It is curious to trace the history of the intercourse which took place between Wycherley and Pope, between the representative of the age that was going out, and the representative of the age that was coming in, between the friend of Rochester and Buckingham, and the friend of Lyttelton and Mansfield.At first the boy was enchanted by the kindness and condescension of so eminent a writer, haunted his door, and followed him about like a spaniel from coffee-house to coffee-house.Letters full of affection, humility, and fulsome flattery were interchanged between the friends, But the first ardour of affection could not last.Pope, though at no time scrupulously delicate in his writings or fastidious as to the morals of his associates, was shocked by the indecency of a rake who, at seventy, was still the representative of the monstrous profligacy of the Restoration.As the youth grew older, as his mind expanded and his fame rose, he appreciated both himself and Wycherley more correctly.He felt a just contempt for the old gentleman's verses, and was at no great pains to conceal his opinion.Wycherley, on the other hand, though blinded by self-love to the imperfections of what he called his poetry, could not but see that there was an immense difference between his young companion's rhymes and his own.He was divided between two feelings.He wished to have the assistance of so skilful a hand to polish his lines; and yet he shrank from the humiliation of being beholden for literary assistance to a lad who might have been his grandson.Pope was willing to give assistance, but was by no means disposed to give assistance and flattery too.He took the trouble to retouch whole reams of feeble stumbling verses, and inserted many vigorous lines which the least skilful reader will distinguish in an instant.But he thought that by these services he acquired a right to express himself in terms which would not, under ordinary circumstances, become one who was addressing a man of four times his age.In one letter he tells Wycherley that "the worst pieces are such as, to render them very good, would require almost the entire new writing of them." In another, he gives the following account of his corrections: "Though the whole be as short again as at first, there is not one thought omitted but what is a repetition of something in your first volume, or in this very paper; and the versification throughout is, I believe, such as nobody can be shocked at.The repeated permission you gave me of dealing freely with you, will, I hope, excuse what I have done;for, if I had not spared you when I thought severity would do you a kindness, I have not mangled you where I thought there was no absolute need of amputation." Wycherley continued to return thanks for all this hacking and hewing, which was, indeed, of inestimable service to his compositions.But at last his thanks began to sound very like reproaches.In private, he is said to have described Pope as a person who could not cut out a suit, but who had some skill in turning old coats.In his letters to Pope, while he acknowledged that the versification of the poems had been greatly improved, he spoke of the whole art of versification with scorn, and sneered at those who preferred sound to sense.
Pope revenged himself for this outbreak of spleen by return of post.He had in his hands a volume of Wycherley's rhymes, and he wrote to say that this volume was so full of faults that he could not correct it without completely defacing the manuscript."Iam," he said, "equally afraid of sparing you, and of offending you by too impudent a correction." This was more than flesh and blood could bear.Wycherley reclaimed his papers, in a letter in which resentment shows itself plainly through the thin disguise of civility.Pope, glad to be rid of a troublesome and inglorious task, sent back the deposit, and, by way of a parting courtesy, advised the old man to turn his poetry into prose, and assured him that the public would like his thoughts much better without his versification, Thus ended this memorable correspondence.
Wycherley lived some years after the termination of the strange friendship which we have described.The last scene of his life was, perhaps, the most scandalous.Ten days before his death, at seventy-five, he married a young girl, merely in order to injure his nephew, an act which proves that neither years, nor adversity, nor what he called his philosophy, nor either of the religions which he had at different times professed, had taught him the rudiments of morality.He died in December 1715, and lies in the vault under the church of St.Paul in Covent Garden.
His bride soon after married a Captain Shrimpton, who thus became possessed of a large collection of manuscripts.These were sold to a bookseller.They were so full of erasures and interlineations that no printer could decipher them.It was necessary to call in the aid of a professed critic; and Theobald, the editor of Shakspeare, and the hero of the first Dunciad, was employed to ascertain the true reading.In this way a volume of miscellanies in verse and prose was got up for the market.The collection derives all its value from the traces of Pope's hand, which are everywhere discernible.