Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/285

* POPE. 243 POPE. the most graceful, airy, and fanciful of Pope's I'ljfiiis. In 1714 appeared The Wife of Bath, imitated from Chaucer, from whom he also got The Temple of Fame. In 1717 Pope published a collection of his works, where first appeared the Epistle of Elrnsa to Abelard and the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, his most notewoithy lyrics. Pope was already engaged on the work that was to give him solid fame. His translation of the Iliad was published in six volumes (1715-20). Out of the profits of the work he purchased and adorned his villa. The translation, though want- ing in Homeric simplicity, naturalness, and prim- itiveness, is nevertheless a splendid piece of writ- ing, judged apart from its original. The Iliad was followed by the Odyssey (17:^.5-26), which was, however, mostly the work of William Broome and Elijah Fenton. Though a financial success, the Odyssey added nothing to Pope's fame. Pope now made his famous attack on Grub Street. The Diinciad was finished by 1727: but before publishing it Pope stirred up his ene- mies with the Bathos, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry, in the Miscellanies (March, 1728), writ- ten in conjunction with Swift and Arbuthnot. The Dunciad, in three books, first appeared on May 28, 1728, and was enlarged the ne.t year. Pope took as his supreme dunce Lewis Theobald (q.v.), who had criticised an edition of Shake- speare that Pope had brought out in 1725. Around Theobald gj'rated the other dunces. In 1742 Pope added a fourth book, dethroned Theo- bald and put C'olley Gibber (q.v.) in his place. This long lampoon, though mean in spirit, is brilliant in style. Pope closed his poetical career with the Moral Essays (1731-38) and a group of satires called Imitations from Horace (1733-38). The former group contains the famous Essay on Man. a philosophical poem, in which is expound- ed the deism of Bolingbroke, taken back in the sequel, the Unircrsal Prayer. To the latter group belongs the delightful Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Pope has been variously estimated. To his generation he seemed the greatest of English poets. This position was questioned by Joseph Warton, who, in his Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (vol. i., 1751), placed Pope below Spenser. And the later romantics, who laid the stress on the matter of poetry rather than on its technique, had doubts as to whether Pope was a poet at all. On his rank, a memor- able controversy was started by W. L. Bowles in 180G. If, in the language of Wordsworth, "poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge," littered in impassioned language, there is little poetry in Pope. He was hardly successful in Eloisa and the Unfortunate Lady, his two experi- ments in pathos. They are only the rhetoric of emotion. Likewise the Rape of the Lock is a poem of the fancy rather than of the imagina- tion. Without deep feeling or great imagination. Pope yet possessed rare excellences. In execu- tion he could be faultless. He evoked the melo- dies of the heroic couplet, and molded it to the expression of keen wit and epigram. His pro- verbial philosophy, so often quoted — as "A little learning is a dang'rous thing" — is likely to be false or only half true, for Pope himself'was no thinker: but in the realm of satire, as represented by the Imitations of Horace, he is still supreme among the English poets. Collective editions of Pope's Works have been edited by W. Warburton (1751), Joseph Warton (1797), W. L. Bowles (1800), W. Roscoe (1824), and by W. Elwin and W. J. Courthope ( 10 vols., London, 1871-89). The last edition, by far the best, has superseded all others. Consult also the Concordance to Pope's Works, by Abbott (Lon- don, 1875) : Life, by R. Carruthers (Bohn's Li- braiy, ib., 1857), and by L. Stephen (English Men of Letters, ib., 1880) ; and The Age of Pope, by Dennis (ib., 1894). For poems alone, consult the convenient Globe edition (London and Xew York, 1869), and the edition in three volumes, with memoir by Dennis (London, 1891). POPE, FK.VXKLIX Leoxakd (1840-95). An American electrician, born at Great Barrington, Mass. In the employ of the RussoAmerican Telegraph Company (1804), Pope made surveys in the country between British Columbia and Alaska. When this pi-oject fell through, he went to New York, formed a partnership with Edison, with whom he invented the stock-ticker, and, in 1872, invented the rail circuit for automatic con- trol of block signals. An able patent solicitor, he was for some time attorney to the 'estern Union Telegraph Compan,v. He was killed in his own house in Great Barrington, Mass., by an electric shock received from a powerful trans- former. Pope edited the Electrical Engineer (1884 sqq.) and wrote Modern Practice of the Electric Telegraph (1871; revised, 1891) and Life and Work of Joseph Henry (1879). POPE, .Jonx (1822-92). An American soldier. He was born at Louisville, Ky., and was the son of Nathaniel Pope, who for many years was United States Judge for the District of Illinois. He graduated at West Point in 1842. After graduation he served as brevet second lieutenant in the topographical engineers, and in 1840 joined CJeneral Taylor in ^Mexico. He was brevetted first lieutenant for gallantry at the siege of Jlonterey and captain for services at the battle of Buena Vista. After the close of the war he con- ducted an expedition which explored the region of the Red River of the Xorth ; was on engineer- ing service in New Mexico in 1851-53; and from 1853 to 1859 had charge of the w'ork of survey- ing a route for the Pacific railroad. Upon the beginning of the secession movement Pope came out on the side of the Xorth, and in the winter of 1800-61 delivered a number of L'nion speeches. For criticising the policy of President Buchanan in one of these speeches, he was summoned to appear before a court-martial, but the trial never took place. In Maj', 1861, he was appointed a briga- dier-general and was given command of the Dis- trict of Northern Missouri. In the following De- cember he defeated General Sterling Price at Blackwater and captured 'about 1500 prisoners and a large quantity of supplies. He next co- operated with the flotilla of gunboats under Foote in the operations against Island No. 10, which place surrendered in April, 1862, with about 7000 men and 158 cannon. He then took part in the operations against Corinth, after which he was promoted to be major-general of volunteers and Ijrigadier-general in the Regular Army, and was given command of the Array of Virginia, comprising the corps of Generals Fre- mont, Banks, and ilcDowell. He entered upon the new campaign with a somewhat bombastic proclamation, but after some engagements between portions of his army and the forces of General Jackson, and after he had