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no fault of hers-every body may see [why corpse, and take Betty's evidence against not the winker then?] that what upsets her her mistress? Upon hearing any such questemper is a pimple on the nose. Let us tion, Pope would have started up in the understand you, Mr. Pope. A pimple! character (very unusual with him) of reliwhat, do you mean to say that pimples gious censor, and demanded whether one jump up on ladies' faces at the unfurling of approved of a woman's fixing her last dying a fan? If they really did so in the 12th of thought upon the attractions of a person so George II., and a lady, not having a pim- soon to dwell with darkness and worms? ple on leaving her dressing-room, might Was that right-to provide for coquetting grow one whilst taking tea, then we think in her coffin? Why no, not strictly right, that a saint might be excused for storming a its impropriety cannot be denied; but what little. But how is it that the wretch who strikes one even more is-the suspicion that winks, does not see the pimple, the causa it may be a lie. Be this as it may, there teterrima of the sudden wrath; and Silia, are two insurmountable objections to the who has no looking-glass at her girdle, case of Narcissa, even supposing it not ficdoes? And then who is it that Silia titious-viz. first, that so far as it offends storms "" at-the company, or the pim- at all, it offends the religious sense, and not ple? If at the company, we cannot defend any sense of which satire takes charge; her; but if at the pimple-ob, by all means secondly, that without reference to the -storm and welcome-she can't say any special functions of satire, any form of thing worse than it deserves. Wrong or poetry whatever, or any mode of moral cenright, however, what moral does Silia illus- sure, concerns itself not at all with anomatrate more profound than this-that a par- lies. If the anecdote of Narcissa were ticular lady, otherwise very amiable, falls other than a fiction, then it was a case too into a passion upon suddenly finding her peculiar and idiosyncratic to furnish a face disfigured? But then one remembers poetic illustration; neither moral philosothe song "My face is my fortune, sir, she phy nor poetry condescends to the monsaid, sir, she said "it is a part of every strous or the abnormal; both one and the woman's fortune so long as she is young. other deal with the catholic and the repreNow to find one's fortune dilapidating by sentative. changes so rapid as this--pimples rising as

There is another Narcissa amongst suddenly as April clouds, is far too trying Pope's tulip-beds of ladies, who is even a calamity, that a little fretfulness should more open to criticism-because offering merit either reproach or sneer. Dr. John- not so much an anomaly in one single trait son's opinion was that the man, who cared of her character as an utter anarchy in all. little for dinner, could not be reasonably Flavia and Philomedé again present the supposed to care much for anything. More same multitude of features with the same truly it may be said that the woman who is absence of all central principle for locking reckless about her face must be an unsafe them into unity. They must have been person to trust with a secret. But serious- distracting to themselves; and they are Îy, what moral, what philosophic thought distracting to us a century later. Philocan be exemplified by a case so insipid, and medé, by the way, stands for the second so imperfectly explained as this? But we Duchess of Marlborough,* daughter of the great Duke. And these names lead us Next, then, let us come to the case of naturally to Sarah, the original, and (one Narcissa: :

must move on.

“Odious! in woollen? Twould a saint provoke."
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.
"No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face;
One would not sure be frightful when one's dead:
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."

Well, what's the matter now? What's
amiss with Narcissa, that a satirist must be
called in to hold an inquest upon her

This refers to the Act of Parliament for burying corpses in woollen, which greatly disturbs the fashionable costume in coffins comme il faut. VOL. XV. No. II. 12

may call her) the historical Duchess, who is libelled under the name of Atossa. This character amongst all Pope's satiric sketches has been celebrated the most, with the single exception of his Atticus. But the Atticus rested upon a different basis-it was

The sons of the Duke having died, the title and estates were so settled as to descend through this daughter, who married the Earl of Sunderland. Ir consequence of this arrangement, Spencer (unti lately) displaced the great name of Churchill; and the Earl became that second Duke of Marlborough, about whom Smollett tells in his History of England (Reign of George 11.) so remarkable and to this hour so mysterious a story.

