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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Calamities and Quarrels of Authors + +Author: Isaac Disraeli + +Release Date: December 23, 2009 [EBook #30745] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALAMITIES AND QUARRELS OF AUTHORS *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Katherine Ward, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="center"> +<h1>CALAMITIES AND QUARRELS<br /> +<span class='smcaplc'>OF</span><br /> +AUTHORS.</h1> +<p><span class='smcaplc'>BY</span><br /> +ISAAC DISRAELI.</p> +<p class='padtop'>A NEW EDITION</p> +<p><span class='smcaplc'>EDITED BY HIS SON</span><br /> +THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.</p> +<p class='padtop'>LONDON:<br /> +FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.<br /> +BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.</p> +<p class='smaller'>LONDON:<br /> +BRADBURY, AGNEW & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.</p> +</div> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='CONTENTS' id='CONTENTS'></a> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> +<table border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'> +<tr> + <td valign='top' colspan='2'><p class="center larger"> CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS.</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>PREFACE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#PREFACE'>3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>AUTHORS BY PROFESSION:—GUTHRIE AND AMHURST—DRAKE—SMOLLETT</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#AUTHORS_BY_PROFESSION_GUTHRIE_AND_AMHURSTDRAKESMOLLETT'>7</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE CASE OF AUTHORS STATED, INCLUDING THE HISTORY OF LITERARY PROPERTY</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_CASE_OF_AUTHORS_STATED_INCLUDING_THE_HISTORY_OF_LITERARY_PROPERTY'>15</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE SUFFERINGS OF AUTHORS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_SUFFERINGS_OF_AUTHORS'>22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>A MENDICANT AUTHOR, AND THE PATRONS OF FORMER TIMES</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#A_MENDICANT_AUTHOR_AND_THE_PATRONS_OF_FORMER_TIMES'>25</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>COWLEY—OF HIS MELANCHOLY</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#COWLEY_OF_HIS_MELANCHOLY'>35</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE PAINS OF FASTIDIOUS EGOTISM</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_PAINS_OF_FASTIDIOUS_EGOTISM'>42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>INFLUENCE OF A BAD TEMPER IN CRITICISM</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#INFLUENCE_OF_A_BAD_TEMPER_IN_CRITICISM'>51</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>DISAPPOINTED GENIUS TAKES A FATAL DIRECTION BY ITS ABUSE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#DISAPPOINTED_GENIUS_TAKES_A_FATAL_DIRECTION_BY_ITS_ABUSE'>59</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE MALADIES OF AUTHORS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_MALADIES_OF_AUTHORS'>70</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>LITERARY SCOTCHMEN</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#LITERARY_SCOTCHMEN'>75</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>LABORIOUS AUTHORS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#LABORIOUS_AUTHORS'>83</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE DESPAIR OF YOUNG POETS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_DESPAIR_OF_YOUNG_POETS'>98</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE MISERIES OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COMMENTATOR</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_MISERIES_OF_THE_FIRST_ENGLISH_COMMENTATOR'>104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE LIFE OF AN AUTHORESS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_LIFE_OF_AN_AUTHORESS'>106</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE INDISCRETION OF AN HISTORIAN—CARTE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_INDISCRETION_OF_AN_HISTORIAN_THOMAS_CARTE'>110</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>LITERARY RIDICULE, ILLUSTRATED BY SOME ACCOUNT OF A LITERARY SATIRE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#LITERARY_RIDICULE_ILLUSTRATED_BY_SOME_ACCOUNT_OF_A_LITERARY_SATIRE'>114</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>LITERARY HATRED, EXHIBITING A CONSPIRACY AGAINST AN AUTHOR</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#LITERARY_HATRED_EXHIBITING_A_CONSPIRACY_AGAINST_AN_AUTHOR'>130</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>UNDUE SEVERITY OF CRITICISM</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#UNDUE_SEVERITY_OF_CRITICISM_DR_KENRICKSCOTT_OF_AMWELL'>139</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>A VOLUMINOUS AUTHOR WITHOUT JUDGMENT</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#A_VOLUMINOUS_AUTHOR_WITHOUT_JUDGMENT'>146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>GENIUS AND ERUDITION THE VICTIMS OF IMMODERATE VANITY</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#GENIUS_AND_ERUDITION_THE_VICTIMS_OF_IMMODERATE_VANITY'>155</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>GENIUS, THE DUPE OF ITS PASSIONS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#GENIUS_THE_DUPE_OF_ITS_PASSIONS'>168</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>LITERARY DISAPPOINTMENTS DISORDERING THE INTELLECT</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#LITERARY_DISAPPOINTMENTS_DISORDERING_THE_INTELLECT_LELAND_AND_COLLINS'>172</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE REWARDS OF ORIENTAL STUDENTS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_REWARDS_OF_ORIENTAL_STUDENTS'>186</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>DANGER INCURRED BY GIVING THE RESULT OF LITERARY INQUIRIES</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#DANGER_INCURRED_BY_GIVING_THE_RESULT_OF_LITERARY_INQUIRIES'>193</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>A NATIONAL WORK WHICH COULD FIND NO PATRONAGE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#A_NATIONAL_WORK_WHICH_COULD_FIND_NO_PATRONAGE'>200</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE MISERIES OF SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_MISERIES_OF_SUCCESSFUL_AUTHORS'>202</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE ILLUSIONS OF WRITERS IN VERSE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_ILLUSIONS_OF_WRITERS_IN_VERSE'>212</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' colspan='2'><hr class='mini' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td /> + <td /> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' colspan='2'><p class="center larger"> QUARRELS OF AUTHORS.</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>PREFACE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#PREFACE_1'>229</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>WARBURTON, AND HIS QUARRELS; INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS LITERARY CHARACTER</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#WARBURTON_AND_HIS_QUARRELS_INCLUDING_AN_ILLUSTRATION_OF__HIS_LITERARY_CHARACTER'>233</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>POPE AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUARRELS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#POPE_AND_HIS_MISCELLANEOUS_QUARRELS'>278</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>POPE AND CURLL; OR A NARRATIVE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING THE PUBLICATION OF POPE’S LETTERS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#A_NARRATIVE_OF_THE_EXTRAORDINARY_TRANSACTIONS_RESPECTING_THE_PUBLICATION_OF_POPES_LETTERS'>292</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>POPE AND CIBBER; CONTAINING A VINDICATION OF THE COMIC WRITER</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#POPE_AND_CIBBER_CONTAINING__A_VINDICATION_OF_THE_COMIC_WRITER'>301</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>POPE AND ADDISON</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#POPE_AND_ADDISON'>313</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>BOLINGBROKE AND MALLET’S POSTHUMOUS QUARREL WITH POPE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#BOLINGBROKE_AND_MALLETS_POSTHUMOUS_QUARREL_WITH_POPE'>321</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>LINTOT’S ACCOUNT-BOOK</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#LINTOTS_ACCOUNTBOOK'>328</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>POPE’S EARLIEST SATIRE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#POPES_EARLIEST_SATIRE'>333</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE ROYAL SOCIETY</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE_ROYAL_SOCIETY'>336</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>SIR JOHN HILL, WITH THE ROYAL SOCIETY, FIELDING, SMART, ETC.</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#SIR_JOHN_HILL_WITH__THE_ROYAL_SOCIETY_FIELDING_SMART_C'>362</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>BOYLE AND BENTLEY</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#BOYLE_AND_BENTLEY'>377</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>PARKER AND MARVELL</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#PARKER_AND_MARVELL'>391</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>D’AVENANT AND A CLUB OF WITS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#DAVENANT_AND_A_CLUB_OF_WITS'>403</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>THE PAPER-WARS OF THE CIVIL WARS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#THE__PAPERWARS_OF_THE_CIVIL_WARS'>415</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>POLITICAL CRITICISM ON LITERARY COMPOSITIONS</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#POLITICAL_CRITICISM_ON_LITERARY_COMPOSITIONS'>423</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>HOBBES, AND HIS QUARRELS; INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS CHARACTER</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#HOBBES_AND_HIS_QUARRELS_INCLUDING__AN_ILLUSTRATION_OF_HIS_CHARACTER'>436</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>HOBBES’S QUARRELS WITH DR. WALLIS, THE MATHEMATICIAN.</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#HOBBESS_QUARRELS_WITH__DR_WALLIS_THE_MATHEMATICIAN'>463</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>JONSON AND DECKER</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#JONSON_AND_DECKER'>474</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>CAMDEN AND BROOKE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CAMDEN_AND_BROOKE'>490</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>MARTIN MAR-PRELATE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#MARTIN_MARPRELATE'>501</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>SUPPLEMENT TO MARTIN MAR-PRELATE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#SUPPLEMENT_TO_MARTIN_MARPRELATE'>523</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>LITERARY QUARRELS FROM PERSONAL MOTIVES</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#LITERARY_QUARRELS_FROM__PERSONAL_MOTIVES'>529</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' colspan='2'><hr class='mini' /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td /> + <td /> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>FOOTNOTES</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#FOOTNOTES'>539</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'>INDEX</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#INDEX'>541</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='CALAMITIES_OF_AUTHORS_INCLUDING___SOME_INQUIRIES_RESPECTING_THEIR_MORAL_AND_LITERARY_CHARACTERS' id='CALAMITIES_OF_AUTHORS_INCLUDING___SOME_INQUIRIES_RESPECTING_THEIR_MORAL_AND_LITERARY_CHARACTERS'></a> +<h2>CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS:</h2> +<h3><span class='smcaplc'>INCLUDING</span><br /><br />SOME INQUIRIES RESPECTING THEIR MORAL AND LITERARY CHARACTERS.</h3> +</div> +<blockquote> +<p>“Such a superiority do the pursuits of Literature possess above every other occupation, +that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence +above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.”—<span class='smcap'>Hume.</span></p> +</blockquote> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='PREFACE' id='PREFACE'></a> +<h3>PREFACE.</h3> +</div> +<p>The Calamities of Authors have often excited the attention +of the lovers of literature; and, from the revival of letters to +this day, this class of the community, the most ingenious and +the most enlightened, have, in all the nations of Europe, been +the most honoured, and the least remunerated. Pierius Valerianus, +an attendant in the literary court of Leo X., who twice +refused a bishopric that he might pursue his studies uninterrupted, +was a friend of Authors, and composed a small work, +“De Infelicitate Literatorum,” which has been frequently reprinted.<a name='FNanchor_0001' id='FNanchor_0001'></a><a href='#Footnote_0001' class='fnanchor'>[1]</a> +It forms a catalogue of several Italian literati, his +contemporaries; a meagre performance, in which the author +shows sometimes a predilection for the marvellous, which +happens so rarely in human affairs; and he is so unphilosophical, +that he places among the misfortunes of literary men +those fatal casualties to which all men are alike liable. Yet +even this small volume has its value: for although the historian +confines his narrative to his own times, he includes a +sufficient number of names to convince us that to devote our +life to authorship is not the true means of improving our +happiness or our fortune.</p> +<p>At a later period, a congenial work was composed by Theophilus +Spizelius, a German divine; his four volumes are after +the fashion of his country and his times, which could make +even small things ponderous. In 1680 he first published two +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4' name='page_4'></a>4</span> +volumes, entitled “Infelix Literatus,” and five years afterwards +his “Felicissimus Literatus;” he writes without size, +and sermonises without end, and seems to have been so grave +a lover of symmetry, that he shapes his <i>Felicities</i> just +with the same measure as his <i>Infelicities</i>. These two +equalised bundles of hay might have held in suspense the +casuistical ass of Sterne, till he had died from want of a +motive to choose either. Yet Spizelius is not to be contemned +because he is verbose and heavy; he has reflected +more deeply than Valerianus, by opening the moral causes of +those calamities which he describes.<a name='FNanchor_0002' id='FNanchor_0002'></a><a href='#Footnote_0002' class='fnanchor'>[2]</a></p> +<p>The chief object of the present work is to ascertain some +doubtful yet important points concerning Authors. The title +of Author still retains its seduction among our youth, and is +consecrated by ages. Yet what affectionate parent would consent +to see his son devote himself to his pen as a profession? The +studies of a true Author insulate him in society, exacting +daily labours; yet he will receive but little encouragement, +and less remuneration. It will be found that the most successful +Author can obtain no equivalent for the labours of +his life. I have endeavoured to ascertain this fact, to develope +the causes and to paint the variety of evils that naturally +result from the disappointments of genius. Authors +themselves never discover this melancholy truth till they +have yielded to an impulse, and adopted a profession, too late +in life to resist the one, or abandon the other. Whoever +labours without hope, a painful state to which Authors are at +length reduced, may surely be placed among the most injured +class in the community. Most Authors close their lives in +apathy or despair, and too many live by means which few of +them would not blush to describe.</p> +<p>Besides this perpetual struggle with penury, there are also +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5' name='page_5'></a>5</span> +moral causes which influence the literary character. I have +drawn the individual characters and feelings of Authors from +their own confessions, or deduced them from the prevalent +events of their lives; and often discovered them in their +secret history, as it floats on tradition, or lies concealed in +authentic and original documents. I would paint what has +not been unhappily called the <i>psychological</i> character.<a name='FNanchor_0003' id='FNanchor_0003'></a><a href='#Footnote_0003' class='fnanchor'>[3]</a></p> +<p>I have limited my inquiries to our own country, and generally +to recent times; for researches more curious, and eras +more distant, would less forcibly act on our sympathy. If, +in attempting to avoid the naked brevity of Valerianus, I +have taken a more comprehensive view of several of our +Authors, it has been with the hope that I was throwing a +new light on their characters, or contributing some fresh +materials to our literary history. I feel anxious for the fate +of the opinions and the feelings which have arisen in the progress +and diversity of this work; but whatever their errors +may be, it is to them that my readers at least owe the materials +of which it is formed; these materials will be received +with consideration, as the confessions and statements of genius +itself. In mixing them with my own feelings, let me apply +a beautiful apologue of the Hebrews—“The clusters of grapes +sent out of Babylon implore favour for the exuberant leaves +of the vine; for had there been no leaves, you had lost the +grapes.”</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' name='page_7'></a>7</span> +<a name='AUTHORS_BY_PROFESSION_GUTHRIE_AND_AMHURSTDRAKESMOLLETT' id='AUTHORS_BY_PROFESSION_GUTHRIE_AND_AMHURSTDRAKESMOLLETT'></a> +<h3>AUTHORS BY PROFESSION.</h3> +<h4>GUTHRIE AND AMHURST—DRAKE—SMOLLETT.</h4> +</div> +<p>A great author once surprised me by inquiring what I +meant by “an Author by Profession.” He seemed offended +at the supposition that I was creating an odious distinction +between authors. I was only placing it among their calamities.</p> +<p>The title of <span class='smcap'>Author</span> is venerable; and in the ranks of +national glory, authors mingle with its heroes and its patriots. +It is indeed by our authors that foreigners have been taught +most to esteem us; and this remarkably appears in the expression +of Gemelli, the Italian traveller round the world, +who wrote about the year 1700; for he told all Europe that +“he could find nothing amongst us but our writings to distinguish +us from the worst of barbarians.” But to become +an “Author by Profession,” is to have no other means of +subsistence than such as are extracted from the quill; and no +one believes these to be so precarious as they really are, until +disappointed, distressed, and thrown out of every pursuit +which can maintain independence, the noblest mind is cast +into the lot of a doomed labourer.</p> +<p>Literature abounds with instances of “Authors by Profession” +accommodating themselves to this condition. By vile +artifices of faction and popularity their moral sense is injured, +and the literary character sits in that study which he ought +to dignify, merely, as one of them sings,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>To keep his mutton twirling at the fire.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Another has said, “He is a fool who is a grain honester +than the times he lives in.”</p> +<p>Let it not, therefore, be conceived that I mean to degrade +or vilify the literary character, when I would only separate +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8' name='page_8'></a>8</span> +the Author from those polluters of the press who have +turned a vestal into a prostitute; a grotesque race of famished +buffoons or laughing assassins; or that populace of unhappy +beings, who are driven to perish in their garrets, unknown and +unregarded by all, for illusions which even their calamities +cannot disperse. Poverty, said an ancient, is a sacred thing—it +is, indeed, so sacred, that it creates a sympathy even for +those who have incurred it by their folly, or plead by it for +their crimes.</p> +<p>The history of our Literature is instructive—let us trace +the origin of characters of this sort among us: some of them +have happily disappeared, and, whenever great authors obtain +their due rights, the calamities of literature will be greatly +diminished.</p> +<p>As for the phrase of “Authors by Profession,” it is said to +be of modern origin; and <span class='smcap'>Guthrie</span>, a great dealer in literature, +and a political scribe, is thought to have introduced it, +as descriptive of a class of writers which he wished to distinguish +from the general term. I present the reader with an +unpublished letter of Guthrie, in which the phrase will not +only be found, but, what is more important, which exhibits +the character in its degraded form. It was addressed to a +minister.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'><i>June 3, 1762.</i></p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>My Lord</span>,</p> +<p>“In the year 1745-6, Mr. Pelham, then First Lord of the +Treasury, acquainted me, that it was his Majesty’s pleasure I +should receive, till better provided for, which never has happened, +200<i>l.</i> a-year, to be paid by him and his successors in +the Treasury. I was satisfied with the august name made +use of, and the appointment has been regularly and quarterly +paid me ever since. I have been equally punctual in doing +the government all the services that fell within my abilities +or sphere of life, especially in those critical situations that +call for unanimity in the service of the crown.</p> +<p>“Your Lordship may possibly now suspect that <i>I am an +Author by Profession</i>: you are not deceived; and will be less +so, if you believe that I am disposed to serve his Majesty +under your Lordship’s <i>future patronage and protection, with +greater zeal, if possible, than ever</i>.</p> +<p class='sig1'>“I have the honour to be,</p> +<p class='sig2'> “My Lord, &c.,</p> +<p class='sig3'> “<span class='smcap'>William Guthrie</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' name='page_9'></a>9</span></div> +<p>Unblushing venality! In one part he shouts like a plundering +hussar who has carried off his prey; and in the other +he bows with the tame suppleness of the “quarterly” Swiss +chaffering his halbert for his price;—“to serve his Majesty” +for—“his Lordship’s future patronage.”</p> +<p>Guthrie’s notion of “An Author by Profession,” entirely +derived from his own character, was twofold; literary taskwork, +and political degradation. He was to be a gentleman +convertible into an historian, at —— per sheet; and, when he +had not time to write histories, he chose to sell his name to +those he never wrote. These are mysteries of the craft of +authorship; in this sense it is only a trade, and a very bad +one! But when in his other capacity, this gentleman comes +to hire himself to one lord as he had to another, no one can +doubt that the stipendiary would change his principles with +his livery.<a name='FNanchor_0004' id='FNanchor_0004'></a><a href='#Footnote_0004' class='fnanchor'>[4]</a></p> +<p>Such have been some of the “Authors by Profession” who +have worn the literary mask; for literature was not the first +object of their designs. They form a race peculiar to our +country. They opened their career in our first great revolution, +and flourished during the eventful period of the civil +wars. In the form of newspapers, their “Mercuries” and +“Diurnals” were political pamphlets.<a name='FNanchor_0005' id='FNanchor_0005'></a><a href='#Footnote_0005' class='fnanchor'>[5]</a> Of these, the +Royalists, being the better educated, carried off to their side +all the spirit, and only left the foam and dregs for the Parliamentarians; +otherwise, in lying, they were just like one +another; for “the father of lies” seems to be of no party! +Were it desirable to instruct men by a system of political and +moral calumny, the complete art might be drawn from these +archives of political lying, during their flourishing era. We +might discover principles among them which would have +humbled the genius of Machiavel himself, and even have +taught Mr. Sheridan’s more popular scribe, Mr. Puff, a sense +of his own inferiority.</p> +<p>It is known that, during the administration of Harley and +Walpole, this class of authors swarmed and started up like +mustard-seed in a hot-bed. More than fifty thousand pounds +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' name='page_10'></a>10</span> +were expended among them! Faction, with mad and blind +passions, can affix a value on the basest things that serve its +purpose.<a name='FNanchor_0006' id='FNanchor_0006'></a><a href='#Footnote_0006' class='fnanchor'>[6]</a> These “Authors by Profession” wrote more +assiduously the better they were paid; but as attacks only +produced replies and rejoinders, to remunerate them was +heightening the fever and feeding the disease. They were all +fighting for present pay, with a view of the promised land +before them; but they at length became so numerous, and so +crowded on one another, that the minister could neither +satisfy promised claims nor actual dues. He had not at last +the humblest office to bestow, not a commissionership of wine +licences, as Tacitus Gordon had: not even a collectorship of +the customs in some obscure town, as was the wretched worn-out +Oldmixon’s pittance;<a name='FNanchor_0007' id='FNanchor_0007'></a><a href='#Footnote_0007' class='fnanchor'>[7]</a> not a crumb for a mouse!</p> +<p>The captain of this banditti in the administration of +Walpole was Arnall, a young attorney, whose mature genius +for scurrilous party-papers broke forth in his tender nonage. +This hireling was “The Free Briton,” and in “The Gazetteer” +<i>Francis Walsingham, Esq.</i>, abusing the name of a profound +statesman. It is said that he received above ten thousand +pounds for his obscure labours; and this patriot was suffered +to retire with all the dignity which a pension could confer. +He not only wrote for hire, but valued himself on it; proud +of the pliancy of his pen and of his principles, he wrote without +remorse what his patron was forced to pay for, but to +disavow. It was from a knowledge of these “Authors by +Profession,” writers of a faction in the name of the community, +as they have been well described, that our great statesman +Pitt fell into an error which he lived to regret. He did not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' name='page_11'></a>11</span> +distinguish between authors; he confounded the mercenary +with the men of talent and character; and with this contracted +view of the political influence of genius, he must have +viewed with awe, perhaps with surprise, its mighty labour in +the volumes of Burke.</p> +<p>But these “Authors by Profession” sometimes found a +retribution of their crimes even from their masters. When +the ardent patron was changed into a cold minister, their pen +seemed wonderfully to have lost its point, and the feather +could not any more tickle. They were flung off, as Shakspeare’s +striking imagery expresses it, like</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>An unregarded bulrush on the stream,<br /> +To rot itself with motion.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Look on the fate and fortune of <span class='smcap'>Amhurst</span>. The life of +this “Author by Profession” points a moral. He flourished +about the year 1730. He passed through a youth of iniquity, +and was expelled <a name='TC_1'></a><ins title="Added missing word">from</ins> +his college for his irregularities: he had +exhibited no marks of regeneration when he assailed the +university with the periodical paper of the <i>Terræ Filius</i>; a +witty Saturnalian effusion on the manners and Toryism of +Oxford, where the portraits have an extravagant kind of likeness, +and are so false and so true that they were universally +relished and individually understood. Amhurst, having lost +his character, hastened to reform the morals and politics of +the nation. For near twenty years he toiled at “The Craftsman,” +of which ten thousand are said to have been sold in +one day. Admire this patriot! an expelled collegian becomes +an outrageous zealot for popular reform, and an intrepid Whig +can bend to be yoked to all the drudgery of a faction! Amhurst +succeeded in writing out the minister, and writing in +Bolingbroke and Pulteney. Now came the hour of gratitude +and generosity. His patrons mounted into power—but—they +silently dropped the instrument of their ascension. The +political prostitute stood shivering at the gate of preferment, +which his masters had for ever flung against him. He died +broken-hearted, and owed the charity of a grave to his bookseller.</p> +<p>I must add one more striking example of a political author +in the case of Dr. <span class='smcap'>James Drake</span>, a man of genius, and an +excellent writer. He resigned an honourable profession, that +of medicine, to adopt a very contrary one, that of becoming +an author by profession for a party. As a Tory writer, he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' name='page_12'></a>12</span> +dared every extremity of the law, while he evaded it by every +subtlety of artifice; he sent a masked lady with his MS. to +the printer, who was never discovered, and was once saved by +a flaw in the indictment from the simple change of an <i>r</i> for a +<i>t</i>, or <i>nor</i> for <i>not</i>;—one of those shameful evasions by which +the law, to its perpetual disgrace, so often protects the criminal +from punishment. Dr. Drake had the honour of hearing +himself censured from the throne; of being imprisoned; of +seeing his “Memorials of the Church of England” burned +at London, and his “Historia Anglo-Scotica” at Edinburgh. +Having enlisted himself in the pay of the booksellers, among +other works, I suspect, he condescended to practise some +literary impositions. For he has reprinted Father Parson’s +famous libel against the Earl of Leicester in Elizabeth’s reign, +under the title of “Secret Memoirs of Robert Dudley, Earl +of Leicester, 1706,” 8vo, with a preface pretending it was +printed from an old MS.</p> +<p>Drake was a lover of literature; he left behind him a version +of Herodotus, and a “System of Anatomy,” once the +most popular and curious of its kind. After all this turmoil +of his literary life, neither his masked lady nor the flaws in +his indictments availed him. Government brought a writ of +error, severely prosecuted him; and, abandoned, as usual, by +those for whom he had annihilated a genius which deserved a +better fate, his perturbed spirit broke out into a fever, and he +died raving against cruel persecutors, and patrons not much +more humane.</p> +<p>So much for some of those who have been “Authors by +Profession” in one of the twofold capacities which Guthrie +designed, that of writing for a minister; the other, that of +writing for the bookseller, though far more honourable, is +sufficiently calamitous.</p> +<p>In commercial times, the hope of profit is always a stimulating, +but a degrading motive; it dims the clearest intellect, +it stills the proudest feelings. Habit and prejudice will soon +reconcile even genius to the work of money, and to avow the +motive without a blush. “An author by profession,” at once +ingenious and ingenuous, declared that, “till fame appears to +be worth more than money, he would always prefer money to +fame.” <span class='smcap'>Johnson</span> had a notion that there existed no motive +for writing but money! Yet, crowned heads have sighed with +the ambition of authorship, though this great master of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' name='page_13'></a>13</span> +human mind could suppose that on this subject men were not +actuated either by the love of glory or of pleasure! <span class='smcap'>Fielding</span>, +an author of great genius and of “the profession,” in one of +his “Covent-garden Journals” asserts, that “An author, in +a country where there is no public provision for men of +genius, is not obliged to be a more disinterested patriot than +any other. Why is he whose <i>livelihood is in his pen</i> a greater +monster in using it to serve himself, than he who uses his +tongue for the same purpose?”</p> +<p>But it is a very important question to ask, is this “livelihood +in the pen” really such? Authors drudging on in +obscurity, and enduring miseries which can never close but +with their life—shall this be worth even the humble designation +of a “livelihood?” I am not now combating with them +whether their taskwork degrades them, but whether they are +receiving an equivalent for the violation of their genius, for +the weight of the fetters they are wearing, and for the entailed +miseries which form an author’s sole legacies to his widow and +his children. Far from me is the wish to degrade literature +by the inquiry; but it will be useful to many a youth of promising +talent, who is impatient to abandon all professions for +this one, to consider well the calamities in which he will most +probably participate.</p> +<p>Among “Authors by Profession” who has displayed a +more fruitful genius, and exercised more intense industry, with +a loftier sense of his independence, than <span class='smcap'>Smollett</span>? But +look into his life and enter into his feelings, and you will be +shocked at the disparity of his situation with the genius of +the man. His life was a succession of struggles, vexations, +and disappointments, yet of success in his writings. Smollett, +who is a great poet, though he has written little in verse, and +whose rich genius composed the most original pictures of +human life, was compelled by his wants to debase his name by +selling it to voyages and translations, which he never could +have read. When he had worn himself down in the service +of the public or the booksellers, there remained not, of all his +slender remunerations, in the last stage of life, sufficient to +convey him to a cheap country and a restorative air on the +Continent. The father may have thought himself fortunate, +that the daughter whom he loved with more than common +affection was no more to share in his wants; but the husband +had by his side the faithful companion of his life, left without +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' name='page_14'></a>14</span> +a wreck of fortune. Smollett, gradually perishing in a foreign +land,<a name='FNanchor_0008' id='FNanchor_0008'></a><a href='#Footnote_0008' class='fnanchor'>[8]</a> neglected by an admiring public, and without fresh +resources from the booksellers, who were receiving the income +of his works, threw out his injured feelings in the character +of <i>Bramble</i>; the warm generosity of his temper, but not his +genius, seemed fleeting with his breath. In a foreign land his +widow marked by a plain monument the spot of his burial, +and she perished in solitude! Yet Smollett dead—soon an +ornamented column is raised at the place of his birth,<a name='FNanchor_0009' id='FNanchor_0009'></a><a href='#Footnote_0009' class='fnanchor'>[9]</a> while +the grave of the author seemed to multiply the editions of +his works. There are indeed grateful feelings in the public +at large for a favourite author; but the awful testimony of +those feelings, by its gradual progress, must appear beyond +the grave! They visit the column consecrated by his name, +and his features are most loved, most venerated, in the bust.</p> +<p>Smollett himself shall be the historian of his own heart; +this most successful “Author by Profession,” who, for his +subsistence, composed masterworks of genius, and drudged in +the toils of slavery, shall himself tell us what happened, and +describe that state between life and death, partaking of both, +which obscured his faculties and sickened his lofty spirit.</p> +<p>“Had some of those who were pleased to call themselves +my friends been at any pains to deserve the character, and +told me ingenuously what I had to expect in <i>the capacity of +an author, when I first professed myself of that venerable fraternity</i>, +I should in all probability have spared myself the +<i>incredible labour and chagrin I have since undergone</i>.”</p> +<p>As a relief from literary labour, Smollett once went to +revisit his family, and to embrace the mother he loved; but +such was the irritation of his mind and the infirmity of his +health, exhausted by the hard labours of authorship, that he +never passed a more weary summer, nor ever found himself so +incapable of indulging the warmest emotions of his heart. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span> +On his return, in a letter, he gave this melancholy narrative +of himself:—“Between friends, I am now convinced that <i>my +brain was in some measure affected</i>; for I had a kind of <i>Coma +Vigil</i> upon me from April to November, without intermission. +In consideration of this circumstance, I know you will forgive +all my peevishness and discontent; tell Mrs. Moore that with +regard to me, she has as yet seen nothing but the wrong side +of the tapestry.” Thus it happens in the life of authors, that +they whose comic genius diffuses cheerfulness, create a pleasure +which they cannot themselves participate.</p> +<p>The <i>Coma Vigil</i> may be described by a verse of Shakspeare:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Still-waking sleep! that is not what it is!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Of praise and censure, says Smollett, in a letter to Dr. +Moore, “Indeed I am sick of both, and wish to God my +circumstances would allow me to consign my pen to oblivion.” +A wish, as fervently repeated by many “Authors by Profession,” +who are not so fully entitled as was Smollett to +write when he chose, or to have lived in quiet for what he had +written. An author’s life is therefore too often deprived of all +social comfort whether he be the writer for a minister, or a +bookseller—but their case requires to be stated.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_CASE_OF_AUTHORS_STATED_INCLUDING_THE_HISTORY_OF_LITERARY_PROPERTY' id='THE_CASE_OF_AUTHORS_STATED_INCLUDING_THE_HISTORY_OF_LITERARY_PROPERTY'></a> +<h3>THE CASE OF AUTHORS STATED,</h3> +<h4>INCLUDING THE HISTORY OF LITERARY PROPERTY.</h4> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>Johnson</span> has dignified the booksellers as “the patrons of +literature,” which was generous in that great author, who +had written well and lived but ill all his life on that patronage. +Eminent booksellers, in their constant intercourse with the +most enlightened class of the community, that is, with the +best authors and the best readers, partake of the intelligence +around them; their great capitals, too, are productive of good +and evil in literature; useful when they carry on great works, +and pernicious when they sanction indifferent ones. Yet are +they but commercial men. A trader can never be deemed a +patron, for it would be romantic to purchase what is not saleable; +and where no favour is conferred, there is no patronage.</p> +<p>Authors continue poor, and booksellers become opulent; an +extraordinary result! Booksellers are not agents for authors, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span> +but proprietors of their works; so that the perpetual revenues +of literature are solely in the possession of the trade.</p> +<p>Is it then wonderful that even successful authors are indigent? +They are heirs to fortunes, but by a strange singularity +they are disinherited at their birth; for, on the publication +of their works, these cease to be their own property. +Let that natural property be secured, and a good book would +be an inheritance, a leasehold or a freehold, as you choose it; +it might at least last out a generation, and descend to the +author’s blood, were they permitted to live on their father’s +glory, as in all other property they do on his industry.<a name='FNanchor_0010' id='FNanchor_0010'></a><a href='#Footnote_0010' class='fnanchor'>[10]</a> +Something of this nature has been instituted in France, where +the descendants of Corneille and Molière retain a claim on +the theatres whenever the dramas of their great ancestors +are performed. In that country, literature has ever received +peculiar honours—it was there decreed, in the affair of Crebillon, +that literary productions are not seizable by creditors.<a name='FNanchor_0011' id='FNanchor_0011'></a><a href='#Footnote_0011' class='fnanchor'>[11]</a></p> +<p>The history of literary property in this country might form +as ludicrous a narrative as Lucian’s “true history.” It was +a long while doubtful whether any such thing existed, at the +very time when booksellers were assigning over the perpetual +copyrights of books, and making them the subject of family +settlements for the provision of their wives and children! +When Tonson, in 1739, obtained an injunction to restrain +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span> +another bookseller from printing Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” +he brought into court as a proof of his title an assignment of +the original copyright, made over by the sublime poet in +1667, which was read. Milton received for this assignment +the sum which we all know—Tonson and all his family and +assignees rode in their carriages with the profits of the five-pound +epic.<a name='FNanchor_0012' id='FNanchor_0012'></a><a href='#Footnote_0012' class='fnanchor'>[12]</a></p> +<p>The verbal and tasteless lawyers, not many years past, with +legal metaphysics, wrangled like the schoolmen, inquiring of +each other, “whether the <i>style</i> and <i>ideas</i> of an author were +tangible things; or if these were a <i>property</i>, how is <i>possession</i> +to be taken, or any act of <i>occupancy</i> made on mere intellectual +<i>ideas</i>.” Nothing, said they, can be an object of property +but which has a corporeal substance; the air and the +light, to which they compared an author’s ideas, are common +to all; ideas in the MS. state were compared to birds in a +cage; while the author confines them in his own dominion, +none but he has a right to let them fly; but the moment he +allows the bird to escape from his hand, it is no violation of +property in any one to make it his own. And to prove that +there existed no property after publication, they found an +analogy in the gathering of acorns, or in seizing on a vacant +piece of ground; and thus degrading that most refined piece +of art formed in the highest state of society, a literary production, +they brought us back to a state of nature; and seem +to have concluded that literary property was purely ideal; a +phantom which, as its author could neither grasp nor confine +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' name='page_18'></a>18</span> +to himself, he must entirely depend on the public benevolence +for his reward.<a name='FNanchor_0013' id='FNanchor_0013'></a><a href='#Footnote_0013' class='fnanchor'>[13]</a></p> +<p>The Ideas, that is, the work of an author, are “tangible +things.” “There are works,” to quote the words of a near +and dear relative, “which require great learning, great industry, +great labour, and great capital, in their preparation. +They assume a palpable form. You may fill warehouses with +them, and freight ships; and the tenure by which they are +held is superior to that of all other property, for it is original. +It is tenure which does not exist in a doubtful title; which +does not spring from any adventitious circumstances; it is +not found—it is not purchased—it is not prescriptive—it is +original; so it is the most natural of all titles, because it is +the most simple and least artificial. It is paramount and +sovereign, because it is a tenure by creation.”<a name='FNanchor_0014' id='FNanchor_0014'></a><a href='#Footnote_0014' class='fnanchor'>[14]</a></p> +<p>There were indeed some more generous spirits and better +philosophers fortunately found on the same bench; and the +identity of a literary composition was resolved into its sentiments +and language, besides what was more obviously valuable +to some persons, the print and paper. On this slight principle +was issued the profound award which accorded a certain +term of years to any work, however immortal. They could +not diminish the immortality of a book, but only its reward. +In all the litigations respecting literary property, authors +were little considered—except some honourable testimonies +due to genius, from the sense of <span class='smcap'>Willes</span>, and the eloquence +of <span class='smcap'>Mansfield</span>. Literary property was still disputed, like the +rights of a parish common. An honest printer, who could +not always write grammar, had the shrewdness to make a +bold effort in this scramble, and perceiving that even by this +last favourable award all literary property would necessarily +centre with the booksellers, now stood forward for his own body—the +printers. This rough advocate observed that “a few +persons who call themselves <i>booksellers</i>, about the number of +<i>twenty-five</i>, have kept the <i>monopoly of books and copies</i> in +their hands, to the entire exclusion of all others, but more +especially the <i>printers</i>, whom they have always held it a rule +never to let become purchasers in <i>copy</i>.” Not a word for the +<i>authors</i>! As for them, they were doomed by both parties as +the fat oblation: they indeed sent forth some meek bleatings; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span> +but what were <span class='smcaplc'>AUTHORS</span>, between judges, booksellers, +and printers? the sacrificed among the sacrificers!</p> +<p>All this was reasoning in a circle. <span class='smcap'>Literary property</span> in +our nation arose from <i>a new state of society</i>. These lawyers +could never develope its nature by wild analogies, nor discover +it in any common-law right; for our common law, +composed of immemorial customs, could never have had in +its contemplation an object which could not have existed in +barbarous periods. Literature, in its enlarged spirit, certainly +never entered into the thoughts or attention of our rude ancestors. +All their views were bounded by the necessaries of +life; and as yet they had no conception of the impalpable, +invisible, yet sovereign dominion of the human mind—enough +for our rough heroes was that of the seas! Before the reign +of Henry VIII. great authors composed occasionally a book +in Latin, which none but other great authors cared for, and +which the people could not read. In the reign of Elizabeth, +<span class='smcap'>Roger Ascham</span> appeared—one of those men of genius born +to create a new era in the history of their nation. The first +English author who may be regarded as the founder of our +<i>prose style</i> was Roger Ascham, the venerable parent of our +<i>native literature</i>. At a time when our scholars affected to +contemn the vernacular idiom, and in their Latin works were +losing their better fame, that of being understood by all their +countrymen, Ascham boldly avowed the design of setting an +example, in his own words, <span class='smcap'>TO SPEAK AS THE COMMON +PEOPLE, TO THINK AS WISE MEN</span>. His pristine English is +still forcible without pedantry, and still beautiful without +ornament.<a name='FNanchor_0015' id='FNanchor_0015'></a><a href='#Footnote_0015' class='fnanchor'>[15]</a> The illustrious <span class='smcap'>Bacon</span> condescended to follow +this new example in the most popular of his works. This +change in our literature was like a revelation; these men +taught us our language in books. We became a reading +people; and then the demand for books naturally produced +a new order of authors, who traded in literature. It was +then, so early as in the Elizabethan age, that <i>literary property</i> +may be said to derive its obscure origin in this nation. It +was protected in an indirect manner by the <i>licensers</i> of the +press; for although that was a mere political institution, only +designed to prevent seditious and irreligious publications, yet, +as no book could be printed without a licence, there was +honour enough in the licensers not to allow other publishers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span> +to infringe on the privilege granted to the first claimant. In +Queen Anne’s time, when the office of licensers was extinguished, +a more liberal genius was rising in the nation, and +<i>literary property</i> received a more definite and a more powerful +protection. A limited term was granted to every author +to reap the fruits of his labours; and Lord Hardwicke pronounced +this statute “a universal patent for authors.” Yet, +subsequently, the subject of <i>literary property</i> involved discussion; +even at so late a period as in 1769 it was still to be +litigated. It was then granted that originally an author had +at common law a property in his work, but that the act of +Anne took away all copyright after the expiration of the +terms it permitted.</p> +<p>As the matter now stands, let us address an arithmetical +age—but my pen hesitates to bring down my subject to an +argument fitted to “these coster-monger times.”<a name='FNanchor_0016' id='FNanchor_0016'></a><a href='#Footnote_0016' class='fnanchor'>[16]</a> On the +present principle of literary property, it results that an author +disposes of a leasehold property of twenty-eight years, often +for less than the price of one year’s purchase! How many +living authors are the sad witnesses of this fact, who, like so +many Esaus, have sold their inheritance for a meal! I leave +the whole school of Adam Smith to calm their calculating +emotions concerning “that unprosperous race of men” (sometimes +this master-seer calls them “unproductive”) “commonly +called <i>men of letters</i>,” who are pretty much in the +situation which lawyers and physicians would be in, were +these, as he tells us, in that state when “<i>a scholar</i> and <i>a +beggar</i> seem to have been very nearly <i>synonymous terms</i>”—and +this melancholy fact that man of genius discovered, +without the feather of his pen brushing away a tear from +his lid—without one spontaneous and indignant groan!</p> +<p>Authors may exclaim, “we ask for justice, not charity.” +They would not need to require any favour, nor claim any +other than that protection which an enlightened government, +in its wisdom and its justice, must bestow. They would +leave to the public disposition the sole appreciation of their +works; their book must make its own fortune; a bad work +may be cried up, and a good work may be cried down; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span> +but Faction will soon lose its voice, and Truth acquire +one. The cause we are pleading is not the calamities of +indifferent writers, but of those whose utility or whose +genius long survives that limited term which has been +so hardly wrenched from the penurious hand of verbal +lawyers. Every lover of literature, and every votary of +humanity has long felt indignant at that sordid state and +all those secret sorrows to which men of the finest genius, or +of sublime industry, are reduced and degraded in society. +Johnson himself, who rejected that perpetuity of literary +property which some enthusiasts seemed to claim at the +time the subject was undergoing the discussion of the +judges, is, however, for extending the copyright to a <i>century</i>. +Could authors secure this, their natural right, literature +would acquire a permanent and a nobler reward; for +great authors would then be distinguished by the very profits +they would receive from that obscure multitude whose common +disgraces they frequently participate, notwithstanding +the superiority of their own genius. Johnson himself will +serve as a proof of the incompetent remuneration of literary +property. He undertook and he performed an Herculean +labour, which employed him so many years that the price +he obtained was exhausted before the work was concluded—the +wages did not even last as long as the labour! Where, +then, is the author to look forward, when such works are +undertaken, for a provision for his family, or for his future +existence? It would naturally arise from the work itself, +were authors not the most ill-treated and oppressed class of +the community. The daughter of <span class='smcap'>Milton</span> need not have +craved the alms of the admirers of her father, if the right of +authors had been better protected; his own “Paradise Lost” +had then been her better portion and her most honourable +inheritance. The children of <span class='smcap'>Burns</span> would have required no +subscriptions; that annual tribute which the public pay to +the genius of their parent was their due, and would have been +their fortune.</p> +<p>Authors now submit to have a shorter life than their own +celebrity. While the book markets of Europe are supplied +with the writings of English authors, and they have a wider +diffusion in America than at home, it seems a national <a name='TC_2'></a><ins title="Was 'ingratisude'">ingratitude</ins> +to limit the existence of works for their authors to a +short number of years, and then to seize on their possession +for ever.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' name='page_22'></a>22</span> +<a name='THE_SUFFERINGS_OF_AUTHORS' id='THE_SUFFERINGS_OF_AUTHORS'></a> +<h3>THE SUFFERINGS OF AUTHORS.</h3> +</div> +<p><i>The natural rights and properties of <span class='smcaplc'>AUTHORS</span></i> not having +been sufficiently protected, they are defrauded, not indeed of +their fame, though they may not always live to witness it, +but of their <i>uninterrupted profits</i>, which might save them +from their frequent degradation in society. That act of +Anne which confers on them some right of property, acknowledges +that works of learned men have been carried on +“too often to the ruin of them and their families.”</p> +<p>Hence we trace a literary calamity which the public +endure in those “Authors by Profession,” who, finding often +too late in life that it is the worst profession, are not scrupulous +to live by some means or other. “I must live,” cried +one of the brotherhood, shrugging his shoulders in his +misery, and almost blushing for a libel he had just printed—“I +do not see the necessity,” was the dignified reply. Trade +was certainly not the origin of authorship. Most of our +great authors have written from a more impetuous impulse +than that of a mechanic; urged by a loftier motive than that +of humouring the popular taste, they have not lowered +themselves by writing down to the public, but have raised +the public to them. Untasked, they composed at propitious +intervals; and feeling, not labour, was in their last, as in +their first page.</p> +<p>When we became a reading people, books were to be +suited to popular tastes, and then that trade was opened that +leads to the workhouse. A new race sprang up, that, like +Ascham, “spoke as the common people;” but would not, +like Ascham, “think as wise men.” The founders of +“Authors by Profession” appear as far back as in the Elizabethan +age. Then there were some roguish wits, who, taking +advantage of the public humour, and yielding their principle +to their pen, lived to write, and wrote to live; loose livers +and loose writers!—like Autolycus, they ran to the fair, with +baskets of hasty manufactures, fit for clowns and maidens.<a name='FNanchor_0017' id='FNanchor_0017'></a><a href='#Footnote_0017' class='fnanchor'>[17]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span></div> +<p>Even then flourished the craft of authorship, and the +mysteries of bookselling. <span class='smcap'>Robert Greene</span>, the master-wit, +wrote “The Art of Coney-catching,” or Cheatery, in which +he was an adept; he died of a surfeit of Rhenish and pickled +herrings, at a fatal banquet of authors;—and left as his +legacy among the “Authors by Profession” “A Groatsworth +of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance.” One died of +another kind of surfeit. Another was assassinated in a +brothel. But the list of the calamities of all these worthies +have as great variety as those of the Seven Champions.<a name='FNanchor_0018' id='FNanchor_0018'></a><a href='#Footnote_0018' class='fnanchor'>[18]</a> +Nor were the <i>stationers</i>, or <i>book-venders</i>, as the publishers of +books were first designated, at a fault in the mysteries of +“coney-catching.” Deceptive and vaunting title-pages were +practised to such excess, that <span class='smcap'>Tom Nash</span>, an “Author by +Profession,” never fastidiously modest, blushed at the title of +his “Pierce Pennilesse,” which the publisher had flourished +in the first edition, like “a tedious mountebank.” The +booksellers forged great names to recommend their works, and +passed off in currency their base metal stamped with a <a name='TC_3'></a><ins title="Was 'roya'">royal</ins> +head. “It was an usual thing in those days,” says honest +Anthony Wood, “to set a great name to a book or books, by +the sharking booksellers or snivelling writers, to get bread.”</p> +<p>Such authors as these are unfortunate, before they are criminal; +they often tire out their youth before they discover +that “Author by Profession” is a denomination ridiculously +assumed, for it is none! The first efforts of men of genius +are usually honourable ones; but too often they suffer that +genius to be debased. Many who would have composed +history have turned voluminous party-writers; many a noble +satirist has become a hungry libeller. Men who are starved +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span> +in society, hold to it but loosely. They are the children of +Nemesis! they avenge themselves—and with the Satan of +<span class='smcap'>Milton</span> they exclaim,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Evil, be thou my good!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Never were their feelings more vehemently echoed than by +this Nash—the creature of genius, of famine, and despair. +He lived indeed in the age of Elizabeth, but writes as if he +had lived in our own. He proclaimed himself to the world +as <i>Pierce Pennilesse</i>, and on a retrospect of his <i>literary life</i>, +observes that he had “sat up late and rose early, contended +with the cold, and conversed with scarcitie;” he says, “all +my labours turned to losse,—I was despised and neglected, +my paines not regarded, or slightly rewarded, and I myself, in +prime of my best wit, laid open to povertie. Whereupon I +accused my fortune, railed on my patrons, bit my pen, rent +my papers, and raged.”—And then comes the after-reflection, +which so frequently provokes the anger of genius: “How +many base men that wanted those parts I had, enjoyed content +at will, and had wealth at command! I called to mind +a cobbler that was worth five hundred pounds; an hostler +that had built a goodly inn; a carman in a leather pilche that +had whipt a thousand pound out of his horse’s tail—and have +I more than these? thought I to myself; am I better born? +am I better brought up? yea, and better favoured! and yet +am I a beggar? How am I crost, or whence is this curse? +Even from hence, the men that should employ such as I am, +are enamoured of their own wits, though they be never so +scurvie; that a scrivener is better paid than a scholar; and +men of art must seek to live among cormorants, or be kept +under by dunces, who count it policy to keep them bare to +follow their books the better.” And then, Nash thus utters +the cries of—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>A DESPAIRING AUTHOR!</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Why is’t damnation to despair and die<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>When life is my true happiness’ disease?<br /> +My soul! my soul! thy safety makes me fly<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span><i>The faulty means</i> that might my pain appease;<br /> +Divines and dying men may talk of hell;<br /> +But in my heart her several torments dwell.<br /> +<br /> +Ah worthless wit, to train me to this woe!<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Deceitful arts that nourish discontent!<br /> +Ill thrive the folly that bewitch’d me so!<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Vain thoughts, adieu! for now I will repent;<br /> +And yet my wants persuade me to proceed,<br /> +Since none take pity of a scholar’s need!—<br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span><br /> +Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch!<br /> +For misery hath daunted all my mirth—<br /> +Without redress complains my careless verse,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And Midas’ ears relent not at my moan!<br /> +In some far land will I my griefs rehearse,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>’Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan!<br /> +England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth!<br /> +Adieu, unkinde! where skill is nothing worth!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Such was the miserable cry of an “Author by Profession” +in the reign of Elizabeth. Nash not only renounces his +country in his despair—and hesitates on “the faulty means” +which have appeased the pangs of many of his unhappy brothers, +but he proves also the weakness of the moral principle +among these men of genius; for he promises, if any Mæcenas +will bind him by his bounty, he will do him “as much honour +as any poet of my beardless years in England—but,” he adds, +“if he be sent away with a flea in his ear, let him look that +I will rail on him soundly; not for an hour or a day, while +the injury is fresh in my memory, but in some elaborate +polished poem, which I will leave to the world when I am +dead, to be a living image to times to come of his beggarly +parsimony.” Poets might imagine that <span class='smcap'>Chatterton</span> had +written all this, about the time he struck a balance of his +profit and loss by the death of Beckford the Lord Mayor, +in which he concludes with “I am glad he is dead by +3<i>l.</i> 13<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>”<a name='FNanchor_0019' id='FNanchor_0019'></a><a href='#Footnote_0019' class='fnanchor'>[19]</a></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='A_MENDICANT_AUTHOR_AND_THE_PATRONS_OF_FORMER_TIMES' id='A_MENDICANT_AUTHOR_AND_THE_PATRONS_OF_FORMER_TIMES'></a> +<h3>A MENDICANT AUTHOR,</h3> +<h4>AND THE PATRONS OF FORMER TIMES.</h4> +</div> +<p>It must be confessed, that before “Authors by Profession” +had fallen into the hands of the booksellers, they endured +peculiar grievances. They were pitiable retainers of some +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span> +great family. The miseries of such an author, and the insolence +and penuriousness of his patrons, who would not return +the poetry they liked and would not pay for, may be traced in +the eventful life of <span class='smcap'>Thomas Churchyard</span>, a poet of the age +of Elizabeth, one of those unfortunate men who have written +poetry all their days, and lived a long life to complete the +misfortune. His muse was so fertile, that his works pass all +enumeration. He courted numerous patrons, who valued the +poetry, while they left the poet to his own miserable contemplations. +In a long catalogue of his works, which this poet +has himself given, he adds a few memoranda, as he proceeds, +a little ludicrous, but very melancholy. He wrote a book +which he could never afterwards recover from one of his +patrons, and adds, “all which book was in as good verse as +ever I made; an honourable knight dwelling in the Black +Friers can witness the same, because I read it unto him.” +Another accorded him the same remuneration—on which he +adds, “An infinite number of other songs and sonnets given +where they cannot be recovered, nor purchase any favour +when they are craved.” Still, however, he announces “Twelve +long Tales for Christmas, dedicated to twelve honourable +lords.” Well might Churchyard write his own sad life, under +the title of “The Tragicall Discourse of the Haplesse Man’s +Life.”<a name='FNanchor_0020' id='FNanchor_0020'></a><a href='#Footnote_0020' class='fnanchor'>[20]</a></p> +<p>It will not be easy to parallel this pathetic description of +the wretched age of a poor neglected poet mourning over a +youth vainly spent.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>High time it is to haste my carcase hence:<br /> +Youth stole away and felt no kind of joy,<br /> +And age he left in travail ever since;<br /> +The wanton days that made me nice and coy<br /> +Were but a dream, a shadow, and a toy—<br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span><br /> +I look in glass, and find my cheeks so lean<br /> +That every hour I do but wish me dead;<br /> +Now back bends down, and forwards falls the head,<br /> +And hollow eyes in wrinkled brow doth shroud<br /> +As though two stars were creeping under cloud.<br /> +<br /> +The lips wax cold, and look both pale and thin,<br /> +The teeth fall out as nutts forsook the shell,<br /> +The bare bald head but shows where hair hath been,<br /> +The lively joints wax weary, stiff, and still,<br /> +The ready tongue now falters in his tale;<br /> +The courage quails as strength decays and goes....<br /> +<br /> +The thatcher hath a cottage poor you see:<br /> +The shepherd knows where he shall sleep at night;<br /> +The daily drudge from cares can quiet be:<br /> +Thus fortune sends some rest to every wight;<br /> +And I was born to house and land by right....<br /> +<br /> +Well, ere my breath my body do forsake<br /> +My spirit I bequeath to God above;<br /> +My books, my scrawls, and songs that I did make,<br /> +I leave with friends that freely did me love....<br /> +<br /> +Now, friends, shake hands, I must be gone, my boys!<br /> +Our mirth takes end, our triumph all is done;<br /> +Our tickling talk, our sports and merry toys<br /> +Do glide away like shadow of the sun.<br /> +Another comes when I my race have run,<br /> +Shall pass the time with you in better plight,<br /> +And find good cause of greater things to write.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Yet Churchyard was no contemptible bard; he composed a +national poem, “The Worthiness of Wales,” which has been +reprinted, and will be still dear to his “Fatherland,” as the +Hollanders expressively denote their natal spot. He wrote in +the “Mirrour of Magistrates,” the Life of Wolsey, which has +parts of great dignity; and the Life of Jane Shore, which +was much noticed in his day, for a severe critic of the times +writes:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Hath not Shore’s wife, although a light-skirt she,<br /> +Given him a chaste, long, lasting memorie?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Churchyard, and the miseries of his poetical life, are alluded +to by Spenser. He is old Palemon in “Colin Clout’s come +Home again.” Spenser is supposed to describe this laborious +writer for half a century, whose melancholy pipe, in his old +age, may make the reader “rew:”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Yet he himself may rewed be more right,<br /> +That sung so long untill quite hoarse he grew.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' name='page_28'></a>28</span></div> +<p>His epitaph, preserved by Camden, is extremely instructive +to all poets, could epitaphs instruct them:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><i>Poverty</i> and <i>poetry</i> his tomb doth inclose;<br /> +Wherefore, good neighbours, be merry in <i>prose</i>.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It appears also by a confession of Tom Nash, that an +author would then, pressed by the <i>res angusta domi</i>, when +“the bottom of his purse was turned upward,” submit to +compose pieces for gentlemen who aspired to authorship. He +tells us on some occasion, that he was then in the country +composing poetry for some country squire;—and says, “I am +faine to let my plow stand still in the midst of a furrow, +to follow these Senior Fantasticos, to whose amorous <i>villanellas</i><a name='FNanchor_0021' id='FNanchor_0021'></a><a href='#Footnote_0021' class='fnanchor'>[21]</a> +I prostitute my pen,” and this, too, “twice or thrice +in a month;” and he complains that it is “poverty which +alone maketh me so unconstant to my determined studies, +trudging from place to place to and fro, and prosecuting the +means to keep me from idlenesse.” An author was then much +like a vagrant.