The Scandal of the Season (8 page)

As he spoke, he lifted a hand to his neck, and Alexander knew that he had made no mistake.

Involuntarily, he glanced at Lord Petre, but he was laughing heartily as Steele replied, “You and I think alike, sir. Who cares what a person's character is in point of fact? The way it appears to the world is the only thing of interest to us!” Alexander turned away. Nobody except himself seemed to feel the slightest doubt about this character James Douglass.

 

When the conversation with Steele was over, Lord Petre walked to his table; Douglass following behind. Robert Harley rose and greeted him.

“How do you do, Harley?” Lord Petre answered. “Congratulations, sir, on the passage of the imports bill. A great victory for our party.”

As soon as they sat down, Douglass exclaimed, “That was the chief minister, Robert Harley! Is he well known to you, my lord?”

Lord Petre looked at him. “I know Harley a little,” he replied. “I see him at court, in Westminster—and here, of course. But you cannot pretend to be surprised by my connections, nor flatter me that you admire them. You wish to make use of them, as well you ought.”

Douglass nodded, but Lord Petre did not feel that the matter was settled. “When a person is rich and powerful, he grows used to being of indispensable importance to those around him,” he added in a lower tone. “If you did not prize my position in society, I would be as much affronted as a beautiful woman who has been praised for the excellence of her character.

“Look at Dr. Swift, for example! How mightily has he labored to become a well-respected clergyman—but in fifty years, who will recall the dignity of his sermons or the wisdom of his theology? He will be remembered only as Robert Harley's friend, the man who drank claret and ate mutton at Pontack's with Queen Anne's chief minister.” Douglass shrugged.

Lord Petre motioned to the waiter, and very soon afterward oysters were brought and the wine was poured. Douglass raised his glass and declared, “To the glorious cause, my lord.”

His voice brought Lord Petre a renewed thrill. “The most glorious in the world,” Lord Petre replied, and they drank.

Douglass tossed off a couple of the oysters. “An excellent dinner, my lord! Let us have a bottle of the Ho Bryan with the geese. It is a new wine from France. Come; this time
I
shall be the one to ask for it.”

But before he could do so, they were joined by the very people of whom they had been speaking. Lord Petre was on his feet instantly. “We have just been praising the excellence of your satires, Dr. Swift,” he said. “May your mighty wit keep the Whigs out of office for many years to come!”

“I thank you, my lord,” Swift replied with a bow. “Though the Whigs' demise is certainly to be wished for, I confess that my efforts as a satirist have been in pursuit of a far loftier object. Whenever
I
am employed in London as a scribbler, my parishioners in Ireland are spared from hearing my sermons—and I am spared listening to my parishioners.”

“You are not fond of sermonizing, then, Dr. Swift?” Lord Petre asked, trying to conceal his surprise.

“Not upon matters of religion, my lord,” Swift answered with a smile. “My abilities do not suit the subject of faith—especially not of the Irish variety. If a man wants to believe that the flesh of our Savior is an edible commodity, served up to the nation for breakfast on Sunday mornings, it is beyond the reach of my rhetorical reason to persuade him otherwise.”

Lord Petre gave a half-smile, allowing it to be forgotten that he was Catholic. Swift was speaking of Ireland, after all. “But I am surprised that your writings are political in their nature,” he returned. “I had believed that the clergy were obliged to write upon theological subjects, if they wished to secure advancement in the Church.”

“You are correct, my lord—young clergymen are always trying to get their philosophy printed,” said Swift. “Yet there is that part of me that doubts whether an essay called
A Brief exposition of the Lord's Prayer and the Decalogue, to which is added the doctrine of the sacraments
will become an overnight sensation,” he added, and smiled wearily at the group.

