Alexander Pope | Page 6

early career. He kept up a
correspondence with each of these friends, whilst he was still passing
through his probationary period; and the letters published long
afterwards under singular circumstances to be hereafter related, give
the fullest revelation of his character and position at this time. Both
Wycherley and Cromwell were known to the Englefields of
Whiteknights, near Reading, a Catholic family, in which Pope first
made the acquaintance of Martha Blount, whose mother was a daughter
of the old Mr. Englefield of the day. It was possibly, therefore, through
this connexion that Pope owed his first introduction to the literary
circles of London. Pope, already thirsting for literary fame, was
delighted to form a connexion which must have been far from
satisfactory to his indulgent parents, if they understood the character of
his new associates.
Henry Cromwell, a remote cousin of the Protector, is known to other
than minute investigators of contemporary literature by nothing except
his friendship with Pope. He was nearly thirty years older than Pope,

and though heir to an estate in the country, was at this time a gay,
though rather elderly, man about town. Vague intimations are preserved
of his personal appearance. Gay calls him "honest hatless Cromwell
with red breeches;" and Johnson could learn about him the single fact
that he used to ride a-hunting in a tie-wig. The interpretation of these
outward signs may not be very obvious to modern readers; but it is
plain from other indications that he was one of the frequenters of
coffee-houses, aimed at being something of a rake and a wit, was on
speaking terms with Dryden, and familiar with the smaller celebrities
of literature, a regular attendant at theatres, a friend of actresses, and
able to present himself in fashionable circles and devote complimentary
verses to the reigning beauties at the Bath. When he studied the
Spectator he might recognize some of his features reflected in the
portrait of Will Honeycomb. Pope was proud enough for the moment at
being taken by the hand by this elderly buck, though, as Pope himself
rose in the literary scale and could estimate literary reputations more
accurately, he became, it would seem, a little ashamed of his early
enthusiasm, and, at any rate, the friendship dropped. The letters which
passed between the pair during four or five years down to the end of
1711, show Pope in his earliest manhood. They are characteristic of
that period of development in which a youth of literary genius takes
literary fame in the most desperately serious sense. Pope is evidently
putting his best foot forward, and never for a moment forgets that he is
a young author writing to a recognized critic--except, indeed, when he
takes the airs of an experienced rake. We might speak of the absurd
affectation displayed in the letters, were it not that such affectation is
the most genuine nature in a clever boy. Unluckily it became so
ingrained in Pope as to survive his youthful follies. Pope complacently
indulges in elaborate paradoxes and epigrams of the conventional
epistolary style; he is painfully anxious to be alternately sparkling and
playful; his head must be full of literature; he indulges in an elaborate
criticism of Statius, and points out what a sudden fall that author makes
at one place from extravagant bombast; he communicates the latest
efforts of his muse, and tries, one regrets to say, to get more credit for
precocity and originality than fairly belongs to him; he accidentally
alludes to his dog that he may bring in a translation from the Odyssey,
quote Plutarch, and introduce an anecdote which he has heard from

Trumbull about Charles I.; he elaborately discusses Cromwell's
classical translations, adduces authorities, ventures to censure Mr.
Rowe's amplifications of Lucan, and, in this respect, thinks that
Breboeuf, the famous French translator, is equally a sinner, and writes a
long letter as to the proper use of the cæsura and the hiatus in English
verse. There are signs that the mutual criticisms became a little trying
to the tempers of the correspondents. Pope seems to be inclined to
ridicule Cromwell's pedantry, and when he affects satisfaction at
learning that Cromwell has detected him in appropriating a rondeau
from Voiture, we feel that the tension is becoming serious. Probably he
found out that Cromwell was not only a bit of a prig, but a person not
likely to reflect much glory upon his friends, and the correspondence
came to an end, when Pope found a better market for his wares.
Pope speaks more than once in these letters of his country retirement,
where he could enjoy the company of the muses, but where, on the
other hand, he was forced to be grave and godly, instead of drunk and
scandalous as he could be in town.