</p> +<p>Even at a later period, in the reign of the literary James, +great authors were reduced to a state of mendicity, and lived +on alms, although their lives and their fortunes had been consumed +in forming national labours. The antiquary <span class='smcap'>Stowe</span> +exhibits a striking example of the rewards conferred on such +valued authors. Stowe had devoted his life, and exhausted +his patrimony, in the study of English antiquities; he had +travelled on foot throughout the kingdom, inspecting all monuments +of antiquity, and rescuing what he could from the +dispersed libraries of the monasteries. His stupendous collections, +in his own handwriting, still exist, to provoke the +feeble industry of literary loiterers. He felt through life the +enthusiasm of study; and seated in his monkish library, +living with the dead more than with the living, he was still a +student of taste: for Spenser the poet visited the library of +Stowe; and the first good edition of Chaucer was made so +chiefly by the labours of our author. Late in life, worn-out +with study and the cares of poverty, neglected by that proud +metropolis of which he had been the historian, his good-humour +did not desert him; for being afflicted with sharp +pains in his aged feet, he observed that “his affliction lay in +that part which formerly he had made so much use of.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span> +Many a mile had he wandered and much had he expended, for +those treasures of antiquities which had exhausted his fortune, +and with which he had formed works of great public +utility. It was in his eightieth year that Stowe at length +received a public acknowledgment of his services, which will +appear to us of a very extraordinary nature. He was so reduced +in his circumstances that he petitioned James I. for a +<i>licence to collect alms</i> for himself! “as a recompense for his +labours and travel of <i>forty-five years</i>, in setting forth the +<i>Chronicles of England</i>, and <i>eight years</i> taken up in the <i>Survey +of the Cities of London and Westminster</i>, towards his relief now +in his old age; having left his former means of living, and only +employing himself for the service and good of his country.” +Letters-patent under the great seal were granted. After no +penurious commendations of Stowe’s labours, he is permitted +“to gather the benevolence of well-disposed people within +this realm of England; to ask, gather, and take the alms of +all our loving subjects.” These letters-patent were to be +published by the clergy from their pulpits; they produced so +little, that they were renewed for another twelvemonth: one +entire parish in the city contributed seven shillings and sixpence! +Such, then, was the patronage received by Stowe, to +be a licensed beggar throughout the kingdom for one twelvemonth! +Such was the public remuneration of a man who +had been useful to his nation, but not to himself!</p> +<p>Such was the first age of <i>Patronage</i>, which branched out +in the last century into an age of <i>Subscriptions</i>, when an +author levied contributions before his work appeared; a mode +which inundated our literature with a great portion of its +worthless volumes: of these the most remarkable are the +splendid publications of Richard Blome; they may be called +fictitious works; for they are only mutilated transcripts from +Camden and Speed, but richly ornamented, and pompously +printed, which this literary adventurer, said to have been a +gentleman, loaded the world with, by the aid of his subscribers. +Another age was that of <i>Dedications</i>,<a name='FNanchor_0022' id='FNanchor_0022'></a><a href='#Footnote_0022' class='fnanchor'>[22]</a> when the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span> +author was to lift his tiny patron to the skies, in an inverse +ratio as he lowered himself, in this public exhibition. Sometimes +the party haggled about the price;<a name='FNanchor_0023' id='FNanchor_0023'></a><a href='#Footnote_0023' class='fnanchor'>[23]</a> or the statue, +while stepping into his niche, would turn round on the author +to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissatisfied +with Peter’s colder temperament, composed the superlative +dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the +author by subscribing it with Motteux’s name!<a name='FNanchor_0024' id='FNanchor_0024'></a><a href='#Footnote_0024' class='fnanchor'>[24]</a> Worse +fared it when authors were the unlucky hawkers of their own +works; of which I shall give a remarkable instance in <span class='smcap'>Myles +Davies</span>, a learned man maddened by want and indignation.</p> +<p>The subject before us exhibits one of the most singular +spectacles in these volumes; that of a scholar of extensive +erudition, whose life seems to have passed in the study of +languages and the sciences, while his faculties appear to have +been disordered from the simplicity of his nature, and driven +to madness by indigence and insult. He formed the wild resolution +of becoming a mendicant author, the hawker of his +own works; and by this mode endured all the aggravated +sufferings, the great and the petty insults of all ranks of society, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span> +and even sometimes from men of learning themselves, who +denied a mendicant author the sympathy of a brother.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Myles Davies</span> and his works are imperfectly known to +the most curious of our literary collectors. His name has +scarcely reached a few; the author and his works are equally +extraordinary, and claim a right to be preserved in this treatise +on the “Calamities of Authors.”</p> +<p>Our author commenced printing a work, difficult, from its +miscellaneous character, to describe; of which the volumes +appeared at different periods. The early and the most valuable +volumes were the first and second; they are a kind of bibliographical, +biographical, and critical work, on English Authors. +They all bear a general title of “Athenæ Britannicæ.”<a name='FNanchor_0025' id='FNanchor_0025'></a><a href='#Footnote_0025' class='fnanchor'>[25]</a></p> +<p>Collectors have sometimes met with a very curious volume, +entitled “Icon Libellorum,” and sometimes the same book, +under another title—“A Critical History of Pamphlets.” +This rare book forms the first volume of the “Athenæ Britannicæ.” +The author was Myles Davies, whose biography is +quite unknown: he may now be his own biographer. He +was a Welsh clergyman, a vehement foe to Popery, Arianism, +and Socinianism, of the most fervent loyalty to George I. and +the Hanoverian succession; a scholar, skilled in Greek and +Latin, and in all the modern languages. Quitting his native +spot with political disgust, he changed his character in the +metropolis, for he subscribes himself “Counsellor-at-Law.” +In an evil hour he commenced author, not only surrounded +by his books, but with the more urgent companions of a wife +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span> +and family; and with that childlike simplicity which sometimes +marks the mind of a retired scholar, we perceive him +imagining that his immense reading would prove a source, +not easily exhausted, for their subsistence.</p> +<p>From the first volumes of his series much curious literary +history may be extracted, amidst the loose and wandering +elements of this literary chaos. In his dedication to the +Prince he professes “to represent writers and writings in a +catoptrick view.”</p> +<p>The preface to the second volume opens his plan; and nothing +as yet indicates those rambling humours which his subsequent +labours exhibit.</p> +<p>As he proceeded in forming these volumes, I suspect, either +that his mind became a little disordered, or that he discovered +that mere literature found but penurious patrons in “the +Few;” for, attempting to gain over all classes of society, he +varied his investigations, and courted attention, by writing +on law, physic, divinity, as well as literary topics. By his +account—</p> +<p>“The avarice of booksellers, and the stinginess of hard-hearted +patrons, had driven him into a cursed company of +door-keeping herds, to meet the irrational brutality of those +uneducated mischievous animals called footmen, house-porters, +poetasters, mumpers, apothecaries, attorneys, and such like +beasts of prey,” who were, like himself, sometimes barred up +for hours in the menagerie of a great man’s antechamber. +In his addresses to Drs. Mead and Freind, he declares—“My +misfortunes drive me to publish my writings for a poor livelihood; +and nothing but the utmost necessity could make +any man in his senses to endeavour at it, in a method so +burthensome to the modesty and education of a scholar.”</p> +<p>In French he dedicates to George I.; and in the Harleian +MSS. I discovered a long letter to the Earl of Oxford, by our +author, in French, with a Latin ode. Never was more innocent +bribery proffered to a minister! He composed what he +calls <i>Stricturæ Pindaricæ</i> on the “Mughouses,” then political +clubs;<a name='FNanchor_0026' id='FNanchor_0026'></a><a href='#Footnote_0026' class='fnanchor'>[26]</a> celebrates English authors in the same odes, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span> +and inserts a political Latin drama, called “Pallas Anglicana.” +Mævius and Bavius were never more indefatigable! The +author’s intellect gradually discovers its confusion amidst the +loud cries of penury and despair.</p> +<p>To paint the distresses of an author soliciting alms for a +book which he presents—and which, whatever may be its +value, comes at least as an evidence that the suppliant is a +learned man—is a case so uncommon, that the invention of +the novelist seems necessary to fill up the picture. But +Myles Davies is an artist in his own simple narrative.</p> +<p>Our author has given the names of several of his unwilling +customers:—</p> +<p>“Those squeeze-farthing and hoard-penny ignoramus doctors, +with several great personages who formed excuses for +not accepting my books; or they would receive them, but +give nothing for them; or else deny they had them, or remembered +anything of them; and so gave me nothing for +my last present of books, though they kept them <i>gratis et +ingratiis</i>.</p> +<p>“But his Grace of the Dutch extraction in Holland (said +to be akin to Mynheer Vander B—nck) had a peculiar grace +in receiving my present of books and odes, which, being +bundled up together with a letter and ode upon his Graceship, +and carried in by his porter, I was bid to call for an answer +five years hence. I asked the porter what he meant by that? +I suppose, said he, four or five days hence; but it proved five +or six months after, before I could get any answer, though I +had writ five or six letters in French with fresh odes upon +his Graceship, and an account where I lived, and what noblemen +had accepted of my present. I attended about the door +three or four times a week all that time constantly from +twelve to four or five o’clock in the evening; and walking +under the fore windows of the parlours, once that time his +and her Grace came after dinner to stare at me, with open +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span> +windows and shut mouths, but filled with fair water, which +they spouted with so much dexterity that they twisted the +water through their teeth and mouth-skrew, to flash near my +face, and yet just to miss me, though my nose could not well +miss the natural flavour of the orange-water showering so +very near me. Her Grace began the water-work, but not very +gracefully, especially for an English lady of her description, +airs, and qualities, to make a stranger her spitting-post, who +had been guilty of no other offence than to offer her husband +some writings.—His Grace followed, yet first stood looking so +wistfully towards me, that I verily thought he had a mind to +throw me a guinea or two for all these indignities, and two or +three months’ then sleeveless waiting upon him—and accordingly +I advanced to address his Grace to remember the poor +author; but, instead of an answer, he immediately undams +his mouth, out fly whole showers of lymphatic rockets, which +had like to have put out my mortal eyes.”</p> +<p>Still he was not disheartened, and still applied for his +bundle of books, which were returned to him at length unopened, +with “half a guinea upon top of the cargo,” and +“with a desire to receive no more. I plucked up courage, +murmuring within myself—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.’”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He sarcastically observes,</p> +<p>“As I was still jogging on homewards, I thought that a +great many were called <i>their Graces</i>, not for any grace or +favour they had truly deserved with God or man, but for the +same reason of contraries, that the <i>Parcæ</i> or Destinies, were +so called, because they spared none, or were not truly the +<i>Parcæ, quia non parcebant</i>.”</p> +<p>Our indigent and indignant author, by the faithfulness of +his representations, mingles with his anger some ludicrous +scenes of literary mendicity.</p> +<p>“I can’t choose (now I am upon the fatal subject) but +make one observation or two more upon the various rencontres +and adventures I met withall, in presenting my books to +those who were likely to accept of them for their own information, +or for that of helping a poor scholar, or for their +own vanity or ostentation.</p> +<p>“Some parsons would hollow to raise the whole house and +posse of the domestics to raise a poor <i>crown</i>; at last all that +flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span> +and then ’tis reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the +fatal crown can be picked out, which must be taken as it is +given, with all the parade of almsgiving, and so to be received +with all the active and passive ceremonial of mendication +and alms-receiving—as if the books, printing and paper, +were worth nothing at all, and as if it were the greatest +charity for them to touch them or let them be in the house; +‘For I shall never read them,’ says one of the five-shilling-piece +chaps; ‘I have no time to look in them,’ says another; +‘’Tis so much money lost,’ says a grave dean; ‘My eyes +being so bad,’ said a bishop, ‘that I can scarce read at all.’ +‘What do you want with me?’ said another; ‘Sir, I presented +you the other day with my <i>Athenæ Britannicæ</i>, being +the last part published.’ ‘I don’t want books, take them +again; I don’t understand what they mean.’ ‘The title is +very plain,’ said I, ‘and they are writ mostly in English.’ +‘I’ll give you a crown for both the volumes.’ ‘They stand +me, sir, in more than that, and ’tis for a bare subsistence I +present or sell them; how shall I live?’ ‘I care not a farthing +for that; live or die, ’tis all one to me.’ ‘Damn my +master!’ said Jack, ‘’twas but last night he was commending +your books and your learning to the skies; and now he +would not care if you were starving before his eyes; nay, he +often makes game at your clothes, though he thinks you the +greatest scholar in England.’”</p> +<p>Such was the life of a learned mendicant author! The +scenes which are here exhibited appear to have disordered an +intellect which had never been firm; in vain our author attempted +to adapt his talents to all orders of men, still “To +the crazy ship all winds are contrary.”</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='COWLEY_OF_HIS_MELANCHOLY' id='COWLEY_OF_HIS_MELANCHOLY'></a> +<h3>COWLEY.</h3> +<h4>OF HIS MELANCHOLY.</h4> +</div> +<p>The mind of <span class='smcap'>Cowley</span> was beautiful, but a querulous tenderness +in his nature breathes not only through his works, +but influenced his habits and his views of human affairs. +His temper and his genius would have opened to us, had not +the strange decision of Sprat and Clifford withdrawn that +full correspondence of his heart which he had carried on +many years. These letters were suppressed because, as +Bishop Sprat acknowledges, “in this kind of prose Mr. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span> +Cowley was excellent! They had a domestical plainness, +and a peculiar kind of familiarity.” And then the florid +writer runs off, that, “in letters, where the souls of men +should appear undressed, in that negligent habit they may be +fit to be seen by one or two in a chamber, but not to go +abroad into the streets.” A false criticism: which not only +has proved to be so since their time by Mason’s “Memoirs +of Gray,” but which these friends of Cowley might have +themselves perceived, if they had recollected that the Letters +of Cicero to Atticus form the most delightful chronicles of +the heart—and the most authentic memorials of the man. +Peck obtained one letter of Cowley’s, preserved by Johnson, +and it exhibits a remarkable picture of the miseries of his +poetical solitude. It is, perhaps, not too late to inquire +whether this correspondence was destroyed as well as suppressed? +Would Sprat and Clifford have burned what they +have told us they so much admired?<a name='FNanchor_0027' id='FNanchor_0027'></a><a href='#Footnote_0027' class='fnanchor'>[27]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span></div> +<p>Fortunately for our literary sympathy, the fatal error of +these fastidious critics has been in some degree repaired by +the admirable genius himself whom they have injured. +When Cowley retreated from society, he determined to draw +up an apology for his conduct, and to have dedicated it to his +patron, Lord St. Albans. His death interrupted the entire +design; but his Essays, which Pope so finely calls “the language +of his heart,” are evidently parts of these precious +Confessions. All of Cowley’s tenderest and undisguised +feelings have therefore not perished. These Essays now form +a species of composition in our language, a mixture of prose +and verse—the man with the poet—the self-painter has sat +to himself, and, with the utmost simplicity, has copied out +the image of his soul.</p> +<p>Why has this poet twice called himself <i>the melancholy +Cowley</i>? He employed no poetical <i>cheville</i><a name='FNanchor_0028' id='FNanchor_0028'></a><a href='#Footnote_0028' class='fnanchor'>[28]</a> for the metre of +a verse which his own feelings inspired.</p> +<p>Cowley, at the beginning of the Civil War, joined the +Royalists at Oxford; followed the queen to Paris; yielded his +days and his nights to an employment of the highest confidence, +that of deciphering the royal correspondence; he +transacted their business, and, almost divorcing himself from +his neglected muse, he yielded up for them the tranquillity so +necessary to the existence of a poet. From his earliest days +he tells us how the poetic affections had stamped themselves +on his heart, “like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, +which, with the tree, will grow proportionably.”</p> +<p>He describes his feelings at the court:—</p> +<p>“I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life the nearer +I came to it—that beauty which I did not fall in love with +when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span> +entice me when I saw it was adulterate. I met with several +great persons whom I liked very well, but could not perceive +that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired. +I was in a crowd of good company, in business of +great and honourable trust; I eat at the best table, and enjoyed +the best conveniences that ought to be desired by a man +of my condition; yet I could not abstain from renewing my +old schoolboy’s wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Well then! I now do plainly see,<br /> +This busie world and I shall ne’er agree!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>After several years’ absence from his native country, at a +most critical period, he was sent over to mix with that +trusty band of loyalists, who, in secrecy and in silence, were +devoting themselves to the royal cause. Cowley was seized +on by the ruling powers. At this moment he published a +preface to his works, which some of his party interpreted as +a relaxation of his loyalty. He has been fully defended. +Cowley, with all his delicacy of temper, wished sincerely to +retire from all parties; and saw enough among the fiery +zealots of his own, to grow disgusted even with Royalists.</p> +<p>His wish for retirement has been half censured as +cowardice by Johnson; but there was a tenderness of feeling +which had ill-formed Cowley for the cunning of party intriguers, +and the company of little villains. About this time +he might have truly distinguished himself as “The melancholy +Cowley.”</p> +<p>I am only tracing his literary history for the purpose of +this work: but I cannot pass without noticing the fact, that +this abused man, whom his enemies were calumniating, was +at this moment, under the disguise of a doctor of physic, +occupied by the novel studies of botany and medicine; and as +all science in the mind of the poet naturally becomes poetry, +he composed his books on plants in Latin verse.</p> +<p>At length came the Restoration, which the poet zealously +celebrated in his “Ode” on that occasion. Both Charles the +First and Second had promised to reward his fidelity with +the mastership of the Savoy; but, Wood says, “he lost it by +certain persons enemies of the muses.” Wood has said no +more; and none of Cowley’s biographers have thrown any +light on the circumstance: perhaps we may discover this +literary calamity.</p> +<p>That Cowley caught no warmth from that promised sunshine +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span> +which the new monarch was to scatter in prodigal +gaiety, has been distinctly told by the poet himself; his +muse, in “The Complaint,” having reproached him thus:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Thou young prodigal, who didst so loosely waste<br /> +Of all thy youthful years, the good estate—<br /> +Thou changeling then, bewitch’d with noise and show,<br /> +Wouldst into courts and cities from me go—<br /> +Go, renegado, cast up thy account—<br /> +Behold the public storm is spent at last;<br /> +The sovereign is toss’d at sea no more,<br /> +And thou, with all the noble company,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Art got at last to shore—<br /> +But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see,<br /> +All march’d up to possess the promis’d land;<br /> +Thou still alone (alas!) dost gaping stand<br /> +Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But neglect was not all Cowley had to endure; the royal +party seemed disposed to calumniate him. When Cowley was +young he had hastily composed the comedy of “The Guardian;” +a piece which served the cause of loyalty. After the +Restoration, he rewrote it under the title of “Cutter of Coleman +Street;” a comedy which may still be read with equal +curiosity and interest: a spirited picture of the peculiar +characters which appeared at the Revolution. It was not only +ill received by a faction, but by those vermin of a new court, +who, without merit themselves, put in their claims, by crying +down those who, with great merit, are not in favour. All +these to a man accused the author of having written a satire +against the king’s party. And this wretched party prevailed, +too long for the author’s repose, but not for his fame.<a name='FNanchor_0029' id='FNanchor_0029'></a><a href='#Footnote_0029' class='fnanchor'>[29]</a> Many +years afterwards this comedy became popular. Dryden, who +was present at the representation, tells us that Cowley +“received the news of his ill success not with so much firmness +as might have been expected from so great a man.” +Cowley was in truth a great man, and a greatly injured man. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span> +His sensibility and delicacy of temper were of another texture +than Dryden’s. What at that moment did Cowley experience, +when he beheld himself neglected, calumniated, and, +in his last appeal to public favour, found himself still a victim +to a vile faction, who, to court their common master, were +trampling on their honest brother?</p> +<p>We shall find an unbroken chain of evidence, clearly demonstrating +the agony of his literary feelings. The cynical +Wood tells us that, “not finding that preferment he expected, +while others for their money carried away most places, he +retired <a name='TC_4'></a><ins title="Was 'discontentd'">discontented</ins> into Surrey.” And his panegyrist, Sprat, +describes him as “weary of the vexations and formalities of +an active condition—he had been perplexed with a long compliance +with foreign manners. He was satiated with the +arts of a court, which sort of life, though his virtue made it +innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These +were the reasons that moved him to follow the violent inclination +of his own mind,” &c. I doubt if either the sarcastic +antiquary or the rhetorical panegyrist have developed the +simple truth of Cowley’s “violent inclination of his own +mind.” He does it himself more openly in that beautiful +picture of an injured poet, in “The Complaint,” an ode warm +with individual feeling, but which Johnson coldly passes over, +by telling us that “it met the usual fortune of complaints, +and seems to have excited more contempt than pity.”</p> +<p>Thus the biographers of Cowley have told us nothing, and +the poet himself has probably not told us all. To these +calumnies respecting Cowley’s comedy, raised up by those +whom Wood designates as “enemies of the muses,” it would +appear that others were added of a deeper dye, and in malignant +whispers distilled into the ear of royalty. Cowley, in +an ode, had commemorated the genius of Brutus, with all the +enthusiasm of a votary of liberty. After the king’s return, +when Cowley solicited some reward for his sufferings and +services in the royal cause, the chancellor is said to have turned +on him with a severe countenance, saying, “Mr. Cowley, your +pardon is your reward!” It seems that ode was then considered +to be of a dangerous tendency among half the nation; Brutus +would be the model of enthusiasts, who were sullenly bending +their neck under the yoke of royalty. Charles II. feared the +attempt of desperate men; and he might have forgiven +Rochester a loose pasquinade, but not Cowley a solemn invocation. +This fact, then, is said to have been the true cause +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span> +of the despondency so prevalent in the latter poetry of “the +melancholy Cowley.” And hence the indiscretion of the +muse, in a single flight, condemned her to a painful, rather +than a voluntary solitude; and made the poet complain of +“barren praise” and “neglected verse.”<a name='FNanchor_0030' id='FNanchor_0030'></a><a href='#Footnote_0030' class='fnanchor'>[30]</a></p> +<p>While this anecdote harmonises with better known facts, it +throws some light on the outcry raised against the comedy, +which seems to have been but an echo of some preceding one. +Cowley retreated into solitude, where he found none of the +agrestic charms of the landscapes of his muse. When in the +world, Sprat says, “he had never wanted for constant health +and strength of body;” but, thrown into solitude, he carried +with him a wounded spirit—the Ode of Brutus and the condemnation +of his comedy were the dark spirits that haunted his +cottage. Ill health soon succeeded low spirits—he pined in +dejection, and perished a victim of the finest and most injured +feelings.</p> +<p>But before we leave <i>the melancholy Cowley</i>, he shall speak +the feelings, which here are not exaggerated. In this Chronicle +of Literary Calamity no passage ought to be more +memorable than the solemn confession of one of the most +amiable of men and poets.</p> +<p>Thus he expresses himself in the preface to his “Cutter of +Coleman Street.”</p> +<p>“We are therefore wonderful wise men, and have a fine +business of it; we, who spend our time in poetry. I do sometimes +laugh, and am often angry with myself, when I think +on it; and if I had a son inclined by nature to the same +folly, I believe I should bind him from it by the strictest conjurations +of a paternal blessing. For what can be more +ridiculous than to labour to give men delight, whilst they +labour, on their part, most earnestly to take offence?”</p> +<p>And thus he closes the preface, in all the solemn expression +of injured feelings:—“This I do affirm, that <i>from all which +I have written, +<em>I never</em> +received the least benefit or the least +advantage; but, on the contrary, have felt sometimes the effects +of malice and misfortune</i>!”</p> +<p>Cowley’s ashes were deposited between those of Chaucer +and Spenser; a marble monument was erected by a duke; +and his eulogy was pronounced, on the day of his death, from +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span> +the lips of royalty. The learned wrote, and the tuneful +wept: well might the neglected bard, in his retirement, compose +an epitaph on himself, living there “entombed, though not +dead.”</p> +<p>To this ambiguous state of existence he applies a conceit, +not inelegant, from the tenderness of its imagery:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Hic sparge flores, sparge breves rosas,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus;<br /> +Herbisque odoratis corona<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem.<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>IMITATED</span>.</p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Here scatter flowers and short-lived roses bring.<br /> +For life, though dead, enjoys the flowers of spring;<br /> +With breathing wreaths of fragrant herbs adorn<br /> +The yet warm embers in the poet’s urn.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_PAINS_OF_FASTIDIOUS_EGOTISM' id='THE_PAINS_OF_FASTIDIOUS_EGOTISM'></a> +<h3>THE PAINS OF FASTIDIOUS EGOTISM.</h3> +</div> +<p>I must place the author of “The Catalogue of Royal and +Noble Authors,” who himself now ornaments that roll, among +those who have participated in the misfortunes of literature.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Horace Walpole</span> was the inheritor of a name the most +popular in Europe;<a name='FNanchor_0031' id='FNanchor_0031'></a><a href='#Footnote_0031' class='fnanchor'>[31]</a> he moved in the higher circles of +society; and fortune had never denied him the ample gratification +of his lively tastes in the elegant arts, and in curious +knowledge. These were particular advantages. But Horace +Walpole panted with a secret desire for literary celebrity; a +full sense of his distinguished rank long suppressed the desire +of venturing the name he bore to the uncertain fame of an +author, and the caprice of vulgar critics. At length he pretended +to shun authors, and to slight the honours of authorship. +The cause of this contempt has been attributed to the +perpetual consideration of his rank. But was this bitter contempt +of so early a date? Was Horace Walpole a Socrates +before his time? was he born that prodigy of indifference, to +despise the secret object he languished to possess? His early +associates were not only noblemen, but literary noblemen; +and need he have been so petulantly fastidious at bearing the +venerable title of author, when he saw Lyttleton, Chesterfield, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span> +and other peers, proud of wearing the blue riband of +literature? No! it was after he had become an author that +he contemned authorship: and it was not the precocity of +his sagacity, but the maturity of his experience, that made +him willing enough to undervalue literary honours, which +were not sufficient to satisfy his desires.</p> +<p>Let us estimate the genius of Horace Walpole by analysing +his talents, and inquiring into the nature of his works.</p> +<p>His taste was highly polished; his vivacity attained to +brilliancy;<a name='FNanchor_0032' id='FNanchor_0032'></a><a href='#Footnote_0032' class='fnanchor'>[32]</a> and his picturesque fancy, easily excited, was soon +extinguished; his playful wit and keen irony were perpetually +exercised in his observations on life, and his memory was stored +with the most amusing knowledge, but much too lively to be +accurate; for his studies were but his sports. But other +qualities of genius must distinguish the great author, and +even him who would occupy that leading rank in the literary +republic our author aspired to fill. He lived too much in +that class of society which is little favourable to genius; he +exerted neither profound thinking, nor profound feeling; and +too volatile to attain to the pathetic, that higher quality of +genius, he was so imbued with the petty elegancies of society +that every impression of grandeur in the human character was +deadened in the breast of the polished cynic.</p> +<p>Horace Walpole was not a man of genius,—his most pleasing, +if not his great talent, lay in letter-writing; here he was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span> +without a rival;<a name='FNanchor_0033' id='FNanchor_0033'></a><a href='#Footnote_0033' class='fnanchor'>[33]</a> but he probably divined, when he condescended +to become an author, that something more was required +than the talents he exactly possessed. In his latter +days he felt this more sensibly, which will appear in those +confessions which I have extracted from an unpublished correspondence.</p> +<p>Conscious of possessing the talent which amuses, yet feeling +his deficient energies, he resolved to provide various substitutes +for genius itself; and to acquire reputation, if he could +not grasp at celebrity. He raised a printing-press at his +Gothic castle, by which means he rendered small editions of +his works valuable from their rarity, and much talked of, because +seldom seen. That this is true, appears from the following +extract from his unpublished correspondence with a +literary friend. It alludes to his “Anecdotes of Painting in +England,” of which the first edition only consisted of 300 +copies.</p> +<p>“Of my new fourth volume I printed 600; but, as they +can be had, I believe not a third part is sold. This is a very +plain lesson to me, that my editions sell for their curiosity, +and not for any merit in them—and so they would if I printed +Mother Goose’s Tales, and but a few. If I am humbled as an +author, I may be vain as a printer; and when one has nothing +else to be vain of, it is certainly very little worth while to be +proud of that.”</p> +<p>There is a distinction between the author of great connexions +and the mere author. In the one case, the man may +give a temporary existence to his books; but in the other, it +is the book which gives existence to the man.</p> +<p>Walpole’s writings seem to be constructed on a certain +principle, by which he gave them a sudden, rather than a +lasting existence. In historical research our adventurer startled +the world by maintaining paradoxes which attacked the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span> +opinions, or changed the characters, established for centuries. +Singularity of opinion, vivacity of ridicule, and polished epigrams +in prose, were the means by which Horace Walpole +sought distinction.</p> +<p>In his works of imagination, he felt he could not trust to +himself—the natural pathetic was utterly denied him. But +he had fancy and ingenuity; he had recourse to the <i>marvellous</i> +in imagination on the principle he had adopted the <i>paradoxical</i> +in history. Thus, “The Castle of Otranto,” and +“The Mysterious Mother,” are the productions of ingenuity +rather than genius; and display the miracles of art, rather +than the spontaneous creations of nature.</p> +<p>All his literary works, like the ornamented edifice he inhabited, +were constructed on the same artificial principle; an old +paper lodging-house, converted by the magician of taste into a +Gothic castle, full of scenic effects.<a name='FNanchor_0034' id='FNanchor_0034'></a><a href='#Footnote_0034' class='fnanchor'>[34]</a></p> +<p>“A Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors” was itself a +classification which only an idle amateur could have projected, +and only the most agreeable narrator of anecdotes could have +seasoned. These splendid scribblers are for the greater part +no authors at all.<a name='FNanchor_0035' id='FNanchor_0035'></a><a href='#Footnote_0035' class='fnanchor'>[35]</a></p> +<p>His attack on our peerless Sidney, whose fame was more +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span> +mature than his life, was formed on the same principle as his +“Historic Doubts” on Richard III. Horace Walpole was as +willing to vilify the truly great, as to beautify deformity; +when he imagined that the fame he was destroying or conferring, +reflected back on himself. All these works were plants +of sickly delicacy, which could never endure the open air, and +only lived in the artificial atmosphere of a private collection. +Yet at times the flowers, and the planter of the flowers, were +roughly shaken by an uncivil breeze.</p> +<p>His “Anecdotes of Painting in England” is a most entertaining +catalogue. He gives the feelings of the distinct eras +with regard to the arts; yet his pride was never gratified +when he reflected that he had been writing the work of Vertue, +who had collected the materials, but could not have given the +philosophy. His great age and his good sense opened his +eyes on himself; and Horace Walpole seems to have judged +too contemptuously of Horace Walpole. The truth is, he +was mortified he had not and never could obtain a literary +peerage; and he never respected the commoner’s seat. At +these moments, too frequent in his life, he contemns authors, +and returns to sink back into all the self-complacency of aristocratic +indifference.</p> +<p>This cold unfeeling disposition for literary men, this disguised +malice of envy, and this eternal vexation at his own +disappointments,—break forth in his correspondence with one +of those literary characters with whom he kept on terms +while they were kneeling to him in the humility of worship, +or moved about to fetch or to carry his little quests of curiosity +in town or country.<a name='FNanchor_0036' id='FNanchor_0036'></a><a href='#Footnote_0036' class='fnanchor'>[36]</a></p> +<p>The following literary confessions illustrate this character:—</p> +<blockquote> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span></div> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>June, 1778.</i></p> +<p>“I have taken a thorough dislike to being an author; and, +if it would not look like begging you to compliment one by +contradicting me, I would tell you what I am most seriously +convinced of, that I find what small share of parts I had grown +dulled. And when I perceive it myself, I may well believe that +others would not be less sharp-sighted. <i>It is very natural</i>; +mine were <i>spirits</i> rather than <i>parts</i>; and as time has rebated the +one, it must surely destroy <i>their resemblance</i> to the other.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In another letter:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“I set very little value on myself; as a man, I am a very +faulty one; and <i>as an author, a very middling one</i>, which <i>whoever +thinks a comfortable rank, is not at all of my opinion</i>. +Pray convince me that you think I mean sincerely, by not +answering me with a compliment. It is very weak to be +pleased with flattery; the stupidest of all delusions to beg it. +From you I should take it ill. We have known one another +almost forty years.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There were times when Horace Walpole’s natural taste for +his studies returned with all the vigour of passion—but his +volatility and his desultory life perpetually scattered his +firmest resolutions into air. This conflict appears beautifully +described when the view of King’s College, Cambridge, throws +his mind into meditation; and the passion for study and seclusion +instantly kindled his emotions, lasting, perhaps, as long +as the letter which describes them occupied in writing.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>May 22, 1777.</i></p> +<p>“The beauty of King’s College, Cambridge, now it is +restored, penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk +in it. Though my life has been passed in turbulent scenes, +in pleasures or other pastimes, and in much fashionable dissipation, +still, books, antiquity, and virtue kept hold of a +corner of my heart: and since necessity has forced me of late +years to be a man of business, my disposition tends to be a +recluse for what remains—but it will not be my lot; and +though there is some excuse for the young doing what they +like, I doubt an old man should do nothing but what he +ought, and I hope doing one’s duty is the best preparation for +death. Sitting with one’s arms folded to think about it, is a +very long way for preparing for it. If Charles V. had resolved +to make some amends for his abominable ambition by doing +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span> +good (his duty as a king), there would have been infinitely +more merit than going to doze in a convent. One may avoid +actual guilt in a sequestered life, but the virtue of it is merely +negative; the innocence is beautiful.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There had been moments when Horace Walpole even expressed +the tenderest feelings for fame; and the following +passage, written prior to the preceding ones, gives no indication +of that contempt for literary fame, of which the close of +this character will exhibit an extraordinary instance.</p> +<p>This letter relates an affecting event—he had just returned +from seeing General Conway attacked by a paralytic stroke. +Shocked by his appearance, he writes—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“It is, perhaps, to vent my concern that I write. It has +operated such a revolution on my mind, as no time, at <i>my +age</i>, can efface. It has at once damped every pursuit which +my spirits had even now prevented me from being weaned +from, I mean of virtu. It is like a mortal distemper in myself; +for can amusements amuse, if there is but a glimpse, a +vision of outliving one’s friends? <i>I have had dreams in +which I thought I wished for fame—it was not certainly +posthumous fame at any distance; I feel, I feel it was confined +to the memory of those I love.</i> It seems to me impossible +for a man who has no friends to do anything for fame—and +to me the first position in friendship is, to intend one’s +friends should survive one—but it is not reasonable to oppress +you, who are suffering gout, with my melancholy ideas. +What I have said will tell you, what I hope so many years +have told you, that I am very constant and sincere to friends +of above forty years.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In a letter of a later date there is a remarkable confession, +which harmonises with those already given.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“My pursuits have always been light, trifling, and tended +to nothing but my casual amusement. I will not say, without +a little vain ambition of showing some parts, but never +with industry sufficient to make me apply to anything solid. +My studies, if they could be called so, and my productions, +were alike desultory. In my latter age I discovered the +futility both of my objects and writings—I felt how insignificant +is the reputation of an author of mediocrity; and +that, being no genius, I only added one name more to a list +of writers; but had told the world nothing but what it +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span> +could as well be without. These reflections were the best +proofs of my sense; and when I could see through my own +vanity, there is less wonder in my discovering that such +talents as I might have had are impaired at seventy-two.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thus humbled was Horace Walpole to himself!—there is +an intellectual dignity, which this man of wit and sense was +incapable of reaching—and it seems a retribution that the +scorner of true greatness should at length feel the poisoned +chalice return to his own lips. He who had contemned the +eminent men of former times, and quarrelled with and ridiculed +every contemporary genius; who had affected to laugh +at the literary fame he could not obtain,—at length came to +scorn himself! and endured “the penal fires” of an author’s +hell, in undervaluing his own works, the productions of a +long life!</p> +<p>The chagrin and disappointment of such an author were +never less carelessly concealed than in the following extraordinary +letter:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='center smcaplc'>HORACE WALPOLE TO ————</p> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>Arlington Street, April 27, 1773.</i></p> +<p>“Mr. Gough wants to be introduced to me! Indeed! I +would see him, as he has been midwife to Masters; but he is +so dull that he would only be troublesome—and besides, you +know I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, +if it obliged me to keep such bad company. They are +always in earnest, and think their profession serious, and +dwell upon trifles, and reverence learning. I laugh at all +these things, and write only to laugh at them and divert +myself. None of us are authors of any consequence, and it +is the most ridiculous of all vanities to be vain of being <i>mediocre</i>. +A page in a great author humbles me to the dust, +and the conversation of those that are not superior to myself +reminds me of what will be thought of myself. I blush to +flatter them, or to be flattered by them; and should dread +letters being published some time or other, in which they +would relate our interviews, and we should appear like those +puny conceited witlings in Shenstone’s and Hughes’s correspondence, +who give themselves airs from being in possession +of the soil of Parnassus for the time being; as peers are +proud because they enjoy the estates of great men who went +before them. Mr. Gough is very welcome to see Strawberry-hill, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span> +or I would help him to any scraps in my possession that +would assist his publications, though he is one of those industrious +who are only re-burying the dead—but I cannot be +acquainted with him; it is contrary to my system and my +humour; and besides I know nothing of barrows and Danish +entrenchments, and Saxon barbarisms and Phœnician characters—in +short, I know nothing of those ages that knew +nothing—then how should I be of use to modern literati? +All the Scotch metaphysicians have sent me their works. I +did not read one of them, because I do not understand what +is not understood by those that write about it; and I did not +get acquainted with one of the writers. I should like to be +intimate with Mr. Anstey, even though he wrote Lord +Buckhorse, or with the author of the Heroic Epistle—I have +no thirst to know the rest of my contemporaries, from the +absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to the silly Dr. Goldsmith, +though the latter changeling has had bright gleams of +parts, and the former had sense, till he changed it for words, +and sold it for a pension. Don’t think me scornful. Recollect +that I have seen Pope, and lived with Gray.—Adieu!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such a letter seems not to have been written by a literary +man—it is the babble of a thoughtless wit and a man of the +world. But it is worthy of him whose contracted heart +could never open to patronage or friendship. From such we +might expect the unfeeling observation in the “Anecdotes of +Painting,” that “want of patronage is the apology for want +of genius. Milton and La Fontaine did not write in the +bask of court favour. A poet or a painter may want an +equipage or a villa, by wanting protection; they can always +afford to buy ink and paper, colours and pencil. Mr. Hogarth +has received no honours, but universal admiration.” +Patronage, indeed, cannot convert dull men into men of +genius, but it may preserve men of genius from becoming +dull men. It might have afforded Dryden that studious +leisure which he ever wanted, and which would have given +us not imperfect tragedies, and uncorrected poems, but the +regulated flights of a noble genius. It might have animated +Gainsborough to have created an English school in landscape, +which I have heard from those who knew him was his favourite +yet neglected pursuit. But Walpole could insult that +genius, which he wanted the generosity to protect!</p> +<p>The whole spirit of this man was penury. Enjoying an +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span> +affluent income he only appeared to patronise the arts which +amused his tastes,—employing the meanest artists, at reduced +prices, to ornament his own works, an economy which he +bitterly reprehends in others who were compelled to practise +it. He gratified his avarice at the expense of his vanity; +the strongest passion must prevail. It was the simplicity of +childhood in Chatterton to imagine Horace Walpole could be +a patron—but it is melancholy to record that a slight protection +might have saved such a youth. Gray abandoned +this man of birth and rank in the midst of their journey +through Europe; Mason broke with him; even his humble +correspondent Cole, this “friend of forty years,” was often +sent away in dudgeon; and he quarrelled with all the +authors and artists he had ever been acquainted with. The +Gothic castle at Strawberry-hill was rarely graced with +living genius—there the greatest was Horace Walpole himself; +but he had been too long waiting to see realised a magical +vision of his hopes, which resembled the prophetic +fiction of his own romance, that “the owner should grow +too large for his house.” After many years, having discovered +that he still retained his mediocrity, he could never +pardon the presence of that preternatural being whom the +world considered a <span class='smcaplc'>GREAT MAN</span>.—Such was the feeling which +dictated the close of the above letter; Johnson and Goldsmith +were to be “scorned,” since Pope and Gray were no +more within the reach of his envy and his fear.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='INFLUENCE_OF_A_BAD_TEMPER_IN_CRITICISM' id='INFLUENCE_OF_A_BAD_TEMPER_IN_CRITICISM'></a> +<h3>INFLUENCE OF A BAD TEMPER IN CRITICISM.</h3> +</div> +<p>Unfriendly to the literary character, some have imputed +the brutality of certain authors to their literary habits, when +it may be more truly said that they derived their literature +from their brutality. The spirit was envenomed before it +entered into the fierceness of literary controversy, and the +insanity was in the evil temper of the man before he roused +our notice by his ravings. <span class='smcap'>Ritson</span>, the late antiquary of +poetry (not to call him poetical), amazed the world by his +vituperative railing at two authors of the finest taste in +poetry, Warton and Percy; he carried criticism, as the discerning +few had first surmised, to insanity itself; the character +before us only approached it.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Dennis</span> attained to the ambiguous honour of being distinguished +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span> +as “The Critic,” and he may yet instruct us how +the moral influences the literary character, and how a certain +talent that can never mature itself into genius, like the pale +fruit that hangs in the shade, ripens only into sourness.</p> +<p>As a critic in his own day, party for some time kept him +alive; the art of criticism was a novelty at that period of +our literature. He flattered some great men, and he abused +three of the greatest; this was one mode of securing popularity; +because, by this contrivance, he divided the town into +two parties; and the irascibility and satire of Pope and +Swift were not less serviceable to him than the partial +panegyrics of Dryden and Congreve. Johnson revived him, +for his minute attack on Addison; and Kippis, feebly voluminous, +and with the cold affectation of candour, allows him +to occupy a place in our literary history too large in the eye +of Truth and Taste.</p> +<p>Let us say all the good we can of him, that we may not +be interrupted in a more important inquiry. Dennis once +urged fair pretensions to the office of critic. Some of his +“Original Letters,” and particularly the “Remarks on +Prince Arthur,” written in his vigour, attain even to classical +criticism.<a name='FNanchor_0037' id='FNanchor_0037'></a><a href='#Footnote_0037' class='fnanchor'>[37]</a> Aristotle and Bossu lay open before him, +and he developes and sometimes illustrates their principles +with close reasoning. Passion had not yet blinded the young +critic with rage; and in that happy moment, Virgil occupied +his attention even more than Blackmore.</p> +<p>The prominent feature in his literary character was good +sense; but in literature, though not in life, good sense is a +penurious virtue. Dennis could not be carried beyond the +cold line of a precedent, and before he ventured to be pleased, +he was compelled to look into Aristotle. His learning was +the bigotry of literature. It was ever Aristotle explained by +Dennis. But in the explanation of the obscure text of his +master, he was led into such frivolous distinctions, and tasteless +propositions, that his works deserve inspection, as examples +of the manner of a true mechanical critic.</p> +<p>This blunted feeling of the mechanical critic was at first +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span> +concealed from the world in the pomp of critical erudition; +but when he trusted to himself, and, destitute of taste and +imagination, became a poet and a dramatist, the secret of the +Royal Midas was revealed. As his evil temper prevailed, he +forgot his learning, and lost the moderate sense which he +seemed once to have possessed. Rage, malice, and dulness, +were the heavy residuum; and now he much resembled that +congenial soul whom the ever-witty South compared to the +tailor’s goose, which is at once hot and heavy.</p> +<p>Dennis was sent to Cambridge by his father, a saddler, who +imagined a genius had been born in the family. He travelled +in France and Italy, and on his return held in contempt every +pursuit but poetry and criticism. He haunted the literary +coteries, and dropped into a galaxy of wits and noblemen. +At a time when our literature, like our politics, was divided +into two factions, Dennis enlisted himself under Dryden and +Congreve;<a name='FNanchor_0038' id='FNanchor_0038'></a><a href='#Footnote_0038' class='fnanchor'>[38]</a> and, as legitimate criticism was then an awful +novelty in the nation, the young critic, recent from the +Stagirite, soon became an important, and even a tremendous +spirit. Pope is said to have regarded his judgment; and +Mallet, when young, tremblingly submitted a poem, to live +or die by his breath. One would have imagined that the +elegant studies he was cultivating, the views of life which had +opened on him, and the polished circle around, would have +influenced the grossness which was the natural growth of the +soil. But ungracious Nature kept fast hold of the mind of +Dennis!</p> +<p>His personal manners were characterised by their abrupt +violence. Once dining with Lord Halifax he became so impatient +of contradiction, that he rushed out of the room, +overthrowing the sideboard. Inquiring on the next day how +he had behaved, Moyle observed, “You went away like the +devil, taking one corner of the house with you.” The wits, +perhaps, then began to suspect their young Zoilus’s dogmatism.</p> +<p>The actors refused to perform one of his tragedies to empty +houses, but they retained some excellent thunder which +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span> +Dennis had invented; it rolled one night when Dennis was +in the pit, and it was applauded! Suddenly starting up, he +cried to the audience, “By G—, they wont act my tragedy, +but they steal my thunder!” Thus, when reading Pope’s +“Essay on Criticism,” he came to the character of Appius, +he suddenly flung down the new poem, exclaiming, “By G—, +he means me!” He is painted to the life.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><i>Lo!</i> <i>Appius reddens</i> at each word you speak,<br /> +And stares tremendous with a threatening eye,<br /> +Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>I complete this picture of Dennis with a very extraordinary +caricature, which Steele, in one of his papers of “The Theatre,” +has given of Dennis. I shall, however, disentangle the +threads, and pick out what I consider not to be caricature, +but resemblance.</p> +<p>“His motion is quick and sudden, turning on all sides, with +a suspicion of every object, as if he had done or feared some +extraordinary mischief. You see wickedness in his meaning, +but folly of countenance, that betrays him to be unfit for the +execution of it. He starts, stares, and looks round him. This +constant shuffle of haste without speed, makes the man thought +a little touched; but the vacant look of his two eyes gives +you to understand that he could never run out of his wits, +which seemed not so much to be lost, as to want employment; +they are not so much astray, as they are a wool-gathering. +He has the face and surliness of a mastiff, which has often +saved him from being treated like a cur, till some more sagacious +than ordinary found his nature, and used him accordingly. +Unhappy being! terrible without, fearful within! +Not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but a sheep in a wolf’s.”<a name='FNanchor_0039' id='FNanchor_0039'></a><a href='#Footnote_0039' class='fnanchor'>[39]</a></p> +<p>However anger may have a little coloured this portrait, its +truth may be confirmed from a variety of sources. If Sallust, +with his accustomed penetration in characterising the violent +emotions of Catiline’s restless mind, did not forget its indication +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span> +in “his walk now quick and now slow,” it maybe +allowed to think that the character of Dennis was alike to be +detected in his habitual surliness.</p> +<p>Even in his old age—for our chain must not drop a link—his +native brutality never forsook him. Thomson and Pope +charitably supported the veteran Zoilus at a benefit play; +and Savage, who had nothing but a verse to give, returned +them very poetical thanks in the name of Dennis. He was +then blind and old, but his critical ferocity had no old age; +his surliness overcame every grateful sense, and he swore as +usual, “They could be no one’s but that <i>fool</i> Savage’s”—an +evidence of his sagacity and brutality!<a name='FNanchor_0040' id='FNanchor_0040'></a><a href='#Footnote_0040' class='fnanchor'>[40]</a> This was, perhaps, +the last peevish snuff shaken from the dismal link of criticism; +for, a few days after, was the redoubted Dennis numbered +with the mighty dead.</p> +<p>He carried the same fierceness into his style, and commits +the same ludicrous extravagances in literary composition as +in his manners. Was Pope really sore at the Zoilian style? +He has himself spared me the trouble of exhibiting Dennis’s +gross personalities, by having collected them at the close of +the Dunciad—specimens which show how low false wit and +malignity can get to by hard pains. I will throw into the +note a curious illustration of the anti-poetical notions of a +mechanical critic, who has no wing to dip into the hues of +the imagination.<a name='FNanchor_0041' id='FNanchor_0041'></a><a href='#Footnote_0041' class='fnanchor'>[41]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span></div> +<p>In life and in literature we meet with men who seem endowed +with an obliquity of understanding, yet active and +busy spirits; but, as activity is only valuable in proportion +to the capacity that puts all in motion, so, when ill directed, +the intellect, warped by nature, only becomes more crooked +and fantastical. A kind of frantic enthusiasm breaks forth +in their actions and their language, and often they seem +ferocious when they are only foolish. We may thus account +for the manners and style of Dennis, pushed almost to the +verge of insanity, and acting on him very much like insanity +itself—a circumstance which the quick vengeance of wit seized +on, in the humorous “Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris, concerning +the Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis, an officer of the +Custom-house.”<a name='FNanchor_0042' id='FNanchor_0042'></a><a href='#Footnote_0042' class='fnanchor'>[42]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span></div> +<p>It is curious to observe that Dennis, in the definition of +genius, describes himself; he says—“Genius is caused by a +<i>furious joy</i> and <i>pride of soul</i> on the conception of an extraordinary +hint. Many men have their <i>hints</i> without their +motions of <i>fury and pride of soul</i>, because they want fire +enough to agitate their spirits; and these we call cold writers. +Others, who have a great deal of fire, but have not excellent +organs, feel the fore-mentioned <i>motions</i>, without the extraordinary +<i>hints</i>; and these we call fustian writers.” His +<i>motions</i> and his <i>hints</i>, as he describes them, in regard to cold +or fustian writers, seem to include the extreme points of his +own genius.</p> +<p>Another feature strongly marks the race of the Dennises. +With a half-consciousness of deficient genius, they usually +idolize some chimera, by adopting some extravagant principle; +and they consider themselves as original when they are only +absurd.</p> +<p>Dennis had ever some misshapen idol of the mind, which +he was perpetually caressing with the zeal of perverted judgment +or monstrous taste. Once his frenzy ran against the +Italian Opera; and in his “Essay on Public Spirit,” he +ascribes its decline to its unmanly warblings. I have seen +a long letter by Dennis to the Earl of Oxford, written to +congratulate his lordship on his accession to power, and the +high hopes of the nation; but the greater part of the letter +runs on the Italian Opera, while Dennis instructs the Minister +that the national prosperity can never be effected while +this general corruption of the three kingdoms lies open!</p> +<p>Dennis has more than once recorded two material circumstances +in the life of a true critic; these are his <i>ill-nature</i> +and the <i>public neglect</i>.</p> +<p>“I make no doubt,” says he, “that upon the perusal of +the critical part of these letters, the <i>old accusation</i> will be +brought against me, and there will be a <i>fresh outcry</i> among +thoughtless people that I am <i>an ill-natured man</i>.”</p> +<p>He entertained exalted opinions of his own powers, and he +deeply felt their public neglect.</p> +<p>“While others,” he says in his tracts, “have been <i>too much +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' name='page_58'></a>58</span> +encouraged</i>, +I have been <i>too much neglected</i>”—his favourite +system, that religion gives principally to great poetry its +spirit and enthusiasm, was an important point, which, he +says, “has been left to be treated by <i>a person who has the +honour of being your lordship’s countryman</i>—your lordship +knows that persons <i>so much and so long oppressed as I have +been</i> have been always allowed to <i>say things concerning themselves</i> +which in others might be offensive.”</p> +<p>His vanity, we see, was equal to his vexation, and as he +grew old he became more enraged; and, writing too often +without Aristotle or Locke by his side, he gave the town pure +Dennis, and almost ceased to be read. “The oppression” of +which he complains might not be less imaginary than his +alarm, while a treaty was pending with France, that he should +be delivered up to the Grand Monarque for having written a +tragedy, which no one could read, against his majesty.</p> +<p>It is melancholy, but it is useful, to record the mortifications +of such authors. Dennis had, no doubt, laboured with +zeal which could never meet a reward; and, perhaps, amid his +critical labours, he turned often with an aching heart from +their barren contemplation to that of the tranquillity he +might have derived from an humbler avocation.</p> +<p>It was not literature, then, that made the mind coarse, +brutalising the habits and inflaming the style of Dennis. He +had thrown himself among the walks of genius, and aspired +to fix himself on a throne to which Nature had refused him +a legitimate claim. What a lasting source of vexation and +rage, even for a long-lived patriarch of criticism!</p> +<p>Accustomed to suspend the scourge over the heads of the +first authors of the age, he could not sit at a table or enter +a coffee-house without exerting the despotism of a literary +dictator. How could the mind that had devoted itself to the +contemplation of masterpieces, only to reward its industry by +detailing to the public their human frailties, experience one +hour of amenity, one idea of grace, one generous impulse of +sensibility?</p> +<p>But the poor critic himself at length fell, really more the +victim of his criticisms than the genius he had insulted. +Having incurred the public neglect, the blind and helpless +Cacus in his den sunk fast into contempt, dragged on a life +of misery, and in his last days, scarcely vomiting his fire and +smoke, became the most pitiable creature, receiving the alms +he craved from triumphant genius.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span> +<a name='DISAPPOINTED_GENIUS_TAKES_A_FATAL_DIRECTION_BY_ITS_ABUSE' id='DISAPPOINTED_GENIUS_TAKES_A_FATAL_DIRECTION_BY_ITS_ABUSE'></a> +<h3>DISAPPOINTED GENIUS</h3> +<h4>TAKES A FATAL DIRECTION BY ITS ABUSE.</h4> +</div> +<p>How the moral and literary character are reciprocally influenced, +may be traced in the character of a personage peculiarly +apposite to these inquiries. This worthy of literature +is <span class='smcap'>Orator Henley</span>, who is rather known traditionally than +historically.<a name='FNanchor_0043' id='FNanchor_0043'></a><a href='#Footnote_0043' class='fnanchor'>[43]</a> He is so overwhelmed with the echoed satire of +Pope, and his own extravagant conduct for many years, that +I should not care to extricate him, had I not discovered a +feature in the character of Henley not yet drawn, and constituting +no inferior calamity among authors.</p> +<p>Henley stands in his “gilt tub” in the Dunciad; and a +portrait of him hangs in the picture-gallery of the Commentary. +Pope’s verse and Warburton’s notes are the pickle +and the bandages for any Egyptian mummy of dulness, who +will last as long as the pyramid that encloses him. I shall +transcribe, for the reader’s convenience, the lines of Pope:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Embrown’d with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,<br /> +Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands;<br /> +How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!<br /> +How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!<br /> +Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain,<br /> +While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson, preach in vain.<br /> +Oh! great restorer of the good old stage,<br /> +Preacher at once, and Zany of thy age!<a name='FNanchor_0044' id='FNanchor_0044'></a><a href='#Footnote_0044' class='fnanchor'>[44]</a></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It will surprise when I declare that this buffoon was an +indefatigable student, a proficient in all the learned languages, +an elegant poet, and, withal, a wit of no inferior class. It +remains to discover why “the Preacher” became “the Zany.”