The Beginning of Pope's Friendship with SpenceAuthor(s): Austin WrightSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 54, No. 5 (May, 1939), pp. 359-361Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2912355 .

Accessed: 24/06/2014 21:52

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toModern Language Notes.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.162 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:52:33 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

POPE'S FRIENDSHIP WITH SPENCE 359

of the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, to Sir John Perceval as one of nine gentlemen, two of whom are listed as having a 'governor' and 'tutor' in attendance.13 It seems probable that this may have been a short period during which Harcourt was unaccompanied by a tutor, Forrester having left and Philips not yet arrived. Since, also, there is no other time in this period of Philips's life into which this tour with Harcourt can be fitted, we are justified in assuming that it took place sometime during the winter of 1707-08.

S. F. FOGLE The University of Illinois

THE BEGINNING OF POPE'S FRIENDSHIP WITH SPENCE

Soon after the publication, in June 1726, of the first part of Joseph Spence's Essay on Pope's Odyssey, there began an acquaint- ance between the poet and his critic which ripened into one of the most memorable friendships of Pope's life. That this acquaintance commenced well before August 1727 is proved by the existence of Spence's manuscript copy of Part II. of the Essay, which appeared in that month, containing comments and suggested alterations by Pope.' It was early reported that the poet, pleased with the Essay,2 sought the acquaintance of the author and thus began their friendship, a story which was accepted by both Samuel John- son and Joseph Warton.3 John Underhill was of the opinion that the Reverend Christopher Pitt, one of Spence's closest friends and at least a correspondent of Pope, had brought poet and critic

13 Qistrial ManusriQ s oYnMmissionn, Rennrts. Trmonf- TTI 21.R

'A detailed description of this manuscript by S. W. Singer, editor of Spence's Anecdotes (1820), appeared in Notes and Queries, First Series, i (1849), 396-7. Sold among Singer's papers at Sotheby's on 3 August 1858 (Lot 191), it passed into the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, and at the sale of the Clumber Library at Sotheby's (16 February 1938, Lot 1308) it became the property of James M. Osborn, Esq., of Yale University.

2 Pope wrote to Broome on 4 June 1726: "There is a book lately pub- lished at Oxford, called an Essay on Pope's Odyssey, which you will have reason to be pleased with " (Elwin-Courthope edition of Pope, vII, 119).

8Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ed. Hill (1905), In, 142. Warton, Works of Pope (1797), I, xxxv.

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.162 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:52:33 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

360 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, MAY, 1939

together; but Underhill overlooked a letter from Spence to Pitt, dated at New College 12 November 1728, in which Spence writes,

Before this I gave you Mr. Pope's real sentiment on your first book; I dare say it was his real sentiment, because, as I told you, I took care to ask him the question before I mentioned my being acquainted with you; and it was literally what I told you.4

The most authoritative statement on the matter would of course be one from Spence himself-and fortunately we possess just that. Apparently when Warburton was collecting materials for his edition and contemplated biography of Pope, Spence delivered to him extracts from the Anecdotes,5 and appended the following note:

I dont know whether it may be worth while to mention that Mr Pope's friendship for me, (weh was continu'd, without any the least interruption, for 18 years,) began on my writing a Criticism, against him. T'was not perhaps so very ill-natur'd as Criticisms had generally usd to be; but still twas blunt, & rough enough, in many places. This was publish'd, in two parts; the First, in 1726, & the Second, in 1727.-After publishing the First, Mr Layng of Baliol Col: in Oxfd, was desird by Mr Pope to enquire of my Bookseller, (Wilmot,) who was the author of it. I did not care to be known; for I did not know Wt twould [manuscript torn]-Mr P in his ansr [said he?] was sorry he cd not know [the au-?] thor; because he Sd have been glad [to become?] acquainted with him; [ ] however, that he desir'd [ ] thanks to him, tho' unknown. [ ] Before I published the Se-[cond? ]; I wrote to Mr P, & desir'd [lea?]ve to send the copy to to him; [th?]at I might not say anything [ag?]st him in it, that might be ill-grounded. He corrected the Second: with so much fairness, that he says on the Margin, Sometimes; "this is a very great Fault": & at others, "This is a mistake, as you will find by considering such or such

Works of Pope, ed. Bowles (1806), VII, 414 (the italics are mine). As early as the preceding 2 August Pope knew that Spence and Pitt were acquainted, for on that date he added a postscript to a letter which Spence wrote to Pitt from Twickenham (Elwin-Courthope, x, 130). But no doubt in the letter of 12 November Spence was referring to a conversation which had taken place prior to 2 August-possibly during that same visit at Twickenham.

6 " Mr. Warburton," wrote Spence on 7 April 1744, "thinks of writing Mr. Pope's Life, whenever the world may have so great a loss, and I offered to give him any lights I could toward it" (Anecdotes, ed. Singer, 1820, p. viii). For another and more circumstantial account of Spence's surrender of the field of Pope biography to Warburton, see Warton, Works of Pope, iv, 19, n.

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.162 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:52:33 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

A DOUBTFUL POEM IN THE COLLINS CANON 361

a circumstance." There was but one single fault that he desired me to drop, in the whole piece; & that was where he had made too free with" the Scripture-Language; in Calling Jupiter "The God of Gods." Over agst wch he wrote " I sd be obligd to you if you wd drop this, & spare yr H Servt "-I have yt Mss, markt with his own hand, by me. ...7

Pope, then, did indeed seek Spence's acquaintance, though when the two first met it is still impossible to say. Since Spence " sent " the copy of Part II. of the Essay to the poet, and since the latter recorded his comments on the manuscript, Pope probably returned the edited copy without having the opportunity to discuss it face to face with the author. Spence's statement that the friendship was continued for eighteen years (and hence was begun in 1726, eighteen years before the death of Pope) may refer only to the correspondence just described rather than to actual association; but the meeting had occurred at latest by the summer of 1728,8 and possibly many months earlier.

AUSTIN WRIGHT Carnegie Institute of Technology

A DOUBTFUL POEM IN THE COLLINS CANON

The ascription of " Song. The Sentiments Borrow'd from Shake- spear " to William Collins has long been considered doubtful, largely because the poem did not appear in print until 1788, twenty- nine years after the poet's death, and because the ascription has seemed to lack authority. In attempting to determine the author- ship, Professor Alan D. MeKillop has found (1) that in 1817 William Beloe printed the " Song " as the work of Henry Headley, but (2) that " C-T-O," who first submitted the poem for publication

6 Spence substituted the words "made too free with" for the original "misapply'd."

7 British Museum, Egerton MSS. 1960, pp. 15-16. The manuscript from which I quote, incorrectly catalogued as Warburton's, was first properly identified as Spence's by Professor Arthur E. Case in an article entitled " Pope, Addison, and the 'Atticus' Lines " in Modern Philology, xxxiir

(1935-6), 187-193. Its presence among Warburton's papers proves that Warburton, ignoring Spence's request, failed to return it.

8 Ante, note 4. In the Anecdotes Spence dates his earliest collections from Pope in 1728.

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.162 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:52:33 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions