UC-NRLF . I . ^ .^ _ . ,, EESE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. l{(\-('iirJ Stress/oils No. in Criticism TO WILLIAM ROSCOE, ESQ; F.R.S. MEMBER OF THE BELLA CRUSCA SOCIETY OF FLORENCE, F.R.S.L. IN ANSWER TO HIS LETTER TO THE REVEREND W. L. BOWLES ON THK CHARACTER AND POETRY OF POPE. It U never too late to learn. Proverb. WITH d?urtf)*r Hestfon* in rftictetn TO A QUARTERLY REVIEWER. What is Sauce for the GOOSE, is Sauce for the GANDEB. Proverb. BY THE REV. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, LATE EDITOR OF POPE'S WORKS IN TEN VOLUMES. LONDON: HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. CHEAPSIDE, AND WATERLOO-PLACE. 1826. FEINTED BT RICHARD CRUTTWELL, ST. JAMES'-STREET, BATH. ADVERTISEMENT. I cannot too often and too earnestly repeat, (as, even among sensible men, tliere is still so much mis- understanding on the subject,) that tliere is not, nor ever has been, a QUESTION about the old story of "ART and " NATURE" with reference to the poetry of Pope. The subject of " Art and Nature" was originally a mere incidental half-sentence, leading to the main proposition, respecting Pope, that " Satires and Moral Essays, however "perfectly executed, could not entitle the writer to the FIRST * and hig/test rank in poetry, the eternal basis of which " is founded on t/te uncJiangeable PASSIONS of tlie HUMAN* " HEART, not on varying manners and modes of ARTI- " FICIAL LIFE'' It was Lord BYRON who rang the peal on NATURE and ART! As Lord BYRON, in his unsubstantiated but shewy rhetoric, brougftt various instances to prove, that in every instance enumerated, from the ship on the sea to the fallen temples of Athens, poetry derived tter most interesting materials from works o/"art; it was necessary to prove that all his instances, so far from establishing his position, established the contrary: for instance, that a sailing ship became chiefly a beautiful poetical object from its association with the sea, the, light the windy the storm, the air, moral associations empower over the vast element on which it moved. The sympathies excited, when the objects of a distant voyage to unknown lands, *c. were contemplated these added to t/ie poetical interest. So also in buildings, as the Pyramids, *c. such objects derive their poetical interest from moral associations, tradi- tions, time, antiquity, solitudes, fyc. I was thus obliged, as it were, in self-defence, to follow Lord BYRON* 's instances, and shew him it was the same in all. No farther than this have lever been concerned about the question of 66 Nature "and Art" I thought it right to say this, because I have found, among the most sensible minds, that the idea of the ETERNAL discussion of " NATURE and ART" starts up, when any thing is mentioned about Pope ; and, as usual, I have the blame for pur suing a subject, ad nauseam; when the onus probandi was imposed on me, in self-defence, of shewing all Lord BYRON'S fallacies on the subject! ! In the following pages there is scarcely a word on this subject; but some things, I trust, will be found, not only substantially justifying myself as Editor of Pope, but further and materially illustrating passages and characters in the works, of this distinguished poet. , DctHcattoiu TO THE REV. RICHARD WARNER, Author of Practical Sermons; Illustrations of the Scotch Novels ; History of Bath, and of Glastonbury Abbey; tfc. $c* MY DEAR FRIEND, I Take the liberty of addressing to you, as a well-known Scholar, Clergyman, and Gentle- man, in the neighbourhood of Bath, the following pages; not merely to express my respect and regard, but, chiefly, because you are personally acquainted with the Gentleman who wrote out the extracts from Roscoe's Pope for me, " even to the tiring of his " fingers !" This Gentleman, so amiable in private life, and so highly esteemed, is unwilling to have his name brought before the public ; not that he fears fair and just criticism, but because he shrinks from contumelious and illiberal insinuations ! No human being but one, who must have JUDGED^-OW his own FEELINGS, and jiave been nurtured from his infancy in the school of Pope's duplicity, could for a moment have entertained a suspicion, without the least pretence of evidence, that the corres- pondence in my " Final Appeal" was a fabrication ; a " CLUMSY CONTRIVANCE" of my own, that I might make a parade of answering such arguments in Mr. Roscoe's Pope as I deemed answerable, and pass over, cunningly > such as I was convinced admitted of no reply ! This despicable insinuation, the folly of which will be seen in the ensuing pages, is all the thanks I got for entering the field of controversy in the fairest, and most honourable manner ; that is, at a great expense, and with dul- ness enough to sink my mum work, giving my opponent the advantage of first stating his own arguments at large, in his own words, and then subjoining my reply ! You know the plain fact ; but to strike at the root of such insinuations, which could proceed from none but the basest and meanest of mankind, I shall relate the circumstances as they occurred relative to this correspondence. They are as follow. I called on a literary friend in Bath, and the moment I entered the room, he told me that he had -'just been writing a long letter to me,' 9 which letter lay on the table. I asked, " on what 44 subject ?" He said, " he had been reading ** Roscoe's Life of Pope, and found so much re- <% lilting to me in it, and so many opinions of vii "mine, critical and moral, disputed, not very "respectfully, that he had transcribed some of " the chief objections, and meant to have sent " the letter hy the post ; that, supposing I had " not seen Roscoe's edition, I might use my " discretion as to whether I thought his argu- " ments might require any answer! !" I informed him I had not seen Roscoe's edition of Pope ; but from what I had heard of it, I did not think I should give myself any concern about the matter, as I had weighed deliberately all I had said in my edition, and that it was a matter of indifference whether other people agreed with me or not. * However,' I continued, ' I would take the letter; c and if I thought Mr. Roscoe's observations en- * titled to any answer, I would send the identical ^letter to the Printer, with my answer subjoined ; ' and I added, as he had begun, I should be fur- * ther obliged to him, should any thing more in * Roscoe's work concerning me occur, if he would * extract it. f On reading the first letter, I thought it necessary to answer the extracts it contained, and put it as it was written into the Printer's hands ; the other letters followed ; and this the Printer can testify. This plain statement will be quite sufficient, to shew the ground of that ingenuous insinuation* worthy the defender of the stratagem of Pope in regard to his letters that my correspondence was Vlil * c a clumsy contrivance" of my own, that only those passages should be selected from Roscoe's edition which I thought most easy to answer!!! When the reader has remarked my answer to " the well-observing" Roscoe, on the character of Bufo, he will judge whether any thing was con. cealed, from conscious inability to meet such an arguer! All I ever wished was a fair unprejudiced hear- ing; whether I shall obtain that, in my life, I know not. I have been so long condemned by a particular, inveterate party, that I cannot suffer what is here said to go before the public, without returning my thanks to those Gentlemen con- cerned with the periodical press, who, having seen how unjustly I have been attacked on one side, by unprincipled exaggerations, and unfairly met, on the other, by the most despicable evasions, have, whenever occasion offered, spoken as they felt. With every wish for the health, welfare, and happiness of yourself and family, and prayer of added years to ALL, believe me most truly, W, L. BOWLES. Bremhill,Jan.7,lS26. TO THE PUBLIC, THE Public may well be tired of any thing tiibre on the subject of Pope, or his Poetry ! I hoped my " Final Appeal" would have been indeed "final" but Mr. Roscoe has thought it right to send into the world something in the shape of an answer, in a Letter addressed to me. Though it may be objected that I have " more " last words" as I said I should take no further notice, unless Mr. Roscoe chose to reply, I am now compelled again, and assuredly for the LAST time, to expose his tissue of irrelevancies, shallow sophisms, artful evasions, unjust reflections, and flippant personalities, which he has brought for- ward under the name of a reply to arguments which he could not better answer. To give the public an idea of the chief topics of Mr. Roscoe's Letter addressed to me, on the subject of my " Final Appeal" relative to 11 Pope, &c. it may be necessary to premise a few explanatory circumstances. The objects in dispute, as far as they are promi- nent in his Letter, are few. No argument is met fairly ; and his whole Letter appears to be a vehicle of disappointed irritation ; a feeble effort to wound personal feelings, where argument and common sense foil him, On this account, he has revived Lord Byron's satire, in which I am accused of " envy, hatred, i( and malice /" On this account, he has occu- pied seven or eight pages, with splenetic obser- vations on a piece of satire written by myself solely in consequence of insulting provocations. Of the origin and cause of this piece of satire, Mr. Roscoe, most ingenuously, says not a word, that he might fix intemperance and acrimony on me, when he knew that the origin was simply this. His " j?idus Achates" the late Mr. Gilchrist, among other opprobrious reflections, had declared, that those Poems, which Mr Roscoe, in the supe- riority of his erudition and taste, calls " sentimental " sonnets 9 ' were " the superstratum of innate " vulgarity !" of which innate vulgarity, he who never knew me must be a consummate judge ! and as if his decision, supposing him competent to judge, ought to be admitted as infallible as that of a certain Beau Nash, arbiter elegantiarum at Bath ! ! And then be it further asked, what ... Ill has this to do with the question of Pope ? In answer to so flippant and irrelevant a remark, I observed, that, on this particular occasion, I would leave my That in printing a certain " narra- *' tive," first in part, and secondly entire, the said irreclaimable culprit exhibited the most manifest duplicity, and hath not " VENTURED TO " DENY" that he did absolutely, in the words of 16 Mr. Roscoe, " substitute one document" for ano- ther ; which he did, and does, indignantly deny ; that the document, partly published in the seventh volume of defendant's Tope, is not the document he promised to publish ; which W. L. B. upon his oath, if required, averreth it is, and could be no other ! Seventh, That the said defendant did attempt to " degrade" the moral as well as poetical character of the said Pope. As to the moral character, Mr. Roscoe admits he, A. P. published a most profligate piece of obscenity ;* and he W. L. B. averreth that he, the said Pope, frequently wrote obscene notes and verses to ladies, particularly some libertine verses, addressed to Teresa Blount, and letters containing various indecencies, unmeet for a young lady's eyes, addressed to herself and her sister, too gross to be printed in this refined age.t The * Not published in youth, when he might have said " lusisse pudet !" f I earnestly desire it to be remembered, that, in speak- ing of these undeniable circumstances, in my Life of Pope, I abstained from every expression of direct censure, be- cause I thought it ILLIBERAL to CONDEMN any man from UNPUBLISHED writings ! ! And now the drivelling inqui- sitors impudently turn round and say, " T am the last man " in the world who ought to speak of indecencies of the " kind," seeing that I made every charitable apology I could think of in my Life of Pope! There was enough to convict him of the grossest obscenity in his own pub- lished works ! 17 said W. L. B. hath also wickedly endeavoured to "degrade" the moral character of the said Alex- ander Pope, because when the said Martha Blount, now in her grave nearly one hundred years, do- mesticated with the same correct and most delicate poet, (without saying that " the connection was " criminal,") ventured to suppose the connec- tion was not so pure as a certain panegyrist of this pure bard would have us imagine* Eighth, But not only has this culprit endea- voured to "degrade" the moral character; he equally endeavoured to "degrade" the " poetical" character of Pope, by assigning to him a rank in his art below Shakespeare, and Milton, and Spenser! The said Editor adheres to this opinion, from the nature of Pope's general subjects, which are chiefly satires and moral pieces, and which the said W. L. B. opines cannot, by any genius, be placed so high in the rank of poetry as those poems which are conversant with human passions; passions such as have been pourtrayed by one William Shake- speare, to whom Mr. Roscoe deemeth Pope equal! That the said Editor has endeavoured to " degrade' the said Pope, as a poet in classing him below Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser, not- withstanding he, the said W. L. Bowles, has placed him above Dryden, and in so doing, above all the the poets in Johnson's Lives, and also above Ovid, Juvenal, and Horace ! c 18 Ninth, That Mr. Roscoe saitli the three most offensive of all Pope's writings have been pub- blished by two Reverend Editors, one of whom is very respectable, (notwithstanding Mr. Roscoe's oracle- that model of controversial courtesy, Octavius Gilchrist called him " a dead school- " master}!" That the other Reverend Editor, who has pub- lished two out of the three objectionable pieces, (meaning W. L. B.) is only a writer of " sentimen- " tal sonnets," and " a resident Clergyman of " the Church of England!" But this defendant for himself declares, that at least he has rejected with disdain ONE of these offensive POEMS ! As to having admitted the farce o called " Three Weeks after Marriage" perhaps it might be allowed that *' second thoughts were " best," and that therefore it ought to have been suppressed ; and perhaps my opponent, upon second thoughts might admit, considering how pertinacious the said W. L. B. is, that he, W. R. might have better let him alone ! As to the charge of having published the " Double Mistress" the said Editor conceives, that when various Gentlemen and Ladies have read, not what two Reverend Editors, but a Right Reverend Editor and Pope himself admitted into his authentic works, namely, January and May a Certain Imitation of Chaucer Epistle to 19 AbelardM\& sundry other poems, which are in every library, they need not affect to be very squea- mish if their eyes should happen to glance on a page of the " DOUBLE MISTRESS !" Lastly, Whereas the said William Roscoe hath charged the said W. L. Bowles with having " per- " tinaciously" written seven pamphlets ; the said defendant is obliged to say, he does not think he has written one too many, considering the " per- c< tinacity" and absurdity with which he has had to deal ; and he furthermore begs it may be taken into consideration, that in a study, of which, it is pre- sumed, the last Editor knows more than he does of poetical criticism, exactly seven processes are necessary to elicit the truth, namely, 1st, Decla- ration Zd, Plea 3o who 'wilfully sup- presses every word concerning the provocation that occasioned it ; him who, with a kind of frenzied disappointment that his arguments have been SQ overthrown, or his sophistries derided, tears the turf from the grave of his friend, to throw at his oppo- nent, with equal anger and impotence ; I would ask whether such a picture does not suit such a mind, somewhat better than it suits him who, having been assailed by the hardiest falsehoods and grossest personal insults, turned at last sternly on his assailant; who in no other instance ever uttered a word of bitterness to one living being which declaration he defies you to disprove ; who never attempted to "degrade" Pope, unless it were " degradation' not to exalt him to that pre- posterous and gigantic height, to which the feel- ings of indefinite and blind idolatry among some exalted him ; who never " degraded," or sought to t( degrade," his poetry, unless it were degrada- tion to place him before all other English Poets, and only below Shakespeare and Milton, in the highest scale of poetry ; who never sought to calumniate his Life, unless that be calumny which represents him, as he has taken care to represent 56 himself; conceding his talents and virtues, but marking those predominant traits which cannot be hid, traits which no biographer, when they are so plainly written, ought from sacred duty to truth to overlook; and which all his idolatrous worshippers cannot put out the obvious traits amidst his talents, and tenderest domestic virtues of VIN- DICTIVENESS, DUPLICITY, and OBSCENITY ! Upon these grounds I have stood, and I stand. Your ingenious application of the " FIEND" will neither hurt my character public or private ; and with respect to such a disposition as the picture im- plies, I can affirm that even in controversy I never used a word of asperity, but with reluctance ; that when the most insulting provocation wrung from me harsh retaliation, one civil word would at any time have disarmed me ; and I can assure you, Sir, most solemnly, that though much remains behind, I suspend the lash which I think you deserve, and which I believe would have lacerated you to the bone ! Nevertheless, as you have so ostenta- tiously brought forward those satirical lines of mine, the provocation for which you have kept entirely out of sight, it is a pity that, after the pains you have taken, you should go without some share in them yourself, and therefore, for so many lines as you have given me descriptive of a " FIEND," I present you only two in return: The lines are these if I recollect rightly, Whose HEART contends with his Saturnian HEAD, A ROOT of HEMLOCK, and a LUMP of LEAD. Only asking your acceptance of " the root ofhem- " lock" in return for the " FIEND !" and " the lump of kadi" for your " CHESS-MEN, and CUCUMBER," I am, " with due respect," Your obedient Servant, W. L. BOWLES. dPTH * X7HIVJEBSITY 58 POSTCRIPT, You refer to two lines of mine, and your reference is printed in capitals, with the amiable intent of fixing on me a falsehood; because, speaking generally, I said that my satire applied to your friend, and not to Pope, and it is discovered that two lines are applied to Pope ! There is a ballad, by Poor Hudsford, in which are these lines on Johnny Wilkes : He made a fool Of Alderman Bull, And called Parson Home a liar ! So I might parody these, as I have done Byron's lines, and say of Roscoe, He lifted bis head " Engrafted" in lead, And call'd Parson Bowles a liar ! To spare you any future pain, I inform you, to the best of my recollection, that " dark revile?' 