</p> +<p>Henley was of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and was distinguished +for the ardour and pertinacity of his studies; he +gave evident marks of genius. There is a letter of his to the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span> +“Spectator,” signed <i>Peter de Quir</i>, which abounds with local +wit and quaint humour.<a name='FNanchor_0045' id='FNanchor_0045'></a><a href='#Footnote_0045' class='fnanchor'>[45]</a> He had not attained his twenty-second +year when he published a poem, entitled “Esther, +Queen of Persia,”<a name='FNanchor_0046' id='FNanchor_0046'></a><a href='#Footnote_0046' class='fnanchor'>[46]</a> written amid graver studies; for three +years after, Henley, being M.A., published his “Complete +Linguist,” consisting of grammars of ten languages.</p> +<p>The poem itself must not be passed by in silent notice. +It is preceded by a learned preface, in which the poet discovers +his intimate knowledge of oriental studies, with some +etymologies from the Persic, the Hebrew, and the Greek, +concerning the name and person of Ahasuerus, whom he +makes to be Xerxes. The close of this preface gives another +unexpected feature in the character of him who, the poet tells +us, was “embrowned with <i>native</i> bronze”—an unaffected +modesty! Henley, alluding to a Greek paraphrase of Barnes, +censures his faults with acrimony, and even apologises for +them, by thus gracefully closing the preface: “These can +only be alleviated by one plea, the youth of the author, which +is a circumstance I hope the candid will consider in favour of +the present writer!”</p> +<p>The poem is not destitute of imagination and harmony.</p> +<p>The pomp of the feast of Ahasuerus has all the luxuriance +of Asiatic splendour; and the circumstances are selected with +some fancy.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>The higher guests approach a room of state,<br /> +Where tissued couches all around were set<br /> +Labour’d with art; o’er ivory tables thrown,<br /> +Embroider’d carpets fell in folds adown.<br /> +The bowers and gardens of the court were near,<br /> +And open lights indulged the breathing air.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Pillars of marble bore a silken sky,<br /> +While cords of purple and fine linen tie<br /> +In silver rings, the azure canopy.<br /> +Distinct with diamond stars the blue was seen,<br /> +And earth and seas were feign’d in emerald green;<br /> +A globe of gold, ray’d with a pointed crown,<br /> +Form’d in the midst almost a real sun.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Nor is Henley less skilful in the elegance of his sentiments, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span> +and in his development of the human character. When Esther +is raised to the throne, the poet says—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>And Esther, though in robes, is Esther still.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And then sublimely exclaims—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>The heroic soul, amidst its bliss or woe,<br /> +Is never swell’d too high, nor sunk too low;<br /> +Stands, like its origin above the skies,<br /> +Ever the same great self, sedately wise;<br /> +Collected and prepared in every stage<br /> +To scorn a courting world, or bear its rage.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But wit which the “Spectator” has sent down to posterity, +and poetry which gave the promise of excellence, did +not bound the noble ambition of Henley; ardent in more +important labours, he was perfecting himself in the learned +languages, and carrying on a correspondence with eminent +scholars.</p> +<p>He officiated as the master of the free-school at his native +town in Leicestershire, then in a declining state; but he +introduced many original improvements. He established a +class for public elocution, recitations of the classics, orations, +&c.; and arranged a method of enabling every scholar to give +an account of his studies without the necessity of consulting +others, or of being examined by particular questions. These +miracles are indeed a little apocryphal; for they are drawn +from that pseudo-gospel of his life, of which I am inclined to +think he himself was the evangelist. His grammar of ten +languages was now finished; and his genius felt that obscure +spot too circumscribed for his ambition. He parted from the +inhabitants with their regrets, and came to the metropolis +with thirty recommendatory letters.</p> +<p>Henley probably had formed those warm conceptions of +patronage in which youthful genius cradles its hopes. Till +1724 he appears, however, to have obtained only a small +living, and to have existed by translating and writing. Thus, +after persevering studies, many successful literary efforts, and +much heavy taskwork, Henley found he was but a hireling +author for the booksellers, and a salaried “Hyp-doctor” for +the minister; for he received a stipend for this periodical +paper, which was to cheer the spirits of the people by ridiculing +the gloomy forebodings of Amhurst’s “Craftsman.” +About this time the complete metamorphosis of the studious +and ingenious John Henley began to branch out into its +grotesque figure; and a curiosity in human nature was now +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span> +about to be opened to public inspection. “The Preacher” +was to personate “The Zany.” His temper had become +brutal, and he had gradually contracted a ferocity and grossness +in his manners, which seem by no means to have been +indicated in his purer days. His youth was disgraced by no +irregularities—it was studious and honourable. But he was +now quick at vilifying the greatest characters; and having a +perfect contempt for all mankind, was resolved to live by +making one half of the world laugh at the other. Such is the +direction which disappointed genius has too often given to +its talents.</p> +<p>He first affected oratory, and something of a theatrical +attitude in his sermons, which greatly attracted the populace; +and he startled those preachers who had so long dozed over +their own sermons, and who now finding themselves with but +few slumberers about them, envied their Ciceronian <a name='TC_5'></a><ins title="Was smudged 'brothe'">brothers.</ins></p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It was alleged against Henley, that “he drew the people +too much from their parish churches, and was not so proper +for a London divine as a rural pastor.” He was offered a +rustication, on a better living; but Henley did not come from +the country to return to it.</p> +<p>There is a narrative of the life of Henley, which, subscribed +by another person’s name, he himself inserted in his +“Oratory Transactions.”<a name='FNanchor_0047' id='FNanchor_0047'></a><a href='#Footnote_0047' class='fnanchor'>[47]</a> As he had to publish himself this +highly seasoned biographical morsel, and as his face was then +beginning to be “embrowned with bronze,” he thus very +impudently and very ingeniously apologises for the panegyric:—</p> +<p>“If any remark of the writer appears favourable to myself, +and be judged apocryphal, it may, however, weigh in the +opposite scale to some things less obligingly said of me; false +praise being as pardonable as false reproach.”<a name='FNanchor_0048' id='FNanchor_0048'></a><a href='#Footnote_0048' class='fnanchor'>[48]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span></div> +<p>In this narrative we are told, that when at college—</p> +<p>“He began to be uneasy that he had not the liberty of +thinking, without incurring the scandal of heterodoxy; he +was impatient that systems of all sorts were put into his +hands ready carved out for him; it shocked him to find that +he was commanded to believe against his judgment, and +resolved some time or other to enter his protest against any +person being bred like a slave, who is born an Englishman.”</p> +<p>This is all very decorous, and nothing can be objected to the +first cry of this reforming patriot but a reasonable suspicion +of its truth. If these sentiments were really in his mind at +college, he deserves at least the praise of retention: for +fifteen years were suffered to pass quietly without the patriotic +volcano giving even a distant rumbling of the sulphurous +matter concealed beneath. All that time had passed in the +contemplation of church preferment, with the aerial perspective +lighted by a visionary mitre. But Henley grew indignant +at his disappointments, and suddenly resolved to reform “the +gross impostures and faults that have long prevailed in the +received <i>institutions</i> and <i>establishments</i> of <i>knowledge</i> and +<i>religion</i>”—simply meaning that he wished to pull down the +<i>Church</i> and the <i>University</i>!</p> +<p>But he was prudent before he was patriotic; he at first +grafted himself on Whiston, adopting his opinions, and sent +some queries by which it appears that Henley, previous to +breaking with the church, was anxious to learn the power it +had to punish him. The Arian Whiston was himself, from +pure motives, suffering expulsion from Cambridge, for refusing +his subscription to the Athanasian Creed; he was a pious man, +and no buffoon, but a little crazed. Whiston afterwards discovered +the character of his correspondent, he then requested +the Bishop of <a name='TC_6'></a><ins title="Added period">London.</ins></p> +<p>“To summon Mr. Henley, the orator, whose vile history I +knew so well, to come and tell it to the church. But the +bishop said he could do nothing; since which time Mr. Henley +has gone on for about twenty years without control every +week, as an ecclesiastical mountebank, to abuse religion.”</p> +<p>The most extraordinary project was now formed by Henley; +he was to teach mankind universal knowledge from his lectures, +and primitive Christianity from his sermons. He took +apartments in Newport market, and opened his “Oratory.” +He declared,</p> +<p>“He would teach more in one year than schools and universities +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span> +did in five, and write and study twelve hours a-day, +and yet appear as untouched by the yoke, as if he never +bore it.”</p> +<p>In his “Idea of what is intended to be taught in the +<i>Week-days’ Universal Academy</i>,” we may admire the fertility, +and sometimes the grandeur of his views. His lectures and +orations<a name='FNanchor_0049' id='FNanchor_0049'></a><a href='#Footnote_0049' class='fnanchor'>[49]</a> are of a very different nature from what they are +imagined to be; literary topics are treated with perspicuity +and with erudition, and there is something original in the +manner. They were, no doubt, larded and stuffed with +many high-seasoned jokes, which Henley did not send to the +printer.</p> +<p>Henley was a charlatan and a knave; but in all his charlatanerie +and his knavery he indulged the reveries of genius; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span> +many of which have been realised since; and, if we continue +to laugh at Henley, it will indeed be cruel, for we shall be +laughing at ourselves! Among the objects which Henley +discriminates in his general design, were, to supply the want +of a university, or universal school, in this capital, for persons +of all ranks, professions, and capacities;—to encourage a literary +correspondence with great men and learned bodies; the +communication of all discoveries and experiments in science +and the arts; to form an amicable society for the encouragement +of learning, “in order to cultivate, adorn, and exalt the +genius of Britain;” to lay a foundation for an English +Academy; to give a standard to our language, and a digest to +our history; to revise the ancient schools of philosophy and +elocution, which last has been reckoned by Pancirollus among +the <i>artes perditæ</i>. All these were “to bring all the parts of +knowledge into the narrowest compass, placing them in the +clearest light, and fixing them to the utmost certainty.” The +religion of the Oratory was to be that of the primitive church +in the first ages of the four first general councils, approved by +parliament in the first year of the reign of Elizabeth. “The +Church of England is really with us; we appeal to her own +principles, and we shall not deviate from her, unless she +deviates from herself.” Yet his “Primitive Christianity” +had all the sumptuous pomp of popery; his creeds and doxologies +are printed in the red letter, and his liturgies in the +black; his pulpit blazed in gold and velvet (Pope’s “gilt +tub”); while his “Primitive Eucharist” was to be distributed +with all the ancient forms of celebrating the sacrifice +of the altar, which he says, “are so noble, so just, sublime, +and perfectly harmonious, that the change has been made to +an unspeakable disadvantage.” It was restoring the decorations +and the mummery of the mass! He assumed even a +higher tone, and dispersed medals, like those of Louis XIV., +with the device of a sun near the meridian, and a motto, <i>Ad +summa</i>, with an inscription expressive of the genius of this +new adventurer, <i>Inveniam viam aut faciam</i>! There was a +snake in the grass; it is obvious that Henley, in improving +literature and philosophy, had a deeper design—to set up a +new sect! He called himself “a Rationalist,” and on his +death-bed repeatedly cried out, “Let my notorious enemies +know I die a Rational.”<a name='FNanchor_0050' id='FNanchor_0050'></a><a href='#Footnote_0050' class='fnanchor'>[50]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span></div> +<p>His address to the town<a name='FNanchor_0051' id='FNanchor_0051'></a><a href='#Footnote_0051' class='fnanchor'>[51]</a> excited public curiosity to the +utmost; and the floating crowds were repulsed by their own +violence from this new paradise, where “The Tree of +Knowledge” was said to be planted. At the succeeding +meeting “the Restorer of Ancient Eloquence” informed +“persons in chairs that they must come sooner.” He first +commenced by subscriptions to be raised from “persons eminent +in Arts and Literature,” who, it seems, were lured by +the seductive promise, that, “if they had been virtuous or +penitents, they should be commemorated;” an oblique hint +at a panegyrical puff. In the decline of his popularity he +permitted his door-keeper, whom he dignifies with the title of +<i>Ostiary</i>, to take a shilling! But he seems to have been popular +for many years; even when his auditors were but few, +they were of the better order;<a name='FNanchor_0052' id='FNanchor_0052'></a><a href='#Footnote_0052' class='fnanchor'>[52]</a> and in notes respecting him +which I have seen, by a contemporary, he is called “the +reverend and learned.” His favourite character was that of +a Restorer of Eloquence; and he was not destitute of the +qualifications of a fine orator, a good voice, graceful gesture, +and forcible elocution. Warburton justly remarked, “Sometimes +he broke jests, and sometimes that bread which he +called the Primitive Eucharist.” He would degenerate into +buffoonery on solemn occasions. His address to the Deity +was at first awful, and seemingly devout; but, once expatiating +on the several sects who would certainly be damned, +he prayed that the Dutch might be <i>undamm’d</i>! He undertook +to show the ancient use of the petticoat, by quoting the +Scriptures where the mother of Samuel is said to have made +him “<i>a little coat</i>,” ergo, a <span class='smcaplc'>PETTI</span>-<i>coat</i>!<a name='FNanchor_0053' id='FNanchor_0053'></a><a href='#Footnote_0053' class='fnanchor'>[53]</a> His advertisements +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span> +were mysterious ribaldry to attract curiosity, while +his own good sense would frequently chastise those who +could not resist it; his auditors came in folly, but they departed +in good-humour.<a name='FNanchor_0054' id='FNanchor_0054'></a><a href='#Footnote_0054' class='fnanchor'>[54]</a> These advertisements were usually +preceded by a sort of motto, generally a sarcastic allusion to +some public transaction of the preceding week.<a name='FNanchor_0055' id='FNanchor_0055'></a><a href='#Footnote_0055' class='fnanchor'>[55]</a> Henley +pretended to great impartiality; and when two preachers +had animadverted on him, he issued an advertisement, announcing +“A Lecture that will be a challenge to the Rev. +Mr. Batty and the Rev. Mr. Albert. Letters are sent to +them on this head, and <i>a free standing-place</i> is there to be +had <i>gratis</i>.” Once Henley offered to admit of a disputation, +and that he would impartially determine the merits of the +contest. It happened that Henley this time was overmatched; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span> +for two Oxonians, supported by a strong party to +awe his “marrow-boners,” as the butchers were called, said +to be in the Orator’s pay, entered the list; the one to defend +the <i>ignorance</i>, the other the <i>impudence</i>, of the Restorer of +Eloquence himself. As there was a door behind the rostrum, +which led to his house, the Orator silently dropped out, +postponing the award to some happier day.<a name='FNanchor_0056' id='FNanchor_0056'></a><a href='#Footnote_0056' class='fnanchor'>[56]</a></p> +<p>This age of lecturers may find their model in Henley’s +“Universal Academy,” and if any should aspire to bring +themselves down to his genius, I furnish them with hints of +anomalous topics. In the second number of “The Oratory +Transactions,” is a diary from July 1726, to August 1728. +It forms, perhaps, an unparalleled chronicle of the vagaries of +the human mind. These archives of cunning, of folly, and +of literature, are divided into two diaries; the one “The Theological +or Lord’s days’ subjects of the Oratory;” the other, +“The Academical or Week-days’ subjects.” I can only note +a few. It is easy to pick out ludicrous specimens; for he had +a quaint humour peculiar to himself; but among these +numerous topics are many curious for their knowledge and +ingenuity.</p> +<p>“The last Wills and Testaments of the Patriarchs.”</p> +<p>“An Argument to the Jews, with a proof that they ought +to be Christians, for the same reason which they ought to be +Jews.”</p> +<p>“St. Paul’s Cloak, Books, and Parchments, left at Troas.”</p> +<p>“The tears of Magdalen, and the joy of angels.”</p> +<p>“New Converts in Religion.” After pointing out the names +of “Courayer and others, the D—— of W——n, the Protestantism +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span> +of the P——, the conversion of the Rev. Mr. +B——e, and Mr. Har——y,” he closes with “Origen’s opinion +of Satan’s conversion; with the choice and balance of +Religion in all countries.”</p> +<p>There is one remarkable entry:—</p> +<p>“Feb. 11. This week all Mr. Henley’s writings were +seized, to be examined by the State. <i>Vide Magnam Chartam</i>, +and <i>Eng Lib.</i>”</p> +<p>It is evident by what follows that the <i>personalities</i> he +made use of were one means of attracting auditors.</p> +<p>“On the action of Cicero, and the beauty of Eloquence, +and on living characters; of action in the Senate, at the Bar, +and in the Pulpit—of the Theatrical in all men. The +manner of my Lord ——, Sir ——, Dr. ——, the B. of ——, +being a proof how all life is playing something, but with +different action.”</p> +<p>In a Lecture on the History of Bookcraft, an account was +given</p> +<p>“Of the plenty of books, and dearth of sense; the advantages +of the Oratory to the booksellers, in advertising for +them; and to their customers, in making books useless; with +all the learning, reason, and wit more than are proper for one +advertisement.”</p> +<p>Amid these eccentricities it is remarkable that “the +Zany” never forsook his studies; and the amazing multiplicity +of the MSS. he left behind him confirm this extraordinary +fact. “These,” he says, “are six thousand more or +less, that I value at one guinea apiece; with 150 volumes of +commonplaces of wit, memoranda,” &c. They were sold for +much less than one hundred pounds; I have looked over +many; they are written with great care. Every leaf has an +opposite blank page, probably left for additions or corrections, +so that if his nonsense were spontaneous, his sense was the +fruit of study and correction.</p> +<p>Such was “Orator Henley!” A scholar of great acquirements, +and of no mean genius; hardy and inventive, eloquent +and witty; he might have been an ornament to literature, +which he made ridiculous; and the pride of the pulpit, +which he so egregiously disgraced; but, having blunted and +worn out that interior feeling, which is the instinct of the +good man, and the wisdom of the wise, there was no balance +in his passions, and the decorum of life was sacrificed to its +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span> +selfishness. He condescended to live on the follies of the +people, and his sordid nature had changed him till he crept, +“licking the dust with the serpent.”<a name='FNanchor_0057' id='FNanchor_0057'></a><a href='#Footnote_0057' class='fnanchor'>[57]</a></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_MALADIES_OF_AUTHORS' id='THE_MALADIES_OF_AUTHORS'></a> +<h3>THE MALADIES OF AUTHORS.</h3> +</div> +<p>The practice of every art subjects the artist to some particular +inconvenience, usually inflicting some malady on that +member which has been over-wrought by excess: nature +abused, pursues man into his most secret corners, and avenges +herself. In the athletic exercises of the ancient Gymnasium, +the pugilists were observed to become lean from their hips +downwards, while the superior parts of their bodies, which +they over-exercised, were prodigiously swollen; on the contrary, +the racers were meagre upwards, while their feet acquired +an unnatural dimension. The secret source of life +seems to be carried forwards to those parts which are making +the most continued efforts.</p> +<p>In all sedentary labours, some particular malady is contracted +by every worker, derived from particular postures of +the body and peculiar habits. Thus the weaver, the tailor, +the painter, and the glass-blower, have all their respective +maladies. The diamond-cutter, with a furnace before him, +may be said almost to live in one; the slightest air must be +shut out of the apartment, lest it scatter away the precious +dust—a breath would ruin him!</p> +<p>The analogy is obvious;<a name='FNanchor_0058' id='FNanchor_0058'></a><a href='#Footnote_0058' class='fnanchor'>[58]</a> and the author must participate +in the common fate of all sedentary occupations. But his +maladies, from the very nature of the delicate organ of +thinking, intensely exercised, are more terrible than those of +any other profession; they are more complicated, more hidden +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span> +in their causes, and the mysterious union and secret influence +of the faculties of the soul over those of the body, are +visible, yet still incomprehensible; they frequently produce a +perturbation in the faculties, a state of acute irritability, and +many sorrows and infirmities, which are not likely to create +much sympathy from those around the author, who, at a +glance, could have discovered where the pugilist or the racer +became meagre or monstrous: the intellectual malady eludes +even the tenderness of friendship.</p> +<p>The more obvious maladies engendered by the life of a +student arise from over-study. These have furnished a curious +volume to Tissot, in his treatise “On the Health of Men of +Letters;” a book, however, which chills and terrifies more +than it does good.</p> +<p>The unnatural fixed postures, the perpetual activity of the +mind, and the inaction of the body; the brain exhausted with +assiduous toil deranging the nerves, vitiating the digestive +powers, disordering its own machinery, and breaking the calm +of sleep by that previous state of excitement which study +throws us into, are some of the calamities of a studious life: +for like the ocean when its swell is subsiding, the waves of +the mind too still heave and beat; hence all the small feverish +symptoms, and the whole train of hypochondriac affections, +as well as some acute ones.<a name='FNanchor_0059' id='FNanchor_0059'></a><a href='#Footnote_0059' class='fnanchor'>[59]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span></div> +<p>Among the correspondents of the poets Hughes and Thomson, +there is a pathetic letter from a student. Alexander Bayne, +to prepare his lectures, studied fourteen hours a-day for eight +months successively, and wrote 1,600 sheets. Such intense +application, which, however, not greatly exceeds that of many +authors, brought on the bodily complaints he has minutely +described, with “all the dispiriting symptoms of a nervous +illness, commonly called vapours, or lowness of spirits.” +Bayne, who was of an athletic temperament, imagined he had +not paid attention to his diet, to the lowness of his desk, and +his habit of sitting with a particular compression of the body; +in future all these were to be avoided. He prolonged his +life for five years, and, perhaps, was still flattering his hopes +of sharing one day in the literary celebrity of his friends, +when, to use his words, “the same illness made a fierce +attack upon me again, and has kept me in a very bad state +of inactivity and disrelish of all my ordinary amusements:” +those <i>amusements</i> were his serious <i>studies</i>. There is a fascination +in literary labour: the student feeds on magical drugs; +to withdraw him from them requires nothing less than that +greater magic which could break his own spells. A few +months after this letter was written Bayne died on the way +to Bath, a martyr to his studies.</p> +<p>The excessive labour on a voluminous work, which occupies +a long life, leaves the student with a broken constitution, and +his sight decayed or lost. The most admirable observer of +mankind, and the truest painter of the human heart, declares, +“The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthy +tabernacle weigheth down the <i>mind that museth on many +things</i>.” Of this class was old Randle Cotgrave, the curious +collector of the most copious dictionary of old French and +old English words and phrases. The work is the only treasury +of our genuine idiom. Even this labour of the lexicographer, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span> +so copious and so elaborate, must have been projected with +rapture, and pursued with pleasure, till, in the progress, “the +mind was musing on many things.” Then came the melancholy +doubt, that drops mildew from its enveloping wings +over the voluminous labour of a laborious author, whether he +be wisely consuming his days, and not perpetually neglecting +some higher duties or some happier amusements. Still the +enchanted delver sighs, and strikes on in the glimmering mine +of hope. If he live to complete the great labour, it is, perhaps, +reserved for the applause of the next age; for, as our +great lexicographer exclaimed, “In this gloom of solitude I +have protracted my work, till those whom I wished to please +have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are +empty sounds;” but, if it be applauded in his own, that praise +has come too late for him whose literary labour has stolen +away his sight. Cotgrave had grown blind over his dictionary, +and was doubtful whether this work of his laborious days and +nightly vigils was not a superfluous labour, and nothing, after +all, but a “poor bundle of words.” The reader may listen +to the gray-headed martyr addressing his patron, Lord +Burghley:</p> +<p>“I present to your lordship an account of the <i>expense of +many hours</i>, which, in your service, and to mine own benefit, +<i>might have been otherwise employed</i>. My desires have aimed +at more substantial marks; but <i>mine eyes</i> failed them, and +forced me to <i>spend out their vigour in this bundle of words</i>, +which may be unworthy of your lordship’s great patience, +and, perhaps, <i>ill-suited to the expectation of others</i>.”</p> +<p>A great number of young authors have died of over-study. +An intellectual enthusiasm, accompanied by constitutional +delicacy, has swept away half the rising genius of the age. +Curious calculators have affected to discover the average number +of infants who die under the age of five years: had they +investigated those of the children of genius who perish before +their thirtieth year, we should not be less amazed at this +waste of man. There are few scenes more afflicting, nor +which more deeply engage our sympathy, than that of a youth, +glowing with the devotion of study, and resolute to distinguish +his name among his countrymen, while death is stealing +on him, touching with premature age, before he strikes the +last blow. The author perishes on the very pages which give +a charm to his existence. The fine taste and tender melancholy +of Headley, the fervid genius of Henry Kirke White, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span> +will not easily pass away; but how many youths as noble-minded +have not had the fortune of Kirke White to be commemorated +by genius, and have perished without their fame! +Henry Wharton is a name well known to the student of +English literature; he published historical criticisms of high +value; and he left, as some of the fruits of his studies, sixteen +volumes of MS., preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at +Lambeth. These great labours were pursued with the ardour +that only could have produced them; the author had not exceeded +his thirtieth year when he sank under his continued +studies, and perished a martyr to literature. Our literary +history abounds with instances of the sad effects of an over +indulgence in study: that agreeable writer, Howel, had nearly +lost his life by an excess of this nature, studying through long +nights in the depth of winter. This severe study occasioned +an imposthume in his head; he was eighteen days without +sleep; and the illness was attended with many other afflicting +symptoms. The eager diligence of Blackmore, protracting +his studies through the night, broke his health, and obliged +him to fly to a country retreat. Harris, the historian, died +of a consumption by midnight studies, as his friend Hollis +mentions. I shall add a recent instance, which I myself witnessed: +it is that of John Macdiarmid. He was one of those +Scotch students whom the golden fame of Hume and +Robertson attracted to the metropolis. He mounted the first +steps of literary adventure with credit; and passed through +the probation of editor and reviewer, till he strove for more +heroic adventures. He published some volumes, whose subjects +display the aspirings of his genius: “An Inquiry into +the Nature of Civil and Military Subordination;” another +into “the System of Military Defence.” It was during these +labours I beheld this inquirer, of a tender frame, emaciated, +and study-worn, with hollow eyes, where the mind dimly shone +like a lamp in a tomb. With keen ardour he opened a new +plan of biographical politics. When, by one who wished +the author was in better condition, the dangers of excess in +study were brought to his recollection, he smiled, and, with +something of a mysterious air, talked of unalterable confidence +in the powers of his mind; of the indefinite improvement +in our faculties: and, with this enfeebled frame, considered +himself capable of continuous labour. His whole +life, indeed, was one melancholy trial. Often the day cheerfully +passed without its meal, but never without its page. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span> +The new system of political biography was advancing, when +our young author felt a paralytic stroke. He afterwards +resumed his pen; and a second one proved fatal. He lived +just to pass through the press his “Lives of British Statesmen,” +a splendid quarto, whose publication he owed to the +generous temper of a friend, who, when the author could not +readily procure a publisher, would not see the dying author’s +last hope disappointed. Some research and reflection are combined +in this literary and civil history of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries; but it was written with the blood of +the author, for Macdiarmid died of over-study and exhaustion.</p> +<p>Among the maladies of poor authors, who procure a precarious +existence by their pen, one, not the least considerable, +is their old age; their flower and maturity of life were shed +for no human comforts; and old age is the withered root. +The late <span class='smcap'>Thomas Mortimer</span>, the compiler, among other +things, of that useful work, “The Student’s Pocket Dictionary,” +felt this severely—he himself experienced no abatement +of his ardour, nor deficiency in his intellectual powers, +at near the age of eighty;—but he then would complain “of +the paucity of literary employment, and the preference given +to young adventurers.” Such is the <i>youth</i>, and such the <i>old +age</i> of ordinary authors!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='LITERARY_SCOTCHMEN' id='LITERARY_SCOTCHMEN'></a> +<h3>LITERARY SCOTCHMEN.</h3> +</div> +<p>What literary emigrations from the North of young men of +genius, seduced by a romantic passion for literary fame, and +lured by the golden prospects which the happier genius of +some of their own countrymen opened on them. A volume +might be written on literary Scotchmen, who have perished +immaturely in this metropolis; little known, and slightly +connected, they have dropped away among us, and scarcely +left a vestige in the wrecks of their genius. Among them +some authors may be discovered who might have ranked, +perhaps, in the first classes of our literature. I shall select +four out of as many hundred, who were not entirely unknown +to me; a romantic youth—a man of genius—a brilliant prose +writer—and a labourer in literature.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Issac Ritson</span> (not the poetical antiquary) was a young +man of genius, who perished immaturely in this metropolis +by attempting to exist by the efforts of his pen.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span></div> +<p>In early youth he roved among his native mountains, with +the battles of Homer in his head, and his bow and arrow in his +hand; in calmer hours, he nearly completed a spirited version +of Hesiod, which constantly occupied his after-studies; yet +our minstrel-archer did not less love the severer sciences.</p> +<p>Selected at length to rise to the eminent station of the +Village Schoolmaster,—from the thankless office of pouring +cold rudiments into heedless ears, <span class='smcap'>Ritson</span> took a poetical +flight. It was among the mountains and wild scenery of +Scotland that our young Homer, picking up fragments of +heroic songs, and composing some fine ballad poetry, would, +in his wanderings, recite them with such passionate expression, +that he never failed of auditors; and found even the +poor generous, when their better passions were moved. Thus +he lived, like some old troubadour, by his rhymes, and his +chants, and his virelays; and, after a year’s absence, our bard +returned in the triumph of verse. This was the most seducing +moment of life; <span class='smcap'>Ritson</span> felt himself a laureated Petrarch; but +he had now quitted his untutored but feeling admirers, and the +child of fancy was to mix with the everyday business of life.</p> +<p>At Edinburgh he studied medicine, lived by writing theses +for the idle and the incompetent, and composed a poem on +Medicine, till at length his hopes and his ambition conducted +him to London. But the golden age of the imagination soon +deserted him in his obscure apartment in the glittering metropolis. +He attended the hospitals, but these were crowded by +students who, if they relished the science less, loved the trade +more: he published a hasty version of Homer’s Hymn to +Venus, which was good enough to be praised, but not to sell; +at length his fertile imagination, withering over the taskwork +of literature, he resigned fame for bread; wrote the preface +to Clarke’s Survey of the Lakes, compiled medical articles +for the Monthly Review; and, wasting fast his ebbing spirits, +he retreated to an obscure lodging at Islington, where death +relieved a hopeless author, in the twenty-seventh year of +his life.</p> +<p>The following unpolished lines were struck off at a heat in +trying his pen on the back of a letter; he wrote the names +of the Sister Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos—the sudden +recollection of his own fate rushed on him—and thus the +rhapsodist broke out:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><span class='indent2'> </span>I wonder much, as yet ye’re spinning, Fates!<br /> +What threads yet twisted out for me, old jades! +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span><br /> +Ah, Atropos! perhaps for me thou spinn’st<br /> +Neglect, contempt, and penury and woe;<br /> +Be’t so; whilst that foul fiend, the spleen,<br /> +And moping melancholy spare me, all the rest<br /> +I’ll bear, as should a man; ’twill do me good,<br /> +And teach me what no better fortune could,<br /> +Humility, and sympathy with others’ ills.<br /> +———————Ye destinies,<br /> +I love you much; ye flatter not my pride.<br /> +Your mien, ’tis true, is wrinkled, hard, and sour;<br /> +Your words are harsh and stern; and sterner still<br /> +Your purposes to me. Yet I forgive<br /> +Whatever you have done, or mean to do.<br /> +Beneath some baleful planet born, I’ve found,<br /> +In all this world, no friend with fostering hand<br /> +To lead me on to science, which I love<br /> +Beyond all else the world could give; yet still<br /> +Your rigour I forgive; ye are not yet my foes;<br /> +My own untutor’d will’s my only curse.<br /> +We grasp asphaltic apples; blooming poison!<br /> +We love what we should hate; how kind, ye Fates,<br /> +To thwart our wishes! O you’re kind to scourge!<br /> +And flay us to the bone to make us feel!—</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Thus deeply he enters into his own feelings, and abjures +his errors, as he paints the utter desolation of the soul while +falling into the grave opening at his feet.</p> +<p>The town was once amused almost every morning by a +series of humorous or burlesque poems by a writer under the +assumed name of <i>Matthew Bramble</i>—he was at that very +moment one of the most moving spectacles of human melancholy +I have ever witnessed.</p> +<p>It was one evening I saw a tall, famished, melancholy man +enter a bookseller’s shop, his hat flapped over his eyes, and his +whole frame evidently feeble from exhaustion and utter misery. +The bookseller inquired how he proceeded in his new tragedy. +“Do not talk to me about my tragedy! Do not talk to me +about my tragedy! I have indeed more tragedy than I can +bear at home!” was the reply, and the voice faltered as he +spoke. This man was Matthew Bramble, or rather—<span class='smcap'>M’Donald,</span> +the author of the tragedy of Vimonda, at that +moment the writer of comic poetry—his tragedy was indeed +a domestic one, in which he himself was the greatest actor +amid his disconsolate family; he shortly afterwards perished. +M’Donald had walked from Scotland with no other fortune than +the novel of “The Independent” in one pocket, and the tragedy +of “Vimonda” in the other. Yet he lived some time in all the +bloom and flush of poetical confidence. Vimonda was even +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span> +performed several nights, but not with the success the romantic +poet, among his native rocks, had conceived was to crown his +anxious labours—the theatre disappointed him—and afterwards, +to his feelings, all the world!</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Logan</span> had the dispositions of a poetic spirit, not cast in a +common mould; with fancy he combined learning, and with +eloquence philosophy.</p> +<p>His claims on our sympathy arise from those circumstances +in his life which open the secret sources of the calamities of +authors; of those minds of finer temper, who, having tamed +the heat of their youth by the patient severity of study, from +causes not always difficult to discover, find their favourite +objects and their fondest hopes barren and neglected. It is +then that the thoughtful melancholy, which constitutes so +large a portion of their genius, absorbs and consumes the very +faculties to which it gave birth.</p> +<p>Logan studied at the University of Edinburgh, was ordained +in the Church of Scotland—and early distinguished as a poet +by the simplicity and the tenderness of his verses, yet the +philosophy of history had as deeply interested his studies. He +gave two courses of lectures. I have heard from his pupils +their admiration, after the lapse of many years; so striking +were those lectures for having successfully applied the science +of moral philosophy to the history of nations. All wished +that Logan should obtain the chair of the Professorship of +Universal History—but from some point of etiquette he failed +in obtaining that distinguished office.</p> +<p>This was his first disappointment in life, yet then perhaps +but lightly felt; for the public had approved of his poems, +and a successful poet is easily consoled. Poetry to such a +gentle being seems a universal specific for all the evils of life; +it acts at the moment, exhausting and destroying too often the +constitution it seems to restore.</p> +<p>He had finished the tragedy of “Runnymede;” it was +accepted at Covent-garden, but interdicted by the Lord Chamberlain, +from some suspicion that its lofty sentiments contained +allusions to the politics of the day. The Barons-in-arms +who met John were conceived to be deeper politicians +than the poet himself was aware of. This was the second +disappointment in the life of this man of genius.</p> +<p>The third calamity was the natural consequence of a tragic +poet being also a Scotch clergyman. Logan had inflicted a +wound on the Presbytery, heirs of the genius of old Prynne, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span> +whose puritanic fanaticism had never forgiven Home for +his “Douglas,” and now groaned to detect genius still lurking +among them.<a name='FNanchor_0060' id='FNanchor_0060'></a><a href='#Footnote_0060' class='fnanchor'>[60]</a> Logan, it is certain, expressed his contempt +for them; they their hatred of him: folly and pride in a poet, +to beard Presbyters in a land of Presbyterians!<a name='FNanchor_0061' id='FNanchor_0061'></a><a href='#Footnote_0061' class='fnanchor'>[61]</a></p> +<p>He gladly abandoned them, retiring on a small annuity. +They had, however, hurt his temper—they had irritated the +nervous system of a man too susceptible of all impressions, +gentle or unkind—his character had all those unequal habitudes +which genius contracts in its boldness and its tremors; +he was now vivacious and indignant, and now fretted and +melancholy. He flew to the metropolis, occupied himself in +literature, and was a frequent contributor to the “English +Review.” He published “A Review of the Principal Charges +against Mr. Hastings.” Logan wrestled with the genius of +Burke and Sheridan; the House of Commons ordered the +publisher Stockdale to be prosecuted, but the author did not +live to rejoice in the victory obtained by his genius.</p> +<p>This elegant philosopher has impressed on all his works the +seal of genius; and his posthumous compositions became even +popular; he who had with difficulty escaped excommunication +by Presbyters, left the world after his death two volumes of +sermons, which breathe all that piety, morality, and eloquence +admire. His unrevised lectures, published under the name of +a person, one Rutherford, who had purchased the MS., were +given to the world in “A View of Ancient History.” But one +highly-finished composition he had himself published; it is a +philosophical review of Despotism: had the name of Gibbon +been affixed to the title-page, its authenticity had not been +suspected.<a name='FNanchor_0062' id='FNanchor_0062'></a><a href='#Footnote_0062' class='fnanchor'>[62]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' name='page_80'></a>80</span></div> +<p>From one of his executors, Mr. Donald Grant, who wrote +the life prefixed to his poems, I heard of the state of his +numerous MSS.; the scattered, yet warm embers of the +unhappy bard. Several tragedies, and one on Mary Queen +of Scots, abounding with all that domestic tenderness and +poetic sensibility which formed the soft and natural feature +of his muse; these, with minor poems, thirty lectures on the +Roman History, and portions of a periodical paper, were the +wrecks of genius! He resided here, little known out of a +very private circle, and perished in his fortieth year, not of +penury, but of a broken heart. Such noble and well-founded +expectations of fortune and fame, all the plans of literary +ambition overturned: his genius, with all its delicacy, its +spirit, and its elegance, became a prey to that melancholy +which constituted so large a portion of it.</p> +<p>Logan, in his “Ode to a Man of Letters,” had formed this +lofty conception of a great author:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Won from neglected wastes of time,<br /> +Apollo hails his fairest clime,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>The provinces of mind;<br /> +An Egypt with eternal towers;<a name='FNanchor_0063' id='FNanchor_0063'></a><a href='#Footnote_0063' class='fnanchor'>[63]</a><br /> +See Montesquieu redeem the hours<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>From Louis to mankind.<br /> +<br /> +No tame remission genius knows,<br /> +No interval of dark repose,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>To quench the ethereal flame;<br /> +From Thebes to Troy, the victor hies,<br /> +And Homer with his hero vies,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>In varied paths to Fame.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Our children will long repeat his “Ode to the Cuckoo,” +one of the most lovely poems in our language; magical +stanzas of picture, melody, and sentiment.<a name='FNanchor_0064' id='FNanchor_0064'></a><a href='#Footnote_0064' class='fnanchor'>[64]</a></p> +<p>These authors were undoubtedly men of finer feelings, who +all perished immaturely, victims in the higher department of +literature! But this article would not be complete without +furnishing the reader with a picture of the fate of one who, +with a pertinacity of industry not common, having undergone +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span> +regular studies, not very injudiciously deemed that the life +of a man of letters could provide for the simple wants of a +philosopher.</p> +<p>This man was the late <span class='smcap'>Robert Heron</span>, who, in the following +letter, transcribed from the original, stated his history to +the Literary Fund. It was written in a moment of extreme +bodily suffering and mental agony in the house to which +he had been hurried for debt. At such a moment he found +eloquence in a narrative, pathetic from its simplicity, and +valuable for its genuineness, as giving the results of a life of +literary industry, productive of great infelicity and disgrace; +one would imagine that the author had been a criminal rather +than a man of letters.</p> +<blockquote> +<h4>“<i>The Case of a Man of Letters, of regular education, living +by honest literary industry.</i></h4> +<p>“Ever since I was eleven years of age I have mingled with +my studies the labour of teaching or of writing, to support +and educate myself.</p> +<p>“During about twenty years, while I was in constant or +occasional attendance at the University of Edinburgh, I +taught and assisted young persons, at all periods, in the +course of education; from the Alphabet to the highest +branches of Science and Literature.</p> +<p>“I read a course of Lectures on the Law of Nature, the +Law of Nations; the Jewish, the Grecian, the Roman, and +the Canon Law; and then on the Feudal Law; and on +the several forms of Municipal Jurisprudence established in +Modern Europe. I printed a Syllabus of these Lectures, +which was approved. They were intended as introductory +to the professional study of Law, and to assist gentlemen +who did not study it professionally, in the understanding of +History.</p> +<p>“I translated ‘Fourcroy’s Chemistry’ twice, from both +the second and the third editions of the original; ‘Fourcroy’s +Philosophy of Chemistry;’ ‘Savary’s Travels in Greece;’ +‘Dumourier’s Letters;’ ‘Gessner’s Idylls’ in part; an abstract +of ‘Zimmerman on Solitude,’ and a great diversity of +smaller pieces.</p> +<p>“I wrote a ‘Journey through the Western Parts of Scotland,’ +which has passed through two editions; a ‘History +of Scotland,’ in six volumes 8vo; a ‘Topographical Account +of Scotland,’ which has been several times reprinted; a number +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span> +of communications in the ‘Edinburgh Magazine;’ many +Prefaces and Critiques; a ‘Memoir of the Life of Burns the +Poet,’ which suggested and promoted the subscription for +his family—has been many times reprinted, and formed the +basis of Dr. Currie’s Life of him, as I learned by a letter +from the doctor to one of his friends; a variety of <i>Jeux +d’Esprit</i> in verse and prose; and many abridgments of large +works.</p> +<p>“In the beginning of 1799 I was encouraged to come to +London. Here I have written a great multiplicity of articles +in almost every branch of science and literature; my education +at Edinburgh having comprehended them all. The +‘London Review,’ the ‘Agricultural Magazine,’ the ‘Anti-Jacobin +Review,’ the ‘Monthly Magazine,’ the ‘Universal +Magazine,’ the ‘Public Characters,’ the ‘Annual Necrology,’ +with several other periodical works, contain many of +my communications. In such of those publications as have +been reviewed, I can show that my anonymous pieces have +been distinguished with very high praise. I have written +also a short system of Chemistry, in one volume 8vo; and I +published a few weeks since a small work called ‘Comforts +of Life,’<a name='FNanchor_0065' id='FNanchor_0065'></a><a href='#Footnote_0065' class='fnanchor'>[65]</a> of which the first edition was sold in one week, +and the second edition is now in rapid sale.</p> +<p>“In the Newspapers—the <i>Oracle</i>, the <i>Porcupine</i> when it +existed, the <i>General Evening Post</i>, the <i>Morning Post</i>, the +<i>British Press</i>, the <i>Courier</i>, &c., I have published many +Reports of Debates in Parliament, and, I believe, a greater +variety of light fugitive pieces than I know to have been +written by any one other person.</p> +<p>“I have written also a variety of compositions in the Latin +and the French languages, in favour of which I have been +honoured with the testimonies of liberal approbation.</p> +<p>“I have invariably written to serve the cause of religion, +morality, pious christian education, and good order, in the +most direct manner. I have considered what I have written +as mere trifles; and have incessantly studied to qualify myself +for something better. I can prove that I have, for many +years, read and written, one day with another, from twelve to +sixteen hours a day. As a human being, I have not been free +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span> +from follies and errors. But the tenor of my life has been +temperate, laborious, humble, quiet, and, to the utmost of +my power, beneficent. I can prove the general tenor of my +writings to have been candid, and ever adapted to exhibit the +most favourable views of the abilities, dispositions, and exertions +of others.</p> +<p>“For these last ten months I have been brought to the +very extremity of bodily and pecuniary distress.</p> +<p>“I shudder at the thought of perishing in a gaol.</p> +<p>“<i>92, Chancery-lane, Feb. 2, 1807.</i></p> +<p>“(In confinement).”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The physicians reported that Robert Heron’s health was +such “as rendered him totally incapable of extricating himself +from the difficulties in which he was involved, by the +<i>indiscreet exertion of his mind, in protracted and incessant +literary labours</i>.”</p> +<p>About three months after, Heron sunk under a fever, and +perished amid the walls of Newgate. We are disgusted with +this horrid state of pauperism; we are indignant at beholding +an author, not a contemptible one, in this last stage of human +wretchedness! after early and late studies—after having read +and written from twelve to sixteen hours a day! O, ye populace +of scribblers! before ye are driven to a garret, and your +eyes are filled with constant tears, pause—recollect that few +of you possess the learning or the abilities of Heron.</p> +<p>The fate of Heron is the fate of hundreds of authors by +profession in the present day—of men of some literary talent, +who can never extricate themselves from a degrading state of +poverty.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='LABORIOUS_AUTHORS' id='LABORIOUS_AUTHORS'></a> +<h3>LABORIOUS AUTHORS.</h3> +</div> +<p>This is one of the groans of old <span class='smcap'>Burton</span> over his laborious +work, when he is anticipating the reception it is like to meet +with, and personates his objectors. He says:—</p> +<p>“This is a thinge of meere industrie—a collection without +wit or invention—a very toy! So men are valued!—their +labours vilified by fellowes of no worth themselves, as things +of nought; who could not have done as much.”</p> +<p>There is, indeed, a class of authors who are liable to forfeit +all claims to genius, whatever their genius may be—these +are the laborious writers of voluminous works; but they are +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span> +farther subject to heavier grievances—to be undervalued or +neglected by the apathy or the ingratitude of the public.</p> +<p>Industry is often conceived to betray the absence of intellectual +exertion, and the magnitude of a work is imagined +necessarily to shut out all genius. Yet a laborious work has +often had an original growth and raciness in it, requiring a +genius whose peculiar feeling, like invisible vitality, is spread +through the mighty body. Feeble imitations of such laborious +works have proved the master’s mind that is in the +original. There is a talent in industry which every industrious +man does not possess; and even taste and imagination +may lead to the deepest studies of antiquities, as well as mere +undiscerning curiosity and plodding dulness.</p> +<p>But there are other more striking characteristics of intellectual +feeling in authors of this class. The fortitude of mind +which enables them to complete labours of which, in many +instances, they are conscious that the real value will only be +appreciated by dispassionate posterity, themselves rarely living +to witness the fame of their own work established, while they +endure the captiousness of malicious cavillers. It is said that +the Optics of <span class='smcap'>Newton</span> had no character or credit here till +noticed in France. It would not be the only instance of an +author writing above his own age, and anticipating its more +advanced genius. How many works of erudition might be +adduced to show their author’s disappointments! <span class='smcap'>Prideaux’s</span> +learned work of the “Connexion of the Old and New Testament,” +and <span class='smcap'>Shuckford’s</span> similar one, were both a long while +before they could obtain a publisher, and much longer before +they found readers. It is said Sir <span class='smcap'>Walter Raleigh</span> burned +the second volume of his History, from the ill success the +first had met with. <span class='smcap'>Prince’s</span> “Worthies of Devon” was so +unfavourably received by the public, that the laborious and +patriotic author was so discouraged as not to print the second +volume, which is said to have been prepared for the press. +<span class='smcap'>Farneworth’s</span> elaborate Translation, with notes and dissertations, +of Machiavel’s works, was hawked about the town; +and the poor author discovered that he understood Machiavel +better than the public. After other labours of this kind, he +left his family in distressed circumstances. Observe, this +excellent book now bears a high price! The fate of the +“Biographia Britannica,” in its first edition, must be noticed: +the spirit and acuteness of <span class='smcap'>Campbell</span>, the curious industry of +<span class='smcap'>Oldys</span>, and the united labours of very able writers, could not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span> +secure public favour; this treasure of our literary history was +on the point of being suspended, when a poem by Gilbert +West drew the public attention to that elaborate work, +which, however, still languished, and was hastily concluded. +<span class='smcap'>Granger</span> says of his admirable work, in one of his letters—“On +a fair state of my account, it would appear that my +labours in the improvement of my work do not amount to +<i>half the pay of a scavenger</i>!” He received only one hundred +pounds to the times of Charles I., and the rest to depend on +public favour for the continuation. The sale was sluggish; +even Walpole seemed doubtful of its success, though he probably +secretly envied the skill of our portrait-painter. It +was too philosophical for the mere collector, and it took near +ten years before it reached the hands of philosophers; the +author derived little profit, and never lived to see its popularity +established! We have had many highly valuable works +suspended for their want of public patronage, to the utter +disappointment, and sometimes the ruin of their authors; +such are <span class='smcap'>Oldys’s</span> “British Librarian,” <span class='smcap'>Morgan’s</span> “Phœnix +Britannicus,” Dr. <span class='smcap'>Berkenhout’s</span> “Biographia Literaria,” +Professor <span class='smcap'>Martyn’s</span> and Dr. <span class='smcap'>Lettice’s</span> “Antiquities of +Herculaneum:” all these are <i>first</i> volumes, there are no +<i>seconds</i>! They are now rare, curious, and high priced! +Ungrateful public! Unhappy authors!</p> +<p>That noble enthusiasm which so strongly characterises genius, +in productions whose originality is of a less ambiguous nature, +has been experienced by some of these laborious authors, who +have sacrificed their lives and fortunes to their beloved +studies. The enthusiasm of literature has often been that of +heroism, and many have not shrunk from the forlorn hope.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Rushworth</span> and <span class='smcap'>Rymer</span>, to whose collections our history +stands so deeply indebted, must have strongly felt this literary +ardour, for they passed their lives in forming them; till +Rymer, in the utmost distress, was obliged to sell his books +and his fifty volumes of MS. which he could not get printed; +and Rushworth died in the King’s Bench of a broken heart. +Many of his papers still remain unpublished. His ruling +passion was amassing state matters, and he voluntarily +neglected great opportunities of acquiring a large fortune for +this entire devotion of his life. The same fate has awaited the +similar labours of many authors to whom the history of our +country lies under deep obligations. <span class='smcap'>Arthur Collins</span>, the +historiographer of our Peerage, and the curious collector of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span> +the valuable “Sydney Papers,” and other collections, passed +his life in reselling these works of antiquity, in giving authenticity +to our history, or contributing fresh materials to it; +but his midnight vigils were cheered by no patronage, nor his +labours valued, till the eye that pored on the mutilated MS. +was for ever closed. Of all those curious works of the late +Mr. <span class='smcap'>Strutt</span>, which are now bearing such high prices, all were +produced by extensive reading, and illustrated by his own +drawings, from the manuscripts of different epochs in our history. +What was the result to that ingenious artist and +author, who, under the plain simplicity of an antiquary, concealed +a fine poetical mind, and an enthusiasm for his beloved +pursuits to which only we are indebted for them? Strutt, +living in the greatest obscurity, and voluntarily sacrificing all +the ordinary views of life, and the trade of his <i>burin</i>, solely +attached to national antiquities, and charmed by calling them +into a fresh existence under his pencil, I have witnessed at the +British Museum, forgetting for whole days his miseries, in +sedulous research and delightful labour; at times even doubtful +whether he could get his works printed; for some of +which he was not regaled even with the Roman supper of “a +radish and an egg.” How he left his domestic affairs, his son +can tell; how his works have tripled their value, the booksellers. +In writing on the calamities attending the love of +literary labour, Mr. <span class='smcap'>John Nichols</span>, the modest annalist of the +literary history of the last century, and the friend of half the +departed genius of our country, cannot but occur to me. He +zealously published more than fifty works, illustrating the +literature and the antiquities of the country; labours not +given to the world without great sacrifices. Bishop Hurd, +with friendly solicitude, writes to Mr. Nichols on some of his +own publications, “While you are enriching the Antiquarian +world” (and, by the Life of Bowyer, may be added the Literary), +“I hope you do not forget yourself. <i>The profession of +an author, I know from experience, is not a lucrative one.</i>—I +only mention this because I see a large catalogue of your +publications.” At another time the Bishop writes, “You are +very good to excuse my freedom with you; but, as times go, +almost any trade is better than that of an author,” &c. On +these notes Mr. Nichols confesses, “I have had some occasion +to regret that I did not attend to the judicious suggestions.” +We owe to the late <span class='smcap'>Thomas Davies</span>, the author of “Garrick’s +Life,” and other literary works, beautiful editions of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span> +some of our elder poets, which are now eagerly sought after, +yet, though all his publications were of the best kinds, and +are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice +ended in bankruptcy. It is to be lamented for the cause of +literature, that even a bookseller may have too refined a taste +for his trade; it must always be his interest to float on the +current of public taste, whatever that may be; should he have +an ambition to <i>create</i> it, he will be anticipating a more cultivated +curiosity by half a century; thus the business of a +bookseller rarely accords with the design of advancing our +literature.</p> +<p>The works of literature, it is then but too evident, receive +no equivalent; let this be recollected by him who would draw +his existence from them. A young writer often resembles +that imaginary author whom Johnson, in a humorous letter in +“The Idler” (No. 55), represents as having composed a work +“of universal curiosity, computed that it would call for many +editions of his book, and that in five years he should gain +fifteen thousand pounds by the sale of thirty thousand +copies.” There are, indeed, some who have been dazzled by +the good fortune of <span class='smcap'>Gibbon, Robertson</span>, and <span class='smcap'>Hume</span>; we +are to consider these favourites, not merely as authors, but as +possessing, by their situation in life, a certain independence +which preserved them from the vexations of the authors I have +noticed. Observe, however, that the uncommon sum Gibbon +received for copyright, though it excited the astonishment of +the philosopher himself, was for the continued labour of a +<i>whole life</i>, and probably the <i>library</i> he had purchased for his +work equalled at least in cost the produce of his <i>pen</i>; the +tools cost the workman as much as he obtained for his work. +Six thousand pounds gained on these terms will keep an author +indigent.</p> +<p>Many great labours have been designed by their authors +even to be posthumous, prompted only by their love of study +and a patriotic zeal. Bishop <span class='smcap'>Kennett’s</span> stupendous “Register +and Chronicle,” volume I., is one of those astonishing labours +which could only have been produced by the pleasure of +study urged by the strong love of posterity.<a name='FNanchor_0066' id='FNanchor_0066'></a><a href='#Footnote_0066' class='fnanchor'>[66]</a> It is a diary +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span> +in which the bishop, one of our most studious and active +authors, has recorded every matter of fact, “delivered in the +words of the most authentic books, papers, and records.” +The design was to preserve our literary history from the +Restoration. This silent labour he had been pursuing all his +life, and published the first volume in his sixty-eighth year, +the very year he died. But he was so sensible of the coyness +of the public taste for what he calls, in a letter to a literary +friend, “a tedious heavy book,” that he gave it away to the +publisher. “The volume, too large, brings me no profit. In +good truth, the scheme was laid for conscience’ sake, to restore +a good old principle that history should be purely matter +of fact, that every reader, by examining and comparing, may +make out a history by his own judgment. I have collections +transcribed for another volume, if the bookseller will run the +hazard of printing.” This volume has never appeared, and +the bookseller probably lost a considerable sum by the one +published, which valuable volume is now procured with +difficulty.<a name='FNanchor_0067' id='FNanchor_0067'></a><a href='#Footnote_0067' class='fnanchor'>[67]</a></p> +<p>These laborious authors have commenced their literary life +with a glowing ardour, though the feelings of genius have +been obstructed by those numerous causes which occur too +frequently in the life of a literary man.</p> +<p>Let us listen to <span class='smcap'>Strutt</span>, whom we have just noticed, and +let us learn what he proposed doing in the first age of fancy.</p> +<p>Having obtained the first gold medal ever given at the +Royal Academy, he writes to his mother, and thus thanks her +and his friends for their deep interest in his success:—</p> +<p>“I will at least strive to the utmost to give my benefactors +no reason to think their pains thrown away. If I should +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span> +not be able to abound in riches, yet, by God’s help, I will +strive to pluck that palm which the greatest artists of foregoing +ages have done before me; <i>I will strive to leave my +name behind me in the world, if not in the splendour that +some have, at least with +<em>some marks</em> +of assiduity and study</i>; +which, I can assure you, shall never be wanting in me. Who +can bear to hear the names of Raphael, Titian, Michael +Angelo, &c., the most famous of the Italian masters, in the +mouth of every one, and not wish to be like them? And +to be like them, we must study as they have done, take such +pains, and labour continually like them; the which shall not +be wanting on my side, I dare affirm; so that, should I not +succeed, I may rest contented, and say I have done my utmost. +God has blessed me with a mind to undertake. You, dear +madam, will excuse my vanity; you know me, from my childish +days, to have been a vain boy, always desirous to execute +something to gain me praises from every one; always scheming +and imitating whatever I saw done by anybody.”</p> +<p>And when Strutt settled in the metropolis, and studied at +the British Museum, amid all the stores of knowledge and +art, his imagination delighted to expatiate in its future +<a name='TC_7'></a><ins title="Was 'prosspects'">prospects</ins>. In a letter to a friend he has thus chronicled his +feelings:</p> +<p>“I would not only be a great antiquary, but a refined +thinker; I would not only discover antiquities, but would, by +explaining their use, render them useful. Such vast funds of +knowledge lie hid in the antiquated remains of the earlier +ages; these I would bring forth, and set in their true light.”