“It is hard to describe the absurdities of the clerical life to men who live in the world,” he continued. “I might toil for years to produce an indifferent monograph entitled
On the Being and Attributes of God.
It would be published obscurely—a run of fifty at best. But my colleagues in the church would fall upon it like so many
gourmands
upon a Bologna sausage. For months to come, they'd gather in the evenings to divide a bottle of wine among eight of them, listen to one of their number perform upon the viol, and chew over my threadbare ruminations on God's essence. A year or so later, one of them would groan out a pamphlet in reply,
Some Reflections
—or perhaps
Seasonable Observations—upon those late remarks, by Dr. S———
and the whole ridiculous performance begins again: the wine, the viol, the interminable talk.”

Harley and Lord Petre laughed, but Douglass was restless, bored by the discussion.

“Well, I must say that I do find theological disputes rather hard to follow,” Lord Petre observed.

“Hard to follow!” Swift interjected scathingly. “Clergymen idle about, whinnying and neighing at one another in a strange horsy language that no sane person can comprehend, and yet everybody is expected to stand by sagely, pretending to understand every word they say.”

“In London, at least, your acquaintance must rather be with literary men than the clergy,” said Petre. Swift bowed to acknowledge that this was, indeed, the case.

“We are among literary men now,” said Douglass. “A young poet is sitting across the room in company with Richard Steele.”

Swift looked behind him at Alexander. “I do not know that young man,” Swift replied. “Is he a satirist?”

“Not in the least!” Lord Petre replied. “He writes eclogues, like the young Virgil. Perhaps one day he will give us an epic.”

“Ah! Well, I have not the serious cast of mind that is required for epic, and it sounds as though that gentleman will not share my inclination to the ridiculous,” Swift replied. “I fear that he and I are likely ever to be strangers.”

The conversation ended shortly after this exchange. When Swift and Harley had left, Lord Petre said, “Swift did not show much interest in that fellow Mr. Pope.”

“I believe that Pope writes about the country,” said Douglass, “where he spends an immense deal of his time. Knows all about the condition of the roads and the state of the hunts. I should say that it is just as well if he gets onto a horse whenever he can, for it will be a mighty long time before he ever sits upon a woman. He would have to get astride a whore as he would his mare—with a mounting block to help him up off the ground.”

Petre gave a laugh and motioned to the waiter to bring more wine, seeing that Douglass did not mean to order the Ho Bryan after all.

 

The next morning, Alexander was to meet Jacob Tonson in his bookshop in Bow Street to hear his opinion of the lines he had composed for a new poem. He was apprehensive of the meeting, not only for what the old publisher would say about his verses, but because he had not told Tonson that he had given his new
Essay on Criticism
to an old schoolfriend to print. He had done so out of insecurity, but as he walked into the shop, he realized that it might appear to be a mark of his arrogance or indifference to Tonson's good opinion.

A young man in spectacles looked up from the sums and papers on his desk, which he was studying very seriously, to greet him. Making sure old Tonson doesn't pay his authors too much for their copyright, Alexander reflected. The young man smiled kindly, and Alexander bowed in return. Why was the boy greeting him with such gracious condescension? Very likely he knew of some unpleasant tidings that Tonson had in store for him. He noticed that the
Miscellany
containing his poems was displayed prominently upon the table, and was certain that it had been placed there just before he entered.

Tonson's boy saw him looking, and said, “We have sold a great many copies, Mr. Pope, since the
Tatler
praised the volume. Mr. Tonson has been showing it to every customer.”

Alexander nodded but said nothing, fearing that he heard a note of mockery in the fellow's tone. His jealous eye was caught suddenly by a stylish new edition of
Paradise Lost,
piled in much larger stacks upon the table, with a card boasting that it was Tonson's ninth edition of the poem in twenty years. Nine editions. Not even Dryden had so many. There were illustrations, too, lavishly engraved.

At last Tonson himself appeared, holding a book that Alexander had not seen before.

“How do you do, sir?” he cried, sitting down and placing the book so that it was just out of Alexander's sight. “Do you have refreshment? We have tea, you know.”

