1857, appears to have brought together a number of materials

a mere versification of mouldy commonplaces, and for the work ; but before that date Mr. Dilke, unfortunately observes that all the classical information embodied in it for the poet's reputation, had made the discoveries with regard might have been picked up by the help of French manuals in to Pope's correspondence which have entailed fresh labour a single morning. The poem, in Mr. Elwin's judgment, is not both on editors and biographers. Old theories had to be extraordinary even for a youth of twenty ; and he points out,

rejected, and statements previously accepted had to be cast with perhaps unnecessary severity, the absurdities of which aside. No student of Pope could any longer regard the editions Pope is guilty in it, and his incapacity for appreciating the highest forms of imaginative genius. Mr. Elwin will not even of Bowles or Roscoe as satisfactory ; and after Mr. Dilke's

researches, the necessity for a new edition of Pope's works, allow with Addison and Hazlitt, that the poem is remarkable and a new biography of the poet, became more obvious for beauty of expression. On the contrary, he asserts that than ever. Despite great and unanticipated difficulties, the phraseology is often slovenly, " the construction inverted have a word to say presently, the edition of which we shall and ungrammatical, the ellipses harsh, the expletives feeble, projected so long ago is now brought to a conclusion the metre inharmonious, the rhymes imperfect," and, in short, "mediocrity, relieved by occasional well-wrought passages, under the judicious editorship of Mr. Courthope. The first volume, edited by Mr. Elwin, appeared in 1871 with an forms the staple of the work."

introduction of 147 pages. The story of Pope's mystifica- Mr. Courthope sounds a very different note. Not content tion of his correspondence is there told with exhaustive with praising the poem both for matter and style, he presents minuteness ; and as the reader passed from that painful the reader with a laboured argument on the principles with account to the notes on the poetry, it became evident that Mr. regard to Nature that underlie Pope's reasoning ; and passing Elwin, whose knowledge of the author and the age no student from the "just standard" of Nature characteristic of the can question, was by no means a sympathetic editor. He classical poets, to the allegorical methods of thought common neither loved Pope nor his verse, and after the publication of among the poets of media3val Europe, shows, or attempts to two volumes of Poetry and three of Letters, resigned the show, that the same methods gave rise to the "Metaphysical editorship. Then, in 1881, Mr. Courthope undertook the School of Poetry" in the seventeenth century. We do not laborious task, and after paying a just tribute to Mr. Elwin's intend to follow Mr. Courthope as he discourses on the forms "patient and accurate investigations," hinted that the reader of poetry produced under the scholastic philosophy and the would hereafter meet with opinions differing to some extent feudal system, and on the conceits and metaphors to which the from those that had been expressed in the earlier part of the allegorical ideas of Nature gave rise. With regard to much work. In an able introduction to the Satires, he stated pretty that he states, there can be no point of disagreement, and clearly in what respects he differed from Mr. Elwin, and doubtless he is right in saying, what has been often said before, observed that while it is useless to paint the character of Pope that there was an age in our literature when the violence of a in glowing colours, "an editor who makes any admissions to poet's metaphors was in proportion to the inanity of his the moral disadvantage of the author of whose reputation subject-matter. We submit, however, that it is but vain he has become in a sense the trustee, is bound to vindicate labour, and, to use Pope's simile, like breaking a butterfly upon more jealously his literary genius." That Mr. Courthope has a wheel, to traverse the centuries from the days of Homer to done this with a masterly hand, will be evident to readers who the days of Donne and Cowley in order to elucidate the cannot always accept his comments on the most brilliant relation between the words " wit " and "nature" which Pope satirist and poet of the eighteenth century. couples in his definition :—