</p> +<p>Poor Strutt, at the close of life, was returning to his own +first and natural energies, in producing a work of the imagination. +He had made considerable progress in one, and the +early parts which he had finished bear the stamp of genius; +it is entitled “Queenhoo-hall, a Romance of ancient times,” +full of the picturesque manners, and costume, and characters +of the age, in which he was so conversant; with many +lyrical pieces, which often are full of poetic feeling—but he +was called off from the work to prepare a more laborious +one. “Queenhoo-hall” remained a heap of fragments at his +death; except the first volume, and was filled up by a +stranger hand. The stranger was Sir Walter Scott, and +“Queenhoo-hall” was the origin of that glorious series of +romances where antiquarianism has taken the shape of imagination.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span></div> +<p>Writing on the calamities attached to literature, I must +notice one of a more recondite nature, yet perhaps few literary +agonies are more keenly felt. I would not excite an +undue sympathy for a class of writers who are usually considered +as drudges; but the present case claims our sympathy.</p> +<p>There are men of letters, who, early in life, have formed +some favourite plan of literary labour, which they have unremittingly +pursued, till, sometimes near the close of life, +they either discover their inability to terminate it, or begin to +depreciate their own constant labour. The literary architect +has grown gray over his edifice; and, as if the black wand +of enchantment had waved over it, the colonnades become +interminable, the pillars seem to want a foundation, and all +the rich materials he had collected together, lie before him in +all the disorder of ruins. It may be urged that the reward +of literary labour, like the consolations of virtue, must be +drawn with all their sweetness from itself; or, that if the +author be incompetent, he must pay the price of his incapacity. +This may be Stoicism, but it is not humanity. The +truth is, there is always a latent love of fame, that prompts +to this strong devotion of labour; and he who has given a +long life to that which he has so much desired, and can never +enjoy, might well be excused receiving our insults, if he cannot +extort our pity.</p> +<p>A remarkable instance occurs in the fate of the late Rev. +<span class='smcap'>William Cole</span>;<a name='FNanchor_0068' id='FNanchor_0068'></a><a href='#Footnote_0068' class='fnanchor'>[68]</a> he was the college friend of Walpole, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span> +Mason, and Gray; a striking proof how dissimilar habits and +opposite tastes and feelings can associate in literary friendship; +for Cole, indeed, the public had informed him that his +friends were poets and men of wit; and for them, Cole’s patient +and curious turn was useful, and, by its extravagant +trifling, must have been very amusing. He had a gossip’s +ear, and a tatler’s pen—and, among better things, wrote +down every grain of literary scandal his insatiable and +minute curiosity could lick up; as patient and voracious as an +ant-eater, he stretched out his tongue till it was covered by +the tiny creatures, and drew them all in at one digestion. +All these tales were registered with the utmost simplicity, as +the reporter received them; but, being but tales, the exactness +of his truth made them still more dangerous lies, by being perpetuated; +in his reflections he spared neither friend nor foe; +yet, still anxious after truth, and usually telling lies, it is very +amusing to observe, that, as he proceeds, he very laudably +contradicts, or explains away in subsequent memoranda what +he had before registered. Walpole, in a correspondence of +forty years, he was perpetually flattering, though he must +imperfectly have relished his fine taste, while he abhorred his +more liberal principles, to which sometimes he addressed a +submissive remonstrance. He has at times written a letter +coolly, and, at the same moment, chronicled his suppressed +feelings in his diary, with all the flame and sputter of his +strong prejudices. He was expressly nicknamed Cardinal +Cole. These scandalous chronicles, which only show the +violence of his prejudices, without the force of genius, or the +acuteness of penetration, were ordered not to be opened till +twenty years after his decease; he wished to do as little +mischief as he could, but loved to do some. I well remember +the cruel anxiety which prevailed in the nineteenth year +of these inclosures; it spoiled the digestions of several of our +literati who had had the misfortune of Cole’s intimate +friendship, or enmity. One of these was the writer of the +Life of Thomas Baker, the Cambridge Antiquary, who prognosticated +all the evil he among others was to endure; and, +writhing in fancy under the whip not yet untwisted, justly +enough exclaims in his agony, “The attempt to keep these +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span> +characters from the public till the subjects of them shall be +no more, seems to be peculiarly cruel and ungenerous, since it +is precluding them from vindicating themselves from such +injurious aspersions, as their friends, perhaps however willing, +may at that distance of time be incapable of removing.” +With this author, Mr. Masters, Cole had quarrelled so often, +that Masters writes, “I am well acquainted with the fickleness +of his disposition for more than forty years past.”</p> +<p>When the lid was removed from this Pandora’s box, it +happened that some of his intimate friends were alive to +perceive in what strange figures they were exhibited by their +quondam admirer!</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Cole</span>, however, bequeathed to the nation, among his unpublished +works, a vast mass of antiquities and historical +collections, and one valuable legacy of literary materials. +When I turned over the papers of this literary antiquary, I +found the recorded cries of a literary martyr.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Cole</span> had passed a long life in the pertinacious labour of +forming an “Athenæ Cantabrigienses,” and other literary +collections—designed as a companion to the work of +Anthony Wood. These mighty labours exist in more than +fifty folio volumes in his own writing. He began these collections +about the year 1745; in a fly-leaf of 1777 I found +the following melancholy state of his feelings and a literary +confession, as forcibly expressed as it is painful to read, when +we consider that they are the wailings of a most zealous +votary:</p> +<p>“In good truth, whoever undertakes this drudgery of an +‘Athenæ Cantabrigienses’ must be contented with no prospect +of credit and reputation to himself, and with the mortifying +reflection that after all his pains and study, through +life, he must be looked upon in a humble light, and only as a +journeyman to Anthony Wood, whose excellent book of the +same sort will ever preclude any other, who shall follow him +in the same track, from all hopes of fame; and will only represent +him as an imitator of so original a pattern. For, at +this time of day, all great characters, both Cantabrigians and +Oxonians, are already published to the world, either in his +book, or various others; so that the collection, unless the +same characters are reprinted here, must be made up of +second-rate persons, and the refuse of authorship.—However, +as I have begun, and made so large a progress in this undertaking, +<i>it is death to think of leaving it off</i>, though, from the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span> +former considerations, so little credit is to be expected +from it.”</p> +<p>Such were the fruits, and such the agonies, of nearly half +a century of assiduous and zealous literary labour! Cole +urges a strong claim to be noticed among our literary calamities. +Another of his miseries was his uncertainty in what +manner he should dispose of his collections: and he has put +down this <i>naïve</i> memorandum—“I have long wavered how +to dispose of all my MS. volumes; to give them to <i>King’s +College</i>, would be to throw them into a <i>horsepond</i>; and I had +as lieve do one as the other; they are generally so <i>conceited of +their Latin and Greek, that all other studies are barbarism</i>.”<a name='FNanchor_0069' id='FNanchor_0069'></a><a href='#Footnote_0069' class='fnanchor'>[69]</a></p> +<p>The dread of incompleteness has attended the life-labours +(if the expression may be allowed) of several other authors +who have never published their works. Such was the +learned Bishop <span class='smcap'>Lloyd</span>, and the Rev. <span class='smcap'>Thomas Baker</span>, who +was first engaged in the same pursuit as Cole, and carried it +on to the extent of about forty volumes in folio. Lloyd is +described by Burnet as having “many volumes of materials +upon all subjects, so that he could, with very little labour, +write on any of them, with more life in his imagination, and +a truer judgment, than may seem consistent with such a +laborious course of study; but he did not lay out his learning +with the same diligence as he laid it in.” It is mortifying +to learn, in the words of Johnson, that “he was always +hesitating and inquiring, raising objections, and removing +them, and waiting for clearer light and fuller discovery.” +Many of the labours of this learned bishop were at length +consumed in the kitchen of his descendant. “Baker (says +Johnson), after many years passed in biography, left his +manuscripts to be buried in a library, because that was imperfect +which could never be perfected.” And to complete +the absurdity, or to heighten the calamity which the want +of these useful labours makes every literary man feel, half of +the collections of Baker sleep in their dust in a turret of the +University; while the other, deposited in our national library +at the British Museum, and frequently used, are rendered +imperfect by this unnatural divorce.</p> +<p>I will illustrate the character of a laborious author by that +of <span class='smcap'>Anthony Wood</span>.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span></div> +<p><span class='smcap'>Wood’s</span> “Athenæ Oxonienses” is a history of near a +thousand of our native authors; he paints their characters, +and enters into the spirit of their writings. But authors of +this complexion, and works of this nature, are liable to be +slighted; for the fastidious are petulant, the volatile inexperienced, +and those who cultivate a single province in literature +are disposed, too often, to lay all others under a state +of interdiction.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Warburton</span>, in a work thrown out in the heat of unchastised +youth, and afterwards withdrawn from public inquiry, +has said of the “Athenæ Oxonienses”—</p> +<p>“Of all those writings given us by the learned Oxford +antiquary, there is not one that is not a disgrace to letters; +most of them are so to common sense, and some even to +human nature. Yet how set out! how tricked! how +adorned! how extolled!”<a name='FNanchor_0070' id='FNanchor_0070'></a><a href='#Footnote_0070' class='fnanchor'>[70]</a></p> +<p>The whole tenor of Wood’s life testifies, as he himself tells +us, that “books and MSS. formed his Elysium, and he wished +to be dead to the world.” This sovereign passion marked him +early in life, and the image of death could not disturb it. +When young, “he walked mostly alone, was given much to +thinking and melancholy.” The <i>deliciæ</i> of his life were the +more liberal studies of painting and music, intermixed with +those of antiquity; nor could his family; who checked such +unproductive studies, ever check his love of them. With +what a firm and noble spirit he says—</p> +<p>“When he came to full years, he perceived it was his natural +genie, and he could not avoid them—they crowded on +him—he could never give a reason why he should delight in +those studies, more than in others, so prevalent was nature, +mixed with a generosity of mind, and a hatred to all that +was servile, sneaking, or advantageous for lucre-sake.”</p> +<p>These are not the roundings of a period, but the pure expressions +of a man who had all the simplicity of childhood in +his feelings. Could such vehement emotions have been excited +in the unanimated breast of a clod of literature? Thus +early Anthony Wood betrayed the characteristics of genius; +nor did the literary passion desert him in his last moments. +With his dying hands he still grasped his beloved papers, +and his last mortal thoughts dwelt on his <i>Athenæ Oxonienses</i>.<a name='FNanchor_0071' id='FNanchor_0071'></a><a href='#Footnote_0071' class='fnanchor'>[71]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span></div> +<p>It is no common occurrence to view an author speechless +in the hour of death, yet fervently occupied by his posthumous +fame. Two friends went into his study to sort that vast +multitude of papers, notes, letters—his more private ones he +had ordered not to be opened for seven years; about two +bushels full were ordered for the fire, which they had lighted +for the occasion. “As he was expiring, he expressed both his +knowledge and approbation of what was done by throwing +out his hands.”</p> +<p>Turn over his Herculean labour; do not admire less his +fearlessness of danger, than his indefatigable pursuit of truth. +He wrote of his contemporaries as if he felt a right to judge +of them, and as if he were living in the succeeding age; +courtier, fanatic, or papist, were much alike to honest Anthony; +for he professes himself “such an universal lover of all +mankind, that he wished there might be no cheat put upon +readers and writers in the business of commendations. And +(says he) since every one will have a double balance, one for +his own party, and another for his adversary, all he could do +is to amass together what every side thinks will make best +weight for themselves. Let posterity hold the scales.”</p> +<p>Anthony might have added, “I have held them.” This +uninterrupted activity of his spirits was the action of a sage, +not the bustle of one intent merely on heaping up a book.</p> +<p>“He never wrote in post, with his body and thoughts in a +hurry, but in a fixed abode, and with a deliberate pen. And +he never concealed an ungrateful truth, nor flourished over a +weak place, but in sincerity of meaning and expression.”</p> +<p>Anthony Wood cloistered an athletic mind, a hermit critic +abstracted from the world, existing more with posterity than +amid his contemporaries. His prejudices were the keener +from the very energies of the mind that produced them; but, +as he practises no deception on his reader, we know the causes +of his anger or his love. And, as an original thinker creates +a style for himself, from the circumstance of not attending +to style at all, but to feeling, so Anthony Wood’s has all the +peculiarity of the writer. Critics of short views have attempted +to screen it from ridicule, attributing his uncouth +style to the age he lived in. But not one in his own time +nor since, has composed in the same style. The austerity +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span> +and the quickness of his feelings vigorously stamped all their +roughness and vivacity on every sentence. He describes his +own style as “an honest, plain English dress, without flourishes +or affectation of style, as best becomes a history of +truth and matters of fact. It is the first (work) of its nature +that has ever been printed in our own, or in any other +mother-tongue.”</p> +<p>It is, indeed, an honest Montaigne-like simplicity. Acrimonious +and cynical, he is always sincere, and never dull. +Old Anthony to me is an admirable character-painter, for +anger and love are often picturesque. And among our literary +historians he might be compared, for the effect he produces, +to Albert Durer, whose kind of antique rudeness has a +sharp outline, neither beautiful nor flowing; and, without a +genius for the magic of light and shade, he is too close a +copier of Nature to affect us by ideal forms.</p> +<p>The independence of his mind nerved his ample volumes, +his fortitude he displayed in the contest with the University +itself, and his firmness in censuring Lord Clarendon, the head +of his own party. Could such a work, and such an original +manner, have proceeded from an ordinary intellect? Wit +may sparkle, and sarcasm may bite; but the cause of literature +is injured when the industry of such a mind is ranked +with that of “the hewers of wood, and drawers of water:” +ponderous compilers of creeping commentators. Such a work +as the “Athenæ Oxonienses” involved in its pursuits some of +the higher qualities of the intellect; a voluntary devotion of +life, a sacrifice of personal enjoyments, a noble design combining +many views, some present and some prescient, a clear +vigorous spirit equally diffused over a vast surface. But it is +the hard fate of authors of this class to be levelled with their +inferiors!</p> +<p>Let us exhibit one more picture of the calamities of a laborious +author, in the character of <span class='smcap'>Joshua Barnes</span>, editor of +Homer, Euripides, and Anacreon, and the writer of a vast +number of miscellaneous compositions in history and poetry. +Besides the works he published, he left behind him nearly fifty +unfinished ones; many were epic poems, all intended to be in +twelve books, and some had reached their eighth! His folio +volume of “The History of Edward III.” is a labour of valuable +research. He wrote with equal facility in Greek, Latin, +and his own language, and he wrote all his days; and, in a +word, having little or nothing but his Greek professorship, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span> +not exceeding forty pounds a year, Barnes, who had a great +memory, a little imagination, and no judgment, saw the close +of a life, devoted to the studies of humanity, settle around +him in gloom and despair. The great idol of his mind was +the edition of his Homer, which seems to have completed +his ruin; he was haunted all his days with a notion that he +was persecuted by envy, and much undervalued in the world; +the sad consolation of the secondary and third-rate authors, +who often die persuaded of the existence of ideal enemies. +To be enabled to publish his Homer at an enormous charge, +he wrote a poem, the design of which is to prove that Solomon +was the author of the Iliad; and it has been said that this +was done to interest his wife, who had some property, to lend +her aid towards the publication of so divine a work. This +happy pun was applied for his epitaph:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcap'>Joshua Barnes</span>,</p> +<p class='center cg'>Felicis memoriæ, judicium expectans.</p> +<p class='center cg'><i>Here lieth</i></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcap'>Joshua Barnes</span>,</p> +<p class='center cg'>Of happy memory, awaiting judgment!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The year before he died he addressed the following letter +to the Earl of Oxford, which I transcribe from the original. +It is curious to observe how the veteran and unhappy scribbler, +after his vows of retirement from the world of letters, +thoroughly disgusted with “all human learning,” gently hints +to his patron, that he has ready for the press, a singular +variety of contrasted works; yet even then he did not venture +to disclose one-tenth part of his concealed treasures!</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='center smcaplc'>“TO THE EARL OF OXFORD.</p> +<p class='ralign'><i>Oct. 16, 1711.</i></p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>My Hon. Lord</span>,</p> +<p>“This, not in any doubt of your goodness and high +respect to learning, for I have fresh instances of it every day; +but because I am prevented in my design of waiting personally +on you, being called away by my business for +Cambridge, to read Greek lectures this term; and my circumstances +are pressing, being, through the combination of booksellers, +and the meaner arts of others, too much prejudiced in +the sale. I am not neither sufficiently ascertained whether +my Homer and letters came to your honour; surely the vast +charges of that edition has almost broke my courage, there +being much more trouble in putting off the impression, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span> +contending with a subtle and unkind world, than in all the +study and management of the press.</p> +<p>“Others, my lord, are younger, and their hopes and helps +are fresher; I have done as much in the way of learning as +any man living, but have received less encouragement than +any, having nothing but my Greek professorship, which is +but forty pounds per annum, that I can call my own, and +more than half of that is taken up by my expenses of lodging +and diet in terme time at Cambridge.</p> +<p>“I was obliged to take up three hundred and fifty pounds +on interest towards this last work, whereof I still owe two +hundred pounds, and two hundred more for the printing; the +whole expense arising to about one thousand pounds. I +have lived in the university above thirty years, fellow of a +college now above forty years’ standing, and fifty-eight years +of age; am bachelor of divinity, and have preached before +kings; but am now your honour’s suppliant, and would fain +retire from the study of humane learning, which has been so +little beneficial to me, if I might have a little prebend, or +sufficient anchor to lay hold on; only I have two or three +matters ready for the press—an ecclesiastical history, Latin; +an heroic poem of the Black Prince, Latin; another of Queen +Anne, English, finished; a treatise of Columnes, Latin; and +an accurate treatise about Homer, Greek, Latin, &c. I would +fain be permitted the honour to make use of your name in +some one, or most of these, and to be, &c.,</p> +<p class='sig3'> “<span class='smcap'>Joshua Barnes.</span>”<a name='FNanchor_0072' id='FNanchor_0072'></a><a href='#Footnote_0072' class='fnanchor'>[72]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>He died nine months afterwards. Homer did not improve +in sale; and the sweets of patronage were not even tasted. +This, then, is the history of a man of great learning, of the +most pertinacious industry, but somewhat allied to the family +of the <i>Scribleri</i>.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_DESPAIR_OF_YOUNG_POETS' id='THE_DESPAIR_OF_YOUNG_POETS'></a> +<h3>THE DESPAIR OF YOUNG POETS.</h3> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>William Pattison</span> was a young poet who perished in his +twentieth year; his character and his fate resemble those of +Chatterton. He was one more child of that family of genius, +whose passions, like the torch, kindle but to consume themselves.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span></div> +<p>The youth of Pattison was that of a poet. Many become +irrecoverably poets by local influence; and Beattie could +hardly have thrown his “Minstrel” into a more poetical +solitude than the singular spot which was haunted by our +young bard. His first misfortune was that of having an +anti-poetical parent; his next was that of having discovered +a spot which confirmed his poetical habits, inspiring all the +melancholy and sensibility he loved to indulge. This spot, +which in his fancy resembled some favourite description in +Cowley, he called “Cowley’s Walk.” Some friend, who was +himself no common painter of fancy, has delineated the whole +scenery with minute touches, and a freshness of colouring, +warm with reality. Such a poetical habitation becomes a +part of the poet himself, reflecting his character, and even +descriptive of his manners.</p> +<p>“On one side of ‘Cowley’s Walk’ is a huge rock, grown +over with moss and ivy climbing on its sides, and in some +parts small trees spring out of the crevices of the rock; at +the bottom are a wild plantation of irregular trees, in every +part looking aged and venerable. Among these cavities, one +larger than the rest was the cave he loved to sit in: arched +like a canopy, its rustic borders were edged with ivy hanging +down, overshadowing the place, and hence he called it (for +poets must give a name to every object they love) ‘Hederinda,’ +bearing ivy. At the foot of this grotto a stream of +water ran along the walk, so that its level path had trees +and water on one side, and a wild rough precipice on the +other. In winter, this spot looked full of horror—the naked +trees, the dark rock, and the desolate waste; but in the +spring, the singing of the birds, the fragrancy of the flowers, +and the murmuring of the stream, blended all their enchantment.”</p> +<p>Here, in the heat of the day, he escaped into the “Hederinda,” +and shared with friends his rapture and his solitude; +and here through summer nights, in the light of the moon, +he meditated and melodised his verses by the gentle fall of +the waters. Thus was Pattison fixed and bound up in the +strongest spell the demon of poetry ever drew around a susceptible +and careless youth.</p> +<p>He was now a decided poet. At Sidney College, in Cambridge, +he was greatly loved; till, on a quarrel with a rigid +tutor, he rashly cut his name out of the college book, and +quitted it for ever in utter thoughtlessness and gaiety, leaving +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span> +his gown behind, as his <i>locum tenens</i>, to make his apology, by +pinning on it a satirical farewell.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Whoever gives himself the pains to stoop,<br /> +And take my venerable tatters up,<br /> +To his presuming inquisition I,<br /> +In <i>loco Pattisoni</i>, thus reply:<br /> +“Tired with the senseless jargon of the gown,<br /> +My master left the college for the town,<br /> +And scorns his precious minutes to regale<br /> +With wretched college-wit and college-ale.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He flew to the metropolis to take up the trade of a poet.</p> +<p>A translation of Ovid’s “Epistles” had engaged his attention +during two years; his own genius seemed inexhaustible; +and pleasure and fame were awaiting the poetical emigrant. He +resisted all kind importunities to return to college; he could +not endure submission, and declares “his spirit cannot bear +control.” One friend “fears the innumerable temptations to +which one of his complexion is liable in such a populous +place.” Pattison was much loved; he had all the generous +impetuosity of youthful genius; but he had resolved on running +the perilous career of literary glory, and he added one +more to the countless thousands who perish in obscurity.</p> +<p>His first letters are written with the same spirit that distinguishes +Chatterton’s; all he hopes he seems to realise. He +mixes among the wits, dates from Button’s, and drinks with +Concanen healths to college friends, till they lose their own; +more dangerous Muses condescend to exhibit themselves to +the young poet in the park; and he was to be introduced to +Pope. All is exultation! Miserable youth! The first thought +of prudence appears in a resolution of soliciting subscriptions +from all persons, for a volume of poems.</p> +<p>His young friends at college exerted their warm patronage; +those in his native North condemn him, and save their +crowns; Pope admits of no interview, but lends his name, +and bestows half-a-crown for a volume of poetry, which he +did not want; the poet wearies kindness, and would extort +charity even from brother-poets; petitions lords and ladies; +and, as his wants grow on him, his shame decreases.</p> +<p>How the scene has changed in a few months! He acknowledges +to a friend, that “his heart was broke through the +misfortunes he had fallen under;” he declares “he feels himself +near the borders of death.” In moments like these he +probably composed the following lines, awfully addressed,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcap'><b>AD CŒLUM!</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'>Good heaven! this mystery of life explain,<br /> +Nor let me think I bear the load in vain;<br /> +Lest, with the tedious passage cheerless grown,<br /> +Urged by despair, I throw the burden down.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But the torture of genius, when all its passions are strained +on the rack, was never more pathetically expressed than in the +following letter:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,—If you was ever touched with a sense of humanity, +consider my condition: what <i>I am</i>, my proposals will inform +you; what <i>I have been</i>, Sidney College, in Cambridge, can +witness; but what <i>I shall be</i> some few hours hence, I tremble +to think! Spare my blushes!—I have not enjoyed the common +necessaries of life for these two days, and can hardly +hold to subscribe myself,</p> +<p class='sig2'>“Yours, &c.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The picture is finished—it admits not of another stroke. +Such was the complete misery which Savage, Boyse, Chatterton, +and more innocent spirits devoted to literature, +have endured—but not long—for they must perish in their +youth!</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Henry Carey</span> was one of our most popular poets; he, +indeed, has unluckily met with only dictionary critics, or +what is as fatal to genius, the cold and undistinguishing commendation +of grave men on subjects of humour, wit, and the +lighter poetry. The works of Carey do not appear in any of +our great collections, where Walsh, Duke, and Yalden slumber +on the shelf.</p> +<p>Yet Carey was a true son of the Muses, and the most successful +writer in our language. He is the author of several +little national poems. In early life he successfully burlesqued +the affected versification of Ambrose Philips, in his baby +poems, to which he gave the fortunate appellation of “<i>Namby +Pamby</i>, a panegyric on the new versification;” a term descriptive +in sound of those chiming follies, and now become a technical +term in modern criticism. Carey’s “Namby Pamby” was +at first considered by Swift as the satirical effusion of Pope, +and by Pope as the humorous ridicule of Swift. His ballad of +“Sally in our Alley” was more than once commended for its +nature by Addison, and is sung to this day. Of the national +song, “God save the King,” it is supposed he was the author +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span> +both of the words and of the music.<a name='FNanchor_0073' id='FNanchor_0073'></a><a href='#Footnote_0073' class='fnanchor'>[73]</a> He was very successful +on the stage, and wrote admirable burlesques of the Italian +Opera, in “The Dragon of Wantley,” and “The Dragoness;” +and the mock tragedy of “Chrononhotonthologos” is not +forgotten. Among his Poems lie still concealed several original +pieces; those which have a political turn are particularly +good, for the politics of Carey were those of a poet and +a patriot. I refer the politician who has any taste for poetry +and humour to “The Grumbletonians, or the Dogs without +doors, a Fable,” very instructive to those grown-up folks, +“The Ins and the Outs.” “Carey’s Wish” is in this class; +and, as the purity of election remains still among the desiderata +of every true Briton, a poem on that subject by the +patriotic author of our national hymn of “God save the King” +may be acceptable.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>CAREY’S WISH.</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Cursed be the wretch that’s bought and sold,<br /> +And barters liberty for gold;<br /> +For when election is not free,<br /> +In vain we boast of liberty:<br /> +And he who sells his single right,<br /> +Would sell his country, if he might.<br /> +<br /> +When liberty is put to sale<br /> +For wine, for money, or for ale,<br /> +The sellers must be abject slaves,<br /> +The buyers vile designing knaves;<br /> +A proverb it has been of old,<br /> +The devil’s bought but to be sold.<br /> +<br /> +This maxim in the statesman’s school<br /> +Is always taught, <i>divide and rule</i>.<br /> +All parties are to him a joke:<br /> +While zealots foam, he fits the yoke.<br /> +Let men their reason once resume;<br /> +’Tis then the statesman’s turn to fume.<br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span><br /> +Learn, learn, ye Britons, to unite;<br /> +Leave off the old exploded bite;<br /> +Henceforth let Whig and Tory cease,<br /> +And turn all party rage to peace;<br /> +Rouse and revive your ancient glory;<br /> +Unite, and drive the world before you.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>To the ballad of “Sally in our Alley” Carey has prefixed +an argument so full of nature, that the song may hereafter +derive an additional interest from its simple origin. The +author assures the reader that the popular notion that the +subject of his ballad had been the noted Sally Salisbury, +is perfectly erroneous, he being a stranger to her name at the +time the song was composed.</p> +<p>“As innocence and virtue were ever the boundaries of his +Muse, so in this little poem he had no other view than to set +forth the beauty of a chaste and disinterested passion, even +in the lowest class of human life. The real occasion was this: +A shoemaker’s ’prentice, making holiday with his sweetheart, +treated her with a sight of Bedlam, the puppet-shows, the +flying-chairs, and all the elegancies of Moorfields; from whence, +proceeding to the Farthing Pye-house, he gave her a collation +of buns, cheesecakes, gammon of bacon, stuffed beef, and bottled +ale; through all which scenes the author dodged them +(charmed with the simplicity of their courtship), from whence +he drew this little sketch of Nature; but, being then young +and obscure, he was very much ridiculed for this performance; +which, nevertheless, made its way into the polite world, +and amply recompensed him by the applause of the divine +Addison, who was pleased (more than once) to mention it +with approbation.”</p> +<p>In “The Poet’s Resentment” poor Carey had once forsworn +“the harlot Muse:”—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Far, far away then chase the harlot Muse,<br /> +Nor let her thus thy noon of life abuse;<br /> +Mix with the common crowd, unheard, unseen,<br /> +And if again thou tempt’st the vulgar praise,<br /> +Mayst thou be crown’d with birch instead of bays!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Poets make such oaths in sincerity, and break them in +rapture.</p> +<p>At the time that this poet could neither walk the streets +nor be seated at the convivial board, without listening to his +own songs and his own music—for, in truth, the whole nation +was echoing his verse, and crowded theatres were applauding +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' name='page_104'></a>104</span> +his wit and humour—while this very man himself, urged by +his strong humanity, founded a “Fund for decayed Musicians”—he +was so broken-hearted, and his own common comforts +so utterly neglected, that in despair, not waiting for +nature to relieve him from the burden of existence, he laid +violent hands on himself; and when found dead, had only a +halfpenny in his pocket! Such was the fate of the author of +some of the most popular pieces in our language. He left a +son, who inherited his misery, and a gleam of his genius.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_MISERIES_OF_THE_FIRST_ENGLISH_COMMENTATOR' id='THE_MISERIES_OF_THE_FIRST_ENGLISH_COMMENTATOR'></a> +<h3>THE MISERIES OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COMMENTATOR.</h3> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>Dr. Zachary Grey</span>, the editor of “Hudibras,” is the father of +our modern commentators.<a name='FNanchor_0074' id='FNanchor_0074'></a><a href='#Footnote_0074' class='fnanchor'>[74]</a> His case is rather peculiar; I +know not whether the father, by an odd anticipation, was +doomed to suffer for the sins of his children, or whether his +own have been visited on the third generation; it is certain +that never was an author more overpowered by the attacks he +received from the light and indiscriminating shafts of ignorant +wits. He was ridiculed and abused for having assisted us to +comprehend the wit of an author, which, without that aid, at +this day would have been nearly lost to us; and whose singular +subject involved persons and events which required the very +thing he gave,—historical and explanatory notes.</p> +<p>A first thought, and all the danger of an original invention, +which is always imperfectly understood by the superficial, was +poor Dr. Grey’s merit. He was modest and laborious, and +he had the sagacity to discover what Butler wanted, and +what the public required. His project was a happy thought, +to commentate on a singular work which has scarcely a parallel +in modern literature, if we except the “Satyre Ménippée” +of the French, which is, in prose, the exact counterpart of +“Hudibras” in rhyme; for our rivals have had the same state +revolution, in which the same dramatic personages passed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span> +over their national stage, with the same incidents, in the civil +wars of the ambitious Guises, and the citizen-reformers. They, +too, found a Butler, though in prose, a Grey in Duchat, and, +as well as they could, a Hogarth. An edition, which +appeared in 1711, might have served as the model of Grey’s +<a name='TC_8'></a><ins title="Was 'Hubidras'">Hudibras</ins>.</p> +<p>It was, however, a happy thought in our commentator, to +turn over the contemporary writers to collect the events and +discover the personages alluded to by Butler; to read what +the poet read, to observe what the poet observed. This was +at once throwing himself and the reader back into an age, of +which even the likeness had disappeared, and familiarising us with +distant objects, which had been lost to us in the haze and mists +of time. For this, not only a new mode of travelling, but a +new road was to be opened; the secret history, the fugitive +pamphlet, the obsolete satire, the ancient comedy—such were +the many curious volumes whose dust was to be cleared away, +to cast a new radiance on the fading colours of a moveable +picture of manners; the wittiest ever exhibited to mankind. +This new mode of research, even at this moment, is imperfectly +comprehended, still ridiculed even by those who could never +have understood a writer who will only be immortal in the +degree he is comprehended—and whose wit could not have +been felt but for the laborious curiosity of him whose “reading” +has been too often aspersed for “such reading”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>As was never read.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Grey was outrageously attacked by all the wits, first by +Warburton, in his preface to Shakspeare, who declares that +“he hardly thinks there ever appeared so execrable a heap of +nonsense under the name of commentaries, as hath been lately +given us on a certain satyric poet of the last age.” It is +odd enough, Warburton had himself contributed towards these +very notes, but, for some cause which has not been discovered, +had quarrelled with Dr. Grey. I will venture a conjecture +on this great conjectural critic. Warburton was always meditating +to give an edition of his own of our old writers, and +the sins he committed against Shakspeare he longed to +practise on Butler, whose times were, indeed, a favourite period +of his researches. Grey had anticipated him, and though +Warburton had half reluctantly yielded the few notes he had +prepared, his proud heart sickened when he beheld the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span> +amazing subscription Grey obtained for his first edition of +“Hudibras;” he received for that work 1500<i>l.</i><a name='FNanchor_0075' id='FNanchor_0075'></a><a href='#Footnote_0075' class='fnanchor'>[75]</a>—a proof that +this publication was felt as a want by the public.</p> +<p>Such, however, is one of those blunt, dogmatic censures in +which Warburton abounds, to impress his readers with the +weight of his opinions; this great man wrote more for effect +than any other of our authors, as appears by his own or some +friend’s confession, that if his edition of Shakspeare did no +honour to that bard, this was not the design of the commentator—which +was only to do honour to himself by a display +of his own exuberant erudition.</p> +<p>The poignant Fielding, in his preface to his “Journey to +Lisbon,” has a fling at the gravity of our doctor. “The +laborious, much-read Dr. Z. Grey, of whose redundant notes +on ‘Hudibras’ I shall only say that it is, I am confident, the +single book extant in which above 500 authors are quoted, not +one of which could be found in the collection of the late Dr. +Mead.” Mrs. Montague, in her letters, severely characterises +the miserable father of English commentators; she wrote in +youth and spirits, with no knowledge of books, and <i>before</i> +even the unlucky commentator had published his work, but wit +is the bolder by anticipation. She observes that “his dulness +may be a proper ballast for doggrel; and it is better that +his stupidity should make jest dull than serious and sacred +things ridiculous;” alluding to his numerous theological +tracts.</p> +<p>Such then are the hard returns which some authors are +doomed to receive as the rewards of useful labours from those +who do not even comprehend their nature; a wit should not +be admitted as a critic till he has first proved by his gravity, +or his dulness if he chooses, that he has some knowledge; for +it is the privilege and nature of wit to write fastest and best +on what it least understands. Knowledge only encumbers and +confines its flights.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_LIFE_OF_AN_AUTHORESS' id='THE_LIFE_OF_AN_AUTHORESS'></a> +<h3>THE LIFE OF AN AUTHORESS.</h3> +</div> +<p>Of all the sorrows in which the female character may participate, +there are few more affecting than those of an authoress;—often +insulated and unprotected in society—with all the +sensibility of the sex, encountering miseries which break the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span> +spirits of men; with the repugnance arising from that delicacy +which trembles when it quits its retirement.</p> +<p>My acquaintance with an unfortunate lady of the name of +<span class='smcap'>Eliza Ryves</span>, was casual and interrupted; yet I witnessed +the bitterness of “hope deferred, which maketh the heart +sick.” She sunk, by the slow wastings of grief, into a grave +which probably does not record the name of its martyr of +literature.</p> +<p>She was descended from a family of distinction in Ireland; +but as she expressed it, “she had been deprived of her birthright +by the chicanery of law.” In her former hours of tranquillity +she had published some elegant odes, had written a +tragedy and comedies—all which remained in MS. In her +distress she looked up to her pen as a source of existence; and +an elegant genius and a woman of polished manners commenced +the life of a female trader in literature.</p> +<p>Conceive the repulses of a modest and delicate woman in +her attempts to appreciate the value of a manuscript with its +purchaser. She has frequently returned from the booksellers +to her dreadful solitude to hasten to her bed—in all the bodily +pains of misery, she has sought in uneasy slumbers a temporary +forgetfulness of griefs which were to recur on the +morrow. Elegant literature is always of doubtful acceptance +with the public, and Eliza Ryves came at length to try the +most masculine exertions of the pen. She wrote for one newspaper +much political matter; but the proprietor was too great +a politician for the writer of politics, for he only praised the +labour he never paid; much poetry for another, in which, +being one of the correspondents of Della Crusca, in payment +of her verses she got nothing but verses; the most astonishing +exertion for a female pen was the entire composition of +the historical and political portion of some Annual Register. +So little profitable were all these laborious and original efforts, +that every day did not bring its “daily bread.” Yet even in +her poverty her native benevolence could make her generous; +for she has deprived herself of her meal to provide with one +an unhappy family dwelling under the same roof.</p> +<p>Advised to adopt the mode of translation, and being ignorant +of the French language, she retired to an obscure lodging +at Islington, which she never quitted till she had produced a +good version of Rousseau’s “Social Compact,” Raynal’s +“Letter to the National Assembly,” and finally translated +De la Croix’s “Review of the Constitutions of the principal +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span> +States in Europe,” in two large volumes with intelligent +notes. All these works, so much at variance with her taste, +left her with her health much broken, and a mind which might +be said to have nearly survived the body.</p> +<p>Yet even at a moment so unfavourable, her ardent spirit +engaged in a translation of Froissart. At the British Museum +I have seen her conning over the magnificent and voluminous +MS. of the old chronicler, and by its side Lord Berners’ version, +printed in the reign of Henry VIII. It was evident +that his lordship was employed as a spy on Froissart, to inform +her of what was going forward in the French camp; and she +soon perceived, for her taste was delicate, that it required an +ancient lord and knight, with all his antiquity of phrase, +to break a lance with the still more ancient chivalric +Frenchman. The familiar elegance of modern style failed +to preserve the picturesque touches and the <i>naïve</i> graces +of the chronicler, who wrote as the mailed knight combated—roughly +or gracefully, as suited the tilt or the field. She +vailed to Lord Berners; while she felt it was here necessary +to understand old French, and then to write it in old +English.<a name='FNanchor_0076' id='FNanchor_0076'></a><a href='#Footnote_0076' class='fnanchor'>[76]</a> During these profitless labours hope seemed to be +whispering in her lonely study. Her comedies had been in +possession of the managers of the theatres during several +years. They had too much merit to be rejected, perhaps too +little to be acted. Year passed over year, and the last still +repeated the treacherous promise of its brother. The mysterious +arts of procrastination are by no one so well systematised +as by the theatrical manager, nor its secret sorrows so +deeply felt as by the dramatist. One of her comedies, <i>The +Debt of Honour</i>, had been warmly approved at both theatres—where +probably a copy of it may still be found. To the +honour of one of the managers, he presented her with a +hundred pounds on his acceptance of it. Could she avoid then +flattering herself with an annual harvest?</p> +<p>But even this generous gift, which involved in it such +golden promises, could not for ten years preserve its delusion. +“I feel,” said Eliza Ryves, “the necessity of some powerful +patronage, to bring my comedies forward to the world with +<i>éclat</i>, and secure them an admiration which, should it even be +deserved, is seldom bestowed, unless some leading judge of +literary merit gives the sanction of his applause; and then +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span> +the world will chime in with his opinion, without taking the +trouble to inform themselves whether it be founded in justice +or partiality.” She never suspected that her comedies were +not comic!—but who dare hold an argument with an ingenious +mind, when it reasons from a right principle, with a wrong +application to itself? It is true that a writer’s connexions +have often done a great deal for a small author, and enabled +some favourites of literary fashion to enjoy a usurped reputation; +but it is not so evident that Eliza Ryves was a comic +writer, although, doubtless, she appeared another Menander +to herself. And thus an author dies in a delusion of self-flattery!</p> +<p>The character of Eliza Ryves was rather tender and melancholy, +than brilliant and gay; and like the bruised perfume—breathing +sweetness when broken into pieces. She traced +her sorrows in a work of fancy, where her feelings were at +least as active as her imagination. It is a small volume, entitled +“The Hermit of Snowden.” Albert, opulent and +fashionable, feels a passion for Lavinia, and meets the kindest +return; but, having imbibed an ill opinion of women from his +licentious connexions, he conceived they were slaves of passion, +or of avarice. He wrongs the generous nature of +Lavinia, by suspecting her of mercenary views; hence arise +the perplexities of the hearts of both. Albert affects to be +ruined, and spreads the report of an advantageous match. +Lavinia feels all the delicacy of her situation; she loves, but +“she never told her love.” She seeks for her existence in +her literary labours, and perishes in want.</p> +<p>In the character of Lavinia, our authoress, with all the +melancholy sagacity of genius, foresaw and has described her +own death!—the dreadful solitude to which she was latterly +condemned, when in the last stage of her poverty; her frugal +mode of life; her acute sensibility; her defrauded hopes; and +her exalted fortitude. She has here formed a register of all +that occurred in her solitary existence. I will give one scene—to +me it is pathetic—for it is like a scene at which I was +present:—</p> +<p>“Lavinia’s lodgings were about two miles from town, in +an obscure situation. I was showed up to a mean apartment, +where Lavinia was sitting at work, and in a dress which indicated +the greatest economy. I inquired what success she +had met with in her dramatic pursuits. She waved her +head, and, with a melancholy smile, replied, ‘that her hopes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span> +of ever bringing any piece on the stage were now entirely +over; for she found that more interest was necessary for the +purpose than she could command, and that she had for that +reason laid aside her comedy for ever!’ While she was talking, +came in a favourite dog of Lavinia’s, which I had used +to caress. The creature sprang to my arms, and I received +him with my usual fondness. Lavinia endeavoured to conceal +a tear which trickled down her cheek. Afterwards she said, +‘Now that I live entirely alone, I show Juno more attention +than I had used to do formerly. <i>The heart wants something +to be kind to</i>; and it consoles us for the loss of society, to +see even an animal derive happiness from the endearments we +bestow upon it.’”</p> +<p>Such was Eliza Ryves! not beautiful nor interesting in +her person, but with a mind of fortitude, susceptible of all +the delicacy of feminine softness, and virtuous amid her +despair.<a name='FNanchor_0077' id='FNanchor_0077'></a><a href='#Footnote_0077' class='fnanchor'>[77]</a></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_INDISCRETION_OF_AN_HISTORIAN_THOMAS_CARTE' id='THE_INDISCRETION_OF_AN_HISTORIAN_THOMAS_CARTE'></a> +<h3>THE INDISCRETION OF AN HISTORIAN.</h3> +<h4>THOMAS CARTE.</h4> +</div> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Carte</span>,” says Mr. Hallam, “is the most exact historian we +have;” and Daines Barrington prefers his authority to that +of any other, and many other writers confirm this opinion. +Yet had this historian been an ordinary compiler, he could +not have incurred a more mortifying fate; for he was compelled +to retail in shilling numbers that invaluable history +which we have only learned of late times to appreciate, and +which was the laborious fruits of self-devotion.</p> +<p>Carte was the first of our historians who had the sagacity +and the fortitude to ascertain where the true sources of our +history lie. He discovered a new world beyond the old one +of our research, and not satisfied in gleaning the <i>res historica</i> +from its original writers—a merit which has not always been +possessed by some of our popular historians—Carte opened +those subterraneous veins of secret history from whence even +the original writers of our history, had they possessed them, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span> +might have drawn fresh knowledge and more ample views. +Our domestic or civil history was scarcely attempted till +Carte planned it; while all his laborious days and his literary +travels on the Continent were absorbed in the creation of a +<i>History of England</i> and of a <i>Public Library</i> in the metropolis, +for we possessed neither. A diligent foreigner, Rapin, +had compiled our history, and had opportunely found in +the vast collection of Rymer’s “Fœdera” a rich accession of +knowledge; but a foreigner could not sympathise with the +feelings, or even understand the language, of the domestic +story of our nation; our rolls and records, our state-letters, the +journals of parliament, and those of the privy-council; an +abundant source of private memoirs; and the hidden treasures +in the state-paper office, the Cottonian and Harleian libraries; +all these, and much besides, the sagacity of Carte contemplated. +He had further been taught—by his own examination +of the true documents of history, which he found preserved +among the ancient families of France, who with a warm +patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, “often carefully preserved +in their families the acts of their ancestors;” and the <i>trésor +des chartes</i> and the <i>dépôt pour les affaires étrangères</i> (the state-paper +office of France),—that the history of our country is +interwoven with that of its neighbours, as well as with that of +our own countrymen.<a name='FNanchor_0078' id='FNanchor_0078'></a><a href='#Footnote_0078' class='fnanchor'>[78]</a></p> +<p>Carte, with these enlarged views, and firm with diligence +which never paused, was aware that such labours—both for the +expense and assistance they demand—exceeded the powers of +a private individual; but “what a single man cannot do,” +he said, “may be easily done by a society, and the value of an +opera subscription would be sufficient to patronise a History +of England.” His valuable “History of the Duke of Ormond” +had sufficiently announced the sort of man who solicited this +necessary aid; nor was the moment unpropitious to his fondest +hopes, for a <i>Society for the Encouragement of Learning</i> had +been formed, and this impulse of public spirit, however weak, +had, it would seem, roused into action some unexpected +quarters. When Carte’s project was made known, a large +subscription was raised to defray the expense of transcripts, +and afford a sufficient independence to the historian; many of +the nobility and the gentry subscribed ten or twenty guineas +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span> +annually, and several of the corporate bodies in the city +honourably appeared as the public patrons of the literature of +their nation. He had, perhaps, nearly a thousand a year +subscribed, which he employed on the History. Thus everything +promised fair both for the history and for the historian +of our fatherland, and about this time he zealously published +another proposal for the erection of a public library in the +Mansion-house. “There is not,” observed Carte, “a great +city in Europe so ill-provided with public libraries as London.” +He enters into a very interesting and minute narrative of the +public libraries of Paris.<a name='FNanchor_0079' id='FNanchor_0079'></a><a href='#Footnote_0079' class='fnanchor'>[79]</a> He then also suggested the purchase +of ten thousand manuscripts of the Earl of Oxford, +which the nation now possess in the Harleian collection.</p> +<p>Though Carte failed to persuade our opulent citizens to +purchase this costly honour, it is probably to his suggestion +that the nation owes the British Museum. The ideas of the +literary man are never thrown away, however vain at the +moment, or however profitless to himself. Time preserves +without injuring the image of his mind, and a following age +often performs what the preceding failed to comprehend.</p> +<p>It was in 1743 that this work was projected, in 1747 the +first volume appeared. One single act of indiscretion, an unlucky +accident rather than a premeditated design, overturned +in a moment this monument of history;—for it proved that +our Carte, however enlarged were his views of what history +ought to consist, and however experienced in collecting its +most authentic materials, and accurate in their statement, was +infected by a superstitious jacobitism, which seemed likely to +spread itself through his extensive history. Carte indeed was +no philosopher, but a very faithful historian.</p> +<p>Having unhappily occasion to discuss whether the King of +England had, from the time of Edward the Confessor, the +power of healing inherent in him before his unction, or +whether the gift was conveyed by ecclesiastical hands, to +show the efficacy of the royal touch, he added an idle story, +which had come under his own observation, of a person who +appeared to have been so healed. Carte said of this unlucky +personage, so unworthily introduced five hundred years before +he was born, that he had been sent to Paris to be touched by +“the eldest lineal descendant of a race of kings who had +indeed for a long succession of ages cured that distemper by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span> +the royal touch.” The insinuation was unquestionably in +favour of the Pretender, although the name of the prince was +not avowed, and was a sort of promulgation of the right +divine to the English throne.</p> +<p>The first news our author heard of his elaborate history +was the discovery of this unforeseen calamity; the public +indignation was roused, and subscribers, public and private, +hastened to withdraw their names. The historian was left +forlorn and abandoned amid his extensive collections, and +Truth, which was about to be drawn out of her well by +this robust labourer, was no longer imagined to lie concealed +at the bottom of the waters.</p> +<p>Thunderstruck at this dreadful reverse to all his hopes, and +witnessing the unrequited labour of more than thirty years +withered in an hour, the unhappy Carte drew up a faint +appeal, rendered still more weak by a long and improbable +tale, that the objectionable illustration had been merely a +private note which by mistake had been printed, and only +designed to show that the person who had been healed improperly +attributed his cure to the sanative virtue of the +regal unction; since the prince in question had never been +anointed. But this was plunging from Scylla into Charybdis, +for it inferred that the Stuarts inherited the heavenly-gifted +touch by descent. This could not avail; yet heavy +was the calamity! for now an historian of the utmost probity +and exactness, and whose labours were never equalled +for their scope and extent, was ruined for an absurd but not +peculiar opinion, and an indiscretion which was more ludicrous +than dishonest.</p> +<p>This shock of public opinion was met with a fortitude +which only strong minds experience; Carte was the true +votary of study,—by habit, by devotion, and by pleasure, he +persevered in producing an invaluable folio every two years; +but from three thousand copies he was reduced to seven +hundred and fifty, and the obscure patronage of the few who +knew how to appreciate them. Death only arrested the historian’s +pen—in the fourth volume. We have lost the important +period of the reign of the second Charles, of which +Carte declared that he had read “a series of memoirs from +the beginning to the end of that reign which would have +laid open all those secret intrigues which Burnet with all his +genius for conjecture does not pretend to account for.”</p> +<p>So precious were the MS. collections Carte left behind +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span> +him, that the proprietor valued them at 1500<i>l.</i>; Philip Earl +of Hardwicke paid 200<i>l.</i> only for the perusal, and Macpherson +a larger sum for their use; and Hume, without Carte, +would scarcely have any authorities. Such was the calamitous +result of Carte’s historical labours, who has left +others of a more philosophical cast, and of a finer taste in +composition, to reap the harvest whose soil had been broken +by his hand.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='LITERARY_RIDICULE_ILLUSTRATED_BY_SOME_ACCOUNT_OF_A_LITERARY_SATIRE' id='LITERARY_RIDICULE_ILLUSTRATED_BY_SOME_ACCOUNT_OF_A_LITERARY_SATIRE'></a> +<h3>LITERARY RIDICULE.</h3> +<h4>ILLUSTRATED BY SOME ACCOUNT OF A LITERARY SATIRE.</h4> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>Ridicule</span> may be considered as a species of eloquence; it +has all its vehemence, all its exaggeration, all its power of +diminution; it is irresistible! Its business is not with +truth, but with its appearance; and it is this similitude, in +perpetual comparison with the original, which, raising contempt, +produces the ridiculous.</p> +<p>There is nothing real in ridicule; the more exquisite, the +more it borrows from the imagination. When directed towards +an individual, by preserving a unity of character in all +its parts, it produces a fictitious personage, so modelled on the +prototype, that we know not to distinguish the true one from +the false. Even with an intimate knowledge of the real +object, the ambiguous image slides into our mind, for we are +at least as much influenced in our opinions by our imagination +as by our judgment. Hence some great characters have +come down to us spotted with the taints of indelible wit; +and a satirist of this class, sporting with distant resemblances +and fanciful analogies, has made the fictitious accompany +for ever the real character. Piqued with Akenside for +some reflections against Scotland, Smollett has exhibited a +man of great genius and virtue as a most ludicrous personage; +and who can discriminate, in the ridiculous physician in +“Peregrine Pickle,” what is real from what is fictitious?<a name='FNanchor_0080' id='FNanchor_0080'></a><a href='#Footnote_0080' class='fnanchor'>[80]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span></div> +<p>The banterers and ridiculers possess this provoking advantage +over sturdy honesty or nervous sensibility—their amusing +fictions affect the world more than the plain tale that +would put them down. They excite our risible emotions, +while they are reducing their adversary to contempt—otherwise +they would not be distinguished from gross slanderers. +When the wit has gained over the laughers on his side, he +has struck a blow which puts his adversary <i>hors de combat</i>. +A grave reply can never wound ridicule, which, assuming all +forms, has really none. Witty calumny and licentious raillery +are airy nothings that float about us, invulnerable from +their very nature, like those chimeras of hell which the +sword of Æneas could not pierce—yet these shadows of +truth, these false images, these fictitious realities, have made +heroism tremble, turned the eloquence of wisdom into folly, +and bowed down the spirit of honour itself.</p> +<p>Not that the legitimate use of <span class='smcaplc'>RIDICULE</span> is denied: the +wisest men have been some of the most exquisite ridiculers; +from Socrates to the Fathers, and from the Fathers to Erasmus, +and from Erasmus to Butler and Swift. Ridicule is +more efficacious than argument; when that keen instrument +cuts what cannot be untied. “The Rehearsal” wrote down +the unnatural taste for the rhyming heroic tragedies, and +brought the nation back from sound to sense, from rant to +passion. More important events may be traced in the history +of Ridicule. When a certain set of intemperate Puritans, in +the reign of Elizabeth, the ridiculous reformists of abuses in +Church and State, congregated themselves under the literary +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span> +<i>nom de guerre</i> of <i>Martin Mar-prelate</i>, a stream of libels ran +throughout the nation. The grave discourses of the archbishop +and the prelates could never silence the hardy and +concealed libellers. They employed a moveable printing-press, +and the publishers perpetually shifting their place, long +escaped detection. They declared their works were “printed +in Europe, not far from some of the bouncing priests;” or +they were “printed over sea, in Europe, within two furlongs +of a bouncing priest, at the cost and charges of Martin Mar-prelate, +gent.” It was then that <span class='smcap'>Tom Nash</span>, whom I am +about to introduce to the reader’s more familiar acquaintance, +the most exquisite banterer of that age of genius, turned on +them their own weapons, and annihilated them into silence +when they found themselves paid in their own base coin. +He rebounded their popular ribaldry on themselves, with such +replies as “Pap with a hatchet, or a fig for my godson; or, +crack me this nut. To be sold, at the sign of the Crab-tree +Cudgel, in Thwack-coat lane.”<a name='FNanchor_0081' id='FNanchor_0081'></a><a href='#Footnote_0081' class='fnanchor'>[81]</a> Not less biting was his +“Almond for a Parrot, or an Alms for Martin.” Nash first +silenced <i>Martin Mar-prelate</i>, and the government afterwards +hanged him; Nash might be vain of the greater honour. A +ridiculer then is the best champion to meet another ridiculer; +their scurrilities magically undo each other.</p> +<p>But the abuse of ridicule is not one of the least calamities +of literature, when it withers genius, and gibbets whom it +ought to enshrine. Never let us forget that Socrates before +his judges asserted that “his persecution originated in the +licensed raillery of Aristophanes, which had so unduly influenced +the popular mind during <i>several years</i>!” And thus a +fictitious Socrates, not the great moralist, was condemned. +Armed with the most licentious ridicule, the Aretine of our +own country and times has proved that its chief magistrate +was not protected by the shield of domestic and public +virtues; a false and distorted image of an intelligent monarch +could cozen the gross many, and aid the purposes of the +subtle few.</p> +<p>There is a plague-spot in ridicule, and the man who +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span> +is touched with it can be sent forth as the jest of his +country.</p> +<p>The literary reign of Elizabeth, so fertile in every kind of +genius, exhibits a remarkable instance, in the controversy between +the witty Tom Nash and the learned Gabriel Harvey. +It will illustrate the nature of <i>the fictions of ridicule</i>, expose +the materials of which its shafts are composed, and the +secret arts by which ridicule can level a character which +seems to be placed above it.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Gabriel Harvey</span> was an author of considerable rank, but +with two learned brothers, as Wood tells us, “had the ill +luck to fall into the hands of that noted and restless buffoon, +Tom Nash.”</p> +<p>Harvey is not unknown to the lover of poetry, from his +connexion with Spenser, who loved and revered him. He is +the Hobynol whose poem is prefixed to the “Faery Queen,” +who introduced Spenser to Sir Philip Sidney: and, besides +his intimacy with the literary characters of his times, he was +a Doctor of Laws, an erudite scholar, and distinguished as a +poet. Such a man could hardly be contemptible; and yet, +when some little peculiarities become aggravated, and his +works are touched by the caustic of the most adroit banterer +of that age of wit, no character has descended to us with such +grotesque deformity, exhibited in so ludicrous an attitude.</p> +<p>Harvey was a pedant, but pedantry was part of the erudition +of an age when our national literature was passing from +its infancy; he introduced hexameter verses into our language, +and pompously laid claim to an invention which, designed for +the reformation of English verse, was practised till it was +found sufficiently ridiculous. His style was infected with his +pedantic taste; and the hard outline of his satirical humour +betrays the scholastic cynic, not the airy and fluent wit. He +had, perhaps, the foibles of a man who was clearing himself +from obscurity; he prided himself on his family alliances, +while he fastidiously looked askance on the trade of his father—a +rope-manufacturer.