Pope, by far the most important writer, English or Continental, of his own
age, is treated with more extensive ignorance by Mr. Schlosser than any
other, and (excepting Addison) with more ambitious injustice. A false
abstract is given, or a false impression, of any one amongst his brilliant
works, that is noticed at all; and a false sneer, a sneer irrelevant to
the case, at any work dismissed by name as unworthy of notice. The three
works, selected as the gems of Pope's collection, are the 'Essay on
Criticism,' the 'Rape of the Lock,' and the 'Essay on Man.' On the first,
which (with Dr. Johnson's leave) is the feeblest and least interesting of
Pope's writings, being substantially a mere versification, like a metrical
multiplication-table, of common-places the most mouldy with which
criticism has baited its rat-traps; since nothing is said worth answering,
it is sufficient to answer nothing. The 'Rape of the Lock' is treated with
the same delicate sensibility that we might have looked for in Brennus, if
consulted on the picturesque, or in Attila the Hun, if adjured to decide
aesthetically, between two rival cameos. Attila is said (though no doubt
falsely) to have described himself as not properly a man so much as the
Divine wrath incarnate. This would be fine in a melodrama, with Bengal
lights burning on the stage. But, if ever he said such a naughty thing, he
forgot to tell us what it was that had made him angry; by what
_title_ did _he_ come into alliance with the Divine wrath, which
was not likely to consult a savage? And why did his wrath hurry, by forced
marches, to the Adriatic? Now so much do people differ in opinion, that,
to us, who look at him through a telescope from an eminence, fourteen
centuries distant, he takes the shape rather of a Mahratta trooper,
painfully gathering _chout_, or a cateran levying black-mail, or a
decent tax-gatherer with an inkhorn at his button-hole, and supported by a
select party of constabulary friends.
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