The Age of Pope Part 14

'And showed by one satiric touch No nation needed it so much.'

A brilliant writer, who has undertaken to prove the 'glaring injustice'

of the popular estimate of Swift, and by his forcible epithets has strengthened the grounds on which that estimate is built, observes that Swift's 'philosophy of life is ign.o.ble, base, and false,' that 'his impious mockery extends even to the Deity,' and that 'a large portion of his works exhibit, and in intense activity, all the worst attributes of our nature--revenge, spite, malignity, uncleanness.'[47]

This harsh judgment is essentially a true one; but Swift's was a many-sided character. He was a misanthrope, with deep, though very limited affections, a man frugal to eccentricity, with a benevolence at once active and extensive. His powerful intellect compels our admiration, if not our sympathy. His irony, his genius for satire and humour, his argumentative skill, his language, which is never wanting in strength, and is as clear as the most pellucid of mountain streams--these gifts are of so rare an order, that Swift's place in the literary history of his age must be always one of high eminence.

Doubtless, as a master of style, he has been sometimes over-praised. If we regard the writer's end, it must be admitted that his language is admirably fitted for that end. What more then, it may be asked, can be needed? The reply is, that in composition, as in other things, there are different orders of excellence. The kind, although perfect, may be a low kind, and Swift's style wants the 'sweetness and light,' to quote a phrase of his own, which distinguish our greatest prose writers. It lacks also the elevation which inspires, and the persuasiveness that convinces while it charms. With infinitely more vigour than Addison, Swift, apart from his _Letters_, has none of Addison's attractiveness.

No style, perhaps, is better fitted to exhibit scorn and contempt; but its author cannot express, because he does not possess, the sense of beauty.

Unlike Pope, Swift was a man of affairs rather than of letters. He wrote neither for literary fame nor for money. His ambition was to be a ruler of men, and in imperious will he was strong enough to make a second Strafford. 'When people ask me,' said Lord Carteret, 'how I governed Ireland, I say that I pleased Dr. Swift, "_quaesitam meritis sume superbiam_."' As a political pamphleteer he succeeded, because he was savagely in earnest, and had the special genius of a combatant. If argument was against him he used satire; if satire failed he tried invective; his armoury was full of weapons, and there was not one of them he could not wield. He loved power, and exercised it on the ministers who needed the services of his pen. And, as we have already said, he dispensed his favours like a king! Swift's commanding genius gives even to his most trivial productions a measure of vitality. The student of our eighteenth century literature is arrested by the man and his works, and to treat either him or them with indifference would be to neglect a significant chapter in the history of the time.

[Sidenote: John Arbuthnot (1667-1735).]

John Arbuthnot, one of the most prominent of the Queen Anne wits, and the warm friend of Swift and Pope, was born at Arbuthnot, near Montrose, in 1667. He studied medicine at Aberdeen, and having taken his doctor's degree at St. Andrews, came, after the wont of ambitious Scotchmen, to seek his fortune in London, where in 1700 he published an _Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning_, and having won high reputation as a man of science, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. A few years later he was made Physician Extraordinary to Queen Anne; and it was not long before he had as high a repute among men of letters as with men of science. He suffered frequently from illness; but no pain, it has been said, could extinguish his gaiety of mind. In the last century Hampstead was a favourite resort of invalids. Arbuthnot had sent Gay there on one occasion, and thither in 1734 he went himself, so ill that he 'could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move.' Contrary to his expectation he regained a little strength, and lived until the following spring. 'Pope and I were with him,' Lord Chesterfield wrote, 'the evening before he died, when he suffered racking pains.... He took leave of us with tenderness, without weakness, and told us that he died not only with the comfort, but even the devout a.s.surance of a Christian.'

