The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, vol 1 | Page 6

Pope preparing some of his witty "Miscellanies." At the end of two
months, the Dean was hurried home by the tidings of Stella's illness. He
left the "Travels" behind him, for the copyright of which Pope procured
£300,--a sum counted then very large, and which Swift generously
handed over to Pope.

In September this year, when returning in Lord Bolingbroke's coach
from Dawley, the poet was overturned in a little rivulet near
Twickenhan, and nearly drowned. The unfortunate little man! One is
reminded of Gulliver's accident in the Brobdignagian cream-pot. In
trying to break the glasses of the coach, which were down, he severely
cut his right hand, and lost the use of two of his fingers,--an addition to
his other deformities not very desirable; and we suspect that Pope
thought Voltaire (who had met him at Bolingbroke's) but a miserable
comforter, when, in a letter of pretended condolence, he asked--"Is it
possible that those fingers which have written 'The Rape of the Lock,'
and dressed Homer so becomingly in an English coat, should have been
so barbarously treated? Let the hand of Dennis or of your poetasters be
cut off; yours is sacred." It was perhaps in keeping that those mutilated
fingers were soon to be employed in attacking Dennis, and that the
embittered poet was about, with the half of his hand, but with the whole
of his heart, to write "The Dunciad."
In the end of April 1727, we find Swift again in Twickenham, where
his irritation at the continued ascendancy of Sir Robert Walpole served
to infuse more venom into the "Miscellanies" concocted between him
and Pope,--two volumes of which appeared in June this year. Gay, also,
and the ingenious and admirable Dr Arbuthnot, contributed their quota
to these volumes. Swift speedily fell ill with that giddiness and
deafness which were the avant-couriers of his final malady; and in
August he left Twickenham, and in October, London and England, for
ever.
In these "Miscellanies" there appeared the famous "Memoirs of
Martinus Scriblerus," written chiefly by Pope, in which he lashed the
various proficients in the bathos, under the names of flying fishes,
swallows, parrots, frogs, eels, &c., and appended the initials of
well-known authors to each head. This roused Grub Street, whose
malice had nearly fallen asleep, into fresh fury, and he was bitterly
assailed in every possible form. Like Hyder Ali, he now--to travesty
Burke--"in the recesses of a mind capacious of such things, determined
to leave all Duncedom an everlasting monument of vengeance, and
became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might,

that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution, but,
compounding all the materials of fun, sarcasm, irony, and invective,
into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of
Richmond Hill; and whilst the authors were idly and stupidly gazing on
this menacing meteor which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly
burst and poured down the whole of its contents on the garrets of Grub
Street. Then issued a scene of (ludicrous) woe, the like of which no eye
had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell.
All the horrors of literary war before known or heard of--(MacFlecknoe,
the Rehearsal, &c.)--were mercy to the new tempest of havoc which
burst from the brain of this remorseless poet. A storm of universal
laughter filled every bookseller's shop, and penetrated into the remotest
attics. The miserable dunces, in part, were stricken mad with rage--in
part, dumb with consternation. Some fled for refuge to ale, and others
to ink; while not a few fell, or feared to fall, into the 'jaws of famine.'"
This singular poem was written in 1727. It was first printed
surreptitiously (i.e., with the connivance of the author) in Dublin, and
then reprinted in London. The first perfect edition, however, did not
appear in London till 1729. On the day of its publication, according to
Pope, a crowd of authors besieged the publisher's shop; and by
entreaties, threats, nay, cries of treason, tried to hinder its appearance.
What a scene it must have been--of teeth gnashing above ragged coats,
and eyes glaring through old periwigs--of faces livid with famine and
ferocity; while, to complete the confusion, hawkers, booksellers, and
even lords, were mixed with the crowd, clamouring for its issue! And
as, says Pope, "there is no stopping a torrent with a finger, out it came."
The consequence he had foreseen. A universal howl of rage and pain
burst from the aggrieved dunces, on whose naked sides the hot pitch
had fallen. They pushed their rejoinders beyond the limits of civilised
literary warfare; and although Pope had been coarse in his language,
they were coarser far, and their blackguardism was not redeemed by
wit or genius. Pope felt, or