THE GLOBE EDITION OF POPE.*
MIL WARD has managed to compress the poetical works of Pope, excluding indeed his Homer, into a small compass, but there is nothing cramped or scanty about this admirable edition. The notes are generally complete, save in one or two instances ; the t•.z.luillustrations cover a wide range of literature ; and the editor's sympathy with his author is all the more genuine from the absence of onesidedness and exaggeration. Ardent lovers of Pope may perhaps find Mr. Ward too cold. We confess that in our judgment there are places in which he lays himself open to this reproach. But it is a question if this kind of treatment does not add more to a real appreciation of Pope than constant repetition
The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope; the Globe Edition. Edited by Adolphus William Ward. London; Macmillan. 1869.
of his merits. The clearest of English writers hardly needs a commentator, except to show the narrow personal bearing of that satire which in its broad human features is for all times and all nations. Mr. Ward says very truly that "the men and women of Pope's satires and epistles, his Atticu.s and Atossa, and Sappho and Spores, are real types, whether they be more or less faithful portraits of Addison and the old Duchess, of Lady Mary and Lord Hervey. His Dunces are the Dunces of all times ; his orator Henley the mob orator, and his awful Aristarch the don, of all epochs ; though there may have been some merit in Theo. bald, some use even in Henley, and though in Bentley there was undoubted greatness. But in Pope's hands individuals become types, and his creative power in this respect surpasses that of the Roman satirists, and leaves Dryden himself behind." No doubt it creates a new pleasure to know that there was so much fidelity in all these portraits as to give every line the success of a scandal. Good notes, such as these of Mr. Ward's, show us how closely packed were all Pope's satires, and that the terse- ness, which was one of his boasts, never excluded a thought or iuterfered with its comprehension. But this is nearly all we want of an editor. We do not need flabby praise, which is only effectual as a contrast, or translations of epigrams into twaddle with the object of making things plain to the meanest capacity. Almost all readers can appreciate Pope, though, of course, there are degrees in their enjoyment. We think, however, that their enjoyment will be heightened by Mr. Ward's freedom from pre- judice, and that having all the materials for judging the poet put before them with an air of impartiality, they will be more likely to come to the right conclusion than if they had been repeatedly told what they ought to admire, or had been stunned with invectives against the moral character of one whom they might otherwise be tempted to admire too highly.
The remark to which we chiefly take exception among Mr. Ward's less favourable judgments of Pope is one that ushers in the "Satires." "No private enemy of the poet," we are told, " no political opponent of his friends, has a chance of candid and fair treatment. Even Sir Robert Walpole is only incidentally recognized as not wholly without virtues, because he had once con- ferred a personal favour upon Pope ; even Addison's moral purity only meets with recognition because the quarrel between him and Pope was at an end with the death of the former. The endless egotism of Pope, and the standard by which in the end he measured his opinion of others, accordingly deprive him of the right to be esteemed a moralist in these his most brilliant- efforts ; and notwithstanding his deprecation of the term, he can only be regarded with reference to them as a wit." A few lines before Mr. Ward had spoken far more justly of Pope's "not un- worthy self-consciousness," and this phrase is a sufficient answer to the charge of endless egotism. It must be remembered that when Pope finally engaged in satire he was the chief poet of his time. He had already been attacked by so many foes that the mere task of answering them was enough to engross him. "Full ten years slandered, did he once reply ?" he asks in the prologue to the "Satires ;" and though he was replying now, this line shows that he was not taking up the cudgels too quickly. For our own part,.we should be sorry to miss one of Pope's allusions to himself. The way in which he speaks on that subject in the "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" is far too lofty to be coupled with any of those meaner motives which we associate with egotism:—.
Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool, Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool, Not proud, nor servile ;—be one Poet's praise, That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways : ThatFlatt'ry, ev'n to Kings, he held a shame, And thought a Lie in verso or prose the same. That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long, But stoop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his song: That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half approving wit, The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit ; Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad ; The distant threats of vengeance on his head, The blow unfelt, the tear ho never shed ; The tale roviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown, Th.' imputed trash, and dullness not his own ; The morals blackened when the writings scape, The libell'd person, and the pictur'd shape ; Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread, A friend in exile, or a father, dead ; The whisper, that to greatness still too near, Perhaps, yet vibrates on his SOVREION'S ear :— Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past ; For thee, fair Virtue ! welcome ev'n the last I" Again, in the epilogue to the " Satires " he breaks out into a similar strain :-
"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 tonch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone."
