EPISTLE TO ARBUTHNOT. Pope's (Epistle to Arbuthnot) (1734-35), known also as (The Prologue to the Satires,' is quite the best thing of its kind in English. Characteristic of the writer in its invective, its brilliant wit, its epigrams and apothegms, and its incisive and compressed style, it is far more than any other of his satires a key to the character of the man himself. Indeed, it presents an entire auto biography in little more than 400 lines. It is Pope's apologia, in which he disproves the state ment that he was of lowly birth, tells how and when he entered upon his profession as poet, relates his persecution by literary pretenders and bores; dwells especially upon the slanderous attaelcs by his enemies; and draws portraits of his enemies and his friends. The whole is a melange of personal confession and of satire to which unity is given only by the personality of the poet and by his interest in himself. So highly autobiographical and allusive is the (Epistle) that a commentator is needed to point out its full significance. Quite apart from any autobiographic element, however, it is intrin sically great among its kind, and even to the reader who lcnows little of Pope's character and disregards the contemporary allusions, is still immensely entertaining. As Sir Leslie Stephen has remarked, Pope is at his best when he expresses personal antipathies and attachments, when he is autobiographic, and when he points his morality by personal and concrete instances. He was a curious mixture of honesty and hypoc risy, though often honestly self-deceived, and certain passages of the 'Epistle) must °be read by the rule of contraries?) Yet there is no more reason to doubt the sincerity of his tender tributes to his mother and to his friend Arbuthnot than his vitriolic lines on Lord Her vey (Sporus). Though of various tones, the
(Epistle) is in the main bitterly satirical. The original cause of the entire series of Pope's apologetic satires was his (Dunciad,) which provoked violent counter attacks. The immedi ate cause for the composition of the (Epistle,' however, was the publication in 1733 of 'Verses to the Imitator of Horace,' which attacked the family, the person, the manners and the morals of the poet, and in which Lady Mary Wortley Montague and Lord Hervey were implicated. Characteristically, Pope pretended to be indiffer ent to the attack, and in his ((advertisement" asserts that the (Epistle) was composed long before the appearance of the Montague-Hervey volume The statement is disingenuous, since only 96 lines (151-214, on Addison; 238-241, on Bufo; 406-419, on Arbuthnot) were old matter. These disconnected passages were pieced to gether and over 300 lines added to form the brilliant and scathing rejoinder to (Verses to the Imitator of Horace.) Dr. Johnson traces the idea of the (Epistle) to Boileau's address (A son esprit,). but, though Boileau's poem is admirable, Pope far excels it. ((The sustained dramatic power, the variety of the detail, the richness of the imagery, the ele vation of the sentiment, the force of the invec tive, contrasting so exquisitely with the pathetic repose of the conclusion, combine to place the (Epistle) beyond reach of rivalry in this kind of writing)) (Elwin and Courthope). For a full discussion of the date of composition, consult Pope's 'Works,' (Vol. III (Poetry), ed. Elwin and Courthope, 1881). Sir Leslie Stephen in his life of Pope in the (English Men of Letters) series makes interesting comments on the satires.