There is not one of Pope's circle who holds a more enviable position than Arbuthnot. In strength of intellect and readiness of wit Swift only was his equal, and in cla.s.sical learning he was Swift's superior. Like Oth.e.l.lo, Arbuthnot was of a free and open nature, and his friends clung to him with an affection that was almost womanly. He had the fine impulses of Goldsmith combined with the manliness and practical sagacity of Dr. Johnson, and Johnson recognized in this celebrated physician a kindred spirit. 'I think Dr. Arbuthnot,' he said, 'the first man among the wits of the age. He was the most universal genius, being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning, and a man of much humour.'

His genius and generous qualities were amply acknowledged by his contemporaries, Pope calls Arbuthnot 'as good a doctor as any man for one that is ill, and a better doctor for one that is well;' Swift said he had every virtue which could make a man amiable; Berkeley wrote of him as a great philosopher who was reckoned the first mathematician of the age and had the character 'of uncommon virtue and probity,' and Chesterfield, who declared that his knowledge and 'almost inexhaustible imagination' were at every one's service, added that 'charity, benevolence, and a love of mankind appeared unaffectedly in all he said and did.'

Strange to say we know little of Arbuthnot but what is to be gleaned from the correspondence of his friends, and it is only of late years that an attempt has been made to write the doctor's biography, and to collect his works.[48] To edit these works satisfactorily is a difficult and a doubtful task--several of Arbuthnot's writings having been produced in connection with Swift, Pope, and Gay. So indifferent was he to literary fame, that his children are said to have made kites of papers in which he had jotted down hints that would have furnished good matter for folios. His most famous work is _The History of John Bull_ (1713), which Macaulay considered the most humorous political satire in the language. It was designed to help the Tory party at the expense of the Duke of Marlborough, whose genius as a military leader was probably equal to that of Wellington, while he fell far below the 'Great Duke' in the virtues which form a n.o.ble character. The irony and dry humour of the satire remind one of Swift, and, like Arbuthnot's _Art of Political Lying_, is so much in Swift's vein throughout that M. Taine may be excused for attributing both of these pieces to the Dean of St.

Patrick's.

The _History of John Bull_ is not fitted to attain lasting popularity.

It will be read from curiosity and for information; but the keen excitement, the amus.e.m.e.nt, and the irritation caused by a brilliant satire of living men and pa.s.sing events can be but vaguely imagined by readers whose interest in the statecraft of the age is historical and not personal. Arbuthnot, like Swift, belonged to the Tory camp, and both did their utmost to depreciate the great General who never knew defeat, and to promote the designs of Harley. When Arbuthnot produced his satire, all the town laughed at the representation of Marlborough as an old smooth-tongued attorney who loved money, and was said by his neighbours to be hen-pecked, 'which was impossible by such a mild-spirited woman as his wife was.' That an 'honest plain-dealing fellow' like John Bull the Clothier, should be deceived by such wily men of business as Lewis Baboon of France, and Lord Strutt of Spain, and also that other tradesmen should be willing to join John and Nic Frog, the linen-draper of Holland, in the lawsuit, provided that Bull and Frog, or Bull alone, would bear the law charges, is made to appear likely enough; and Scott says truly that 'it was scarce possible so effectually to dim the l.u.s.tre of Marlborough's splendid achievements as by parodying them under the history of a suit conducted by a wily attorney who made every advantage gained over the defendant a reason for protracting law procedure, and enhancing the expense of his client.' In this long lawsuit everybody is represented as gaining something except _John Bull_, whose ready money, book debts, bonds, and mortgages go into the lawyer's pockets. Whether the nickname of _John Bull_ originated with Arbuthnot or was merely adopted by him is not known.

Arbuthnot was an active member of the Scriblerus Club, and wrote the larger portion of the _Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus_ (1741), the design of which was, as Pope said, to ridicule false tastes in learning, in the character of a man 'that had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously in each.' Dr. Johnson says of this work that no man can be wiser, better, or merrier for remembering it. Perhaps he is right; but the _Memoirs_ contain some humorous points which, if they do not create merriment, may yield some slight amus.e.m.e.nt. The pedant's endeavours to make a philosopher of his child are sufficiently ludicrous. He is delighted to find that the infant has the wart of Cicero and the very neck of Alexander, and hopes that he may come to stammer like Demosthenes, 'and in time arrive at many other defects of famous men.'

