LETTER XI. MY DEAR SIR, Bath, Oct. 1, 1824. I FEEL much obliged to you for your letter, which I think may constitute an important part of your defence against Mr. Roscoe. Your arguments, as appears from the statement in your last communication, have certainly not been fairly represented in this controversy by some, if not all, of your opponents. For this reason I perfectly agree with you in the propriety of laying the sentiments contained in your letters to me before the public, and with as much dispatch as may be consistent with the accuracy and fidelity due to the cause in which you are engaged. I am not, however, surprised that you should feel tired of the subject. And as you cannot, perhaps, express your sentiments on the different points of this literary dispute more decidedly or more distinctly than you have already done, I am not at all surprised that you should have resolved to take a final leave of it, after the present publication has made its appearance. Vive et vale! LETTER X. MY DEAR SIR, Oct. 4, 1824. I WAS in hope by this time to have concluded the examination of the material arguments, affecting myself, and those brought forward in defence of Pope. I must confess that I thought Mr. Roscoe's arguments respecting the letters neither calculated to bear discussion nor even plausible; but I was pleased to hear and to find that he had not used any language unbecoming a scholar to a scholar, and a gentleman to a gentleman. When, however, he proceeds to examine my critical premises respecting the principles of poetry, I was indeed grieved that he, also, had omitted "passions," and countenanced the idea, that I had made the subject alone a test of "excellence in poetry!" Having laid down my pen, after the controversy with Lord Byron, I then said, the same palpable mistatements will be urged again, though I have so often repeated the propositions as they stand in my edition of Pope, respecting the loftier" subjects" of poetry; but I did not expect this open misstatement to be repeated by a gentleman of Mr. Roscoe's chaacter, who must have had my edition of Pope before him. He could not surely have read the propositions and distinctions without perceiving the connection. If he had neither seen my answer to Mr. Campbell, nor my vindication against the Quarterly Review, he might have seen, in my edition under his eyes, the sentence which I have so often repeated, and which now again, I fear, I shall repeat in vain. Why does Mr. Roscoe persist in arguing as if I contended that "the excellence of a poet depends "on the nature of the subject on which he treats?" He must know that I never " contended" for any thing of the kind. He must know that I expressly disavowed any thing so absurd. He must have seen, if he read the three first sentences of my propositions together, that I said quite the contrary. These are my words: "I presume it will be readily granted, that all images drawn from what is beautiful and sublime in the works of NATURE are more beautiful and sublime than any images from art, &e. In like manner, those PASSIONS which belong to nature in general are MORE ADAPTED to the HIGHER ORDER of poetry, than incidental and transient MANNERS. "A description of a FOREST" (this regards the first proposition)" is MORE poetical than a description" (presupposing adequate talents) "of a cultivated garden; and the PASSIONS pourtrayed in the Epistle of Eloisa, render such a poem (whatever might be the difference of merit in point of execution*) more poetical than a poem founded on the incidents, characters, and modes of artificial life—for instance, the Rape of the Lock." Such are my three first sentences connected with each other, that portion relating to PASSIONS being the most important. In this quotation I have corrected a trifling verbal oversight, which makes no difference in the substance of the sentiment; and even if there could have been, from unguarded and hasty expressions, any doubt of my meaning, the distinction I made in what followed must have decided the sense. "Let me NOT be considered as asserting that the SUBJECT ALONE constitutes poetical excellency. The EXECUTION is to be taken into consideration at the SAME TIME, otherwise Blackmore would be a greater poet than Pope.' I ask common sense-I ask common honestywhether it is fair that this should be turned, as it has obstinately been, and as even now is " ECHOED” by Mr. Roscoe, into the EXCELLENCE of the poet * That is, between this poem and the Rape of the Lock, though it were granted the Rape of the Lock might even exceed it in perfect finish. G chiefly depends on the nature of the subject? when I said, "it does NOT depend on the subject, but "the subject and treatment TOGETHER!!" To make misrepresentation impossible, I added, "the SUBJECT and EXECUTION are EQUALLY to be "considered. The one respecting the POETRY" and "the other the ART and POWERS of the POET!!" "The poetical subject and the Art and talents "of the poet should be always kept in mind." With "regard to the first, Pope cannot be classed among "the highest order of poets, (that is, with Shakes66 peare and Milton;) with regard to the other, no 66 one was ever his SUPERIOR!!"'* Mr. Roscoe has admitted the justice with which I spoke of Pope's exquisite and impassioned Eloisa: why then talk of "inanimate" objects? or describe me as thinking that "the excellence of the poet chiefly depends ON THE SUBJECT?" No! "On the greatness of a subject, and the powers with "which it is treated, and on BOTH CONJOINTLY depend the excellence of the poet, and his RANK 66 દ 66 IN HIS ART. I can only say, having appealed to my own words again and again, my object in estimating Pope's moral and poetical character was, to define, not to detract, to DISCRIMINATE, not to DEPRECIATE! The reader, however, will now see, with respect to his poetical character, what I did * Bowies's Pope, vol. x. |