99 is the " dark reviler" incog, being the anonymous calumniator in the London Magazine, Gilchrist: there are about ten lines, I believe, applied to him in this character, and two to Pope : but the general application is to him who first anonymously re- viled me in a periodical publication, for which the Editor apologized ; and to the same person, who afterwards published a tirade, nominatim, which was a disgrace to literature. I am afraid it will be thought I have given you something worse than " brass 9 ' for " gold," when I have given you only part of two lines for so many bestowed on me. Consider, Sir, I have never published an anonymous article in my life; have never " calumniated' 9 any one, unless you should say I have calumniated Pope which I deny. Consider farther, I beseech you, that I am " a resi- " dent Clergyman" and, as such, have a character well known. I will not descend to appeal to those who have known me long, rich and poor, against heartless aspersions ; but I have shewn, at least, when you direct envenomed shafts from another quiver, when you point against my own breast the weapon taken up in self-defence to oppose dark revilers, and infuriated calumniators, and en- deavour to fix on me the name and character of reviler, calumniator, and fiend, (" Am I that " name, Ligo?") the present I make you in return is very small. Knowing your obligations to others for weapons against me, I had nearly forgotten your twenty or thirty lines from the Dunciad\ \\ hat shall I do? Here are Byron Roscoe Bowles versus Bowles Pope himself, against me!! and the ghost of Gilchrist !! Apparent dirac GO And worse than all, I am described as having gained a " glimpse" from your tenebrious illumi- nation of the " sublime," and " pathetic," and " ludicrous," in poetry! As I have given you so little in return for the presents you have heaped upon me, what if I here only beg your acceptance of four impromptu lines for your long quotation from the Dunciad ! No other critic has ever pointed out the remark- able circumstance in Pope's Essay on the Charac- ters of Men, that he has, very consistently with his subject, introduced two female portraits Nar- cissa, and the " Old Crone." Suppose, then, I beg you to accept only four lines, taking a hint from Pope's Epistle on the Characters of Men ! On POPE'S introducing an Old Woman among the Characters of Men. Pope placed an old woman 'mid portraits of men- Hear tbis, ye bold critics, and tremble ; Because be foresaw that ONE CRITIC would rise, Wbo should most an OLD TTOMAN resemble. Comment trouvez vous cela, mon ami ? I have thus driven back the supernumerary forces you have brought up against me in aid of less effective allies, the " Mice and Frogs!" But " you have now laid the axe to the trunk of my r " Satan," a satire ? Why, Beau Nash would be a be*g;er subject than IAGO ! What do you think, MR. ROSCOE ? 'Having, however, thus come to an agreement, at last, pp one great point at issue, respecting the station of Pope 71 as a poet, so long disputed and at last conceded, I now proceed to the consideration of that part of the article in the Quarterly, the far greater part, in which my opinions respecting Pope's moral character are canvassed, if insidious abuse can be called canvassing, and in which so much candour is displayed, by those who inveigh so bitterly against the want of it in others. But, before I enter into particulars, I must premise a few words respecting the object, in exciting one general impression of prejudice against me, both as an editor and a man. I will not here say a word of fairness. Fairness I never expected from this quarter on such a subject, or, indeed, on any other ; a circumstance nearly as " un- " accountable" to me, as my conduct to Pope is " un- " accountable" to the Reviewer ! I will not speak of candour or common liberality ; but I will say, that I did not believe one human being, having the advantage of education, and mixing with cultivated society, could have a heart so removed from all feelings of justice and truth, as to bring forth charges, with every exaggeration, to many of which I have replied, without saying one word of the vindication. The most striking proof of the Reviewer's candour is his, apparently, throwing a doubt as to the existence of my Bath Correspondent, as if I artfully wrote both the letters, and the answers, in my " Final Appeal ! '* But BOWLES is not quite such an ADEPT IN THE SCHOOL OF POPE ! The Gentleman who took the pains of tran- scribing the passages from Roscoe, is well known to every respectable inhabitant of Bath ; and that part of my pamphlet was printed from the identical letters ! Stu- 72 pidity, moreover, puts on its most arch and sapient sneer, because, after the extracts were printed, Mr. Bowles thought it his duty, before publication, to examine that part of Mr. Roscoe's work to which they related. This examination the strictest justice required; for he might add, that he could not have believed that any one man in the kingdom would have made " adap- *' tation to purposes" a criterion of the highest poetry ! ! I wrote three letters to my correspondent on the sub- ject ; and was only convinced, by ocular demonstration, that there could be not such an " inadvertent" block- head, but such blockhead at all! Will Mr. Roscoe's edition and arguments stand such scrutiny as mine ! Let such Critics as I have met criticise it, and how would it fare ? or how, if I had thought it worth while to criticise it myself?* In my " Final Appeal *' all his arguments upon the subjects in discussion are fully and fairly set before the reader ! ! There could be neither distortion, or garbling, or oblique suppressions. The arguments stand fairly in front, and my answers directly follow ; yet an insinuation is thrown out, even against the very fairness of this proceeding ! ! The " indolent** reader may forget what was said before ! ! So I am to answer for Mr. Roscoe's lumbering lucubra- tions, because a sense of justice, and a great addition of expense, caused me to give them entire, that the * Even this Reviewer lauds the notes where my " unaccountable" hostility to Pope does not appear. So much, "e'en against their will, t( They have confess'd, and shall confess it still!" The " sieve," however, lets throwjh all specification ! 73 arguments and answers might stand as nearly side by side as possible ! ! I do not think the world of literature can produce such unfairness, as to insinuate that even this mode of controversy is unfair ! It was impossible to devise a more fair way of answer- ing the arguments of Mr. Roscoe, as far as I examined them, than by printing entire in front without gar- bling, or sinister quibbling, or more sinister omissions, ALL HE HAD TO Say. My answers are all found in the same book ; and I took the field, with all Roscoe's lumber on my back, for no other reason than that he should have the very fairest play. But " the arguments and replies are too far separate" for " indolent" readers ! ! Who cares about " indolent" readers? The question was on important subjects of discussion; and my Appeal was to considerate, not " indolent," readers ! ! " Indolent readers" may be very convenient for the Quarterly Review, and for such articles on literature as will not bear the slightest exa- mination of a man of sense, very convenient for articles in which flippancies, " insinuations," and sneers, impose on "indolent" readers. My answers immediately followed Mr. Roscoe's argu- ments; and the reader must be as "indolent" as the Quarterly ought to wish, if, having read one part, he could not turn over a few leaves to compare the other. What then must be my disadvantage, now? even with this disadvantage I could beat " out of the ring" fifty such Reviewers ! but what must be my disadvantage, who get, perhaps, one reader, where the Quarterly gets a 74 hundred! This very answer, by whomsoever read, will be read long afterwards, when nothing but the heartless and pitiful " insinuations" of the Reviewer are remembered. But, I believe, one man will read this answer, whom it most concerns ; and he will not go out of the room quite so blithe in self-conceit as before he took up the pen, to cut up " Bowles in particular /" I have only to add, I do not want "indolent" readers; for the more considerate, the more impartial, the more truly liberal and dispassionate, the better for me, and the worse for Pope's miserable defenders ! It were to be wished that a fair, just, liberal, and dis- passionate review of this whole contest should be given in some popular periodical work : not a mere ex parte business, like this in the Quarterly. This "sieve,?* indeed, retains only dirt; and yet this same dirt I believe I shall, without much eifort, take from the same " sieve," and fling in the face of such a " clumsy,*' though cunning, sifter ! How insidious, how truly in character with Pope himself, are the observations on my rejecting, with scorn, the obscene Imitation of Horace ! ! " It was never denied," says Mr. Bowles ! As " if Pope denied a thousandth part of the ribaldry im- "puted to him !" says the Reviewer ! ! What, does the writer, then, pretend to dispute the author of the Imitation of Horace? this Imitation, which Mr. Roscoe admits to be Pope's, solely on account of its wit ? But Mr. Bowles assumes a " merit," on account of his omission of it ! No, Sir : Mr. Bowles only says, that he ought not to be indiscriminately condemned^ for he rejected it with scorn 1 75 And yet Mr. Bowles, who rejected this blasphemous and profane filth, is brought in front of the offenders, fof " searching into corners" for what was disgraceful. Mark, how a plain tale shall put you down ! All the objectionable writings were published in Warton's edition. Mr. Bowles left out the worst- made the apology of illness for another (the " Six Weeks " after Marriage") having been admitted. The " Double " Mistress" was published by Pope himself; and yet Mr. Bowles is the most painful searcher after these latent indecencies ! MR. BOWLES, in PARTICULAR, has INDUSTRIOUSLY sought out these dregs ! The words quoted by Warburton from " HONEST " VALERIAN" may here be employed advantageously by myself, " mentiris iinpudentissime /" The Reviewer's " sieve" is very convenient indeed ! besides my greater sins, I have, in ten volumes, (the "Final Appeal" included,) been guilty of four inadver- tencies, and three or four hasty notes ! I know not how many others there may be ; but I believe they would, with equal triumph, have been dragged forth, if they could, after the most anxious scrutiny, have been found, though these notes are called a wasp's nest! Besides expunging the infamous Imitation, the most indecent stanza in another poem, admitted by Warton, I expunged, as will be seen by comparing the editions. And this hypocritical outcry is made in defence of him who published the Imitation of Chaucer, &c. and such indecencies to married and unmarried ladies, as Rochester, or Don Juan himself, would not have done ! ! Let the hypocrites ask whether I have made this ethic, pure, and injured bard half as impure as he made himself I 76 As to "inadvertencies," such cavillers ought to be thankful; for sure I am, they cannot look any substantial argument (if I may say so) full in the face. They direct their puny efforts to some trivial error beside the ques- tion ; or substitute infamous exaggerations to gain an apparent triumph among " INDOLENT READERS ;" and by insinuation, and with that quality described so well by Churchill, "which supplies, " And amply too, the place of being wise;" And the " Parnassian sneers" of flippant -tongued and brazen-faced IGNORANCE, constitute themselves the " Drawcansirs" not the BUFOS, of the " whole CAS.TA- "LI AN STATE ! !" But, NOW TO OUR TASK ! ON THE CHARACTER OF BUFO. An Enquiry whether t/ie Character of BuFO, in Pope's Prologue to tfie Satires, be. LOUD HALIFAX? The more important charges which are brought, with " cumulative" proofs, against " Bowles in particular," may be arranged under three heads: First ; That I have professed the belief, in which I have all the world, as well as Doctor Johnson, on my side, that Timon was the Duke of Chandos ; Sappho, 77 Lady Mary ; and Bufo, Lord Halifax ; winch last appli- cation the Reviewer "collects" all his "might" to disprove, with the aid of the " well-observing*' Roscoe ! how successfully we shall see. Secondly; That Pope was privy to the clandestine publication of his own letters. And, thirdly; That I have thrown out scandalous insinuations against his purity ! which " insinuations" are " a wasp's nest !"* To pass over " insinuations," which are indeed " a " wasp's nest" against myself, we shall examine these three great points, which Scriblerus has " collected" all his " might" to overturn ! First. It is argued that Lord Halifax could " NOT " POSSIBLY" be intended by the character of Bufo, he, as Mr. Roscoe "well observes," dying in 1715, and this epistle being published in 1734 ! Second. That my opinion, relating to Pope's being privy to the clandestine publication of his letters in 1735, is an injustice to that artless Poet. Third. That I have thrown out, by " insinuations" most scandalous and unfounded reflections on his purity with regard to ladies. We shall begin our defence, against the " collected " migh?' of this coadjutor of Mr. Roscoe, by examining the proofs he gives, why "Bufo," as Mr. Roscoe " well observes," could not possibly be meant for Lord Halifax ! ! And if we can prove, to the satisfaction of every thinking and dispassionate judge, that great critics may err ; why then, I think, we may be inclined still to admit, notwithstanding the proofs to the contrary of * I am afraid our Scriblerus lias been a little " stung!" 73 snch infallible oracles, that " Timon was the Duke of " Chandos, Sappho, Lady Mary." And now to examine the proofs that the " well observing" Mr. Roscoe has brought so triumphantly to establish the fact, that the character of BUFO could not " possibly" be INTENDED FOR LORD HALIFAX ! ! ! The opinion of this Reviewing- Sage is, indeed, worthy the profound Roscoe himself ! Doctor Johnson was a fool, and Doctor Warton more so ; but Bowles bears the blame, for believing the character of Bufo, "fad with soft " dedications," was intended for Halifax, to whom most of the poets of the time offered their " soft dedications /" And what is the reason that Pope, publishing this satire in 1735, could not possibly have intended Bufo for Lord Halifax? because Lord Halifax died in 1715; as if the lines might not have been written long before they were published, and as if Pope did not say himself, that this poem " was begun many years ago /" By parity of reasoning, the well-known lines on Addison could not possibly be intended for him, because they were lished in 1727, and Addison died 1719 I ! It will save some trouble, if we set the AUGUST PER- SONAGE exhibited by Pope before us, marking with italics those lines in the features which especially will require attention, not of the " indolent," but reflectingj reader \ The curtain draws up. THERE HE SITS IN STATE ! WHO is HE? Stop a moment: When a rustic urchin, with intense admiration, was looking through the small window of a peep-show, the " master of the magic show," pulling a string, cried, " There you see the DUKE OF WELLINGTON as large 79 *'as life ; and there, the King of Prussia ! !" " Which " is the Duke of Wellington ?" inquired the eager, and almost breathless, young Somerset rustic ! " WHICH " YOU PLEASE !" said the man at the string, without moving a muscle ! i But when the curtain draws up, displaying the GREAT BUFO, I say, it is not which you please ; for, I say, the picture was intended for Lord Halifax, notwithstanding the " well observing" Roscoe pronounces it " not pos- "sible," as, WHOEVER HE WAS, he "MUST HAVE "BEEN LIVING" when this satire was published, 1734!" Notwithstanding this, and the no less positive assurance of the equally " well observing" Scriblerus of the Quar- terly, I, William Lisle Bowles, in defiance of both, do assert, and will prove, the picture was intended to represent Lord Halifax, in the days of King William, Queen Anne, and George the First, and COULD MEAN NO OTHER ! " See here he is f" as some books, which I would re- commend to Mr. Roscoe, " have it !" " See, here he is" " Proud as Apollo, on his forked hill, " Sat full-blown Bufo, puflTd by every quill,- " Fed with soft dedications all day long, " Horace and Ac went hand in hand in song. " His library (where busts of poets dead, " And a true Pindar stood without a head,) " Received of wits an undistinguish'd race, " Who first his judgment ask'd, and then & place,- " Much they cxtoll'd his pictures, much his seat, " And flatter 1 d every day, and some days eat; " Till, grown more frugal in his riper days, " He paid some bards with port, and some with praise ; " To some a dry rehearsal was assign'd, M And others, harder still, he paid in kind. 80 " DRYDEN alone, (WHAT WONDER!) came not nigh;, " DRYDEN ALONE escap'd his judging eye ; " But still the great have kindness in reserve " He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve!" This personage, thus minutely pourtrayed, " ruled the " whole Castalian state" in Dryden's days, and if the *' well observing" Roscoe be right, must have been living, and was contemporary with Pope in 1734 ! I shall beg the reader to observe attentively the words in italic! The said personage must be, 1st, a poet himself; 2d, " puff 'd by every quill;" 3d, "fed with soft dedications ;" 4>th, go " hand in hand" with Horace, as the soft dedications no doubt assured him ; 5th, have a fine seat, and library open to the whole race of wits except one ; 6th, he must be " grown more "frugal in his riper days;" he must have discarded claret and more costly wines for humble port, while to* some poor bards he could not give any thing \ Vth, he must have been