The quarrel between POPE and ADDISON originated in one of the infirmities of genius--a subject of inquiry even after their death, by Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE--POPE courts ADDISON--suspects ADDISON of jealousy--ADDISON'S foible to be considered a great poet--interview between the rivals, of which the result was the portrait of ATTICUS, for which ADDISON was made to sit.
Among the Literary Quarrels of POPE one acquires dignity and interest from the characters of both parties. It closed by producing the severest, but the most masterly portrait of one man of genius, composed by another, which has ever been hung on the satiric Parnassus for the contemplation of ages. ADDISON must descend to posterity with the dark spots of ATTICUS staining a purity of character which had nearly proved immaculate.
The friendship between Pope and Addison was interrupted by one of the infirmities of genius. Tempers of watchful delicacy gather up in silence and darkness motives so shadowy in their origin, and of such minute growth, that, never breaking out into any open act, they escape all other eyes but those of the parties themselves. These causes of enmity are too subtle to bear the touch; they cannot be inquired after, nor can they be described; and it may be said that the minds of such men have rather quarrelled than they themselves: they utter no complaints, but they avoid each other. All the world perceived that two authors of the finest genius had separated from motives on which both were silent, but which had evidently operated with equal force on both. Their admirers were very general, and at a time when literature divided with politics the public interest, the best feelings of the nation were engaged in tracking the obscure commencements and the secret growth of this literary quarrel, in which the amiable and moral qualities of Addison, and the gratitude and honour of Pope, were equally involved. The friends of either party pretended that their chiefs entertained a reciprocal regard for each other, while the illustrious characters themselves were living in a state of hostility. Even long after these literary heroes were departed, the same interest was general among the lovers of literature; but those obscure motives which had only influenced two minds--those imperceptible events, which are only events as they are watched by the jealousy of genius--eluded the most anxious investigation. Yet so lasting and so powerful was the interest excited by this literary quarrel, that, within a few years, the elegant mind of Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE withdrew from the severity of profounder studies to inquire into the causes of a quarrel which was still exciting the most opposite opinions. Blackstone has judged and summed up; but though he evidently inclines to favour Addison, by throwing into the balance some explanation for the silence of Addison against the audible complaints of Pope; though sometimes he pleads as well as judges, and infers as well as proves; yet even Blackstone has not taken on himself to deliver a decision. His happy genius has only honoured literary history by the masterly force and luminous arrangement of investigation, to which, since the time of Bayle, it has been too great a stranger.[1]
At this day, removed from all personal influence and affections, and furnished with facts which contemporaries could not command, we take no other concern in this literary quarrel but as far as curiosity and truth delight us in the study of human nature. We are now of no party--we are only historians!
Pope was a young writer when introduced to Addison by the intervention of that generously-minded friend of both, Steele. Addison eulogised Pope's "Essay on Criticism;" and this fine genius covering with his wing an unfledged bardling, conferred a favour which, in the estimation of a poet, claims a life of indelible gratitude.
Pope zealously courted Addison by his poetical aid on several important occasions; he gave all the dignity that fine poetry could confer on the science of medals, which Addison had written on, and wrote the finest prologue in the language for the Whig tragedy of his friend. Dennis attacked, and Pope defended
Cato[2]. Addison might have disapproved both of the manner and the matter of the defence; but he did more--he insulted Pope by a letter to Dennis, which Dennis eagerly published as Pope's severest condemnation. An alienation of friendship must have already taken place, but by no overt act on Pope's side.
Not that, however, Pope had not found his affections weakened: the dark hints scattered in his letters show that something was gathering in his mind. Warburton, from his familiar intercourse with Pope, must be allowed to have known his literary concerns more than any one; and when he drew up the narrative,[3] seems to me to have stated uncouthly, but expressively, the progressive state of Pope's feelings. According to that narrative, Pope "reflected," that after he had first published "The Rape of the Lock," then nothing more than a hasty
jeu d'esprit, when he communicated to Addison his very original project of the whole sylphid machinery, Addison chilled the ardent bard with his coldness, advised him against any alteration, and to leave it as "a delicious little thing,
merum sal." It was then, says Warburton, "Mr. Pope began to
open his eyes to Addison's character." But when afterwards he discovered that Tickell's Homer was opposed to his, and judged, as Warburton says, "by
laying many odd circumstances together," that Addison,[4] and not Tickell, was the author--the alienation on Pope's side was complete. No open breach indeed had yet taken place between the rival authors, who, as jealous of dominion as two princes, would still demonstrate, in their public edicts, their inviolable regard; while they were only watching the advantageous moment when they might take arms against each other.
