Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ten thousand pounds to the Duchess of Marlborough. It was a mere drop in the ocean of the Marlborough fortune and the lady expended seven thousand pounds of it for a diamond necklace. "How much better it would have been," said Dr. Young, "to have given it to Mrs. Bracegirdle."

He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where the Duchess of Marlborough erected a monument to his memory.

ALEXANDER POPE.

(1688-1744.)

THE great figure of this period, however, next to Swift and Addison, is Alexander Pope. Upon his shoulders fell the mantle of John Dryden and in his lifetime he was esteemed as the greatest of English poets. For many years afterwards he held this distinction, though his method was often questioned. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the discussion of Pope's genius has run very high at times, and has been participated in by Bowles, Byron, Campbell, Roscoe, Isaac Disraeli, De Quincy and Macaulay, until a central literature has grown around the subject more voluminous than any that is extant concerning other English writers, save Shakespeare alone.

Pope was born in London in 1688, a delicate, sickly creature, whose life was a long disease. In some of his pieces he compares himself to a spider. From his father he inherited a deformed

shape, which studious habits only increased. In his childhood his face was angular, his voice exceedingly sweet, and he wrote verse almost as soon as he had learned his alphabet.

numbers, for the numbers came,"

"I lisped in

is his own de

scription of himself, and from the time he could remember he looked forward to a literary career. His parents being Catholics, the ordinary schools were closed to him and his education was desultory and self-guided. At the age of twelve he plunged into general and miscellaneous reading with ardor, and thus acquired a wide knowledge of English literature. He studied Spenser and Dryden profoundly and from them gained an extensive vocabulary and a knowledge of all the niceties of versification.

When still a youth he became acquainted with William Wycherley, one of the dissolute poets of Charles II.'s time, and carried on a correspondence with him. Wycherley got Pope to revise his verses for him, and the young reviser and critic hacked and hewed so vigorously at the old poet's compositions as to make that individual roar out, and finally break off entirely with so plain-spoken a critic. Pope now gave his whole mind to his art, kept his writing-desk by his bedside and was constantly in the habit of commit

ting to paper expressions and thoughts as they occurred to him. He wrote much and reviewed with an unsparing hand, polishing his verse until no further improvement seemed possible. He never was in haste to print, but kept his manuscript for years until it was entirely to his liking.

[ocr errors]

When grown to manhood his stature was so low, that when sitting at a table his seat had to be raised to bring him to the ordinary level. At twenty-one he was a confirmed invalid, querulous and ill-tempered. His mind was as crooked as his body, and he never could, or would, do anything with directness. If he desired a favor he would not ask for it in plain terms, but would gain it by some artifice or innuendo. He was fretful, parsimonious, egotistical and untruthful. He gained the friendship of all that brilliant circle of wits from Swift to Lady Mary, and he quarreled with all of them save Arbuthnot, Swift and Gay. Two of his bitterest and most trenchant satires were directed against Addison and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Addison had been his friend since his first appearance as a poet, and had praised him highly in the Spectator. Lady Mary was on terms of social intimacy with him, until he fell on his knees one day to declare his love, a performance that produced from her only a burst

It

of laughter. Pope treasured his revenge, and years afterward wrote a gross couplet on the character of "Sappho" that was at once, but very unjustly, applied to Lady Mary. was sheer Billingsgate expression only of virulent hatred. The attack on Addison is one of the best known of Pope's satires and has the merit of being an exaggerated but recognizable likeness of the great essayist. The piece was not published until after Addison's death, but copies were handed around. It is not certain that Addison ever saw it, but if he did, it made no difference in his treatment of Pope. He remained friendly to the poet until the last. Addison died in 1719 and the satire which is a part of the epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot appeared in 1723. Atticus is the name appropriated to Addison in the Spectator, The following is the passage:

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent, and each art to please,
And born to write, converse and live with ease;
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;

« AnteriorContinuar »