true; and it was noble. Addison really gressors amongst the gens de plume, viz., had the infirmities of envious jealousy, of Pope, and subsequently Horace Walpole. simulated friendship, and of treacherous Pope suffered more from his own libellous collusion with his friend's enemies--which assault upon Atossa, through a calumny Pope imputed to him under the happy pari- against himself rebounding from it, than syllabic name of Atticus; and the mode of Atossa could have done from the pointimputation, the tone of expostulation-in- blank shot of fifty such batteries. The dignant as regarded Pope's own injuries, calumny circulated was, that he had been but yet full of respect for Addison, and bribed by the Duchess with a thousand even of sorrowful tenderness-all this in pounds to suppress the character-which of combination with the interest attaching to itself was bad enough; but as the consuma feud between two men so eminent, has mation of baseness it was added, that after sustained the Atticus as a classic remem- all, in spite of the bribe, he caused it to be brance in satiric literature. But the Atossa published. This calumny we believe to have is a mere chaos of incompatibilities, thrown been utterly without foundation. It is retogether as into some witch's cauldron. pelled by Pope's character, incapable of any The witch, however, had sometimes an un- act so vile, and by his position, needing no affected malignity, a sincerity of venom in bribes. But what we wish to add is, that her wrath, which acted chemically as a sol- the calumny is equally repelled by Sarah's vent for combining the heterogeneous in- character, incapable of any propitiation so gredients in her kettle; whereas the want abject. Pope wanted no thousand pounds; of truth and earnestness in Pope leave the incongruities in his kettle of description to their natural incoherent operation on the reader. We have a great love for the great Duchess of Marlborough, though too young by a hundred years* or so to have been that true and faithful friend which, as contemporaries, we might have been.

but neither did Sarah want his clemency. He would have rejected the £1000 cheque with scorn; but she would have scorned to offer it. Pope cared little for Sarah; but Sarah cared less for Pope.

What is offensive, and truly so, to every generous reader, may be expressed in two items: first, not pretending to have been What we love Sarah for, is partly that himself injured by the Duchess, Pope was she has been ill-used by all subsequent au- in this instance meanly adopting some third thors, one copying from another a fury person's malice, which sort of intrusion into against her which even in the first of these other people's quarrels is a sycophantic act, authors was not real. And a second thing even where it may not have rested upon a which we love is her very violence, qualified sycophantic motive; secondly, that even as as it was. Sulphureous vapors of wrath a second-hand malice it is not sincere. rose up in columns from the crater of her More shocking than the malice is the selftempestuous nature against him that deeply imposture of the malice: in the very act of offended her, but she neglected petty wrongs. puffing out his cheeks like Eolus, with Wait, however let the volcanic lava have ebullient fury, and conceiting himself to be time to cool, and all be returned to absolute in a passion perfectly diabolic, Pope is rerepose. It has been said that she did not ally unmoved, or angry only by favor of write her own book. We are of a different dyspepsy; and at a word of kind flattery opinion. The mutilations of the book from Sarah, (whom he was quite the man were from other and inferior hands; but to love), though not at the clink of her the main texture of the narrative and of thousand guineas, he would have fallen at the comments were, and must have been, her feet, and kissed her beautiful hand with from herself, since there could have been no rapture. To enter a house of hatred as a adequate motive for altering them, and junior partner, and to take the stock of nobody else could have had the same mo- malice at a valuation-(we copy from advertive for uttering them. It is singular that, tisements)-that is an ignoble act. in the case of the Duchess, as well as that then how much worse in the midst of all of the Lady M. W. Montagu, the same two this unprovoked wrath, real as regards the men, without concert, were the original ag- persecution which it meditates, but false as The Duchess died in the same year as Pope, the flatteries of a slave in relation to its viz., just in time by a few months to miss the Re- pretended grounds, for the spectator to find bellion of 1745, and the second Pretender; specta- its malice counterfeit, and the fury only a cles which for little reasons (vindictive or otherwise) both of them would have enjoyed until the spring of plagiarism from some personated fury in an

.

