that so exquisite a sketch of character should | facts. The pretended "surreptitious" edition survive for our instruction. of Curll was of course Pope's own :—

It is our opinion, then, that in the Addison quarrel, Pope had some justification. In his general feuds he showed, however, a too continuous relish for controversy. A man capable of translating Homer, and writing the "Essay on Man," need not have kept up so prolonged a war with the dunces. He took a pleasure in it inconsistent with the dignity which belonged to his general mind and character. Again, his frequent references to his money, and the friends he had among lords, smacked of his city parentage, and were not in harmony with his description of

himself.

"But recently fresh evidence has transpired. It has been proved that Pope printed letters as addressed to his deceased contemporaries, Addison, Arbuthnot, and Trumbull, which were originally written to other parties; and that he altered, added, or omitted names, dates, and incidents, in order to serve pur poses of his own. It has also been ascertained that although he had so early as 1729 deposited letters in Lord Oxford's library, he withdrew them in the spring of 1735-no doubt with a view to the publication by Curll. This dispels the last shadow of doubt and uncertainty. The surreptitious edition' was one of Pope's poetica fraudes, intended specially to benefit himself and to gratify his innate love of stratagem."

There was something rather southern than English in his passion for mystery, intrigue, and masquerade; but it harmonizes with the peculiar brilliance and subtlety of his mind. these mystifications of his we shall not venThe exact degree of moral guilt involved in ture to fix; but it is right to say that they were more practised to gratify his own vanity, than to injure any body else. It is pain

When he professed to be indifferent to the world and careless about enmity, and yet altered (much spoiling) the Dunciad in order to take revenge for a pamphlet by Cibber, he surely laid himself open to a charge of cant and affectation. In short, the weaknesses of the little man are endless. When examined, they will be found to resolve themselves generally into egotism, and this egotism was closely connected with his bad health. A sick man is only too likely to be selfish, and ful to think that so wonderful a genius should Pope was so much thrown upon himself that have done what was little, but we cannot 'behe brooded over every little thing that con-lieve that he did what was base. cerned him till it attained quite ridiculous "Base," however, will have to be the word proportions. In a word-he was morbid. But he was a great man, too:-alive to every flash of the lofty and the generous from books, or life, and capable of embodying the impression they made in immortal language. Nay, he did some of his little things under the self-deceit that they were fine things. When he lashed some poor devil of a scribbler, he persuaded himself that it was a duty to truth, &c.—and did not remember that what he called duty many people could not help believing to be partly spite.

One of the most remarkable illustrations of Pope's character is the whole way in which he managed and prepared the publication of his correspondence. That it was a trick by which he first contrived that his letters should see the light at all-nobody, we presume, now affects to doubt. But it is gradually becoming clearer, that he cooked these letters for publication in an unparalleled manner. The Athenæum critic has done wonders (from MS. authority) in establishing this; and our present biographer shall tell us, briefly, the

for one deed attributed to him, if future

biographers do not repudiate more decidedly than Mr. Carruthers, the story that Pope took a bribe from the Duchess of Marlborough to suppress his satire on her-the character of Carruthers (in spite of that kindly feeling to "Atossa." So scrupulously anxious is Mr. Pope, which we confess to sharing with him), so anxious, we say, is he, to be utterly imbelieve this story or no. First, he tells us partial, that he scarcely decides whether to

that

"Surely such an act is contrary to the tenor of the poet's life, if not of his moral character. It was his boast that he was 'un-' placed, unpensioned, no man's heir or slave.' He had rejected offers of Treasury grants from Halifax and Craggs; he had even, as Warburton asserts, declined making use of a subscription for £1000 of South Sea stock which Craggs would have pressed upon him. To his noble friend Bathurst and others, he was a lender, not a borrower, and his annuities secured him against any heavy reverse of fortune."