Still Addison publicly bestowed great encomiums on Pope's
Iliad, although he had himself composed the rival version, and in private preferred his own.[5] He did this with the same ease he had continued its encouragement while Pope was employed on it. We are astonished to discover such deep politics among literary Machiavels! Addison had certainly raised up a literary party. Sheridan, who wrote nearly with the knowledge of a contemporary, in his "Life of Swift," would naturally use the language and the feelings of the time; and in describing Ambrose Phillips, he adds, he was "one of Mr. Addison's little senate."
But in this narrative I have dropt some material parts. Pope believed that Addison had employed Gildon to write against him, and had encouraged Phillips to asperse his character.[6] We cannot, now, quite demonstrate these alleged facts; but we can show that Pope believed them, and that Addison does not appear to have refuted them.[7] Such tales, whether entirely false or partially true, may be considered in this inquiry of little amount. The greater events must regulate the lesser ones.[8]
Was Addison, then, jealous of Pope? Addison, in every respect, then, his superior; of established literary fame when Pope was yet young; preceding him in age and rank; and fortunate in all the views of human ambition. But what if Addison's foible was that of being considered a great poet? His political poetry had raised him to an undue elevation, and the growing celebrity of Pope began to offend him, not with the appearance of a meek rival, with whom he might have held divided empire, but as a master-spirit, that was preparing to reign alone. It is certain that Addison was the most feeling man alive at the fate of his poetry. At the representation of his
Cato, such was his agitation, that had
Cato been condemned, the life of Addison might, too, have been shortened. When a wit had burlesqued some lines of this dramatic poem, his uneasiness at the innocent banter was equally oppressive; nor could he rest, till, by the interposition of a friend, he prevailed upon the author to burn them.[9]
To the facts already detailed, and to this disposition in Addison's temper, and to the quick and active suspicions of Pope, irritable, and ambitious of all the sovereignty of poetry, we may easily conceive many others of those obscure motives, and invisible events, which none but Pope, alienated every day more and more from his affections for Addison, too acutely perceived, too profoundly felt, and too unmercifully avenged. These are alluded to when the satirist sings--
Damn with faint praise; assent with civil leer;
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike;
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike, &c.
Accusations crowded faster than the pen could write them down. Pope never composed with more warmth. No one can imagine that Atticus was an ideal personage, touched as it is with all the features of an extraordinary individual. In a word, it was recognised instantly by the individual himself; and it was suppressed by Pope for near twenty years, before he suffered it to escape to the public.
It was some time during their avowed rupture, for the exact period has not been given, that their friends promoted a meeting between these two great men. After a mutual lustration, it was imagined they might have expiated their error, and have been restored to their original purity. The interview did take place between the rival wits, and was productive of some very characteristic ebullitions, strongly corroborative of the facts as they have been stated here. This extraordinary interview has been frequently alluded to. There can be no doubt of the genuineness of the narrative but I know not on what authority it came into the world.[10]
The interview between Addison and Pope took place in the presence of Steele and Gay. They met with cold civility. Addison's reserve wore away, as was usual with him, when wine and conversation imparted some warmth to his native phlegm. At a moment the generous Steele deemed auspicious, he requested Addison would perform his promise in renewing his friendship with Pope. Pope expressed his desire: he said he was willing to hear his faults, and preferred candour and severity rather than forms of complaisance; but he spoke in a manner as conceiving Addison, and not himself, had been the aggressor. So much like their humblest inferiors do great men act under the influence of common passions: Addison was overcome with anger, which cost him an effort to suppress; but, in the formal speech he made, he reproached Pope with indulging a vanity that far exceeded his merit; that he had not yet attained to the excellence he imagined; and observed, that his verses had a different air when Steele and himself corrected them; and, on this occasion, reminded Pope of a particular line which Steele had improved in the "Messiah."[11] Addison seems at that moment to have forgotten that he had trusted, for the last line of his own dramatic poem, rather to the inspiration of the poet he was so contemptuously lecturing than to his own.[12] He proceeded with detailing all the abuse the herd of scribblers had heaped on Pope; and by declaring that his Homer was "an ill-executed thing," and Tickell's had all the spirit. We are told, he concluded "in a low hollow voice of feigned temper," in which he asserted that he had ceased to be solicitous about his own poetical reputation since he had entered into more public affairs; but, from friendship for Pope, desired him to be more humble, if he wished to appear a better man to the world.