able, before his " riper age," to give a place to hungry expectancy: and having places to give, must have been, in those days, not only "full-blown" with honours himself, but be well known ! ! Let us apply all these singular circumstances I If there be a man in whom they do not unite, that cannot be the man; if all these things unite, and apply to one man, and can apply to no other of the period, Qvrog exeivcs \ \ This is THE MAN ! notwithstanding Mr. Roscoe's IMPOSSIBILITIES, " for that Lord Halifax " died in 1715, and was not living in the year when "this satire was published, 1734; and the person in- " tended for Bufo WAS ! !" The public may be tired of such discussion; but surely those who are interested in the works of Pope are not. 81 NoW, "well observing" Roscoe, and thou not less " well-observing" Reviewer, attend ! First, for " dedications" Sir Richard Steele, in the fourth volume of the Guardian, puffeth thus : " The " capacities which have rendered you the GREATEST " POET OF THE AGE," &c. In another place : " All the " bright images which the wits of past ages have left " behind them in their writings, the noble plans which " the greatest statesmen have laid down for the admi- " nistration of affairs, are equally the object of your " knowledge." Such a " POET," then, and a poet so " familiar" with " all the bright images" of the wits of former past ages, might well be considered as going " hand in hand with " Horace ;" as Mr. Roscoe, the Reviewer, and Octavius Gilchrist go " hand in hand" in criticism ! ! Thus, in " soft dedication" poureth out his grateful feelings Nicholas Rowe, esquire, tragedian : " Your " Lordship's patronage is a new, and will be a lasting, "obligation upon me." (Dedication of Royal Convert.) But, we must be yet more particular. After much "soft dedication" of this kind, the aforesaid Nicholas thus concludes : " When I have told them what men " have equally adorned it, and been adorned by it, " (poetry,) I might not unfitly apply to them what " HORACE said to the Pisos " Ne forte pudori " Sit tibi Musa lyrse solers, et CANTOR APOLLO ! !" This last quotation from one of the innumerable dedications, with which Lord Halifax, in his days of power, patronage, and poetry, was " fed," I apprehend may be thought to kill (as I have done before in regard G 2 82 to Mr. Roscoe) two birds with one shot accounting both for the designation of " Proud as Apollo" and the " soft' idea, that as Horace went hand in hand in song with thef Pisos, so he might go "hand in hand 9 ' with a nobleman, no less illustrious, and no less distinguished for love of the lyre, and devotion to " CANTOR APOLLO !" " Proud as APOLLO !" I have thus, not only, I believe, found out the origin of Pope's " PROUD APOLLO,' but, at the first set-to, have gone a little way towards knocking down poor Roscoe and his bottle-holder ! and (I think I shall "prove") they never made so bad a hit, as when they found out it was " not possible" that Bufo could be Lord Halifax, that Noble 1 Lord dying in 1715!! We have seen Bufo, as patron, as poet, going " hand " in hand" with Horace ; as Apollo himself ! Let us examine the portrait again ! Not having had the honour of being admitted to Lord Halifax, among the " undistinguished wits," as, I have no doubt, Roscoe would have been, and that at his levee, had he been living, Octavius would have made his best bow, I can say nothing about the library, or Pindar " without a head ;" but* if I might judge by CERTAIN CRITICISMS ON POETRY, LIVING CRITICS as well as dead poets might be considered " sometimes " without a head !" Before I proceed to the detail of other circum- stances, let us attentively weigh the arguments, worthy of Roscoe himself, adduced by Scriblerus, in favour of Roscoe's reasonings, with regard to the " impossibility " of Bufo's being intended for Halifax ! ! 83 " The passage itself PROVES, (quoth he,) as Mr. Roscoe " lias well observed, that to whomsoever the character of " Bufo may be supposed to refer, IT CANNOT BE to Lord "Halifax, who died in 1715, when Pope was a very " young man, and before he had published his Homer ; "whereas the person alluded to MUST HAVE BEEN " LIVING in Pope's more advanced years, when he had " been ' BE-RHYMED so long/ and was * grown sick of " fops, and poetry, and prate.' " Euge! "well-observing" Critic! Aye, but what renders it so conclusive that Bufo could not possibly be Lord Halifax ? Why, Pope wrote this satire, and introduced the name, when he describes himself, as ** be-rhym'd so long" and, " Sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, 41 To Bufo left the whole Castalian state !"* Festina lente! says the proverb. We shall examine this point presently; but, first, vos animcB, Concordes, " well observing" Mr. Roscoe, and " well observing" Reviewer on Roscoe's " well-observed" observations, you who are so accurate as to the time when Halifax died, and who bring such decisive proofs that Pope, writing in 1735, could not mean him, Pray, when did DRYDEN die? Now, let us see the " two Kings of Brentford" putting their heads together, and whispering ! ! Perhaps you yourself, you " IN PARTICULAR, Mr. Reviewer," may be " twadvertent" sometimes ; that is, in the haste of abusing Bowles, may forget a little as to dates!/ * I would request the reader to turn to Pope's Prologue to the Satires. 84 Therefore we will, if you please, take down Doctor Johnson ! ! Page 325, Lives of the Poets, small edition: Life of Dryden. It is best, "sometimes" not to be " inadvertent," though, in a little bit of ingenious raillery, you prove " my inadvertence" in my letting " GREATER "BLOCKHEAD" remain, instead of correcting it into "great blockhead;" but it is lucky I did not, as it gave you an opportunity of saying so witty a thing as that I made myself a " greater blockhead" than Pope ! Now I think I shall shew to the public two as "inadvertent* and "greater" blockheads than myself I But attend to JOHNSON ! ! " The time was now at hand, which was to put an " end to all his schemes and labours : on the first of "May, SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND ONE,"* (1701, for fear I should make a mistake in the date 1701, the first of May,) "he having been a long time a cripple " in his limbs, he (John Dryden) died in Gerrard* * street!!!" Now, Gentlemen, have the goodness to turn to the satire, in which stands the character of Bufo, and which, as Mr. Roscoe "well observes" could not possibly be meant for Lord Halifax, who was dead, and tell us how many years intervened between Dry den's death and the publication of this satire ! Thirty-three ! according to Gibber, thirty-four; for Gibber says, Dryden died in 1700! Then Bufo " ruled the whole Castalian state" from Dryden's death, thirty-three or thirty-four years a pretty long space for so illustrious a personage to rule INCOG. ! taking the period only from Dryden's death ! To proceed: Pray, Gentlemen, do you remember 8,5 these lines, which stand as part of the character of Bufo, in the Prologue to the Satires, line 245 : " DRYDEN ALONE, (WHAT WONDER?) came not nigh; " DRYDEN alone escap'd his JUDGING eye ! " But still the great have kindness in reserve " He HELP'D TO BURY whom HE help'd to starve !'* " Facts," geod Gentlemen, "are stubborn things !" You will be safer in sticking to indefinite " insinuations," with as many heartless sneers as you can muster up ! That this " Bufo," this great POET PEER, this ARCH- PATRON of all poets, EXCEPT DRYDEN, whom he " help'd i{ to STARVE," MUST HAVE BEEN living in the year 1735, however " well observed," requires some strong proof! Next observe, this " Bufo," who " help'd to bury" Dryden in 1701, must also have been surrounded during Dryden's life by Dryden's cotemporaries, and have helped to "starve" him; and this period we may set down as ten years before his death ! This makes forty-four years ! ! But we are told that " this satire was written at an age 66 when Pope was sick of poetry and prate !" Indeed! Look back a little, look at the poem, and ask, at what age he was most " sick" of the " prate" of Gildon, Dennis,* &c. ; and then ask, which of the two is more credible ? that the circumstances, which agree in sucli minute particulars, should be relied on; or Mr. Roscoe's " impossibilities," even if the " well observing" Roscoe understood a little of English grammar! But of this I shall say more by and bye. * See Dr. Johnson's Life of Pope, for specimens of Dennis's " prate" OH the " Essay on Criticism !" 86 Nor need I place reliance on the story related by Dr, Johnson, (whether the whole story might be true or not,) that " Lord Halifax sent to Lady Howard (Dryden's " widow) to say, that if she and her son would give " him leave to BURY Mr. Dryden, he would BURY him "with a gentleman's private funeral, and afterwards ** bestow five hundred pounds on a monument in the " Abbey ; which, as they had no reason to refuse, they " accepted." But as far as I have gone I let plain and singular facts speak for themselves, leaving out all " insinuations" respecting Pope's art and practised concealments ; and can only say, if I were a blockhead, it is some comfort to have the company of Dr. Johnson ! Solamen miseris, &c. To proceed: no one, then, but Lord Halifax, pecu- liarly " fed by soft dedications," could be said to " rule " the whole Castalian state," before and after Dry den's death! And Bufo, the patron of all poets, EXCEPT Dryden, in Dryden's days, must then also have " ruled " the whole Castalian state !" And yet this ruler of the " whole Castalian state" from Dry den's clays to 1734 must be still living in Pope's advancing age, and yet nobody ever heard from that day to this who this " GREAT UNKNOWN" was ! ! " Well observed," indeed, Roscoe !* And now to examine the " well observed" obser- vations as to the time, when Pope was SICK of " poetry " and prate !" As I recommended a Latin grammar and * How inexcusible must Dr. Johnson have been, for he was twenty- five years old himself when Pope published the Prologue to the Satires, and, of course, contemporary with this illustrious INCOG, if Roscoe be right ! and yet he is so ignorant and obstinate as to fix on HALIFAX ! 87 dictionary to Roscoe, I might now recommend to his friend an English grammar, before he pretends to write pert and contumelious criticisms. The reader, if not " indolent," I am sure, is nearly satisfied already. So far from its being true, that Pope speaks of the existence of Bufo in his own decline of life, every name, every circumstance, every allusion in the satire, as I shall further prove, (from line 125 to Bufo's appearance,) is confined to the period before Halifax died! But it may be as well, in confirmation of what has been before said, to adduce Pope's own words concerning this satire" It was BEGUN MANY " YEARS SINCE, and continued by snaches ! !" And let us, at the same time, keep in remembrance what Johnson has said: " Addison began to praise " him early ; and was accompanied by other poets, "perhaps by ALMOST ALL, except Swift and Pope, " who forbore to flatter him in his life, and after- " wards spoke of him, --Swift with slight censure, and " Pope, IN THE CHARACTER OF BUFO, with acrimonious "contempt. He was, as Pope says, 'fed with softdedi- *' cations,' and Tlckel affirms that no dedication was " unrewarded." A poem* which was " begun MANY YEARS AGO," might well be considered to have been " begun" about the time of some of these " soft dedications*' to Halifax ; and if Roscoe and Scriblerus had common sense, and knew any thing of grammar, instead of so " well obserr- " ing" that " Bufo must be alive in Pope's more advanced * In my note in loco, (Bowles's edition,) I should have said, "published" after Halifax's death. 88 " years, when 9 (a pretty substitute for "now") he " was " sick of poetry and prate," they would have " observed" that the whole connection in this satire, from Pope's early friends to Addison and Bufo, 1715, is as plain as the road to Liverpool from London. Before we have done, I believe I shall cause both these " observers," like the two kings before alluded to, to whisper again, shake their heads, and grumble, This " pestilent Parson is " too much for us after all !" The reader's attention, not that of an "indolent" one, is now farther requested. After the well-known lines on Addison, Pope says, " I sought no homage from the race that write ; " I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight ;* " Poems I Jieeded (now be-rhym'd so long !) " No more than thou, great George, a birth-day song ! " I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd my days, " To spread about the itch of verse or praise ; " Nor like a puppy, dangled through the town, " To fetch and carry sing-song up and down j " Nor at REHEARSALS," &c. Can the eighth and ninth line be said to relate to a person in age ? At this time, Pope's poetical character was fully established; and now, " remote from witlings," he "fe/fc the whole Castalian state" to Bufo !f Then comes the description of Bufo, in the time of Dryden, continued to this a3ra of Pope's poetical fame, and thus * When did Pope keep " out of sight" from the " race that write?" When he left Button's, the general resort of the wits, having been per- sonally offended with Phillips, who, it is said. " hung up a rod" for him, long before the death of Halifax ! f He had published his PASTORALS, WINDSOR FOREST, TEMPLE or FAME, ELOISA, the RAPE OF THE LOCK, &c. The first volume of Homer was published in the year in which Halifax died. 89 this part of the satire has its coherence and regular connection. I shall not yet dismiss the " well observing" and simple Roscoe, and his " well observing" and sage friend ; I shall not yet say " DEMETRI, teque TIGELLI, " Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras." As I have given " the Member of the Delia Crusca " Society" a lesson in Horace, I will now endeavour to set him right in English. We have seen how profound is his observation, to which our blithe Critic responds so happily ! The " nucleus" of what he has so " well observed" is this, that Pope, now advanced in years, and writing this satire, when he had been " be-rhym f d so long," and leaving the whole " CASTALIAN STATE" to Bufo, Bufo MUST have been his cotemporary at this period; notwithstanding Bufo's plenitude of patronage, in the state of Gastalia, was in Dryden's days ! Now, as I construed Horace to Mr. Roscoe, let me construe to him this very sentence, on which he trusts so much, while the Reviewer claps him on his back, "manibus plaudentibus ! !" The poet had spoken of his early poems, then of critics, which bring him to Addison! He "sought no " homage from the race that write,*' and though " now" at this period of life " be-rhymed so long" he then at that time " heeded' 1 poems no more than George does now a birth-day song ! * " Poems I HEEDED (now be-rhym'd so long !) " No more than thou, great George, a birth-day song !" * I sliall observe afterwards on the ninth and tenth lines : " Nor at " rehearsals," &c. 90 There can be no other, even grammatical, construc- tion of the passage, than this: I " heeded'* referring to time past, and "now" to the present! Leaving the " well observing" Roscoe to ponder a little, we return to this arch-poet, patron, and statesman ! In 1698, Halifax was made First Commissioner of the Treasury, and appointed one of the Regency in the King's absence ; in the next year (1699), Auditor of the Exchequer; and in 1700, Baron Halifax. During this period he, like Bufo, " Receiv'd of wits an undistinguished race, " Who first his JUDGMENT ask'd, and then a PLACE !" In the reign of Queen Anne 9 and in "his riper " age" he was out of employment; and therefore growing frugal^ he repaid some bards with " a dry rehearsal," and some " in kind," just like Bufo ! He was in his " riper days," and unable to treat with better wine than " port," when he was not only out of place, but even quite out of favour, like Bufo, during the last four years of Queen Anne, at whose death he was at the " ripe age" of 53. And now for the time when Pope was most espe- cially " sick!" After the death of Queen Anne he was as " SICK*' of the Whigs, as he had been before of Gildon, Dennis, Blackmore,* Phillips, &c.f ; and Halifax, like Bufo, was now, indeed, " full-blown, " when he received the last and highest honours, being created Earl of Halifax by George I.f by whose accession Pope's friends were * Blackmore is alluded to in the following line : " Whose fustians, so sublimely bad !" &c. Prologue to the Satires. f- Oldmixon, after the accession of George the First, expressed a wonder that " such libellers as Swift, &c. wore not punished." J Installed KNIGHT oy THE GARTER, and made Lord Lieutenant of the county of Surrey. 91 scattered: when Swift was disappointed in Ireland; Oxford retired to Herefordshire ; and when all Bolin- broke's schemes of ambition were destroyed. About this time the quarrel with Addison began, and thus Bufo and he are placed together in the same satire ! Now, can any man in his senses, I will not ask "poor" Roscoe, but whatever readers I may get, believe there could be anot/ter Lord, whom every thing in this description would suit, besides Lord Halifax ! What does Mr. Roscoe, gaping at his wonderful dis- covery, imagine that there were two patrons, such as Halifax, in Dry den's days ? two> " fed by dedica- " tions ?" two, who patronised all the poets* except Dryden ? We know he seemed to think Shakespeares as plenty as blackberries, and such patrons, perhaps, as plentiful also ! But I am afraid, taking all things into consideration, Bufo will be Halifax, notwithstanding all Mr. Roscoe has so "well observed! /" his observations being equally remote from probability, the coherence of the satire, the chronology of the period, and the grammatical structure of the passage ! ! Perhaps the reader may begin to think that these are somewhat singular coincidences, " Season your admiration for a while !" ( Hamlet. ) The strongest fact is to come ! Now, Scriblerus, as in your affected jargon you talked of " cumulative proofs, you shall have them in sufficient " cumulation" to over- whelm yourself, and the " well observing" Roscoe ! Let us examine a little closer one line : " Dryden alone, 'NO WONDER,' came not near !" Why should there be so specific an expression that 92 Dryden did not come near, and that there was " nb " wonder!" It would have been " A WONDER" if he had ! Why ? Because, should Bufo be Halifax after all, not- withstanding it could " not be possible" as Mr. Roscoe and his critic so " well observe,'* Halifax had written a little poem in ridicule of this Dryden ; and it would have been a " wonder," if after this he had " come nigh! T When was this satire written, and what was its name ? It was written in the year before that in which Alexander Pope came into "this breathing world;'* it was called, hear, Reviewer, and thou exquisite " observer, " Ros- coe ! it was called, "The CITY MOUSE and COUNTRY " MOUSE,*' the cockney and provincial mouse ! This satire was written in conjunction with Matthew Prior, to ridicule Dryden's Hind and Panther, in 1 687. This is pretty strong evidence ! The reader will say, "WHAT WONDER" Dryden "came not NIGH!" and think it not the least "WONDER," that two such "well ob- " serving" Foodies should adorn one age, and Write criticisms on Pope ! I shall now say a word about the name of Bufo! Perhaps, Octavius Gilchrist, who, after such parade of what he would do to vindicate " calumniated worth," did nothing but abuse Bowles, might inform us, as he did of Sappho, that " chance alone" directed Pope to the name of Bufo ! Perhaps not ! Perhaps an asso- ciation (but this is all " conjecture") of ideas with a little animal called a mouse might have suggested the thought of another little animal, (both adapted to the higher order of poetry,) called frog! And who knows, (this is only "conjecture!'