But afterwards he wavers-and we have the following melancholy paragraph:

6

True

The "favor you and I know," however, by no means need be £1000 in hard cash, and "The poet may have become avaricious for there is absolutely no proof whatever that it another, if not for himself. There are indi-was-barring a pencil-mark which Lord cations of a love of money in his publication Marchmont's executor, Sir George Rose, put of the licentious version of Horace, Sober on the letter, and which Rose junior (who Advice,' and in the subscription edition of his edited it) thought intended to assert that Letters. The former was injurious to his Marchmont himself told his father so. fame, and the latter was not necessary towards it, as the cheap editions of the Letters were stories require a clearer pedigree than thisin every one's hands. But Pope was strongly where the affiliation is not established. That and passionately desirous to see Martha there was a story to the effect that Pope took Blount settled in easy and independent cir- the bribe (floating about among a hundred cumstances for life. Her mother had died at lies soon after Pope's death), is indeed true. the beginning of this year (March 31, 1743), -(See Athenæum, No. 1562.) And this and he had agreed to purchase for her, at a cost of £315, the remainder of the lease of a explains the "it is said" of Warton-and house in Berkeley-row. He had some time of Horace Walpole, who would believe anybefore engaged Fortescue to procure an an- thing bad of a successful writer. But loose nuity for life for £1000, in behalf of a lady of rumors about a dreaded satirist are probably their acquaintance, evidently Miss Blount. as likely to be false as any ana one could And thus we may conceive that the poet, name." blinded by affection and impelled by what Failing real proof then, was not Pope seemed a generous and unselfish feeling likely to be too proud to incur the shame, yielded to the temptation, and was ultimately and not sufficiently in need to want the induced, as Warton reports, by female persuasion, to accept of a favor' from the money? Would he absolutely (as we know haughty Duchess, who would gladly have pur- he did) have "printed and distributed" copies chased his friendship or his silence at any of a book containing the satire, during the price, and whose wealth was known to be al- Duchess' life, if it had been in her power to put him to open shame? (Athenæum, ubi sup.) The thing is incredible. He was always vain, and he was sometimes weak; but he was never at any time a rogue and a fool! We are sorry that Mr. Carruthers did not follow, more decidedly, the instinct which. told him that this accusation, at all events, was false. Mr. Peter Cunningham in his edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets had, indeed, set him a bad example, by professing his faith in it on no better authority than that stated above.

most boundless."

Now, that an offence like this stands by itself, apart from the style of Pope's ordinary faults, alien from his general character in matters of money, inconsistent with his known pride towards people of rank, is so perfectly well known to all who are really familiar with him, that the charge cannot be believed except on direct evidence. Of this there is none, except in the subjoined passage from a letter of Bolingbroke's to Marchmont :

"Our friend Pope, it seems, corrected and prepared for the press, just before his death, an edition of the four epistles that follow the Essay on Man. They were then printed off, and are now ready for publication. I am sorry for it, because if he could be excused for writing the character of Atossa formerly, there is no excuse for his design of publishing it after the favor you and I know; and the character of Atossa is inserted. I have a copy of the book. Warburton has the propriety [or property] of it, as you know. Alter it he cannot by the terms of the will. Is it worth while to suppress the edition ? or should her Grace's friends say (as they may from several strokes in it) that it was not in tended for her character? and should she despise it? If you come over hither, we may talk better than write on the subject."

Our readers may perhaps think that we have confined ourselves too exclusively to the shady side of the great writer's character. But the fact is, and facts ought always to be faced, that recent discoveries have thrown more light on this side than on the other; and that a critic's business is to deal with what is immediately pressing first, whether

*It is extraordinary, what serious effects are produced on reputations by wandering and piquant anecdotes, of which the mass of people never seek the original authority. The story about Congreve's telling Voltaire that he wanted to be visited as a "gentleman" (which has affected Congreve's point. There is no authority for it-as was shown whole reputation with posterity), is a case in for the first time in the Notes to Thackeray's

Lectures.