When Addison had quite finished schooling his little rebel, Gay, mild and timid (for it seems, with all his love for Pope, his expectations from the court, from Addison's side, had tethered his gentle heart), attempted to say something. But Pope, in a tone far more spirited than all of them, without reserve told Addison that he appealed from his judgment, and did not esteem him able to correct his verses; upbraided him as a pensioner from early youth, directing the learning which had been obtained by the public money to his own selfish desire of power, and that he "had always endeavoured to cut down new-fledged merit." The conversation now became a contest, and was broken up without ceremony. Such was the notable interview between two rival wits, which only ended in strengthening their literary quarrel; and sent back the enraged satirist to his inkstand, where he composed a portrait, for which Addison was made to sit, with the fine
chiar' oscuro of Horace, and with as awful and vindictive features as the sombre hand of Juvenal could have designed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Sir William Blackstone's Discussion on the Quarrel between Addison and Pope was communicated by Dr. Kippis in his "Biographia Britannica," vol. i. p. 56. Blackstone is there designated as "a gentleman of considerable rank, to whom the public is obliged for works of much higher importance."
[2] Dennis asserts in one of his pamphlets that Pope, fermenting with envy at the success of Addison's
Cato, went to Lintot, and persuaded him to engage this redoubted critic to write the remarks on
Cato--that Pope's gratitude to Dennis for having complied with his request was the well-known narrative of Dennis "being placed as a lunatic in the hands of Dr. Norris, a curer of mad people, at his house in Hatton-garden, though at the same time I appeared publicly every day, both in the park and in the town." Can we suppose that Dennis tells a falsehood respecting Pope's desiring Lintot to engage Dennis to write down
Cato? If true, did Pope wish to see Addison degraded, and at the same time take an opportunity of ridiculing the critic, without, however, answering his arguments? The secret history of literature is like that of politics?
[Dennis took a strong dislike to Addison's
Cato, and his style of criticism is thus alluded to in the humorous account of his frenzy written by Pope: "On all sides of his room were pinned a great many sheets of a tragedy called
Cato, with notes on the margin by his own hand. The words
absurd,
monstrous,
execrable, were everywhere written in such large characters, that I could read them without my spectacles." Warton says that "Addison highly disapproved of this bitter satire on Dennis, and Pope was not a little chagrined at this disapprobation; for the narrative was intended to court the favour of Addison, by defending his
Cato: in which seeming defence Addison was far from thinking our author sincere."]
[3] In the notes to the Prologue to the Satires.
[4] Pope's conjecture was perfectly correct. Dr. Warton confirms it from a variety of indisputable authorities.--Warton's "Pope," vol. iv. p. 34.
[5] In the "Freeholder," May, 1716.
[6] Pope himself thus related the matter to Spence: "Phillips seemed to have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations; and Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherly, in which he had abused both me and my relations very grossly. Lord Warwick himself told me one day that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be well with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would never admit of a settled friendship between us, and to convince me of what he had said, assured me that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals, and had given him ten guineas after they were published."--ED.
