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To Mr. Pope: Epistles from America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
During the earlier portion of the [18th] century, an English scholar, Francis Knapp, a graduate of St. John's College, Oxford, lived the life of a literary recluse at Watertown [Mass.]; and glorying in a personal acquaintance with Alexander Pope, he attempted to reproduce, on “the bleak Atlantic shore,” and amid “solitudes obscene,” the poetic notes of his master.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933
References
1 History of American Literature. (New York, 1879), ii, 43.
2 Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses … (Ed. Bliss, London, 1820), iv, col. 603, A Catalogue of all Graduates … (Oxford, 1851), p. 388.
3 American Biography (New York, 1833), pp. 138–139. Cf. also Knapp's Biographical Sketches (Boston, 1821), pp. 140–143.
4 Duyckinck, Cycl. of Am. Lit. (Simon's edition, Philadelphia, 1877), i, 77–78.
5 Chal, i, 159. “Thus promptly Pope crossed the Atlantic to begin his undisputed reign of almost a century.” The allusion in the bibliography (461) to Chalmers' Poets explains the error. In later reprints of Pope, like that in Chalmers, the “Killala” heading had disappeared. Tucker is also mistaken in saying, on the same page, that the “Epistle” was first published in 1715 as prefatory poem to Windsor Forest. Indeed there was no 1715 edition of W.F., which was first published in 1713.
In his bibliography (461) Tucker lists Gloria Brittannorum [sic]; or, The British Worthies (Boston, 1723) as ascribed to Knapp; in his text (159) he speaks of the poem as without doubt Knapp's. Tucker is following W. B. Otis, who, in his American Verse (New York, 1909), p. 150, says of the Gloria Britannorum that its “Authorship [is] not definitely known. Probably by Francis Knapp.” What is the evidence for this ascription? Neither Tucker nor Otis offers any. Yet all three of Knapp's earlier poems were signed.
6 Henry Cotton, Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae (Dublin, 1849), iv, 80. I was put on the track of this information by a note of Elwin's in Works of Pope (1871), i, 24.
7 Wm. Hewett, History and Antiquities of the Hundred of Compton, Berks … (1844), p. 20.
8 An | Epistle | to | Alexander Pope, Esq; | from | South Carolina. | [Blank] Circa nemus, uvidig; | Fluminis Ripas, operosa parvus | Carmina fingo. Horat. | [ornament] | London: | Printed for J. Brindley, Bookseller to His Royal Highness | the Prince of Wales, at the King's-Arms in New Bond- | street; and C. Corbett, at Addison's Head, over-against | St. Dunstan's-Church, Fleetstreet. MDCCXXXVII. [Folio. pp. 18.]
9 Cf. Richard Savage, The Wanderer (Canto I):
Let Envy, he replied, all ireful rise,
Envy pursues alone the brave and wise;
Maro and Socrates inspire her pain,
And Pope, the monarch of the tuneful train.
And Richard Russel, dedicating to Pope (“Poetarum inter Anglos celeberrimus”) his edition of Vida, writes (1732):
VIDAM sed carpunt multi—Carpsere MARONEM, Nobile par fratrum, MAEVIUS and BAVIUS.
Carpunt Te similes horum: mirator, amat que, VIRGILII and VIDAE carmina quisque amat.
10 E.G., salvation, redemption, justification, sanctification.
11 Byles took his B.A. in 1725, when a little over eighteen. (A. W. H. Eaton, The Famous Mather Byles … (Boston, 1914), p. 23.
12 A COLLECTION of the original copies of several LETTERS (MS. volume in the Library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society at Boston: shelf-mark, SA BYL 2). I owe the transcription of these letters to the great kindness of my friend, Dr. Bernard M. Wagner; but I have collated the transcription with the original and the conjectural restorations (within brackets) of letters or syllables obliterated, missing, or doubtful, are my own.
13 Eaton, op. cit., pp. 232–233.
14 Note in left margin of MS.: “The Poem on Eternity, and the Answer to it; and also the Panegyrick on Milton: all printed in the Weekly Journal.” In March, 1927, Byles had connected himself as a contributor of prose and poetry with the newly established New England Weekly Journal. See Eaton, pp. 34–35.