</p> +<p>He was somewhat rich in his apparel, according to the rank +in society he held; and, hungering after the notice of his +friends, they fed him on soft sonnet and relishing dedication, +till Harvey ventured to publish a collection of panegyrics on +himself—and thus gravely stepped into a niche erected to +Vanity. At length he and his two brothers—one a divine +and the other a physician—became students of astronomy; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span> +then an astronomer usually ended in an almanac-maker, and +above all, in an astrologer—an avocation which tempted a +man to become a prophet. Their “sharp and learned judgment +on earthquakes” drove the people out of their senses +(says Wood); but when nothing happened of their predictions, +the brothers received a severe castigation from those +great enemies of prophets, the wits. The buffoon, Tarleton, +celebrated for his extempore humour, jested on them at +the theatre;<a name='FNanchor_0082' id='FNanchor_0082'></a><a href='#Footnote_0082' class='fnanchor'>[82]</a> Elderton, a drunken ballad-maker, “consumed +his ale-crammed nose to nothing in bear-bating them with +bundles of ballads.”<a name='FNanchor_0083' id='FNanchor_0083'></a><a href='#Footnote_0083' class='fnanchor'>[83]</a> One on the earthquake commenced +with “Quake! quake! quake!” They made the people +laugh at their false terrors, or, as Nash humorously describes +their fanciful panic, “when they sweated and were not a +haire the worse.” Thus were the three learned brothers +beset by all the town-wits; Gabriel had the hardihood, with +all undue gravity, to charge pell-mell among the whole +knighthood of drollery; a circumstance probably alluded to +by Spenser, in a sonnet addressed to Harvey—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><span class='indent2'> </span><a name='TC_9'></a><ins title="Added quote">“Harvey</ins>, the happy above happier men,<br /> +I read; that sitting like a looker-on<br /> +Of this worlde’s stage, dost note with <i>critique pen</i><br /> +The sharp dislikes of each condition;<br /> +And, as one carelesse of suspition,<br /> +Ne fawnest for the favour of the great;<br /> +<i>Ne fearest foolish reprehension<br /> +Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat</i>,<br /> +But freely doest of what thee list, entreat,<br /> +Like a great lord of peerlesse liberty.—”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The “foolish reprehension of faulty men, threatening Harvey +with danger,” describes that gregarious herd of town-wits +in the age of Elizabeth—Kit Marlow, Robert Greene, +Dekker, Nash, &c.—men of no moral principle, of high +passions, and the most pregnant Lucianic wits who ever +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span> +flourished at one period.<a name='FNanchor_0084' id='FNanchor_0084'></a><a href='#Footnote_0084' class='fnanchor'>[84]</a> Unfortunately for the learned +Harvey, his “critique pen,” which is strange in so polished +a mind and so curious a student, indulged a sharpness of +invective which would have been peculiar to himself, had his +adversary, Nash, not quite outdone him. Their pamphlets +foamed against each other, till Nash, in his vehement invective, +involved the whole generation of the Harveys, made one +brother more ridiculous than the other, and even attainted +the fair name of Gabriel’s respectable sister. Gabriel, indeed, +after the death of Robert Greene, the crony of Nash, sitting +like a vampyre on his grave, sucked blood from his corpse, in +a memorable narrative of the debaucheries and miseries of +this town-wit. I throw into the note the most awful satirical +address I ever read.<a name='FNanchor_0085' id='FNanchor_0085'></a><a href='#Footnote_0085' class='fnanchor'>[85]</a> It became necessary to dry up the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span> +floodgates of these rival ink-horns, by an order of the Archbishop +of Canterbury. The order is a remarkable fragment +of our literary history, and is thus expressed:—“That all +Nashe’s bookes and Dr. Harvey’s bookes be taken wheresoever +they may be found, and that none of the said bookes be +ever printed hereafter.”</p> +<p>This extraordinary circumstance accounts for the excessive +rarity of Harvey’s “Foure Letters, 1592,” and that literary +scourge of Nash’s, “Have with you to Saffron-Walden (Harvey’s +residence), or Gabriel Harvey’s Hunt is vp, 1596;” +pamphlets now as costly as if they consisted of leaves of +gold.<a name='FNanchor_0087' id='FNanchor_0087'></a><a href='#Footnote_0087' class='fnanchor'>[87]</a></p> +<p>Nash, who, in his other works, writes in a style as flowing +as Addison’s, with hardly an obsolete vestige, has rather +injured this literary invective by the evident burlesque he +affects of Harvey’s pedantic idiom; and for this Mr. Malone +has hastily censured him, without recollecting the aim of +this modern Lucian.<a name='FNanchor_0088' id='FNanchor_0088'></a><a href='#Footnote_0088' class='fnanchor'>[88]</a> The delicacy of irony; the <i>sous-entendu</i>, +that subtlety of indicating what is not told; all +that poignant satire, which is the keener for its polish, were +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span> +not practised by our first vehement satirists; but a bantering +masculine humour, a style stamped in the heat of fancy, +with all the life-touches of strong individuality, characterise +these licentious wits. They wrote then as the old <i>fabliers</i> +told their tales, naming everything by its name; our refinement +cannot approve, but it cannot diminish their real nature, +and among our elaborate graces, their <i>naïveté</i> must be still +wanting.</p> +<p>In this literary satire <span class='smcap'>Nash</span> has interwoven a kind of +ludicrous biography of Harvey; and seems to have anticipated +the character of Martinus Scriblerus. I leave the +grosser parts of this invective untouched; for my business +is not with <i>slander</i>, but with <i>ridicule</i>.</p> +<p>Nash opens as a skilful lampooner; he knew well that +ridicule, without the appearance of truth, was letting fly an +arrow upwards, touching no one. Nash accounts for his +protracted silence by adroitly declaring that he had taken +these two or three years to get perfect intelligence of Harvey’s +“Life and conversation; one true point whereof well +sat downe will more excruciate him than <i>knocking him about +the ears with his own style</i> in a hundred sheets of paper.”</p> +<p>And with great humour says—</p> +<p>“As long as it is since he writ against me, so long have I +given him a lease of his life, and he hath only held it by my +mercy; and now let him thank his friends for this heavy load +of disgrace I lay upon him, since I do it but to show my +sufficiency; and they urging what a triumph he had over +me, hath made me ransack my standish more than I +would.”</p> +<p>In the history of such a literary hero as Gabriel, the birth +has ever been attended by portents. Gabriel’s mother +“dreamt a dream,” that she was delivered “of an immense +elder gun that can shoot nothing but pellets of chewed +paper; and thought, instead of a boy, she was brought to +bed of one of those kistrell birds called a wind-sucker.” At +the moment of his birth came into the world “a calf with a +double tongue, and eares longer than any ass’s, with his feet +turned backwards.” Facetious analogies of Gabriel’s literary +genius!</p> +<p>He then paints to the life the grotesque portrait of Harvey; +so that the man himself stands alive before us. “He +was of an adust swarth choleric dye, like restie bacon, or a +dried scate-fish; his skin riddled and crumpled like a piece +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span> +of burnt parchment, with channels and creases in his face, +and wrinkles and frets of old age.” Nash dexterously attributes +this premature old age to his own talents; exulting +humorously—</p> +<p>“I have brought him low, and shrewdly broken him; look +on his head, and you shall find a gray haire for euerie line I +have writ against him; and you shall haue all his beard white +too by the time he hath read ouer this booke.”</p> +<p>To give a finishing to the portrait, and to reach the climax +of personal contempt, he paints the sordid misery in which +he lived at Saffron-Walden:—“Enduring more hardness than +a camell, who will liue four dayes without water, and feedes +on nothing but thistles and wormwood, as he feeds on his +estate on trotters, sheep porknells, and buttered rootes, in an +hexameter meditation.”</p> +<p>In his Venetian velvet and pantofles of pride, we are told—</p> +<p>“He looks, indeed, like a case of tooth-pickes, or a lute-pin +stuck in a suit of apparell. An Vsher of a dancing-schoole, +he is such a <i>basia de vmbra de vmbra de los pedes</i>; a kisser of +the shadow of your feetes shadow he is!”</p> +<p>This is, doubtless, a portrait resembling the original, with +its Cervantic touches; Nash would not have risked what the +eyes of his readers would instantly have proved to be fictitious; +and, in fact, though the <i>Grangerites</i> know of no +portrait of Gabriel Harvey, they will find a woodcut of him +by the side of this description; it is, indeed, in a most pitiable +attitude, expressing that gripe of criticism which seized +on Gabriel “upon the news of the going in hand of my +booke.”</p> +<p>The ponderosity and prolixity of Gabriel’s “period of a +mile,” are described with a facetious extravagance, which +may be given as a specimen of the eloquence of ridicule. +Harvey entitled his various pamphlets “Letters.”</p> +<p>“More letters yet from the doctor? Out upon it, here’s a +packet of epistling, as bigge as a packe of woollen cloth, or a +stack of salt fish. Carrier, didst thou bring it by wayne, or +by horsebacke? By wayne, sir, and it hath crackt me three +axle-trees.—<i>Heavie</i> newes! Take them again! I will never +open them.—My cart (quoth he, deep-sighing,) hath cryde +creake under them fortie times euerie furlong; wherefore if +you be a good man rather make mud-walls with them, mend +highways, or damme up quagmires with them.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span></div> +<p>“When I came to unrip and unbumbast<a name='FNanchor_0089' id='FNanchor_0089'></a><a href='#Footnote_0089' class='fnanchor'>[89]</a> this <i>Gargantuan</i> +bag pudding, and found nothing in it but dogs tripes, swines +livers, oxe galls, and sheepes guts, I was in a bitterer chafe +than anie cooke at a long sermon, when his meat burnes.</p> +<p>“O ’tis an vnsconscionable vast gor-bellied volume, bigger +bulkt than a Dutch hoy, and more cumbersome than a payre +of Switzer’s galeaze breeches.”<a name='FNanchor_0090' id='FNanchor_0090'></a><a href='#Footnote_0090' class='fnanchor'>[90]</a></p> +<p>And in the same ludicrous style he writes—</p> +<p>“One epistle thereof to John Wolfe (Harvey’s printer) I +took and weighed in an ironmonger’s scale, and it counter +poyseth a cade<a name='FNanchor_0091' id='FNanchor_0091'></a><a href='#Footnote_0091' class='fnanchor'>[91]</a> of herrings with three Holland cheeses. It +was rumoured about the Court that the guard meant to trie +masteries with it before the Queene, and instead of throwing +the sledge, or the hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end +for a wager.</p> +<p>“Sixe and thirtie sheets it comprehendeth, which with him +is but sixe and thirtie full points (periods); for he makes no +more difference ’twixt a sheet of paper and a full pointe, than +there is ’twixt two black puddings for a pennie, and a pennie +for a pair of black puddings. Yet these are but the shortest +prouerbes of his wit, for he never bids a man good morrow, +but he makes a speech as long as a proclamation, nor drinkes +to anie, but he reads a lecture of three howers long, <i>de Arte +bibendi</i>. O ’tis a precious apothegmatical pedant.”</p> +<p>It was the foible of Harvey to wish to conceal the humble +avocation of his father: this forms a perpetual source of the +bitterness or the pleasantry of Nash, who, indeed, calls his +pamphlet “a full answer to the eldest son of the halter +maker,” which, he says, “is death to Gabriel to remember; +wherefore from time to time he doth nothing but turmoile +his thoughts how to invent new pedigrees, and what great +nobleman’s bastard he was likely to be, not whose sonne he +is reputed to be. Yet he would not have a shoo to put on +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span> +his foote if his father had not traffiqued with the hangman.—Harvey +nor his brothers cannot bear to be called the sonnes +of a rope-maker, which, by his private confession to some of +my friends, was the only thing that most set him afire +against me. Turne over his two bookes he hath published +against me, wherein he hath clapt paper God’s plentie, if +that could press a man to death, and see if, in the waye of +answer, or otherwise, he once mentioned <i>the word rope-maker</i>, +or come within forty foot of it; except in one place +of his first booke, where he nameth it not neither, but goes +thus cleanly to worke:—‘and may not a good sonne have a +reprobate for his father?’ a periphrase of a rope-maker, +which, if I should shryue myself, I never heard before.” +According to Nash, Gabriel took his oath before a justice, +that his father was an honest man, and kept his sons at the +Universities a long time. “I confirmed it, and added, Ay! +which is more, three proud sonnes, that when they met the +hangman, their father’s best customer, would not put off +their hats to him—”</p> +<p>Such repeated raillery on this foible of Harvey touched him +more to the quick, and more raised the public laugh, than any +other point of attack; for it was merited. Another foible +was, perhaps, the finical richness of Harvey’s dress, adopting +the Italian fashions on his return from Italy, “when he +made no bones of taking the wall of Sir Philip Sidney, in his +black Venetian velvet.”<a name='FNanchor_0092' id='FNanchor_0092'></a><a href='#Footnote_0092' class='fnanchor'>[92]</a> On this the fertile invention of +Nash raises a scandalous anecdote concerning Gabriel’s wardrobe; +“a tale of his hobby-horse reuelling and domineering +at Audley-end, when the Queen was there; to which place +Gabriel came ruffling it out, hufty tufty, in his suit of +veluet—” which he had “untrussed, and pelted the outside +from the lining of an old velvet saddle he had borrowed!” +“The rotten mould of that worm-eaten relique, he means, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span> +when he dies, to hang over his tomb for a monument.”<a name='FNanchor_0093' id='FNanchor_0093'></a><a href='#Footnote_0093' class='fnanchor'>[93]</a> +Harvey was proud of his refined skill in “Tuscan authors,” +and too fond of their worse conceits. Nash alludes to his +travels in Italy, “to fetch him twopenny worth of Tuscanism, +quite renouncing his natural English accents and gestures, +wrested himself wholly to the Italian punctilios, +painting himself like a courtezan, till the Queen declared, +‘he looked something like an Italian!’ At which he roused +his plumes, pricked his ears, and run away with the bridle +betwixt his teeth.” These were malicious tales, to make his +adversary contemptible, whenever the merry wits at court +were willing to sharpen themselves on him.</p> +<p>One of the most difficult points of attack was to break +through that bastion of sonnets and panegyrics with which +Harvey had fortified himself by the aid of his friends, +against the assaults of Nash. Harvey had been commended +by the learned and the ingenious. Our Lucian, with his +usual adroitness, since he could not deny Harvey’s intimacy +with Spenser and Sidney, gets rid of their suffrages by this +malicious sarcasm: “It is a miserable thing for a man to be +said to have had friends, and now to have neer a one left!” +As for the others, whom Harvey calls “his gentle and liberall +friends,” Nash boldly caricatures the grotesque crew, as +“tender itchie brained infants, that cared not what they did, +so they might come in print; worthless whippets, and jack-straws, +who meeter it in his commendation, whom he would +compare with the highest.” The works of these young +writers he describes by an image exquisitely ludicrous and +satirical:—</p> +<p>“These mushrumpes, who pester the world with their +pamphlets, are like those barbarous people in the hot countries, +who, when they have bread to make, doe no more than +clap the dowe upon a post on the outside of their houses, +and there leave it to the sun to bake; so their indigested +conceipts, far rawer than anie dowe, at all adventures upon +the post they clap, pluck them off who will, and think they +have made as good a batch of poetrie as may be.”</p> +<p>Of Harvey’s list of friends he observes:—</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span></div> +<p>“To a bead-roll of learned men and lords, he appeals, +whether he be an asse or no?”</p> +<p>Harvey had said, “Thomas Nash, from the top of his wit +looking down upon simple creatures, calleth Gabriel Harvey +a dunce, a foole, an ideot, a dolt, a goose cap, an asse, and so +forth; for some of the residue is not to be spoken but with +his owne mannerly mouth; but he should have shewed particularlie +which wordes in my letters were the wordes of a +dunce; which sentences the sentences of a foole; which +arguments the arguments of an ideot; which opinions the +opinions of a dolt; which judgments the judgments of a +goose-cap; which conclusions the conclusions of an asse.”<a name='FNanchor_0094' id='FNanchor_0094'></a><a href='#Footnote_0094' class='fnanchor'>[94]</a></p> +<p>Thus Harvey reasons, till he becomes unreasonable; one +would have imagined that the literary satires of our English +Lucian had been voluminous enough, without the mathematical +demonstration. The banterers seem to have put poor +Harvey nearly out of his wits; he and his friends felt their +blows too profoundly; they were much too thin-skinned, and +the solemn air of Harvey in his graver moments at their +menaces is extremely ludicrous. They frequently called him +<i>Gabrielissime Gabriel</i>, which quintessence of himself seems +to have mightily affected him. They threatened to confute +his letters till eternity—which seems to have put him in despair. +The following passage, descriptive of Gabriel’s distresses, +may excite a smile.</p> +<p>“This grand confuter of my letters says, ‘Gabriel, if there +be any wit or industrie in thee, now I will dare it to the +vttermost; write of what thou wilt, in what language thou +wilt, and I will confute it, and answere it. Take Truth’s +part, and I will proouve truth to be no truth, marching ovt +of thy dung-voiding mouth.’ He will never leave me as +long as he is able to lift a pen, <i>ad infinitum</i>; if I reply, he +has a rejoinder; and for my brief <i>triplication</i>, he is prouided +with a <i>quadruplication</i>, and so he mangles my sentences, +hacks my arguments, wrenches my words, chops and changes +my phrases, even to the disjoyning and dislocation of my +whole meaning.”</p> +<p>Poor Harvey! he knew not that there was <i>nothing real</i> in +ridicule, <i>no end</i> to its merry malice!</p> +<p>Harvey’s taste for hexameter verses, which he so unnaturally +forced into our language, is admirably ridiculed. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span> +Harvey had shown his taste for these metres by a variety of +poems, to whose subjects Nash thus sarcastically alludes:—</p> +<p>“It had grown with him into such a dictionary custom, +that no may-pole in the street, no wether-cocke on anie +church-steeple, no arbour, no lawrell, no yewe-tree, he would +ouerskip, without hayling in this manner. After supper, if +he chancst to play at cards with a queen of harts in his +hands, he would run upon men’s and women’s hearts all the +night.”</p> +<p>And he happily introduces here one of the miserable hexameter +conceits of Harvey—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Stout hart and sweet hart, yet stoutest hart to be stooped.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Harvey’s “Encomium Lauri” thus ridiculously commences,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>What might I call this tree? A lawrell? O bonny lawrell,<br /> +Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto;</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>which Nash most happily burlesques by describing Harvey +under a yew-tree at Trinity-hall, composing verses on the +weathercock of Allhallows in Cambridge:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>O thou wether-cocke that stands on the top of Allhallows,<br /> +Come thy wales down, if thou darst, for thy crowne, and take the wall on us.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“The hexameter verse (says Nash) I graunt to be a gentleman +of an auncient house (so is many an English beggar), +yet this clyme of our’s hee cannot thrive in; our speech is +too craggy for him to set his plough in; hee goes twitching +and hopping in our language, like a man running vpon quagmires, +vp the hill in one syllable and down the dale in another, +retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts +himself with amongst the Greeks and Latins.”</p> +<p>The most humorous part in this Scribleriad, is a ludicrous +narrative of Harvey’s expedition to the metropolis, for the sole +purpose of writing his “Pierce Supererogation,” pitted +against Nash’s “Pierce’s Pennilesse.” The facetious Nash +describes the torpor and pertinacity of his genius, by telling +us he had kept Harvey at work—</p> +<p>“For seaven and thirtie weekes space while he lay at his +printer’s, Wolfe, never stirring out of doors, or being churched +all that while—and that in the deadest season that might bee, +hee lying in the ragingest furie of the last plague where there +dyde above 1600 a weeke in London, ink-squittring and +saracenically printing against mee. Three quarters of a year +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span> +thus immured hee remained, with his spirits yearning empassionment, +and agonised fury, thirst of revenge, neglecting soul +and bodies health to compasse it—sweating and dealing upon +it most intentively.”<a name='FNanchor_0095' id='FNanchor_0095'></a><a href='#Footnote_0095' class='fnanchor'>[95]</a></p> +<p>The narrative proceeds with the many perils which Harvey’s +printer encountered, by expense of diet, and printing for this +bright genius and his friends, whose works “would rust and +iron-spot paper to have their names breathed over it;” and +that Wolfe designed “to get a privilege betimes, forbidding of +all others to sell waste-paper but himselfe.” The climax of +the narrative, after many misfortunes, ends with Harvey being +arrested by the printer, and confined to Newgate, where his +sword is taken from him, to his perpetual disgrace. So +much did Gabriel endure for having written a book against +Tom Nash!</p> +<p>But Harvey might deny some of these ludicrous facts.—Will +he deny? cries Nash—and here he has woven every tale +the most watchful malice could collect, varnished for their +full effect. Then he adds,</p> +<p>“You see I have brought the doctor out of request at court; +and it shall cost me a fall, but I will get him howted out of +the Vniuersitie too, ere I giue him ouer.” He tells us Harvey +was brought on the stage at Trinity-college, in “the exquisite +comedie of Pedantius,” where, under “the finical fine schoolmaster, +the just manner of his phrase, they stufft his mouth +with; and the whole buffianisme throughout his bookes, they +bolstered out his part with—euen to the carrying of his gowne, +his nice gate in his pantofles, or the affected accent of his +speech—Let him deny that there was a shewe made at Clarehall +of him and his brothers, called Tarrarantantara turba +tumultuosa Trigonum Tri-Harveyorum Tri-harmonia; and +another shewe of the little minnow his brother, at Peter-house, +called Duns furens, Dick Harvey in a frensie.” The sequel is +thus told:—“Whereupon Dick came and broke the college +glass windows, and Dr. Perne caused him to be set in the stockes +till the shewe was ended.”</p> +<p>This “Duns furens, Dick Harvey in a frensie,” was not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span> +only the brother of one who ranked high in society and literature, +but himself a learned professor. Nash brings him down +to “Pigmey Dick, that lookes like a pound of goldsmith’s +candles, who had like to commit folly last year with a milk-maid, +as a friend of his very soberly informed me. Little and +little-wittied Dick, that hath vowed to live and die in defence +of Brutus and his Trojans.”<a name='FNanchor_0096' id='FNanchor_0096'></a><a href='#Footnote_0096' class='fnanchor'>[96]</a> An Herculean feat of this +“Duns furens,” Nash tells us, was his setting Aristotle with +his heels upwards on the school-gates at Cambridge, and putting +ass’s ears on his head, which Tom here records in <i>perpetuam +rei memoriam</i>. But Wood, our grave and keen literary +antiquary, observes—</p> +<p>“To let pass other matters these vain men (the wits) report +of Richard Harvey, his works show him quite another person +than what they make him to be.”</p> +<p>Nash then forms a ludicrous contrast between “witless +Gabriel and ruffling Richard.” The astronomer Richard was +continually baiting the great bear in the firmament, and in his +lectures set up atheistical questions, which Nash maliciously +adds, “as I am afraid the earth would swallow me if I should +but rehearse.” And at his close, Nash bitterly regrets he has +no more room; “else I should make Gabriel a fugitive out of +England, being the rauenousest slouen that ever lapt porridge +in noblemen’s houses, where he has had already, out of two, +his mittimus of Ye may be gone! for he was a sower of seditious +paradoxes amongst kitchen-boys.” Nash seems to have +considered himself as terrible as an Archilochus, whose satires +were so fatal as to induce the satirised, after having read them, +to hang themselves.</p> +<p>How ill poor Harvey passed through these wit-duels, and +how profoundly the wounds inflicted on him and his brothers +were felt, appears by his own confessions. In his “Foure +Letters,” after some curious observations on invectives and +satires, from those of Archilochus, Lucian, and Aretine, to +Skelton and Scoggin, and “the whole venomous and viperous +brood of old and new raylers,” he proceeds to blame even his +beloved friend the gentle Spenser, for the severity of his +“Mother Hubbard’s Tale,” a satire on the court. “I must +needes say, Mother Hubbard in heat of choller, forgetting the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span> +pure sanguine of her Sweete Feary Queene, artfully ouershott +her malcontent-selfe; as elsewhere I have specified at large, +with the good leaue of vnspotted friendship.—Sallust and +Clodius learned of Tully to frame artificiall declamations and +patheticall invectives against Tully himselfe; if Mother Hubbard, +in the vaine of Chawcer, happen to tel one canicular tale, +father Elderton and his son Greene, in the vaine of Skelton +or Scoggin, will counterfeit an hundred dogged fables, libles, +slaunders, lies, for the whetstone. But many will sooner lose +their liues than the least jott of their reputation. What mortal +feudes, what cruel bloodshed, what terrible slaughterdome +have been committed for the point of honour and some few +courtly ceremonies.”</p> +<p>The incidents so plentifully narrated in this Lucianic biography, +the very nature of this species of satire throws into +doubt; yet they still seem shadowed out from some truths; +but the truths who can unravel from the fictions? And thus +a narrative is consigned to posterity which involves illustrious +characters in an inextricable network of calumny and genius.</p> +<p>Writers of this class alienate themselves from human kind, +they break the golden bond which holds them to society; and +they live among us like a polished banditti. In these copious +extracts, I have not noticed the more criminal insinuations +against the Harveys; I have left the grosser slanders untouched. +My object has been only to trace the effects of +ridicule, and to detect its artifices, by which the most dignified +characters may be deeply injured at the pleasure of a +Ridiculer. The wild mirth of ridicule, aggravating and +taunting real imperfections, and fastening imaginary ones on +the victim in idle sport or ill-humour, strikes at the most +brittle thing in the world, a man’s good reputation, for delicate +matters which are not under the protection of the law, but in +which so much of personal happiness is concerned.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='LITERARY_HATRED_EXHIBITING_A_CONSPIRACY_AGAINST_AN_AUTHOR' id='LITERARY_HATRED_EXHIBITING_A_CONSPIRACY_AGAINST_AN_AUTHOR'></a> +<h3>LITERARY HATRED.</h3> +<h4>EXHIBITING A CONSPIRACY AGAINST AN AUTHOR.</h4> +</div> +<p>In the peaceful walks of literature we are startled at discovering +genius with the mind, and, if we conceive the instrument +it guides to be a stiletto, with the hand of an assassin—irascible, +vindictive, armed with indiscriminate satire, never +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span> +pardoning the merit of rival genius, but fastening on it +throughout life, till, in the moral retribution of human nature, +these very passions, by their ungratified cravings, have tended +to annihilate the being who fostered them. These passions +among literary men are with none more inextinguishable than +among <i>provincial writers</i>.—Their bad feelings are concentrated +by their local contraction. The proximity of men of +genius seems to produce a familiarity which excites hatred or +contempt; while he who is afflicted with disordered passions +imagines that he is urging his own claims to genius by denying +them to their possessor. A whole life passed in harassing +the industry or the genius which he has not equalled; and +instead of running the open career as a competitor, only +skulking as an assassin by their side, is presented in the object +now before us.</p> +<p>Dr. <span class='smcap'>Gilbert Stuart</span> seems early in life to have devoted +himself to literature; but his habits were irregular, and his +passions fierce. The celebrity of Robertson, Blair, and Henry, +with other Scottish brothers, diseased his mind with a most +envious rancour. He confined all his literary efforts to the +pitiable motive of destroying theirs; he was prompted to +every one of his historical works by the mere desire of discrediting +some work of Robertson; and his numerous critical +labours were all directed to annihilate the genius of his country. +How he converted his life into its own scourge, how +wasted talents he might have cultivated into perfection, lost +every trace of humanity, and finally perished, devoured by his +own fiend-like passions,—shall be illustrated by the following +narrative, collected from a correspondence now lying +before me, which the author carried on with his publisher +in London. I shall copy out at some length the hopes and +disappointments of the literary adventurer—the colours are +not mine; I am dipping my pencil in the palette of the artist +himself.</p> +<p>In June, 1773, was projected in the Scottish capital “The +Edinburgh Magazine and Review.” Stuart’s letters breathe +the spirit of rapturous confidence. He had combined the +sedulous attention of the intelligent Smellie, who was to be +the printer, with some very honourable critics; Professor +Baron, Dr. Blacklock, and Professor Richardson; and the first +numbers were executed with more talent than periodical publications +had then exhibited. But the hardiness of Stuart’s +opinions, his personal attacks, and the acrimony of his literary +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span> +libels, presented a new feature in Scottish literature, of such +ugliness and horror, that every honourable man soon averted +his face from this <i>boutefeu</i>.</p> +<p>He designed to ornament his first number with—</p> +<p>“A print of my Lord Monboddo in his quadruped form. I +must, therefore, most earnestly beg that you will purchase for +me a copy of it in some of the Macaroni print shops. It is +not to be procured at Edinburgh. They are afraid to vend it +here. We are to take it on the footing of a figure of an animal, +not yet described; and are to give a grave, yet satirical +account of it, in the manner of Buffon. It would not be proper +to allude to his lordship but in a very distant manner.”</p> +<p>It was not, however, ventured on; and the nondescript +animal was still confined to the windows of “the Macaroni +print shops.” It was, however, the bloom of the author’s +fancy, and promised all the mellow fruits it afterwards produced.</p> +<p>In September this ardour did not abate:—</p> +<p>“The proposals are issued; the subscriptions in the booksellers’ +shops astonish; correspondents flock in; and, what +will surprise you, the timid proprietors of the ‘Scots’ Magazine’ +have come to the resolution of dropping their work. +You stare at all this, and so do I too.”</p> +<p>Thus he flatters himself he is to annihilate his rival, without +even striking the first blow. The appearance of his first +number is to be the moment when their last is to come forth. +Authors, like the discoverers of mines, are the most sanguine +creatures in the world: Gilbert Stuart afterwards flattered +himself Dr. Henry was lying at the point of death from the +scalping of his tomahawk pen; but of this anon.</p> +<p>On the publication of the first number, in November, +1773, all is exultation; and an account is facetiously expected +that “a thousand copies had emigrated from the Row and +Fleet-street.”</p> +<p>There is a serious composure in the letter of December, +which seems to be occasioned by the tempered answer of his +London correspondent. The work was more suited to the +meridian of Edinburgh; and from causes sufficiently obvious, +its personality and causticity. Stuart, however, assures his +friend that “the second number you will find better than the +first, and the third better than the second.”</p> +<p>The next letter is dated March 4, 1774, in which I find our +author still in good spirits:—</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span></div> +<p>“The Magazine rises, and promises much, in this quarter. +Our artillery has silenced all opposition. The rogues of the +‘uplifted hands’ decline the combat.” These rogues are the +clergy, and some others, who had “uplifted hands” from the +vituperative nature of their adversary; for he tells us that, +“now the clergy are silent, the town-council have had the +presumption to oppose us; and have threatened Creech (the +publisher in Edinburgh) with the terror of making him a +constable for his insolence. A pamphlet on the abuses of +Heriot’s Hospital, including a direct proof of perjury in the +provost, was the punishment inflicted in return. And new +papers are forging to chastise them, in regard to the poors’ +rate, which is again started; the improper choice of professors; +and violent stretches of the impost. The <i>liberty of the press</i>, +in its fullest extent, is to be employed against them.”</p> +<p>Such is the language of reform, and the spirit of a reformist! +A little private malignity thus ferments a good deal of +public spirit; but patriotism must be independent to be pure. +If the “Edinburgh Review” continues to succeed in its sale, +as Stuart fancies, Edinburgh itself may be in some danger. +His perfect contempt of his contemporaries is amusing:—</p> +<p>“Monboddo’s second volume is published, and, with Kaimes, +will appear in our next; the former is a childish performance; +the latter rather better. We are to treat them with +a good deal of freedom. I observe an amazing falling off in +the English Reviews. We beat them hollow. I fancy they +have no assistance but from the Dissenters,—a dull body of +men. The Monthly will not easily recover the death of +Hawkesworth; and I suspect that Langhorne has forsaken +them; for I see no longer his pen.”</p> +<p>We are now hastening to the sudden and the moral catastrophe +of our tale. The thousand copies which had emigrated +to London remained there, little disturbed by public +inquiry; and in Scotland, the personal animosity against +almost every literary character there, which had inflamed the +sale, became naturally the latent cause of its extinction; for +its life was but a feverish existence, and its florid complexion +carried with it the seeds of its dissolution. Stuart at length +quarrelled with his coadjutor, Smellie, for altering his reviews. +Smellie’s prudential dexterity was such, that, in an article +designed to level Lord Kaimes with Lord Monboddo, the +whole libel was completely metamorphosed into a panegyric. +They were involved in a lawsuit about “a blasphemous +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span> +paper.” And now the enraged Zoilus complains of “his +hours of peevishness and dissatisfaction.” He acknowledges +that “a circumstance had happened which had broke his +peace and ease altogether for some weeks.” And now he +resolves that this great work shall quietly sink into a mere +compilation from the London periodical works. Such, then, +is the progress of malignant genius! The author, like him +who invented the brazen bull of Phalaris, is writhing in that +machine of tortures he had contrived for others.</p> +<p>We now come to a very remarkable passage: it is the +frenzied language of disappointed wickedness.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>17 June, 1774.</i></p> +<p>“It is an infinite disappointment to me that the Magazine +does not grow in London; I thought the soil had been richer. +But it is my constant fate to be disappointed in everything I +attempt; I do not think I ever had a wish that was gratified; +and never dreaded an event that did not come. With this +felicity of fate, I wonder how the devil I could turn projector. +I am now sorry that I left London; and the moment that I +have money enough to carry me back to it, I shall set off. +<i>I mortally detest and abhor this place, and everybody in it.</i> +Never was there a city where there was so much pretension +to knowledge, and that had so little of it. The solemn foppery, +and the gross stupidity of the Scottish literati, are perfectly +insupportable. I shall drop my idea of a Scots newspaper. +Nothing will do in this country that has common +sense in it; only cant, hypocrisy, and superstition will flourish +here. <i>A curse on the country, and all the men, women, and +children of it!</i>”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Again.—“The publication is too good for the country. +There are very few men of taste or erudition on this side of +the Tweed. Yet every idiot one meets with lays claim to +both. Yet the success of the Magazine is in reality greater +than we could expect, considering that we have every clergyman +in the kingdom to oppose it, and that the magistracy of +the place are every moment threatening its destruction.”</p> +<p>And, therefore, this recreant Scot anathematizes the +Scottish people for not applauding blasphemy, calumny, and +every species of literary criminality! Such are the monstrous +passions that swell out the poisonous breast of genius, deprived +of every moral restraint; and such was the demoniac irritability +which prompted a wish in Collot d’Herbois to set fire +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span> +to the four quarters of the city of Lyons; while, in his “tender +mercies,” the kennels of the streets were running with +the blood of its inhabitants—remembering still that the +Lyonese had, when he was a miserable actor, hissed him off +the stage!</p> +<p>Stuart curses his country, and retreats to London. Fallen, +but not abject; repulsed, but not altered; degraded, but still +haughty. No change of place could operate any in his heart. +He was born in literary crime, and he perished in it. It was +now “The English Review” was instituted, with his idol +Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, and others. He says, +“To Whitaker he assigns the palm of history in preference to +Hume and Robertson.” I have heard that he considered himself +higher than Whitaker, and ranked himself with Montesquieu. +He negotiated for Whitaker and himself a Doctor of +Laws’ degree; and they were now in the titular possession of +all the fame which a dozen pieces could bestow! In “The +English Review” broke forth all the genius of Stuart in an +unnatural warfare of Scotchmen in London against Scotchmen +at Edinburgh. “The bitter herbs,” which seasoned it +against Blair, Robertson, Gibbon, and the ablest authors of +the age, at first provoked the public appetite, which afterwards +indignantly rejected the palatable garbage.</p> +<p>But to proceed with our <i>Literary Conspiracy</i>, which was +conducted by Stuart with a pertinacity of invention perhaps +not to be paralleled in literary history. That the peace of +mind of such an industrious author as Dr. <span class='smcap'>Henry</span> was for a +considerable time destroyed; that the sale of a work on which +Henry had expended much of his fortune and his life was +stopped; and that, when covered with obloquy and ridicule, +in despair he left Edinburgh for London, still encountering the +same hostility; that all this was the work of the same hand +perhaps was never even known to its victim. The multiplied +forms of this Proteus of the Malevoli were still but one +devil; fire or water, or a bull or a lion; still it was the same +Proteus, the same Stuart.</p> +<p>From the correspondence before me I am enabled to collect +the commencement and the end of this literary conspiracy, +with all its intermediate links. It thus commences:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>25 Nov. 1773.</i></p> +<p>“We have been attacked from different quarters, and Dr. +Henry in particular has given a long and a dull defence of his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' name='page_136'></a>136</span> +sermon. I have replied to it with a degree of spirit altogether +unknown in this country. The reverend historian was perfectly +astonished, and has actually invited the Society for Propagating +Christian Knowledge to arm in his cause! I am +about to be persecuted by the whole clergy, and I am about +to persecute them in my turn. They are hot and zealous; +I am cool and dispassionate, like a determined sceptic; since +I have entered the lists, I must fight; I must gain the victory, +or perish like a man.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>13 Dec. 1773.</i></p> +<p>“David Hume wants to review Henry; but that task is so +precious that I will undertake it myself. Moses, were he to +ask it as a favour, should not have it; yea, not even the man +after God’s own heart.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>4 March, 1774.</i></p> +<p>“This month Henry is utterly demolished; his sale is +stopped, many of his copies are returned; and his old friends +have forsaken him; pray, in what state is he in London? +Henry has delayed his London journey; you cannot easily +conceive how exceedingly he is humbled.<a name='FNanchor_0097' id='FNanchor_0097'></a><a href='#Footnote_0097' class='fnanchor'>[97]</a></p> +<p>“I wish I could transport myself to London to review him +for the Monthly. A fire there, and in the Critical, would +perfectly annihilate him. Could you do nothing in the latter? +To the former I suppose David Hume has transcribed the +criticism he intended for us. It is precious, and would divert +you. I keep a proof of it in my cabinet for the amusement +of friends. This great philosopher begins to dote.”<a name='FNanchor_0098' id='FNanchor_0098'></a><a href='#Footnote_0098' class='fnanchor'>[98]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span></div> +<p>Stuart prepares to assail Henry, on his arrival in London, +from various quarters—to lower the value of his history in +the estimation of the purchasers.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>21 March, 1774.</i></p> +<p>“To-morrow morning Henry sets off for London, with +immense hopes of selling his history. I wish he had delayed +till our last review of him had reached your city. But I +really suppose that he has little probability of getting any +gratuity. The trade are too sharp to give precious gold for +perfect nonsense. I wish sincerely that I could enter Holborn +the same hour with him. He should have a repeated +fire to combat with. I entreat that you may be so kind as +to let him feel some of your thunder. I shall never forget +the favour. If Whitaker is in London, he could give a blow. +Paterson will give him a knock. Strike by all means. The +wretch will tremble, grow pale, and return with a consciousness +of his debility. I entreat I may hear from you a day or +two after you have seen him. He will complain grievously +of me to Strahan and Rose. I shall send you a paper about +him—an advertisement from Parnassus, in the manner of +Boccalini.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>March, 1774.</i></p> +<p>“Dr. Henry has by this time reached you. I think you +ought to pay your respects to him in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>. +If you would only transcribe his jests, it would make him +perfectly ridiculous. See, for example, what he says of St. +Dunstan. A word to the wise.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>March 27, 1774.</i></p> +<p>“I have a thousand thanks to give you for your insertion +of the paper in the London <i>Chronicle</i>, and for the part you +propose to act in regard to Henry. I could wish that you +knew for certain his being in London before you strike the +first blow. An inquiry at Cadell’s will give this. When +you have an enemy to attack, I shall in return give my best +assistance, and aim at him a mortal blow, and rush forward +to his overthrow, though the flames of hell should start up +to oppose me.</p> +<p>“It pleases me, beyond what I can express, that Whitaker +has an equal contempt for Henry. The idiot threatened, +when he left Edinburgh, that he would find a method to +manage the Reviews, and that he would oppose their panegyric +to our censure. Hume has behaved ill in the affair, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span> +and I am preparing to chastise him. You may expect a +series of papers in the Magazine, pointing out a multitude of +his errors, and ascertaining his ignorance of English history. +It was too much for my temper to be assailed both by infidels +and believers. My pride could not submit to it. I shall act +in my defence with a spirit which it seems they have not +expected.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>11 April, 1774.</i></p> +<p>“I received with infinite pleasure the annunciation of the +great man into the capital. It is forcible and excellent; and +you have my best thanks for it. You improve amazingly. +The poor creature will be stupified with amazement. Inclosed +is a paper for him. Boccalini will follow. I shall +fall upon a method to let David know Henry’s transaction +about his review. It is mean to the last degree. But what +could one expect from the most ignorant and the most contemptible +man alive? Do you ever see Macfarlane? He +owes me a favour for his history of George III., and would +give a fire for the packet. The idiot is to be Moderator for +the ensuing Assembly. It shall not, however, be without +opposition.</p> +<p>“Would the paragraph about him from the inclosed leaf +of the ‘Edinburgh Review’ be any disgrace to the <i>Morning +Chronicle</i>?”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>20th May, 1774.</i></p> +<p>“Boccalini I thought of transmitting, when the reverend +historian, for whose use it was intended, made his appearance +at Edinburgh. But it will not be lost. He shall most certainly +see it. David’s critique was most acceptable. It is +a curious specimen in one view of insolent vanity, and in +another of contemptible meanness. The old historian begins +to dote, and the new one was never out of dotage.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>3 April, 1775.</i></p> +<p>“I see every day that what is written to a man’s disparagement +is never forgot nor forgiven. Poor Henry is on the point +of death, and his friends declare that I have killed him. I +received the information as a compliment, and begged they +would not do me so much honour.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But Henry and his history long survived Stuart and his +<i>critiques</i>; and Robertson, Blair, and Kaimes, with others he +assailed, have all taken their due ranks in public esteem. +What niche does Stuart occupy? His historical works possess +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span> +the show, without the solidity, of research; hardy paradoxes, +and an artificial style of momentary brilliancy, are +none of the lasting materials of history. This shadow of +“Montesquieu,” for he conceived him only to be his fit rival, +derived the last consolations of life from an obscure corner of +a Burton ale-house—there, in rival potations, with two or +three other disappointed authors, they regaled themselves on +ale they could not always pay for, and recorded their own +literary celebrity, which had never taken place. Some time +before his death, his asperity was almost softened by melancholy; +with a broken spirit, he reviewed himself; a victim +to that unrighteous ambition which sought to build up its +greatness with the ruins of his fellow-countrymen; prematurely +wasting talents which might have been directed to +literary eminence. And Gilbert Stuart died as he had lived, +a victim to intemperance, physical and moral!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='UNDUE_SEVERITY_OF_CRITICISM_DR_KENRICKSCOTT_OF_AMWELL' id='UNDUE_SEVERITY_OF_CRITICISM_DR_KENRICKSCOTT_OF_AMWELL'></a> +<h3>UNDUE SEVERITY OF CRITICISM.</h3> +<h4>DR. KENRICK.—SCOTT OF AMWELL.</h4> +</div> +<p>We have witnessed the malignant influence of illiberal criticism, +not only on literary men, but over literature itself, since +it is the actual cause of suppressing works which lie neglected, +though completed by their authors. The arts of literary condemnation, +as they may be practised by men of wit and arrogance, +are well known; and it is much less difficult than it is +criminal, to scare the modest man of learning, and to rack the +man of genius, in that bright vision of authorship sometimes +indulged in the calm of their studies—a generous emotion to +inspire a generous purpose! With suppressed indignation, +shrinking from the press, such have condemned themselves to +a Carthusian silence; but the public will gain as little by +silent authors as by a community of lazy monks; or a choir +of singers who insist they have lost their voice. That undue +severity of criticism which diminishes the number of good +authors, is a greater calamity than even that mawkish panegyric +which may invite indifferent ones; for the truth is, a +bad book produces no great evil in literature; it dies soon, +and naturally; and the feeble birth only disappoints its unlucky +parent, with a score of idlers who are the dupes of their +rage after novelty. A bad book never sells unless it be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span> +addressed to the passions, and, in that case, the severest criticism +will never impede its circulation; malignity and curiosity +being passions so much stronger and less delicate than taste +or truth.</p> +<p>And who are the authors marked out for attack? Scarcely +one of the populace of scribblers; for wit will not lose one +silver shaft on game which, struck, no one would take up. It +must level at the Historian, whose novel researches throw a +light in the depths of antiquity; at the Poet, who, addressing +himself to the imagination, perishes if that sole avenue to the +heart be closed on him. Such are those who receive the criticism +which has sent some nervous authors to their graves, and +embittered the life of many whose talents we all regard.<a name='FNanchor_0099' id='FNanchor_0099'></a><a href='#Footnote_0099' class='fnanchor'>[99]</a></p> +<p>But this species of criticism, though ungenial and nipping +at first, does not always kill the tree which it has frozen +over.</p> +<p>In the calamity before us, Time, that great autocrat, who +in its tremendous march destroys authors, also annihilates +critics; and acting in this instance with a new kind of benevolence, +takes up some who have been violently thrown down, +and fixes them in their proper place; and daily enfeebling +unjust criticism, has restored an injured author to his full +honours.</p> +<p>It is, however, lamentable enough that authors must participate +in that courage which faces the cannon’s mouth, or +cease to be authors; for military enterprise is not the taste +of modest, retired, and timorous characters. The late Mr. +Cumberland used to say that authors must not be thin-skinned, +but shelled like the rhinoceros; there are, however, +more delicately tempered animals among them, new-born +lambs, who shudder at a touch, and die under a pressure.</p> +<p>As for those great authors (though the greatest shrink +from ridicule) who still retain public favour, they must be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span> +patient, proud, and fearless—patient of that obloquy which +still will stain their honour from literary echoers; proud, +while they are sensible that their literary offspring is not</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Deformed, unfinished, sent before its time<br /> +Into this breathing world, scarce half made up.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And fearless of all critics, when they recollect the reply of +Bentley to one who threatened to write him down, “that no +author was ever written down but by himself.”</p> +<p>An author must consider himself as an arrow shot into the +world; his impulse must be stronger than the current of air +that carries him on—else he fall!</p> +<p>The character I had proposed to illustrate this calamity +was the caustic Dr. <span class='smcap'>Kenrick</span>, who, once during several years, +was, in his “London Review,” one of the great disturbers of +literary repose. The turn of his criticism; the airiness, or +the asperity of his sarcasm; the arrogance with which he +treated some of our great authors, would prove very amusing, +and serve to display a certain talent of criticism. The life of +Kenrick, too, would have afforded some wholesome instruction +concerning the morality of a critic. But the rich materials +are not at hand! He was a man of talents, who ran a race +with the press; could criticise all the genius of the age faster +than it could be produced; could make his own malignity +look like wit, and turn the wit of others into absurdity, by +placing it topsy-turvy. As thus, when he attacked “The +Traveller” of Goldsmith, which he called “a flimsy poem,” +he discussed the subject as a grave political pamphlet, condemning +the whole system, as raised on false principles. +“The Deserted Village” was sneeringly pronounced to be +“pretty;” but then it had “neither fancy, dignity, genius, or +fire.” When he reviewed Johnson’s “Tour to the Hebrides,” +he decrees that the whole book was written “by one who had +seen but little,” and therefore could not be very interesting. +His virulent attack on Johnson’s Shakspeare may be preserved +for its total want of literary decency; and his “Love in the +Suds, a Town Eclogue,” where he has placed Garrick with an +infamous character, may be useful to show how far witty malignity +will advance in the violation of moral decency. He +libelled all the genius of the age, and was proud of doing it.<a name='FNanchor_0100' id='FNanchor_0100'></a><a href='#Footnote_0100' class='fnanchor'>[100]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span> +Johnson and Akenside preserved a stern silence: but poor +Goldsmith, the child of Nature, could not resist attempting +to execute martial law, by caning the critic; for which being +blamed, he published a defence of himself in the papers. I +shall transcribe his feelings on Kenrick’s excessive and illiberal +criticism.</p> +<p>“The law gives us no protection against this injury. The +insults we receive before the public, by being more open, are +the more distressing; by treating them with silent contempt, +we do not pay a sufficient deference to the opinion of the +world. By recurring to legal redress, we too often expose +the weakness of the law, which only serves to increase our +mortification by failing to relieve us. In short, every man +should singly consider himself as a guardian of the liberty of +the press, and, as far as his influence can extend, should +endeavour to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last the +grave of its freedom.”<a name='FNanchor_0101' id='FNanchor_0101'></a><a href='#Footnote_0101' class='fnanchor'>[101]</a></p> +<p>Here then is another calamity arising from the calamity of +undue severity of criticism, which authors bring on themselves +by their excessive anxiety, which throws them into +some extremely ridiculous attitudes; and surprisingly influences +even authors of good sense and temper. <span class='smcap'>Scott</span>, of +Amwell, the Quaker and Poet, was, doubtless, a modest and +amiable man, for Johnson declared “he loved him.” When +his poems were collected, they were reviewed in the “Critical +Review” very offensively to the poet; for the critic, alluding +to the numerous embellishments of the volume, observed +that</p> +<p>“There is a profusion of ornaments and finery about this +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span> +book not quite suitable to the plainness and simplicity of the +Barclean system; but Mr. Scott is fond of the Muses, and +wishes, we suppose, like Captain Macheath, to see his ladies +well dressed.”</p> +<p>Such was the cold affected witticism of the critic, whom I +intimately knew—and I believe he meant little harm! His +friends imagined even that this was the solitary attempt at +wit he had ever made in his life; for after a lapse of years, +he would still recur to it as an evidence of the felicity of his +fancy, and the keenness of his satire. The truth is, he was a +physician, whose name is prefixed as the editor to a great +medical compilation, and who never pretended that he had +any taste for poetry. His great art of poetical criticism was +always, as Pope expresses a character, “to dwell in decencies;” +his acumen, to detect that terrible poetic crime false rhymes, +and to employ indefinite terms, which, as they had no precise +meaning, were applicable to all things; to commend, occasionally, +a passage not always the most exquisite; sometimes +to hesitate, while, with delightful candour, he seemed to give +up his opinion; to hazard sometimes a positive condemnation +on parts which often unluckily proved the most favourite +with the poet and the reader. Such was this poetical reviewer, +whom no one disturbed in his periodical course, till +the circumstance of a plain Quaker becoming a poet, and fluttering +in the finical ornaments of his book, provoked him +from that calm state of innocent mediocrity, into miserable +humour, and illiberal criticism.</p> +<p>The effect, however, this pert criticism had on poor Scott +was indeed a calamity. It produced an inconsiderate “Letter +to the Critical Reviewers.” Scott was justly offended at the +stigma of Quakerism, applied to the author of a literary composition; +but too gravely accuses the critic of his scurrilous +allusion to Macheath, as comparing him to a highwayman; +he seems, however, more provoked at the odd account of his +poems; he says, “You rank all my poems together as <i>bad</i>, +then discriminate some as <i>good</i>, and, to complete all, recommend +the volume as <i>an agreeable and amusing collection</i>.” +Had the poet been personally acquainted with this tantalizing +critic, he would have comprehended the nature of the criticism—and +certainly would never have replied to it.</p> +<p>The critic, employing one of his indefinite terms, had said +of “Amwell,” and some of the early “Elegies,” that “they +had their share of poetical merit;” he does not venture to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span> +assign the proportion of that share, but “the Amœbean and +oriental eclogues, odes, epistles, &c., now added, are <i>of a much +weaker feature, and many of them incorrect</i>.”</p> +<p>Here Scott loses all his dignity as a Quaker and a poet—he +asks what the critic means by the affected phrase <i>much +weaker feature</i>; the style, he says, was designed to be somewhat +less elevated, and thus addresses the critic:—</p> +<p>“You may, however, be safely defied to pronounce them, +with truth, deficient either in strength or melody of versification! +They were designed to be, like Virgil’s, descriptive +of Nature, simple and correct. Had you been disposed to do +me justice, you might have observed that in these eclogues I +had drawn from the great prototype Nature, much imagery +that had escaped the notice of all my predecessors. You +might also have remarked that when I introduced images +that had been already introduced by others, still the arrangement +or combination of those images was my own. The +praise of originality you might at least have allowed me.”</p> +<p>As for their <i>incorrectness</i>!—Scott points that accusation +with a note of admiration, adding, “with whatever defects +my works may be chargeable, the last is that of <i>incorrectness</i>.”</p> +<p>We are here involuntarily reminded of Sir Fretful, in <i>The +Critic</i>:—</p> +<p>“I think the interest rather declines in the fourth act.”</p> +<p>“Rises! you mean, my dear friend!”</p> +<p>Perhaps the most extraordinary examples of the irritation +of a poet’s mind, and a man of amiable temper, are those +parts of this letter in which the author quotes large portions +of his poetry, to refute the degrading strictures of the reviewer.</p> +<p>This was a fertile principle, admitting of very copious extracts; +but the ludicrous attitude is that of an Adonis inspecting +himself at his mirror.</p> +<p>That provoking see-saw of criticism, which our learned +physician usually adopted in his critiques, was particularly +tantalizing to the poet of Amwell. The critic condemns, in +the gross, a whole set of eclogues; but immediately asserts +of one of them, that “the whole of it has great poetical +merit, and paints its subject in the warmest colours.” When +he came to review the odes, he discovers that “he does not +meet with those polished numbers, nor that freedom and +spirit, which that species of poetry requires;” and quotes half +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span> +a stanza, which he declares is “abrupt and insipid.” “From +twenty-seven odes!” exclaims the writhing poet—“are the +whole of my lyric productions to be stigmatised for four lines +which are flatter than those that preceded them?” But +what the critic could not be aware of, the poet tells us—he +designed them to be just what they are. “I knew they were +so when they were first written, but they were thought sufficiently +elevated for the place.” And then he enters into an +inquiry what the critic can mean by “polished numbers, freedom, +and spirit.” The passage is curious:—</p> +<p>“By your first criticism, <i>polished numbers</i>, if you mean +melodious versification, this perhaps the general ear will not +deny me. If you mean classical, chaste diction, free from +tautologous repetitions of the same thoughts in different expressions; +free from bad rhymes, unnecessary epithets, and incongruous +metaphors, I believe you may be safely challenged +to produce many instances wherein I have failed.</p> +<p>“By <i>freedom</i>, your second criterion, if you mean daring +transition, or arbitrary and desultory disposition of ideas, +however this may be required in the greater ode, it is now, +I believe, for the first time, expected in the lesser ode. If +you mean that careless, diffuse composition, that conversation-verse, +or verse loitering into prose, now so fashionable, this is +an excellence which I am not very ambitious of attaining. +But if you mean strong, concise, yet natural easy expression, +I apprehend the general judgment will decide in my favour. +To the general ear, and the general judgment, then, do I +appeal as to an impartial tribunal.” Here several odes are +transcribed. “By <i>spirit</i>, your third criticism, I know nothing +you can mean but enthusiasm; that which transports us to +every scene, and interests us in every sentiment. Poetry +without this cannot subsist; every species demands its proportion, +from the greater ode, of which it is the principal +characteristic, to the lesser, in which a small portion of it +only has hitherto been thought requisite. My productions, +I apprehend, have never before been deemed destitute of this +essential constituent. Whatever I have wrote, I have felt, +and I believe others have felt it also.”</p> +<p>On “the Epistles,” which had been condemned in the gross, +suddenly the critic turns round courteously to the bard, declaring +“they are written in an easy and familiar style, and +seem to flow from a good and a benevolent heart.” But then +sneeringly adds, that one of them being entitled “An Essay +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span> +on Painting, addressed to a young Artist, had better have +been omitted, because it had been so fully treated in so masterly +a manner by Mr. Hayley.” This was letting fall a +spark in a barrel of gunpowder. Scott immediately analyses +his brother poet’s poem, to show they have nothing in common; +and then compares those similar passages the subject +naturally produced, to show that “his poem does not suffer +greatly in the comparison.” “You may,” he adds, after +giving copious extracts from both poems, “persist in saying +that Mr. Hayley’s are the best. Your business then is to +prove it.” This, indeed, had been a very hazardous affair for +our medical critic, whose poetical feelings were so equable, +that he acknowledges “Mr. Scott’s poem is just and elegant,” +but “Mr. Hayley’s is likewise just and elegant;” therefore, +if one man has written a piece “just and elegant,” there is +no need of another on the same subject “just and elegant.”</p> +<p>To such an extreme point of egotism was a modest and +respectable author most cruelly driven by the callous playfulness +of a poetical critic, who himself had no sympathy for +poetry of any quality or any species, and whose sole art consisted +in turning about the canting dictionary of criticism. +Had Homer been a modern candidate for poetical honours, +from him Homer had not been distinguished, even from the +mediocrity of Scott of Amwell, whose poetical merits are not, +however, slight. In his Amœbean eclogues he may be distinguished +as the poet of botanists.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='A_VOLUMINOUS_AUTHOR_WITHOUT_JUDGMENT' id='A_VOLUMINOUS_AUTHOR_WITHOUT_JUDGMENT'></a> +<h3>A VOLUMINOUS AUTHOR WITHOUT JUDGMENT.</h3> +</div> +<p>Vast erudition, without the tact of good sense, in a voluminous +author, what a calamity! for to such a mind no subject +can present itself on which he is unprepared to write, and +none at the same time on which he can ever write reasonably. +The name and the works of <span class='smcap'>William Prynne</span> have often +come under the eye of the reader; but it is even now difficult +to discover his real character; for Prynne stood so completely +insulated amid all parties, that he was ridiculed by his friends, +and execrated by his enemies. The exuberance of his fertile +pen, the strangeness and the manner of his subjects, and his +pertinacity in voluminous publication, are known, and are +nearly unparalleled in literary history.</p> +<p>Could the man himself be separated from the author, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span> +Prynne would not appear ridiculous; but the unlucky author +of nearly two hundred works,<a name='FNanchor_0102' id='FNanchor_0102'></a><a href='#Footnote_0102' class='fnanchor'>[102]</a> and who, as Wood quaintly +computes, “must have written a sheet every day of his life, +reckoning from the time that he came to the use of reason +and the state of man,” has involved his life in his authorship; +the greatness of his character loses itself in his voluminous +works; and whatever Prynne may have been in his own age, +and remains to posterity, he was fated to endure all the calamities +of an author who has strained learning into absurdity, +and abused zealous industry by chimerical speculation.