CHAPTER I POPE AND THE LATER COUPLET Pope's metrical unitarianism-His couplet, and its form- The "gradus epithet "—The Pastorals-The Messiah and Windsor Forest The Essay on Criticism and The Rape of the Lock— The Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady-Eloisa to AbelardInterim comparison with Dryden-The Homer-The Essays and Satires-Their value as chasteners-Pope in other measures -After Pope-Johnson—The partial return to DrydenSavage Churchill-Goldsmith-Crabbe-Sir Eustace Grey, etc. The heroics-Cowper-His early poems-Table Talk, etc.-Tirocinium. metrical As was observed previously, Pope is practically homo Pope's unius metri. The few pieces which he composed in any unitarianism. other would not fill a dozen pages, and (as it has been said of the contemporary French lyric and the Alexandrine) these very pieces are seldom more than decasyllables cut into lengths. Of the faith of which Bysshe was the humble but undoubting lawgiver, Pope was the not at all humble, and, whether undoubting or not, unhesitating high priest, as well as victorious champion. The couplet, the pure couplet, and nothing but the couplet, is the prosodic heading of every page of his verse, save the few noted. "There is one metre, and Pope is its prophet," was the doctrine of the greater part of the eighteenth century. From one point of view, therefore, he may seem to demand very brief handling, and from any point he must demand less than poets of equal position who have been more polymetric. But, on the other hand, it is under him that we should deal with the couplet itself, so as to keep the connection of poets and poetry, and to His couplet, and its form. lighten what would be otherwise an unduly heavy Interchapter. The Popian couplet is, in its own way, a Quintessence, an Entelechy; and nothing qui tient de la Quinte arrives at perfection at once. Whether he composed his works as early as he said he did, or as early as we know he did, they are still remarkably precocious, and it was not to be supposed that he would at once discard the easements and licences which Dryden had permitted and transmitted. Yet, as we see from Garth's Dispensary, there was already a tendency to reject both the Alexandrine and the triplet, and it was one of Pope's special characteristics to be sensitive to such perhaps not quite skiey influences, and to express them early, forcibly, and in a way finally. He laughed at the Alexandrine before he practically abandoned it except in very early work he never seems to have been much given to Dryden's triplet, though he never quite abandoned this either, using it occasionally with an obvious desire for special-generally for comic-effect. In the case of these two poets the style certainly was “de l'homme même," as the probably better reading of Buffon's maxim runs. Not merely the range of Dryden's interests, and the weight and vigour of his understanding, but a certain bonhomie which distinguished him, are reflected in his metre; Pope's narrower accomplishment, and his slightly viperish disposition, find their natural utterance in his. But accomplishment is a very delightful thing, and the viper, though a formidable, is really a beautiful beast. It is very interesting to watch the gradual, though by no means tardy, polishing and lightening, and in the process the necessary whittling or filing away, of the measure. With the discard of the Alexandrine and the triplet, or their very unfrequent use, not only is an approach made to the imaginary "purity" of the style, but another and still closer one is also made to its uniformity, and yet another, closest of all, to its maximum swiftness. This latter desideratum is further secured by a certain not easily describable but most perceptible lightening of the rhymes a large proportion of Pope's final words are monosyllabic,—and an avoidance, not prudish, but evident, of long and heavy vocables in the interior of the lines themselves. The first line is allowed to run into the second in sense, though there is generally reserved a perceptible halt in sound to mark it; but one couplet is never allowed to run into another except for some special purpose, and seldom at all. The pause is kept as nearly as possible to the three charmed centre syllables, fourth, fifth, and sixth; and though antithesis in the halves is seldom as striking as it sometimes is in Dryden, it is perhaps more uniformly present; while that between line and line, or between both halves of both lines, is not uncommon. One drastic but dangerous device for securing the The "gradus undulating penetration of the line had been obvious from epithet." the very first in Fairfax, and much more in Waller; while, though avoided to a great extent by Dryden's masculine strength and his fertility of ideas, it had become very prominent in Garth and was never relinquished by Pope. In fact, it is probable that to his dealing with it is due the popularity of some of his most popular passages. This is the use, either at one place in the line or at corresponding ones towards its two ends, of the "gradus epithet," the filling or padding, the cheville as the French call it, which, when overdone, is perhaps the worst blemish of the style. There are passages-examples will be given below1-in 1 The Rape passage will be found further on (p. 453), cited for an addi- With breathing fire his pitchy nostrils blow, The vine undressed her swelling clusters bears, Read, omitting the interlined epithets, and you get perfectly fluent octo- VOL. II |