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tfo. 4,35, Jtjxy 24,1858.] THE X, E A D ...
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'"i vM i. ILufrillttrf*
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? Critics are not the legislators, but t...
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THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE. Th...
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NEW BOOKS ON INDIA. Notes on the Revolt ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Tfo. 4,35, Jtjxy 24,1858.] The X, E A D ...
tfo . 4 , 35 , Jtjxy 24 , 1858 . ] THE X , E A D EII . 715
'"I Vm I. Ilufrillttrf*
Wttmxt .
? Critics Are Not The Legislators, But T...
? Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not mal < e laws—they interpret and . try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review . ? ¦
The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope. Th...
THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE . The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope . Edited by Robert Carruthers . In Two Volumes . Vol . II . New Edition , revised . H . G . Bohn . Mb . Cahrtjthers ' s edition of Pope will do no discredit to the reputation of its editor . It is not only the best popular edition , ^ but , as far as it goes , the best edition of Pope ' s poetical works ; and it may be safely said that there is no life of the poet which can be compared , for fulness and for interest , with that which precedes these two volumes . Mr .
Carruthers has gathered together all the latest facts in the poet's history , for many of -which we are indebted to his own researches , while others are due to the inquiries set on foot by his first edition . The editor appears himself to have hardly anticipated the success whicli he has met with . His original edition , modestly put forth in . a cheap illustrated series—a form in which few wrould look for careful editorship or industrious research—very soon attracted the attention and \ vori the respect of those who are best versed in the literature and history of the Pope period . This recognition of his
services appears to have stimulated the editor to a more careful study , a closer criticism ot his materials , and a wider search . The result is an edition of his author -which , if not perfect , -will certainly not be easily superseded . . The lectures of Mr . Thackeray and his novels have contributed in a great degree to bring the public taste back to the writers of the Queen Anne period . Addison , Steele , Swift , and Pope are now m fashion , and fill the columns of our reviews . Concerning Pope , indeed , a controversy has been for
some time raging , which bids fair to rival the war of the Rowley or Ireland forgeries , or the famous quarrel between the ancients and the moderns ; and , indeed , independently of our interest in Pope's verses , the facts in his life which have been recently brought to light , chiefly b y our contemporary the udthenasun ., are sufficiently curious to interest all who are curious in literary history . The poet who held himself up as a pattern of moral
principle—To virtue only , and her friends , a friend- — the scourge of Budgell and Gildon , the unsparing censor of the vices and follies of mankind , has been shown , beyond possibility of doubt , to have forged letters from himself to Addison , with the manifest design of injuring his contemporary's reputation . Pope ' s letters have long bccii accepted with a kind of doubt . Johnson remarked on the artistic good light in which they placed the writer . The cunning manoeuvres to ¦ which' Pope resorted for procuring their publication in his lifetime , and persuading the world that be had no hand therein , have long a ^ o been completely exposed . There cannot be a doubt
that he , by his agents , induced Curll to print them , taking money for the copyright ; that he intermingled with his own letters others from Voiture , as a trap for the unfortunate bookseller ^ whose roguery Pope Avas thus enabled to prove ; that lie moved the IIousc of Lords to arrest Curll , which they did ; and whined in prefaces ami letters about the knavery of booksellers , with no other object than to maintain this fiction , in which he was so completely successful that scarcely one of his contemporaries suspected the trick . Curll told the whole story , published the letters of " «> sham clergyman , and others of Pope's negotiators , aud boldly asserted that the poet was at the bottom of tuo whole matter ; but none believedPope was in »—¦
