults, deferved to be put into better company. The following words of Cicero defcribe him not amifs. "Habuit à "natura genus quoddam acuminis, quod etiam arte limaverat, "quod erat in reprehendendis verbis verfutum et follers: fed fæpe ftomachofum, nonnunquam frigidum, interdum etiam "facetum." VER. 169. Pretty! in amber to obferve the forms, &c.] Our Poet had the full pleasure of this amusement foon after the publication of his Shakespear. Nor has his Friend been lefs entertained fince the appearance of his edition of the fame poet. The liquid Amber of whofe Wit has lately licked up, and enrolled fuch a quantity of these Infects, and of tribes fo grotesque and various, as would have puzzled Reaumur to give names. to. Two or three of them it may not be amifs to preserve and keep alive. Such as the Rev. Mr. J. Upton, Thomas Edwards, Efq, and, to make up the Triumvirate, their learned Coadjutor, that very refpectable perfonage, Mr. THEOPHILUS CIBEER. -As to the poetic imagery of this paffage, it has been much and juftly admired; for the moft deteftable things in nature, The things we know, are neither rich nor rare, 171 But wonder how the devil they got there. 175 Were others angry: I excus'd them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.. A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; But each man's fecret ftandard in his mind, That Cafting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This, who can gratify? for who can guess? The Bard whom pilfer'd Paftorals renown, Who turns a Perfian tale for half a Crown, 180 Juft writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year; He, who still wanting, tho' he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:184 And He, who now to fenfe, now nonfenfe leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: NOTES, as a toad, or a beetle, become pleafing when well reprefented in a work of Art. But it is no less eminent for the beauty of the thought. For though a fcribler exifts by being thus incorporated, yet he exists intombed, a lafting monument of the wrath of the Mufes. VER, 173. Were others angry:] The Poets, VER. 174. I gave them but their due.] Our Author always found thofe he commended lefs fenfible than those he reproved. The reafon is plain. He gave the latter but their due; and the other thought they had no more. VER. 180.-a Perfian tale.] Amb. Philips tranflated a Book called the Perfian tales. And He, whofe fuftian's fo fublimely bad, All these, my modeft Satire bad tranflate, And own'd that nine fuch Poets made a Tate. 190 How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe! And fwear, not ADDISON himself was fafe. Peace to all fuch! but were there One whofe fires True Genius kindles, and fair Fame infpires; NOTES. VER. 186. Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:] A cafe common both to Poets and Critics of a certain order; only with this difference, that the Poet writes himself out of his own meaning; and the Critic never gets into another man's. Yet both keep going on, and blundering round about their fubject, as benighted people are wont to do, who seek for an entrance which they cannot find. VER. 189. All thefe, my modeft Satire bad tranflate,] See their works, in the Translations of claffical books by feveral hands. VER. 190.-nine fuch Poets, &c.] Alluding, not to the nine Mufes, but to nine Taylors. VER. 192. And fwear, not ADDISON himfelf was fafe.] This is an artful preparative for the following transition; and finely obviates what might be thought unfavourably of the severity of the fatire, by those who were ftrangers to the provocation. VER. 193. But were there One whofe fires &c.] Our Poet's friendship with Mr. Addifon began in the year 1713. It was 'cultivated, on both fides, with all the marks of mutual esteem and affection, and conftant intercourse of good offices. Mr. Addison was always commending moderation, warned his friend against a blind attachment to party, and blamed Steele for his indifcreet zeal. The tranflation of the Iliad being now on foot, he recommended it to the public, and joined with the Tories in pufhing the fubfcription; but at the fame time advised Mr. Pope not to be content with the applause of one half of the nation. On the other hand, Mr. Pope made his friend's Interest his own (fee note on 215. 1 Ep. B. ii. of Hor.) and, when Bleft with each talent and each art to please, 195 And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, NOTES. Dennis fo brutally attacked the Tragedy of Cato, he wrote the piece called A narrative of his madness. Thus things continued till Mr. Pope's growing reputation, and fuperior genius in Poetry gave umbrage to his friend's false delicacy and then it was he encouraged Philips and others (fee his Letters) in their clamours against him as a Tory and Jacobite, who had affifted in writing the Examiners; and, under an affected care for the government, would have hid, even from himself, the true grounds of his difguft. But his jealousy foon broke out, and discovered itself, first to Mr. Pope, and, not long after, to all the world. The Rape of the Rock had been written in a very hafty manner, and printed in a collection of Mifcellanies. The fuccefs it met with encouraged the Author to revise and enlarge it, and give it a more important air, which was done by advancing it into a mock-epic Poem. In order to this it was to have its Machinery; which, by the happiest invention, he took from the Rofycrufian Syftem. Full of this noble conception, he communicated it to Mr. Addison, who he imagined would have been equally delighted with the im provement. On the contrary, he had the mortification to have his friend receive it coldly; and more, to advise him against any alteration; for that the poem in its original state was a delicious little thing, and, as he expreffed it, merum fal. Mr. Pope was fhocked for his friend; and then firft began to open his eyes to his Character. Soon after this, a translation of the first book of the Iliad appeared under the name of Mr. Tickell; which coming out at a critical juncture, when Mr. Pope was in the midst of his engagements on the fame fubject, and by a creature of Mr. Addison's, made him fufpect this to be another shaft from the fame quiver: And after a diligent enquiry, and laying many odd circumstances together, he was fully convinced that it was not only published with Mr. Addison's participation, but was in View him with fcornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rife; 200 Damn with faint praise, affent with civil leer, And without fneering, teach the reft to fneer; NOTES. deed his own performance. Mr. Pope, in his first resentment of this ufage, was refolved to expofe this new Version in a fevere critique upon it. I have now by me the Copy he had marked for this purpose; in which he has claffed the several faults in tranflation, language, and numbers, under their proper heads. But the growing fplendor of his own work so eclipsed the faint efforts of this oppofition, that he trusted to its own weakness and malignity for the juftice due to it. About this time, Mr. Addison's fon-in-law, the E. of Warwick, told Mr. Pope, that it was in yain to think of being well with his Father who was naturally a jealous man; that Mr. Pope's fuperior talents in poetry had hurt him, and to fuch a degree, that he had underhand encouraged Gildon to write a thing about Wycherley, in which he had fcurrilously abused Mr. Pope and his family; and for this fervice he had given Gildon ten guineas, after the pamphlet was printed. The very next day Mr. Pope, in a great heat, wrote Mr. Addison a Letter, wherein he told him, he was no ftranger to his behaviour; which, however, he should not imitate: But that what he thought faulty in him, he would tell him fairly to his face; and what deferved praise he would not deny him to the world: and, as a proof of this difpofition towards him, he had fent him the inclofed, which was the Character, firft published separately, and afterwards inferted in this place of the Epift. to Dr. Arbuthnot. This plain dealing had no ill effect. Mr. Addifon treated Mr. Pope with civility, and, as Mr. Pope believed, with justice, from this time to his death, which happened about three years after. Ibid. But were there one whofe fires, &c.] The ftrokes in this Character are highly finished. Atterbury fo well understood the force of them, that in one of his letters to Mr. Pope he says, "Since you now know where your ftrength lies, I hope you will not fuffer that talent to lie unemployed." He did not; and, by that means, brought fatiric Poetry to its perfection. |