*) the frog might have suggested the name of another little animal, the 93 Latin of which is Euro, a toad;* a name, at least, well applied, when it appears there were so many " toad- " eating" puffers of this " proud Apollo !" I would not " insinuate," that if Mr. Roscoe, (like Prior and Mon- tague,) in conjunction with Octavius Gilchrist, were to write criticisms, such criticisms might not unaptly be termed the prolusions of toad and frog ! ! I have dwelt somewhat longer on this part, be- cause the two " well observing" sages seem to cackle out EvgyKct, together, on the happiness of the dis- covery that Bufo " could not possibly be* Halifax ; on which the Reviewer might farther hitch that kind of comment, which in general, and in the case of Bowles so "particularly," adorns the comments of a mind uniting the obtusity of a blockhead, and the pert- ness of a witling ! Sage as such united sapience may now look, I have not done with the subject. In my answer to Roscoe, I contrived, I believe, as was visible to every reader but himself, to " kill two birds with one stone," that stone being from the sling, which, together with the stone, he kindly and "inadvertently" put into my hands. I think I can again do something of the same kind before I finish what I have to say on this Evpyxa of the " well observing" Noodle and Foodie of " the Casta- " Kan state" in 1825 ? ! An " insinuation" is thrown out, in observations as liberal as they are ingenious, on the letters of my friend * The late Editor of the Quarterly Review compared a critic to this reptile in a garden. But Mr. Gifford never received the provocation and insult which were heaped upon me by one man, whom Mr. Hoscoe, and ot myself, has again brought forward. 94 at Bath, who furnished the extracts from Roscoe, that " clumsy" as was this expedient, it answered some pur- poses ; particularly that when " I could not answer Mr. " Roscoe's arguments," the excuse might be that they were not sent to me ! Now, in answer, I say plainly, First; This his ingenious discovery and proof that Bufo could not be Lord Halifax, was not sent me! I knew not of its existence. I never read a word of Roscoe's Pope, except to compare the extracts ; being satisfied, from specimens of his criticisms, of his profun- dity, and fitness for the task ! ! ! Now, Sir, do you think that I, as cunning as Pope, but more " clumsy," took care my friend should not send this delectable discovery, because I could not answer it? You see I have pretty well answered it, though you thought I cunningly omitted it, as being UNANSWERABLE ! " WE/* in the jargon of criticism, have thus submitted to the reader these " cumulative proofs" which point to Halifax, and to Halifax alone, as " ruling the Casta- "lian state" in Dryden's days, and till the death of Halifax! Now, as far as we have gone, let us sum up the detail: 1st. This Bufo must have written poems himself! So did Halifax! 2d. He must have been the great patron of the literary world, " the whole Castalian state !" So was Halifax! 3d. He must have been " fed with soft dedications!" So was Halifax ! The dedicators to Halifax were Rowe, Steele, Addison, Tickel, Dennis, Hughes, Stepney, Motteux, Ozell, Congreve, &c. 95 4/A. Bufo's peculiarly splendid library is specified by Pope! Addison speaks of the splendid " library" of Halifax ! 5th. He must have had emoluments and places to give away; in short, have been a minister of state I So was Halifax! 6th. In his " riper age," having lost his places, his power of patronage must have been diminished ! This was the case with Halifax in the reign of Queen Anne. 7th. Of the wits and poets whom Bufo patronised, Dry den was the only one who " came not nigh !" Dryden alone came " not nigh" Halifax ! 8th. Pope tells us, it was " NO WONDER" Dryden came " not nigh" Bufo; and it was " no wonder" Dryden came " not nigh" Halifax ! 9th. That this patron, to whom all poets had access, SAVE DRYDEN, the reason for which is so peculiar, was among the subscribers to his funeral, cannot be doubted ! He helped to " starve" Dryden, because he did every thing in his power to injure his reputation during his life !* 10th. Bufo was "full-blown!" So was Halifax, when every cumulated honour had been conferred on hin by George I. Now, that all these peculiar circumstances should meet together in one person, living in 1734, and then ruling the whole state of Castalia, and that person entirely unknown, I pronounce IMPOSSIBLE ! But I have not yet done with all the " cumulative " proofs'* indicative of Halifax, and of him alone! * " In his poems," he sdys, " Dryden had no heart!" Pope asked his "JUDGMENT" on the first books of Homer, and "a p/ace" was in- directly promised ! ! H 96 We have seen the probable cause for the name,- for the munificent personage being placed on the " two- " fork'd hill," " proud as Apollo," and for going, like the wealthy Pisos, " hand in hand" with Horace ! All these things are so peculiar so specific so clearly traced in one man, and so impossible to be found in another, that I believe the reader will begin to wonder at that hebetude of understanding, which either could not trace, or would not acknowledge, these coincidences; and yet could so rashly affirm, it was " not possible 19 that Bufo could be intended for Halifax, because Hali- fax died in 17 15, and this personage "must be alive" in 1734! This is a " sieve, and swallow" too, beyond my com- prehension ! ! But what must we think of a CRITIC, professing knowledge of such things an editor of a most popular literary journal, revising and correcting this article of this critic Mr. DOODLE, Mr. FOODLE, and Mr. NOODLE, F. R. S. " associate of the first class " of the Royal Society of Literature" all three laying their heads together, and agreeing how " well it " was observed," by brother " Noodle," that Bufo could not "possibly" be Halifax, because this Bufo must have been alive in Pope's advancing years ; though, to the knowledge of any human being, he this patron, tiiis poet, this statesman, this nobleman, whom all the wits of the day came near EXCEPT DRYDEN was as un- known as PRESTER JOHN ! ! Here leaving these "well observing" gentlemen, Noodle and Foodie, in amaze at those " cumulative " proofs," I think the reader will be fully satisfied that " Mr. Bowles in particular" did not affix the character of 97 Bufo on Halifax, from " mere conjectural interpreta- tion ! !" I shall just add, that this Halifax sitting like Apollo among contemporaries, critics, and wits, and poets did not patronise John Dryden ! But there was another John who did come nigh, and who was also especially patronised; and who also, rough as he was to others, became " a soft dedicator" also, and this was JOHN DENNIS, Pope's most inveterate enemy ! ! Least a doubt should remain, I shall now more mi- nutely examine the point, as to the period when the poet left " the whole Castalian state" to Bufo. It was at that period of life when some of his contemporaries " sweat at rehearsals," &c. In this very " Prologue to his Satires," Pope enume- rates those of whom he was "sick:" Burnet, Old- mixon, Cook, " Slashing Bentley," and " Piddling " Tibbalds."* Burnet attacked his friends Bolingbroke and Oxford in a letter dedicated to the same Noble- man. The year Halifax died, 1715, he published Hamerides, on the projected translation of Homer ! Cook and Oldmixonf attacked him afterwards; but Oldmixon was an old man at this time, and the pre- sumption is, that having been mentioned at the same time with Burnet, they had committed some offence. Bentley, Pope himself informs us, projected dedicating his edition of Horace to Halifax ! These critics and poets lead the satirist to Addison, whom he praised in the Dunciad, and satirized in the Prologue to the Satires. The arch Warburton * More will be said of these names further 01*. f Oldmixon attacked Swift in 1715. H 2 9S tells us, in the notes to the Dunciad, on the praise of Addison, " nothing is MORE REMARKABLE than OUR " AUTHOR'S love of PRAISING GOOD writers ! !" To which another Editor begs to add, " nothing is more 1 " remarkable in our autfior, than praising at one time " those whom he satirizes at another !" Among the critics who annoyed Pope at this period of his life, for afterwards, instead of being " sick" he cared infinitely less about them, may be mentioned, besides Dennis and Gildon Ducket, Welsted, Cent- livre, &c. To these may be added, " Bedlam and the Mint ! !" So annoyed had he been, that, the very year after Halifax's death, we find him writing his complaints of what a " poet militant" suffers ; and the same year, Swift, speaking of the number of Pope's enemies, says, " Who are all these enemies you hint at ?" Such were the critics, of whose prate Pope was, and well might be, " sick ;" and at a time when he must have felt the annoyance most, while they fluttered like magpies round an eagle ! But of what " poetry" was he " sick?" "Sick" as who would not be, of the Bucolicks of his rival Arcadian, PHILLIPS, spoken of also, in this " Prologue to the " Satires !" How " sick" Pope was of his " poetry" is obrious, from the elaborate caricature of Phillips's Pasto- rals written for the " Guardian," at this period; and by the delight he expressed when Gay, his " divine Bucolick," ridiculed his rival Arcadian so successfully in his " Shepherd's Week ! !" Besides these pastoral strains, was he " sick" of no other poetry ? What does the reader think of that great 99 heroic poet, who sung " so loudly and so long? Black^ more ? whose works never will be half read ; " Who first sung Arthur,' then King Alfred'. " Undid Creation at -A jerk" &c. How " sick" he was of such heroics, as well as the softer strains of PhiHips, is apparent all through his works : he might be said to have made Blackmore thj3 first and last subject of his song, as Horace says, " Prima dicte mihi, summa dicende, Cumoena !" So lie was at this period as " sick" of Blackmore's " keroicks" as of Ambrose Phillip's Bucolicks ! and perhaps he was more " sick" still of the " prate" at But- ton's, and the rival Arcadian's rod hung up there ! What argument is opposed to all this evidence? Pope spoke with respect of Halifax, in the Epilogue to the Satires ! Did he not speak with respect of Addison in the Dunciad? I have thought this detail necessary. I am sure every thing I have said will be corroborated by only turning to this satire ! I have said, also, that the " well observ- " ing" Roscoe, to make it out that it is " impossible 3ufp "should be Halifax," must confound times as well as tenses ; for it is obvious, if Pope were now in his " riper " age" and Bufo was now alive, and, like the Quarterly Reviewer, INCOG. why then, I think all grammarians^ except some at Liverpool, must think that Pope would have written not I " left," but " Sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, " To Bufo leave the whole Castalian state !" As in PrcBsenti perfectum format in avi, Master Rps- 100 coe ! and, therefore, I leave " the whole Castalian state" to judge of the " well observing" sapience of the first goose y and the no less critical acumen of the ARCH GOOSE in the Quarterly Review, who comes twaddling, and waddling, and cackling after ! ! I shall here beg leave to add one monosyllable, not that of which all geese, it is said, have an instinctive dread " BO ;"* but that of which such geese as these have a kind of instinctive dread " ir"f " And IF I had them upon Sarum plain, " I'd drive them cackling home to ' Murray's Rooms !' " Shakespeare, I have already spoken of the general tenor and order of this poem. Should the reader be not quite so " indo- " lent" as it might be wished for such critical directors * M. S. Alii legunt pro " Bo" Bow ! at nonnuUi, BOWLES ! sic lege nieo periculo!! (Bentleius.) f I must here give the reader some information respecting the mono- iyllable " IF !" I really thought this silly cuckoo-cry had been over ; and I thought also, that there could not possibly be two persons in his Majesty's dominions, who would not think all that has been said about it beneath contempt ! The fact is this : Mr. Bowles said, that a parti- cular story was most disgraceful to Pope, ' IF TRUE ; but it ought not " to be believed for a moment on the word of an adversary ! !" Again: Mr. Bowles, speaking of the imputed crime in another place, said nearly the same! But Dr. Warton having called "this a blemish, if true!" Mr. Bowles said, " call it a blemish ! if true, it was most atrocious ! !" And now, forsooth, Mr. Bowles is " ashamed," at last, into the admission of that which he constantly, willingly, and warmly proclaimed ! But the little bit of afoot-note, upon Walton's notes, stands between the positive assurances of disbelief ! Therefore Mr. Bowles has on either side &fort to Hy to ! ! Even Roscoe is a STAGYRITE to this Doctor! I may well disdain to reply; but as I shall have occasion, perhaps, to recur to this " IF," I thought it best to explain the occasion. The whole vocabulary of the English language does not supply me with a word sufficiently expressive of my scorn ; and therefore I content myself with \ simply saying " WHAT AN ASS!!" 101 of taste and truth, let him .spare a few minutes to look back at the course and order of this " Prologue to the " Satires." It was published in 1 734,* when the patron of all the poets, EXCEPT DRYDEN, according to the " well " observing" Roscoe, was still alive and merry. "Shut, shut the door," exclaims the languid bard; and John Searle is described as endeavouring to keep back the crowd pressing into the room, some to "solicit" a prologue and " ten pounds" and some roaring aloud " Subscribe subscribe !" At line 127, when he is released from the crowd, he begins the retrospect of his poetical life, " As yet a child, nor yet a fool to feme, " I lisp'd in numbers!" But his friend in the Dialogue enquires, " Why then " publish ?" Why ! answereth the bard ; because Granville, and Walsh, and Garth, and Congreve, and Swift, and Talbot, &c. persuaded him he could write, and approved his poems ! These were all his earliest friends. Thus he is persuaded to publish (line 147) : " Soft were his numbers," (his pastorals,) " who could take offence?" Yet then " Did GiJdon draw his venom'd quill ;" And then did ' Dennis also RAVE in FURIOUS pet !" But he did not of course reply to "Bedlam and the Mint!" * In Bowles's edition, 1733. Pope was a "very young man!" say the sages ! ! So young, as to be seven and twenty ; and to have written all the poems which entitle him to him highest rank in his art, ELOISA, RAPE or THE LOCK, &c.!! 102 From Gildon, and Dennis, and " Bedlam and the, " Mint," lie proceeds to more " sober" critics, and some, verbal cavillers " The ' word-catchers/ that live on syllables !" Then he enumerates poets of the same period, Phillips, his rival Arcadian, " Whom pilfered pastorals renown '" And adds the " no-meaning," and " fustian poet,"* till he pomes to the illustrious Addison ! Thus all in the satire is consistent, and in due chronological order. Now, reader, again attend ! Pope, at this time, never " sweat at rehearsals;" never had a play acted, as Phillips had, whose " Distressed Mother," had been lately performed with applause ! Pope had never written plays, nor ever " at REHEARSALS sweat and cried, " With handkerchief and orange at his side !" Pope had not ! No ! but who had ? Addison, whom h.e had just described, just described, as " giving his "little senate laws," like CATO ! And " Cato" was the most successful play in its time that ever appeared, and was now in its meridian glory and popularity, being first acted in 1713 !f - Blackmore. f Let it be remembered that I am not speaking of the time when this part of the satire was written ; but of the times to which it evidently alludes. This part was probably written on the quarrel with Addison, and patron and poet were placed together. This is the reason that the portraits of Addison and Halifax are brought together in this satire, as Addison was mseparably connected with Haliiax as long as he lived. 