The “Pope” of Holland House
John Whishaw to Thomas Smith, 6 December 1817
Dec. 6, 1817.
I returned the beginning of this week from a very agreeable visit
to Sir J. Mackintosh, with whom I passed the
best part of three days. He was in good spirits, and has lost none of his powers of
conversation, but his health is variable, and he has passed a very indifferent
summer, by which the progress of his work has been a great deal retarded. He showed
me many curious historical documents, which throw light on the transactions of the
present reign.
I spoke in my last letter of Lord
Byron’s singular testimony in favour of Pope. In one of his late letters from Venice,
speaking of “Lalla
Rookh,” and of Moore’s poetical style, he says:
“Scott, Moore, Wordsworth,
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Southey, Campbell, and I are all of us wrong, and have gone upon a
revolutionary poetical system or systems not worth a damn. I have no doubt that
posterity, and perhaps the present generation, will finally be of this opinion.
I am the more convinced of this, from having lately read several books of the
writers just mentioned, side by side with some of our great classics,
especially Pope; and I am astonished and mortified at the
ineffable distance between the little man of Queen
Anne’s reign and us of the lower empire, not only in
sense, harmony, and general effect, but in imagination, passion, and even in
invention. Depend on it, it was all Horace then, and is all Claudian now.”
I should have been better pleased with this opinion had it been
more temperately expressed. I do not quote the letter, but write from recollection,
though sure of most of the expressions.
I have received some of Horner’s papers, which appear to me to be very interesting,
especially those relating to his early studies. I am to read some of the principal
passages to the Abercrombys and Mallet, who will assist me with judgment as to
what ought finally to be done.1
James Abercromby, first baron Dunfermline (1776-1858)
The son of Lt.-Gen Sir Ralph Abercromby; he was MP for Midhurst (1807), Calne (1812-30)
and Edinburgh (1832), judge-advocate general (1827) and speaker of the House of Commons
(1835-39); he was raised to the peerage in 1839.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
Claudian (397 fl.)
Late Roman poet, author of
The Rape of Proserpine.
Francis Horner (1778-1817)
Scottish barrister and frequent contributor to the
Edinburgh
Review; he was a Whig MP and member of the Holland House circle.
Horace (65 BC-8 BC)
Roman lyric poet; author of
Odes,
Epistles, Satires, and the
Ars Poetica.
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
John Lewis Mallet (1775-1861)
The son of the French journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan; he was Secretary of the Audit
Office.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet and satirist; author of
The Rape of the Lock (1714)
and
The Dunciad (1728).
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