he finds the task pleasant or no. It would the balance, then throw in his services to have been more agreeable to admirers of literature, and what will the position of the Hope, like ourselves, to dwell on the sound scales be? tenderness of his filial relations—his genuine This biography will form a most agreeable love of Swift and Bolingbroke, and Gay and addition to the works produced by that revival Arbuthnot-his noble sense of the dignity of of the Queen Anne reputations which we alliterature his tender hankering after sweeter luded to in our recent paper on Walpole. emotion in his life-long devotion to the fair- We believe that the revival will do good. haired Martha Blount and such familiar Pope may still be studied as the most perfect topics. But we are entering .on an epoch master of didactic writing in verse that our when his character is being-and is likely to literature can afford, and in studying the be more severely scrutinized than ever-writer it is a great aid to know the man. There and it is wise to be prepared for the worst. is no fear, now, of his ever again being overWe have not failed to distinguish his great-rated in either capacity; the danger is rather ness and his weaknesses. Weigh them in the other way; and-extraordinary as it

Mr. Blount of Mapledurham-the representa- would have seemed a century since-it is now tive of that "right worshipful" old family in our become necessary to recommend a due study day-has very kindly aided the labors of Mr. Carruthers in this edition. It is nearly four centuries and appreciation of Alexander Pope to the since some of the Blounts were encouraging Eras-rising generation of Englishmen!

mus.

INDIAN LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION.-" As

RUSSIAN CURE FOR IMPROVIDENCE. "There exists in slavery, and even in serfdom, in all probability the European will be furnished a considerable abatement of the evils arising from improvidence on the part of the working classes. Among free laborers, go where you will, you find improvidence generally prevailing. In the East and in the West, in the temperate zone and in the tropics, as all authors agree, the laborer scarcely looks forward beyond the day. He marries without any secure prospects of a maintenance; he spends the whole of his gains when he first marries, without reflecting that in a few years he may have half-a-dozen additional mouths to fill; he makes no provision against old age and infirmity, and only some faint provision even against sickness. Now a slave cannot be improvident, because to him providence is impossible. He depends on his master; he knows that if he is sick he will be fed and doctored; that when he is old he will be decently maintained: he marries with the cheerful consent of his master, who regards children as a valuable property; and the greater the number of mouth to be fed, the more the maintenance that is willingly supplied him. Even under serfdom the same is true. A Russian nobleman cannot now sell his serfs from the land they inherit; he may sell the land with the serfs upon it; he can prevent the serfs from leaving his estate, and can compel them to cultivate the soil. His property is valuable very much according to the number of serfs he possesses, and therefore he has a strong interest in having them well treated and in securing their physical wellbeing. Under these restraints, a serf may be guilty of some improvidence and recklessness, yet he is not sufficiently his own master to do this with impunity. If any serf behaves in such a way as to be a scandal to his neighborhood, the seigneur selects him as a suitable man for a soldier, as well fitted to be food for powder. He is marched off, and his village sees him no more." Sargant's Economy of the Laboring Classes.

with several letters of introduction, it may be as well to warn him that upon the delivery of those credentials, (which should be sent on his arrival by a Sepoy belonging to the hotel or club at which he is staying, with his card- and address in full,) the following morning he should make a personal call, such being the etiquette observable in India. He must not anticipate to be cordially received, or to have a carte blanche' given him to renew his visits whenever he may think proper or convenient; for an old resident in India, although most unbounded in his hospitality, must have some intimate knowledge of an individual -some insight into his habits, character, &c., ere he fraternizes with, or allows a Griffin (as a new comer in India is termed). to put his legs under his mahogany' whenever he likes. He will be received with marked and studied politeness, and then bowed out most courteously; and not until he has established himself, and becomes better known (either personally or by report) to the old Indian, must he look for anything beyond the polite bow or nod of recognition, and perhaps, as a mark of great condescension, an occasional invite. Still, should any unforeseen misfortune overtake him, then, upon making an application to him, (provided that his entire conduct has been fair and honorable,) the old Indian will relax his rigidity and interest himself most warmly and heartily in his behalf, and serve him to the very best of his ability and the uttermost of his power: but if, on the other hand, the Griffin has been guilty of any 'faux pas,' or has acted indiscreetly, he has nothing to expect at the hands of the resident, his letter of introduction will not then have the slightest weight with him. So that, in fact. these credentials are not of much value to any civilian or European on his entrance into Indian life."-Bradshaw's Overland Guide to India.

