The very natural instinct which
Attila always showed for following the trail of the wealthiest footsteps,
seems to argue a most commercial coolness in the dispensation of his
wrath. Mr. Schlosser burns with the wrath of Attila against all
aristocracies, and especially that of England. He governs his fury, also,
with an Attila discretion in many cases; but not here. Imagine this Hun
coming down, sword in hand, upon Pope and his Rosicrucian light troops,
levying _chout_ upon Sir Plume, and fluttering the dove-cot of the
Sylphs. Pope's 'duty it was,' says this demoniac, to 'scourge the follies
of good society,' and also 'to break with the aristocracy.' No, surely?
something short of a total rupture would have satisfied the claims of
duty? Possibly; but it would not have satisfied Schlosser. And Pope's
guilt consists in having made his poem an idol or succession of pictures
representing the gayer aspects of society as it really was, and supported
by a comic interest of the mock-heroic derived from a playful machinery,
instead of converting it into a bloody satire. Pope, however, did not
shrink from such assaults on the aristocracy, if these made any part of
his duties. Such assaults he made twice at least too often for his own
peace, and perhaps for his credit at this day. It is useless, however, to
talk of the poem as a work of art, with one who sees none of its exquisite
graces, and can imagine his countryman Zacharia equal to a competition
with Pope.
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