1686-1740. ADDISON, POPE, AND TICKELL. 323 manner, as good as owned it to me. [To which Spence adds:] When it was introduced in conversation between Mr. Tickell and Mr. Pope, by a third person, Tickell did not deny it; which, considering his honour and zeal for his departed friend, was the same as owning it." 12 Upon these suspicions, with which Dr. Warburton hints that other circumstances concurred,13 Pope always in his 'Art of Sinking' quotes this book as the work of Addison.14 To compare the two translations would be tedious; the palm is now given universally to Pope; but I think the first lines of Tickell's were rather to be preferred, and Pope seems to have since borrowed something from them in the correction of his Own, 15 12 'Spence by Singer,' p. 147. 13 Warburton's Notes on 'Epistle to Arbuthnot.' 14 See chapter xii., where, after quoting several instances from the rival translation, he adds, "or these of the same hand," quoting Addison's lines on Sacheverell. See 'Miscellanies, the Last Volume,' 8vo. 1728, p. 61. Dr. Young, Lord Bathurst, Mr. Harte, and Lord Lyttelton, each of them assured me that Addison himself certainly translated the first book of Homer. -WARTON on Pope, ii. 246, ed. 1782. Steele, in the Dedication to Congreve of Addison's 'Drummer,' challenges the reputed translator of the first book to produce a second. 15 Tickell's intended 'Preface' to his translation is still preserved among the Tickell Papers,' and was first printed in Miss Aikin's 'Addison,' ii. 128. "If in this work I have not always confined myself to a Literal Version of y Original, which would have been irksome to an English Reader, as well as Translator; I have at least taken pains to reject every phrase that is not entirely Homerical, and have industriously avoided mixing yo Elegance or Ease of Virgil and Ovid with ye Simplicity, Majesty, and Vehemence of Homer: so that any seeming Deviation from ye sense of yo very words translated may be justified from Parallel Passages in yo Iliad. There is one Particular wherein I have taken ye liberty to differ from all ye Translations of Homer that I have seen; and that is in yo Rendering of the Compound Epithets rather by a Paraphrase than by Compound Words in our own Tongue. After repeated Trials of skill to link many words in one to answer a sonorous word in yo Original, have we not found that these Pains-takers have been translating Homer into Greek; and what was Elegance and Musick in one Language is Harshness and Pedantry in another? In yo first Iliad, for example, y cloud-compelling Jove, ye Golden-throned Juno, ye far-shooting, and silver-bow'd Apollo, y white-armed Juno, and Ox-eyed Juno, y swift-footed Achilles, y brazenstep'd House, y thunder-loving God, ye much-snowy Olympus, ye muchsounding shore, &c. are so many several epithets, which tho' elegant and sonorous in ye Greek, become either un-intelligible, un-musical, or burlesque in English. And that this is wholly owing to yo different Genius of yo two When the Hanover succession was disputed, Tickell gave what assistance his pen would supply. His 'Letter to Avignon' Languages is hence apparent, because y° same Ideas, when expressed in a manner suitable to yo Turn of our Tongue, give ye same pleasure to us, that ye Ancients received in reading y Original. And I cannot but observe upon this head, that Virgil himself, in a Language much more capable of Composition than our's, hath often governed himself according to this Rule. As this manner of Translation is much ye most pleasing to ye Reader, it is ye hardest to ye Translator: it being no less when it is judiciously [accurately] performed, than to take an Image that lay confused, and draw it out in its fairest Light, and full Proportions: or, in a Similitude used by my Lord Bacon upon another occasion, it is to open yo embroidery, that is folded in y Pack, and to spread out every Figure in its perfect Beauty. I shall add briefly to ye foregoing Observation, that there are several Epithets in yo Greek Tongue which, as in other Languages, have not strictly y° same meaning in their usual acceptation, as from y Words, whence they were originally derived, they seem to bear. For example, the words which literal Translators have rendered Dogs-eyes, and Drunkard, signifie no more than Impudent and Sot. The general mistake in this point hath occasioned many indelicate Versions and ignorant Criticisms." What was thought at Oxford (in Addison and Tickell's own University) is told by Young in a letter printed for the first time by Miss Aikin: To Mr. Tickell, at Button's Coffee House in Covent Garden. London June 28 [1715]. DEAR TICKELL, Be assured I want no new inducement to behave myself like your friend. To be very plain, the University almost in general gives the preference to Pope's Translation; they say his is written with more Spirit, Ornament and Freedom, and has more the air of an original. I inclined some; Hanton &c, to compare the Translation with the Greek; which was done, and it made some small alteration in their opinions, but still Pope was their man. The bottom of the case is this, they were strongly prepossest in Pope's favour, from a wrong notion of your design before the Poem