REVIEW*

OF

"AN ESSAY

"On the WRITINGS and GENIUS of POPE."

T

HIS is a very curious and entertaining mifcellany of critical remarks and literary history. Though the book promifes nothing but obfervations on the writings of Pope, yet no opportunity is neglected of introducing the character of any other writer, or the mention of any performance or event in which learning is interested. From Pope, however, he always takes his hint, and to Pope he returns again from his digreffions. The facts which he mentions, though they are feldom anecdotes in a rigorous fenfe, are often fuch as are very little known, and such as will delight more readers than naked criticism.

As he examines the works of this great poet in an order nearly chronological, he neceffarily begins with his paftorals, which confidered as reprefentations of any kind of life, he very juftly cenfures; for there is in them a mixture of Grecian and English, of ancient and modern, images. Windfor is coupled with Hybla, and Thames with Pactolus. He then compares

* From the Literary Magazine, 1756.

fome

fome paffages which Pope has imitated or tranflated with the imitation or verfion, and gives the preference to the originals, perhaps not always upon convincing arguments.

Theocritus makes his lover wish to be a bee, that he might creep among the leaves that form the chaplet of his miftrefs. Pope's enamoured fwain longs to be made the captive bird that fings in his fair one's bower, that he might liften to his fongs, and reward them with her kiffes. The critick prefers the image of Theocritus as more wild, more delicate, and more uncommon.

It is natural for a lover to wish that he might be any thing that could come near to his lady. But we more naturally defire to be that which the fondles and careffes, than that which fhe would avoid, at least would neglect. The fuperior delicacy of Theocritus I cannot discover, nor can indeed find, that either in the one or the other image there is any want of delicacy. Which of the two images was lefs common in the time of the poet who used it, for on that confideration the merit of novelty depends, I think it is now out of any critick's power to decide.

He remarks, I am afraid with too much justice, that there is not a fingle new thought in the pastorals; and with equal reafon declares, that their chief beauty confifts in their correct and musical verfification, which has fo influenced the English ear, as to render every moderate rhymer harmonious.

In his examination of the Meffiah, he juftly obferves fome deviations from the infpired author, which weaken the imagery, and difpirit the expreffion.

On

On Windfor-foreft, he declares, I think without proof, that defcriptive poetry was by no means the excellence of Pope; he draws this inference from the few images introduced in this poem, which would not equally belong to any other place. He muft inquire whether Windsor-forest has in reality any thing peculiar.

The Stag-chafe is not, he says, fo full, fo animated, and fo circumftantiated as Somerville's. Barely to fay, that one performance is not fo good as another, is to criticise with little exactnefs. But Pope has directed that we should in every work regard the author's end. The Stag-chafe is the main subject of Somerville, and might therefore be properly dilated into all its circumftances; in Pope it is only incidental, and was to be dispatched in a few lines.

He makes a juft obfervation, "that the defcription of the external beauties of nature is ufually the first effect of a young genius, before he hath ftudied nature and paffions. Some of Milton's most early as well as moft exquifite pieces are his Lycidas, l'Allegro, and Il Penferofo, if we may except his ode on the Nativity of CHRIST, which is indeed prior in order of time, and in which a penetrating critick might have obferved the feeds of that boundlefs imagination which was one day to produce the Paradife Loft."

Mentioning Thomson and other defcriptive poets, he remarks, that writers fail in their copies for want of acquaintance with originals, and justly ridicules those who think they can form juft ideas of valleys, mountains, and rivers, in a garret of the Strand. For this reafon I cannot regret with this author, that Pope laid afide his defign of writing American pasto

rals;

rals; for as he must have painted scenes which he never faw, and manners which he never knew, his performance, though it might have been a pleasing amufement of fancy, would have exhibited no representation of nature or of life.

After the paftorals, the critick confiders the lyric poetry of Pope, and dwells longeft on the ode of St. Cecilia's day, which he, like the reft of mankind, places next to that of Dryden, and not much below it. Ile remarks after Mr. Spence, that the first ftanza is a perfect concert. The fecond he thinks a little flat; he jnftly commends the fourth, but without notice of the beft line in that stanza or in the poem:

Transported demi-gods ftood round,

And men grew heroes at the found.

In the latter part of the ode he objects to the stanza of triumph;

Thus fong could reveal, &c.

as written in a meafure ridiculous and burlefque, and juftifies his anfwer by obferving that Addifon ufes the fame numbers in the fcene of Rofamond, between Grideline and Sir Trufty:

How unhappy is he, &c.

That the measure is the fame in both paffages muft be confcffed, and both poets perhaps chose their numbers properly; for they both meant to exprefs a kind of airy hilarity. The two paffions of merriment and exultation are undoubtedly different; they are as different as a gambol and a triumph, but each is a fpecies of joy; and poetical measures have not in any language been fo far refined as to provide for the fubdivifions of paffion. They can only be adapted to general

9

general purposes; but the particular and minuter propriety must be fought only in the fentiment and language. Thus the numbers are the fame in Colin's Complaint, and in the ballad of Darby and Joan, though in one fadnefs is reprefented, and in the other tranquillity; fo the meafure is the fame of Pope's Unfortunate Lady and the Praife of

Voiture.

He obferves very juftly, that the odes both of Dryden and Pope conclude unfuitably and unnaturally with epigram.

He then spends a page upon Mr. Handel's mufic to Dryden's ode, and fpeaks of him with that regard which he has generally obtained among the lovers of found. He finds fomething amifs in the air "With ravifhed ears," but has overlooked or forgotten the groffeft fault in that compofition, which is that in this line:

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries.

He has laid much ftrefs upon the two latter words, which are merely words of connection, and ought in mufic to be confidered as parenthetical.

From this ode is ftruck out a digreffion on the nature of odes, and the comparative excellence of the ancients and moderns. He mentions the chorus which Pope wrote for the duke of Buckingham; and thence takes occafion to treat of the chorus of the ancients. He then comes to another ode of "The dying Chriftian to his Soul," in which finding an apparent imitation of Flatman, he falls into a pleafing and learned fpeculation on the refembling paffages to be found in different poets.

He mentions with great regard Pope's ode on Solitude, written when he was but twelve years old, VOL. II.

E E

but