Alexander said that he would take only a glass of wine, and strained to see the volume that Tonson kept concealed.

“I have read the new lines that you sent to me,” Tonson began, “but before we discuss them, I have some elevated compliments to pass on—from a gentleman who calls you the ‘Little Nightingale.'”

Pope attempted a smile, cursing Tonson inwardly. “Ah, yes!” he said. “My friend Mr. Wycherley. I hope that he is well, sir. He gave me the name ‘nightingale' in jest because I sing, you know—like the classical poets. And because I am little,” he added, after a moment's pause.

“Wycherley,” Tonson replied. “'Tis a shame that he has lost his memory since his illness, for he was the greatest playwright of his age.”

“I used to follow Mr. Wycherley about the town with as much constancy as my dog runs after me in the country,” Alexander replied.

Tonson glanced down at the little book, and took a drink from his wine.

“Are you fond of dogs, Mr. Pope?”

“I am,” said Alexander, warming to his conceit. “My favorite dog is a little one, a lean one, and none of the finest shaped. So 'tis likeness that begets affection. He lies down when I sit, and walks where I walk—which is more than many very good friends can pretend to.” As Alexander spoke, Jacob Tonson watched with an even, appraising look, neither smiling nor frowning, but taking keen measure of the young poet.

“Let us turn now to your verses, Mr. Pope,” he interrupted. “You have given the title
Windsor Forest
to this new piece, and it seems that you wrote it while in the country.”

“At Binfield, yes.”

“Quite. Well, I think it has too much of the country in it. Everything in your poem quivers and trembles with the apprehension of death: the pheasants, the hares, the doves, the trout, the deer…There is nothing but rustic carnage from beginning to end.”

“The first object of country life is to kill as frequently and as prodigiously as possible,” Alexander replied with an ironic smile.

“That is too raw a sentiment for my readers, Mr. Pope,” Tonson answered. “When one is pent up in a great city, one likes to imagine rural delights: the feathered tribe, the scaly breed, the woolly…and so on. One does not wish to be told that they are mown down in their infancy by men with guns and fishing rods. In two hundred lines, you have snuffed out half of Berkshire.”

“That was rather my design, Mr. Tonson.”

“Country life is too old-fashioned for these days, Pope. What of trade? What of commerce? The spoils of empire, rolling in from the four corners of the earth to London. London! A great city, risen from the ashes of the fire like a phoenix. I leave the details of the composition to you. Yes! What you have written should be but the beginning of a much longer poem. We come from the country, full of—what do you have?—‘bright eye'd perch' and ‘clam'rous Lapwings.' We arrive in the city, rich with the fruits of the trade winds. Glowing rubies, ripe gold, spicy amber—you know the style better than I.”

Alexander flinched at Tonson's mixed metaphors, but he replied as diplomatically as he could. “Sir, in a poem there has to be some vehicle by which the reader is carried from the, the ‘woolly tribe' (as you would have it) to the, er, spicy city,” he said. “It is absurd to change suddenly from the country to the town without some conduit to make the transition easy. The rules of poetry do not allow it.”

“Well, change the rules of poetry, then,” Tonson said. “If London does not await my readers at the other end of these verses, they will not care to make the journey through Windsor Forest with you.”

Alexander sat quite still in his chair, looking at his publisher. He had been working at
Windsor Forest,
on and off, for four years. It was an exquisitely witty imitation of Virgil's young style, as Tonson understood perfectly well.

“You must give my readers something new,” Tonson continued. “Your first poems were striking in one so young, but now it is time to show a more ingenious talent.”

Pope bit back his disappointment. “But I have a fondness for the verses of my youth that nothing can displace,” he said, trying to compose himself. He feared that if he took a drink from his wine his hand might shake. “The visions of my childhood are vanished forever, like the fine colors I then saw when my eyes were shut. In those days every hill and stream had—how can I describe it?—the glory and the freshness of a dream. A notion that would make a fine poem, I think.”