The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, vol 2

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Title: Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II
Author: Alexander Pope
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9601]
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THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ALEXANDER POPE.
With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes,
BY THE
REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.
VOL. II.
M.DCCC.LVI.
THE GENIUS AND POETRY OF POPE.
Few poets during their lifetime have been at once so much admired and
so much abused as Pope. Some writers, destined to oblivion in
after-ages, have been loaded with laurels in their own time; while
others, on whom Fame was one day to "wait like a menial," have gone
to the grave neglected, if not decried and depreciated. But it was the
fate of Pope to combine in his single experience the extremes of
detraction and flattery--to have the sunshine of applause and the
hail-storm of calumny mingled on his living head; while over his dead
body, as over the body of Patroclus, there has raged a critical
controversy, involving not merely his character as a man, but his claims
as a poet. For this, unquestionably, there are some subordinate reasons.
Pope's religious creed, his political connexions, his easy circumstances,
his popularity with the upper classes, as well as his testy temper and
malicious disposition, all tended to rouse against him, while he lived, a

personal as well as public hostility, altogether irrespective of the mere
merit or demerit of his poetry. "We cannot bear a Papist to be our
principal bard," said one class. "No Tory for our translator of Homer,"
cried the zealous Whigs, "Poets should be poor, and Pope is
independent," growled Grub Street. The ancients could not endure that
a "poet should build an house, but this varlet has dug a grotto, and
established a clandestine connexion between Parnassus and the Temple
of Plutus." "Pope," said others, "is hand-in-glove with Lords Oxford
and Bolingbroke, and it was never so seen before in any genuine child
of genius." "He is a little ugly insect," cried another class; "can such a
misbegotten brat be a favourite with the beautiful Apollo?" "He is as
venomous and spiteful as he is small; never was so much of the
'essence of devil' packed into such a tiny compass," said another set;
"and this, to be sure, is England's great poet!" Besides these personal
objections, there were others of a more solid character. While all
admitted the exquisite polish and terse language of Pope's compositions,
many felt that they were too artificial--that they were often
imitative--that they seldom displayed those qualities of original thought
and sublime enthusiasm which had formed the chief characteristics of
England's best bards, and were slow to rank the author of "Eloisa and
Abelard," with the creator of "Hamlet," "Othello," and "Lear;" the
author of the "Rape of the Lock" with the author of "Paradise Lost;" the
author of the "Pastorals," with the author of the "Faery Queen;" and the
author of the "Imitations of Horace," with the author of the "Canterbury
Tales." On the one hand, Pope's ardent friends erred in classing him
with or above these great old writers; and on the other, his enemies
were thus provoked to thrust him too far down in the scale, and to deny
him genius altogether. Since his death, his fame has continued to
vibrate between extremes. Lord Byron and Lord Carlisle (the latter, in a
lecture delivered in Leeds in December 1850, and published afterwards)
have placed him ridiculously high; while Wordsworth, Coleridge, and
Bowles, have underrated him. It shall be our endeavour, in our
succeeding remarks, to steer a middle course between the parties.
Lord Carlisle commenced his able and eloquent prelection by