103 Pope nerer " sweat at rehearsals, with handkerchief arid " orange !" But, as I asked before, who did ? The Author of CATO ! for, in the Life of Addison, (John- son's Life,) this singular circumstance appears: " The play, supported thus by the emulation of fac^ " tious praise, was acted night after night, for a longer " time than the public, I believe, had allowed to any *' DRAMA before; and the 'Author,' (who, like Cato, "gave 'his little senate laws,') as Mrs. Porter (the " chief actress) long afterwards related, ' WANDERED " ' THROUGH the WHOLE EXHIBITION, BEHIND the " ' scenes, with RESTLESS and UNAPPEASABLE solicitude !'" This coincidence is casual, nor is it wanted; but how illustrative of the person, and time, of which Pope speaks ! I affirm, moreover, in the face of these " well " observing" critics, that from the line 135, in which Pope speaks of his early poems, not one name is introduced previously to the portraits of Addison and Bufo, not one name is introduced, except the names of those who were cotemporaiies, and authors, before the death of Halifax! His elegant Epistle from Italy to his friend is the best of his poetical productions. It should not be forgotten, that in the dedication prefixed to his Latin poems, Addison speaks of the " Turba Poetarum !" Such an accumulation of evidence never could be conceived without examination. But what must a literary man be, who could tliink of editing Pope, without taking one of these proofs into consideration, saying, it was " impossible" that Halifax was Bufo ! And who could have been that one man in all reading and writing England, who, totally blind to such evidence, could shut his eyes, as the Cock in the Fable, and, talking of my " swallow !" open his mouth as wide as the Dragon pf Wantley to swallow Roscoe's " impossible" that Bvfo could be jlalifax! I should have thought, in respect to Roscoe, " None but himself could be his parallel!" ^ 104. The poet retrospectively enumerates, first, his early friends, Walsh, Garth, Granville, Congreve, &c. I have already spoken of Burnet, Oldmixon, and Cook, his antagonists. He speaks especially of him, " Whom pilfered pastorals renown!" Tate* died in the Mint, the year after Halifax died; for even " Bedlam and the Mint" were classed as Pope's opponents at this time ! As to " slashing Bentley, "f and " piddling Tibbalds," or Theobald, the epithet "slashing" was applied to Bentley on account of his HORACE, and not his MILTON, (published in 1732,) as must be obvious from " Virgilius " Restauratus,"J in direct ridicule of the "slashing" corrector of Horace ! As to Theobald, the initials Th: occur among the names of Pope's opponents in 1711. I may further observe, that there is a critical journal of the nineteenth century, which most happily unites the "slashing" and the " piddling," the slashing of brazen-faced and desperate ignorance, and the piddling of verbal cavils and petty-fogging maliciousness ! ! Tibbald, or Theobald, published, it is true, his " Shakespeare Restored" in 1726 ! But Theobald had offended Pope before, in Mist's Journal, and the words "piddling Theobald," with the other lines on verbal critics, might have been added afterwards, as the satire, Pope informs us, was written " by snatches!" Such, reader, are my " cumulative proofs," that Bufo must be Halifax ! I brought no " cumulative proofs'* * " And own that nine such poets make a Tate .'" f " From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds !'* | Bentley's celebrated Horace came out in 1711. 105 before, because I thought it absolutely impossible there could be two Noodles in his Majesty's dominions, who could doubt, much less deny, it ! and I have adduced, now, this cumulation of proofs, not so much to shew that Bufo was Halifax, but to expose the ignorance and impudence of two solemn blockheads, sitting in judg- ment on Dr. Johnson and Dr. Warton ! Mr. Bowles is happily more "alive" than Bufo was in 1734, to vindicate himself from the anathemas of such an inqui- sition of drivellers ! One observation here occurs, which, I believe, will be as good as any " observation" of these wonderful observers ; and my observation is this, When I bade adieu, in my Final Appeal, to " blockJieads" I did not suspect there could "possibly" be not one, but TWO such arrant blockheads in the kingdom ; but if there had been so many, I could not conceive there could be another such a blockhead, in the " Castalian state" of 1825, as the editor of a work so popular as the Quar- terly Review, who could have suffered such ignorant impudence to "prate about Pope and poetry," and blazon its petty maliciousness, and downright stupidity, in FRONT of that Corinthian Journal ! Mr. Lockhart, one of the most intelligent men, and powerful writers, in the kingdom, ought to have got into the mail-coach from Edinburgh, or put on his league boots, instantly, and taken the reins out of the hands of Dan Coleridge, and given him a reprimand at least! May such an article so crude, so ignorant, yet so like a " wasp's nest" never disgrace that mis- cellany again. I am sure it will not, if Mr. Lockhart conducts it ! 106 How it came to pass that such an article was admitted, t quo suadente, quibus consiliis, I ask not. I AM ALIVE, but still wondering, that, of " all the birds in the air "and fishes in the sea," such a blockhead should think himself qualified to " prate about Pope and his " times P' and that there should be no man of common intelligence among the conductors of the Quarterly Jleview, tq prevent such an exhibition! Having brought now, for the first time, my " cumu- " lative proofs," that Bufo was Halifax, and could be no one else, it is but fair to examine what the Reviewer relies on so much, per contra! What then are " ALL these proofs," which the " welj V qbserving" Roscoe, echoed by the " WELL OBSERVING" Quarterly, produces tq persuade that obstinate Bowles ! Hear, reader, I beseech you ! THE PROOFS are three! First: That Halifax died in 1715, and could not "pos-r "sibly" be Bufo, who was alive when Pope published the satire ! Second: What is their triumphant evi- dence ? their own ignorance even of tenses and gram- mar ! And next : That of this same Bufq, Pope after^- wards spoke with gratitude and respect, when, in THIS VERY Prologue to t/ie Satires, close to the personage repre- sented as Bufo, stands the shade of the ILLUSTRIOUS AND INJURED Addison; et magnet testatur voce, that this grateful and consistent poet had done the very same thing to himself, speaking of whom, only six years before, in his Preface to the Miscellanies, he publicly professes regret for having written those very lines, which remain for ever a monument of his vindictiveness ! ! Is there no common sense are there no honest and honourable feelings in this " enlightened age' 1 o.f 107 1825 that such iron-faced ignorance should be placed in the very front of such a periodical publication, as the Quarterly Review! Why do not the friends of Pope "tie up" these defenders, who injure Pope, and give such triumph to Bowles ! " AH these testimonies!" What testimonies? That Pope, when he said he was "sick of prate," was in advancing age! (Which he was not!) That Bufo was alive in 1734! (Which he was not!) And that the same Pope spoke of Lord Halifax with respect and gratitude in one poem, and, therefore, could " not pos- " sibly" satirise him in another ! ! " All these testi- " monies could not PERSUADE MR. BOWLES !" that two and two make nine!!* No, indeed, they COULD NOT; for if they had, he must have been a greater goose, if possible, than the " wett observing" Roscoe, or this doubly " WELL OBSERVING" QUARTERLY SCRIBLERUS ! ! ! " ALL THESE TESTIMONIES !" (lackaday, for the ob- stinate "pertinacity" of some people !) " ALL THESE " TESTIMONIES," (" List ! list ! oh, list ! " If thou didst ever love thy grandmama !" Hamlet.) " All these UNIFORM TESTIMONIES," sighs out the eru- dite and amiable Reviewer, "of RESPECT and GRATI- " TUDE, expressed in the plainest language, and con- " tinned through a period of three and twenty years, " Mr. Bowles, by one conjectural interpretation) converts " And own that nine such poets make a Tate!" fPope.J And ovvn that nine such critics make a Goose!!* * Sartoris anser / Bentley ! Anglice Tailor's goose ! 108 " at once into proofs of ingratitude and hypocrisy !" Oh ! wicked Mr. Bowles ! ! It has been seen, by something more than " one con- jectural interpretation," that Mr. Bowles had reasons for thinking Bufo was Halifax; and the same Mr. Bowles asserts the same thing now, and leaves the public to judge of Pope's ingratitude and hypocrisy! Mr. Bowles leaves the public, also, to judge of the " uni- " form testimony" to this Reviewer's, and brother Ros- coe's absurdity ; according to whom, " the passage itself "proves," what Mr. Roscoe and this sagacious Reviewer have so " well observed," that "the tiring" is not LEFT to " CONJECTURE," for that " the character of BUFO " CANNOT BE LORD HALIFAX ! wllO DIED when Pope " was a very YOUNG man ! whereas the person alluded " tO MUST HAVE BEEN LIVING in Pope's MORE ADVANCED " YEARS, when he Jiad been ' be-rhymed so long 1* " (Quarterly Review for 1825 !) Notwithstanding the "uniform testimony" adduced by these sages, I am afraid it must follow, by much more " UNIFORM TESTIMONY," that Bufo was Halifax, and could be no other !! Q. E. D. Pope informs us, that to some bards Bufo only granted a " dry rehearsal!" Let us suppose a little scene from such a play, on this occasion, which I shall " engraft" merely by way of enlivening the subject a little: Bayes, Bowles, and the two Kings of Brentford performed by Noodle and Doodle. Bowles. Why, Mr. Bayes, this GREAT MAN of yours must have been arch-patron, and poet, upwards of forty 109 years, if he helped to starve Dryden, and helped to bury him, and was alive and lusty in 1734! Bayes. True, Sir; but have the goodness to attend to the performers ! (Noodle and Doodle whisper, and shake their heads. Bowles. I observe your two kings whispering and shaking their heads again ! ! Bayes. Aye, Sir, to be sure ; that is as much as to say, It is a GREAT SECRET ! Bowles. A great secret, Mr. Bayes ! What could a person, so distinguished as this patron must have been* who ruled " all Castalia*' between forty and fifty years; who patronised all the poets, except Dryden ; who was in power and place, and wrote poetry himself; could such a person be living in 1734, forty years afterwards, and quite INCOG. ! ! Bayes. Why, Mr. Bowles, I vow and declare, you are so particular, I I in short, Sir, you are very "pertinacious" in asking so many questions, you had better attend to my performers ! (Noodle and Doodle s/iake their fieads, and whisper again. Bowles. Mr. Bayes, I see your performers still shake their heads, and whisper ! Bayes. Yes, to be sure ; how can they better imform you, that the great man, concerning whom they have been whispering, was, in 1734 NOBODY! I should rather say, SOMEBODY that NOBODY knew ! ! Bowles. Pray, Mr. Bayes, was not Dr. Johnson alive at this time, and twenty-five years old ? He was some- times as " ivell-observing" as others, who shall be name- less. Did HE, I wonder, never find out, or " conjecture" 110 &t least, who this GREAT UNKNOWN could be, how living when poor Johnson wanted a patron so much, just setting otlt in life, and drudging for booksellers ! (Noodle and Doodle shake their heads, and whisper. Bayes. Mr. Bowles, you are so " particular" a gentleman, I will inform you, my two performers know very well who the great person was, whom Pope de- scribed; but they wish it to be kept, for very good reasons, a most PROFOUND SECRET! Bowles. Might I ask, what these very good reasons are? Bayes. I will tell you ill private. These gentlemen wish to keep the circumstance a most profound SECRET, because, in one thousand eight hundred and twenty^ five, some descendants of theirs are destined to write notes on Pope. One to give a " liberal and enlightened" edition of his works, and the other to review it ! in a work to be called the Quarterly Review ! ! And these gentlemen intend to keep the name of this illustrious patron of literature a PROFOUND SECRET, the discovery of which will be reserved for their " enlightened" de- scendants in 1825 ! ! Bowles. Well; but Mr, Bayes, though we cannot but admire their discretion, suppose, when the time comes, the descendants of these whispering and head- shaking gentlemen should whisper and shake their heads too, having forgotten the name of this great MR. SOME- BODY whom NOBODY knew ! Bayes. Egad, that is very true; I did not think of this. All I can say is, that the world must be content to remain in darkness, if they have no one to enlighten it* but the race of the original Noodle and Doodle ! the Ill Oiie may Write criticisms in the Quarterly, as Incog, as Bufo himself, and the other be " Member of the Delia " Crusca Society of Florence, and F. R. S. and F. R. S. L.ll" Some hyper^-cntic, of the school of a "particular "editor 19 of Pope, might be absurd enough to assert, that it was "impossible 1 ' such a dialogue ever took place, as Bowles could "not possibly" have been " alive" in the seventeenth century; but such an objection must be thought the height of folly, for he might have been alive, like Bufo, incog, and afterwards have pub- lished his " Sentimental Sonnets !" If Dr. Dee, the celebrated astrologer, " were alive/' he would prove, by some unforeseen conjunction of planets, that these kindred spirits, Roscoe and Scriblerus, lucida sidera, of this " enlightened age," were born for 1 each other ! That the last editor of Pope was " ova "prognatus eodem" with the critic ; for if there were one man who could suppose, and write, and print, and pub- lish, that it was " impossible" Bufo could be Halifax, it must require an almost miraculous planetary influence to suppose that, in the same auspicious sera, there could be another GOOSE, ovo prognatus eodem, to " SWALLOW " IT!" If it might be supposed that, in my "Final " Appeal," it was illiberal to think of classing the " great merchants of the muses" with blockheads, I think I might be justified, when it is considered they were blockheads enough to pay an editor very handsomely for such discoveries, and give, probably, a bonus to the Reviewer, who, having first " swallowed" the observa- tions of the " well observing" Roscoe, was required to 112 make the gentlemen of this enlightened age " SWALLOW" them also ! ! But after all, we may be completely deceived. Mr. Roscoe may really know more about the matter than " We have dream'd of in our philosophy //" as he pronounces, so decidedly, that " Bufo," who ever he was, MUST BE LIVING in Pope's "riper age," and he was not more than forty-five or six, when this poem was published, who knows but that Lord Halifax was not Lord Halifax in reality, but that he appeared in that character by some mysterious supernatural agency ! We are led into this idea by the mention of Dr. Dee ; and might it not be supposed, without greater improba- bility, than that " Bufo," the " GREAT UNKNOWN," was living in Pope's "riper age," that some "Doctors" now living somewhere in the north of England, among their other secrets, were possessed of the celebrated Philo- sopher's STONE, as well as the "Elixir Vitse" of him at Gilead Hall; and that, by means of this elixir, through whose virtue the life of man may be so prolonged that he need not die till it suits himself, Halifax was a mere eifitoXov ; and that " Bufo" is yet alive somewhere in Lancashire ; and that only three persons in the kingdom are in possession of the secret, Dr. Solomon, the annotator on the syphilis; Dr. Solomon, of Gilead- Hall ; and this Solomon, the Reviewer ! At least, 1 am quite sure, till we can " swallow" this, we cannot " swallow" half that Roscoe and his brother observer have so " well observed!" If so, (there i another if for you,) if so, by virtue of this elixir, the two Doctors Solomon of Liverpool, and the Quarterly 113 Reviewer, are the only persons in the three kingdoms who know any thing about the matter ! All this is, however, left to the judgment of the reader ! For myself, I do not entirely believe it, though these sages, because I have put an " IF" to it, may say they have "shamed me" out of the belief! It must be then as they please ; and I leave it to the " conjecture" of the reader ! ! If this should not be thought plausible, there is ano- ther solution of Mr. Roscoe's wonderful discovery, which his delight, in so elaborately dwelling on the picture of a "fiend,* 1 suggests ! The celebrated Archdeacon of St. David's has related some curious circumstances with respect to certain hob- goblins, who assumed characters, and for many years filled respectable stations like Lord Halifax ! One of these goblins, Giraldus gravely tells us, was for many years a most respectable and " venerable Archdeacon !" Every one sought his acquaintance ; and when he spoke of the " olden times" centuries passed away, he spoke in such a manner, that it might almost be conceived he had lived and acted in the times of which he spoke ! He was one day in the presence of the Bishop and Clergy at a Visitation, relating what passed centuries before, when he inadvertently said, "That, in the times when the " Wandering Jew first set out on his travels, the " * FIENDS' then upon earth, afraid of an impending "judgment, hid themselves, and for his part, he got into " a WELL ! !" Instantly all was discovered : the Arch- deacon vanished ; and, at the same hour, was seen by certain travellers, (the fact being ascertained afterwards,) crossing the Alps in a shovel hat! i 2 114 Now I know what that arch-wag Roscoe will do, tell me I am the " fiend" in a shovel hat myself ! But, I believe, it will not be thought much more improbable that Bufo should be alive in Pope's riper age, and never heard of, than that a fiend should personate Halifax in 1715!! I shall add a few general observations. Such thinkers and writers as these, are to be listened to by the " friends of social order," and the higher and more cultivated classes of society ! ! Such " Geese" " are to " Save the state by cackling to the Tories!!" Dunciad. Well might Mr. Brougham say, "that the higher " orders wanted a SPUR" from the toes of their inferiors !! Talk of the Mechanics' Institution, when in the face of day, before the British public, before all the highest and best educated classes such miserable twaddlers shew their face in the front of the Quarterly Review! What will the educated classes think of such accom- plished scholars, when a country " parson," (Come Doctor, the king, 'Tis a scandalous thing Such a subject should be but a uzccr/) a " resident clergyman," whose chief care is taken up with the concerns of his parish, can so easily put them to shame, if shame, they can feel equally exposing their "fooling," tlieir flippancy, their chicanery, their ignorance, their clumsy waggery, and their malice ! ! It is time the " lower orders" should kick such edu- cated superiors from their throne ! " Proceed blest days, till knowledge fly the shore, " When birch shall blush with noble blood no more !" Pope. What, can such men, and such writers, as Mr. Southey, Mr. Milman, Mr. Croker, Mr. Barrow, think? and pray what might you think, Mr. JOHN MURRAY? Come, I shall not be sorry to have your opinion, as a sensible man ; but (me icord in your ear let Bowles alone! as many Reviews on " monkies," as you please ; but depend upon it, as it was said in a rival Review, " THIS WON'T DO ! ! !" NOTES. It ha been said (page 91) that Oxford, after Queen Anne's death, retired into Herefordshire. This is a mistake: he was sent to the Tower in 1716. (Note, page 104.) In my Life of Pope, I attributed the first mis- understanding with Bentley, as arising from the opinion he expressed of Pope's translation of Homer; but the " Virgilius Restauratus" is a proof he had offended Pope, or his party, earlier. It is not likely that a ridicule on any English book should be written in Latin I I had applied " slashing" to Bentley's Milton, but it applies as much to his Horace. 