POPE
260
POPE
never had the intention of taking up, and he shrank
from it when it was forcibly exposed by Crousaz as
logically leading to Spinozism. To clear himself of
the charge of a denial of revealed religion and, in
Johnson's celebrated phrase, of representing "the
whole course of things as a necessary concatenation of
indissoluble fatality", he wrote, in 1738, the "Uni-
versal Prayer", which is now generally appended to
the "Essay on Man", but which, despite the piety it
displays, is not entirely convincing. From 1732 to
1738 he was busy with the composition and publica-
tion of his "Imitations of Horace", which, in diction
and versification at least, some critics consider his
masterpieces. He also at this period published two of
the "Satires of Dr. Donne", which he had versified
earlier in life. In 1735 appeared the "Epistle to Dr.
Arbuthnot, or Prologue to the Satires", and in 1738
the "Epilogue to the Satires, in Two Dialogues". In
1737 he published an authorized and carefully pre-
pared edition of his "Correspondence", which had
been brought out in 1735 by Curll in what Pope
alleged to be a garbled form.
With the publication of the "Dunciad", in 1743, Pope's literary activity ceased. He indeed set about the collection of his works with a view to an authori- tative edition; but he was obliged to abandon the attempt. His health, always poor, began rapidly to fail. He always expressed undoubting confidence in a future state, and when his end was obviously ap- proaching he willingly yielded to the representations of a Catholic friend that he should see a priest. It was noticed by those about him that after he had received the last sacraments his frame of mind was very peaceable. He died calmly the next day, 30 May, 1744, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was buried near the monument which he had raised to the memory of his father and mother at Twickenham.
Probably no writer, as such, ever made more ene- mies than Pope. Not only did he lash Bufo and Sporus, Sappho and Atossa, and scores of others by their own names or under thin disguise, but he boasted that he made a hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam. Herein indeed he over-reached himself, for the great majority of the victims of his satire would have been long ago forgotten but that he has em- balmed them for all time in the "Dunciad" and else- where. But if he had the fatal gift of arousing enmity and the fault of vindictiveness in the per- secution of those who had incurred his wrath, it must be put to the credit side of his account that scattered throughout his works there are many generous tributes to worth among his contemporaries. He possessed beyond question a deep fund of affection. He was a loving and devoted son, a loyal and con- stant friend. His happy relations with Arbuthnot and Swift, with Atterbury and Oxford, with Parnell and Prior, with Bolingbroke and Gay, with VVarbur- ton and Spence, and with many others of his acquain- tances were interrupted only by death. His friend- ship with Addison, which augured so auspiciously at first, was unfortunately soon clouded over. The question of their estrangement has been so volumi- nously discussed by Johnson, Macaulay, Ward, and others that it is unnecessary, as it would be unprofit- able, to pursue it here in detail. It will perhaps be sufficient to say that there were probably faults on both sides. If Pope was unduly suspicious, Addison was certainly too partial to the members of his own immediate little coterie. And if for real or fancied slights or wrongs Pope took an exemplary vengeance in his celebrated character of Atticus (Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, II, 193-214), it must always be borne in mind that he has taken care in many passages to pay compliments to Addison, and not empty com- pliments either, but as handsome as they were well deserved. A reference, for example, to Epistle I of the Second Book of Horace, will sufficiently prove
the truth of this statement. Regarding Pope's
position in the literature of his country, there
has been an extraordinary amount of controversy;
some critics going the length of denying him
the right to be called a poet at all. Opinion has
fluctuated remarkably on his merits. By his contem-
poraries he was regarded with a sort of reverential
awe. To his immediate successors he was the grand
exemplar of what a poet should be. His standing was
first assailed by Joseph Warton, in 1750, in his
"Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope", but
Johnson gave the great weight of his authority to the
other side. During the Romantic reaction of the last
part of the eighteenth century he lost caste to some
extent, and his reputation was very seriously jeop-
ardized in the height of the Romantic movement from
about 1820 onward. He was, however, warmly de-
fended by Campbell, Byron, and others. Nor is he
without stalwart champions in our own day. At
present opinion appears to have crystallized in the
direction of recognizing him as among the really great
names of English literature. Johnson's criticism may,
on the whole, be regarded as sound. His opinion, ex-
pressed in his biography of the poet, is that Pope had
in proportions very nicely adjusted to one another all
the qualities that constitute genius, invention, im-
agination, judgment, rare power of expression, and
melody in metre; and he replies to the question that
had been raised, as to whether Pope was a poet, by
asking in return: If Pope be not a poet, where is poetry
to be found? To treat this subject fully would lead
to a discussion of two very vexed questions, namely
what poetry really is, and what the proper subjects
of poetry are. It will perhaps serve the purpose
if the opinion bu indicated that, when detraction has
done its worst. Pope will still stand out, not perhaps as
a master-genius, but as the typical man of letters and
as the great representative English poet of the first
half of the eighteenth century.
Dennis, Reflections upon a late Rhapsody called an Essay upon Criticism (London. 1711); Idem, True Character o/ Mr. Pope (London, 1716); Idem, Remarks upon Mr. Pope's Translation of Homer, with two Letters concerning Windsor Forest and the Temple of Fame (London, 1717) ; Spence, An Essay on Pope's Translation of Homer's Odyssey (London, 1727); Idem, Anecdotes, ObservationSi and Characters of Books and Men, collected from the Conversation of Mr. Pope and others (London, 1820); Ayre, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Alexander Pope (London, 1745) ; Warton, Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, 1 (London, 1756), II (London, 1782); JonNSON, Life of Pope (London. 17S1); Earl OF Carlisle. Two Lectures on the Poetry of Pope (London, 1851); Ward, Introductory Memoir prefixed to the Globe ed. of The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope (London. 1869) ; Edwin .\bbott, a Concordance to the Works of Alexander Pope, with an Introduction by E. A. Abbott (London, 1875) ; Stephen, Alexander Pope in "English Men of Letters" series (London and New York, 1S80); Emily Morse Symonds, Mr. Pope. His Life and Times (London, 1909) ; eds. of Pope's Works by Warburton (London, 1751. reprinted 1769, with Life by Roffiiead) ; Bowles, with Life (London, 1806, new ed., 1847); Roscoe, with Life (London, 1824, new ed., 1847); Cabhuthers, with Life (London, 1853, second ed. of the Life, 1857); and Elwin and Cocrthope, with Life by Codrthope (London, 1871-1889).
P. J. Lennox.
Pope, Election of the. See Conclave; Papal Election
Pope (eccles. Lat., papa from Gr. irdiros, a variant of jrdiTTras, father; in classical Latin pappas — Juvenal, "Satires", vi, 633), The. The title pope, once used with far greater latitude (see below, section V), is at present employed solely to denote the Bishop of Rome, who, in virtue of his position as successor of St. Peter, is the chief pastor of the whole Church, the Vicar of Christ upon earth. Besides the bishopric of the Roman Diocese, certain other dignities are held by the pope as well ;is the supreme and universal pastor- ate: he is Archbishop of the Roman Province, Primate of Italy and the adjacent islands, and sole Patriarch of the Western Church. The Church's doctrine as to the pope was authorilativcly declared in the Vati- can Council in the Const it ut ion "Pastor -Eternus". The four chapters of that Constitution deal respec-