</p> +<p>Yet his activity, and the firmness and intrepidity of his +character in public life, were as ardent as they were in his +study—his soul was Roman; and Eachard says, that Charles +II., who could not but admire his earnest honesty, his copious +learning, and the public persecutions he suffered, and the ten +imprisonments he endured, inflicted by all parties, dignified +him with the title of “the Cato of the Age;” and one of his +own party facetiously described him as “William the Conqueror,” +a title he had most hardly earned by his inflexible +and invincible nature. Twice he had been cropped of his +ears; for at the first time the executioner having spared the +two fragments, the inhuman judge on his second trial discovering +them with astonishment, ordered them to be most unmercifully +cropped—then he was burned on his cheek, and +ruinously fined and imprisoned in a remote solitude,<a name='FNanchor_0103' id='FNanchor_0103'></a><a href='#Footnote_0103' class='fnanchor'>[103]</a>—but +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span> +had they torn him limb by limb, Prynne had been in his +mind a very polypus, which, cut into pieces, still loses none of +its individuality.</p> +<p>His conduct on the last of these occasions, when sentenced +to be stigmatised, and to have his ears cut close, must be +noticed. Turning to the executioner, he calmly invited him +to do his duty—“Come, friend, come, burn me! cut me! I +fear not! I have learned to fear the fire of hell, and not what +man can do unto me; come, scar me! scar me!” In Prynne +this was not ferocity, but heroism; Bastwick was intrepid out +of spite, and Burton from fanaticism. The executioner had +been urged not to spare his victims, and he performed his +office with extraordinary severity, cruelly heating his iron +twice, and cutting one of Prynne’s ears so close, as to take +away a piece of the cheek. Prynne stirred not in the torture; +and when it was done, smiled, observing, “The more I am +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span> +beaten down, the more I am lift up.” After this punishment, +in going to the Tower by water, he composed the following +verses on the two letters branded on his cheek, S. L., for +schismatical libeller, but which Prynne chose to translate +“Stigmata Laudis,” the stigmas of his enemy, the Archbishop +Laud.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Stigmata maxillis referens insignia <span class='smcap'>Laudis</span>,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Exultans remeo, victima grata Deo.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The heroic man, who could endure agony and insult, and +even thus commemorate his sufferings, with no unpoetical +conception, almost degrades his own sublimity when the +poetaster sets our teeth on edge by his verse.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Bearing Laud’s stamps on my cheeks I retire<br /> +Triumphing, God’s sweet sacrifice by fire.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The triumph of this unconquered being was, indeed, signal. +History scarcely exhibits so wonderful a reverse of fortune, +and so strict a retribution, as occurred at this eventful period. +He who had borne from the archbishop and the lords in the +Star Chamber the most virulent invectives, wishing them at +that instant seriously to consider that some who sat there on +the bench might yet stand prisoners at the bar, and need the +favour they now denied, at length saw the prediction completely +verified. What were the feelings of Laud, when +Prynne, returning from his prison of Mount Orgueil in +triumph, the road strewed with boughs, amid the acclamations +of the people, entered the apartment in the Tower +which the venerable Laud now in his turn occupied. The +unsparing Puritan sternly performed the office of rifling his +papers,<a name='FNanchor_0104' id='FNanchor_0104'></a><a href='#Footnote_0104' class='fnanchor'>[104]</a> and persecuted the helpless prelate till he led him to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span> +the block. Prynne, to use his own words, for he could be +eloquent when moved by passion, “had struck proud Canterbury +to the heart; and had undermined all his prelatical +designs to advance the bishops’ pomp and power;”<a name='FNanchor_0105' id='FNanchor_0105'></a><a href='#Footnote_0105' class='fnanchor'>[105]</a> Prynne +triumphed—but, even this austere Puritan soon grieved over +the calamities he had contributed to inflict on the nation; +and, with a humane feeling, he once wished, that “when +they had cut off his ears, they had cut off his head.” He +closed his political existence by becoming an advocate for the +Restoration; but, with his accustomed want of judgment +and intemperate zeal, had nearly injured the cause by his +premature activity. At the Restoration some difficulty +occurred to dispose of “busie Mr. Pryn,” as Whitelocke calls +him. It is said he wished to be one of the Barons of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span> +Exchequer, but he was made the Keeper of the Records in +the Tower, “purposely to employ his head from scribbling +against the state and bishops;” where they put him to clear +the Augean stable of our national antiquities, and see whether +they could weary out his restless vigour. Prynne had, +indeed, written till he found no antagonist would reply; and +now he rioted in leafy folios, and proved himself to be one +of the greatest paper-worms which ever crept into old books +and mouldy records.<a name='FNanchor_0106' id='FNanchor_0106'></a><a href='#Footnote_0106' class='fnanchor'>[106]</a></p> +<p>The literary character of Prynne is described by the happy +epithet which Anthony Wood applies to him, “Voluminous +Prynne.” His great characteristic is opposed to that axiom +of Hesiod so often quoted, that “half is better than the +whole;” a secret which the matter-of-fact men rarely discover. +Wanting judgment, and the tact of good sense, these +detailers have no power of selection from their stores, to +make one prominent fact represent the hundred minuter ones +that may follow it. Voluminously feeble, they imagine expansion +is stronger than compression; and know not to +generalise, while they only can deal in particulars. Prynne’s +speeches were just as voluminous as his writings; always +deficient in judgment, and abounding in knowledge—he was +always wearying others, but never could himself. He once +made a speech to the House, to persuade them the king’s +concessions were sufficient ground for a treaty; it contains a +complete narrative of all the transactions between the king, +the Houses, and the army, from the beginning of the parliament; +it takes up 140 octavo pages, and kept the house so +long together, that the debates lasted from Monday morning +till Tuesday morning!</p> +<p>Prynne’s literary character may be illustrated by his singular +book, “Histriomastix,”—where we observe how an +author’s exuberant learning, like corn heaped in a granary, +grows rank and musty, by a want of power to ventilate and +stir about the heavy mass.</p> +<p>This paper-worm may first be viewed in his study, as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span> +painted by the picturesque Anthony Wood; an artist in the +Flemish school:—</p> +<p>“His custom, when he studied, was to put on a long +quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes, serving as an +umbrella to defend them from too much light, and <i>seldom +eating any dinner</i>, would be every three hours maunching a +roll of bread, and now and then refresh his exhausted spirits +with ale brought to him by his servant;” a custom to which +Butler alludes,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Thou that with ale, or viler liquors,<br /> +Didst inspire Withers, Prynne, and Vicars,<br /> +And force them, though it were in spite<br /> +Of nature, and their stars, to write.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The “<span class='smcap'>Histriomastix</span>, the Player’s Scourge, or Actor’s +Tragedie,” is a ponderous quarto, ascending to about 1100 +pages; a Puritan’s invective against plays and players, accusing +them of every kind of crime, including libels against +Church and State;<a name='FNanchor_0107' id='FNanchor_0107'></a><a href='#Footnote_0107' class='fnanchor'>[107]</a> but it is more remarkable for the incalculable +quotations and references foaming over the margins. +Prynne scarcely ventures on the most trivial opinion, without +calling to his aid whatever had been said in all nations and in +all ages; and Cicero, and Master Stubbs, Petrarch and +Minutius Felix, Isaiah and Froissart’s Chronicle, oddly associate +in the ravings of erudition. Who, indeed, but the +author “who seldom dined,” could have quoted perhaps a +thousand writers in one volume?<a name='FNanchor_0108' id='FNanchor_0108'></a><a href='#Footnote_0108' class='fnanchor'>[108]</a> A wit of the times remarked +of this <i>Helluo librorum</i>, that “Nature makes ever +the dullest beasts most laborious, and the greatest feeders;” +and Prynne has been reproached with a weak digestion, for +“returning things unaltered, which is a symptom of a feeble +stomach.”</p> +<p>When we examine this volume, often alluded to, the birth +of the monster seems prodigious and mysterious; it combines +two opposite qualities; it is so elaborate in its researches +among the thousand authors quoted, that these required +years to accumulate, and yet the matter is often temporary, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span> +and levelled at fugitive events and particular persons; thus +the very formation of this mighty volume seems paradoxical. +The secret history of this book is as extraordinary as the +book itself, and is a remarkable evidence how, in a work of +immense erudition, the arts of a wily sage involved himself, +and whoever was concerned in his book, in total ruin. The +author was pilloried, fined, and imprisoned; his publisher +condemned in the penalty of five hundred pounds, and barred +for ever from printing and selling books, and the licenser removed +and punished. Such was the fatality attending the +book of a man whose literary voracity produced one of the +most tremendous indigestions, in a malady of writing.</p> +<p>It was on examining Prynne’s trial I discovered the secret +history of the “Histriomastix.” Prynne was seven years in +writing this work, and, what is almost incredible, it was near +four years passing through the press. During that interval +the eternal scribbler was daily gorging himself with voluminous +food, and daily fattening his cooped-up capon. The +temporary sedition and libels were the gradual Mosaic inlayings +through this shapeless mass.</p> +<p>It appears that the volume of 1100 quarto pages originally +consisted of little more than a quire of paper; but Prynne +found insuperable difficulties in procuring a licenser, even for +this infant Hercules. Dr. Goode deposed that—</p> +<p>“About eight years ago Mr. Prynne brought to him a +quire of paper to license, which he refused; and he recollected +the circumstance by having held an argument with +Prynne on his severe reprehension on the unlawfulness of a +man to put on women’s apparel, which, the good-humoured +doctor asserted was not always unlawful; for suppose Mr. +Prynne yourself, as a Christian, was persecuted by pagans, +think you not if you disguised yourself in your maid’s +apparel, you did well? Prynne sternly answered that he +thought himself bound rather to yield to death than to +do so.”</p> +<p>Another licenser, Dr. Harris, deposed, that about seven +years ago—</p> +<p>“Mr. Prynne came to him to license a treatise concerning +stage-plays; but he would not allow of the same;”—and +adds, “So this man did deliver this book when it was young +and tender, and would have had it then printed; but it is +since grown seven times bigger, and seven times worse.”</p> +<p>Prynne not being able to procure these licensers, had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span> +recourse to another, Buckner, chaplain to the Archbishop of +Canterbury. It was usual for the licenser to examine the +MS. before it went to the press; but Prynne either tampered +with Buckner, or so confused his intellects by keeping his +multifarious volume in the press for four years; and sometimes, +I suspect, by numbering folios for pages, as appears in +the work, that the examination of the licenser gradually +relaxed; and he declares in his defence that he had only +licensed part of it. The bookseller, Sparks, was indeed a +noted publisher of what was then called “Unlawful and unlicensed +books;” and he had declared that it was “an excellent +book, which would be called in, and then sell well.” He +confesses the book had been more than three years in the +press, and had cost him three hundred pounds.</p> +<p>The speech of Noy, the Attorney-General, conveys some +notion of the work itself; sufficiently curious as giving the +feelings of those times against the Puritans.</p> +<p>“Who he means by his <i>modern innovators</i> in the church, +and by <i>cringing and ducking</i> to altars, a fit term to bestow +on the church; he learned it of the <i>canters</i>, being used among +them. The musick in the church, the charitable term he +giveth it, is not to be a noise of men, but rather a <i>bleating of +brute beasts</i>; choristers <i>bellow</i> the tenor, as it were oxen; +<i>bark</i> a counterpoint as a kennel of dogs; <i>roar</i> out a treble +like a sort of bulls; <i>grunt</i> out a bass, as it were a number of +hogs. Bishops he calls the <i>silk and satin divines</i>; says Christ +was a Puritan, in his Index. He falleth on those things +that have not relation to stage-plays, musick in the church, +dancing, new-years’ gifts, &c.,—then upon altars, images, +hair of men and women, bishops and bonfires. Cards and +tables do offend him, and perukes do fall within the compass +of his theme. His end is to persuade the people that we are +returning back again to paganism, and to persuade them to +go and serve God in another country, as many are gone +already, and set up new laws and fancies among themselves. +Consider what may come of it!”</p> +<p>The decision of the Lords of the Star Chamber was dictated +by passion as much as justice. Its severity exceeded the +crime of having produced an unreadable volume of indigested +erudition; and the learned scribbler was too hardly used, +scarcely escaping with life. Lord Cottington, amazed at the +mighty volume, too bluntly affirmed that Prynne did not +write this book alone; “he either assisted the devil, or was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span> +assisted by the devil.” But secretary Cooke delivered a sensible +and temperate speech; remarking on all its false erudition +that,</p> +<p>“By this vast book of Mr. Prynne’s, it appeareth that he +hath read more than he hath studied, and studied more than +he hath considered. He calleth his book ‘Histriomastix;’ +but therein he showeth himself like unto Ajax Anthropomastix, +as the Grecians called him, the scourge of all mankind, +that is, the whipper and the whip.”</p> +<p>Such is the history of a man whose greatness of character +was clouded over and lost in a fatal passion for scribbling; +such is the history of a voluminous author whose genius was +such that he could write a folio much easier than a page; +and “seldom dined” that he might quote “squadrons +of authorities.”<a name='FNanchor_0109' id='FNanchor_0109'></a><a href='#Footnote_0109' class='fnanchor'>[109]</a></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='GENIUS_AND_ERUDITION_THE_VICTIMS_OF_IMMODERATE_VANITY' id='GENIUS_AND_ERUDITION_THE_VICTIMS_OF_IMMODERATE_VANITY'></a> +<h3>GENIUS AND ERUDITION THE VICTIMS OF IMMODERATE VANITY.</h3> +</div> +<p>The name of <span class='smcap'>Toland</span> is more familiar than his character, yet +his literary portrait has great singularity; he must be classed +among the “Authors by Profession,” an honour secured by +near fifty publications; and we shall discover that he aimed to +combine with the literary character one peculiarly his own.<a name='FNanchor_0110' id='FNanchor_0110'></a><a href='#Footnote_0110' class='fnanchor'>[110]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span> +With higher talents and more learning than have been conceded +to him, there ran in his mind an original vein of thinking. +Yet his whole life exhibits in how small a degree great +intellectual powers, when scattered through all the forms +which Vanity suggests, will contribute to an author’s social +comforts, or raise him in public esteem. Toland was fruitful +in his productions, and still more so in his projects; yet it is +mortifying to estimate the result of all the intense activity of +the life of an author of genius, which terminates in being +placed among these Calamities.</p> +<p>Toland’s birth was probably illegitimate; a circumstance +which influenced the formation of his character. Baptised in +ridicule, he had nearly fallen a victim to Mr. Shandy’s system +of Christian names, for he bore the strange ones of <i>Janus +Junius</i>, which, when the school-roll was called over every +morning, afforded perpetual merriment, till the master blessed +him with plain <i>John</i>, which the boy adopted, and lived in +quiet. I must say something on the names themselves, perhaps +as ridiculous! May they not have influenced the character +of Toland, since they certainly describe it? He had all the +shiftings of the double-faced <i>Janus</i>, and the revolutionary +politics of the ancient <i>Junius</i>. His godfathers sent him into +the world in cruel mockery, thus to remind their Irish boy of +the fortunes that await the desperately bold: nor did Toland +forget the strong-marked designations; for to his most +objectionable work, the Latin tract entitled <i>Pantheisticon</i>, +descriptive of what some have considered as an atheistical +society, he subscribes these appropriate names, which at the +time were imagined to be fictitious.</p> +<p>Toland ran away from school and Popery. When in after-life +he was reproached with native obscurity, he ostentatiously +produced a testimonial of his birth and family, hatched up at +a convent of Irish Franciscans in Germany, where the good +Fathers subscribed, with their ink tinged with their Rhenish, +to his most ancient descent, referring to the Irish history! +which they considered as a parish register, fit for the suspected +son of an Irish Priest!</p> +<p>Toland, from early life, was therefore dependent on patrons; +but illegitimate birth creates strong and determined characters, +and Toland had all the force and originality of self-independence. +He was a seed thrown by chance, to grow of itself +wherever it falls.</p> +<p>This child of fortune studied at four Universities; at Glasgow, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span> +Edinburgh, and Leyden; from the latter he passed to +Oxford, and, in the Bodleian Library, collected the materials +for his after-studies.</p> +<p>He loved study, and even at a later period declares that +“no employment or condition of life shall make me disrelish +the lasting entertainment of books.” In his “Description +of Epsom,” he observes that the taste for retirement, reading, +and contemplation, promotes the true relish for select +company, and says,</p> +<p>“Thus I remove at pleasure, as I grow weary of the +country or the town, as I avoid a crowd or seek company.—Here, +then, let me have <i>books and bread</i> enough without +dependence; a bottle of hermitage and a plate of olives for a +select friend; with an early rose to present a young lady as +an emblem of discretion no less than of beauty.”</p> +<p>At Oxford appeared that predilection for paradoxes and +over-curious speculations, which formed afterwards the marking +feature of his literary character. He has been unjustly +contemned as a sciolist; he was the correspondent of Leibnitz, +Le Clerc, and Bayle, and was a learned author when +scarcely a man. He first published a Dissertation on the +strange tragical death of Regulus, and proved it a Roman +legend. A greater paradox might have been his projected +speculation on Job, to demonstrate that only the dialogue was +genuine; the rest being the work of some idle Rabbin, who +had invented a monstrous story to account for the extraordinary +afflictions of that model of a divine mind. Speculations +of so much learning and ingenuity are uncommon in a young +man; but Toland was so unfortunate as to value his own +merits before those who did not care to hear of them.</p> +<p>Hardy vanity was to recompense him, perhaps he thought, +for that want of fortune and connexions, which raised duller +spirits above him. Vain, loquacious, inconsiderate, and +daring, he assumed the dictatorship of a coffee-house, and +obtained easy conquests, which he mistook for glorious ones, +over the graver fellows, who had for many a year awfully +petrified their own colleges. He gave more violent offence +by his new opinions on religion. An anonymous person +addressed two letters to this new Heresiarch, solemn and +monitory.<a name='FNanchor_0111' id='FNanchor_0111'></a><a href='#Footnote_0111' class='fnanchor'>[111]</a> Toland’s answer is as honourable as that of his +monitor’s. This passage is forcibly conceived:—</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span></div> +<p>“To what purpose should I study here or elsewhere, were I +an <i>atheist</i> or <i>deist</i>, for one of the two you take me to be? +What a condition to mention virtue, if I believed there was +no God, or one so impotent that could not, or so malicious +that would not, reveal himself! Nay, though I granted a +Deity, yet, if nothing of me subsisted after death, what laws +could bind, what incentives could move me to common +honesty? Annihilation would be a sanctuary for all my sins, +and put an end to my crimes with myself. Believe me I am +not so indifferent to the evils of the present life, but, without +the expectation of a better, I should soon suspend the +mechanism of my body, and resolve into inconscious atoms.”</p> +<p>This early moment of his life proved to be its crisis, and +the first step he took decided his after-progress. His first +great work of “Christianity not Mysterious,” produced immense +consequences. Toland persevered in denying that it was +designed as any attack on Christianity, but only on those subtractions, +additions, and other alterations, which have corrupted +that pure institution. The work, at least, like its title, is “Mysterious.”<a name='FNanchor_0112' id='FNanchor_0112'></a><a href='#Footnote_0112' class='fnanchor'>[112]</a> +Toland passed over to Ireland, but his book having +got there before him, the author beheld himself anathematized; +the pulpits thundered, and it was dangerous to be seen +conversing with him. A jury who confessed they could not +comprehend a page of his book, condemned it to be burned. +Toland now felt a tenderness for his person; and the humane +Molyneux, the friend of Locke, while he censures the imprudent +vanity of our author, gladly witnessed the flight of “the +poor gentleman.” But South, indignant at our English +moderation in his own controversy with Sherlock on some doctrinal +points of the Trinity, congratulates the Archbishop of +Dublin on the Irish persecution; and equally witty and intolerant, +he writes on Toland, “Your Parliament presently sent +him packing, and without the help of a <i>fagot</i>, soon made the +kingdom <i>too hot</i> for him.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span></div> +<p>Toland was accused of an intention to found a sect, as South +calls them, of “Mahometan-Christians.” Many were stigmatised +as <i>Tolandists</i>; but the disciples of a man who never +procured for their prophet a bit of dinner or a new wig, for he +was frequently wanting both, were not to be feared as enthusiasts. +The persecution from the church only rankled in the +breast of Toland, and excited unextinguishable revenge.</p> +<p>He now breathed awhile from the bonfire of theology; and +our <i>Janus</i> turned his political face. He edited Milton’s voluminous +politics, and Harrington’s fantastical “Oceana,” and, +as his “Christianity not Mysterious” had stamped his religion +with something worse than heresy, so in politics he was +branded as a Commonwealth’s-man. Toland had evidently +strong nerves; for him opposition produced controversy, +which he loved, and controversy produced books, by which he +lived.</p> +<p>But let it not be imagined that Toland affected to be considered +as no Christian, or avowed himself as a Republican. +“Civil and religious toleration” (he says) “have been the two +main objects of all my writings.” He declares himself to be +only a primitive Christian, and a pure Whig. But an author +must not be permitted to understand himself so much more +clearly than he has enabled his readers to do. His mysterious +conduct may be detected in his want of moral integrity.</p> +<p>He had the art of explaining away his own words, as in his +first controversy about the word <i>mystery</i> in religion, and he +exults in his artifice; for, in a letter, where he is soliciting the +minister for employment, he says:—“The church is much +exasperated against me; yet as that is the heaviest article, so +it is undoubtedly the easiest conquered, and I know <i>the infallible +method of doing it</i>.” And, in a letter to the Archbishop +of Canterbury, he promises to <i>reform his religion to that prelate’s +liking</i>! He took the sacrament as an opening for the +negotiation.</p> +<p>What can be more explicit than his recantation at the close +of his <i>Vindicius Liberius</i>? After telling us that he had +withdrawn from sale, after the second edition, his “‘Christianity +not Mysterious,’ when I perceived what real or pretended +offence it had given,” he concludes thus:—“Being +now arrived to years that will not wholly excuse inconsiderateness +in resolving, or precipitance in acting, I firmly hope that +my <i>persuasion</i> and <i>practice</i> will show me <i>to be a true Christian</i>; +that my due <i>conformity</i> to the <i>public worship</i> may +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span> +prove me to be <i>a good Churchman</i>; and that my untainted +loyalty to King William will argue me to be a staunch Commonwealth’s-man. +That I shall continue all my life a friend +to religion, an enemy to superstition, a supporter of good +kings, and a deposer of tyrants.”</p> +<p>Observe, this <i>Vindicius Liberius</i> was published on his return +from one of his political tours in Germany. His +views were then of a very different nature from those of controversial +divinity; but it was absolutely necessary to allay +the storm the church had raised against him. We begin now +to understand a little better the character of Toland. These +literary adventurers, with heroic pretensions, can practise the +meanest artifices, and shrink themselves into nothing to creep +out of a hole. How does this recantation agree with the +“Nazarenus,” and the other theological works which Toland +was publishing all his life? Posterity only can judge of men’s +characters; it takes in at a glance the whole of a life; but +contemporaries only view a part, often apparently unconnected +and at variance, when in fact it is neither. This +recantation is full of the spirit of <i>Janus Junius</i> Toland.</p> +<p>But we are concerned chiefly with Toland’s literary character. +He was so confirmed an author, that he never published +one book without promising another. He refers to +others in MS.; and some of his most curious works are +posthumous. He was a great artificer of title-pages, covering +them with a promising luxuriance; and in this way recommended +his works to the booksellers. He had an odd taste +for running inscriptions of whimsical crabbed terms; the gold-dust +of erudition to gild over a title; such as “Tetradymus, +Hodegus, Clidopharus;” “Adeisidaemon, or the Unsuperstitious.” +He pretends these affected titles indicated their +several subjects; but the genius of Toland could descend to +literary quackery.</p> +<p>He had the art of propagating books; his small Life of +Milton produced several; besides the complacency he felt in +extracting long passages from Milton against the bishops. +In this Life, his attack on the authenticity of the <i>Eikon Basilike</i> +of Charles I. branched into another on supposititious +writings; and this included the spurious gospels. Association +of ideas is a nursing mother to the fertility of authorship. +The spurious gospels opened a fresh theological campaign, +and produced his “Amyntor.” There was no end in provoking +an author, who, in writing the life of a poet, could +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span> +contrive to put the authenticity of the Testament to the +proof.</p> +<p>Amid his philosophical labours, his <i>vanity</i> induced him to +seize on all temporary topics to which his facility and ingenuity +gave currency. The choice of his subjects forms an +amusing catalogue; for he had “Remarks” and “Projects” +as fast as events were passing. He wrote on the “Art of +Governing by Parties,” on “Anglia Liberia,” “Reasons for +Naturalising the Jews,” on “The Art of Canvassing at Elections,” +“On raising a National Bank without Capital,” +“The State Anatomy,” “Dunkirk or Dover,” &c. &c. +These, and many like these, set off with catching titles, +proved to the author that a man of genius may be capable of +writing on all topics at all times, and make the country his +debtor without benefiting his own creditors.<a name='FNanchor_0113' id='FNanchor_0113'></a><a href='#Footnote_0113' class='fnanchor'>[113]</a></p> +<p>There was a moment in Toland’s life when he felt, or +thought he felt, fortune in his grasp. He was then floating +on the ideal waves of the South Sea bubble. The poor author, +elated with a notion that he was rich enough to print at his +own cost, dispersed copies of his absurd “Pantheisticon.” +He describes a society of Pantheists, who worship the universe +as God; a mystery much greater than those he attacked +in Christianity. Their prayers are passages from Cicero and +Seneca, and they chant long poems instead of psalms; so that +in their zeal they endured a little tediousness. The next +objectionable circumstance in this wild ebullition of philosophical +wantonness is the apparent burlesque of some liturgies; +and a wag having inserted in some copies an impious prayer to +Bacchus, Toland suffered for the folly of others as well as his +own.<a name='FNanchor_0114' id='FNanchor_0114'></a><a href='#Footnote_0114' class='fnanchor'>[114]</a> With the South Sea bubble vanished Toland’s desire +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span> +of printing books at his own risk; and thus relieved the +world from the weight of more <i>Pantheisticons</i>!</p> +<p>With all this bustle of authorship, amidst temporary publications +which required such prompt ingenuity, and elaborate +works which matured the fruits of early studies, Toland was +still not a sedentary writer. I find that he often travelled on +the continent; but how could a guinealess author so easily +transport himself from Flanders to Germany, and appear at +home in the courts of Berlin, Dresden, and Hanover? Perhaps +we may discover a concealed feature in the character of +our ambiguous philosopher.</p> +<p>In the only Life we have of Toland, by Des Maiseaux, prefixed +to his posthumous works, he tells us, that Toland was +at the court of Berlin, but “an incident, <i>too ludicrous to be +mentioned</i>, obliged him to leave that place sooner than he +expected.” Here is an incident in a narrative clearly marked +out, but never to be supplied! Whatever this incident was, +it had this important result, that it sent Toland away in +haste; but <i>why</i> was he there? Our chronological biographer,<a name='FNanchor_0115' id='FNanchor_0115'></a><a href='#Footnote_0115' class='fnanchor'>[115]</a> +“good easy man,” suspects nothing more extraordinary when +he tells us Toland was at Berlin or Hanover, than when he +finds him at Epsom; imagines Toland only went to the Electoral +Princess Sophia, and the Queen of Prussia, who were +“ladies of sublime genius,” to entertain them by vexing some +grave German divines, with philosophical conferences, and +paradoxical conundrums; all the ravings of Toland’s idleness.<a name='FNanchor_0116' id='FNanchor_0116'></a><a href='#Footnote_0116' class='fnanchor'>[116]</a></p> +<p>This secret history of Toland can only be picked out by +fine threads. He professed to be a literary character—he +had opened a periodical “literary correspondence,” as he +terms it, with Prince Eugene; such as we have witnessed +in our days by Grimm and La Harpe, addressed to some +northern princes. He was a favourite with the Electoral +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span> +Princess Sophia and the Queen of Prussia, to whom he +addressed his “Letters to Serena.” Was he a political +agent? Yet how was it that Toland was often driven home +by distressed circumstances? He seems not to have been +a practical politician, for he managed his own affairs very ill. +Was the political intriguer rather a suspected than a confidential +servant of all his masters and mistresses? for it is +evident no one cared for him! The absence of moral integrity +was probably never disguised by the loquacious vanity +of this literary adventurer.</p> +<p>In his posthumous works are several “Memorials” for the +Earl of Oxford, which throw a new light over a union of +political <i>espionage</i> with the literary character, which finally +concluded in producing that extraordinary one which the +political imagination of Toland created in all the obscurity +and heat of his reveries.</p> +<p>In one of these “Memorials,” forcibly written and full of +curiosity, Toland remonstrates with the minister for his +marked neglect of him; opens the scheme of a political tour, +where, like Guthrie, he would be content with his <i>quarterage</i>. +He defines his character; for the independent Whig affects +to spurn at the office, though he might not shrink at the +duties of a spy.</p> +<p>“Whether such a person, sir, who is <i>neither minister nor +spy</i>, and as a <i>lover of learning will be welcome everywhere</i>, +may not prove of extraordinary use to my Lord Treasurer, as +well as to his predecessor Burleigh, who employed such, I +leave his lordship and you to consider.”</p> +<p>Still <i>this character</i>, whatever title may designate it, is +inferior in dignity and importance to that which Toland +afterwards projected, and which portrays him where his life-writer +has not given a touch from his brush; it is a political +curiosity.</p> +<p>“I laid an honester scheme of serving my country, your +lordship, and myself; for, seeing it was neither convenient for +you, nor a thing at all desired by me, that <i>I should appear +in any public post</i>, I sincerely proposed, as occasions should +offer, to communicate to your lordship my observations on +<i>the temper of the ministry, the dispositions of the people, the +condition of our enemies or allies abroad</i>, and what I might +think <i>most expedient in every conjuncture</i>; which advice +you were to follow in whole, or in part, or not at all, as your +own superior wisdom should direct. My general acquaintance, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' name='page_164'></a>164</span> +the several languages I speak, the experience I have +acquired in foreign affairs, and being engaged in no interest +at home, besides that of the public, should qualify me in some +measure for this province. <span class='smcap'>All wise ministers have ever +had such private monitors.</span> As much as I thought myself +fit, or was thought so by others, for such general observations, +so much have I ever abhorred, my lord, <i>those particular +observers we call <span class='smcap'>Spies</span></i>; but I despise the calumny +no less than I detest the thing. Of such general observations, +you should have perused a far greater number than I +thought fit to present hitherto, had I discovered, by due +effects, that they were acceptable from <i>me</i>; for they must +unavoidably be received from <i>somebody</i>, unless a minister +were omniscient—yet I soon had good reason to believe I +was not designed for the man, whatever the original sin +could be that made me incapable of such a trust, and which +I now begin to suspect. Without direct answers to my proposals, +how could I know whether I helped my friends elsewhere, +or betrayed them contrary to my intentions! and +accordingly I have for some time been very cautious and +reserved. But if your lordship will enter into any measures +with me to procure <i>the good of my country</i>, I shall be more +ready to <i>serve</i> your lordship in this, or in some becoming +capacity, than any other minister. They who confided to +my management affairs of a higher nature have found me +exact as well as secret. My impenetrable negociation at +Vienna (hid under the pretence of curiosity) was not only +applauded by the prince that employed me, but also proportionably +rewarded. And here, my lord, give me leave to say +that I have found England miserably served abroad since +this change; and our ministers at home are sometimes as +great strangers to the genius as to the persons of those with +whom they have to do. At —— you have placed the most +unacceptable man in the world—one that lived in a scandalous +misunderstanding with the minister of the States at +another court—one that has been the laughing-stock of all +courts, for his senseless haughtiness and most ridiculous airs—and +one that can never judge aright, unless by accident, in +anything.”</p> +<p>The discarded, or the suspected <i>private monitor of the +Minister</i> warms into the tenderest language of political +amour, and mourns their rupture but as the quarrels of +lovers.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span></div> +<p>“I cannot, from all these considerations, but in the nature +of a lover, complain of your present neglect, and be solicitous +for your future care.” And again, “I have made use of the +simile of a lover, and as such, indeed, I thought fit, once for +all, to come to a thorough explanation, resolved, if my affection +be not killed by your unkindness, to become indissolubly +yours.”</p> +<p>Such is the nice artifice which colours, with a pretended +love of his country, the sordidness of the political intriguer, +giving clean names to filthy things. But this view of the +political face of our <i>Janus</i> is not complete till we discover the +levity he could carry into politics when not disguised by more +pompous pretensions. I shall give two extracts from letters +composed in a different spirit.</p> +<p>“I am bound for Germany, though first for Flanders, and +next for Holland. I believe I shall be pretty well accommodated +for this voyage, which I expect will be very short. +Lord! how near was <i>my old woman</i> being a queen! and your +humble servant being <i>at his ease</i>.”</p> +<p>His <i>old woman</i> was the Electoral Princess Sophia; and <i>his +ease</i> is what patriots distinguish as <i>the love of their country</i>! +Again—</p> +<p>“The October Club,<a name='FNanchor_0117' id='FNanchor_0117'></a><a href='#Footnote_0117' class='fnanchor'>[117]</a> if rightly managed, will be rare stuff +<i>to work the ends of any party</i>. I sent such an account of +these wights to an <i>old gentlewoman</i> of my acquaintance, as in +the midst of fears (the change of ministry) will make her +laugh.”</p> +<p>After all his voluminous literature, and his refined politics, +Toland lived and died the life of an Author by Profession, in +an obscure lodging at a country carpenter’s, in great distress. +He had still one patron left, who was himself poor, Lord +Molesworth, who promised him, if he lived,</p> +<p>“Bare necessaries. These are but cold comfort to a man +of your spirit and desert; but ’tis all I dare promise! ’Tis +an ungrateful age, and we must bear with it the best we may +till we can mend it.”</p> +<p>And his lordship tells of his unsuccessful application to +some Whig lord for Toland; and concludes,</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' name='page_166'></a>166</span></div> +<p>“’Tis a sad monster of a man, and not worthy of further +notice.”</p> +<p>I have observed that Toland had strong nerves; he neither +feared controversies, nor that which closes all. Having +examined his manuscripts, I can sketch a minute picture of +the last days of our “author by profession.” At the carpenter’s +lodgings he drew up a list of all his books—they +were piled on four chairs, to the amount of 155—most of +them works which evince the most erudite studies; and as +Toland’s learning has been very lightly esteemed, it may be +worth notice that some of his MSS. were transcribed in +Greek.<a name='FNanchor_0118' id='FNanchor_0118'></a><a href='#Footnote_0118' class='fnanchor'>[118]</a> To this list he adds—“I need not recite those in +the closet with the unbound books and pamphlets; nor my +trunk, wherein are all my papers and MSS.” I perceive he +circulated his MSS. among his friends, for there is a list by +him as he lent them, among which are ladies as well as +gentlemen, <i>esprits forts</i>!</p> +<p>Never has author died more in character than Toland; he +may be said to have died with a busy pen in his hand. +Having suffered from an unskilful physician, he avenged himself +in his own way; for there was found on his table an +“Essay on Physic without Physicians.” The dying patriot-trader +was also writing a preface for a political pamphlet on +<i>the danger of mercenary Parliaments</i>; and the philosopher +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span> +was composing his own epitaph—one more proof of the ruling +passion predominating in death; but why should a <i>Pantheist</i> +be solicitous to perpetuate his genius and his fame! I +shall transcribe a few lines; surely they are no evidence of +Atheism!</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'>Omnium Literarum excultor,</p> +<p class='center cg'>ac linguarum plus decem sciens;</p> +<p class='center cg'>Veritatis propugnator,</p> +<p class='center cg'>Libertatis assertor;</p> +<p class='center cg'>nullus autem sectator aut cliens,</p> +<p class='center cg'>nec minis, nec malis est inflexus,</p> +<p class='center cg'>quin quam elegit, viam perageret;</p> +<p class='center cg'>utili honestum anteferens.</p> +<p class='center cg'>Spiritus cum æthereo patre,</p> +<p class='center cg'>à quo prodiit olim, conjungitur;</p> +<p class='center cg'>corpus item, Naturæ cedens,</p> +<p class='center cg'>in materno gremio reponitur.</p> +<p class='cg'>Ipse vero æternum est resurrecturus,<br /> +at idem futurus <span class='smcap'>Tolandus</span> nunquam.<a name='FNanchor_0119' id='FNanchor_0119'></a><a href='#Footnote_0119' class='fnanchor'>[119]</a></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>One would have imagined that the writer of his own +panegyrical epitaph would have been careful to have transmitted +to posterity a copy of his features; but I know of no +portrait of Toland. His patrons seem never to have been +generous, nor his disciples grateful; they mortified rather +than indulged the egotism of his genius. There appeared, +indeed, an elegy, shortly after the death of Toland, so ingeniously +contrived, that it is not clear whether he is eulogised +or ridiculed. Amid its solemnity these lines betray the +sneer. “Has,” exclaimed the eulogist of the ambiguous +philosopher,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Each jarring element gone angry home?<br /> +And <i>Master Toland</i> a <i>Non-ens</i> become?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p><span class='smcap'>Locke</span>, with all the prescient sagacity of that clear understanding +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' name='page_168'></a>168</span> +which penetrated under the secret folds of the +human heart, anticipated the life of Toland at its commencement. +He admired the genius of the man; but, while he +valued his parts and learning, he dreaded their result. In a +letter I find these passages, which were then so prophetic, +and are now so instructive:—</p> +<p>“If his exceeding great value of himself do not deprive +the world of that usefulness that his parts, if rightly conducted, +might be of, I shall be very glad.—The hopes young +men give of what use they will make of their parts is, to +me, the encouragement of being concerned for them; but, <i>if +vanity increases with age, I always fear whither it will lead +a man</i>.”</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='GENIUS_THE_DUPE_OF_ITS_PASSIONS' id='GENIUS_THE_DUPE_OF_ITS_PASSIONS'></a> +<h3>GENIUS THE DUPE OF ITS PASSIONS.</h3> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>Pope</span> said that <span class='smcap'>Steele</span>, though he led a careless and vicious +life, had nevertheless a love and reverence for virtue. The +life of Steele was not that of a retired scholar; hence his +moral character becomes more instructive. He was one of +those whose hearts are the dupes of their imaginations, +and who are hurried through life by the most despotic volition. +He always preferred his caprices to his interests; or, +according to his own notion, very ingenious, but not a little +absurd, “he was always of the humour of preferring the +state of his mind to that of his fortune.” The result of this +principle of moral conduct was, that a man of the most admirable +abilities was perpetually acting like a fool, and, with +a warm attachment to virtue, was the frailest of human +beings.</p> +<p>In the first act of his life we find the seed that developed +itself in the succeeding ones. His uncle could not endure a +hero for his heir: but Steele had seen a marching regiment; +a sufficient reason with him to enlist as a private in the +horse-guards: cocking his hat, and putting on a broad-sword, +jack-boots, and shoulder-belt, with the most generous feelings +he forfeited a very good estate.—At length Ensign Steele’s +frank temper and wit conciliated esteem, and extorted admiration, +and the ensign became a favourite leader in all the +dissipations of the town. All these were the ebullitions of +genius, which had not yet received a legitimate direction. +Amid these orgies, however, it was often pensive, and forming +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span> +itself; for it was in the height of these irregularities that +Steele composed his “Christian Hero,” a moral and religious +treatise, which the contritions of every morning dictated, and +to which the disorders of every evening added another penitential +page. Perhaps the genius of Steele was never so +ardent and so pure as at this period; and in his elegant letter +to his commander, the celebrated Lord Cutts, he gives an interesting +account of the origin of this production, which +none but one deeply imbued with its feelings could have so +forcibly described.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>Tower Guard, March 23, 1701.</i></p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>My Lord</span>,—The address of the following papers is so very +much due to your lordship, that they are but a mere report of +what has passed upon my guard to my commander; for they +were writ upon duty, when the mind was perfectly disengaged, +and at leisure, in the silent watch of the night, to run over +the busy dream of the day; and the vigilance which obliges +us to suppose an enemy always near us, has awakened a sense +that there is a restless and subtle one which constantly attends +our steps, and meditates our ruin.”<a name='FNanchor_0120' id='FNanchor_0120'></a><a href='#Footnote_0120' class='fnanchor'>[120]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>To this solemn and monitory work he prefixed his name, +from this honourable motive, that it might serve as “a +standing testimony against himself, and make him ashamed +of understanding, and seeming to feel what was virtuous, +and living so quite contrary a life.” Do we not think that +no one less than a saint is speaking to us? And yet he is +still nothing more than Ensign Steele! He tells us that this +grave work made him considered, who had been no undelightful +companion, as a disagreeable fellow—and “The +Christian Hero,” by his own words, appears to have fought +off several fool-hardy geniuses who were for “trying their +valour on him,” supposing a saint was necessarily a poltroon. +Thus “The Christian Hero,” finding himself slighted by his +loose companions, sat down and composed a most laughable +comedy, “The Funeral;” and with all the frankness of a +man who cares not to hide his motives, he tells us, that after +his religious work he wrote the comedy because “nothing +can make the town so fond of a man as a successful play.”<a name='FNanchor_0121' id='FNanchor_0121'></a><a href='#Footnote_0121' class='fnanchor'>[121]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span> +The historian who had to record such strange events, following +close on each other, as an author publishing a book of +piety, and then a farce, could never have discovered the secret +motive of the versatile writer, had not that writer possessed +the most honest frankness.</p> +<p>Steele was now at once a man of the town and its censor, +and wrote lively essays on the follies of the day in an enormous +black peruke which cost him fifty guineas! He built +an elegant villa, but, as he was always inculcating economy, +he dates from “The Hovel.” He detected the fallacy of the +South Sea scheme, while he himself invented projects, neither +inferior in magnificence nor in misery. He even turned +alchemist, and wanted to coin gold, merely to distribute it. +The most striking incident in the life of this man of volition, +was his sudden marriage with a young lady who attended +his first wife’s funeral—struck by her angelical +beauty, if we trust to his raptures. Yet this sage, who +would have written so well on the choice of a wife, united +himself to a character the most uncongenial to his own; cold, +reserved, and most anxiously prudent in her attention to +money, she was of a temper which every day grew worse by +the perpetual imprudence and thoughtlessness of his own. +He calls her “Prue” in fondness and reproach; she was +Prudery itself! His adoration was permanent, and so were +his complaints; and they never parted but with bickerings—yet +he could not suffer her absence, for he was writing to her +three or four passionate notes in a day, which are dated from +his office, or his bookseller’s, or from some friend’s house—he +has risen in the midst of dinner to despatch a line to +“Prue,” to assure her of his affection since noon.<a name='FNanchor_0122' id='FNanchor_0122'></a><a href='#Footnote_0122' class='fnanchor'>[122]</a>—Her +presence or her absence was equally painful to him.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span></div> +<p>Yet Steele, gifted at all times with the susceptibility of +genius, was exercising the finest feelings of the heart; the +same generosity of temper which deluded his judgment, and +invigorated his passions, rendered him a tender and pathetic +dramatist; a most fertile essayist; a patriot without private +views; an enemy whose resentment died away in raillery; +and a friend, who could warmly press the hand that chastised +him. Whether in administration, or expelled the +House; whether affluent, or flying from his creditors; in the +fulness of his heart he, perhaps, secured his own happiness, +and lived on, like some wits, extempore. But such men, with +all their virtues and all their genius, live only for themselves.</p> +<p>Steele, in the waste of his splendid talents, had raised +sudden enmities and transient friendships. The world uses +such men as Eastern travellers do fountains; they drink their +waters, and when their thirst is appeased, turn their hacks on +them. Steele lived to be forgotten. He opened his career +with folly; he hurried through it in a tumult of existence; +and he closed it by an involuntary exile, amid the wrecks of +his fortune and his mind.</p> +<p>Steele, in one of his numerous periodical works, the twelfth +number of the “Theatre,” has drawn an exquisite contrast +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span> +between himself and his friend Addison: it is a cabinet picture. +Steele’s careful pieces, when warm with his subject, +had a higher spirit, a richer flavour, than the equable softness +of Addison, who is only beautiful.</p> +<p>“There never was a more strict friendship than between +these gentlemen; nor had they ever any difference but what +proceeded from their different way of pursuing the same +thing: the one, with patience, foresight, and temperate address, +always waited and stemmed the torrent; while the +other often plunged himself into it, and was as often taken +out by the temper of him who stood weeping on the bank +for his safety, whom he could not dissuade from leaping into +it. Thus these two men lived for some years last past, shunning +each other, but still preserving the most passionate concern +for their mutual welfare. But when they met, they were +as unreserved as boys; and talked of the greatest affairs, upon +which they saw where they differed, without pressing (what +they knew impossible) to convert each other.”</p> +<p>If Steele had the honour of the invention of those periodical +papers which first enlightened the national genius by their +popular instruction, he is himself a remarkable example of the +moral and the literary character perpetually contending in +the man of volition.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='LITERARY_DISAPPOINTMENTS_DISORDERING_THE_INTELLECT_LELAND_AND_COLLINS' id='LITERARY_DISAPPOINTMENTS_DISORDERING_THE_INTELLECT_LELAND_AND_COLLINS'></a> +<h3>LITERARY DISAPPOINTMENTS DISORDERING THE INTELLECT.</h3> +<h4>LELAND AND COLLINS.</h4> +</div> +<p>This awful calamity may be traced in the fate of <span class='smcap'>Leland</span> +and <span class='smcap'>Collins</span>: the one exhausted the finer faculties of his +mind in the grandest views, and sunk under gigantic tasks; +the other enthusiast sacrificed his reason and his happiness +to his imagination.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Leland</span>, the father of our antiquaries, was an accomplished +scholar, and his ample mind had embraced the languages of +antiquity, those of his own age, and the ancient ones of his +own country: thus he held all human learning by its three +vast chains. He travelled abroad; and he cultivated poetry +with the ardour he could even feel for the acquisition of +words. On his return home, among other royal favours, he +was appointed by Henry VIII. the king’s antiquary, a title +honourably created for Leland; for with him it became extinct. +By this office he was empowered to search after +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span> +English antiquities; to review the libraries of all the religious +institutions, and to bring the records of antiquity “out +of deadly darkness into lively light.” This extensive power +fed a passion already formed by the study of our old rude +historians; his elegant taste perceived that they wanted those +graces which he could lend them.</p> +<p>Six years were occupied, by uninterrupted travel and study, +to survey our national antiquities; to note down everything +observable for the history of the country and the honour of +the nation. What a magnificent view has he sketched of +this learned journey! In search of knowledge, Leland wandered +on the sea-coasts and in the midland; surveyed towns +and cities, and rivers, castles, cathedrals, and monasteries; +tumuli, coins, and inscriptions; collected authors; transcribed +MSS. If antiquarianism pored, genius too meditated in this +sublime industry.</p> +<p>Another six years were devoted to shape and to polish the +immense collections he had amassed. All this untired labour +and continued study were rewarded by Henry VIII. It is +delightful, from its rarity, to record the gratitude of a patron: +Henry was worthy of Leland; and the genius of the +author was magnificent as that of the monarch who had +created it.</p> +<p>Nor was the gratitude of Leland silent: he seems to have +been in the habit of perpetuating his spontaneous emotions +in elegant Latin verse. Our author has fancifully expressed +his gratitude to the king:—</p> +<p>“Sooner,” he says, “shall the seas float without their silent +inhabitants; the thorny hedges cease to hide the birds; +the oak to spread its boughs; and Flora to paint the meadows +with flowers;”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Quàm Rex dive, tuum labatur pectore nostro<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Nomen, quod studiis portus et aura meis.<br /> +<br /> +Than thou, great King, my bosom cease to hail,<br /> +Who o’er my studies breath’st a favouring gale.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Leland was, indeed, alive to the kindness of his royal +patron; and among his numerous literary projects, was one +of writing a history of all the palaces of Henry, in imitation +of Procopius, who described those of the Emperor Justinian. +He had already delighted the royal ear in a beautiful effusion +of fancy and antiquarianism, in his <i>Cygnea Cantio</i>, the Song +of the Swans. The swan of Leland, melodiously floating +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span> +down the Thames, from Oxford to Greenwich, chants, as she +passes along, the ancient names and honours of the towns, +the castles, and the villages.</p> +<p>Leland presented his “Strena, or a New Year’s Gift,” to +the king.—It consists of an account of his studies; and +sketches, with a fervid and vast imagination, his magnificent +labour, which he had already inscribed with the title <i>De +Antiquitate Britannica</i>, and which was to be divided into as +many books as there were shires. All parts of this address +of the King’s Antiquary to the king bear the stamp of his +imagination and his taste. He opens his intention of improving, +by the classical graces of composition, the rude +labours of our ancestors; for,</p> +<p>“Except Truth be delicately clothed in purpure, her written +verytees can scant find a reader.”</p> +<p>Our old writers, he tells his sovereign, had, indeed,</p> +<p>“From time to time preserved the acts of your predecessors, +and the fortunes of your realm, with great diligence, +and no less faith; would to God with like eloquence!”</p> +<p>An exclamation of fine taste, when taste was yet a stranger +in the country. And when he alludes to the knowledge of +British affairs scattered among the Roman, as well as our +own writers, his fervid fancy breaks forth with an image at +once simple and sublime:—</p> +<p>“I trust,” says Leland, “so to open the window, that the +light shall be seen so long, that is to say, by the space of a +whole thousand years stopped up, and the old glory of your +Britain to re-flourish through the world.”<a name='FNanchor_0123' id='FNanchor_0123'></a><a href='#Footnote_0123' class='fnanchor'>[123]</a></p> +<p>And he pathetically concludes—</p> +<p>“Should I live to perform those things that are already +begun, I trust that your realm shall so well be known, once +painted with its native colours, that it shall give place to the +glory of no other region.”</p> +<p>The grandeur of this design was a constituent part of the +genius of Leland, but not less, too, was that presaging melancholy +which even here betrays itself, and even more frequently +in his verses. Everything about Leland was marked by his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span> +own greatness; his country and his countrymen were ever +present; and, by the excitement of his feelings, even his +humbler pursuits were elevated into patriotism. Henry died +the year after he received the “New Year’s Gift.” From that +moment, in losing the greatest patron for the greatest work, +Leland appears to have felt the staff which he had used to turn +at pleasure for his stay, break in his hands.</p> +<p>He had new patrons to court, while engaged in labours for +which a single life had been too short. The melancholy that +cherishes genius may also destroy it. Leland, brooding over +his voluminous labours, seemed to love and to dread them; +sometimes to pursue them with rapture, and sometimes to +shrink from them with despair. His generous temper had +once shot forwards to posterity; but he now calms his struggling +hopes and doubts, and confines his literary ambition to +his own country and his own age.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>POSTERITATIS AMOR DUBIUS.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Posteritatis amor mihi perblanditur, et ultro<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Premittit libris secula multa meis.<br /> +At non tam facile est oculato imponere, nosco<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Quàm non sim tali dignus honore frui.<br /> +Græcia magniloquos vates desiderat ipsa,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Roma suos etiam disperiisse dolet.<br /> +Exemplis quum sim claris edoctus ab istis,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Quî sperem Musas vivere posse meas?<br /> +Certè mî sat erit præsenti scribere sæclo,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Auribus et patriæ complacuisse meæ.<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>IMITATED.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Posterity, thy soothing love I feel,<br /> +That o’er my volumes many an age may steal:<br /> +But hard it is the well-clear’d eye to cheat<br /> +With honours undeserved, too fond deceit!<br /> +Greece, greatly eloquent, and full of fame,<br /> +Sighs for the want of many a perish’d name;<br /> +And Rome o’er her illustrious children mourns,<br /> +Their fame departing with their mouldering urns.<br /> +How can I hope, by such examples shown,<br /> +More than a transient day, a passing sun?<br /> +Enough for me to win the present age,<br /> +And please a brother with a brother’s page.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>By other verses, addressed to Cranmer, it would appear +that Leland was experiencing anxieties to which he had not +been accustomed,—and one may suspect, by the opening image +of his “Supellex,” that his pension was irregular, and that he +began, as authors do in these hard cases, to value “the furniture” +of his mind above that of his house.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span></div> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>AD THOMAM CRANMERUM, CANT. ARCHIEPISCOP.</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Est congesta mihi domi Supellex<br /> +Ingens, aurea, nobilis, venusta,<br /> +Quâ totus studeo Britanniarum<br /> +Vero reddere gloriam nitori.<br /> +Sed Fortuna meis noverca cœptis<br /> +Jam felicibus invidet maligna.<br /> +Quare, ne pereant brevi vel horâ<br /> +Multarum mihi noctium labores<br /> +Omnes, et patriæ simul decora<br /> +Ornamenta cadant, &c. &c.<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>IMITATED.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +The furnitures that fill my house,<br /> +The vast and beautiful disclose,<br /> +All noble, and the store is gold;<br /> +Our ancient glory here unroll’d.<br /> +But fortune checks my daring claim,<br /> +A step-mother severe to fame.<br /> +A smile malignantly she throws<br /> +Just at the story’s prosperous close.<br /> +And thus must the unfinish’d tale,<br /> +And all my many vigils fail,<br /> +And must my country’s honour fall;<br /> +In one brief hour must perish all?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But, conscious of the greatness of his labours, he would +obtain the favour of the Archbishop, by promising a share of +his own fame—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——pretium sequetur amplum—<br /> +Sic nomen tibi litteræ elegantes<br /> +Rectè perpetuum dabunt, suosque<br /> +Partim vel titulos tibi receptos<br /> +Concedet memori Britannus ore:<br /> +Sic te posteritas amabit omnis,<br /> +Et famâ super æthera innotesces.<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>IMITATED.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +But take the ample glorious meed,<br /> +To letter’d elegance decreed,<br /> +When Britain’s mindful voice shall bend,<br /> +And with her own thy honours blend,<br /> +As she from thy kind hands receives<br /> +Her titles drawn on Glory’s leaves,<br /> +And back reflects them on thy name,<br /> +Till time shall love thy mounting fame.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Thus was Leland, like the melancholic, withdrawn entirely +into the world of his own ideas; his imagination delighting +in reveries, while his industry was exhausting itself in labour. +His manners were not free from haughtiness,—his meagre +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span> +and expressive physiognomy indicates the melancholy and the +majesty of his mind; it was not old age, but the premature +wrinkles of those nightly labours he has himself recorded. +All these characteristics are so strongly marked in the bust +of Leland, that Lavater had triumphed had he studied it.<a name='FNanchor_0124' id='FNanchor_0124'></a><a href='#Footnote_0124' class='fnanchor'>[124]</a></p> +<p>Labour had been long felt as voluptuousness by Leland; +and this is among the Calamities of Literature, and it is so +with all those studies which deeply busy the intellect and the +fancy. There is a poignant delight in study, often subversive +of human happiness. Men of genius, from their ideal state, +drop into the cold formalities of society, to encounter its +evils, its disappointments, its neglect, and perhaps its persecutions. +When such minds discover the world will only become +a friend on its own terms, then the cup of their wrath overflows; +the learned grow morose, and the witty sarcastic; but +more indelible emotions in a highly-excited imagination often +produce those delusions, which Darwin calls hallucinations, +and which sometimes terminate in mania. The haughtiness, +the melancholy, and the aspiring genius of Leland, were +tending to a disordered intellect. Incipient insanity is a mote +floating in the understanding, escaping all observation, when +the mind is capable of observing itself, but seems a constituent +part of the mind itself when that is completely covered with +its cloud.</p> +<p>Leland did not reach even the maturity of life, the period +at which his stupendous works were to be executed. He was +seized by frenzy. The causes of his insanity were never +known. The Papists declared he went mad because he had +embraced the new religion; his malicious rival Polydore Vergil, +because he had promised what he could not perform; duller +prosaists because his poetical turn had made him conceited. +The grief and melancholy of a fine genius, and perhaps an +irregular pension, his enemies have not noticed.</p> +<p>The ruins of Leland’s mind were viewed in his library; +volumes on volumes stupendously heaped together, and masses +of notes scattered here and there; all the vestiges of his +genius, and its distraction. His collections were seized on by +honest and dishonest hands; many were treasured, but some +were stolen. Hearne zealously arranged a series of volumes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span> +from the fragments; but the “Britannia” of Camden, the +“London” of Stowe, and the “Chronicles” of Holinshed, +are only a few of those public works whose waters silently +welled from the spring of Leland’s genius; and that nothing +might be wanting to preserve some relic of that fine imagination +which was always working in his poetic soul, his own +description of his learned journey over the kingdom was a +spark, which, falling into the inflammable mind of a poet, +produced the singular and patriotic poem of the “Polyolbion” +of Drayton. Thus the genius of Leland has come to us +diffused through a variety of other men’s; and what he +intended to produce it has required many to perform.