OBSERVATIONS UPON “OBSERVATIONS”

A SECOND LETTER TO JOHN MURRAY, ESQ.  ON THE REV.  W.L.  BOWLES’S STRICTURES ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF POPE.

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Now first published.

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Ravenna, March 25. 1821.

Dear Sir,

In the further “Observations” of Mr. Bowles, in rejoinder to the charges brought against his edition of Pope, it is to be regretted that he has lost his temper.  Whatever the language of his antagonists may have been, I fear that his replies have afforded more pleasure to them than to the public.  That Mr. Bowles should not be pleased is natural, whether right or wrong; but a temperate defence would have answered his purpose in the former case—­and, in the latter, no defence, however violent, can tend to any thing but his discomfiture.  I have read over this third pamphlet, which you have been so obliging as to send me, and shall venture a few observations, in addition to those upon the previous controversy.

Mr. Bowles sets out with repeating his “confirmed conviction,” that “what he said of the moral part of Pope’s character was, generally speaking, true; and that the principles of poetical criticism which he has laid down are invariable and invulnerable,” &c.; and that he is the more persuaded of this by the “exaggerations of his opponents.”  This is all very well, and highly natural and sincere.  Nobody ever expected that either Mr. Bowles, or any other author, would be convinced of human fallibility in their own persons.  But it is nothing to the purpose—­for it is not what Mr. Bowles thinks, but what is to be thought of Pope, that is the question.  It is what he has asserted or insinuated against a name which is the patrimony of posterity, that is to be tried; and Mr. Bowles, as a party, can be no judge.  The more he is persuaded, the better for himself, if it give him any pleasure; but he can only persuade others by the proofs brought out in his defence.

After these prefatory remarks of “conviction,” &c.  Mr. Bowles proceeds to Mr. Gilchrist; whom he charges with “slang” and “slander,” besides a small subsidiary indictment of “abuse, ignorance, malice,” and so forth.  Mr. Gilchrist has, indeed, shown some anger; but it is an honest indignation, which rises up in defence of the illustrious dead.  It is a generous rage which interposes between our ashes and their disturbers.  There appears also to have been some slight personal provocation.  Mr. Gilchrist, with a chivalrous disdain of the fury of an incensed poet, put his name to a letter avowing the production of a former essay in defence of Pope, and consequently of an attack upon Mr. Bowles.  Mr. Bowles appears to be angry with Mr. Gilchrist for four reasons:—­firstly, because he wrote an article in “The London Magazine;” secondly, because he afterwards avowed it; thirdly, because he was the author of a still more extended article in “The Quarterly Review;” and, fourthly, because he was NOT the author of the said Quarterly article, and had the audacity to disown it—­for no earthly reason but because he had NOT written it.