As the boy grows up his father invents for him a geographical suit of clothes, and stamps his gingerbread with the letters of the Greek alphabet, which proved so successful a mode of teaching the language, that on the very first day the child 'ate as far as iota.' He also taught him as a diversion 'an odd and secret manner of stealing, according to the custom of the Lacedemonians, wherein he succeeded so well that he practised it till the day of his death.' Martin studies logic, philosophy, and medicine, and discovers that the seat of the soul is not confined to one place in all persons, but resides in the stomach of epicures, in the brain of philosophers, in the fingers of fiddlers, and in the toes of rope-dancers. His discoveries, it may be added, are made 'without the trivial help of experiments or observations.'

FOOTNOTES:

[43] _Life of Jonathan Swift_, by John Forster, vol. i., pp. 164-174.

Mr. Forster did not live to produce more than one volume of a work to which for many years he had given 'much labour and time.'

[44] _English Men of Letters--Jonathan Swift_, by Leslie Stephen, p. 43.

[45] Mrs. Pendarves writes (1733) 'The day before we came out of town we dined at Doctor Delany's, and met the usual company. The Dean of St.

Patrick's was there _in very good humour_, he calls himself "_my master_," and corrects me when I speak bad English or do not p.r.o.nounce my words distinctly. I wish he lived in England, I should not only have a great deal of entertainment from him, but improvement.'--_Life and Correspondence of Mrs Delany_, vol. i., p. 407.

[46] _Life of Swift_, p. 299.

[47] _Jonathan Swift, a Biographical and Critical Study_, by J. Churton Collins, p. 267.

[48] See _The Life and Works of Dr. Arbuthnot_, by George A. Aitken.

Oxford, Clarendon Press.

CHAPTER VI.

DANIEL DEFOE--JOHN DENNIS--COLLEY CIBBER--LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU--EARL OF CHESTERFIELD--LORD LYTTELTON--JOSEPH SPENCE.

[Sidenote: Daniel Defoe (1661-1731).]

The most voluminous writer of his century is popularly remembered as the author of one book, published in old age. Everybody has read _Robinson Crusoe_, and knows the name of its author; but few readers outside the narrow circle of literary students are aware of Defoe's exhaustless labours as a politician, social reformer, projector, pamphleteer, and novelist.

It would be well for the author's reputation if we knew less about him than we do. There was a time when he was regarded as a n.o.ble sufferer in the cause of civil and religious liberty. His faults were credited to his age while his virtues were supposed to place him on an eminence far above the time-servers who despised him. He has been praised as a man courageously living for great aims, who was maligned by the malice of party, and to whose memory scant justice has been done. 'No one,' says Henry Kingsley, 'could come up to the standard of his absolute precision,' and his 'inexorable honesty alienated everyone.' These words were written in 1868. Four years previously, however, the discovery of six letters in the State Paper Office, in Defoe's own hand, had entirely destroyed his character for inexorable honesty, and the researches of his latest and most exhaustive biographer,[49] who regards his hero's vices as virtues, do but serve to give greater prominence to the baseness of his conduct. Defoe, by his own confession, was for many years in the pay of the Government for secret services, taking shares in Tory papers and supervising them as editor, in order to defeat the aims of the party to which he professed to be allied, and of the proprietors with whom he was in partners.h.i.+p. Thus in 1718, he writes as a plea that his labours should be remembered: 'I am, Sir, for this service, posted among Papists, Jacobites, and enraged High Tories--a generation who I profess my very soul abhors; I am obliged to hear traitorous expressions and outrageous words against his majesty's person and government, and his most faithful servants, and smile at it all as if I approved it; I am obliged to take all the scandalous and indeed villainous papers that come, and keep them by me as if I would gather materials from them to put them into the _News_; nay, I often venture to let things pa.s.s which are a little shocking that I may not render myself suspected. Thus I bow in the House of _Rimmon_, and must humbly recommend myself to his lords.h.i.+p's protection, or I may be undone the sooner, by how much the more faithfully I execute the commands I am under.' It would not be fair to judge Defoe altogether by the moral standard of our own day, but the part he played as a servant and spy of the government would have been an act of baseness in any age, and of this he seems to have been conscious.

