EPISTLE II. POPE's habitual severity in speaking of the female character does no honor to his understanding, his knowlege of life, or his sense of what was due to society. From the higher ranks of the sex in England he appears to have always received the respect paid to genius, though he was naturally thwarted in all expectation of that value for his person which was so willingly given to his mind. His passion for lady Wortley Montague, which unfortunately laid him at the mercy of a witty woman of fashion, who, if she esteemed the poet, palpably laughed at the admirer; and his platonic intercourse with the Blunt family gradually sinking into the dependency of an invalid, may have soured his recollections of woman. The character of Atossa in this epistle laid him under some imputation: the old duchess of Marlborough, for whom it was evidently drawn, was long said to have paid him a thousand pounds for its suppression: but there is no evidence for the story; and the character never appeared in print until 1746, two years after the death of both parties; Pope and the duchess dying in 1744. Bolingbroke always pronounced this epistle the master-piece of its author: it is perhaps but a collection of epigrams; yet of epigrams unrivalled for variety and poignancy, for elegance of language, and graphic discrimination of character. ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II. Of the characters of women only, as contradistinguished from the other sex. That these are yet more inconsistent and incomprehensible than those of men, of which instances are given, even from such characters as are plainest and most strongly marked; as in the affected, ver. 7 to 21. The soft-natured, v. 29 to 37. The whimsical, v. 53 to 86. The wits and refiners, v. 87. The stupid and silly, v. 101. The capricious and passionate, v. 115. The decent and cold, v. 157. How contrarieties run through them all. But though the particular characters of this sex are more various than those of men, the general characteristic, as to the ruling passion, is more uniform and confined. In what that lies, and whence it proceeds, v. 207. Men are best known in public life, women in private, v. 215. What are the aims and the fate of the sex, both as to power and pleasure, v. 219. Advice for their true interest, v. 257. The picture of an estimable woman, made up of the best kind of contrarieties, v. 269, &c. EPISTLE II. OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN. NOTHING SO true as what you once let fall;- And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair. In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye, 10 2 Most women have no characters at all. Warburton attempts to dilute this formidable libel, by alleging that it had been juster to say, their characters are not so easily developed as those of men.' He curiously regards matrimony as the effective means by which the confusion of the original qualities of the sex is reducible into shape. A husband, he affirms, acts the part of the cylindrical steel mirror which brings irregularity of lines into form; adding, with a daring defiance of all female posterity, but whether under the form of a lamb or a tiger, a dove or a cat, could never be guessed from the disorder of the unreduced lines and unharmonious coloring.' Or dress'd in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine, With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine; Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it. 15 19 Come then, the colors and the ground prepare : Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air; Choose a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute. Rufa, whose eye quick-glancing o'er the park, Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark, Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke, As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock; Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, With Sappho fragrant at an evening mask : So morning insects that in muck begun, Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun. How soft is Silia! fearful to offend; The frail one's advocate, the weak one's friend. 25 16 I must paint it. Warburton, in allusion to Pope's note on the preceding lines, again commits himself in rash hostility with the sex. He tells us that the poet threw away his apologies; that men bear general satire most heroically, women with the utmost impatience;' still more oddly assigning as the reason, 'that it is from the fear that such representations may hurt them in the opinion of the men; whereas the men are not at all apprehensive that their follies or vices would prejudice them in the opinion of the women.' Yet Warburton's matrimonial experience might have taught him that general scandal might be borne by a female with very remarkable intrepidity. 24 Sappho's diamonds. Young's fifth Satire on Women seems to have been the model of this animated passage. Sappho was probably meant for queen Caroline, whose philosophic habits rendered her occasionally the object of burlesque to the poets. The well-known and bitter lines, When Artemisia talks by fits, &c. were written for her. 31 To her Calista proved her conduct nice; But spare your censure; Silia does not drink. Papillia, wedded to her amorous spark, 'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe; Fine by defect, and delicately weak, 41 45 Their happy spots the nice admirer take. As when she touch'd the brink of all we hate. To make a wash, would hardly stew a child; 50 54 54 Hardly stew a child. It was said, that some monstrous use of a dead body for this purpose was made by a woman of rank at the time. The rest of the character was designed for the duchess of Hamilton. |