Eighteenth Century Vignettes. Dobson Austin
one of the fortunate men of a fortunate literary age. In 1726 he had published a 'genteel' critique of Pope's 'Odyssey,' conspicuous for its courteous mingling of praise and blame, and not the less grateful to the person criticised because – as Bennot Langton said, and as good luck would have it – ten out of the twelve objections fell, upon the labours of Pope's luckless coadjutors, Broome and Fenton. The book made Pope his friend, and himself Professor of Poetry, in which capacity he patronised Thomson, and protected Queen Caroline's thresher-laureate, Stephen Duck. During the continental tours which he undertook in 1730 and 1737, and in that above referred to, he collected the material for his 'Polymetis,' a tall folio on classical mythology, the earlier editions of which are now chiefly sought after for their irreverent vignette of Dr. Cooke, propositor of Eton, in the disguise of 'an ass's nowl.' Spence continued to dally lightly with letters, editing Sackville's 'Gorboduc,' annotating Virgil, writing a life of the blind poet Blacklock, and comparing (after the manner of Plutarch), for Walpole's private press at Strawberry, Mr. Robert Hill, the 'learned tailor' of Buckingham, with that Florentine helluo librorum, Signor Antonio Magliabecchi. He lived the mildly studious life of a quiet, easy-going clergyman of the eighteenth century, nursing a widowed mother like Pope, and declining to disturb the placid ripple of his days by the 'violent delights' of matrimony. He is 'the completest scholar,' 'the sweetest tempered gentleman breathing,' cries his enthusiastic friend, Mr. Christopher Pitt, himself a virtuoso and a translator of Homer. He is 'extremely' polite, friendly, cheerful, and master of an infinite fund of subjects for agreeable conversation,' says Mr. Shenstone of the Leasowes. 'He was a good-natured, harmless little soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius,' says ungrateful Mr. Walpole. 'He was a poor creature, though a very worthy man,' says clever Mr. Cambridge of the 'World' and the 'Scribleriad.' To strike an average between these varying estimates is not a difficult task. It gives us a character amiable rather than strong, finical rather than earnest, well-informed and ingenious rather than positively learned. For the rest, 'Polymetis' has been supplanted by Lempriere, and is as dead as Stephen Duck; and its author now lives mainly by the 'priefs' which, like Sir Hugh Evans, he made in his notebook, – in other words, by the Anecdotes of the Literary Men of his age, which, when occasion offered, he jotted down from the conversation of Pope, Young, Dean Lockier, and other notabilities into whose company he came from time to time.
The story of Spence's 'Anecdotes' is a chequered one. At their author's death they were still in manuscript, though their existence was an open secret. Joseph Warton had handselled them for his 'Essay on Pope;' and Warburton had used them for Ruffhead's 'Life.' When Spence died in 1768, it was discovered that he had himself intended to print them, – that he had, in fact, conditionally sold a selection of them to Robert Dodsley, the bookseller (whom he had formerly befriended), for a hundred pounds. But before publication was finally arranged both Spence and Robert Dodsley died. Spence's executors – Bishop Lowth, Dr. Ridley, and Mr. Rolle – thought suppression for a time desirable; and the surviving Dodsley, James, although, says Joseph Warton, 'he probably would have gained £400 or £500 by it,' was easily prevailed upon, out of regard for Spence, to relinquish the bargain. The manuscript selection was then presented by the executors to Spence's old pupil, Lord Lincoln, who had become Duke of Newcastle, while the original 'Anecdotes,' and a fair copy, remained in Bishop Lowth's possession. The Newcastle MS. was lent to Johnson, who employed it for his 'Lives of the Poets,' giving great offence to the Duke by acknowledging the loan without mentioning the name of the lender; and Malone had access to it for his Dryden, at the same time compiling from it a smaller selection, which he annotated briefly. By a series of circumstances too lengthy to detail, this last, some years after Malone's death, passed into the hands of Mr. John Murray, who published it in 1820. In the same year, and, by a curious coincidence, upon the same day, appeared another edition based upon the Lowth papers, which had also found their way into other hands. This was prefaced and annotated by Mr. S. W. Singer, and a second edition of it was issued in 1858 by J. R. Smith. Beyond these three editions of the 'Anecdotes,' there has been no other reprint but the excellent little compilation in the 'Camelot' series which the late Mr. John Underhill put forth in 1890.
