No More Learning

Not long after the completion of the 'Iliad', Pope undertook to edit
Shakespeare, and completed the work in 1724. The edition is, of course,
quite superseded now, but it has its place in the history of
Shakespearean studies as the first that made an effort, though irregular
and incomplete, to restore the true text by collation and conjecture. It
has its place, too, in the story of Pope's life, since the bitter
criticism which it received, all the more unpleasant to the poet since
it was in the main true, was one of the principal causes of his writing
the 'Dunciad'. Between the publication of his edition of Shakespeare,
however, and the appearance of the 'Dunciad', Pope resolved to complete
his translation of Homer, and with the assistance of a pair of friends,
got out a version of the Odyssey in 1725. Like the 'Iliad', this was
published by subscription, and as in the former case the greatest men in
England were eager to show their appreciation of the poet by filling up
his lists. Sir Robert Walpole, the great Whig statesman, took ten
copies, and Harley, the fallen Tory leader, put himself, his wife, and
his daughter down for sixteen. Pope made, it is said, about ? 3700 by
this work.

In 1726, Swift visited Pope and encouraged him to complete a satire
which he seems already to have begun on the dull critics and hack
writers of the day. For one cause or another its publication was
deferred until 1728, when it appeared under the title of the 'Dunciad'.
Here Pope declared open war upon his enemies. All those who had attacked
his works, abused his character, or scoffed at his personal deformities,
were caricatured as ridiculous and sometimes disgusting figures in a
mock epic poem celebrating the accession of a new monarch to the throne
of Dullness. The 'Dunciad' is little read to-day except by professed
students of English letters, but it made, naturally enough, a great stir
at the time and vastly provoked the wrath of all the dunces whose names
it dragged to light. Pope has often been blamed for stooping to such
ignoble combat, and in particular for the coarseness of his abuse, and
for his bitter jests upon the poverty of his opponents. But it must be
remembered that no living writer had been so scandalously abused as
Pope, and no writer that ever lived was by nature so quick to feel and
to resent insult.
The undoubted coarseness of the work is in part due to
the gross license of the times in speech and writing, and more
particularly to the influence of Swift, at this time predominant over
Pope. And in regard to Pope's trick of taunting his enemies with
poverty, it must frankly be confessed that he seized upon this charge as
a ready and telling weapon. Pope was at heart one of the most charitable
of men. In the days of his prosperity he is said to have given away one
eighth of his income. And he was always quick to succor merit in
distress; he pensioned the poet Savage and he tried to secure patronage
for Johnson. But for the wretched hack writers of the common press who
had barked against him he had no mercy, and he struck them with the
first rod that lay ready to his hands.

During his work on the 'Dunciad', Pope came into intimate relations with
Bolingbroke, who in 1725 had returned from his long exile in France and
had settled at Dawley within easy reach of Pope's villa at Twickenham.
Bolingbroke was beyond doubt one of the most brilliant and stimulating
minds of his age. Without depth of intellect or solidity of character,
he was at once a philosopher, a statesman, a scholar, and a fascinating
talker. Pope, who had already made his acquaintance, was delighted to
renew and improve their intimacy, and soon came wholly under the
influence of his splendid friend. It is hardly too much to say that all
the rest of Pope's work is directly traceable to Bolingbroke. The 'Essay
on Man' was built up on the precepts of Bolingbroke's philosophy; the
'Imitations of Horace' were undertaken at Bolingbroke's suggestion; and
the whole tone of Pope's political and social satire during the years
from 1731 to 1738 reflects the spirit of that opposition to the
administration of Walpole and to the growing influence of the commercial
class, which was at once inspired and directed by Bolingbroke. And yet
it is exactly in the work of this period that we find the best and with
perhaps one exception, the 'Essay on Man', the most original, work of
Pope. He has obtained an absolute command over his instrument of
expression. In his hands the heroic couplet sings, and laughs, and
chats, and thunders. He has turned from the ignoble warfare with the
dunces to satirize courtly frivolity and wickedness in high places.