It is for its criticism rather than for its biographical details, "True wit is nature to advantage dressed, that Mr. Courthope's Life of Pope is distinguished. Of the What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

poet as a man, whether for evil or for good, the biographer To our thinking, the influence of Dryden's criticisms, as tells little that we did not know before, and, true to the aim well as of his poetry, combined with the study of French with which he began his editorial labours, he treats but slightly literature, had far more influence upon the poets of the of Pope's moral deficiencies :— eighteenth century than the brilliant commonplaces of the "In dealing," he writes, "with the personal side of Pope's "Essay on Criticism." Mr. Courthope, however, thinks that history, I have endeavoured to follow, as far as possible, the good the effect of the poem on the taste of the age was profound :— example set by Johnson. Johnson well understood the tortuous tendencies in Pope's character ; but he knew that in writing the "Instead," he writes, "of ingenuity in the discovery of unheard- life of a poet, it was not his main business to moralise on his of metaphors which was the ambition of the typical seventeenth- defects as a man. His essay has therefore an air of impartiality century poet, the poet of the eighteenth century sought to present which distinguishes it honourably from the performances of Pope's a general thought in the language best adapted to bring it other biographers. It shows neither the literary partisanship of forcibly before the mind of the reader. In this respect works so Warton nor the censoriousness of Bowles, nor the sophistry of unlike each other as Thomson's Seasons,' Gray's 'Elegy in a Warburton and Roscoe, but gives a lively and well-proportioned Country Churchyard,' 'The Deserted Village ' of Goldsmith, and estimate of Pope's genius, with just incidental reflections on such The Village' of Crabbe, may all be said to be the fruits of the passages of his conduct as naturally call for observation. Pope's Essay on Criticism.' " genius cannot be understood without reference to his moral The change in poetical method that took place in the last character, but, on the other hand, his moral character must be judged in connection with his literary career. I have therefore century is obvious enough, and the student of our literature arranged the different chapters of this biography according to the will discover that it was due to many causes. Pope, a con- leading episodes of his poetical life, a division by which the summate artist, was not, as Mr. Courthope suggests, a development of his motives and character can be exhibited with- out any serious departure from the natural sequence of events." poetical leader who broke up new ground by his genius, and brought men back to Nature, but was essentially, as he Of all men, however, the poet is the one whose life and works admits in another place, the poet of his age,—an age, we may are most intimately connected, and of Pope it is pre-eminently add, which, with all its merits, was the most constrained and true that almost every page of his verse is a revelation of artificial in English literature. personal character. Moreover, considering the vast amount of Mr. Courthope is dissatisfied with critics who complain of criticism upon Pope contained in the nine volumes of this the limitation of Pope's art, but on this we need not dwell, The Works of Alexander Pope. With Introduction and Notes by Rev. Whit- since he grants what is all we care to urge, that Pope cannot well Elwin and William John Courthope. Vol. V., The " Life " and " Index," with Portrait. London : John Murray. be placed in the same rank with poets whose work is more

noble edition previously issued, we should have been better pleased, and think that most readers will agree with us, if the biography of the poet had been told more fully, and the criticism on his writings had occupied a secondary place.

This, however, is not Mr. Courthope's view of his duty as the editor and biographer of Pope. In the second and third

B 0 0 K S. chapters, under dates which show that the poet was still in

his teens, or had scarcely passed them, the reader is confronted

MR. COURTHOPE'S LIFE OF POPE.* with elaborate critical essays far too weighty for such youthful ABOUT thirty years have passed away since Mr. Murray poems as the Pastorals and the " Essay on Criticism." announced in the Quarterly Review a forthcoming edition of Upon the " Essay," in the second volume of the works, a most the works of Pope under the joint editorship of John Wilson unfavourable judgment is pronounced by Mr. Elwin. He Croker and Peter Cunningham. Mr. Croker, who died in agrees with De Quincey that it is the feeblest of Pope's

1857, appears to have brought together a number of materials a mere versification of mouldy commonplaces, and for the work ; but before that date Mr. Dilke, unfortunately observes that all the classical information embodied in it for the poet's reputation, had made the discoveries with regard might have been picked up by the help of French manuals in to Pope's correspondence which have entailed fresh labour a single morning. The poem, in Mr. Elwin's judgment, is not both on editors and biographers. Old theories had to be extraordinary even for a youth of twenty ; and he points out, w

rejected, and statements previously accepted had to be cast with perhaps unnecessary severity, the absurdities of which aside. No student of Pope could any longer regard the editions Pope is guilty in it, and his incapacity for appreciating the highest forms of imaginative genius. Mr. Elwin will not even of Bowles or Roscoe as satisfactory ; and after Mr. Dilke's

