Pope's Character A LEXANDER POPE, born in 1688, was the greatest poet of his age and one of the greatest versifiers of all ages. "Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure," wrote one of his innumerable enemies, but there seems no reason to doubt that his father was a well-to-do linen-draper. His character was as malformed as his puny body, and when contemplating his detestable pettiness, it is well to act on the charitable advice of Mr. Augustine Birrell and "remember that, during his whole maturity, he could neither dress nor undress himself, go to bed or get up without help, and that on rising he had to be invested with a stiff canvas bodice and tightly laced, and have put on him a fur doublet and numerous stockings to keep off the cold and fill out his shrunken form." His life was a long disease; his lifelong bitterness must be charitably excused. It was a "noble rage" for learning, an insatiable curiosity for exploring human nature which wrecked a feeble health that eighteenth-century medicine could hardly have improved. He was extraordinarily sensitive; he loathed every kind of sport in which some living creature was pursued. His wit was his only weapon and he used it ruthlessly—often treacherously, and never with the bluff, open straightforwardness which causes some of Dryden's strokes to sound like a slap. His mind was a clearing house for all the scandalous gossip, and he was a specialist in the ignoble art of quarrelling. He had no chivalry in his crippled soul-he satirised Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, to whom he made violent love, in the most brutal lines ever written by man against woman. He hated his literary rivals, great or small; he includes Bentley and Defoe among the dunces of his "Dunciad," which too often rises to a shriek. And, as a punishment, the sarcasm of the merest scribbler caused him to writhe in anguish. Indeed, the venomous poet's character and curses at times overtax our charity. Pope had a double power. He could crystallise the plain man's thoughts into memorable verse and he could express thoughts of the subtlest ingenuity. Next to Shakespeare, he is the most often quoted (and misquoted) of English poets. He is easily the most elegant versifier of his age, and there is no question of his right to be regarded as a true poet. Pope, living his sheltered life and not having to struggle for a livelihood, soon made his mark. His "Pastorals" (published 1709) were actually preferred by one critic to Virgil's "Eclogues"! They prove his zeal for "correctness" and something of the genius for taking infinite pains. In 1711 he put forth his "Essay on Criticism" (1709), which, though unequal, is a wonderful achievement for a youth of twenty-one. Here is a famous passage: A little learning is a dangerous thing; "Rape of the Lock" The "Rape of the Lock," complete with its "machinery" of sylphs and gnomes, appeared in 1714, and was acclaimed as a masterpiece of wit. It is in form perfect of its kind, with the brilliancy of a piece of Dresden china and something, it may be, |