</p> +<p>A singular inscription, in which Leland speaks of himself, +in the style he was accustomed to use, and which Weever +tells us was affixed to his monument, as he had heard by +tradition, was probably a relic snatched from his general +wreck—for it could not with propriety have been composed +after his death.<a name='FNanchor_0125' id='FNanchor_0125'></a><a href='#Footnote_0125' class='fnanchor'>[125]</a></p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Quantùm Rhenano debet Germania docto<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Tantùm debebit terra Britanna mihi.<br /> +Ille suæ gentis ritus et nomina prisca<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Æstivo fecit lucidiora die.<br /> +Ipse antiquarum rerum quoque magnus amator<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Ornabo patriæ lumina clara meæ.<br /> +Quæ cum prodierint niveis inscripta tabellis,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Tum testes nostræ sedulitatis erunt.<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>IMITATED.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +What Germany to learn’d Rhenanus owes,<br /> +That for my Britain shall my toil unclose;<br /> +His volumes mark their customs, names, and climes,<br /> +And brighten, with a summer’s light, old times.<br /> +I also, touch’d by the same love, will write,<br /> +To ornament my country’s splendid light,<br /> +Which shall, inscribed on snowy tablets, be<br /> +Full many a witness of my industry.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Another example of literary disappointment disordering +the intellect may be contemplated in the fate of the poet +<span class='smcap'>Collins</span>.</p> +<p>Several interesting incidents may be supplied to Johnson’s +narrative of the short and obscure life of this poet, who, more +than any other of our martyrs to the lyre, has thrown over all +his images and his thoughts a tenderness of mind, and breathed +a freshness over the pictures of poetry, which the mighty +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span> +Milton has not exceeded, and the laborious Gray has not +attained. But he immolated happiness, and at length reason, +to his imagination! The incidents most interesting in the +life of Collins would be those events which elude the ordinary +biographer; that invisible train of emotions which were +gradually passing in his mind; those passions which first +moulded his genius, and which afterwards broke it! But who +could record the vacillations of a poetic temper, its early +hope and its late despair, its wild gaiety and its settled +frenzy, but the poet himself? Yet Collins has left behind +no memorial of the wanderings of his alienated mind but the +errors of his life!</p> +<p>At college he published his “Persian Eclogues,” as they +were first called, to which, when he thought they were not +distinctly Persian, he gave the more general title of “Oriental.” +The publication was attended with no success; but the first +misfortune a poet meets will rarely deter him from incurring +more. He suddenly quitted the university, and has been +censured for not having consulted his friends when he rashly +resolved to live by the pen. But he had no friends! His +father had died in embarrassed circumstances; and Collins +was residing at the university on the stipend allowed him by +his uncle, Colonel Martin, who was abroad. He was indignant +at a repulse he met with at college; and alive to the name of +author and poet, the ardent and simple youth imagined that +a nobler field of action opened on him in the metropolis than +was presented by the flat uniformity of a collegiate life. To +whatever spot the youthful poet flies, that spot seems Parnassus, +as applause seems patronage. He hurried to town, +and presented himself before the cousin who paid his small +allowance from his uncle in a fashionable dress with a feather +in his hat. The graver gentleman did not succeed in his +attempt at sending him back, with all the terror of his information, +that Collins had not a single guinea of his own, and +was dressed in a coat he could never pay for. The young +bard turned from his obdurate cousin as “a dull fellow;” a +usual phrase with him to describe those who did not think as +he would have them.</p> +<p>That moment was now come, so much desired, and scarcely +yet dreaded, which was to produce those effusions of fancy +and learning, for which Collins had prepared himself by previous +studies. About this time Johnson<a name='FNanchor_0126' id='FNanchor_0126'></a><a href='#Footnote_0126' class='fnanchor'>[126]</a> has given a finer +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span> +picture of the intellectual powers and the literary attainments +of Collins than in the life he afterwards composed. “Collins +was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, but with +the Italian, French, and Spanish languages; full of hopes and +full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and +strong in retention.” Such was the language of Johnson, +when, warmed by his own imagination, he could write like +Longinus; at that after-period, when assuming the austerity +of critical discussion for the lives of poets, even in the coldness +of his recollections, he describes Collins as “a man of +extensive literature, and of vigorous faculties.”</p> +<p>A chasm of several years remains to be filled. He was +projecting works of labour, and creating productions of +taste; and he has been reproached for irresolution, and even +for indolence. Let us catch his feelings from the facts as they +rise together, and learn whether Collins must endure censure +or excite sympathy.</p> +<p>When he was living loosely about town, he occasionally +wrote many short poems in the house of a friend, who witnesses +that he burned as rapidly as he composed. His odes +were purchased by Millar, yet though but a slight pamphlet, +all the interest of that great bookseller could never introduce +them into notice. Not an idle compliment is recorded to have +been sent to the poet. When we now consider that among +these odes was one the most popular in the language, with +some of the most exquisitely poetical, it reminds us of the +difficulty a young writer without connexions experiences in +obtaining the public ear; and of the languor of poetical connoisseurs +who sometimes suffer poems, that have not yet +grown up to authority, to be buried on the shelf. What the +outraged feelings of the poet were, appeared when some time +afterwards he became rich enough to express them. Having +obtained some fortune by the death of his uncle, he made good +to the publisher the deficiency of the unsold odes, and, in his +haughty resentment at the public taste, consigned the impression +to the flames!</p> +<p>Who shall now paint the feverish and delicate feelings of a +young poet such as Collins, who had twice addressed the +public, and twice had been repulsed? He whose poetic +temper Johnson has finely painted, at the happy moment +when he felt its influence, as “delighting to rove through the +meadows of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden +palaces, and repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens!”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span></div> +<p>It cannot be doubted, and the recorded facts will demonstrate +it, that the poetical disappointments of Collins were +secretly preying on his spirit, and repressing his firmest exertions. +With a mind richly stored with literature, and a soul +alive to the impulses of nature and study, he projected a +“History of the Revival of Learning,” and a translation of +“Aristotle’s Poetics,” to be illustrated by a large commentary.</p> +<p>But “his great fault,” says Johnson, “was his <i>irresolution</i>; +or the frequent calls of <i>immediate necessity</i> broke his +schemes, and suffered him to pursue no settled purpose.” Collins +was, however, not idle, though without application; for, +when reproached with idleness by a friend, he showed instantly +several sheets of his version of Aristotle, and many +embryos of some lives he had engaged to compose for the +“Biographia Britannica;” he never brought either to perfection! +What then was this <i>irresolution</i> but the vacillations +of a mind broken and confounded? He had exercised too +constantly the highest faculties of fiction, and he had precipitated +himself into the dreariness of real life. None but a +poet can conceive, for none but a poet can experience, the +secret wounds inflicted on a mind of romantic fancy and +tenderness of emotion, which has staked its happiness on its +imagination; for such neglect is felt as ordinary men would +feel the sensation of being let down into a sepulchre, and +buried alive. The mind of Tasso, a brother in fancy to +Collins, became disordered by the opposition of the critics, +but perpetual neglect injures it not less. The <span class='smcap'>Hope</span> of the +ancients was represented holding some flowers, the promise of +the spring, or some spikes of corn, indicative of approaching +harvest—but the <span class='smcap'>Hope</span> of Collins had scattered its seed, and +they remained buried in the earth.</p> +<p>The oblivion which covered our poet’s works appeared to +him eternal, as those works now seem to us immortal. He +had created <span class='smcap'>Hope</span> with deep and enthusiastic feeling!—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'>With eyes so fair—</p> +<p class='cg'><span class='indent4'> </span>Whispering promised pleasure,<br /> +And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail;<br /> +And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The few years Collins passed in the metropolis he was +subsisting with or upon his friends; and, being a pleasing +companion, he obtained many literary acquaintances. It was +at this period that Johnson knew him, and thus describes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span> +him:—“His appearance was decent, and his knowledge considerable; +his views extensive, and his conversation elegant.” +He was a constant frequenter at the literary resorts of the +Bedford and Slaughter’s; and Armstrong, Hill, Garrick, and +Foote, frequently consulted him on their pieces before they +appeared in public. From his intimacy with Garrick he obtained +a free admission into the green-room; and probably it +was at this period, among his other projects, that he planned +several tragedies, which, however, as Johnson observes, “he +only planned.” There is a feature in Collins’s character +which requires attention. He is represented as a man of +cheerful dispositions; and it has been my study to detect +only a melancholy, which was preying on the very source of +life itself. Collins was, indeed, born to charm his friends; +for fancy and elegance were never absent from his susceptible +mind, rich in its stores, and versatile in its emotions. He +himself indicates his own character, in his address to +“Home:”—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Go! nor, regardless while these numbers boast<br /> +My short-lived bliss, forget my social name.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Johnson has told us of his cheerful dispositions; and one +who knew him well observes, that “in the green-room he +made diverting observations on the vanity and false consequence +of that class of people, and his manner of relating +them to his particular friends was extremely entertaining:” +but the same friend acknowledges that “some letters which +he received from Collins, though chiefly on business, have in +them some flights which strongly mark his character, and for +which reason I have preserved them.” We cannot decide of +the temper of a man viewed only in a circle of friends, who +listen to the ebullitions of wit or fancy; the social warmth +for a moment throws into forgetfulness his secret sorrow. +The most melancholy man is frequently the most delightful +companion, and peculiarly endowed with the talent of satirical +playfulness and vivacity of humour.<a name='FNanchor_0127' id='FNanchor_0127'></a><a href='#Footnote_0127' class='fnanchor'>[127]</a> But what was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span> +the true life of Collins, separated from its adventitious circumstances? +It was a life of want, never chequered by +hope, that was striving to elude its own observation by hurrying +into some temporary dissipation. But the hours of +melancholy and solitude were sure to return; these were +marked on the dial of his life, and, when they struck, the gay +and lively Collins, like one of his own enchanted beings, as +surely relapsed into his natural shape. To the perpetual recollection +of his poetical disappointments are we to attribute +this unsettled state of his mind, and the perplexity of his +studies. To these he was perpetually reverting, which he +showed when after a lapse of several years, he could not rest +till he had burned his ill-fated odes. And what was the +result of his literary life? He returned to his native city of +Chichester in a state almost of nakedness, destitute, diseased, +and wild in despair, to hide himself in the arms of a sister.</p> +<p>The cloud had long been gathering over his convulsed intellect; +and the fortune he acquired on the death of his +uncle served only for personal indulgences, which rather accelerated +his disorder. There were, at times, some awful pauses +in the alienation of his mind—but he had withdrawn it from +study. It was in one of these intervals that Thomas Warton +told Johnson that when he met Collins travelling, he +took up a book the poet carried with him, from curiosity, to +see what companion a man of letters had chosen—it was an +English Testament. “I have but one book,” said Collins, +“but that is the best.” This circumstance is recorded on his +tomb.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>He join’d pure faith to strong poetic powers,<br /> +And in reviving reason’s lucid hours,<br /> +Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest,<br /> +And rightly deem’d the book of God the best.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>At Chichester, tradition has preserved some striking and +affecting occurrences of his last days; he would haunt the +aisles and cloisters of the cathedral, roving days and nights +together, loving their</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Dim religious light.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span></div> +<p>And, when the choristers chanted their anthem, the listening +and bewildered poet, carried out of himself by the solemn +strains, and his own too susceptible imagination, moaned and +shrieked, and awoke a sadness and a terror most affecting +amid religious emotions; their friend, their kinsman, and +their poet, was before them, an awful image of human misery +and ruined genius!</p> +<p>This interesting circumstance is thus alluded to on his +monument:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Ye walls that echoed to his frantic moan,<br /> +Guard the due record of this grateful stone:<br /> +Strangers to him, enamour’d of his lays,<br /> +This fond memorial of his talents raise.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>A voluntary subscription raised the monument to Collins. +The genius of Flaxman has thrown out on the eloquent marble +all that fancy would consecrate; the tomb is itself a poem.</p> +<p>There Collins is represented as sitting in a reclining posture, +during a lucid interval of his afflicting malady, with a +calm and benign aspect, as if seeking refuge from his misfortunes +in the consolations of the Gospel, which lie open before +him, whilst his lyre, and “The Ode on the Passions,” as a +scroll, are thrown together neglected on the ground. Upon +the pediment on the tablet are placed in relief two female +figures of <span class='smcap'>Love</span> and <span class='smcap'>Pity</span>, entwined each in the arms of the +other; the proper emblems of the genius of his poetry.</p> +<p>Langhorne, who gave an edition of Collins’s poems with +all the fervour of a votary, made an observation not perfectly +correct:—“It is observable,” he says, “that none of his +poems bear the marks of an amorous disposition; and that +he is one of those few poets who have sailed to Delphi +without touching at Cythera. In the ‘Ode to the Passions,’ +<i>Love</i> has been omitted.” There, indeed, Love does +not form an important personage; yet, at the close, <i>Love</i> +makes his transient appearance with <i>Joy</i> and <i>Mirth</i>—“a gay +fantastic round.”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>And, amidst his frolic play,<br /> +As if he would the charming air repay,<br /> +Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It is certain, however, that Collins considered the amatory +passion as unfriendly to poetic originality; for he alludes to +the whole race of the Provençal poets, by accusing them of +only employing</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span></div> +<p>Collins affected to slight the urchin; for he himself had +been once in love, and his wit has preserved the history of +his passion; he was attached to a young lady who was born +the day before him, and who seems not to have been very +poetically tempered, for she did not return his ardour. On +that occasion he said “that he came into the world <i>a day +after the fair</i>.”</p> +<p>Langhorne composed two sonnets, which seem only preserved +in the “Monthly Review,” in which he was a writer, and +where he probably inserted them; they bear a particular reference +to the misfortunes of our poet. In one he represents +Wisdom, in the form of Addison, reclining in “the old and +honoured shade of Magdalen,” and thus addressing</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>The poor shade of Collins, wandering by;<br /> +The tear stood trembling in his gentle eye,<br /> +With modest grief reluctant, while he said—<br /> +“Sweet bard, belov’d by every muse in vain!<br /> +With pow’rs, whose fineness wrought their own decay;<br /> +Ah! wherefore, thoughtless, didst thou yield the rein<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>To fancy’s will, and chase the meteor ray?<br /> +Ah! why forget thy own Hyblæan strain,<br /> +Peace rules the breast, where Reason rules the day.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The last line is most happily applied; it is a verse by the +unfortunate bard himself, which heightens the contrast with +his forlorn state! Langhorne has feelingly painted the fatal +indulgences of such a character as Collins.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Of fancy’s too prevailing power beware!<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Oft has she bright on life’s fair morning shone;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Oft seated Hope on Reason’s sovereign throne,<br /> +Then closed the scene, in darkness and despair.<br /> +Of all her gifts, of all her powers possest,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Let not her flattery win thy youthful ear,<br /> +Nor vow long faith to such a various guest,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>False at the last, tho’ now perchance full dear;<br /> +The casual lover with her charms is blest,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But woe to them her magic bands that wear!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The criticism of Johnson on the poetry of Collins, that +“as men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the +poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives +little pleasure,” might almost have been furnished by the lumbering +pen of old Dennis. But Collins from the poetical +never <i>extorts</i> praise, for it is given <i>spontaneously</i>; he is +much <i>more loved</i> than <i>esteemed</i>, for he does not give <i>little +pleasure</i>. Johnson, too, describes his “lines as of slow +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span> +motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants.” +Even this verbal criticism, though it appeals to the eye, and +not to the ear, is false criticism, since Collins is certainly the +most musical of poets. How could that lyrist be harsh in +his diction, who almost draws tears from our eyes, while his +melodious lines and picturing epithets are remembered by his +readers? He is devoured with as much enthusiasm by one +party as he is imperfectly relished by the other.</p> +<p>Johnson has given two characters of this poet; the one +composed at a period when that great critic was still susceptible +of the seduction of the imagination; but even in this +portrait, though some features of the poet are impressively +drawn, the likeness is incomplete, for there is not even a +slight indication of the chief feature in Collins’s genius, his +tenderness and delicacy of emotion, and his fresh and picturesque +creative strokes. Nature had denied to Johnson’s +robust intellect the perception of these poetic qualities. He +was but a stately ox in the fields of Parnassus, not the animal +of nature. Many years afterwards, during his poetical biography, +that long Lent of criticism, in which he mortified +our poetical feeling by accommodating his to the populace +of critics—so faint were former recollections, and so imperfect +were even those feelings which once he seemed to have possessed—that +he could then do nothing but write on Collins +with much less warmth than he has written on Blackmore. +Johnson is, indeed, the first of critics, when his powerful logic +investigates objects submitted to reason; but great sense is +not always combined with delicacy of taste; and there is in +poetry a province which Aristotle himself may never have +entered.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_REWARDS_OF_ORIENTAL_STUDENTS' id='THE_REWARDS_OF_ORIENTAL_STUDENTS'></a> +<h3>THE REWARDS OF ORIENTAL STUDENTS.</h3> +</div> +<p>At a time when oriental studies were in their infancy in this +country, <span class='smcap'>Simon Ockley</span>, animated by the illustrious example +of Pococke and the laborious diligence of Prideaux, devoted +his life and his fortune to these novel researches, which +necessarily involved both. With that enthusiasm which +the ancient votary experienced, and with that patient suffering +the modern martyr has endured, he pursued, till he accomplished, +the useful object of his labours. He, perhaps, was +the first who exhibited to us other heroes than those of Rome +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span> +and Greece; sages as contemplative, and a people more magnificent +even than the iron masters of the world. Among +other oriental productions, his most considerable is “The +History of the Saracens.” The first volume appeared in +1708, and the second ten years afterwards. In the preface +to the last volume, the oriental student pathetically counts +over his <a name='TC_10'></a><ins title="Was 'sorows'">sorrows</ins>, and triumphs over his disappointments; the +most remarkable part is the date of the place from whence +this preface was written—he triumphantly closes his labours +in the confinement of Cambridge Castle for debt!</p> +<p>Ockley, lamenting his small proficiency in the Persian +studies, resolves to attain to them—</p> +<p>“How often have I endeavoured to perfect myself in that +language, but my malignant and envious stars still frustrated +my attempts; but they shall sooner alter their courses than +extinguish my resolution of quenching that thirst which the +little I have had of it hath already excited.”</p> +<p>And he states the deficiencies of his history with the most +natural modesty—</p> +<p>“Had I not been forced to snatch everything that I have, +as it were, out of the fire, our Saracen history should have +been ushered into the world after a different manner.” He +is fearful that something would be ascribed to his indolence +or negligence, that “ought more justly to be attributed to +the influence of inexorable necessity, could I have been master +of my own time and circumstances.”</p> +<p>Shame on those pretended patrons who, appointing “a +professor of the oriental languages,” counteract the purpose +of the professorship by their utter neglect of the professor, +whose stipend cannot keep him on the spot where only he +ought to dwell. And Ockley complains also of that hypocritical +curiosity which pretends to take an interest in things +it cares little about; perpetually inquiring, as soon as a work +is announced, when it is to come out. But these Pharisees of +literature, who can only build sepulchres to ancient prophets, +never believe in a living one. Some of these Ockley met with +on the publication of his first volume: they run it down as +the strangest story they had ever heard; they had never met +with such folks as the Arabians! “A reverend dignitary +asked me if, when I wrote that book, I had not lately been +reading the history of Oliver Cromwell?” Such was the +plaudit the oriental student received, and returned to grow +pale over his MSS. But when Petis de la Croix, observes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span> +Ockley, was pursuing the same track of study, in the patronage +of Louis XIV., he found books, leisure, and encouragement; +and when the great Colbert desired him to compose +the life of Genkis Chan, he considered a period of ten years +not too much to be allowed the author. And then Ockley +proceeds—</p> +<p>“But my unhappy condition hath always been widely different +from anything that could admit of such an exactness. +Fortune seems only to have given me a taste of it out of +spite, on purpose that I might regret the loss of it.”</p> +<p>He describes his two journeys to Oxford, for his first +volume; but in his second, matters fared worse with him—</p> +<p>“Either my domestic affairs were grown much worse, or I +less able to bear them; or what is more probable, both.”</p> +<p>Ingenuous confession! fruits of a life devoted in its struggles +to important literature! and we murmur when genius is irritable, +and erudition is morose! But let us proceed with +Ockley:—</p> +<p>“I was forced to take the advantage of the slumber of my +cares, that never slept when I was awake; and if they did +not incessantly interrupt my studies, were sure to succeed +them with no less constancy than night doth the day.”</p> +<p>This is the cry of agony. He who reads this without +sympathy, ought to reject these volumes as the idlest he ever +read, and honour me with his contempt. The close of +Ockley’s preface shows a love-like tenderness for his studies; +although he must quit life without bringing them to perfection, +he opens his soul to posterity and tells them, in the +language of prophecy, that if they will bestow encouragement +on our youth, the misfortunes he has described will be +remedied. He, indeed, was aware that these students—</p> +<p>“Will hardly come in upon the prospect of finding leisure, +in a prison, to transcribe those papers for the press which +they have collected with indefatigable labour, and oftentimes +at the expense of their rest, and all the other conveniences +of life, for the service of the public.”</p> +<p>Yet the exulting martyr of literature, at the moment he is +fast bound to the stake, does not consider a prison so dreadful +a reward for literary labours—</p> +<p>“I can assure them, from my own experience, that I have +enjoyed more true liberty, more happy leisure, and more solid +repose in six months here, than in thrice the same number of +years before. Evil is the condition of that historian who +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span> +undertakes to write the lives of others before he knows how +to live himself. Yet I have no just reason to be angry with +the world; I never stood in need of its assistance in my life, +but I found it always very liberal of its advice; for which I +am so much the more beholden to it, by how much the more +I did always in my judgment give the possession of wisdom +the preference to that of riches.”<a name='FNanchor_0128' id='FNanchor_0128'></a><a href='#Footnote_0128' class='fnanchor'>[128]</a></p> +<p>Poor Ockley, always a student, and rarely what is called a +man of the world, once encountered a literary calamity which +frequently occurs when an author finds himself among the +vapid triflers and the polished cynics of the fashionable circle. +Something like a patron he found in Harley, the Earl of +Oxford, and once had the unlucky honour of dining at the +table of my Lord Treasurer. It is probable that Ockley, +from retired habits and severe studies, was not at all accomplished +in the <i>suaviter in modo</i>, of which greater geniuses than +Ockley have so surlily despaired. How he behaved I cannot +narrate: probably he delivered himself with as great simplicity +at the table of the Lord Treasurer as on the wrong +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span> +side of Cambridge Castle gate. The embarrassment this simplicity +drew him into is very fully stated in the following +copious apology he addressed to the Earl of Oxford, which I +have transcribed from the original; perhaps it may be a useful +memorial to some men of letters as little polished as the +learned Ockley:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>Cambridge, July 15, 1714.</i></p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>My Lord</span>,—I was so struck with horror and amazement two +days ago, that I cannot possibly express it. A friend of mine +showed me a letter, part of the contents of which were, ‘That +Professor Ockley had given such extreme offence by some +uncourtly answers to some gentlemen at my Lord Treasurer’s +table that it would be in vain to make any further application +to him.’</p> +<p>“My Lord, it is impossible for me to recollect, at this distance +of time. All that I can say is this: that, as on the one +side for a man to come to his patron’s table with a design to +affront either him or his friends supposes him a perfect +natural, a mere idiot; so on the other side it would be extreme +severe, if a person whose education was far distant from the +politeness of a court, should, upon the account of an unguarded +expression, or some little inadvertency in his behaviour, suffer +a capital sentence.</p> +<p>“Which is my case, if I have forfeited your Lordship’s +favour; which God forbid! That man is involved in double +ruin that is not only forsaken by his friend, but, which is the +unavoidable consequence, exposed to the malice and contempt +not only of enemies, but, what is still more grievous, of all +sorts of fools.</p> +<p>“It is not the talent of every well-meaning man to converse +with his superiors with due decorum; for, either when he +reflects upon the vast distance of their station above his own, +he is struck dumb and almost insensible; or else their condescension +and courtly behaviour encourages him to be too familiar. +To steer exactly between these two extremes requires +not only a good intention, but presence of mind, and long +custom.</p> +<p>“Another article in my friend’s letter was, ‘That somebody +had informed your Lordship that I was a very sot.’ +When first I had the honour to be known to your Lordship, +I could easily foresee that there would be persons enough that +would envy me upon that account, and do what in them lay +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span> +to traduce me. Let Haman enjoy never so much himself, it +is all nothing, it does him no good, till poor Mordecai is +hanged out of his way.</p> +<p>“But I never feared the being censured upon that account. +Here in the University I converse with none but persons of +the most distinguished reputations both for learning and +virtue, and receive from them daily as great marks of respect +and esteem, which I should not have if that imputation were +true. It is most certain that I do indulge myself the freedom +of drinking a cheerful cup, at proper seasons, among my +friends; but no otherwise than is done by thousands of honest +men, who never forfeit their character by it. And whoever +doth no more than so, deserves no more to be called a sot, +than a man that eats a hearty meal would be willing to be +called a glutton.</p> +<p>“As for those detractors, if I have but the least assurance +of your Lordship’s favour, I can very easily despise them. +They are <i>Nati consumere fruges</i>. They need not trouble +themselves about what other people do; for whatever they eat +and drink, it is only robbing the poor. Resigning myself +entirely to your Lordship’s goodness and pardon, I conclude +this necessary apology with like provocation. That <i>I would +be content he should take my character from any person that +had a good one of his own</i>.</p> +<p class='sig1'>“I am, with all submission, My Lord,</p> +<p class='sig2'> “Your Lordship’s most obedient, &c.,</p> +<p class='sig3'> “<span class='smcap'>Simon Ockley.</span>”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To the honour of the Earl of Oxford, this unlucky piece of +awkwardness at table, in giving “uncourtly answers,” did not +interrupt his regard for the poor oriental student; for several +years afterwards the correspondence of Ockley was still acceptable +to the Earl.</p> +<p>If the letters of the widows and children of many of our +eminent authors were collected, they would demonstrate the +great fact, that the man who is a husband or a father ought +not to be an author. They might weary with a monotonous +cry, and usually would be dated from the gaol or the garret. +I have seen an original letter from the widow of Ockley to the +Earl of Oxford, in which she lays before him the deplorable +situation of her affairs; the debts of the Professor being +beyond what his effects amounted to, the severity of the creditors +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span> +would not even suffer the executor to make the best of +his effects; the widow remained destitute of necessaries, incapable +of assisting her children.<a name='FNanchor_0129' id='FNanchor_0129'></a><a href='#Footnote_0129' class='fnanchor'>[129]</a></p> +<p>Thus students have devoted their days to studies worthy of +a student. They are public benefactors, yet find no friend in +the public, who cannot yet appreciate their value—Ministers +of State know it, though they have rarely protected them. +Ockley, by letters I have seen, was frequently employed by +Bolingbroke to translate letters from the Sovereign of Morocco +to our court; yet all the debts for which he was imprisoned +in Cambridge Castle did not exceed two hundred pounds. +The public interest is concerned in stimulating such enthusiasts; +they are men who cannot be salaried, who cannot be +created by letters-patent; for they are men who infuse their +soul into their studies, and breathe their fondness for them in +their last agonies. Yet such are doomed to feel their life +pass away like a painful dream!</p> +<p>Those who know the value of <span class='smcap'>Lightfoot’s</span> Hebraic studies, +may be startled at the impediments which seem to have +annihilated them. In the following effusion he confides his +secret agitation to his friend Buxtorf: “A few years since I +prepared a little commentary on the First Epistle to the +Corinthians, in the same style and manner as I had done that on +Matthew. But it laid by me two years or more, nor can I now +publish it, but at my own charges, and to my great damage, +which I felt enough and too much in the edition of my book +upon Mark. Some progress I have made in the gospel of St. +Luke, but I can print nothing but at my own cost: thereupon +I wholly give myself to reading, scarce thinking of writing +more; for booksellers and printers have dulled my edge, who +will print no book, especially Latin, unless they have an +assured and considerable gain.”</p> +<p>These writings and even the fragments have been justly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span> +appreciated by posterity, and a recent edition of all Lightfoot’s +works in many volumes have received honours which their +despairing author never contemplated.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='DANGER_INCURRED_BY_GIVING_THE_RESULT_OF_LITERARY_INQUIRIES' id='DANGER_INCURRED_BY_GIVING_THE_RESULT_OF_LITERARY_INQUIRIES'></a> +<h3>DANGER INCURRED BY GIVING THE RESULT OF LITERARY INQUIRIES.</h3> +</div> +<p>An author occupies a critical situation, for, while he is presenting +the world with the result of his profound studies and +his honest inquiries, it may prove pernicious to himself. By +it he may incur the risk of offending the higher powers, and +witnessing his own days embittered. Liable, by his moderation +or his discoveries, by his scruples or his assertions, by his +adherence to truth, or by the curiosity of his speculations, to +be persecuted by two opposite parties, even when the accusations +of the one necessarily nullify the other; such an author +will be fortunate to be permitted to retire out of the circle of +the bad passions; but he crushes in silence and voluntary obscurity +all future efforts—and thus the nation loses a valued +author.</p> +<p>This case is exemplified by the history of Dr. <span class='smcap'>Cowel’s</span> +curious work “The Interpreter.” The book itself is a treasure +of our antiquities, illustrating our national manners. The +author was devoted to his studies, and the merits of his work +recommended him to the Archbishop of Canterbury; in the +Ecclesiastical Court he practised as a civilian, and became +there eminent as a judge.<a name='FNanchor_0130' id='FNanchor_0130'></a><a href='#Footnote_0130' class='fnanchor'>[130]</a></p> +<p>Cowel gave his work with all the modesty of true learning; +for who knows his deficiencies so well in the subject on which +he has written as that author who knows most? It is delightful +to listen to the simplicity and force with which an author +in the reign of our first James opens himself without reserve.</p> +<p>“My true end is the advancement of knowledge; and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span> +therefore have I published this poor work, not only to impart +the good thereof to those young ones that want it, but also to +draw from the learned the supply of my defects. Whosoever +will charge these my travels [labours] with many oversights, +he shall need no solemn pains to prove them. And upon the +view taken of this book sithence the impression, I dare assure +them that shall observe most faults therein, that I, by gleaning +after him, will gather as many omitted by him, as he shall +show committed by me. What a man saith well is not, however, +to be rejected because he hath some errors; reprehend +who will, in God’s name, that is, with sweetness and without +reproach. So shall he reap hearty thanks at my hands, and +thus more soundly help in a few months, than I, by tossing +and tumbling my books at home, could possibly have done in +many years.”</p> +<p>This extract discovers Cowel’s amiable character as an +author. But he was not fated to receive “sweetness without +reproach.”</p> +<p>Cowel encountered an unrelenting enemy in Sir Edward +Coke, the famous Attorney-General of James I., the commentator +of Littleton. As a man, his name ought to arouse our +indignation, for his licentious tongue, his fierce brutality, and +his cold and tasteless genius. He whose vileness could even +ruffle the great spirit of Rawleigh, was the shameless persecutor +of the learned Cowel.</p> +<p>Coke was the oracle of the common law, and Cowel of the +civil; but Cowel practised at Westminster Hall as well as at +Doctors’ Commons. Coke turned away with hatred from an +advocate who, with the skill of a great lawyer, exerted all the +courage. The Attorney-General sought every occasion to +degrade him, and, with puerile derision, attempted to fasten +on Dr. Cowel the nickname of <i>Dr. Cowheel</i>. Coke, after +having written in his “Reports” whatever he could against +our author, with no effect, started a new project. Coke well +knew his master’s jealousy on the question of his prerogative; +and he touched the King on that nerve. The Attorney-General +suggested to James that Cowel had discussed “too +nicely the mysteries of his monarchy, in some points derogatory +to the supreme power of his crown; asserting that the +royal prerogative was in some cases limited.” So subtly the +serpent whispered to the feminine ear of a monarch, whom +this vanity of royalty startled with all the fears of a woman. +This suggestion had nearly occasioned the ruin of Cowel—it +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span> +verged on treason; and if the conspiracy of Coke now failed, +it was through the mediation of the archbishop, who influenced +the King; but it succeeded in alienating the royal favour +from Cowel.</p> +<p>When Coke found he could not hang Cowel for treason, it +was only a small disappointment, for he had hopes to secure +his prey by involving him in felony. As physicians in desperate +cases sometimes reverse their mode of treatment, so Coke +now operated on an opposite principle. He procured a party in +the Commons to declare that Cowel was a betrayer of the +rights and liberties of the people; that he had asserted the +King was independent of Parliament, and that it was a favour +to admit the consent of his subjects in giving of subsidies, +&c.; and, in a word, that he drew his arguments from the +Roman Imperial Code, and would make the laws and customs +of Rome and Constantinople those of London and York. +Passages were wrested to Coke’s design. The prefacer of +Cowel’s book very happily expresses himself when he says, +“When a suspected book is brought to the torture, it often +confesseth all, and more than it knows.”</p> +<p>The Commons proceeded criminally against Cowel; and it +is said his life was required, had not the king interposed. The +author was imprisoned, and the book was burnt.</p> +<p>On this occasion was issued “a proclamation touching Dr. +Cowel’s book called ‘The Interpreter.’” It may be classed +among the most curious documents of our literary history. +I do not hesitate to consider this proclamation as the composition +of James I.</p> +<p>I will preserve some passages from this proclamation, not +merely for their majestic composition, which may still be +admired, and the singularity of the ideas, which may still be +applied—but for the literary event to which it gave birth in +the appointment of a royal licenser for the press. Proclamations +and burning of books are the strong efforts of a weak +government, exciting rather than suppressing public attention.</p> +<p>“This later age and times of the world wherein we are +fallen is so much given to verbal profession, as well of religion +as of all commendable royal virtues, but wanting the actions +and deeds agreeable to so specious a profession; as it hath +bred such an unsatiable curiosity in many men’s spirits, and +such an itching in the tongues and pens of most men, as +nothing is left unsearched to the bottom both in talking and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span> +writing. For from the very highest mysteries in the Godhead +and the most inscrutable counsels in the Trinity, to the +very lowest pit of hell and the confused actions of the devils +there, there is nothing now unsearched into by the curiosity +of men’s brains. Men, not being contented with the knowledge +of so much of the will of God as it hath pleased him +to reveal, but they will needs sit with him in his most private +closet, and become privy of his most inscrutable counsels. +And, therefore, it is no wonder that men in these our days do +not spare to wade in all the deepest mysteries that belong to +the persons or state of kings and princes, that are gods upon +earth; since we see (as we have already said) that they spare +not God himself. And this licence, which every talker or +writer now assumeth to himself, is come to this abuse; +that many Phormios will give counsel to Hannibal, and +many men that never went of the compass of cloysters +or colleges, will freely wade, by their writings, in the deepest +mysteries of monarchy and politick government. Whereupon +it cannot otherwise fall out but that when men go out of their +element and meddle with things above their capacity, themselves +shall not only go astray and stumble in darkness, but +will mislead also divers others with themselves into many mistakings +and errors; the proof whereof we have lately had by +a book written by Dr. Cowel, called ‘The Interpreter.’”</p> +<p>The royal reviewer then in a summary way shows how +Cowel had, “by meddling in matters beyond his reach, fallen +into many things to mistake and deceive himself.” The book +is therefore “prohibited; the buying, uttering, or reading +it;” and those “who have any copies are to deliver the same +presently upon this publication to the Mayor of London,” +&c., and the proclamation concludes with instituting licensers +of the press:—</p> +<p>“Because that there shall be better oversight of books of all +sorts before they come to the press, we have resolved to make +choice of commissioners, that shall look more narrowly into +the nature of all those things that shall be put to the press, +and from whom a more strict account shall be yielded unto +us, than hath been used heretofore.”</p> +<p>What were the feelings of our injured author, whose +integrity was so firm, and whose love of study was so warm, +when he reaped for his reward the displeasure of his sovereign, +and the indignation of his countrymen—accused at +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span> +once of contradictory crimes, he could not be a betrayer of +the rights of the people, and at the same time limit the sovereign +power. Cowel retreated to his college, and, like a wise +man, abstained from the press; he pursued his private studies, +while his inoffensive life was a comment on Coke’s inhumanity +more honourable to Cowel than any of Coke’s on +Littleton.</p> +<p>Thus Cowel saw, in his own life, its richest labour thrown +aside; and when the author and his adversary were no more, +it became a treasure valued by posterity! It was printed in +the reign of Charles I., under the administration of Cromwell, +and again after the Restoration. It received the honour +of a foreign edition. Its value is still permanent. Such is +the history of a book, which occasioned the disgrace of its +author, and embittered his life.</p> +<p>A similar calamity was the fate of honest <span class='smcap'>Stowe</span>, the +Chronicler. After a long life of labour, and having exhausted +his patrimony in the study of English antiquities, from a +reverential love to his country, poor Stowe was ridiculed, +calumniated, neglected, and persecuted. One cannot read +without indignation and pity what Howes, his continuator, +tells us in his dedication. Howes had observed that—</p> +<p>“No man would lend a helping hand to the late aged +painful Chronicler, nor, after his death, prosecute his work. +He applied himself to several persons of dignity and learning, +whose names had got forth among the public as likely to be +the continuators of Stowe; but every one persisted in denying +this, and some imagined that their secret enemies had mentioned +their names with a view of injuring them, by incurring +the displeasure of their superiors and risking their own quiet. +One said, ‘I will <i>not flatter</i>, to scandalise my posterity;’ +another, ‘I cannot see how a man should spend his labour +and money worse than in that which acquires no regard nor +reward except <i>backbiting</i> and <i>detraction</i>.’ One swore a great +oath and said, ‘I thank God that I am not yet so mad to +waste my time, spend two hundred pounds a-year, trouble +myself and all my friends, only to give assurance of endless +reproach, loss of liberty, and bring all my days in question.’”</p> +<p>Unhappy authors! are such then the terrors which silence +eloquence, and such the dangers which environ truth? Posterity +has many discoveries to make, or many deceptions to +endure! But we are treading on hot embers.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span></div> +<p>Such too was the fate of <span class='smcap'>Reginald Scot</span>, who, in an +elaborate and curious volume,<a name='FNanchor_0131' id='FNanchor_0131'></a><a href='#Footnote_0131' class='fnanchor'>[131]</a> if he could not stop the torrent +of the popular superstitions of witchcraft, was the first, at +least, to break and scatter the waves. It is a work which +forms an epoch in the history of the human mind in our +country; but the author had anticipated a very remote period +of its enlargement. Scot, the apostle of humanity, and the +legislator of reason, lived in retirement, yet persecuted by +religious credulity and legal cruelty.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Selden</span>, perhaps the most learned of our antiquaries, was +often led, in his curious investigations, to disturb his own +peace, by giving the result of his inquiries. James I. and the +Court party were willing enough to extol his profound authorities +and reasonings on topics which did not interfere with +their system of arbitrary power; but they harassed and persecuted +the author whom they would at other times eagerly +quote as their advocate. Selden, in his “History of Tithes,” +had alarmed the clergy by the intricacy of his inquiries. He +pretends, however, to have only collected the opposite opinions +of others, without delivering his own. The book was not +only suppressed, but the great author was further disgraced +by subscribing a gross recantation of all his learned investigations—and +was compelled to receive in silence the insults of +Courtly scholars, who had the hardihood to accuse him of +plagiarism, and other literary treasons, which more sensibly +hurt Selden than the recantation extorted from his hand by +“the Lords of the High Commission Court.” James I. +would not suffer him to reply to them. When the king +desired Selden to show the right of the British Crown to the +dominion of the sea, this learned author having made proper +collections, Selden, angried at an imprisonment he had undergone, +refused to publish the work. A great author like +Selden degrades himself when any personal feeling, in literary +disputes, places him on an equality with any king; the +duty was to his country.—But Selden, alive to the call of +rival genius, when Grotius published, in Holland, his <i>Mare +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span> +liberum</i>, +gave the world his <i>Mare clausum</i>; when Selden had +to encounter Grotius, and to proclaim to the universe “the +Sovereignty of the Seas,” how contemptible to him appeared +the mean persecutions of a crowned head, and how little his +own meaner resentment!</p> +<p>To this subject the fate of Dr. <span class='smcap'>Hawkesworth</span> is somewhat +allied. It is well known that this author, having distinguished +himself by his pleasing compositions in the “Adventurer,” +was chosen to draw up the narrative of Cook’s +discoveries in the South Seas. The pictures of a new world, +the description of new manners in an original state of society, +and the incidents arising from an adventure which could find +no parallel in the annals of mankind, but under the solitary +genius of Columbus—all these were conceived to offer a +history, to which the moral and contemplative powers of +Hawkesworth only were equal. Our author’s fate, and that +of his work, are known: he incurred all the danger of giving +the result of his inquiries; he indulged his imagination till +it burst into pruriency, and discussed moral theorems till he +ceased to be moral. The shock it gave to the feelings of our +author was fatal; and the error of a mind, intent on inquiries +which, perhaps, he thought innocent, and which the +world condemned as criminal, terminated in death itself. +Hawkesworth was a vain man, and proud of having raised +himself by his literary talents from his native obscurity: of +no learning, he drew all his science from the Cyclopædia; +and, I have heard, could not always have construed the Latin +mottos of his own paper, which were furnished by Johnson; +but his sensibility was abundant—and ere his work was given +to the world, he felt those tremblings and those doubts +which anticipated his fate. That he was in a state of mental +agony respecting the reception of his opinions, and some other +parts of his work, will, I think, be discovered in the following +letter, hitherto unpublished. It was addressed, with his +MSS., to a peer, to be examined before they were sent to the +press—an occupation probably rather too serious for the +noble critic:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>London, March 2, 1761.</i></p> +<p>“I think myself happy to be permitted to put <i>my MSS. +into your Lordship’s hands</i>, because, though it increases my +anxiety and my fears, yet it will at least secure me from +what I should think <i>a far greater misfortune</i> than any other +that can attend my performance, <i>the danger of addressing to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span> +the +King any sentiment, allusion, or opinion</i>, that could make +such an address <i>improper</i>. I have now the honour to submit +the <i>work</i> to your Lordship, with the dedication; from which +the duty I owe to his Majesty, and, if I may be permitted to +add anything to that, the duty I owe to myself, have concurred +to exclude the servile, extravagant, and indiscriminate +adulation which has so often disgraced alike those by whom +it has been given and received.</p> +<p class='sig2'>“I remain, &c. &c.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This elegant epistle justly describes that delicacy in style +which has been so rarely practised by an indiscriminate dedicator; +and it not less feelingly touches on that “far greater +misfortune than any other,” which finally overwhelmed the +fortitude and intellect of this unhappy author!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='A_NATIONAL_WORK_WHICH_COULD_FIND_NO_PATRONAGE' id='A_NATIONAL_WORK_WHICH_COULD_FIND_NO_PATRONAGE'></a> +<h3>A NATIONAL WORK WHICH COULD FIND NO PATRONAGE.</h3> +</div> +<p>The author who is now before us is <span class='smcap'>De Lolme</span>!</p> +<p>I shall consider as an English author that foreigner, who +flew to our country as the asylum of Europe, who composed +a noble work on our Constitution, and, having imbibed its +spirit, acquired even the language of a free country.</p> +<p>I do not know an example in our literary history that so +loudly accuses our tardy and phlegmatic feeling respecting +authors, as the treatment De Lolme experienced in this +country. His book on our Constitution still enters into the +studies of an English patriot, and is not the worse for flattering +and elevating the imagination, painting everything beautiful, +to encourage our love as well as our reverence for the +most perfect system of governments. It was a noble as well +as ingenious effort in a foreigner—it claimed national attention—but +could not obtain even individual patronage. The +fact is mortifying to record, that the author who wanted +every aid, received less encouragement than if he had solicited +subscriptions for a raving novel, or an idle poem. De Lolme +was compelled to traffic with booksellers for this work; and, +as he was a theoretical rather than a practical politician, he +was a bad trader, and acquired the smallest remuneration. +He lived, in the country to which he had rendered a national +service, in extreme obscurity and decay; and the walls of the +Fleet too often enclosed the English Montesquieu. He never +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span> +appears to have received a solitary attention,<a name='FNanchor_0132' id='FNanchor_0132'></a><a href='#Footnote_0132' class='fnanchor'>[132]</a> and became so +disgusted with authorship, that he preferred silently to endure +its poverty rather than its other vexations. He ceased +almost to write. Of De Lolme I have heard little recorded +but his high-mindedness; a strong sense that he stood +degraded beneath that rank in society which his book entitled +him to enjoy. The cloud of poverty that covered him only +veiled without concealing its object; with the manners and +dress of a decayed gentleman, he still showed the few who +met him that he cherished a spirit perpetually at variance +with the adversity of his circumstances.</p> +<p>Our author, in a narrative prefixed to his work, is the +proud historian of his own injured feelings; he smiled in bitterness +on his contemporaries, confident it was a tale reserved +for posterity.</p> +<p>After having written the work whose systematic principles +refuted those political notions which prevailed at the era of +the American revolution,—and whose truth has been so fatally +demonstrated in our own times, in two great revolutions, +which have shown all the defects and all the mischief of +nations rushing into a state of freedom before they are worthy +of it,—the author candidly acknowledges he counted on some +sort of encouragement, and little expected to find the mere +publication had drawn him into great inconvenience.</p> +<p>“When my enlarged English edition was ready for the +press, had I acquainted ministers that I was preparing to +boil my tea-kettle with it, for want of being able to afford +the expenses of printing it;” ministers, it seems, would not +have considered that he was lighting his fire with “myrrh, +and cassia, and precious ointment.”</p> +<p>In the want of encouragement from great men, and even +from booksellers, De Lolme had recourse to a subscription; +and his account of the manner he was received, and the indignities +he endured, all which are narrated with great simplicity, +show that whatever his knowledge of our Constitution +might be, “his knowledge of the country was, at that time, +very incomplete.” At length, when he shared the profits of +his work with the booksellers, they were “but scanty and +slow.” After all, our author sarcastically congratulates himself, +that he—</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span></div> +<p>“Was allowed to carry on the above business of selling my +book, without any objection being formed against me, from +my not having served a regular apprenticeship, and without +being molested by the Inquisition.”</p> +<p>And further he adds—</p> +<p>“Several authors have chosen to relate, in writings published +after death, the personal advantages by which their +performances had been followed; as for me, I have thought +otherwise—and I will see it printed while I am yet living.”</p> +<p>This, indeed, is the language of irritation! and De Lolme +degrades himself in the loudness of his complaint. But if +the philosopher lost his temper, that misfortune will not +take away the dishonour of the occasion that produced it. +The country’s shame is not lessened because the author who +had raised its glory throughout Europe, and instructed +the nation in its best lesson, grew indignant at the ingratitude +of his pupil. De Lolme ought not to have congratulated +himself that he had been allowed the liberty of the +press unharassed by an inquisition: this sarcasm is senseless! +or his book is a mere fiction!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_MISERIES_OF_SUCCESSFUL_AUTHORS' id='THE_MISERIES_OF_SUCCESSFUL_AUTHORS'></a> +<h3>THE MISERIES OF SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS.</h3> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>Hume</span> is an author so celebrated, a philosopher so serene, +and a man so extremely amiable, if not fortunate, that we +may be surprised to meet his name inscribed in a catalogue +of literary calamities. Look into his literary life, and you +will discover that the greater portion was mortified and +angried; and that the stoic so lost his temper, that had not +circumstances intervened which did not depend on himself, +Hume had abandoned his country and changed his name!</p> +<p>“The first success of most of my writings was not such as +to be an object of vanity.” His “Treatise of Human Nature” +fell dead-born from the press. It was cast anew with +another title, and was at first little more successful. The +following letter to Des Maiseaux, which I believe is now first +published, gives us the feelings of the youthful and modest +philosopher:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='center'>“<span class='smcap'>David Hume To Des Maiseaux</span>.</p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,—Whenever you see my name, you’ll readily imagine +the subject of my letter. A young author can scarce forbear +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span> +speaking of his performance to all the world; but when he +meets with one that is a good judge, and whose instruction +and advice he depends on, there ought some indulgence to be +given him. You were so good as to promise me, that if you +could find leisure from your other occupations, you would +look over my system of philosophy, and at the same time ask +the opinion of such of your acquaintance as you thought +proper judges. Have you found it sufficiently intelligible? +Does it appear true to you? Do the style and language seem +tolerable? These three questions comprehend everything; +and I beg of you to answer them with the utmost freedom +and sincerity. I know ’tis a custom to flatter poets on their +performances, but I hope philosophers may be exempted; and +the more so that their cases are by no means alike. When we +do not approve of anything in a poet we commonly can give +no reason for our dislikes but our particular taste; which not +being convincing, we think it better to conceal our sentiments +altogether. But every error in philosophy can be +distinctly markt and proved to be such; and this is a favour +I flatter myself you’ll indulge me in with regard to the performance +I put into your hands. I am, indeed, afraid that it +would be too great a trouble for you to mark all the errors +you have observed; I shall only insist upon being informed +of the most material of them, and you may assure yourself +will consider it as a singular favour. I am, with great +esteem</p> +<p class='sig1'>“Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,</p> +<p class='sig2'> “<i>Aprile 6, 1739.</i></p> +<p class='sig3'> “<span class='smcap'>David Hume</span>.</p> +<p>“Please direct to me at Ninewells, near Berwick-upon-Tweed.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Hume’s own favourite “Inquiry Concerning the Principles +of Morals” came unnoticed and unobserved in the world. +When he published the first portion of his “History,” which +made even Hume himself sanguine in his expectations, he +tells his own tale:—</p> +<p>“I thought that I was the only historian that had at once +neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry +of popular prejudices; and, as the subject was suited to every +capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable +was my disappointment! All classes of men and readers +united in their rage against him who had presumed to shed a +generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span> +Strafford.” “What was still more mortifying, the book +seemed to sink into oblivion, and in a twelvemonth not more +than forty-five copies were sold.”</p> +<p>Even Hume, a stoic hitherto in his literary character, was +struck down, and dismayed—he lost all courage to proceed—and, +had the war not prevented him, “he had resolved to +change his name, and never more to have returned to his +native country.”</p> +<p>But an author, though born to suffer martyrdom, does not +always expire; he may be flayed like St. Bartholomew, and +yet he can breathe without a skin; stoned, like St. Stephen, +and yet write on with a broken head; and he has been even +known to survive the flames, notwithstanding the most precious +part of an author, which is obviously his book, has been +burnt in an <i>auto da fe</i>. Hume once more tried the press in +“The Natural History of Religion.” It proved but another +martyrdom! Still was the <i>fall</i> (as he terms it) of the first +volume of his History haunting his nervous imagination, +when he found himself yet strong enough to hold a pen in +his hand, and ventured to produce a second, which “helped +to buoy up its unfortunate brother.” But the third part, +containing the reign of Elizabeth, was particularly obnoxious, +and he was doubtful whether he was again to be led to +the stake. But Hume, a little hardened by a little success, +grew, to use his own words, “callous against the impressions +of public folly,” and completed his History, which was now +received “with tolerable, and but tolerable, success.”</p> +<p>At length, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, our author +began, a year or two before he died, as he writes, to see +“many <i>symptoms</i> of my literary reputation breaking out <i>at +last</i> with additional lustre, though I know that I can have +but few years to enjoy it.” What a provoking consolation +for a philosopher, who, according to the result of his own +system, was close upon a state of annihilation!</p> +<p>To Hume, let us add the illustrious name of <span class='smcap'>Dryden</span>.</p> +<p>It was after preparing a second edition of Virgil, that the +great Dryden, who had lived, and was to die in harness, +found himself still obliged to seek for daily bread. Scarcely +relieved from one heavy task, he was compelled to hasten to +another; and his efforts were now stimulated by a domestic +feeling, the expected return of his son in ill-health from +Rome. In a letter to his bookseller he pathetically writes—“If +it please God that <i>I must die of over-study</i>, I cannot +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span> +spend my life better than in preserving his.” It was on this +occasion, on the verge of his seventieth year, as he describes +himself in the dedication of his Virgil, that, “worn out with +study, and oppressed with fortune,” he contracted to supply +the bookseller with 10,000 verses at sixpence a line!</p> +<p>What was his entire dramatic life but a series of vexation +and hostility, from his first play to his last? On those very +boards whence Dryden was to have derived the means of his +existence and his fame, he saw his foibles aggravated, and his +morals aspersed. Overwhelmed by the keen ridicule of +Buckingham, and maliciously mortified by the triumph which +Settle, his meanest rival, was allowed to obtain over him, +and doomed still to encounter the cool malignant eye of +Langbaine, who read poetry only to detect plagiarism. +Contemporary genius is inspected with too much familiarity +to be felt with reverence; and the angry prefaces of Dryden +only excited the little revenge of the wits. How could such +sympathise with injured, but with lofty feelings? They +spread two reports of him, which may not be true, but which +hurt him with the public. It was said that, being jealous of +the success of Creech, for his version of Lucretius, he advised +him to attempt Horace, in which Dryden knew he would +fail—and a contemporary haunter of the theatre, in a curious +letter<a name='FNanchor_0133' id='FNanchor_0133'></a><a href='#Footnote_0133' class='fnanchor'>[133]</a> on <i>The Winter Diversions</i>, says of Congreve’s +angry preface to the <i>Double Dealer</i>, that—</p> +<p>“The critics were severe upon this play, which gave the +author occasion to lash them in his epistle dedicatory—so +that ’tis generally thought <i>he has done his business and lost +himself</i>; a thing he owes to Mr. Dryden’s <i>treacherous +friendship</i>, who being <i>jealous of the applause</i> he had got by +his <i>Old Bachelor deluded him</i> into a foolish imitation of +his own way of writing angry prefaces.”</p> +<p>This lively critic is still more vivacious on the great +Dryden, who had then produced his <i>Love Triumphant</i>, +which, the critic says,</p> +<p>“Was damned by the universal cry of the town, <i>nemine +contradicente</i> but the <i>conceited poet</i>. He says in his prologue +that ‘this is the last the town must expect from +him;’ he had done himself a kindness had he taken his leave +before.” He then describes the success of Southerne’s +<i>Fatal Marriage, or the Innocent Adultery</i>, and concludes, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span> +“This kind usage will encourage desponding minor poets, +and <i>vex huffing Dryden and Congreve to madness</i>.”