, researches, the necessity for a new edition of Pope's works, allow with Addison and Hazlitt, that the poem is remarkable and a new biography of the poet, became more obvious for beauty of expression. On the contrary, he asserts that than ever. Despite great and unanticipated difficulties, the phraseology is often slovenly, " the construction inverted have a word to say presently, the edition of which we shall and ungrammatical, the ellipses harsh, the expletives feeble, projected so long ago is now brought to a conclusion the metre inharmonious, the rhymes imperfect," and, in short, "mediocrity, relieved by occasional well-wrought passages, under the judicious editorship of Mr. Courthope. The introduction of 147 pages. The story of Pope's mystifica- Mr. Courthope sounds a very different note. Not content tion of his correspondence is there told with exhaustive with praising the poem both for matter and style, he presents minuteness ; and as the reader passed from that painful the reader with a laboured argument on the principles with account to the notes on the poetry, it became evident that Mr. regard to Nature that underlie Pope's reasoning ; and passing Elwin, whose knowledge of the author and the age no student from the "just standard" of Nature characteristic of the can question, was by no means a sympathetic editor. He classical poets, to the allegorical methods of thought common neither loved Pope nor his verse, and after the publication of among the poets of media3val Europe, shows, or attempts to two volumes of Poetry and three of Letters, resigned the show, that the same methods gave rise to the "Metaphysical editorship. Then, in 1881, Mr. Courthope undertook the School of Poetry" in the seventeenth century. We do not laborious task, and after paying a just tribute to Mr. Elwin's intend to follow Mr. Courthope as he discourses on the forms "patient and accurate investigations," hinted that the reader of poetry produced under the scholastic philosophy and the would hereafter meet with opinions differing to some extent feudal system, and on the conceits and metaphors to which the from those that had been expressed in the earlier part of the allegorical ideas of Nature gave rise. With regard to much work. In an able introduction to the Satires, he stated pretty that he states, there can be no point of disagreement, and clearly in what respects he differed from Mr. Elwin, and doubtless he is right in saying, what has been often said before, observed that while it is useless to paint the character of Pope that there was an age in our literature when the violence of a in glowing colours, "an editor who makes any admissions to poet's metaphors was in proportion to the inanity of his the moral disadvantage of the author of whose reputation subject-matter. We submit, however, that it is but vain he has become in a sense the trustee, is bound to vindicate labour, and, to use Pope's simile, like breaking a butterfly upon more jealously his literary genius." That Mr. Courthope has a wheel, to traverse the centuries from the days of Homer to done this with a masterly hand, will be evident to readers who the days of Donne and Cowley in order to elucidate the cannot always accept his comments on the most brilliant relation between the words " wit " and "nature" which Pope

imaginative and spacious in its scope. He objects also, as superficial and unjust, to the saying of Cowper that he—

"Made poetry a mere mechanic art, And every warbler has his tune by heart."

Cowper, however, does not assert that every warbler could render the tune with the force and splendour of its master ; but how well it could be rendered is evident from the fact, recognised by Dr. Johnson and admitted by Mr. Courthope himself, that in the translation of the Odyssey," so thoroughly had the assistants mastered the secret of Pope's style, that the world has been unable to detect any substantial difference in the works of the different hands."

" Unplaced, unpensioned, no man's heir or slave," Pope claimed to be a moral writer whose highest aim was truth, and a friend to virtue only, who used the sacred weapon of satire for the public weal :—

"Yes, I am proud : I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me : Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,

Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone."

But Pope's most pungent satire, all or nearly all the lines that are quoted most frequently are due to jealousy or spite, to attacks upon the men whom he hated, and who envied his success.