From Chambers' Journal.

clare that to possess a single vestige of the ANATOMY OF A LITERARY FORGERY. poet's handwriting, would be esteemed a ALTHOUGH, doubtless, all the world, or at gem beyond all price, and far dearer to him least all the reading part of it, has heard of than his whole collection." At these converthat most audacious of literary forgeries, Vor-sations, young Ireland was always present, tigern, a Tragedy, yet, as we suspect that "swallowing with avidity the honeyed poison; very few even of the few who have seen it when, by way," he says, " of completing this have ever read it, and that only a small infatuation, my father, who had already prominority of our readers generally is at all duced picturesque tours of some of the Britlikely to be acquainted with its history, we ish rivers, determined on commencing that of purpose to avail ourselves of the recent ac- the Avon, and I was selected as the companquisition of a copy of the rare reprint of ion of his journey. Of course," he adds, 1832,* to supply-in many places in the "no inquiries were spared either at Stratforger's own words-such an account of the ford or in the neighborhood, respecting the circumstances which led to the perpetration mighty poet. Every legendary tale, vended of the fraud as shall be wanting, we fully anecdote, or traditionary account was treashope, neither in interest nor instruction. ured up. In short, the name of Shakspeare ushered in the dawn, and a bumper, quaffed to his immortal memory at night, sealed our weary eyelids to repose."

Induced by the reiterated eulogies rung in his ears respecting Shakspeare, by his father's enthusiasm, and, above all, by the incessant remark on the old man's part,

Samuel Ireland the father of the unhappy lad whose career we are about to trace, was emphatically one of those madmen who make men mad-one of those idolaters who esteem the book above the life, and who, without an eye to see or a heart to understand wherein lies the greatness of him whom they adore, prefer some filthy, worm-eaten," that to possess even a signature of the useless relic of their deified mortal to the bard would make him the happiest of human body of genius and wisdom, which is in the beings," it occurred to young Ireland to take better testament of his works. Even such a advantage of his residence in a conveyancer's divinity, according to "the testimony of the office, environed by old deeds, to produce a son, was Shakespeare to Samuel Ireland. spurious imitation of Shakspeare's autograph. "Four days at least out of the seven were Having supplied himself with a tracing of his writings made the after-dinner theme of the poet's signature, he wrote a mortgagethe old man's conversation; while in the deed, imitating the law-hand of the time of evening, still further to impress the subject James I., and affixed thereto Shakspeare's upon the minds of his son and his visitors, cer- sign-manual. This mortgage deed purporttain plays were selected, and a part allotted ing to be between Shakspeare and one Mito each, in order that they might read aloud chael Fraser and Elizabeth his wife, not only and-commune doubtless with the soul of transported the sage elder into the seventh their divinity, and extract the heart of the heaven of felicity, but attracted crowds of mystery? no-but in order that they might other connoisseurs and antiquaries. To the "thereby acquire a knowledge of the deliv- question where the deed was found, Ireland ery of blank verse articulately and with the younger replied, that "he had formed proper emphasis!" "The comments to an acquaintance with a gentleman of ancient which these rehearsals, if I may be per- family, possessed of a mass of deeds and mitted so to call them, gave rise, were of a papers relating to his ancestors, who finding nature to elicit, in all its bearings, the enthu-him very partial to the examination of old siasm entertained by my father for the bard documents, had permitted him to inspect of Avon. With him, Shakspeare was no them; that, shortly after commencing his mortal, but a divinity; and frequently while expatiating on this subject, impregnated with all the fervor of Garrick, with whom he had been on intimate terms, my father wouid de

The Shakespeare Forgeries. Vortigern, a Tragedy. Reprinted from the edition of 1796, with an Introduction. By W. H. Ireland. London. 1832.

