BOOKS.

POPE AND SUPER-POPE.'

IT is a pleasant sign of the times that Pope is coming by his own at last. He seems miles apart from the Georgian poets, with their rers libres, their antinomian metres, and their futur- istic notions as to prosody and harmony, and yet they appear to have a far better ear for the magnificence of the heroic couplet than their predecessors. It may seem indeed as if liking for Pope must involve falsehood to all their ideals. But perhaps they would answer on lines somewhat analogous to Donne's famous apology for his mistress's treason :—

" For having purpes'd change, and falsehood, you Can have no way but falsehood to be true."

They purposed at every turn the maximum of change, of surprise, of topsy-turvydom, and negation to all the wishes, aspirations, and desires of their predecessors. Therefore it was natural for them to rejoice in, and in a sense to copy, Pope. Anyway, they, and many plain men who hardly know the difference between a Georgian and a Gregorian, an Angel and an Anglican, will be heartily delighted with two little books which have just reached us, both most satisfactory signs of the times. One is the contribution made by Mr. Blackwood, the Senior Classical Master at the Church of England Grammar School in Melbourne, to the Australian Literature Primers." The purpose of the " Australian Literature Primers " is, we are told, to provide text-books which will serve as an introduction to the study of great writers. Pope could hardly have found a better introducer than Mr. Blackwood. His Introduction is both readable and original. Excellent are the account of the breaking down of the Elizabethan poetic' forms and ideas, and the description of the social and moral atmosphere in which the Popian tradition grew up. The short sketch of Pope's life is also good. But perhaps best of all and most useful of all are the couple of pages devoted to the poetic diction. They contain explanations which will be specially enlightening to the men of a new country with their vigorous notions as to expression.

The selections are good except for the long passage out cf the " Essay on Criticism," which, though containing many admirable things, might we think have been spared. For the quotations chosen from "The Rape of the Lock" we have nothing but praise. Needless to say, they include the incom- parable apotheosis of the Toilet. We would like also to offer our salute to Mr. Blackwood for having given what is so often withheld from the reader—Pope's captivating epistolary dedica- tion of the poem to Mrs. Arabella Fermor. Not until Stevenson wrote his dedication of Kidnapped was so perfect an example of a dedication by way of a letter to be found in the English lan- guage. The first sentence not only might have been written by Stevenson, but had, we feel pretty sure, a direct influence on Stevenson's prose. " It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to you." We could have well spared the passages from the " Essay on Man," attractive as they are, for larger quotations from the Characters of Women." As for the " Imitations of Horace," we should have preferred more of the special characters from the " Moral Essays."

A pleasant feature of the book is an Appendix, headed " Lines of Enquiry and Suggestions for Study," which is in effect a series of very clever examination-paper questions. We have spent, and we believe many other readers will spend, an interesting half-hour in trying to answer some of Mr. Blackwood's conundrums. As to one of the questions on the " Essay on Man," we are sure it is a good one, but giving an answer is quite another thing. " Each of the couplets is a complete whole. How then is the poem linked together ? " Another very good question is : " The ' Essay on Man' is said to be written in the familiar style. Explain what is meant by this and illustrate from the poem." We should reply But ah my friend, my Genius, come along."

With this book may be read the lecture on Pope delivered before the University of Cambridge by the late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, Mr. J. W. Mackail. As he tells us, he could not have chosen a more appropriate subject than Pope for the Leslie Stephen Lecture. Stephen himself had

• (1) Auktralian 1.itoriture Pr.nerry, Whiteorobe And Tombs, M'lbourne, and 0 St. Andrea's Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C. 4.-- On Pope, Isy J. W. Mackail. Cambridge: at the Unherrlty' Tress. 12s. Cd. net.j written on the poet with "mastery and insight." Mr. Mackai is so great an expert in scholarship, in criticism, in English prose,

and lastly in compression, that it is almost impossible to summarize what he writes. The reviewer, indeed, may generally feel content in his case with putting up a signpost and telling all the world that if they follow the path marked out they will have a prosperous walk and will see things of delight the whole of the way.

Very charming and humorous in the esoteric sense is Mr.

Mackail's discussion of the old, old question whether Pope was or was not a poet. Of course Mr. Mackail finds a verdict in sup- port of the general conclusion of mankind. Pope was a poet in every sense of the word. The more he is studied and the further away we get from him, the more the world will come

to understand what was understood by his contemporaries—

that his satire was but the by-product of his art and not, as we are now inclined to think, the essence of it. Pope in his own time, or at any rate in the first half of his poetic life, was regarded as essentially an heroic poet—a singer, dealing with the things that touch the human heart, love and war, and all the great passions of life :-

"Pope," says Mr. Mackail, " is more than a classicist ; he is an authentic classic, and in that sense in which the finest classical poetry includes and absorbs romance. And for Pope at his finest—by which I mean, at his poetically highest—we have to go not to the Satires and Epistles, but to the work of his early and middle period ; oftener than is generally realised, to his earlier poems. In these there is here and there a beauty of melody, a clear flame of imagination, such as seldom recurs in his mature work."

Mr. Mackail gives several delightful quotations to prove his point, one being from that much too neglected poem, " The Temple of Fame." We have nothing to say against Mr. Mackail's

quotation's, but we feel sure he would agree that the following lines from the same poem prove his point as well as, if not better than, those he adduces. Magnificent is the declaration of the noisy War Lords who boast to Fame :-

" We sailed in Tempests down the Stream of Life." Again, how exquisite is the account of the outburst of music which at the command of Fame greets the great and good who pursued virtue for virtue's sake :-

" So soft, so high, so loud and yet so clear."

