posing the mis-statement, but would be a poor
excuse for his writing an anonymous attack upon Philips's Pastorals, and
a panegyric upon his own. The defence, which would be inadequate if it
was true, is indubitably incorrect. The account of Warburton did not
appear till Philips was dead. Pope, while Philips was living, published
an account, in the shape of a letter to Caryll, the date and contents of
which prove that Philips did not bring his charge against Pope till a
full year after the paper had been printed in the Guardian.[26] The poet
adds that when they meet he will inform Caryll "of the secret grounds of
Philips's malignity," and Warburton himself subjoins in a note "These
grounds were Mr. Pope's writing the ironical comparison between his own
and Philips's Pastorals." The strong presumption from the nature of the
case that Pope was actuated by literary envy is thus confirmed. The
criticism in the Guardian was not provoked by the malignity of Philips,
but the bitterness of Philips was the consequence of the criticism. In
1790, Mr. J. C. Walker, the Italian scholar, sent to the Gentleman's
Magazine an alleged remark of Philips to the same effect. "When the
comparison," says Mr. Walker, "between the Pastorals of Pope and
Philips appeared, Philips was secretary to Primate Boulter, and then in
Ireland. Dining one day with the officers of the Prerogative Court, the
comparison became the subject of conversation, and Philips said he knew
it was written by Pope, adding, 'I wonder why the little crooked bastard
should attack me, who never offended him either in word or deed?' This I
had from a gentleman who was present."[27] If the conversation ever
occurred, the gentleman was mistaken in supposing that the criticism was
recent, for the paper in the Guardian came out in 1713, and it was not
till more than ten years afterwards that Philips went with Archbishop
Boulter to Ireland. The story is unnecessary to prove that Pope was the
aggressor, which is sufficiently evident from independent testimony.
Unhappily for himself, he began at the outset of his career to stir up
those enmities which were the torment of his existence. By his attack
upon Dennis, in the Essay on Criticism, he invited the scurrility of
that rabid pamphleteer, and by what Bowles calls his "unmanly hostility"
to Philips he was reduced to the shame of being scared away from
Button's by the no less unmanly retaliation of his victim, who, at some
period of the