116 A WORD ON THE CHARACTER OF SAPPHO, AS APPLIED TO LADY M. W. MONTAGUE. Having now dispatched Bufo, and shewn that he WAS HALIFAX, and could be no other, and that mine was not a mere " conjectural interpretation," (notwithstanding what is so "well observed" by Roscoe and Scriblerus,) I should leave the plain understanding of all men of com- mon sense to form their opinion of TIMON and SAPPHO, but I must say a word or two in regard to Sappho! " Chance ALONE directed the poet to the adoption of " the name of Sappho!" sayeth Gilchrist, the " defender " of calumniated worth!" Well done ! this is a " con- jecture" indeed ! My affirmation is as good as his, or any one's ; and therefore I say, " chance did not " direct him :" but having written afterwards a line, concerning a lady " With linen worthy Lady Mary !" Epilogue to the Satires. he thought he might afterwards turn Flavia, with her " dirty smock," into Sappho ! ! This is my assertion, not "conjecture;" for assertion is as good as assertion at any time, and I am sure mine has far more probability. I moreover say, he who could swallow the first assertion, could swallow any thing ! Warburton has let the "cat out of the bag, that Timon was Chandos, by a note in the first edition ! 117 And Pope has let the "cat out of the bag" about Lord Hervey and Sappho ! Let the reader judge : to Swift he uses these remarkable words, " I will take care " they (the satires) shall be such, that no one can be " angry with them, but the PERSONS I WOULD have " ANGRY !" Only two persons were angry, therefore Lady Mary and Lord Hervey are the two ! Again, " You are sensible with what decency and "justice I paid homage to the Royal Family* and at the " same time I SATIRIZED" (you did, then ! satirized whom ?) -" false COURTIERS and spies !" No other courtier took those words to himself, except Lord Hervey, and therefore Pope satirized him ; and his denial, as in the case of Chandos, was the most dastardly "equivocation!" His " fooling" (as it is most "foolisldy" called) with Lady Mary, is admitted ! Was it " fooling," coolly to brand with eternal infamy the woman whom he lov,ed ? because he could not make her as "great a fool" as himself? In the judgment of every honourable, manly mind, this is an eternal brand on his own heart, far worse than any of Scriblerus's fooling ; for which foolery, as I " conjecture," and firmly believe, he was " repulsed" at last, as he ought to have been, with disdain ! and that this was the cause of such unmanly, and ungenerous, and unappeasable vindictiveness ! I do not think it necessary at this time of day to go into all the various proofs, which could be easily ad- duced, that Sappho was Lady Mary, and could be no other! If any thinking human being can be induced to believe, by such acute " observers" as Roscoe and the 118 Quarterly Reviewer, that Bufo could " not possibly" be Halifax, he may believe that Sappho could " not "possibly" be Lady Mary ! I shall here add some general reflections. My memory, in regard to Pope's failings and virtues, has been compared to "a sieve" when such "a sieve? as this of Scrlblerus, in regard to me, was never seen ! That my notes should be compared to a " wasp's nest?' Is not very extraordinary, as Scriblenis may, perhaps, remember having been a little stung ; but that I should be compared to a " busk fighter" is extraordinary indeed, and somewhat " inadvertent!" I am a "bush-fighter!" A "bush-fighter" am I? If I had written an article under covert, without a name, in a Review, and picked out, with elaborate scrutiny, every word which might be thought objection-r able, taking it without the context; if, shrouded in such a covert, I had directed my missiles of lurking malice ; if, equally regardless of justice, equity, candour, or truth, I had made this a rule that, what is done '* meanly" should be done safely too ! If being under such a covert, I had shewn such anxious solicitude not to be discovered, that, when every writer of every article, but the article on " Bowles in particular," should be well known, the author of this should be shrouded in double secrecy, either from shame, or from cowardice from shame that the writer of such an article, as stupid and ignorant as malignant, should be known; or from cowardice, lest the writer of " Sentimental Sonnets*' should beat him back, with conscious discomfiture, as he has done Roscoe, then let me be called a 66 busfi fighter !" In the mean time, I believe, this 119 "bush fighter" will slink back to his bush like a fox to the covert, after this mobbing, as fast as he can ; and if he is deterre, he will be more ashamed, with his draggled tail, than ever I was " ashamed'' of an " if !'' I never wrote one word, to which I am ashamed to put my name ! But let me, having put my name in front of what I write, and having never written any thing to be afraid or ashamed of, at least be exempted from the charge of " bush-fighting," till I say any thing as dark, as secret, as ignorant, and as cowardly, as the article " on Bowles in particular," in the front of the Quarterly Review for October, 1825 ! I will give Scriblerus all advantage of that "bush "fighting" and tell him, if HE, or Coleridge, or Murray, will give me three pages in the same Review in which I am attacked in this " biish-fighting" way, I will never ask his name I will meet him ; and if I do not over- whelm him, in the face of the public, may I have " been " born," and die, with the head and heart of this half- doltish, half chicaning, and utterly unprincipled Quar- terly Reviewer ! By way of diverting the scent, where the most studi- ous concealment is resorted to, it has been given out, I am credibly informed, that the writer of this 41 enlightened" article does not reside in London! is a new hand from the country, and this is his maiden essay ! Cockney, for a ducat ! I am sure of one thing, that no writer of common intelligence no one, possessing any regard to truth is concerned in its writing, or introducing it among the intelligent, enlightened, arid splendid articles of the Quarterly Review ! 120 " Such things, we know, are neither rich nor rare; " But wonder how the devil they came there !" Pope. But in fact, notwithstanding all this mysterious con- cealment, I pretty well guess who may be the author of this notable piece of criticism. My " conjecture" is this, that it is not the critical Doctor Solomon, of Liverpool; but the real, the iden- tical, the original Doctor Solomon, descending, like the God of his own art, to decide this contest in this new Iliad, (Nee deus inter sit, nisi dignus vindice nodus ! ) in defence of the tottering Priam, and his tottering cause ! seeing his brother Doctor's Frogs and Mice dispersed, and the Wooden Achilles not having afoot to stand upon, the great Doctor, from his Olympus of Gilead Hall, descends into the contest in person, " concealed in night," VUKTI toiKtog, to decide the strife, Avrov KMtOeiros' o S* we NYKTI EOIKH2' ...... AEINH AE KAAITH TENET APTTPEOIO BIOIO! ! Iliad, book 1st. The classical reader will not fail to observe the sublimity of this GREAT APOLLO in the Quarterly, descending VUKTI eotuus, like night itself ! Whether this part of the description relate to the obscurity of his personage, involved in night, or the darkness of ideas, one circumstance cannot fail to strike him as re- markably appropriate " Dreadful was the sound of his pewter squirt!" The effect of which "formidable" instrument of attack is obvious through the whole article ! This is, as Mr. Roscoe would observe, " a FORMIDA- 66 BLE ATTACK," indeed ! more " FORMIDABLE" than Pope's attack on Lady Mary ! But Bowles is not much dismayed, seeing he has done, aver one Doctor, and given this dark deity in the Quarterly as Diomed wounded Mars a pretty good hit already ! As the passage, which we have adduced from Homer, may not be understood by ladies, and some country gentlemen, we subjoin a translation from Pope himself? " The favouring power attends, " And from Olympus' lofty top descends, " Breathing revenge, a SUDDEN NIGHT he spread, " And GLARING DARKNESS roll'd around his head " The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow !" The latter line, I deem, would read better He twang'd his vengeful squirt, And Bowles lay floundering in the Doctor's dirt I Sic corrige, meo periculo ! Bentley. I shall say no more here, as I am engaged in an heroic poem on the subject, which will be published shortly, with notes arid illustrations, and dedicated to William Roscoe, esq. F. R. S. and R. S. L. and Member of the Delia Crusca Society of Florence ! ON THE CLANDESTINE PUBLICATION OF POPE'S LETTERS. I intended, at large, to have shewn the certainty of Pope's privity to the clandestine publication of his let- ters ; but I think I need net occupy the reader's time, except by only cross-examining a little Counsellor Bo- therum, who, arguing from the premises, that certain letters were " stolen," comes to the conclusion that all his arguments must be irrefragable, "IF they WERE " STOLEN ! P' who assumes the impossibility, that A could have any dealings with B; and yet is not able to disavow the whole of fi*s publication ( Why, the " Wittols of Nuremburgh, who ne'er hang a thief- till " they catch him/' are Stagirites to this transcendental wittoll!* There is, however, one observation which I deem it necessary, most especially, to answer, as without atn explanation I shall appear guilty of those very arts of disingenuousness which I have constantly reprobated in others. I allude to the passage, in which, having quoted from * For the arguments, which have never been answered, upon this question, I must refer to my " Final Appeal." It must be as clear as the sun to all but this cloudy chicaner, that " whoever is NOT ABLE to DISAVOW " the WHOLE" of some publication, must have SOME SHARE in it ! " Out of thy own mouth will I condemn thec, thou wicked scribbler !" Pope. 123 Pope's Preface to tlie authentic edition of his Letters, the words " I did not go to amend them," I omitted the concluding paragraph of the sentence ! ! This was not done from " inadvertence" but from an entire con- viction, as the reader will perceive, that the part omitted was absolutely and totally irrelevant to the point in dis- cussion ! The point in discussion was respecting " amendments" for I had proved that the letters were carefully amended, both in slight expressions, and some even re-manufactured! But after Pope had said lie would not go about to " amend them," what does he add, " except by omissions" &c. ! The question was not about omissions, but " amend- " ments," deliberate corrections, substitutions chiefly,- the omissions were a minor consideration. Had Pope said, " he would not go about to amend them," except by altering some expressions, or adding such AMEND- MENTS, as a careful perusal suggested; had he said this, or any thing like it, I would not have omitted one sylla- ble, for ten thousand times the sum the publisher of the Quarterly ever got by all his poets, critics, and Quarterly Review into the bargain ! ! I omitted the words, because they had not the slightest reference to " amendments;" and I must again turn here to my glib adversary, and tell him, he has insidiously omitted to state what I now tell him, and what must be obvious to every one who reads the sentence ! I tell him, also; from this very passage, first, That Pope did "go about to amend them" (the letters), when he said he did not ! and that, even with respect to omissions, lie did not speak truth ; for, secondly, The greatest part of what he " omitted" in his letters was not on account of their being improper, or, at least, immaterial " to the *' public," but on account, as we have seen, of their WANT OF DECENCY! !* On the subject of Pope's privity to the publication of his letters, our Reviewer tells us, " Our THEORY is, that " if Pope wished to have his letters published, he could " not have had so good an opportunity as when the " letters to Cromwell, &c, were published ! !" To which I answer, " OUR theory" is, that YOUR THEORY is a very silly one ; for had he done this, we should not have had some of his most interesting, and, I will add, his most affecting, letters ! And " OUR THEORY," moreover, is that the whole business is " FUDGE and HUMBUG" from the beginning to the end ! And " OUR THEORY" is, further that the letter, signed P. T. published in my seventh volume, was written by A. P. which is, Alexander Pope, esq ; and that the mysterious R. S. his companion, who quarrelled with P. T. was A. P. again, the quarrel be- tween these being invented by A. P., to shew how he came possessed of the whole correspondence of Curll ! And this is " OUR THEORY," notwithstanding Mr. Roscoe may, perhaps, think that the letter in my seventh volume, signed P. T. was written by W. L. B. and "substituted ! !" The reader need only read attentively the two letters, one of which I published in the seventh volume, signed P. T., and the other letter, since printed in my " Final *' Appeal," signed R. S., to be convinced that both were written by Pope himself! Pope might well offer a reward, by advertisement, for the discovery of those thieves, whom nobody could discover but himself ! * Roscoe omitted, insidiously, the very words on which my defence rests. This is " our tfaory ;" and " our theory" is, further, that the " advertisement" of A. P. was as great a fudge as the whole history ! that the " Narrative" which Pope Withdrew, (a precious " explanatory document,") was withdrawn because it would not bear the light, and " proved a fraud and falsehood" in its front ! And " OUR THEORY" is, that " IF the letters were " stolen" (this sentence is the Reviewer's, not mine! nor is it my " IF,") " IF the letters were stolen," it being a felony, any active police officer might soon have found out those lurking and Latitat sharks, P. T. and R. S. and A. P. together, and brought them to justice ; arid I would bet more than I shall ever get by my writing, that " IF" this important "explanatory document' 2 which I am now writing " were stolen," out of my study, the constable at Calne would find out the thief in two days, provided I was in earnest! And " OUR THEORY" is, finally, that no two persona in the kingdom could be " humbugged" by this history, except one Member of the Delia Crusca Society of Florence, and his advocate, Counsellor Botherum, of the Quarterly Review, WHOEVER HE MAY BE ! And with this, " OUR THEORY," I shall conclude what I intended saying much more at large ! But let us not forget a little bit of cross-examination ! You say, Mr. Botherum, "from this it is obvious" that Curlts copy, " IF STOLEN !" (Hear, hear ! stay, stay, (as poor old Baron Thomson used to say,) " stay, stay,")" IF stolen !" Then after all, Mr. Botherum, you have some doubt? Not at all ! Not at all? That is singular, when you say, "IF " stolen!" having before concluded they were stolen! L or 9 120 "If," with us means always a direct belief! par- ticularly IF it is said that we do not believe ! (Hear$ hear stay, stay silence, silence !) By the Court : Whatever may be your opinion of the import of the monosyllable " IF," Brother Botherum, every man of common sense, I believe, will think otherwise. Let us ask you another question. You say, that Alexander Pope could not deny the WHOLE of Edmund Cuiil's publication ! Do you know Edmund Curll ? By report. Was he ever in the pillory ? Yes. For what crime? For OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS! Did you ever read a certain Imitation of Horace, by Alexander Pope? Yes. Could any publication of Curll's be more profligate and obscene than this? (Hear hear! BotJierum is silent!) Was Alexander Pope ever in pillory? (Hear, hear stay, stay silence!) No ! ! He was a very virtuous poet! He was a censor of bad morals? Yes! Washer^? Yes! Was Curll rich? No! By the Court : Then Pope had less excuse and temp- tation, and was the greater hypocrite ! WTiat was this moral and rich poet's opinion of Curll? That he was a profligate scoundrel, particularly with regard to procuring clandestine copies of letters ! And yet Alexander Pope could not disavow the WHOLE of his publications. You may sit down. {Exit poor R0scoe t who had been listening with his "drafts^ 127 As I am told that I " collected all my might* to hang Mr. Roscoe on a " dilemma," from which his advocate has not " got him off" I will collect my might for another dilemma! on one horn of which to hang the Member of the Delia Crusca Society, and on the other Coun- sellor Botherum ! ! And my dilemma is this:- If Pope's letters, to several ladies and gentlemen, were all, as Botherum thinks, artless, unstudied effusions, (ag the writer declares himself!) then what becomes of Roscoe's "drafts!!" On the other hand, if these letters were transcribed, carefully, with emendations, corrections, and "omissions" from drafts, then what becomes of Bo- therum's specimens of " unaffected penmanship," all poured out under the feelings of the moment ! And here I hang both these sages, like the " swan with tivo " necks" or rather the split-crow, for a sign in Albemarle- street, London ! I have a better opinion of Mr. Murray, then to suppose that, after consideration, he would not regret that in any work, which bears his name as publisher, such a monu- ment of twaddling stultification should be pointed at, and stand, moreover, like that other monument sung by Pope, which, " Like a TALL BULLY, lifts its head, and LIES!" I now proceed to that which is more important to myself ! ON MY "INSINUATIONS" AGAINST POPE'S MORAL CHARACTER, WITH RESPECT TO HIS FEMALE CONNECTIONS. I have little doubt but that it will be acknowledged, by those who have attentively read the foregoing, that the missiles aimed at my head have been returned, and broken, with scorn, before the faces of my impotent assailants ; but a more deadly blow, by the " collected "migM" of elaborate insinuation, and livid malicious- ness, is directed to my heart ! " .