15 Pope's essay on Dedication appeared in the Guardian, 16 March, 1713. (Works, ed. Elwin-Courthope, x, 198–502).
16 “Oh! Mr. Bickerstaff,” says he [Tom Folio], “what would a man not give to see one simile of Virgil writ in his own hand!” Taller no. 158, April 13, 1710. The essay wittily (if conventionally) satirizes pedantry, quite in Pope's own fashion.
17 Pp. 1–3 of A COLLECTION …
18 Cf. I Kings, 3. 11–14.
19 Mention is later made of the library at the Hollis St. Church and that of Harvard College. The Redwood Library at Newport was not begun until 1730, and the first library at Philadelphia in 1731.
20 In the letter to Thomson, written much later, Byles speaks of his library as containing but a thousand volumes. At his death, it is said to have numbered 2806 books (Eaton, 91.)
21 The Iliad in duodecimo was published by Lintot in June, 1720 (no. 122 in Griffith, Pope Bibliography, i, Pt. i). The folio edition of the Poems (Griffith, 82) appeared in June, 1717, with a folding portrait of Pope engraved by George Vertue from the portrait by Kneller.
22 Pope contributed to Dryden's (also known as Tonson's) Miscellanies “January and May”; “Episode of Sarpedon,” from the twelfth and sixteenth books of the Iliad; Pastorals (Griffith, i).
23 Pope published essays in the Guardian, nos. 4, 11, 40, 61, 91, 92, 173.
24 Vols. 4 and 5 were published in 1726.
25 Aeneid, vi, 667–668.
26 ‘A Key to the Lock … by Edras Barnivelt, 1715, was Pope's own (cf. Nichols’ Anecdotes, viii, 300).
27 A Collection …, 14–16.
28 The second letter was dated May 18.
29 The bracketed identification appears in the MS. Possibly the reference is to Samuel Sewall, Jr., b. 1678, son of the diarist (cf. the Diary, i, xxvi-ix, and 56).
30 Vols. i and ii appeared in June 1727; Vol. iii, in March 1728 (Griffith, Pt. i, nos. 184–185 and 196).
31 William Burnet (b. 1688) served as Governor of New York and New Jersey from 1720–28; he was Governor of Massachusetts only from April, 1728, till his death in 1729. Burnet was something of a man of letters. He published An Essay on Scripture Prophecy (1724). “His taste, and talents,” writes S. L. Knapp (Lectures on American Literature …, 1829, p. 67), “had a very salutary effect upon the literature of his day. He every where ridiculed the quaint [i.e., seventeenth century] style of the ecclesiastical writers of his time; and the Mathers were the persons generally against whose writings his polished shafts were levelled.” Byles published a poem presented to His Excellency William Burnet, Esq.; on his arrival at Boston, July 19, 1728 (1728).
32 A Complete Key to the Dunciad, by E. Curii (London, 1728). Cf. Griffith, in M.P., xra, 8, and n.
33 Cf. R. Carruthers, Life of Pope (London, 1857), pp. 79–87.
34 Note on the margin of the MS.: “The Poem on the Death of K. George I. [printed 1727] and on the Arrival of Governour Burnet [1728].”
35 A Collection …, 16–17.
36 The fourth letter is undated, but the allusion to Cooper's edition of Pope's letters (1735) as having been published the year before dates it 1736.
37 The complicated story of the publication of Pope's Letters is briefly and clearly told in Griffith's Pope Bibliography, Pt. ii, 267–268.
38 A Narrative of the Method by which the Private Letters of Mr. Pope have been procured and published by Edward Curii, Bookseller, published in pamphlet form in June, 1735, was reprinted in Vol. i. of Coooper's edition of the Letters.
39 The remainder of this sentence is illegible on account of the elaborate revision it underwent. The whole letter abounds in subtractions, additions, corrections.
“Three things another's modest wishes bound,
My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pounds“
(Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.)