Daniel Foe, who about 1703 a.s.sumed the prefix of De, for no a.s.signable reason, was the son of a butcher and Nonconformist in Cripplegate, who had the youth educated for the ministry. Daniel, however, preferred a more exciting occupation, and took part in the unfortunate expedition of the Duke of Monmouth. Escaping from that peril he began business as a hose factor in Cornhill, and carried it on until he failed about the year 1692. Already he had learnt to use the pen, and a loyal pamphlet secured for him a public appointment which lasted for some years. He was also connected with a brick manufactory at Tilbury. Meanwhile he wrote for the press, and showed himself the possessor of a clear and masculine style, which could be 'understanded of the people.'

In 1698 Defoe published his _Essay on Projects_, 'which perhaps,'

Benjamin Franklin says, 'gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the princ.i.p.al future events of my life.'

One of the most interesting projects in the book is the proposal to form an Academy on the French model. In 1712 Swift wrote a pamphlet (the only piece he published with his name) ent.i.tled _A proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English tongue_, in which he suggests the foundation of an Academy under the protection of the Queen and her ministers. The idea it will be seen had been antic.i.p.ated fifteen years before.

'The peculiar study of the Academy of France,' Defoe writes, 'has been to refine and correct their own language, which they have done to that happy degree that we see it now spoken in all the courts of Christendom as the language allowed to be most universal. I had the honour once to be a member of a small society who seemed to offer at this n.o.ble design in England; but the greatness of the work and the modesty of the gentlemen concerned prevailed with them to desist from an enterprise which appeared too great for private hands to undertake. We want indeed a Richelieu to commence such a work, for I am persuaded were there such a genius in our kingdom to lead the way, there would not want capacities who could carry on the work to a glory equal to all that has gone before them. The English tongue is a subject not at all less worthy the labours of such a society than the French, and capable of a much greater perfection. The learned among the French will own that the comprehensiveness of expression is a glory in which the English tongue not only equals, but excels its neighbours.... It is a great pity that a subject so n.o.ble should not have some as n.o.ble to attempt it; and for a method what greater can be set before us than the Academy of Paris, which, to give the French their due, stands foremost among all the great attempts in the learned part of the world.'

Defoe also projected a Royal Military Academy, and an academy for women which should have only one entrance and a large moat round it. With these precautions, spies, he observes, would be unnecessary, since, in his opinion, 'there needs no other care to prevent intriguing than to keep the men effectually away.' He had the Eastern notion of guarding women from danger by preventing the access to it, yet he could write:

'A woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of G.o.d's creation; the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of His singular regard to man, His darling creature, to whom He gave the best gift either G.o.d could bestow or man receive. And it is the sordidest piece of folly and ingrat.i.tude in the world to withhold from the s.e.x the due l.u.s.tre which the advantages of education gives to the natural beauty of their minds. A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison; her society is the emblem of sublime enjoyments; her person is angelic and her conversation heavenly.... She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be thankful.'

In verse Defoe published the _True Born Englishman_ (1701), in defence of King William and his Dutch followers:

'William's the name that's spoke by every tongue, William's the darling subject of my song; Listen, ye virgins, to the charming sound, And in eternal dances hand it round.

Your early offerings to this altar bring, Make him at once a lover and a king.'

The nonsense deepens as the rhyme goes on. For William every tender vow is to be made, he is to be the first thought in the morning, and his name will act as a charm, affrighting the infernal powers and guarding from the terror of the night.