In his notice of the Duneiad, which Mr. Ruskin calls Pope's most monumental work, Mr. Courthope acknowledges that the satire is wholly devoid of the moral significance the poet claims for it. His estimate of the poem is so just, that we are glad to quote it :—

"The satire represents merely a quarrel between authors; literary genius being engaged on the one side, literary envy on the other, and unscrupulous bitterness and malignity on both. The wonder is that such a medley of personal detail should still be able to excite the interest of the reader. We are not greatly moved at the treatment of the scribbling victims of Juvenal and Boileau, the Codruses and Cotins of literature. But the Danciad occupies a posi- tion by itself. Its name at least is known in every European country, and in England even to-day the imagination is entertained with the fortunes of these obscure heroes of the mock epic, who have most of them been dead for more than a century And a half. It is impossible not to feel a mixture of amusement and compassion in observing the evident enjoyment with which Pope seizes on his hosts of enemies and rolls them one after the other in the mud; impossible not to admire the artful and almost sublime imagery by which he brings into relief their miserable meanness. The Dunciad, in fact, with all the pettiness of its particulars, is still a living monument of Pope's own character. It possesses a yet larger interest. The war it celebrates is something quite dif- ferent in its character from the mere personal jealousies of rival writers like Harvey and Nash, Dryden and Shadwell. In the person of Pope we see an image of Literature asserting itself as an independent force in the State, in the face of all the obstacles presented by rank, station, and privilege ; in his grotesque exaggeration of the real proportions of his subject there is a lively image of the weaknesses so often found in the purely literary character, its vanity, its sensitive irritability, and its self-love : Grub Street reflects the rancorous envy which is cer- tain to attend all literary success. In these respects the satire will always possess an interest far transcending its actual theme, and will point a moral, though of a kind very different from that which Pope sought to enforce."

In Mr. Courthope's final chapter, on "Pope's Place in English Literature," there are many sound and thoughtful remarks. Most readers will agree with his comments on one or two of Mr. Matthew Arnold's critical paradoxes. To say, for example, that "Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry; they are classics of our prose," is arbitrarily to limit the range of poetry ; and to write of the art as supplying the place of religion, is to misunderstand poetry and humanity alike. It was scarcely necessary, however, to discuss once more Wordsworth's well-worn theory of poetry, from which, happily, he departed widely in practice; or to go back to the stale and unprofitable discussion about Pope which sprang up in the early years of this century.

Mr. Courthope with much ability defends the classical school of poetry from unjust attacks, and points out the deficiencies of the romantic school, which are perhaps most conspicuous in the most musical of modern poets, Coleridge and Shelley; but his endeavour to show that Pope brought men back to a direct view of Nature, in opposition to the meta- physical view of the seventeenth-century poets, is far from satisfactory. That he does not rank in the first order of poets, that as a consummate satirist he has no rival in English poetry but Dryden, and that as an exquisite artist in verse he is Dryden's superior, is, roughly speaking, the creed accepted by most students of poetry, and this creed is apparently held

by Mr. Courthope. Pope's position is secure, and it is one which some more imaginative poets may envy; but we do not find that much fresh light is thrown upon it by the biographer's "historical treatment of the subject." His criticisms are in- teresting and suggestive, and have sometimes the additional attraction to a reviewer of being open to comment, but they leave Pope where they found him.

We cannot conclude this imperfect notice of a book upon which no small thought and labour have been expended, with- out alluding once more to the fine edition of Pope which the Life so happily concludes. Not only have we in these volumes the works of a great English classic in a perfect form, but we may be said to have the history of a great literary age. From first to last, Pope's most characteristic poetry is personal, and confined within the limits of the Town. He does for us in verse what Steele and Addison did in prose, and the corre- spondence with the most distinguished men of the time also helps us to a picture of the age. It is far from being a wholly agreeable world to which we are introduced; it lacks refinement and elevation, and is full of mean jealousies and party spite ; but a more curious chapter of literary and social life has never been opened than that which relates to the Queen Anne men, and the most significant page of it may be read in the satires of Pope.