Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 | Page 5

of epidemical concurrence. Men of the
most opposite opinions have united upon this topic. Warton and
Churchill began it, having borrowed the hint probably from the heroes
of the Dunciad, and their own internal conviction that their proper
reputation can be as nothing till the most perfect and harmonious of
poets--he who, having no fault, has had REASON made his
reproach--was reduced to what they conceived to be his level; but even
they dared not degrade him below Dryden. Goldsmith, and Rogers, and
Campbell, his most successful disciples; and Hayley, who, however
feeble, has left one poem 'that will not be willingly let die' (the
Triumphs of Temper), kept up the reputation of that pure and perfect
style; and Crabbe, the first of living poets, has almost equalled the
master. Then came Darwin, who was put down by a single poem in the
Antijacobin; and the Cruscans, from Merry to Jerningham, who were
annihilated (if Nothing can be said to be annihilated) by Gifford, the
last of the wholesome English satirists. * * *
"These three personages, S * *, W * *, and C * *, had all of them a
very natural antipathy to Pope, and I respect them for it, as the only
original feeling or principle which they have contrived to preserve. But
they have been joined in it by those who have joined them in nothing
else: by the Edinburgh Reviewers, by the whole heterogeneous mass of

living English poets, excepting Crabbe, Rogers, Gifford, and Campbell,
who, both by precept and practice, have proved their adherence; and by
me, who have shamefully deviated in practice, but have ever loved and
honoured Pope's poetry with my whole soul, and hope to do so till my
dying day. I would rather see all I have ever written lining the same
trunk in which I actually read the eleventh book of a modern Epic poem
at Malta in 1811, (I opened it to take out a change after the paroxysm of
a tertian, in the absence of my servant, and found it lined with the name
of the maker, Eyre, Cockspur-street, and with the Epic poetry alluded
to,) than sacrifice what I firmly believe in as the Christianity of English
poetry, the poetry of Pope.
"Nevertheless, I will not go so far as * * in his postscript, who pretends
that no great poet ever had immediate fame, which, being interpreted,
means that * * is not quite so much read by his contemporaries as
might be desirable. This assertion is as false as it is foolish. Homer's
glory depended upon his present popularity: he recited,--and without
the strongest impression of the moment, who would have gotten the
Iliad by heart, and given it to tradition? Ennius, Terence, Plautus,
Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho,
Anacreon, Theocritus, all the great poets of antiquity, were the delight
of their contemporaries.[3] The very existence of a poet, previous to the
invention of printing, depended upon his present popularity; and how
often has it impaired his future fame? Hardly ever. History informs us,
that the best have come down to us. The reason is evident: the most
popular found the greatest number of transcribers for their MSS.; and
that the taste of their contemporaries was corrupt can hardly be
avouched by the moderns, the mightiest of whom have but barely
approached them. Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, were all the
darlings of the contemporary reader. Dante's poem was celebrated long
before his death; and, not long after it, States negotiated for his ashes,
and disputed for the sites of the composition of the Divina Commedia.
Petrarch was crowned in the Capitol. Ariosto was permitted to pass free
by the public robber who had read the Orlando Furioso. I would not
recommend Mr. * * to try the same experiment with his Smugglers.
Tasso, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti, would have
been crowned in the Capitol, but for his death.

"It is easy to prove the immediate popularity of the chief poets of the
only modern nation in Europe that has a poetical language, the Italian.
In our own, Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Waller, Dryden, Congreve,
Pope, Young, Shenstone, Thomson, Johnson, Goldsmith, Gray, were
all as popular in their lives as since. Gray's Elegy pleased instantly, and
eternally. His Odes did not, nor yet do they please like his Elegy.
Milton's politics kept him down; but the Epigram of Dryden, and the
very sale of his work, in proportion to the less reading time of its
publication, prove him to have been honoured by his contemporaries. I
will venture to assert, that the sale of the Paradise Lost was greater in
the first four years after its publication than that of 'The Excursion,' in
the same number, with the difference of nearly a