The poem proved very popular, and Defoe writes that had he been able to enjoy the profit of his own labour he would have gained above 1,000. He printed nine editions at the price of one s.h.i.+lling a copy, but meanwhile twelve surrept.i.tious editions were published and sold for a few pence, a fraud for which he says he had no remedy but patience. Throughout his busy life of authors.h.i.+p he was indeed continually victimized by pirates.

While in verse Defoe extolled the king as if he were a demi-G.o.d, he did William good service by his pamphlets, and was in some degree admitted into his confidence.

Up to the king's death in 1702 his course appears to have been straightforward; after the accession of Anne he acted a less honourable part. No fault can be found with his design that year in writing _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_, a piece of irony unsurpa.s.sed in that age until the publication of Swift's _Modest Proposal_, twenty-seven years later. The satire was at first accepted as a serious argument. The Dissenters were alarmed, and the most bigoted of High Churchmen delighted. Then, Defoe's aim being discovered, both parties joined in the cry for vengeance. He was condemned to stand for three days in the pillory, and was afterwards imprisoned in Newgate. To the 'hieroglyphic state machine, contrived to punish Fancy in,' the undaunted man addressed a hymn which was hawked about the streets, and the mob instead of pelting him with offensive missiles, covered him with flowers.

'Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe,' says Pope. He was unabashed, but he was not earless.

In Newgate he remained until 1704, when he was released by Harley. In prison he wrote a minutely circ.u.mstantial account of the great storm commemorated in Addison's _Campaign_. How much of Defoe's narrative is truth and how much invention it is impossible to say. The fact that he solemnly vouches for the accuracy of his statements inclines one to believe that they are not to be trusted, for this was always Defoe's _role_ as a writer of fiction. His first and most deliberate effort is to impose upon his readers, and in this art he is without a rival.

While in Newgate he began his _Review_, a political journal of great ability. The first number was published in February, 1704, and it existed, though not in its original form, for more than nine years.

'When it is remembered that no other pen was ever employed than that of Defoe, upon a work appearing at such frequent intervals, extending over more than nine years, and embracing, in more than five thousand printed pages, essays on almost every branch of human knowledge, the achievement must be p.r.o.nounced a great one, even if he had written nothing else. If we add that between the dates of the first and last numbers of the _Review_ he wrote and published no less than eighty other distinct works, containing 4,727 pages, and perhaps more not now known, the fertility of his genius must appear as astonis.h.i.+ng as the greatness of his capacity for labour.'[50]

Defoe was permitted to leave his prison upon condition that he should act in the secret service of the Government, and his work was that of an hireling writer unburdened by principle. When Harley was ejected he made himself useful to G.o.dolphin; when G.o.dolphin was dismissed he went back to Harley, and 'the spirit of the _Review_ changed abruptly.' A more useful man for the work he had undertaken could not be found. His dexterity, his boldness, his knowledge of men and of affairs, his readiness as a writer, and it must be added his unscrupulousness, fitted him admirably for services which had to be done in secret.

Much that he did openly was deserving of high praise. He was tolerant in an intolerant age, he did his best to forward the Union of England and Scotland, his patriotic spirit was not feigned, his words are often weighty with wisdom, and it has been truly said, that 'his powerful advocacy was enlisted in favour of almost every practicable scheme of social improvement that came to the front in his time.'[51]

With equal truth the writer adds that Defoe was 'a wonderful mixture of knave and patriot.' The knavery is seen to some extent in his method of workmans.h.i.+p as a man of letters. In _A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal[52] the next day after her Death to one Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury, 8th September, 1705_ (1706) Defoe's art of mystification is skilfully practised.

'This relation,' he says in the Preface, 'is matter of fact, and attended with such circ.u.mstances as may induce any reasonable man to believe it. It was sent by a gentleman, a Justice of Peace at Maidstone, in Kent, and a very intelligent person, to his friend in London as it is here worded; which discourse is here attested by a very sober and understanding gentleman, who had it from his kinswoman who lives in Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which the within-named Mrs. Bargrave lives ... and who positively a.s.sured him that the whole matter as it is related and laid down is really true, and what she herself had in the same words, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth.'