Pope's Earliest Satire

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Title:     Pope's Earliest Satire
Author: Isaac Disraeli [More Titles by Disraeli]

We find by the first edition of Lintot's "Miscellaneous Poems," that the anonymous lines "To the Author of a Poem called Successio," was a literary satire by Pope, written when he had scarcely attained his fourteenth year. This satire, the first probably he wrote for the press, and in which he has succeeded so well, that it might have induced him to pursue the bent of his genius, merits preservation. The juvenile composition bears the marks of his future excellences: it has the tune of his verse, and the images of his wit. Thirty years afterwards, when occupied by the Dunciad, he transplanted and pruned again some of the original images.

The hero of this satire is Elkanah Settle. The subject is one of those Whig poems, designed to celebrate the happiness of an uninterrupted "Succession" in the Crown, at the time the Act of Settlement passed, which transferred it to the Hanoverian line. The rhymer and his theme were equally contemptible to the juvenile Jacobite poet.

The hoarse and voluminous Codrus of Juvenal aptly designates this eternal verse-maker;--one who has written with such constant copiousness, that no bibliographer has presumed to form a complete list of his works.[1]

When Settle had outlived his temporary rivalship with Dryden, and was reduced to mere Settle, he published party-poems, in folio, composed in Latin, accompanied by his own translations. These folio poems, uniformly bound, except that the arms of his patrons, or rather his purchasers, richly gilt, emblazon the black morocco, may still be found. These presentation-copies were sent round to the chiefs of the party, with a mendicant's petition, of which some still exist. To have a clear conception of the present views of some politicians, it is necessary to read their history backwards. In 1702, when Settle published "Successio," he must have been a Whig. In 1685 he was a Tory, commemorating, by a heroic poem, the coronation of James II., and writing periodically against the Whigs. In 1680 he had left the Tories for the Whigs, and conducted the whole management of burning the Pope, then a very solemn national ceremony.[2] A Whig, a pope-burner, and a Codrus, afforded a full draught of inspiration to the nascent genius of our youthful satirist.

Settle, in his latter state of wretchedness, had one standard elegy and epithalamium printed off with blanks. By the ingenious contrivance of inserting the name of any considerable person who died or was married, no one who had gone out of the world or was entering into it but was equally welcome to this dinnerless livery-man of the draggled-tailed Muses. I have elsewhere noticed his last exit from this state of poetry and of pauperism, when, leaping into a green dragon which his own creative genius had invented, in a theatrical booth, Codrus, in hissing flames and terrifying-morocco folds, discovered "the fate of talents misapplied!"

TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED "SUCCESSIO."

Begone, ye critics, and restrain your spite;
Codrus writes on, and will for ever write.
The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone,
As clocks run fastest when most lead is on.[3]
What though no bees around your cradle flew,
Nor on your lips distill'd their golden dew;
Yet have we oft discover'd in their stead,
A swarm of drones that buzz'd about your head.
When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre,
Attentive blocks stand round you, and admire.
Wit past through thee no longer is the same,
As meat digested takes a different name;[4]
But sense must sure thy safest plunder be,
Since no reprisals can be made on thee.
Thus thou mayst rise, and in thy daring flight
(Though ne'er so weighty) reach a wondrous height:
So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky.[5]
Sure Bavius copied Mævius to the full,
And CHÆRILUS[6] taught CODRUS to be dull;
Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o'er
This needless labour, and contend no more
To prove a dull Succession to be true,
Since 'tis enough we find it so in you.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The fullest account we have of Settle, a busy scribe in his day, is in Mr. Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," vol. i. p. 41.

[2] It was the custom when party feeling ran high on the subject of papacy, towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, to get up these solemn mock-processions of the Pope and Cardinals, accompanied with figures to represent Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, and other subjects well adapted to heat popular feelings, and parade them through the streets of London. The day chosen for this was the anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth (Nov. 17), and when the procession reached Temple-bar, the figure of the Pope was tossed from his chair by one dressed as the Devil into a great bonfire made opposite the statue of Queen Elizabeth, on the city side of Temple-bar. Two rare tracts describe these "solemn mock-processions," as they are termed, in 1679 and 1680. Prints were also published depicting the whole proceedings, and descriptive pamphlets from the pen of Settle, who arranged these shows.--ED.

[3 Thus altered in the Dunciad, book i., ver. 183--

"As clocks to weight their nimble motions owe,
The wheels above urged by the load below."

[4] This original image a late caustic wit (Horne Tooke), who probably had never read this poem, employed on a certain occasion. Godwin, who had then distinguished himself by his genius and by some hardy paradoxes, was pleading for them as hardily, by showing that they did not originate in him--that they were to be found in Helvetius, in Rousseau, and in other modern philosophers. "Ay," retorted the cynical wit; "so you eat at my table venison and turtle, but from you the same things come quite changed!" The original, after all, is in Donne, long afterwards versified by our poet. See Warton's edition, vol. iv. p. 257. Pope must have been an early reader of Donne.

[5] Thus altered in the Dunciad, book i. ver. 181--

"As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky."

[6] Perhaps, by Chærilus, the juvenile satirist designated Flecknoe, or Shadwell, who had received their immortality of dulness from his master, catholic in poetry and opinions, Dryden.

[The end]
Isaac Disraeli's essay: Pope's Earliest Satire

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