search, the mortgage-deed in question had fallen into his hands, and had been presented to him by the proprietor." He added, "that the personage alluded to, well aware that the name of Shakspeare must create a considerable sensation, and being a very retiring and diffident man, had bound him by a solemn

engagement never to divulge his name.' a drama-the Vortigern we have already reWhereupon so completely had this young ferred to-although, if he is to be believed. rogue's skill and plausibility produced the he had never essayed a pen at poetical comeffect he wished-Mr. Byng, afterwards Vis- position, and had not at that time written a count Torrington, Sir Frederick Eden, and single line of the play which he purposed many others, gave it as their decided opinion producing. Prior to its completion, the fame that, wheresoever he found the deed, there, of his discoveries had resounded from one no doubt, the mass of papers existed which extremity of the country to the other; and had been so long and vainly sought after by on the completion of the drama, strenuous the numerous commentators on Shakspeare! applications were made by the lessee of CoThus urged to make "further searches," as vent Garden Theatre to secure it; but the he modestly called them, the young scape elder Ireland, from his long intimacy with grace proceeded to pen a few letters and the Sheridan and Linley families, preferred "The Profession of Faith of William Shaks- Drury Lane, where the play was subsequently pear," the whole of which passed muster, represented. although, in many instances, the documents produced as two hundred years old had not been fabricated many hours previous to their production. On the pretended "Profession of Faith," particularly, Dr. Warton, after issued from the press, while the newspapers having twice perused the important document, pronounced a pompous eulogy in the presence of Dr. Parr: "Sir, we have many fine things in our church-service, and our liturgy abounds in beauties; but here, sir, is a Iman who has distanced us all!

།

Malone, whose experience of deception had given him some caution, now stood forward as "generalissimo of the unbelievers." "Some pamphlets pro. and con. had also

incessantly teemed with paragraphs written on the spur of the moment, and dictated by the, particular sentiments entertained as to the papers by their authors. Malone having, in the interim, collected his mass of documents intended to prove the whole a forgery, Well might the precocious lad be excited committed them to the press, under a hope by these old ass-heads to more ambitious ef- that he should be able to publish his volume forts! Anon, he announced the existence of before the representation of Vortigern. The It is curious enough that a somewhat similar bulkiness of his production, however, having fraud had, a quarter of a century before, been defeated that object, he, the day the piece played off by Steevens upon Malone. Thomas was to be performed, issued a notice, to the Hart, a descendant of Shakspeare's sister, Joan, employed, in the year 1770, a bricklayer of the effect that he had a work on the eve of pubname of Mosely, to new-tile his house-the same lication which would infallibly prove the house in Henly Street, Stratford, bequeathed by the poet to his sister "for the term of her natural manuscripts in Mr. Ireland's possession mere life at the yearly rent of twelve pence; and fabrications, and warning the people not to here, between the rafters and the tiling, he discov- be imposed upon by the play advertised for ered, or is said to have discovered, a manuscript of six leaves, purporting to be "The Confession of that night's representation, as being from Faith of John Shakspear (the poet's father), an the pen of Shakspeare. 'My father "-it is unworthy member of the holy Catholic religion." Mosely gave his prize to Mr. Peyton, an alderman young Ireland who writes-"having proof Stratford, who sent it to Malone, through the cured a copy of this notice, though late in Rev. Mr. Davenport, as a curiosity of great impor- the day, instantly forwarded to the press the tance. Malone was completely deceived. "I have taken some pains," he says in 1790, "to asfollowing handbill, and distributed an imcertain the authenticity of this document, and am mense number amongst the assembled mulperfectly satisfied that it is genuine." But the titudes, then choking up every avenue to paper as we have said, was a fabrication, and a "VORTIGERN. A clumsy one-a trick of Steevens to mislead his Drury Lane Theatre: rival editor. Malone, however, discovered his malevolent and impotent attack on the error at last. "I have since obtained documents," Shakspeare MSS. having appeared on the he says in a subsequent publication," that clearly prove it could not have been the composition of eve of representation of the play of Vortiany of our poet's family." Boswell quietly and gern, evidently intended to injure the interjudiciously dropped the document from his edition,

treating it as a paper that had never existed. Ma- ests of the proprietor of the MSS., Mr. Irelone himself was not guiltless of like unseemly land feels it impossible, within the short frauds. The drawing of Shakspeare's house of

New Place, which figures in his edition of 1790 as space of time that intervenes between the taken from the margin of an ancient survey," is, publishing and the representation, to produce by his own confession, a forgery.