If, as the
biographers say, Addison's action was not kindly to Pope, it was bare
justice to poor Dennis. Pope undoubtedly must have been bitterly vexed
at the implied rebuff, and not the less because it was perfectly just.
He seems always to have regarded men of Dennis's type as outside the
pale of humanity. Their abuse stung him as keenly as if they had been
entitled to speak with authority, and yet he retorted it as though they
were not entitled to common decency. He would, to all appearance, have
regarded an appeal for mercy to a Grub-street author much as Dandie
Dinmont regarded Brown's tenderness to a "brock"--as a proof of
incredible imbecility, or, rather, of want of proper antipathy to
vermin. Dennis, like Philips, was inscribed on the long list of his
hatreds; and was pursued almost to the end of his unfortunate life.
Pope, it is true, took great credit to himself for helping his miserable
enemy when dying in distress, and wrote a prologue to a play acted for
his benefit. Yet even this prologue is a sneer, and one is glad to think
that Dennis was past understanding it. We hardly know whether to pity or
to condemn the unfortunate poet, whose unworthy hatreds made him suffer
far worse torments than those which he could inflict upon their objects.
By this time we may suppose that Pope must have been regarded with
anything but favour in the Addison circle; and, in fact, he was passing
into the opposite camp, and forming a friendship with Swift and Swift's
patrons.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76