[7] The strongest parts of Sir William Blackstone's discussion turn on certain inaccurate dates of Ruffhead, in his statements, which show them to be inconsistent with the times when they are alleged to have happened. These erroneous dates had been detected in an able article in the Monthly Review on that work, April, 1769. Ruffhead is a tasteless, confused, and unskilful writer--Sir William has laid great stress on the incredible story of Addison paying Gildon to write against Pope, "a man so amiable in his moral character." It is possible that the Earl of Warwick, who conveyed the information, might have been a malicious, lying youth; but then Pope had some knowledge of mankind--he believed the story, for he wrote instantly, with honest though heated feelings, to Addison, and sent him, at that moment, the first sketch of the character of Atticus. Addison used him very civilly ever after--but it does not appear that Addison ever contradicted the tale of the officious Earl. All these facts, which Pope repeated many years after to Spence, Sir William was not acquainted with, for they were transcribed from Spence's papers by Johnson, after Blackstone had written. [This is fully in accordance with his previous conduct, as he described it to Spence; on the first notification of the Earl of Warwick's news, "the next day when I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak severely of him, in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; and that I should rather tell himself freely of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner: I then adjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my Satire on Addison. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever after, and never did me any injustice that I know of from that time to his death, which was about three years after."]
[8] That Addison did occasionally divert Pope's friends from him, appears from the advice which Lady Mary Wortley Montague says he gave to her--"Leave him as soon as you can, he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appetite to satire." Malone thinks this may have been said under the irritation produced by the verses on Addison, which Pope sent to him, as described above. Pope's love of satire, and unflinching use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison's nervous dislike to it.--ED.
[9] From Lord Egmont's MS. Collections.--See the "Addenda Kippis's Biographia Britannica."
[10] The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable interview I have hitherto only traced to "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of A. Pope, Esq., by William Ayre, Esq.," 1745, vol. i. p. 100. This work comes in a very suspicious form; it is a huddled compilation, yet contains some curious matters; and pretends, in the title-page, to be occasionally drawn from "original MSS. and the testimonies of persons of honour." He declares, in the preface, that he and his friends "had means and some helps which were never public." He sometimes appeals to several noble friends of Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publication, and that of its execution, are not in its favour. These volumes were written within six months of the decease of our poet; have no publisher's name; and yet the author, whoever he was, took out "a patent, under his majesty's royal signet," for securing the copyright. This Ayre is so obscure an author, though a translator of Tasso's "Aminta," that he seems to have escaped even the minor chronicles of literature. At the time of its publication there appeared "Remarks on Squire Ayre's Memoirs of Pope." The writer pretends he has discovered him to be only one of the renowned Edmund Curll's "squires," who, about that time, had created an order of literary squires, ready to tramp at the funeral of every great personage with his life. The "Remarker" then addresses Curll, and insinuates he speaks from personal knowledge of the man:--"You have an adversaria of title-pages of your own contrivance, and which your authors are to write books to. Among what you call
the occasional, or black list, I have seen Memoirs of Dean Swift, Pope, &c." Curll, indeed, was then sending forth many pseudo squires, with lives of "Congreve," "Mrs. Oldfield," &c.; all which contained some curious particulars, picked up in coffee-houses, conversations, or pamphlets of the day. This William Ayre I accept as "a squire of low degree," but a real personage. As for this interview, Ayre was certainly incompetent to the invention of a single stroke of the conversations detailed: where he obtained all these interesting particulars, I have not discovered. Johnson alludes to this interview, states some of its results, but refers to no other authority than floating rumours.
[11] The line stood originally, and nearly literally copied from Isaiah--
"
He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes;"
which Steele retouched, as it now stands--
"
From every face he wipes off every tear."
Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks, has too much of modern quaintness. The difficulty of choice lies between that naked simplicity which scarcely affects, and those strokes of art which are too apparent.
[12] The last line of Addison's tragedy read originally--
"
And oh! 'twas this that ended Cato's life."
A very weak line, which was altered at the suggestion of Pope as it stands at present:--
"
And robs the guilty world of Cato's life."--ED.
[The end]
Isaac Disraeli's essay: Pope And Addison