___ Certandum est de vita et sanguine !" Virgil On their heads, then, let the condemnation fall, if, being thus insidiously traduced and pointed to as the scape-goat of Pope's impurities, the blow aimed at my heart recoils with double force against that " calumniated " worth," which their own fruitless and palsied pertina- city will wound far more than I have done, or ever sought to do. The irritated scorpion stings itself ! Let me first observe, that this sneaking scribe could not possibly have done me a greater service, than by setting before me Warburton's happy quotation from old " honest Valerian !" I might reply to almost all his exaggerated and dishonest charges in the same lan- guage, MENTIRIS, IMPUDENTISSIME ! ! " Mr. Bowles in particular" has sought after the dregs of impurity ! MENTIRIS, IMPUDENTISSIME ! How far I deserve this charge the reader has already seen. I shall here only add, that with the exception of the stupid " Three Weeks after Marriage," which was admitted solely in consequence of my being ren- dered incapable (from illness at the time) of examining it not one composition has been admitted into my edition calculated to injure Pope's fame !* Without the " Double Mistress," the Memoirs of Martin would have been incomplete ; and with respect to any injury to morals, dirty as it is, it is far more witty than the Imi- tation, of which so much has been said; nor is it so pernicious, by ten thousand times ten thousand, as one Epistle of Eloisa ! The obscene Imitation of Horace has already been spoken of. I bore the blame with Warton for admitting it ! I answered, I rejected it with scorn ; nay, I wrote to Mr. Davies, the bookseller, with whom I corresponded, to say, that nothing should induce me to have any con- cern with a work in which it should appear ! ! Now, mark the proof of the manly, liberal, and gen- tlemanly candour of such opponents ! I am condemned, with Warton, for doing that which I should disdain myself for doing; and when I say, as I do now, mentiris, impudentissime ! the hypocrite replies, Aye, now you take " A MERIT" to yourself in not doing it ! ! * I said, in my " Appeal," that no poem was admitted into my edi- tion more objectionable than what Pope admitted himself; but, in fact nothing half so objectionable is admitted^ K 2 130 So, were I accused of robbery and murder, and in answer to such an accusation, should I say, disdainfully, mentiris, impudentissime ! the answer would be, " True, " you have not committed robbery or murder, but you " might as well have done it, for now you assume " A MERIT in not doing so !" Was there ever such impudent stultification? But this liberal and amiable scribbler pretends that I had no right to impute such a flagitious insult to all decency, religion, and morals, as this Imitation, to the great moral poet, Pope ! I said, "it was never denied!" It is shouted triumphantly, " as if Pope denied a hun- ec dredth part" (I forget the exact words) of the ribal- dry imputed to him ! Come, I can set this to rights very shortly ! You, Scriblerus, affect not to know who the author was, though Roscoe " swallows" the obscenity, delighted only with the " wit" of this specimen of purity and morals ! Pray, Sir, what do you think of the authority of Pope's " GUIDE, PHILOSOPHER, and FRIEND," Bolingbroke ! Do you think HE KNEW ? To put it, then, beyond a doubt of future hypocritical defenders of " calumniated worth/' I transcribe this passage from a letter of Bolingbroke, written not long after this " SOBER ADVICE" this " sermon," as the author impiously calls it was published ! ! Bolingbroke, his "philosopher and guide," thus writes to Swift, in a letter, dated 1734, " It is im- " possible to talk so much of ' PHILOSOPHY/ and forget " to speak of Pope," &c. " The * D^MON of Verse/ (Daemon of Verse, in- " deed !) The Daemon of Verse' sticks to him I He 131 " has been imitating the Satire of Horace, which begins " Ambubaiarum collegia Pharmacopeias !'" Botingbroke to Swift. And this poem mark, Scriblerus is called " Sober " ADVICE from Horace, from his second SERMON ! !" What says this " Philosopher" further! " He (Pope) "has chosen rather to weaken the IMAGES, than hurt "CHASTE EARS OVERMUCH!!" What Bolingbroke's ideas of hurting " chaste ears " overmuch" might be, I do not enquire. It will be enough for me now to have PROVED by whom this infa- mous piece of profligacy was written and published. I could always have proved, that this " Sermon" was pub- lished by Pope ! But, in my Life of Pope, I made not so much as one observation even on its existence ; and in the notes I only slightly mentioned the supposition, without seeking to bring it home to him irrefragably ! and yet " my memory," like " a sieve," retains every thing against Pope, and nothing for him ! W r ith " honest Valerian's" permission, T repeat again MENTIRIS, IMPUDENTISSIME ! And I shall add, that so little do I deserve the character so infamously attributed tome, I have "remembered," and never omitted to speak of, in every place where the " remembrance" could be with propriety introduced, throughout the whole edition, Pope's most exemplary and dutiful affec- tion to his aged mother his undeviating tenderness of heart and fidelity to his friends ! As to retaining in my partial remembrance every particle that could be collected against him, I say, I did not " remember" I did not cfwose to remember one fiftieth part of the meannesses^ the instances of duplicity, vindictiveness, and hypocrisy, which I could have proved against him ! If I did not specify his kindness to Savage, I spoke willingly of his general benevolence; but I omitted, purposely, to speak of his cold neglect of Jortin, who was employed on the notes to Homer, of his engaging with Broome in the Odyssey, and holding him up to ridicule in the Bathos, of his speaking with regret of having published the satire on Addison in the Miscel- lanies, and publishing it again where it would remain for ver ! Meannesses without number I have avoided to record, and such are the thanks I have received ; I there- fore repeat again, mentiris, impudentissime f The lines on " leaving London" were retained, be- cause, some stanzas excepted, it was a beautiful compo- sition. I spoke of this before ; but I did not say, that, in leaving out what was objectionable, I took care not to say a syllable even of the existence of indecencies. ,1 expunged the most offensive passages, and retained the rest : the stanzas on Gay and Halifax were beau- tiful, particularly that on Halifax, whom he satirized at the same time ! Therefore again, mentiris, impudentissime! There is only one composition among the poems admitted, that might be objected to, the ballad to the " fair ladies," Lepell and Belleriden ! It was re- tained, as being an elegant and characteristic trifle : there is one, and only one expression- hand castis auribus dignum ! Of this I was utterly unconscious at the time, Bnd I believe it may be read, innocently, by half the world among mankind, and by all the world among women, except some " very curious ladies," instructed by such a man, if there ever was or will be such again, as Pope ! ! 133 There is no poem, with eVen an objectionable expres- sion, admitted, beside these, in my edition; and not one pernicious to morals, as many are which are given in every edition. The lines on Lady Mary are as affect- ing and pathetic as any lines Pope ever wrote,; the " FRAGMENT OF THE SATIRE," of most curious interest ; and Gay's " WELCOME FROM GREECE," most exquisite ! Now, who must not feel the manliest disdain for those who make such a clutter about one poet's being made decent for company, who took no care to make himself so ! ! Before I proceed, I must earnestly beg the reader to make a distinction between what, in my Life of Pope,, I did say, and what, having been insulted, and traduced f and goaded) I now feel compelled to say. When I wrote the Life of Pope, I considered . s his character entrusted to me; and though truth obliged me not to conceal his manifest faults, visible through all his publis/ied writings, yet I thought it equally my duty, instead of exaggerating them, to seek on every side for grounds of extenuation ! To prove this, with respect to his indecencies in correspondence with ladies, I attributed the cause to the . manners of the age in which he lived, so remote from the delicacy of the present. When I found an obscene copy of verses in a post- script to a letter, addressed to the lovely Teresa Blount, I expressly said, " I was willing to believe this post- " script was not sent to the young lady ; but kept for . " the * secretiora consilia' " (Life of Pope) of that libertine, old Beau Cromwell, Pope's early confidant and associate ! Having spoken of his defects, I pleaded, in excuse, his imperfect education, his helpless infancy, 134 his idolised youth, and his life, a long disease ! But the case is widely different, when now Pope is to stand clear, and pollution is boldly and lyingly attributed to the "filth of my fancy I" As obscenity could not be entirely denied, let us here pause a moment to remark how this canting Sophister, by inverting his moral tube, can turn mole- hills into mountains on one side, and mountains into mole-hills on the other ! How he can turn against me " a mixture of gallantry, friendship, and licen-* " tiousness," a connection " not so pure and innocent as " Iluffltmd imagined" a connection, at an age in which there WAS " NO GREAT DANGER OF A FALSE STEP," into "a LIFE of SYSTEMATICAL LICENTIOUSNESS," while a thousand indecencies to ladies, from youth to age, while the most licentious poem that ever insulted mora^ lity and decency, by a man calling himself an ethic poet, published when he was between forty and fifty years old, are turned " into a FEW loose THINGS," which young Master Pope, after the example of the wits of Charles II., being of very " precocious talents, SOME- " TIMES LET FALL I" " Pope himself has truly said," (quoth this able and amiable defender,) " a few loose things sometimes fell from " men of wit, by which censorious fools judge as ill of " them as they possibly can, for their own comfort!" What comfort "onyfooF can have, in "judging ill" of these things, I know not ; but I know, every man of virtue, or of sense, must judge " ill of them ;" and if fools judge ill of them, also, they are not suchfooh, as, for their comfort, other " censorious fools" would try to make them appear ! 135 " To be sure," as the Reviewer ingenuously confesses, " some of the moral poet's writings are licentious !" ("a FEW LOOSE THINGS" did some how or other " SOMETIMES FALL from him ! v ) " It is the misfortune," so waileth the moral critic, over the infirmities of our nature, ("Ah! sinful man, " Ah ! sinful man, do all he can !") " It is the misfortune of precocious talent to be urged " into action during the ebullition of youthful passions, " and Pope's youth was passed in an age which was not " refined from the vices of Charles II.'s court !" Good lack ! but Addison lived nearer these licentious times, and where is there a stain in all his writings; and Cowley nearer still, whose warmest descriptions, on such a subject as " the Mistress," contain no licentiousness like that which, " sometimes" the great wit and moral castigator of the age " let fall" for the comfort of " censorious fools ! "* And Waller, the celebrator of the most beautiful and accomplished females of the age, is equally remote from such grossness, though much nearer the times of the "second CharlesT' Nor did Swift, gross as he was, ever write obscenity to the woman he loved, or any woman ! ! As for the " ebullition of youthful passions," one " ebullition of youthful passion" was published, as I have said before, when the author was between forty and fifty years of age ; and the Double Mistress, which I, "in "particular," have been so wicked as to rake up from * Cowley lived seven years after Charles II, was restored, when the kingdom was drunk with dissipation. 136 oblivion, was published in the year 1740, either by Pope or Warburton, five years before this "precocious youth's" death ! ! Mr. Bowles thinks, at all events, he has done this "precocious" moralist no wrong. Mr. Bowles is con- scious of no disingenuous arts ; but if he was, he should yield the palm to such a defender of "precocious" licentiousness ! I now come to my uncharitable " insinuations" respect- ing Pope's conduct to the Misses Blount, &c. I Speaking of Pope's letters to the two sisters, it is sighingly said, "EVEN MR. BOWLES will hardly sug- ** gest the depravity of two sisters carrying on an intrigue " with the same man, at the same time ! !" This is exactly a la rape! When did Mr. Bowles suggest any thing about the " depravity of two sisters ft carrying on an intrigue with one man at the same " time ! !*' Certainly, " even Mr. Bowles will not ** suggest" this, though the "foul fancy" of this insulter of common sense and decency seems ready enough to suggest it for him ! Mr. Bowles will not " suggest" any thing about two sisters carrying on an intrigue ,- but Mr. Bowles will do more than " suggest (being thus insulted and defied) he will assert that " one man,'* at " the same time," wrote such indecencies to two sisters, as no one man, in the most depraved period of history, in the court of Charles, 137 would have written to a professed and abandoned pros- titute ! Mr. Bowles does not " suggest" this ; but, insulted and defied, affirms it boldly and fearlessly; and he does not hesitate to say, that any " one man" in the whole world, capable of such contamination of young and unsuspecting females, in a family where he was admitted as an honourable inmate, ought to be shunned as a pest ! This is what Mr. Bowles does not " insinuate," but assert fearlessly ; and he, moreover, thinks he does that one man, capable of thus acting to two sisters at once, no injustice, if he might " almost suspect him of a little " gallantry*' to any young female, of any family into which he is admitted: particularly as in the case of Elizabeth Digby, whom he says, he " had almost robbed ** of her good name !" Further, Mr. Bowles thinks that any " one man" in the world, capable of writing inde- cently to two sisters, at one and the same time, may be *' almost suspected of a little gallantry," without much injury, even if the brother was ill! But it happens, in this case, the brother was alive and well ! It was THREE YEARS afterwards, the sister wrote to Pope on his illness 1 The " foul fancies" of such Reviewers turn " gal- w lantry" into sensuality ; and this is followed up by a liberal comment, founded on a DARING falsehood!* And now let us observe on the Reviewer's colourings of this " one man's" professing love to " two sisters" at once ! A prettier piece of Jesuistical sophistry than the following, I think was never seen : *' In such an inter- * As if, when I "almost suspected the bard of a little gallantry,"- it was at the time when the brother was dying ! How villanous .' 138 " course," (professing love for two sisters at once, and writing obscenity to both, which can be proved, and, there- fore, is no " insinuation,"} " it is reasonable to suppose" (very reasonable !) " that his affection for one or the other " sister would preponderate, as either for a time might "seem less engaged by otJier ties, or more attached, or " more congenial, to him !" So argues this licentious driveller. I should like, though no craniologist, to analyze the pericranium of him who could pen this delicious piece of chicanery. Let us try to analyse it a little ! Here is a man of morals, caressed in the bosom of an interesting and amiable and unsuspecting family, writing amorously, and sometimes most obscenely, to two " hand- " some" and " amiable" young ladies ! (writing " ob- " scenelyf I should hope without the " sanction" of "brotlier" or "mother!") This intimacy, which, we are told, was " sanctioned" by the approbation of mother and brother, (quere, whether the obscenities were sanc- tioned ?) was of the " most interesting and affectionate " kind!" that is, that loving one, he should veer about to the other, and then to the first again, and then to the other, like the weather-cock on Madam Blount's house ! Teresa was his first love, and to her Pope wrote his verses on a " young lady leaving town," with a conclu- sion too infamous for publication ! and such language to a " handsome, amiable, arid accomplished young woman," we are to suppose had the mother's approbation!