Alexander Pope - Complete Works of Alexander Pope

ALEXANDER POPE

(1688-1744)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2013

Version 1

ALEXANDER POPE

By Delphi Classics, 2013

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Plough Court, Lombard Street, London Popes birthplace

A contemporary drawing of the birthplace. Popes father was a linen merchant, who operated his business from Plough Court.

Alexander Pope (16461717) was the son of a linen merchant with strong Catholic ties, directly affecting his sons education. Due to the recently enforced Test Acts, upholding the status of the established Church of England, all Catholics were banned from teaching, attending university, voting or holding public office on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Therefore, Pope was taught to read by his aunt, before attending Twyford School, followed by two Catholic schools in London. These schools were technically illegal, though they were tolerated in some areas. Nevertheless, a university education was denied to Pope.

From an early age, he began suffering numerous health problems, including a form of tuberculosis called Potts disease, which affects the bone. This disease deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback and achieving a height of only 4 ft 6 in. The infection also caused other health problems, including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain.

In 1700, the Pope family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, due to a statute preventing Catholics from living within ten miles of London. Popes formal education ended at this time, and from then on he mostly educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the Roman satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as such English authors as Chaucer, Shakespeare and John Dryden. Pope also studied several languages, reading works by English, French, Italian, Latin and Greek authors. The extensive reading of classics and English masters influenced many of Popes early poetic works, demonstrating his natural affinity to handling various metres and rhyme schemes.

Popes Manor, previously called Whitehill House, where Pope lived as a youngster between 1700 and 1715

CONTENTS

Vertumnus and Pomona

Pope, aged 7

Juvenile Poems

Ode on Solitude

This poem was written when Pope was twelve years old.

HAPPY the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blessd who can unconcerndly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day;

Sound sleep by night: study and ease
Together mixd; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

A Paraphrase (On Thomas Kempis)

L. III. C. 2

Supposed to have been written in 1700; first published from the Caryll Papers in the Athenum, July 15, 1854.

SPEAK, Gracious Lord, oh, speak; thy servant hears:
For I m thy servant and I ll still be so:
Speak words of comfort in my willing ears;
And since my tongue is in thy praises slow,
And since that thine all Rhetoric exceeds:
Speak thou in words, but let me speak in deeds!

Nor speak alone, but give me grace to hear
What thy celestial Sweetness does impart;
Let in not stop when enterd at the ear,
But sink, and take deep rooting in my heart.
As the parchd Earth drinks rain (but grace afford)
With such a gust will I receive thy word.

Nor with the Israelites shall I desire
Thy heavnly word by Moses to receive,
Lest I should die: but Thou who didst inspire
Moses himself, speak Thou, that I may live.
Rather with Samuel I beseech with tears,
Speak, gracious Lord, oh, speak, thy servant hears.

Moses, indeed, may say the words, but Thou
Must give the Spirit, and the Life inspire;
Our Love to thee his fervent breath may blow,
But t is thyself alone can give the fire:
Thou without them mayst speak and profit too;
But without thee what could the Prophets do?

They preach the Doctrine, but thou makst us do t;
They teach the mystries thou dost open lay;
The trees they water, but thou givst the fruit;
They to Salvation show the arduous way,
But none but you can give us strength to walk;
You give the Practice, they but give the Talk.

Let them be silent then; and thou alone,
My God! speak comfort to my ravishd ears;
Light of my eyes, my Consolation,
Speak when thou wilt, for still thy servant hears.
Whateer thou speakst, let this be understood:
Thy greater Glory, and my greater Good!

To the Author of a Poem Entitled Successio

Elkanah Settle, celebrated as Doeg in Drydens Absalom and Achitophel, wrote Successio in honor of the incoming Brunswick dynasty. Warburton (or possibly Pope) in a note on Dunciad, I. 181, says that the poem was written at fourteen years old, and soon after printed. A good instance of Popes economy of material will be found in the passage upon which that note bears: an adaptation of lines 4, 17 and 18 of this early poem. It was first published in Lintots Miscellanies, 1712.