A still richer banquet might he found in one or two of the poems which are even less read, if that is possible, than " The Temple of Fame." Take the classical Epistles imitated from Ovid. The ordinary reader simply " shies " at these. Most impossible of all is the Epistle of Sappho to Phaon. Yet it is full of exquisite and romantic verses. What could be more soul-shaking, a line indeed worthy of Keats, than- " For, oh, how vast a Memory has Love 1 " Take again, " You stop't with Kisses my enchanting Tongue, And found my Kisses sweeter than my Song."

Full of magic is the single line :— " That wandering heart which I so lately lost."

The truth is that Pope was a very great love poet. This is,

however, not the occasion fitted to enumerate his witcheties, though to do so would be to support every word of Mr. Mackail's vindication.

Most attractive to all true lovers of poetry is Mr. Mackail's criticism, or rather appreciation, of The Dunciad. We are delighted to see that he quotes, amongst " the exquisitely melodious and unforgettable phrases," Pope's " happy convents bosom'd deep in vines," and compares it, as the present writer has often compared it in his own mind, with the lines in Temp son's " Daisy " " high hill-convent, seen A light amid its olives green."

With all that Mr. Mackail has to say about the passage that closes The Dunciad, one which Dr. Johnson could never read without emotion and which has always held the world spell- bound, we are in entire sympathy. We agree with Mr. Mackail, however, in thinking that the second version is nobler and more perfect than the last.

Mr. Mackail could not, of course, be expected to put everything into a lecture, but we cannot help thinking that in dealing with The Dunciad he should not only have called attention to the exquisite account of the Grand Tour, but should have noted that glorious piece of argument in verse in which the foibles of the Latitudinarians are hit off with a gusto which must, we feel sure, though we have no actual warrant for our surmise, be a pet passage with Mr. Ronnie Knox :-

" Be that my task (replies a gloomy Clerk,

Sworn foe to .myst'ry, yet divinely dark ; Whose pious hope aspires to see the day When moral evidence shall quite decay, And damns implicit faith, and holy lies ; Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize) : Let others creep by timid steps, and slow, On plain Experience lay foundations low, By common sense to common knowledge bred, And last, to Nature's Cause thro' Nature led.

All-seeing in thy mists, we want no guide, Mother of Arrogance, and source of pride !

We nobly take the high priori road,

And reason downward, till we doubt of God : Make Nature still encroach upon his plan, And shove him off as far as e'er we can : Thrust some Mechanic Cause into his place, Or bind in Matter, or diffuse in Space : Or, at one bound o'erleaping all his laws, Make God man's image ; man, the final Cause : Find Virtue local, all Relation scorn, See all in self, and but for self be born : Of nought so certain as our Reason still, Of nought so doubtful as of Soul and Will. O hide the God still more ! and make us see Such as Lucretius drew, a God like thee : Wrapt up in self, a God without a thought, Regardless of our merit or default. Or that bright image to our fancy draw, Which Theocles in raptured vision saw, While thro' poetic scenes the Genius roves, Or wanders wild in academic groves ; That Nature our society adores, Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores ! ' "

After a spirited apology for Pope's translation of the Iliad comes a defence of Pope as a lyrist which will compare with the very best of contemporary criticism. Take as proof of what we say these incisive and " luciferous" sentences: " The Augustan age too was sentimental in its fashion. But it drank its sentiment out of a different jug."

One word more. Mr. Mackall mentions the fact that Pope wrote a blank-verse epic on Brutus, and that this work was actually before Pope's biographer, Ruffhead. What would we not give for a specimen, for, unless we are greatly mistaken, not a single blank-verse line by Pope is in existence

" You and I would rather see that Epic,

Would we not, than read a fresh Epistle ? "

What would it have been like ? More, we expect, like the famous passages in Congreve's " Morning Bride " than like Dr. Johnson's " Irene " or the purple patches in Rowe's dramas. Mr. Mackail wonders whether it would have been like Young's blank verse, and whether it would have turned out to be anything more than rhymeless couplets. He adds, however : " Or might he perhaps have found in the new medium an access of fresh inspiration ? "

We are inclined to think that in this remark is contained the root of the whole matter. Any one who turns to Pope's imita- tions of the English poets will see what a perfect ear Pope had for measurea which may be called in his case unnatural. For example, he managed the quatrain that Gray made famous in the " Elegy " with perfect success long before Gray

had written. If some country-house library by some happy chance should ever give up the MS. of the " Brutus," we believe that it would, as Mr. Mackail seems to suggest, prove very different from the blank verse of Pope's own times. Probably this was the very reason why Pope suppressed the poem. His friends had not ears to understand it, and therefore he doubtless

thought that its publication would injure his poetic fame—a matter about which he thought too much.

Yet another " carnal thought " in regard to Pope. We confess we should dearly like to see one of the forty Madonnas that he painted while he was working in Jervas's studio. They are probably in existence somewhere under an alias. It is very difficult to destroy paint and canvas. They would be horrible daubs ? Nevertheless we should greatly like to see

how he " dipped in the rainbow " or " tricked them off in air."