To Lord Hervey, the Lord Fanny and the Sporus of some of Pope's bitterest satire, this might naturally seem an overweening boast. We find it too sincere and hearty to be passed over in any estimate of Pope's character. A mere wit, one whose "life is a warfare on earth," would have known better than to show such a front as this to his enemies. Even if Pope's immediate object in these pieces was to revenge himself on those who had attacked him, Mr. Ward has shown already that the scope of the "Satires" was much wider. Much of the LD unciad " is taken up with personalities, and many of them are gross and revolting. Yet, as Thackeray has said in his "English Humourista," parts of the fourth book are finer than anything else that Pope has written. We may deny the name of a moralist to the man who bit in Addison's portrait with acid, and we may think that the lines which embalm Lord Hervey in amber are inspired by malice rather than by keenness of insight. But if there was nothing more in these passages than wit, which is apt to be blunted by the removal of its butt, than injured egotism, which would not survive the occasion, than a personal standard of criticism, which depends wholly on the persons mutually concerned, would not Pope's satire have become a thing of the past, a chapter in the "Curiosities of Literature," or rather in the "Quarrels of Authors ?" Mr. Ward seems to forget the value of a line of praise from Pope, when he says that Sir Robert Walpole is only incidentally recognized as not wholly without virtues. The two passages in which direct reference is made to Walpole cannot of course compare with the many panegyrics on Pope's personal friends, but we think the compliment conveyed in the following lines is none the less grace- ful from its rarity :—
" Seen him I have, but in his happier hoar Of social pleasure ill exchanged for power ; Seen him, unnumbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe."
While we are engaged in stating our differences with Mr. Ward, we may point out a few omissions or inaccuracies in his notes. It seems to us rather forced to explain the very natural couplet—.
"Out with it, Dunciad, let the secret pass, That secret to each fool—that he's an ass
by a reference to the ass laden with authors that figured on the frontispiece of the later editions of the" Dunciad." The notes on the line "but stoop'd to Truth and moralized his song" would, we think, have been more complete, and have brought out the force of the expression more fully, if they had noticed Byron's most inapt suggestion, that "rose to truth " ought to have been substi- tuted. It is by a very unusual oversight on the part of Mr. Ward that the note on Pope's Murray omits to give the title under which he is known to posterity. But there certainly should have been a note on the lines in which Pope professes to take leave of Satire, and to turn to worthier themes, promising with the most touching gravity to :—
" Teach the melancholy Muse to mourn, Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn, And hail her passage to the realms of rest, All parts performed, and all her children blest."
It is true that Pope's blandness always makes us suspect some- thing, and Mr. Ward has not forgotten to point out that when George H. is praised for opening all the main, the allusion is to the insults which had been passed on the British flag by Spanish ships, as the tribute to the King's warlike ardour typifies his pacific inaction, and a review of English literature is addressed to him because he had never read an English book. Yet the poet's respectful grief might almost blind his readers to the terms on which Queen Caroline was with Frederick Prince of Wales. Again, when a sketch is given us of Ralph in the notes to the "Dunciad," the account of him in Franklin's autobiography might well have been laid under contribution. A note on another passage of the "Dunciad" seems to us imperfect. The lines
"To happy Convents, bosomed deep in vines, Where slumber abbots, purple as their winos," are said to allude to "the purple stockings worn by abbes." We should have understood them to mean the purple faces induced by much wine and more sleep. But they may fairly include both extremities. A very pleasant feature of Mr. Ward's notes is their aptness of illustration. Not only the classical authors, ancient and modern, but Tennyson, Dickens, Thackeray, the Biglow Papers and the Almanach des Gourmands furnish parallel passages. Occasionally, too,. though rarely, Mr. Ward emulates the malice of his author. The note on "Pope's economy in the matter of wine," which tells the story of the poet's putting a pint of wine on the table, taking two. small glasses himself, and then saying to his two guests, "Gentle- men, I leave you to your wine," is appended to the passage in, which Pope promises ancient friends a hearty welcome, a plain but sufficient dinner, and "cheerful healths." When Warburton remarks that Brunswick's and Britain's cause are synonymous terms, Mr. Ward adds, "hardly always so in Pope's mouth." The line to which this note is affixed ought of itself to have saved the earlier commentator from such an error, and would have justified a much more severe correction. But Mr. Ward is remarkably modest in his allusions to former editors. Where he differs from them, he generally enables the public to judge which is in the right, and in one place, at least, we think, the verdict will go against him. He is, however, always more ready to praise and quote his predecessors than to recast their information and adopt it without an acknowledgment. We must pronounce him, on the whole, eminently conscientious, if once or twice we have found him hardly fair, and though we disagree with some of his notes, we cannot deny them the praise of being useful, while we thank them for much that is enjoyable.
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