. — * - — -w- » v vvfiv > i v «« _» . V / IJVV ir tiO JU tne eyes of Iris age a man more injured by booksellers than ever poet yet wns ; but somehow the injury on y enhanced his reputation . The knavery ot which he complained so bitterly stamped him for evor with that character which , above all others , he most desired . Tn that wonderful volumo , the little ininchbackoJ poet and humble tradesman ' s son stands pre-eminent among figures of the highest historical celebrity . Poets , philosophers , nnd statesmen arc only there to do him honour : poets twit lie- niny show his superiority—philosophers , t « at ho may outshine them in philosophy—statesmen , that he may rate them on t ho vanity of courts ana reject tlicir proflcrcd bounty . If the humble
Gay , the kindly Arbuthnot , are among them , it is but to show the noble generosity and simple affection of their friend . They are merely artistic groupings in the background of that picture in which Alexander Pope is all in all . Mr . Thackeray rejoices ever being admitted into that glorious company by merely opening the book . But a breath of doubt , when we think of these facts , must shake all faith . Let forgery and trickery be-proved in any instance , and all the glorious vision melts into thin air . And what then becomes of all the arguments , the scenes , the anecdotes , the traits of
character which have been drawn from these letters P If letters from Pope were forged , so may the letters to him have been . If his letters to Addison be an imagination , so may the letters from Addison , from Steele , from Wycherley , from Congreve , from Swift , from all the rest , save the very few of whicli we have the manuscripts , as a portion of the "Wycherleycorrespondence , the originals of which are ., we believe , still preserved at Oxford . These were published earlier , and were genuine , and it was probably the good light in which they placed the writer , and their general success , which suggested the subsequent frauds .
Readers who have no sympathy with any but the higher school of imaginative poetry , — -such as flourished in the glorious Elizabethan period , and when the glare of the present shall be subdued , will be acknowledged to have shed some lustre even on these later days—enthusiasts for Wordsworth , and Shelley , and Tennyson , sometimes wonder at all interest in Pope and his contemporaries , and sneer at the patient literary antiquarianism which thinks a long and laborious search well paid by the discovery of the smallest " new fact . " We think their sympathies too narrow . The Satires of Pope must always win the admiration of all who relish keen
wit , strong sense , profound knowledge of mankind , and even genuine fancy ; but it must not be forgotten that great part of our interest is in the men themselves . Headers will never cease to take delight in the past . Our novelists know this ; and our playwrights feel the value even of a costume of other times . The name of Binfield or Twickenham takes -us back into the days when the ' Spectator ' s folio half-sheet was taken m at Button ' s and Will Urwin ' s , and read by Mr . Dennis , the critic , with
his candle in Ins hand , staring " tremendous with a threatening eye , " as we see him in Hogarth ' s picture . So mucli is swallowed up by time , that it is natural for us to hold by that shadow which is left , and prize it . The friends and acquaintances of Pope and Swift , Gay , Addison , and Steele , are the only figures in that scene whicli are not ghostly , pale , andundistinguishable . Better men must then nave walked about—other maidens besides Vanessa must have died of broken hearts—but we know them not .
No writer brings his reader more immediately into the age in which he lived than Pope . In the " Rape of the Lock , ' the artificial life of the days of rcd-hecled shoes , and swords , and wigs , and patches , is painted in the brightest colours , and heightened . by all that fancy can bring . In the " Satires" and " Moral Essavs , " the pictures of manners are no less real than the condescending patronage of the country is characteristic of the time . The notes are filled with names and anecdotes of living men which the editors—Mr . Carruthers more than any of them—have wisely dwelt on . The gossip about men in the Notes to the Dunciad and other poems is endless . No tenant of an attic in
Grub-street or the Mint i 3 without a mention in the Index . The spite and malice of the poet and his self-glorification at their expense arc now softened down by time , and we feel an interest in their stories , nnd a sympathy with their misfortunes , their ill-paid drudgery , tlieir hungry dedications , their lofty disavowals of " venal praise . " Popo had no mercy towards them , and no arguments of his admirers can clear him of the charge of injustice . By a lucky speculation in verse-making—few men in this age will award a much better term to his Homer —by a system of subscriptions , which was buttlie old dependence ingeniously tli . sguised , Pope made what was to his prudent mind a fortune , and , secured from want , sneered wantonly at all who were not as fortunate as > himself . Johnson hud been too