came down; and the sight of yours has not force enough upon them to make them willing to contradict themselves, and own they were in the wrong; but they go far for prejudiced persons, and own yours an excellent translation, nor do I hear any violently affirm it to be worse than Pope's, but those who look on Pope as a miracle, and among those to your comfort Evans is the first, and even these zealots allow that you have outdone Pope in some particulars. E. g. the speech beginning "Oh sunk in Avarice &c. And leave a naked" &c. Upon the whole I affirm the performance has gained you much Reputation, and when they compare you with what they should compare you, with Homer only, you are much admired. It has given I know many of the best judges a desire to see the Odyssies by the same hand, which they talk of with pleasure, and I seriously believe your first piece of that will quite break their partiality 1686-1740. HIS ELEGY ON ADDISON. 325 stands high among party-poems;16 it expresses contempt without coarseness, and superiority without insolence. It had the success which it deserved, being five times printed. He was now intimately united to Mr. Addison, who, when he went into Ireland as Secretary to the Lord Sunderland, took him thither, and employed him in public business; and when (1717) afterwards he rose to be Secretary of State, made him Under-Secretary. Their friendship seems to have continued without abatement; for when Addison died, he left him the charge of publishing his works, with a solemn recommendation to the patronage of Craggs. To these works he prefixed [1721] an elegy on the author, which could owe none of its beauties to the assistance which might be suspected to have strengthened or embellished his earlier compositions; but neither he nor Addison ever produced nobler lines than are contained in the third and fourth paragraphs; nor is a more sublime or more elegant funeral-poem to be found in the whole compass of English literature.1 He was afterwards (4 May, 1724) made Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland, a place of great honour; in which he continued till 1740, when he died on the 23rd of April at Bath. Of the poems yet unmentioned the longest is 'Kensington for Pope, which your Iliad has weaken'd and secure your success. Nor think my opinion groundlessly swayed by my wishes, for I observe, as Prejudice cools, you grow in favour, and you are a better Poet now than when your Homer first came down. I am persuaded fully that your design cannot but succeed here, and it shall be my hearty desire and endeavour that it may. Dear Tickell yours most affectionately My humble service to Mr. Addison and Sir Richd. E. YOUNG. 16 'An Epistle from a Lady in England to a Gentleman in Avignon. By Mr. Tickell.' Tonson, 1717, fol. 17" Addison's works came to my hands yesterday. I cannot but think it a very odd set of incidents that the book should be dedicated by a dead man [Addison] to a dead man [Craggs]; and even that the new patron [Earl of Warwick] to whom Tickell chose to inscribe his verses should be dead also before they were published. Had I been in the editor's place, I should have been a little apprehensive for myself, under a thought that every one who had any hand in that work was to die before the publication of it."-ATTERBURY to Pope, Oct. 15, 1721. Gardens,'18 of which the versification is smooth and elegant, but the fiction unskilfully compounded of Grecian deities and Gothic fairies. Neither species of those exploded beings could have done much; and when they are brought together, they only make each other contemptible. To Tickell, however, cannot be refused a high place among the minor poets; nor should it be forgotten that he was one of the contributors to The Spectator. With respect to his personal character, he is said to have been a man of gay conversation, at least a temperate lover of wine and company, and in his domestic relations without censure. 19 18 First published in 1722. Let me add here that Tickell had undertaken a translation of Lucan. See note 4, p. 185. 19 His portrait, from the original at Queen's College, Oxford, is engraved (though poorly) in Harding's Biographical Mirror.' My excuse is, that I have title to your favour, as you were Mr. Addison's friend, and, in the most honourable part, his heir; and if he had thought of your coming to this kingdom, he would have bequeathed me to you.-SWIFT to Tickell, Sept. 18, 1725 (Scott's Swift, xix. 286, 2nd ed.). His son, it is said by some, by others his grandson, was Richard Tickell, author of a clever Epistle [in verse] from the Honourable Charles Fox, partridge-shooting, to the Honourable John Townshend, cruising,' 1789. He was also a contributor to 'The Rolliad.' He died in 1793 by his own act, throwing himself from one of the uppermost windows of Hampton Court Palace into the garden. [Tickell] is only a poor, short-winded imitator of Addison, who had himself not above three or four notes in poetry-sweet enough indeed, like those of a German flute, but such as soon tire and satiate the ear with their frequent return. His ballad, however, of Colin and Lucy' I always thought the prettiest in the world.--GRAY to Horace Walpole. |