1746.

Opera.

But

There is no truth in Pope's satiric sketches of woman-not even colorable truth; but if there were, how frivolous-how hollow, to erect into solemn monumental protestations against the whole female sex what, if examined, turn out to be pure casual eccentricities or else personal idiosyncracies, or else foibles shockingly caricatured, but, above all, to be such foibles as could not have connected themselves with sincere feelings of indignation in any rational mind.

The length and breadth (almost we might say-the depth) of the shallowness, which characterizes Pope's Philosophy, cannot be better reflected than from the four wellknown lines

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right:
For forms of government let fools contest,
Whate'er is best administer'd is best,"

preciable by heavenly eyes. The scale of an alphabet--how narrow is that! Four or six and twenty letters, and all is finished. Syllables range through a wider compass. Words are yet more than syllables. But what are words to thoughts? Every word has a thought corresponding to it, so that not by so much as one solitary counter can the words outrun the thoughts. But every thought has not a word corresponding to it: so that the thoughts may outrun the words by many a thousand counters. In a developed nature they do so. But what are the thoughts when set against the modifications of thoughts by feelings, hidden even from him that feels them-or against the intercombinations of such modifications with others-complex with complex, decomplex with decomplex-these can be unravelled by no human eye. This is the infinite music that God only can read upon the vast harp of the human heart. Some have fancied that musical combinations might be exhausted. A new Mozart might be impossible. All that he could do, might already have been done. Music laughs at that, as the sea laughs at palsy for its billows, as the morning laughs at old age and wrinkles for itself. But a harp, though a world in itself, is but a narrow world by comparison with the world of a human heart.

In the first couplet, what Pope says is, that a life, which is irreproachable on a human scale of appreciation, neutralizes and practically cancels all possible errors of creed, opinion, or theory. But this schism between the moral life of man and his moral faith, which takes for granted that either may possibly be true whilst the other is entirely false, can wear a moment's plausibility only by understanding life in so limited a sense as the sum of a man's external actions, appreciable by man. He whose life Now these thoughts, tinctured subtly is in the right, cannot, says Pope, in any with the perfume and coloring of human sense calling for blame, have a wrong faith; affections, make up the sum of what merits that is, if his life were right, his creed might xar' on the name of life: and these in be disregarded. But the answer is that a vast proportion depend for their poshis life, according to any adequate idea of sibilities of truth upon the degree of aplife in a moral creature, cannot be in the proach which the thinker makes to the apright unless in so far as it bends to the in-propriation of a pure faith. A man is fluences of a true faith. How feeble a con- thinking all day long, and putting thoughts ception must that man have of the infinity into words: he is acting comparatively sel which lurks in a human spirit, who can per- dom. But are any man's thoughts brought suade himself that its total capacities of into conformity with the openings to truth life are exhaustible by the few gross acts that a faith like the Christian's faith sugincident to social relations or open to human gests? Far from it. Probably there never valuation. An act, which may be necessawas one thought, from the foundation of the rily limited and without opening for variety, earth, that has passed through the mind of may involve a large variety of motives- man, which did not offer some blemish, some motives again, meaning grounds of action sorrowful shadow of pollution, when it that are distinctly recognized for such, may came up for review before a heavenly tri(numerically speaking) amount to nothing bunal: that is, supposing it a thought enat all when compared with the absolutely tangled at all with human interests or infinite influxes of feeling or combinations human passions. But it is the key in which of feeling that vary the thoughts of man; the thoughts move, that determines the and the true internal acts of moral man are stage of moral advancement. So long as his thoughts-his yearnings-his aspira- we are human, many among the numerous tions-his sympathies-his repulsions of and evanescent elements that enter (halfheart. This is the life of man as it is ap-observed or not observed at all) into our