recontly a wcfivor ol broken shoes not to feel this when he camo to write lii . s . Memoir of Po |> o . All poor mm ami booksellers' hacks wore not necessarily immoral in that age uny more than in this . Many of those painl < : < l so darklv in the Dunciad arc now known to have been worthy persons . Even Curll
was perhaps not quite so great a rascal as Pope made him , and Mr . Dickens acted him in Sir Edward Bulwer Xytton's comedy . N " ot a few of them , good and bad , died miserably enough . Corinna , the object of some of Pope ' s early gallantry , lay in the Fleet for years , and came out to die in a wretched garret . Arnall poisoned himself at six-and-twenty . Gildon shot himself . Motteux perished in a drunken debauch , not without suspicion of having been murdered . Dennis died , as Pope said ,
Secure in dolness , madness , want , and age . Poor Stephen Duck hung himself . Eustace Budgell filled his pockets with stones , and sprang from a Thames wherry , as it was " shooting" old Londonbridge . Disraeli has not byany means exhausted the subject of Pope's quarrels . We feel a melancholy interest and curiosity concerning the heroes of the Dunciad , and could well have spared some of the critical notesfor a little more space for their history . Mr . Carruthers'a information , like that of other editors , is not always correct . Pope ' s Duckett was not the " Colonel William Duckett , M . P . for Calne , who died in 1749 ; " but George Duckett , who died
Oqtober , 1732 . He was a Commissioner of Excise ,, and therefore , according to Johnson , one of " th & lowest of human beings . " Duckett , nevertheless , was a respectable man , and a friend of Johnson ' s " worthy , " Gilbert Wahnsley . How comes it , by the way , that this note on Duckett , and others on the Dunciad , refer to lines and books of the poem at whicli no mention of the persons referred to can be found ? The editor should look to this . Mr . Carruthers has added a number of poems
from the Grub-street Journals to the short pieces contained in other editions . Some are piquant , anct certainly very like Pope . To the verses on Swift ' s-Gulliver's Travels he also adds one more , we know not from what source . That they were written by Pope we do not doubt > and by accident we have in . our possession a ' ¦ postscript , " undoubtedl y hi Pope ' s handwriting , and which has not , we believe ,, been published . As a specimen of Pope ' s nonsense verses , our readers and Mr . Carruthers may be glad , to have a copy . ' They are as follows : — POSTSCRIPT TO X * XOUUPUIZAN' ODE . ¦ ¦ " v ' . . ¦ ¦ ¦ . i . ¦ - . ¦ ¦ - ¦ - : ¦ ' : ¦ ' ; Now would John Dennis frown , Fret and swear , . Should he hear Of this Ode Ala mode ; But in vain Would he strain , By the roles Of the Schools , Down to tye , Or to try-Verse of such a Bard as I . 2 . Or if E Curll should see What I ' ve wrote , He would not Be at rest Till ' twere drest Out in print From his mint : Tho' God knows there ' s nothing in't . The expensive edition of Pope's poems , which i » understood to have been prepared by the late Mr-Crokcr , and to be about to be published by Mr-Murray , will find in these two clieap volumes a formidable rival . With the additional volume containing the Life , they really contain as muck concerning Pope and his contemporaries as most readersdesire to know , while the Poems are accompanied by as large a quantity of original anuotation as they would well bear .
New Books On India. Notes On The Revolt ...
NEW BOOKS ON INDIA . Notes on the Revolt in the North- Western Province * tf India . By Charles Bailees , Judge of the Sadder CourtJJat Agra . Longman aud Co . The Crisis in tke Punfaub , from the 1 OCA of May until the Fall of Delhi . By Frederic Cooper , Kaq ., C . S . Deputy Commissioner of Umritsur . Smith , Elder , and Co . Hiseb are two more authoritative publications on particular phases of the great Indian rebellion . In both instances tho matter is better than tho manner . Ma * , ltnikcs ' s volume chiefly consists of notes hurriedly jostled together ; whilst that of Mr . Cooper is deformed by very fine writing indeed . The former would have , pcrhups , beou the hotter for a little
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 24, 1858, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24071858/page/19/
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