As will be gathered from the above, Spence's own selection is still unpublished, and is supposed to remain in the possession of the Newcastle family. But as Malone extracted all of it that he thought worth keeping, and as Singer printed the materials on which it was based, it is not likely that its publication now, even if it were found to be practicable, would be of material interest, except to show what Spence personally regarded as deserving of preservation. With respect to the 'Anecdotes' themselves, there can be little doubt that, whatever their subsequent extension may have been, they originated in Spence's acquaintanceship with Pope; and that their first purpose was the bringing together of such dispersed data as might serve for the basis of his biography. (So much, in fact, Spence told Warburton when they were returning from Twickenham after Pope's death; and then, like the courteous, amiable 'silver penny' that he was, surrendered all his memoranda to his more pretentious companion, in whose subsequent 'Life,' for Ruffhead's 'Life of Pope' is really Warburton's, nearly every anecdote of value is derived from Spence.) From collecting Popiana to collecting ana of Pope's contemporaries, would be a natural step; and it would be but a step farther to add, from time to time, such supplementary notes or impressions de voyage as presented themselves, even if they had no special connection with the primary matter, which is Pope and Pope's doings. Indeed, in Singer's opinion, Spence's 'Anecdotes' already contain, not only 'a complete though brief autobiography' of the poet, but also 'the most exact record of his opinions on important topics,' – a record which is 'probably the more genuine and undisguised, because not premeditated, but elicited by the impulse of the moment.' This, as far as it relates to Pope's views on abstract literary questions, is no doubt true; but 'genuine,' 'undisguised,' and 'unpremeditated' are scarcely the epithets which modern criticism has taught us to apply to some, at least, of Pope's utterances concerning his contemporaries; and in these respects we are more exactly informed than the Oxford Professor of Poetry. Take, for instance, the well-known Wycherley correspondence. 'People have pitied you extremely,' says sympathetic Mr. Spence, who professes to speak verbatim, 'on reading your letters to Wycherley [i.e., the correspondence which Pope had printed]; surely 'twas a very difficult thing for you to keep well with him!' And thereupon Mr. Pope, of Twickenham and Parnassus, replies that 'it was the most difficult thing in the world;' that he was 'extremely plagued up and down, for almost two years,' with Wycherley's verses; that Wycherley was really angry at having them so much corrected; that his memory was entirely gone, – and so forth. 6 All of which Mr. Spence confidingly transfers to his tablets. But thanks to the publication by Mr. Courthope in 1889, from the manuscripts at Longleat, of most of Wycherley's autograph letters, we now know that the correspondence to which Spence referred had been considerably 'edited' by Pope with the view of misrepresenting his dealings with Wycherley; and there is even something more than a suspicion that he actually concocted those of Wycherley's letters for which there are no equivalent vouchers in the Marquis of Bath's collection.
In any case, the real documents show clearly that, instead of resenting the amendments and alterations of his 'Deare Little Infallible,' as he calls him, the old dramatist received them with effusive gratitude; and, far from reproaching the poet for neglecting to visit him (which Pope implied), constantly delayed or postponed his own visits to Pope at Binfield; – in short, did, in reality, just the very reverse of what he is represented as doing in Pope's garbled correspondence. So that, in these worshipful communiqués to Spence, Pope must simply have been playing at that eighteenth-century pastime to which Swift refers in the 'Polite Conversation' as 'Selling a Bargain.'
In Pope's life, it is to be feared, there were not a few of these equivocal mercantile transactions. He certainly imposed on Spence's credulity when he told him that 'there was a design whieh does not generally appear,' in other words, a cryptic significance, in his correspondence with Henry Cromwell. And he also, with equal certainty, disposed of 'a great Pennyworth' (in the current phrase) when he gave him the – from his own point of view – eminently plausible account of the circumstances which led to the notorious character of 'Atti-cus.' Whether Spence, who could not be said to be unwarned, since he records Addison's caution to Lady Mary against Pope's 'devilish tricks,' had any lurking suspicion that Pope was not to be relied upon, does not appear. But it is obvious that, without Spence's 'Anecdotes,' Pope's biographers would have played but
He did not tell Spence (as he might have done) that his own 'Damn with faint praise' was borrowed from the man he was decrying. 'And with faint praises one another damn,' is a line in one of Wycherley's prologues.