thoughts, cannot but be tainted. But the perfect holiness? What room, therefore, governing the predominant element it is for ideals of mercy, tenderness, long-sufferwhich gives the character and the tendency ing, under any Pagan religion--under any to the thought and this must become such, worship of Jove! How again from Gods, must become a governing element, through disfigured by fleshly voluptuousness in every the quality of the ideals deposited in the mode, could any countenance be derived to heart by the quality of the religious faith. an awful ideal of purity? Accordingly we One pointed illustration of this suggests find, that even among the Romans, (the itself from another poem of Pope's, in most advanced, as regards moral principle, which he reiterates his shallow doctrine. of all heathen nations), neither the deep In his Universal Prayer he informs us, that fountain of benignity, nor that of purity, it can matter little whether we pray to was unsealed in man's heart. So much of Jehovah or to Jove, so long as in either either was sanctioned as could fall within case we pray to the First Cause. To con- the purposes of the magistrate, but beyond template God under that purely ontological that level neither fountain could have been relation to the world would have little permitted to throw up its column of waters, more operative value for what is most im-nor could in fact have had any impulse to portant in man than if he prayed to gravi sustain it in ascending; and not merely tation. And it would have been more because it would have been repressed by honest in Pope to say, as virtually he has ridicule as a deliration of the human mind, said in the couplet under examination, that but also because it would have been frowned it can matter little whether man prays at upon gravely by the very principle of the all to any being. It deepens the scandal Roman polity, as wandering away from of this sentiment, coming from a poet pro- civic objects. Even for so much of these fessing Christianity, that a clergyman, great restorative ventilations as Rome en(holding preferment in the English Church)joyed, she was indebted not to her religion viz., Dr. Joseph Wharton, justifies Pope but to elder forces that acted in spite of her for this Pagan opinion, upon the ground religion, viz., the original law written upon that an ancient philosopher had uttered the human heart. Now, on the other hand, the same opinion long before. What sort Christianity has left a separate system of of philosopher? A Christian? No: but ideals amongst men, which (as regards their a Pagan. What then is the value of the development) are continually growing in justification? To a Pagan it could be no authority. Waters, after whatever course blame that he should avow a reasonable of wandering, rise to the level of their Pagan doctrine. In Irish phrase, it was original springs. Christianity lying so far "true for him.” Amongst gods that were above all other fountains of religious inall utterly alienated from any scheme of fluence, no wonder that its irrigations rise moral government, all equally remote from to altitudes otherwise unknown, and from the executive powers for sustaining such a which the distribution to every level of sogovernment, so long as there was a practical ciety becomes comparatively easy. Those anarchy and rivalship amongst themselves, men are reached oftentimes-choosing or there could be no sufficient reason for ad- not choosing-by the healing streams, who dressing vows to one rather than to another. have not sought them, nor even recognised The whole pantheon collectively could do them. Infidels of the most determined nothing for moral influences, a fortiori, no class talk in Christian lands the morals of separate individual amongst them. Pope Christianity, and exact that morality with indirectly confesses this elsewhere by his their hearts, constantly mistaking it for a own impassioned expression of Christian morality co-extensive with man; and why? feelings, though implicitly denying it here Simply from having been moulded unawares by his mere understanding. For he re- by its universal pressure through infancy, verberates elsewhere, by deep echoes, that childhood, manhood, in the nursery, in the power in Christianity which even in a le- school, in the market-place. Pope himself, gendary tale he durst not on mere principles not by system or by affectation an infidel, of good sense and taste have ascribed to not in any coherent sense a doubter but a Paganism. For instance, how could a God, careless and indolent assenter to such dochaving no rebellion to complain of in man, trines of Christianity as his own Church pretend to any occasion of large forgiveness prominently put forward, or as social reto man, or of framing means for reconciling spectability seemed to enjoin,-Pope therethis forgiveness with his own attribute of fore, so far a very lukewarm Christian, was

yet unconsciously to himself searched pro-up alive, abandoned to the pangs of hunfoundly by the Christian types of purity. ger-to the trepidations of darkness-to This we may read in his