* This amiable and handsome young lady was not to * "Fon! cries Madam Teresa!" says Pope, in one of his letters to Martha; and "FOH!" might the indignant reader reply to such despi- cable casuistry \ 139 be caught with chaff! .It appears from many passages that site Itad been offtuded. I will not " conjecture" the cause, as " proof" " proof" would be demanded ; but there is proof enough she " was offended," and I am sure she had reason ! Now this affectionate intercourse between Martba and Teresa runs in an united stream ; now it diverges entirely to Martha, because one James Moore, Teresa's Alexis, " cut him out," as they say, in Somersetshire, and Martha was more complacent! Thus, indeed, " it is reasonable to suppose," as these sapient sages, Roscoe and Co., conjecture, " that his "affection for one or the otfier sister" (such affection, I believe, was never heard of) "would preponderate, as " either, for a time, might seem" (I like that " seemT) " less engaged by other ties ! or more attached, or more " congenial, to him !" Was ever such worse than foolery heard of before, and this in front of the Quarterly Review ! I shall make no further comment on the nature of so Jesuistical a colouring of this " affectionate intercourse," which had the approbation of mamma, according to this doltish hypocrite ! But I shall take leave to add another "if!" " If" mamma had any regard for her daughter's happiness or morals, " if" mamma, good old lady, had read some of the notes or verses, which are " not in the "British Museum /" "if" mamma had the high and noble feelings of an English religious matron, she would not have trusted this "affectionate" young gen- tleman with her "handsome and amiable" daughters for the world ! But I rather think there was no mother in the way, as Pope speaks of Teresa going into the 140 country to " old-fashioned aunts /" After tlie battle of Preston Pans, the brother was in exile, on account of his politics ! ! Now, Sir, I leave your artful Jesuistical colouring to the comment of every mother, whose honest simplicity may have been imposed upon by an obscene hypocrite ! I hope you will think I have spoken plainly now; and I think, on a review of this man's life, and comments on his character, I was only too candid, instead of desert ing to be arraigned for want of candour ! Let any man, with the heart of a man* look at the countenance of Teresa Blount, in the 7th volume of my edition, and then think of him who could offer a word of contamination to such loveliness ! I THREE NOTES are especially selected, with tlie amiable purpose of exciting an impression against me, that whatever obscenity or licentious feelings might be imputed to Pope, such imputations had their rise in my imagination, rather than in any thing which could be adduced to justify them ! The three notes selected, I have no doubt with some care and delighted feelings, are, first, that, having said, " it has been observed,'* that a note from Teresa and Martha Blount " was short " but much to the purpose 1" it is triumphantly asked, by whom was it ever "observed" except myself? That I intended to convey an idea of a criminal correspon- dence between the ladies and the bard, when I said "it lias been observed that the note was short, but *' to the purpose," which note conveys a declaration, " on the part of the ladies, that they would retire with " him, in case of company, to any other room," I ex- plicitly deny ! At nearly twenty years distance I can- 141 not exactly say wlio made the observation ; but I can say the observation implies nothing " to the purpose" to which the active imagination of the Reviewer would wrest it, and would be unworthy notice, but for this " insinuation!" Had the observation been my own, I should not hesi- tate to avow it; and had the observation been made with the intention of exciting a particular impression, I should have published an answer to a short note from the same ladies, " NOT IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM/' but which is extant, which many have seen besides me, and which would shew at least, the feelings of one of the parties!* This one note, therefore, I must leave to the reader's candour ! I have spoken of the note on Eliza- beth Digby. The third regards " a very curious lady /" " A very curious" lady is spoken of by Pope, as wishing to ask Swift some particular questions, relative to some- thing in a late publication by him ! I thought as the fifth volume of Miscellanies just before this time came out at Dublin, which contained the Lady's Dressing- Room, &c. that " this VERY CURIOUS LADY, might u have wished to ask some questions about these parti- " cular poems !" This " is the Jilth of my own fancy* lam told!! My answer will be " to the purpose" I hope ! My answer is this: first, I should not have thought it of any " lady in the whok word" except of one domesti- cating with this pure bard, and fully instructed by him, and whom he calls "VERY CURIOUS ! !" The "filth of my own fancy!" These are hard words applied to " a resident clergyman," to a writer of * I shall speak more particularly of this note at the end. sermons, and in the disdainful phraseology of a " liberal" critic a writer, also, of "sentimental sonnets !" These are somewhat hard 'words to be applied, before the public, to any gentleman of respectability; and particularly to one, who, as an author, through a long period, from youth to (I hope I may add, not unhonoured) age, never wrote one word in prose or verse, which " dying, he " would wish to blot!" These are, indeed, hard words, when it is further considered, as I hope it will be by the virtuous, impartial, and just, and charitable, that they are attempted to be flung in my face, in defence of one, who, by the writer's own shewing, felt a coward's qualm when death stared him in the face, and not before, for the talents he had so often employed in scattering impurities, and exciting voluptuous and de- praved passions till the last days of his life ! But, I trust, the spirit which directed this foul blow will be appreciated as it deserves ! In defence of myself, for having admitted this appa- rently uncharitable comment on the " curious lady," I shall say now, as I thought then, that the comment was deserved! When it was written, I was much younger ; it was written from the conviction of its justice. Whether on a revisal I should now retain it, I do not say. But I will say, that I am as much convinced of its justice now, as I was when I wrote it ! But Scriblerus, and his foiled junto, will triumphantly retort, that no mind, except a mind so prejudiced as mine against Pope, would have entertained a thought so derogatory of female purity, and of the female purity " in particular" of such " a very curious lady" as do- mesticated with so very pure a bard ! us Do not be too hasty ! Whatever " filth" may pecu- liarly belong to " my fancy," I may at least have some to bear me company, as I had the solamen miseris of companionship in folly with Dr. Johnson. Let the reader reflect on the highest character that now sheds its glory on the living world of literature. Let him reflect not, on here and there a spot of loveli- ness in the creations of poetry, but the exuberance and richness of a thousand beautiful creations, second only to those illumined by the magic touch of Shakespeare. Let him think of the forms of female character, as lovely, and yet as separately distinguished, as Ophelia, Desdemona, Imogen, and Miranda ! Let him reflect on the following lines, so truly affecting, lines which shew, indeed, the human heart in its purest and tenderest character. Let him think of a father ; let him think of a child, whose lucid soul no stain of human impurity ever sullied ! Let him repeat, " Oh ! if there be a human tear, " From passion's dregs refined and clear ; " A tear so limpid and so meek, " It would not stain an ANGEL'S CHEEK, " 'Tis that, which pious fathers shed " Upon a duteous daughter's head! !" When the reader has reflected on this affecting picture, let him reflect on whom " the filth of fancy," if I deserve such distinction for my comment on the " very " curious Lady" may also be thrown ! on SIR WALTER SCOTT ! ! Yes, Sir Walter Scott ! Sir Walter Scott, no doubt from deliberate conviction of its probable truth, has admitted, into his notes on Swift, not only the opinion of Pope's artful fabrication of his letter-scheme, but this 144 VERY NOTE, this identical comment, on tliis " very curious " Lady," in Bowles's own words, on which the critic has thought, with " collected might," to fling the filth of his own foul fancy on Bowles alone ! Bowles, therefore, does not think this "filth" will stick long on him, however delighted the pettyfogging mind must be, that gratified its malignity by flinging it, when Bowles shares the " filth" of such obloquy in common with a Critic, the most intelligent, and judicious, and candid, of the age ; with a Poet, of the most rich and exquisite fancy; with a Gentleman, of the most engaging manners and morals ; and with a Man, of the purest and most virtuous heart ! In the buoyancy of life and spirits, a young man of genius in the cockney jargon of Scriblerus, of "pre- ** cocity" of talents may, without pleading the example of the reign of Charles II., have described, too far, " The thoughts that breathe, " In words that burn;" But who would remember this with too harsh censure, (however we might lament the effects,) when a life of conjugal and parental tenderness succeeds of which we have one living example ? Let any one read what Mr. Moore has said on this subject, in his Life of Sheridan; and if he visit a young and unguarded poet with harsh censure, and unfeeling asperity, why, then, he must have far LESS candour than Bowles ! I am no censor, no hypocrite, no severe judge of the errors of early life, no inspector, or puritanical inqui- sitor, of consciences; but I declare on being thus pressed, 145 and scrutinized, and insulted that, with every allowance for human frailty, it is my firm conviction that the ex- ample of him, whose " calumniated worth" a hopeless attempt has been made to bolster up, in one respect, stands alone, isolated, anomalous, and sui generis, in the history of the corruption and depravities of the human heart ; for I do not believe, however the best may acknowledge infirmities, indiscretions, or offences, that there ever existed any other person in the world so depraved and polluted, as, in cold blood, to address rank obscenities to a woman, the object of his professed affection and respect, and to two sisters " at the same "time!" I have now given a plain answer to the three most insidious and malignant observations in this article. I have only to add, " wait a little, Gentlemen," some few years, and I shall be out of hearing ! You may, such of you as are younger, bespatter and abuse Bowles, then, as much as you please. I shall not be able to answer; but I " bate not a jot of heart," for I firmly believe, when I am no more, some generous manly mind will be found to do me justice ; and that I shall have every amiable and uncorrupted female in the kingdom (who has any knowledge of the subject) on my side, since, whatever feelings in writing this man's life I could not entirely suppress, of which I am not conscious, they arose from the circumstance, that, to young and virtuous women, he only, of all the men in the world, was capable of using language that " took the roie " From the fair forehead of a virtuous love, " And left a blister there ! !" L 2 146 He only, of all created men upon earth, witli cruel and unmanly vindictiveness, could cast aspersions on the fame of the female whom he once adored, leaving an everlasting record of his own shame in the couplet, that is remembered, whenever the name of Mary Wort- ley Montague is mentioned. He only, of all mankind, and he professing loftier morals, was capable of writing obscenity to two uncorruptecl amiable young women at the same time ! And instead of retracting one word of what I said, in the spirit of sincere charity, I think I ought to ask pardon of God and man for not branding the hypocrite as he deserved, as I thus brand his sophis* tical, drivelling, hypocritical, defenders! CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY. I have now, I trust it will be thought, effectually vindicated myself from the charges which have been so often advanced, and as often repelled. My present assailant has taken his position on some new grounds, but I have fairly met him on all. My " cumulative proofs," in his conceited jargon, will not be easily overturned, that Bufo was Halifax, and could be no other, though " Halifax died in 1715 V 9 It will have been observed, that in looking at the portrait of Bufo, as drawn by Pope, and applied to Ha- 147 lifax, every line, and almost every word in every li has been accounted for, as applicable to Halifax, and to him only. But, I verily believe, taking the lines and every single expression from the beginning to the end of the descrip- tion, I could even now double the proofs ! First, "puff"d by every quill." It might be said, that, except Swift and Pope, EVERY contemporary bard offered some praise of some sort. " PuJjTd" because the dedications were not of a common strain, but the most high-flown and fulsome flattery, as may be seen by the specimens we have given ! "Fed with soft dedications all day long," The second line in the Town and Country Mouse is, Fed on soft cheese," &c. As Halifax was called Mouse-M.ontQ.gue on account of this poem, who knows but that Roscoe may one day be called Frog- Roscoe, on account of his poetical criticism ! " And a true Pindar stood without a head," Alluding in particular to that ode of Halifax, on the marriage of the Princess Anne. Addison thus laudeth its irregular or Pindaric numbers, " How negligently graceful he unreins " His verse." " Who first his judgment ask'd, and then & place;" Pope read the first books of his Homer to Halifax. He found fault with some expressions ; Pope mentioned it to Garth : " Tell him," says Garth, " you have altered " the lines according to his suggestion !" The lines were not altered; but again shewn to Halifax, as if they had been altered, when he expressed himself 148 delighted with the improvement? there cannot be a stronger proof of his desire to have his "judgment asked*" and afterwards he absolutely wrote to Pope, to say he intended to give him "a place!" See Pope's letter to him, and Johnson's observations on the subject. "Dry rehearsal!" The speakers in the Two Mice are those in " the Rehearsal" Bayes, Johnson, and Smith ; and it is written in the same style ! " DRY " REHEARSAL !" because a copy of this " REHEARSAL" was given, unaccompanied by other good things ! This circumstance alone is enough to fix the character. " Paid in kind!" with his own verses ! The two Mice, This dialogue, in the manner of the " Rehearsal," with the very same persons, was written conjointly by Halifax and Prior!* " Help'd to starve!" This could not be said of any one in the age except Halifax. Halifax's patronage was, as we have seen, of the most extensive description, but it was not merely denied to Dryden. In his own poems Lord Halifax expressly excludes Dryden, from the task and office of celebrating a great public event, among all the poets, because " he Jiad no heart !" This portrait of Bufo was drawn by Pope, probably, at that period, when, publicly and privately, he felt the greatest mortification. When the quarrel with Ad- dison, Montague's particular friend, was exasperated; when Halifax was " full-blown," by being installed Knight of the Order of the Garter, and when Wind- sor became, according to this loyal bard's description, * I never read the City and Country Mouse, till it was procured for me by Mr. Upham, of Bath, the most courtepus of Bibliopoli, and one of the most excellent of men. 149 the " sink and coUuvies of human greatness" by the resi- dence of George I. in the year when Halifax died, 1715 ! Perhaps Roscoe might exult in saying he never asserted, totidem verbis, that Bufo was " alive when this " satire was published," but " living in Pope's riper "age !" So Curll said, he was never tossed in a blan- ket, but in a rug ! However, it is quite enough for me, that he has so " well observed" (to which " observation" Doodle so blithely responds) that " Bufo was living in " Pope's riper age," when Pope had been " be-rhym'd "so long!!" This must have been when this satire was published ! * " At rehearsals sweat /" We have better authority than that of Mrs. Porter, the actress, that the lines in the Prologue to the Satires,-]- " at rehearsals sweat," alluded to Addison, for Pope himself, in a letter to Trumbull, says, when Cato \vas acted, 1713, Addison " sweated:' behind the scenes ! That Tim on was intended for Chandos, I believe there is not, and never will be among sensible men, a doubt : but it was not necessary to go into the examina- tion minutely as upon this point. Mr. Roscoe might as well assert for he has brought no proofs that the squint-eyed gentleman with the cap of liberty, in Ho- garth's caricature, was not intended for Johnny Wilkes, as that TIMON was not intended for CHANDOS ! * He was now not more than forty-five or forty-six at farthest. f Pope spoke with respect of Blackmore in 1714; but it does uot follpw that he did not satirize him with Phillips, placing the simple and fustian poet together in this prologue. He had written three epic poems, before the death of Halifax* 150 The musical establishment at the chapel, where Handel presided, the arable land turned into parterres, and many other minute circumstances, could be applied only to Chandos, and to no other nobleman living in the same style of ostentatious hospitality ! Pope says himself on another occasion, " he did not <{ lie,, but equivocated pretty genteelly /" and " pretty " genteelly" did he equivocate about this circumstance. Nevertheless, in the face of all these " genteel equivoca- " tions" Warburton, his confidential editor, with the utmost naivete, assures us, in a note on " Timon's Villa," * 6 if the poet had lived three years longer, he would have "seen what he had prophesied exactly come to pass!" To explain this, I must refer to Pope's works. Speaking of the arable land, at Timon's villa, having been turned into " parterres," he says, (the description, in its poetical dress, being turned into plain prose,} "after a few years, the parterres shall be turned into corn lands again !"- " Deep harvests bury all his pride had plann'd, " And LAUGHING CERES re-assume the land !" And lo ! Warburton, like the "unfortunate Archdeacon," wrapt in the contemplation that his friend's prophecy literally took place, cries out " Aye, just so it happened, " three years after, at Cannons," the " parterres" were turned into arable again, thus betraying his friend, as completely as the hobgoblin Archdeacon betrayed himself! ! So I will say of Timon, though a very few persons, not much conversant with Pope's character and works, may be persuaded, as long as Roscoe's edition is in the 151 market, that Pope, innocent satirist, never contemplated in Timon's villa, or in Timon, Cannons and Chandos, a very few years will undeceive them ; another editor, as well informed as Sir Walter Scott, &c. will set all to rights again ! Such stuff sliall vanish in another age, And "LAUGHING CHANDOS RE- ASSUME THE PAGE!" Respecting the clandestine publication of Pope's letters, with Pope's privity, not one argument in my " Final Appeal" has been met. Not one argument has been advanced to disprove the fact, except Roscoe's " drafts " may be called arguments, which are too absurd for the Reviewer to defend ! This question, also, after what has been said, may be left to the plain understanding of all readers, except very " indolent?' ones indeed ! The poetical question is no longer disputed.* As to the moral character, the wonder with me is, that those who thus vainly labour to white-wash the inherent stains of his mind, do not describe Pope in person as " a mar-