"Hark the herald angels say,

Sister spirit, come away!"

tation

the echoes of her own lingering groans-to the torments perhaps of frenzy rekindling at intervals the decaying agonies of flesh. she had none to apprehend; the crime was Was that what Eloisa feared? Punishment past, and remembered only by the criminals: there was none to accuse but herself: there was none to judge but God. Wherefore should Eloisa fear? Wherefore and with what should she fight? She fought by turns against herself and against God, against her human nature and against her

Sud

Or again, as some people read the great lessons of spiritual ethics more pathetically in those that have transgressed them than in those that have been faithful to the end -read them in the Magdalen that fades away in penitential tears rather than in the virgin martyr triumphant on the scaffold we may see in his own Eloisa, and in her fighting with the dead powers let loose upon her tempestuous soul, how profoundly Pope spiritual yearnings. How grand were the also had drunk from the streams of Chris- mysteries of her faith, how gracious and tian sentiment through which a new foun- forgiving its condescensions! How deep tain of truth had ripened a new veg had been her human love, how imperishable upon earth. What was it that Eloisa fought the Roman Vestal would have said, its remembrance on earth!" What is it,” with? What power afflicted her trembling this Christian lady is afraid of! What is that nature, that any Pagan religions could have evoked? The human love, "the nymphthe phantom that she seems to see?" Vesolepsy of the fond despair," might have tal! it is not fear, but grief. She sees an existed in a Vestal Virgin of Ancient immeasurable heaven that seems to touch Rome but in the Vestal what counter- her eyes; so near is she to its love. influence could have come into conflict with denly, an Abelard-the glory of his racethe passion of love through any operation appears, that seems to touch her lips. The whatever of religion? None of any enheavens recede, and diminish to a starry nobling character that could reach the Ves-point twinkling in an unfathomable abyss; tal's own heart. The way in which religion Eloisa that searches fire: the holy that they are all but lost for her. Fire it is in connected itself with the case was through fights with the earthly: fire that cleanses a traditional superstition-not built upon any fine spiritual sense of female chastity two fires wheel and counterwheel, advancing with fire that consumes; like cavalry the as dear to heaven-but upon a gross fear of alienating a tutelary goddess by offering an ing through and through each other. Eloisa and retreating, charging and counter chargimperfect sacrifice. This sacrifice, the sacrifice of the natural household charities trembles, but she trembles as a guilty creain a few injured women on the altar of the ture before a tribunal unveiled within the in the dark deity that could be plea ed by goddess, was selfish in all its stages-selfish the sufferings of a human being simply as sufferings, and not at all under any fiction fights with a shadowy enemy: there was no that they were voluntary ebullitions of re- all the temples of our earth, (which is the such fighting for Roman Vestals; because ligious devotion-selfish in the senate and people who demanded these sufferings as a crowned Vesta), no, nor all the glory of her ransom paid through sighs and tears for altars, nor all the pomp of her cruelties, their ambition-selfish in the Vestal herself, spirit any such fearful shadow as Christian could cite from the depths of a human as sustained altogether by fear of a punish-faith evokes from an afflicted conscience. ment too terrific to face, sustained therefore by the meanest principle in her nature. Pope therefore, wheresoever his heart But in Eloisa how grand is the collision speaks loudly, shows how deep had been between deep religious aspirations and the That is shown in his intimacy with Crashaw, bis early impressions from Christianity. persecuting phantoms of her undying human passion! The Vestal feared to be walled in his Eloisa, in his Messiah, in his adaptation to Christian purposes of the Dying The Vestals not only renounced marriage, at Adrian, &c. least for those years in which marriage could be a It is remarkable also, that natural blessing, but also left their fathers' houses Pope betrays, in all places where he has ocat an age the most trying to the human heart as casion to argue about Christianity, how regards the pangs of separation. much grander and more faithful to that

there was no such secret tribunal.
secrecy of her own nature: there was no
such trembling in the heathen worlds. for
Eloisa

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