</p> +<p>I have quoted thus much of this letter, that we may have +before us a true image of those feelings which contemporaries +entertain of the greater geniuses of their age; how they seek +to level them; and in what manner men of genius are +doomed to be treated—slighted, starved, and abused. Dryden +and Congreve! the one the finest genius, the other the +most exquisite wit of our nation, are to be <i>vexed to madness</i>!—their +failures are not to excite sympathy, but contempt or +ridicule! How the feelings and the language of contemporaries +differ from that of posterity! And yet let <i>us</i> not +exult in our purer and more dignified feelings—<i>we</i> are, indeed, +the <i>posterity</i> of Dryden and Congreve; but we are the +<i>contemporaries</i> of others who must patiently hope for better +treatment from our sons than they have received from the +fathers.</p> +<p>Dryden was no master of the pathetic, yet never were +compositions more pathetic than the Prefaces this great man +has transmitted to posterity! Opening all the feelings of +his heart, we live among his domestic sorrows. Johnson +censures Dryden for saying <i>he has few thanks to pay his stars +that he was born among Englishmen</i>.<a name='FNanchor_0134' id='FNanchor_0134'></a><a href='#Footnote_0134' class='fnanchor'>[134]</a> We have just seen +that Hume went farther, and sighed to fly to a retreat beyond +that country which knew not to reward genius.—What, +if Dryden felt the dignity of that character he supported, +dare we blame his frankness? If the age be ungenerous, +shall contemporaries escape the scourge of the great +author, who feels he is addressing another age more favourable +to him?</p> +<p>Johnson, too, notices his “Self-commendation; his diligence +in reminding the world of his merits, and expressing, +with very little scruple, his high opinion of his own +powers.” Dryden shall answer in his own words; with all +the simplicity of Montaigne, he expresses himself with the +dignity that would have become Milton or Gray:—</p> +<p>“It is a vanity common to all writers to overvalue their +own productions; and it is better for me to own this failing +in myself, than the world to do it for me. <i>For what other +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span> +reason +have I spent my life in such an unprofitable study? +Why am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame?</i> +The same parts and application which have made me a poet, +might have raised me to any honours of the gown, which are +often given to men of as little learning, and less honesty, +than myself.”</p> +<p>How feelingly Whitehead paints the situation of Dryden +in his old age:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Yet lives the man, how wild soe’er his aim,<br /> +Would madly barter fortune’s smiles for fame?<br /> +Well pleas’d to shine, through each recording page,<br /> +The hapless Dryden of a shameless age!<br /> +<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Ill-fated bard! where’er thy name appears,<br /> +The weeping verse a sad memento bears;<br /> +Ah! what avail’d the enormous blaze between<br /> +Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene!<br /> +When sinking nature asks our kind repairs,<br /> +Unstrung the nerves, and silver’d o’er the hairs;<br /> +When stay’d reflection came uncall’d at last,<br /> +And gray experience counts each folly past!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p><span class='smcap'>Mickle’s</span> version of the Lusiad offers an affecting instance +of the melancholy fears which often accompany the progress +of works of magnitude, undertaken by men of genius. Five +years he had buried himself in a farm-house, devoted to the +solitary labour; and he closes his preface with the fragment +of a poem, whose stanzas have perpetuated all the tremblings +and the emotions, whose unhappy influence the author had +experienced through the long work. Thus pathetically he +addresses the Muse:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——Well thy meed repays thy worthless toil;<br /> +Upon thy houseless head pale want descends<br /> +In bitter shower; and taunting scorn still rends<br /> +And wakes thee trembling from thy golden dream:<br /> +In vetchy bed, or loathly dungeon ends<br /> +Thy idled life——</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And when, at length, the great and anxious labour was +completed, the author was still more unhappy than under the +former influence of his foreboding terrors. The work is dedicated +to the Duke of Buccleugh. Whether his Grace had +been prejudiced against the poetical labour by Adam Smith, +who had as little comprehension of the nature of poetry as +becomes a political economist, or from whatever cause, after +possessing it for six weeks the Duke had never condescended +to open the volume. It is to the honour of Mickle that the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span> +Dedication is a simple respectful inscription, in which the +poet had not compromised his dignity,—and that in the second +edition he had the magnanimity not to withdraw the dedication +to this statue-like patron. Neither was the critical reception +of this splendid labour of five devoted years grateful to +the sensibility of the author: he writes to a friend—</p> +<p>“Though my work is well received at Oxford, I will honestly +own to you, some things have hurt me. A few grammatical +slips in the introduction have been mentioned; and some +things in the notes about Virgil, Milton, and Homer, have +been called the arrogance of criticism. But the greatest +offence of all is, what I say of blank verse.”</p> +<p>He was, indeed, after this great work was given to the +public, as unhappy as at any preceding period of his life; and +Mickle, too, like Hume and Dryden, could feel a wish to forsake +his native land! He still found his “head houseless;” +and “the vetchy bed” and “loathly dungeon” still haunted +his dreams. “To write for the booksellers is what I never +will do,” exclaimed this man of genius, though struck by +poverty. He projected an edition of his own poems by subscription.</p> +<p>“Desirous of giving an edition of my works, in which I +shall bestow the utmost attention, which, perhaps, will be my +final farewell to that blighted spot (worse than the most bleak +mountains of Scotland) yclept Parnassus; after this labour is +finished, if Governor Johnstone cannot or does not help me +to a little independence, <i>I will certainly bid adieu to Europe, +to unhappy suspense, and perhaps also to the chagrin of soul +which I feel to accompany it</i>.”</p> +<p>Such was the language which cannot now be read without +exciting our sympathy for the author of the version of an +epic, which, after a solemn devotion of no small portion of the +most valuable years of life, had been presented to the world, +with not sufficient remuneration or notice of the author to +create even hope in the sanguine temperament of a poet. +Mickle was more honoured at Lisbon than in his own country. +So imperceptible are the gradations of public favour to the +feelings of genius, and so vast an interval separates that +author who does not immediately address the tastes or the +fashions of his age, from the reward or the enjoyment of his +studies.</p> +<p>We cannot account, among the lesser calamities of literature, +that of a man of genius, who, dedicating his days to the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span> +composition of a voluminous and national work, when that +labour is accomplished, finds, on its publication, the hope of +fame, and perhaps other hopes as necessary to reward past toil, +and open to future enterprise, all annihilated. Yet this work +neglected or not relished, perhaps even the sport of witlings, +afterwards is placed among the treasures of our language, +when the author is no more! but what is posthumous gratitude, +could it reach even the ear of an angel?</p> +<p>The calamity is unavoidable; but this circumstance does +not lessen it. New works must for a time be submitted to +popular favour; but posterity is the inheritance of genius. +The man of genius, however, who has composed this great +work, calculates his vigils, is best acquainted with its merits, +and is not without an anticipation of the future feeling of his +country; he</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>But weeps the more, because he weeps in vain.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Such is the fate which has awaited many great works; and +the heart of genius has died away on its own labours. I need +not go so far back as the Elizabethan age to illustrate a calamity +which will excite the sympathy of every man of letters; +but the great work of a man of no ordinary genius presents +itself on this occasion.</p> +<p>This great work is “The Polyolbion” of <span class='smcap'>Michael Drayton</span>; +a poem unrivalled for its magnitude and its character.<a name='FNanchor_0135' id='FNanchor_0135'></a><a href='#Footnote_0135' class='fnanchor'>[135]</a> +The genealogy of poetry is always suspicious; yet I think it +owed its birth to Leland’s magnificent view of his intended +work on Britain, and was probably nourished by the “Britannia” +of Camden, who inherited the mighty industry, with +out the poetical spirit, of Leland; Drayton embraced both. +This singular combination of topographical erudition and +poetical fancy constitutes a national work—a union that some +may conceive not fortunate, no more than “the slow length” +of its Alexandrine metre, for the purposes of mere delight. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span> +Yet what theme can be more elevating than a bard chanting +to his “Fatherland,” as the Hollanders called their country? +Our tales of ancient glory, our worthies who must not die, +our towns, our rivers, and our mountains, all glancing before +the picturesque eye of the naturalist and the poet! It is, +indeed, a labour of Hercules; but it was not unaccompanied +by the lyre of Apollo.</p> +<p>This national work was ill received; and the great author +dejected, never pardoned his contemporaries, and even lost his +temper.<a name='FNanchor_0136' id='FNanchor_0136'></a><a href='#Footnote_0136' class='fnanchor'>[136]</a> Drayton and his poetical friends beheld indignantly +the trifles of the hour overpowering the neglected Polyolbion.</p> +<p>One poet tells us that</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——————————they prefer<br /> +The fawning lines of every pamphleter. <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Geo. Withers.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And a contemporary records the utter neglect of this great +poet:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Why lives Drayton when the times refuse<br /> +Both means to live, and matter for a muse,<br /> +Only without excuse to leave us quite,<br /> +And tell us, durst we act, he durst to write? <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>W. Browne.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Drayton published his Polyolbion first in eighteen parts; +and the second portion afterwards. In this interval we have +a letter to Drummond, dated in 1619:—</p> +<p>“I thank you, my dear sweet Drummond, for your good +opinion of Polyolbion. I have done twelve books more, that +is, from the 18th book, which was Kent (if you note it), all +the east parts and north to the river of Tweed; <i>but it lieth +by me, for the booksellers and I are in terms</i>; they are a +company of base knaves, whom I scorn and kick at.”</p> +<p>The vengeance of the poet had been more justly wreaked +on the buyers of books than on the sellers, who, though +knavery has a strong connexion with trade, yet, were they +knaves, they would be true to their own interests. Far from +impeding a successful author, booksellers are apt to hurry his +labours; for they prefer the crude to the mature fruit, whenever +the public taste can be appeased even by an unripened +dessert.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span></div> +<p>These “knaves,” however, seem to have succeeded in forcing +poor Drayton to observe an abstinence from the press, which +must have convulsed all the feelings of authorship. The +second part was not published till three years after this letter +was written; and then without maps. Its preface is remarkable +enough; it is pathetic, till Drayton loses the dignity of +genius in its asperity. In is inscribed, in no good humour—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“<span class='smcap'>To any that will read it!</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“When I first undertook this poem, or, as some have +pleased to term it, this Herculean labour, I was by some virtuous +friends persuaded that I should receive much comfort +and encouragement; and for these reasons: First, it was a +new clear way, never before gone by any; that it contained +all the delicacies, delights, and rarities of this renowned isle, +interwoven with the histories of the Britons, Saxons, Normans, +and the later English. And further, that there is +scarcely any of the nobility or gentry of this land, but that +he is some way or other interested therein.</p> +<p>“But it hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort +which my noble friends proposed as my due, I have met +with barbarous ignorance and base detraction; such a cloud +hath the devil drawn over the world’s judgment. Some of +the stationers that had the selling of the first part of this +poem, because <i>it went not so fast away in the selling</i> as some +of their beastly and abominable trash (a shame both to our +language and our nation), have despightfully left out the +epistles to the readers, and so have cousened the buyers with +imperfected books, which those that have undertaken the +second part have been forced to amend in the first, for <i>the +small number that are yet remaining in their hands</i>.</p> +<p>“And some of our outlandish, unnatural English (I know +not how otherwise to express them) stick not to say that there +is nothing in this island worth studying for, and take a great +pride to be ignorant in anything thereof. As for these cattle, +<i>odi profanum vulgus, et arceo</i>; of which I account them, be +they never so great.”</p> +<p>Yet, as a true poet, whose impulse, like fate, overturns all +opposition, Drayton is not to be thrown out of his avocation; +but intrepidly closes by promising “they shall not deter me +from going on with Scotland, if means and time do not hinder +me to perform as much as I have promised in my first song.” +Who could have imagined that such bitterness of style, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span> +such angry emotions, could have been raised in the breast of a +poet of pastoral elegance and fancy?</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Whose bounding muse o’er ev’ry mountain rode, <br /> +And every river warbled as it flow’d.<br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Kirkpatrick.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It is melancholy to reflect that some of the greatest works +in our language have involved their authors in distress and +anxiety: and that many have gone down to their grave insensible +of that glory which soon covered it.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='THE_ILLUSIONS_OF_WRITERS_IN_VERSE' id='THE_ILLUSIONS_OF_WRITERS_IN_VERSE'></a> +<h3>THE ILLUSIONS OF WRITERS IN VERSE.</h3> +</div> +<p>Who would, with the awful severity of Plato, banish poets +from the Republic? But it may be desirable that the Republic +should not be banished from poets, which it seems to +be when an inordinate passion for writing verses drives them +from every active pursuit. There is no greater enemy to +domestic quiet than a confirmed versifier; yet are most of +them much to be pitied: it is the <i>mediocre</i> critics they first +meet with who are the real origin of a populace of <i>mediocre</i> +poets. A young writer of verses is sure to get flattered by +those who affect to admire what they do not even understand, +and by those who, because they understand, imagine +they are likewise endowed with delicacy of taste and a critical +judgment. What sacrifices of social enjoyments, and all the +business of life, are lavished with a prodigal’s ruin in an employment +which will be usually discovered to be a source of +early anxiety, and of late disappointment!<a name='FNanchor_0137' id='FNanchor_0137'></a><a href='#Footnote_0137' class='fnanchor'>[137]</a> I say nothing +of the ridicule in which it involves some wretched Mævius, +but of the misery that falls so heavily on him, and is often +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span> +entailed on his generation. Whitehead has versified an +admirable reflection of Pope’s, in the preface to his works:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>For wanting wit be totally undone,<br /> +And barr’d all arts, for having fail’d in one?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The great mind of <span class='smcap'>Blackstone</span> never showed him more a +poet than when he took, not without affection, “a farewell +of the Muse,” on his being called to the bar. <span class='smcap'>Drummond</span>, +of Hawthornden, quitted the bar from his love of poetry; +yet he seems to have lamented slighting the profession +which his father wished him to pursue. He perceives his +error, he feels even contrition, but still cherishes it: no man, +not in his senses, ever had a more lucid interval:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>I changed countries, new delights to find;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But ah! for pleasure I did find new pain;<br /> +Enchanting pleasure so did reason blind,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>That father’s love and words I scorn’d as vain.<br /> +I know that all the Muses’ heavenly lays,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>With toil of spirit which are so dearly bought,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>As idle sounds of few or none are sought,<br /> +That there is nothing lighter than vain praise;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Know what I list, this all cannot me move,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But that, alas! I both must write and love!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Thus, like all poets, who, as Goldsmith observes, “are +fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future,” he talks +like a man of sense, and acts like a fool.</p> +<p>This wonderful susceptibility of praise, to which poets +seem more liable than any other class of authors, is indeed +their common food; and they could not keep life in them +without this nourishment. <span class='smcap'>Nat. Lee</span>, a true poet in all the +excesses of poetical feelings—for he was in such raptures at +times as to lose his senses—expresses himself in very energetic +language on the effects of the praise necessary for +poets:—</p> +<p>“Praise,” says Lee, “is the greatest encouragement we +chamelions can pretend to, or rather the manna that keeps +soul and body together; we devour it as if it were angels’ +food, and vainly think we grow immortal. There is nothing +transports a poet, next to love, like commending in the right +place.”</p> +<p>This, no doubt, is a rare enjoyment, and serves to +strengthen his illusions. But the same fervid genius elsewhere +confesses, when reproached for his ungoverned fancy, +that it brings with itself its own punishment:—</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span></div> +<p>“I cannot be,” says this great and unfortunate poet, “so +ridiculous a creature to any man as I am to myself; for who +should know the house so well as the good man at home? +who, when his neighbour comes to see him, still sets the best +rooms to view; and, if he be not a wilful ass, keeps the rubbish +and lumber in some dark hole, where nobody comes but +himself, to mortify at melancholy hours.”</p> +<p>Study the admirable preface of <span class='smcap'>Pope</span>, composed at that +matured period of life when the fever of fame had passed +away, and experience had corrected fancy. It is a calm +statement between authors and readers; there is no imagination +that colours by a single metaphor, or conceals the real +feeling which moved the author on that solemn occasion, of +collecting his works for the last time. It is on a full review +of the past that this great poet delivers this remarkable +sentence:—</p> +<p>“<i>I believe, if any one, early in his life, should contemplate +the dangerous fate of <span class='smcaplc'>AUTHORS</span>, he would scarce be of +their number on any consideration.</i> The life of a wit is a +warfare upon earth; and to pretend to serve the learned +world in any way, one must have the constancy of a martyr, +and a resolution to suffer for its sake.”</p> +<p>All this is so true in literary history, that he who affects +to suspect the sincerity of Pope’s declaration, may flatter his +sagacity, but will do no credit to his knowledge.</p> +<p>If thus great poets pour their lamentations for having devoted +themselves to their art, some sympathy is due to the +querulousness of a numerous race of <i>provincial bards</i>, whose +situation is ever at variance with their feelings. These +usually form exaggerated conceptions of their own genius, +from the habit of comparing themselves with their contracted +circle. Restless, with a desire of poetical celebrity, their +heated imagination views in the metropolis that fame and +fortune denied them in their native town; there they become +half-hermits and half-philosophers, darting epigrams +which provoke hatred, or pouring elegies, descriptive of their +feelings, which move derision: their neighbours find it much +easier to ascertain their foibles than comprehend their +genius; and both parties live in a state of mutual persecution. +Such, among many, was the fate of the poet <span class='smcap'>Herrick</span>; +his vein was pastoral, and he lived in the elysium of the +west, which, however, he describes by the sullen epithet, +“Dull Devonshire,” where “he is still sad.” Strange that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span> +such a poet should have resided near twenty years in one of +our most beautiful counties in a very discontented humour. +When he quitted his village of “Deanbourne,” the petulant +poet left behind him a severe “farewell,” which was found +still preserved in the parish, after a lapse of more than a +century. Local satire has been often preserved by the very +objects it is directed against, sometimes from the charm of +the wit itself, and sometimes from the covert malice of +attacking our neighbours. Thus he addresses “Deanbourne, +a rude river in Devonshire, by which, sometime, he +lived:”—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Dean-bourn, farewell!<br /> +Thy rockie bottom that doth tear thy streams,<br /> +And makes them frantic, e’en to all extremes.<br /> +Rockie thou art, and rockie we discover<br /> +Thy men,—<br /> +O men! O manners!—<br /> +O people currish, churlish as their <a name='TC_11'></a><ins title="Removed quote">seas—</ins></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He rejoices he leaves them, never to return till “rocks +shall turn to rivers.” When he arrives in London,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>From the dull confines of the drooping west,<br /> +To see the day-spring from the pregnant east,</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>he, “ravished in spirit,” exclaims, on a view of the metropolis—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>O place! O people! manners form’d to please<br /> +All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But he fervently entreats not to be banished again:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>For, rather than I’ll to the west return,<br /> +I’ll beg of thee first, here to have mine urn.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The Devonians were avenged; for the satirist of the +<i>English Arcadia</i> was condemned again to reside by “its +rockie side,” among “its rockie men.”</p> +<p>Such has been the usual chant of provincial poets; and, if +the “silky-soft Favonian gales” of Devon, with its “Worthies,” +could not escape the anger of such a poet as Herrick, what +county may hope to be saved from the invective of querulous +and dissatisfied poets?</p> +<p>In this calamity of authors I will show that a great poet +felicitated himself that poetry was not the business of his +life; and afterwards I will bring forward an evidence that +the immoderate pursuit of poetry, with a very moderate +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span> +genius, creates a perpetual state of illusion; and pursues +grey-headed folly even to the verge of the grave.</p> +<p>Pope imagined that <span class='smcap'>Prior</span> was only fit to make verses, +and less qualified for business than Addison himself. Had +Prior lived to finish that history of his own times he was +writing, we should have seen how far the opinion of Pope was +right. Prior abandoned the Whigs, who had been his first +patrons, for the Tories, who were now willing to adopt the +political apostate. This versatility for place and pension +rather shows that Prior was a little more “qualified for +business than Addison.”</p> +<p>Johnson tells us “Prior lived at a time when the rage of +party detected all which was any man’s interest to hide; +and, as little ill is heard of Prior, it is certain that not much +was known:” more, however, than Johnson supposes. This +great man came to the pleasing task of his poetical biography +totally unprepared, except with the maturity of his +genius, as a profound observer of men, and an invincible +dogmatist in taste. In the history of the times, Johnson is +deficient, which has deprived us of that permanent instruction +and delight his intellectual powers had poured around it. The +character and the secret history of Prior are laid open in the +“State Poems;”<a name='FNanchor_0138' id='FNanchor_0138'></a><a href='#Footnote_0138' class='fnanchor'>[138]</a> a bitter Whiggish narrative, too particular +to be entirely fictitious, while it throws a new light on Johnson’s +observation of Prior’s “propensity to sordid converse, +and the low delights of mean company,” which Johnson had +imperfectly learned from some attendant on Prior.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>A vintner’s boy, the wretch was first preferr’d<br /> +To wait at Vice’s gates, and pimp for bread;<br /> +To hold the candle, and sometimes the door,<br /> +Let in the drunkard, and let out——.<br /> +But, as to villains it has often chanc’d,<br /> +Was for his wit and wickedness advanc’d.<br /> +Let no man think his new behaviour strange,<br /> +No metamorphosis can nature change;<br /> +Effects are chain’d to causes; generally,<br /> +The rascal born will like a rascal die.<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>His Prince’s favours follow’d him in vain;<br /> +They chang’d the circumstance, but not the man.<br /> +While out of pocket, and his spirits low,<br /> +He’d beg, write panegyrics, cringe, and bow;<br /> +But when good pensions had his labours crown’d,<br /> +His panegyrics into satires turn’d; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span><br /> +O what assiduous pains does Prior take<br /> +To let great Dorset see he could mistake!<br /> +Dissembling nature false description gave,<br /> +Show’d him the poet, but conceal’d the knave.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>To us the poet Prior is better known than the placeman +Prior; yet in his own day the reverse often occurred. Prior +was a State Proteus; Sunderland, the most ambiguous of +politicians, was the <i>Erle Robert</i> to whom he addressed his +<i>Mice</i>; and Prior was now Secretary to the Embassy at +Ryswick and Paris; independent even of the English ambassador—now +a Lord of Trade, and, at length, a Minister +Plenipotentiary to Louis XIV.</p> +<p>Our business is with his poetical feelings.</p> +<p>Prior declares he was chiefly “a poet by accident;” and +hints, in collecting his works, that “some of them, as they +came singly from the first impression, have lain long and +quietly in Mr. Tonson’s shop.” When his party had their +downfall, and he was confined two years in prison, he composed +his “Alma,” to while away prison hours; and when, +at length, he obtained his freedom, he had nothing remaining +but that fellowship which, in his exaltation, he had been +censured for retaining, but which he then said he might have +to live upon at last. Prior had great sagacity, and too right +a notion of human affairs in politics, to expect his party +would last his time, or in poetry, that he could ever derive a +revenue from rhymes!</p> +<p>I will now show that that rare personage, a sensible poet, +in reviewing his life in that hour of solitude when no passion +is retained but truth, while we are casting up the amount of +our past days scrupulously to ourselves, felicitated himself +that the natural bent of his mind, which inclined to poetry, +had been checked, and not indulged, throughout his whole +life. Prior congratulated himself that he had been only “a +poet by accident,” not by occupation.</p> +<p>In a manuscript by Prior, consisting of “An Essay on +Learning,” I find this curious and interesting passage entirely +relating to the poet himself:—</p> +<p>“I remember nothing farther in life than that I made +verses; I chose Guy Earl of Warwick for my first hero, and +killed Colborne the giant before I was big enough for Westminster +School. But I had two accidents in youth which +hindered me from being quite possessed with the Muse. I +was bred in a college where prose was more in fashion than +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span> +verse,—and, as soon as I had taken my first degree, I was +sent the King’s Secretary to the Hague; there I had enough +to do in studying French and Dutch, and altering my Terentian +and Virgilian style into that of Articles and Conventions; +so that <i>poetry, which by the bent of my mind might +have become the business of my life, was, by the happiness of +my education, only the amusement of it</i>; and in this, too, +having the prospect of some little fortune to be made, and +friendships to be cultivated with the great men, I did not +launch much into <i>satire</i>, which, however agreeable for the +present to the writers and encouragers of it, does in time do +neither of them good; considering the uncertainty of fortune, +and the various changes of Ministry, and that every +man, as he resents, may punish in his turn of greatness and +power.”</p> +<p>Such is the wholesome counsel of the Solomon of Bards to +an aspirant, who, in his ardour for poetical honours, becomes +careless of their consequences, if he can but possess them.</p> +<p>I have now to bring forward one of those unhappy men of +rhyme, who, after many painful struggles, and a long querulous +life, have died amid the ravings of their immortality—one +of those miserable bards of mediocrity whom no beadle-critic +could ever whip out of the poetical parish.</p> +<p>There is a case in Mr. Haslam’s “Observations on Insanity,” +who assures us that the patient he describes was +insane, which will appear strange to those who have watched +more poets than lunatics!</p> +<p>“This patient, when admitted, was very noisy, and importunately +talkative—reciting passages from the Greek and +Roman poets, or talking of his own literary importance. He +became so troublesome to the other madmen, who were sufficiently +occupied with their own speculations, that they +avoided and excluded him from the common room; so that he +was at last reduced to the mortifying situation of being the +sole auditor of his own compositions. He conceived himself +very nearly related to Anacreon, and possessed of the peculiar +vein of that poet.”</p> +<p>Such is the very accurate case drawn up by a medical +writer. I can conceive nothing in it to warrant the charge +of insanity; Mr. Haslam, not being a poet, seems to have +mistaken the common orgasm of poetry for insanity itself.</p> +<p>Of such poets, one was the late <span class='smcap'>Percival Stockdale</span>, +who, with the most entertaining simplicity, has, in “The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span> +Memoirs of his Life and Writings,” presented us with a full-length +figure of this class of poets; those whom the perpetual +pursuits of poetry, however indifferent, involve in a +perpetual illusion; they are only discovered in their profound +obscurity by the piteous cries they sometimes utter; they +live on querulously, which is an evil for themselves, and to no +purpose of life, which is an evil to others.</p> +<p>I remember in my youth Percival Stockdale as a condemned +poet of the times, of whom the bookseller Flexney +complained that, whenever this poet came to town, it cost him +twenty pounds. Flexney had been the publisher of +Churchill’s works; and, never forgetting the time when he +published “The Rosciad,” which at first did not sell, and +afterwards became the most popular poem, he was speculating +all his life for another Churchill, and another quarto +poem. Stockdale usually brought him what he wanted—and +Flexney found the workman, but never the work.</p> +<p>Many a year had passed in silence, and Stockdale could +hardly be considered alive, when, to the amazement of some +curious observers of our literature, a venerable man, about his +eightieth year, a vivacious spectre, with a cheerful voice, +seemed as if throwing aside his shroud in gaiety—to come to +assure us of the immortality of one of the worst poets of +the time.</p> +<p>To have taken this portrait from the life would have been +difficult; but the artist has painted himself, and manufactured +his own colours; else had our ordinary ones but faintly +copied this Chinese grotesque picture—the glare and the glow +must be borrowed from his own palette.</p> +<p>Our self-biographer announces his “Life” with prospective +rapture, at the moment he is turning a sad retrospect on his +“Writings;” for this was the chequered countenance of his +character, a smile while he was writing, a tear when he had +published! “I know,” he exclaims, “that this book will +live and <i>escape the havoc that has been made of my literary +fame</i>.” Again—“Before I die, I <i>think my literary fame may +be fixed on an adamantine foundation</i>.” Our old acquaintance, +Blas of Santillane, at setting out on his travels, conceived +himself to be <i>la huitième merveille du monde</i>; but here +is one, who, after the experience of a long life, is writing a +large work to prove himself that very curious thing.</p> +<p>What were these mighty and unknown works? Stockdale +confesses that all his verses have been received with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span> +negligence or contempt; yet their mediocrity, the absolute +poverty of his genius, never once occurred to the poetical +patriarch.</p> +<p>I have said that the frequent origin of bad poets is owing +to bad critics; and it was the early friends of Stockdale, +who, mistaking his animal spirits for genius, by directing +them into the walks of poetry, bewildered him for ever. It +was their hand that heedlessly fixed the bias in the rolling +bowl of his restless mind.</p> +<p>He tells us that while yet a boy of twelve years old, one +day talking with his father at Branxton, where the battle of +Flodden was fought, the old gentleman said to him with +great emphasis—</p> +<p>“You may make that place remarkable for your birth, if +you take care of yourself. My father’s understanding was +clear and strong, and he could penetrate human nature. He +already saw that <i>I had natural advantages above those of +common men</i>.”</p> +<p>But it seems that, at some earlier period even than his +twelfth year, some good-natured Pythian had predicted that +Stockdale would be “a poet.” This ambiguous oracle was +still listened to, after a lapse of more than half a century, +and the decree is still repeated with fond credulity:—“Notwithstanding,” +he exclaims, “<i>all that is past</i>, O thou god of +my mind! (meaning the aforesaid Pythian) I still hope that +my future fame will decidedly <i>warrant the prediction</i>!”</p> +<p>Stockdale had, in truth, an excessive sensibility of temper, +without any control over it—he had all the nervous contortions +of the Sybil, without her inspiration; and shifting, in +his many-shaped life, through all characters and all pursuits, +“exalting the olive of Minerva with the grape of Bacchus,” +as he phrases it, he was a lover, a tutor, a recruiting officer, a +reviewer, and, at length, a clergyman; but a poet eternally! +His mind was so curved, that nothing could stand steadily +upon it. The accidents of such a life he describes with such +a face of rueful simplicity, and mixes up so much grave drollery +and merry pathos with all he says or does, and his ubiquity +is so wonderful, that he gives an idea of a character, of +whose existence we had previously no conception, that of a +sentimental harlequin.<a name='FNanchor_0139' id='FNanchor_0139'></a><a href='#Footnote_0139' class='fnanchor'>[139]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span></div> +<p>In the early part of his life, Stockdale undertook many +poetical pilgrimages; he visited the house where Thomson +was born; the coffee-room where Dryden presided among +the wits, &c. Recollecting the influence of these local associations, +he breaks forth, “Neither the unrelenting coldness, +nor the repeated insolence of mankind, can prevent me from +thinking that <i>something like this enthusiastic devotion may +hereafter be paid to <span class='smcaplc'>ME</span></i>.”</p> +<p>Perhaps till this appeared it might not be suspected that +any unlucky writer of verse could ever feel such a magical +conviction of his poetical stability. Stockdale, to assist this +pilgrimage to his various shrines, has particularised all the +spots where his works were composed! Posterity has many +shrines to visit, and will be glad to know (for perhaps it may +excite a smile) that “‘The Philosopher,’ a poem, was written +in Warwick Court, Holborn, in 1769,”—“‘The Life of +Waller,’ in Round Court, in the Strand.”—A good deal he +wrote in “May’s Buildings, St. Martin’s Lane,” &c., but</p> +<p>“In my lodgings at Portsmouth, in St. Mary’s Street, I +wrote my ‘Elegy on the Death of a Lady’s Linnet.’ It will +not be uninteresting to sensibility, to thinking and elegant +minds. It deeply interested me, and therefore produced not +one of my weakest and worst written poems. It was directly +opposite to a noted house, which was distinguished by the name +of <i>the green rails</i>; where the riotous orgies of Naxos and +Cythera contrasted with my quiet and purer occupations.”</p> +<p>I would not, however, take his own estimate of his own +poems; because, after praising them outrageously, he seems at +times to doubt if they are as exquisite as he thinks them! +He has composed no one in which some poetical excellence +does not appear—and yet in each nice decision he holds +with difficulty the trepidations of the scales of criticism—for +he tells us of “An Address to the Supreme Being,” that “it +is distinguished throughout with a natural and fervid piety; +it is flowing and poetical; it is not without its pathos.” And +yet, notwithstanding all this condiment, the confection is +evidently good for nothing; for he discovers that “this +flowing, fervid, and poetical address” is “not animated with +that vigour which gives dignity and impression to poetry.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span> +One feels for such unhappy and infected authors—they would +think of themselves as they wish at the moment that truth +and experience come in upon them and rack them with the +most painful feelings.</p> +<p>Stockdale once wrote a declamatory life of Waller. When +Johnson’s appeared, though in his biography, says Stockdale, +“he paid a large tribute to the abilities of Goldsmith and +Hawkesworth, yet <i>he made no mention of my name</i>.” It is +evident that Johnson, who knew him well, did not care to +remember it. When Johnson was busied on the Life of Pope, +Stockdale wrote a pathetic letter to him <i>earnestly imploring</i> +“a generous tribute from his authority.” Johnson was still +obdurately silent; and Stockdale, who had received many +acts of humane kindness from him, adds with fretful <i>naïveté</i>,</p> +<p>“In his sentiments towards me he was divided between a +benevolence to my interests, and a <i>coldness to my fame</i>.”</p> +<p>Thus, in a moment, in the perverted heart of the scribbler, +will ever be cancelled all human obligation for acts of benevolence, +if we are <i>cold to his fame</i>!</p> +<p>And yet let us not too hastily condemn these unhappy men, +even for the violation of the lesser moral feelings—it is often +but a fatal effect from a melancholy cause; that hallucination +of the intellect, in which, if their genius, as they call it, +sometimes appears to sparkle like a painted bubble in the +buoyancy of their vanity, they are also condemned to see it +sinking in the dark horrors of a disappointed author, who has +risked his life and his happiness on the miserable productions +of his pen. The agonies of a disappointed author cannot, +indeed, be contemplated without pain. If they can instruct, +the following quotation will have its use.</p> +<p>Among the innumerable productions of Stockdale, was a +“History of Gibraltar,” which might have been interesting, +from his having resided there: in a moment of despair, like +Medea, he immolated his unfortunate offspring.</p> +<p>“When I had arrived at within a day’s work of its conclusion, +in consequence of some immediate and mortifying accidents, +<i>my literary adversity</i>, and all my other misfortunes, +took <i>fast hold of my mind; oppressed it extremely; and +reduced it to a stage of the deepest dejection and despondency</i>. +In this unhappy view of life, I made a sudden resolution—<i>never +more to prosecute the profession of an author</i>; to retire +altogether from the world, and read only for consolation and +amusement. <i>I committed to the flames my History of Gibraltar +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span> +and my translation of Marsollier’s Life of Cardinal +Ximenes</i>; for which the bookseller had refused to pay me the +fifty guineas, according to agreement.”</p> +<p>This claims a tear! Never were the agonies of literary disappointment +more pathetically told.</p> +<p>But as it is impossible to have known poor deluded Stockdale, +and not to have laughed at him more than to have wept +for him—so the catastrophe of this author’s literary life is as +finely in character as all the acts. That catastrophe, of +course, is his last poem.</p> +<p>After many years his poetical demon having been chained +from the world, suddenly broke forth on the reports of a +French invasion. The narrative shall proceed in his own +inimitable manner.</p> +<p>“My poetical spirit excited me to write my poem of ‘The +Invincible Island.’ I never found myself in a happier disposition +to compose, nor ever wrote with more pleasure. I presumed +warmly to hope that unless <i>inveterate prejudice and +malice</i> were as invincible as our island itself, it would have <i>the +diffusive circulation</i> which I earnestly desired.</p> +<p>“Flushed with this idea—borne impetuously along <i>by ambition +and by hope, though they had often deluded me</i>, I set +off in the mail-coach from Durham for London, on the 9th of +December, 1797, at midnight, and in a severe storm. On my +arrival in town my poem was advertised, printed, and published +with great expedition. It was printed for Clarke in New +Bond-street. For several days the sale was very promising; +and my bookseller as well as myself entertained sanguine +hopes; <i>but the demand for the poem relaxed gradually</i>! From +this last of many literary misfortunes, I inferred that <i>prejudice</i> +and <i>malignity</i>, in my fate as an <i>author</i>, seemed, indeed, to be +invincible.”</p> +<p>The catastrophe of the poet is much better told than anything +in the poem, which had not merit enough to support +that interest which the temporary subject had excited.</p> +<p>Let the fate of Stockdale instruct some, and he will not +have written in vain the “Memoirs of his Life and Writings.” +I have only turned the literary feature to our eye; it was combined +with others, equally striking, from the same mould in +which that was cast. Stockdale imagined he possessed an +intuitive knowledge of human nature. He says, “everything +that constituted my nature, my acquirements, my habits, and +my fortune, conspired to let in upon me a complete knowledge +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span> +of human nature.” A most striking proof of this knowledge +is his parallel, after the manner of Plutarch, between Charles +XII. and himself! He frankly confesses there were some +points in which he and the Swedish monarch did not exactly +resemble each other. He thinks, for instance, that the King +of Sweden had a somewhat more fervid and original genius +than himself, and was likewise a little more robust in his +person—but, subjoins Stockdale,</p> +<p>“Of our reciprocal fortune, achievements, and conduct, some +parts will be to <i>his</i> advantage, and some to <i>mine</i>.”</p> +<p>Yet in regard to <i>Fame</i>, the main object between him and +Charles XII., Stockdale imagined that his own</p> +<p>“Will not probably take its fixed and immoveable station, +and shine with its expanded and permanent splendour, till it +consecrates his ashes, till it illumines his tomb!”</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Pope</span> hesitated at deciding on the durability of his poetry. +<span class='smcap'>Prior</span> congratulates himself that he had not devoted all his +days to rhymes. <span class='smcap'>Stockdale</span> imagines his fame is to commence +at the very point (the tomb) where genius trembles its +own may nearly terminate!</p> +<p>To close this article, I could wish to regale the poetical +Stockdales with a delectable morsel of fraternal biography; +such would be the life, and its memorable close, of <span class='smcap'>Elkanah +Settle</span>, who imagined himself to be a great poet, when he +was placed on a level with Dryden by the town-wits, (gentle +spirits!) to vex genius.</p> +<p>Settle’s play of <i>The Empress of Morocco</i> was the very +first “adorned with sculptures.”<a name='FNanchor_0140' id='FNanchor_0140'></a><a href='#Footnote_0140' class='fnanchor'>[140]</a> However, in due time, the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span> +Whigs despising his rhymes, Settle tried his prose for the +Tories; but he was a magician whose enchantments never +charmed. He at length obtained the office of the city poet, +when lord mayors were proud enough to have laureates in their +annual pageants.</p> +<p>When Elkanah Settle published any <i>party poem</i>, he sent +copies round to the chiefs of the party, accompanied with +addresses, to extort pecuniary presents. He had latterly one +standard <i>Elegy</i> and <i>Epithalamium</i> printed off with blanks, +which, by the ingenious contrivance of filling up with the +names of any considerable person who died or was married, +no one who was going out of life or entering it <i>could pass +scot-free</i> from the <i>tax levied by his hacknied muse</i>. The following +letter accompanied his presentation copy to the Duke +of Somerset, of a poem, in Latin and English, on the Hanover +succession, when Elkanah wrote for the Whigs, as he had +for the Tories:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,—Nothing but the greatness of the subject could +encourage my presumption in laying the enclosed Essay at +your Grace’s feet, being, with all profound humility, your +Grace’s most dutiful servant,</p> +<p class='sig3'>“<span class='smcap'>E. Settle.</span>”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the latter part of his life Settle dropped still lower, and +became the poet of a booth at Bartholomew Fair, and composed +drolls, for which the rival of Dryden, it seems, had a genius!—but +it was little respected—for two great personages, “Mrs. +Mynns and her daughter, Mrs. Leigh,” approving of their +great poet’s happy invention in one of his own drolls, “St. +George for England,” of a green dragon, as large as life, insisted, +as the tyrant of old did to the inventor of the brazen +bull, that the first experiment should be made on the artist +himself, and Settle was tried in his own dragon; he crept in +with all his genius, and did “act the dragon, enclosed in a +case of green leather of his own invention.” The circumstance +is recorded in the lively verse of Young, in his “Epistle to +Pope concerning the authors of the age.”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Poor Elkanah, all other changes past,<br /> +For bread in Smithfield dragons hiss’d at last,<br /> +Spit streams of fire to make the butchers gape,<br /> +And found his manners suited to his shape;<br /> +Such is the fate of talents misapplied,<br /> +So lived your prototype, and so he died.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span> +<a name='QUARRELS_OF_AUTHORS_OR___SOME_MEMOIRS_FOR_OUR_LITERARY_HISTORY' id='QUARRELS_OF_AUTHORS_OR___SOME_MEMOIRS_FOR_OUR_LITERARY_HISTORY'></a> +<h2>QUARRELS OF AUTHORS;</h2> +<h3><span class='smcaplc'>OR,</span><br /><br />SOME MEMOIRS FOR OUR LITERARY HISTORY.</h3> +</div> +<blockquote> +<p>“The use and end of this Work I do not so much design for curiosity, or satisfaction +of those that are the lovers of learning, but chiefly for a more grave and +serious purpose: which is, that it will <i>make learned men wise in the use and administration +of learning</i>.”—<span class='smcap'>Lord Bacon</span>, “Of Learning.”</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span> +<a name='PREFACE_1' id='PREFACE_1'></a> +<h3>PREFACE.</h3> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>The Quarrels of Authors</span> may be considered as a continuation +of the <span class='smcap'>Calamities of Authors</span>; and both, as some +Memoirs for Literary History.</p> +<p>These Quarrels of Authors are not designed to wound the +Literary Character, but to expose the secret arts of calumny, +the malignity of witty ridicule, and the evil prepossessions of +unjust hatreds.</p> +<p>The present, like the preceding work, includes other subjects +than the one indicated by the title, and indeed they are both +subservient to a higher purpose—that of our Literary History.</p> +<p>There is a French work, entitled “Querelles Littéraires,” +quoted in “Curiosities of Literature,” many years ago. +Whether I derive the idea of the present from the French +source I cannot tell. I could point out a passage in the great +Lord <span class='smcap'>Bacon</span> which might have afforded the hint. But I am +inclined to think that what induced me to select this topic +was the interest which <span class='smcap'>Johnson</span> has given to the literary +quarrels between <i>Dryden</i> and <i>Settle</i>, <i>Dennis</i> and <i>Addison</i>, +&c.; and which Sir <span class='smcap'>Walter Scott</span>, who, amid the fresh +creations of fancy, could delve for the buried truths of research, +has thrown into his narrative of the quarrel of <i>Dryden</i> and +<i>Luke Milbourne</i>.</p> +<p>From the French work I could derive no aid; and my plan +is my own. I have fixed on each literary controversy to +illustrate some principle, to portray some character, and to +investigate some topic. Almost every controversy which +occurred opened new views. With the subject, the character +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' name='page_230'></a>230</span> +of the author connected itself; and with the character were +associated those events of his life which reciprocally act on +each other. I have always considered an author as a human +being, who possesses at once two sorts of lives, the intellectual +and the vulgar: in his books we trace the history of his +mind, and in his actions those of human nature. It is this +combination which interests the philosopher and the man of +feeling; which provides the richest materials for reflection; +and all those original details which spring from the constituent +principles of man. <span class='smcap'>Johnson’s</span> passion for literary history, +and his great knowledge of the human heart, inspired at +once the first and the finest model in this class of composition.</p> +<p>The Philosophy of Literary History was indeed the creation +of <span class='smcap'>Bayle</span>. He was the first who, by attempting a <i>critical +dictionary</i>, taught us to think, and to be curious and vast +in our researches. He ennobled a collection of facts by his +reasonings, and exhibited them with the most miscellaneous +illustrations; and thus conducting an apparently humble pursuit +with a higher spirit, he gave a new turn to our <a name='TC_12'></a><ins title="Changed comma to period">studies.</ins> +It was felt through Europe; and many celebrated authors +studied and repeated <span class='smcap'>Bayle</span>. This father of a numerous race +has an English as well as a French progeny.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Johnson</span> wrote under many disadvantages; but, with +scanty means, he has taught us a great end. Dr. <span class='smcap'>Birch</span> was +the contemporary of <span class='smcap'>Johnson</span>. He excelled his predecessors; +and yet he forms a striking contrast as a literary historian. +<span class='smcap'>Birch</span> was no philosopher, and I adduce him as an instance +how a writer, possessing the most ample knowledge, and the +most vigilant curiosity—one practised in all the secret arts of +literary research in public repositories and in private collections, +and eminently skilled in the whole science of bibliography—may +yet fail with the public. The diligence of +<span class='smcap'>Birch</span> has perpetuated his memory by a monument of MSS., +but his, touch was mortal to genius! He palsied the character +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span> +which could never die; heroes sunk pusillanimously under his +hand; and in his torpid silence, even <span class='smcap'>Milton</span> seemed suddenly +deprived of his genius.</p> +<p>I have freely enlarged in the <i>notes</i> to this work; a practice +which is objectionable to many, but indispensable perhaps in +this species of literary history.</p> +<p>The late Mr. <span class='smcap'>Cumberland</span>, in a conversation I once held +with him on this subject, triumphantly exclaimed, “You will +not find a single note through the whole volume of my ‘Life.’ +I never wrote a note. The ancients never wrote notes; but +they introduced into their text all which was proper for the +reader to know.”</p> +<p>I agreed with that elegant writer, that a fine piece of essay-writing, +such as his own “Life,” required notes no more than +his novels and his comedies, among which it may be classed. +I observed that the ancients had no literary history; this +was the result of the discovery of printing, the institution of +national libraries, the general literary intercourse of Europe, +and some other causes which are the growth almost of our +own times. The ancients have written history without producing +authorities.</p> +<p>Mr. <span class='smcap'>Cumberland</span> was then occupied on a review of Fox’s +History; and of <span class='smcap'>Clarendon</span>, which lay open before him,—he +had been complaining, with all the irritable feelings of a +dramatist, of the frequent suspensions, and the tedious minuteness +of his story.</p> +<p>I observed that <i>notes</i> had not then been discovered. Had +Lord <span class='smcap'>Clarendon</span> known their use, he had preserved the unity +of design in his text. His Lordship has unskilfully filled it +with all that historical furniture his diligence had collected, +and with those minute discussions which his anxiety for truth, +and his lawyer-like mode of scrutinising into facts and substantiating +evidence, amassed. Had these been cast into +<i>notes</i>, and were it now possible to pass them over in the present +text, how would the story of the noble historian clear up! +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span> +The greatness of his genius will appear when disencumbered +of its unwieldy and misplaced accompaniments.</p> +<p>If this observation be just, it will apply with greater force +to literary history itself, which, being often the mere history +of the human mind, has to record opinions as well as events—to +discuss as well as to narrate—to show how accepted truths +become suspicious—or to confirm what has hitherto rested in +obscure uncertainty, and to balance contending opinions and +opposite facts with critical nicety. The multiplied means of +our knowledge now opened to us, have only rendered our +curiosity more urgent in its claims, and raised up the most +diversified objects. These, though accessories to the leading +one of our inquiries, can never melt together in the continuity +of a text. It is to prevent all this disorder, and to enjoy all +the usefulness and the pleasure of this various knowledge, +which has produced the invention of <i>notes</i> in literary history. +All this forms a sort of knowledge peculiar to the present +more enlarged state of literature. Writers who delight in +curious and rare extracts, and in the discovery of new facts +and new views of things, warmed by a fervour of research +which brings everything nearer to our eye and close to our +touch, study to throw contemporary feelings in their page. +Such rare extracts and such new facts <span class='smcap'>Bayle</span> eagerly sought, +and they delighted <span class='smcap'>Johnson</span>; but all this luxury of literature +can only be produced to the public eye in the variegated forms +of <i>notes</i>.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span> +<a name='WARBURTON_AND_HIS_QUARRELS_INCLUDING_AN_ILLUSTRATION_OF__HIS_LITERARY_CHARACTER' id='WARBURTON_AND_HIS_QUARRELS_INCLUDING_AN_ILLUSTRATION_OF__HIS_LITERARY_CHARACTER'></a> +<h3>WARBURTON, AND HIS QUARRELS;</h3> +<h4><span class='smcaplc'>INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF</span><br />HIS LITERARY CHARACTER</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>The name of Warburton more familiar to us than his Works—declared to +be “a Colossus” by a Warburtonian, who afterwards shrinks the image +into “a human size”—Lowth’s caustic retort on his Attorneyship—motives +for the change to Divinity—his first literary mischances—Warburton +and his Welsh Prophet—his Dedications—his mean flatteries—his +taste more struck by the monstrous than the beautiful—the effects of his +opposite studies—the <span class='smcap'>Secret Principle</span> which conducted Warburton +through all his Works—the <i>curious</i> argument of his Alliance between +Church and State—the <i>bold</i> paradox of his Divine Legation—the demonstration +ends in a conjecture—Warburton lost in the labyrinth he +had ingeniously constructed—confesses the harassed state of his mind—attacked +by Infidels and Christians—his <span class='smcap'>Secret Principle</span> turns the +poetical narrative of Æneas into the Eleusinian Mysteries—Hurd attacks +Jortin; his Attic irony translated into plain English—Warburton’s paradox +on Eloquence; his levity of ideas renders his sincerity suspected—Leland +refutes the whimsical paradox—Hurd attacks Leland—Leland’s +noble triumph—Warburton’s <span class='smcap'>Secret Principle</span> operating in Modern +Literature: on Pope’s Essay on Man—Lord Bolingbroke the author of the +Essay—Pope received Warburton as his tutelary genius—Warburton’s +systematic treatment of his friends and rival editors—his literary artifices +and little intrigues—his Shakspeare—the whimsical labours of Warburton +on Shakspeare annihilated by Edwards’s “Canons of Criticism”—Warburton +and Johnson—Edwards and Warburton’s mutual attacks—the +concealed motive of his edition of Shakspeare avowed in his justification—his +<span class='smcap'>Secret Principle</span> further displayed in Pope’s Works—attacks +Akenside; Dyson’s generous defence—correct Ridicule is a test of Truth, +illustrated by a well-known case—Warburton a literary revolutionist; +aimed to be a perpetual dictator—the ambiguous tendency of his speculations—the +Warburtonian School supported by the most licentious principles—specimens +of its peculiar style—the use to which Warburton +applied the Dunciad—his party: attentive to raise recruits—the active +and subtle Hurd—his extreme sycophancy—Warburton, to maintain his +usurped authority, adopted his system of literary quarrels.</p> +<p>The name of <span class='smcap'>Warburton</span> is more familiar to us than his +works: thus was it early,<a name='FNanchor_0141' id='FNanchor_0141'></a><a href='#Footnote_0141' class='fnanchor'>[141]</a> thus it continues, and thus it will +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span> +be with posterity! The cause may be worth our inquiry. +Nor is there, in the whole compass of our literary history, a +character more instructive for its greatness and its failures; +none more adapted to excite our curiosity, and which can +more completely gratify it.</p> +<p>Of great characters, whose actions are well known, and of +those who, whatever claim they may have to distinction, are not +so, <span class='smcap'>Aristotle</span> has delivered a precept with his accustomed +sagacity. If <i>Achilles</i>, says the Stagirite, be the subject of our +inquiries, since all know what he has done, we are simply to +indicate his actions, without stopping to detail; but this +would not serve for <i>Critias</i>; for whatever relates to him +must be fully told, since he is known to few;<a name='FNanchor_0142' id='FNanchor_0142'></a><a href='#Footnote_0142' class='fnanchor'>[142]</a>—a critical +precept, which ought to be frequently applied in the composition +of this work.</p> +<p>The history of Warburton is now well known; the facts lie +dispersed in the chronological biographer;<a name='FNanchor_0143' id='FNanchor_0143'></a><a href='#Footnote_0143' class='fnanchor'>[143]</a> but the secret +connexion which exists between them, if there shall be found +to be any, has not yet been brought out; and it is my business +to press these together; hence to demonstrate principles, +or to deduce inferences.</p> +<p>The literary fame of Warburton was a portentous meteor: +it seemed unconnected with the whole planetary system through +which it rolled, and it was imagined to be darting amid new +creations, as the tail of each hypothesis blazed with idle +fancies.<a name='FNanchor_0144' id='FNanchor_0144'></a><a href='#Footnote_0144' class='fnanchor'>[144]</a> Such extraordinary natures cannot be looked on +with calm admiration, nor common hostility; all is the +tumult of wonder about such a man; and his adversaries, as +well as his friends, though differently affected, are often overcome +by the same astonishment.</p> +<p>To a Warburtonian, the object of his worship looks indeed +of colossal magnitude, in the glare thrown about that hallowed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span> +spot; nor is the divinity of common stature; but the +light which makes him appear so great, must not be suffered +to conceal from us the real standard by which only his greatness +can be determined:<a name='FNanchor_0145' id='FNanchor_0145'></a><a href='#Footnote_0145' class='fnanchor'>[145]</a> even literary enthusiasm, delightful +to all generous tempers, may be too prodigal of its splendours, +wasting itself while it shines; but truth remains behind! +Truth, which, like the asbestos, is still unconsumed and unaltered +amidst these glowing fires.</p> +<p>The genius of Warburton has called forth two remarkable +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span> +anonymous criticisms—in one, all that the most splendid +eloquence can bring to bear against this chief and his +adherents;<a name='FNanchor_0146' id='FNanchor_0146'></a><a href='#Footnote_0146' class='fnanchor'>[146]</a> and in the other, all that taste, warmed by a +spark of Warburtonian fire, can discriminate in an impartial +decision.<a name='FNanchor_0147' id='FNanchor_0147'></a><a href='#Footnote_0147' class='fnanchor'>[147]</a> Mine is a colder and less grateful task. I am +but a historian! I have to creep along in the darkness of +human events, to lay my hand cautiously on truths so difficult +to touch, and which either the panegyrist or the writer +of an invective cover over, and throw aside into corners.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span></div> +<p>Much of the moral, and something too of the physical dispositions +of the man enter into the literary character; and, +moreover, there are localities—the place where he resides, +the circumstances which arise, and the habits he contracts; +to all these the excellences and the defects of some of our +great literary characters may often be traced. With this +clue we may thread our way through the labyrinth of +Genius.</p> +<p>Warburton long resided in an obscure provincial town, +the articled clerk of a country attorney,<a name='FNanchor_0148' id='FNanchor_0148'></a><a href='#Footnote_0148' class='fnanchor'>[148]</a> and then an unsuccessful +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span> +practising one. He seems, too, once to have figured +as “a wine-merchant in the Borough,” and rose into notice +as “the orator of a disputing club;” but, in all his shapes, +still keen in literary pursuits, without literary connexions; +struggling with all the defects of a desultory and self-taught +education, but of a bold aspiring character, he rejected, either +in pride or in despair, his little trades, and took Deacon’s +orders—to exchange a profession, unfavourable to continuity +of study, for another more propitious to its indulgence.<a name='FNanchor_0149' id='FNanchor_0149'></a><a href='#Footnote_0149' class='fnanchor'>[149]</a> In +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span> +a word, he set off as a literary adventurer, who was to win +his way by earning it from patronage.</p> +<p>His first mischances were not of a nature to call forth that +intrepidity which afterwards hardened into the leading +feature of his character. Few great authors have begun their +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span> +race with less auspicious omens, though an extraordinary +event in the life of an author happened to Warburton—he +had secured a patron before he was an author.</p> +<p>The first publication of his which we know, was his +“Translations in Prose and Verse from Roman Poets, Orators, +and Historians.” 1724. He was then about twenty-five +years of age. The fine forms of classic beauty could never +be cast in so rough a mould as his prose; and his turgid +unmusical verses betrayed qualities of mind incompatible with +the delicacy of poetry. Four years afterwards he repeated +another bolder attempt, in his “Critical and Philosophical +Inquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles.” After +this publication, I wonder Warburton was ever suspected of +infidelity or even scepticism.<a name='FNanchor_0150' id='FNanchor_0150'></a><a href='#Footnote_0150' class='fnanchor'>[150]</a> So radically deficient in Warburton +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span> +was that fine internal feeling which we call taste, that +through his early writings he acquired not one solitary charm +of diction,<a name='FNanchor_0151' id='FNanchor_0151'></a><a href='#Footnote_0151' class='fnanchor'>[151]</a> and scarcely betrayed, amid his impurity of +taste, that nerve and spirit which afterwards crushed all rival +force. His translations <i>in imitation of Milton’s style</i> betray +his utter want of ear and imagination. He attempted to +suppress both these works during his lifetime.</p> +<p>When these unlucky productions were republished by Dr. +Parr, the <i>Dedications</i> were not forgotten; they were both +addressed to the same opulent baronet, not omitting “the +virtues” of his lady the Countess of Sunderland, whose marriage +he calls “so divine a union.” Warburton had shown +no want of judgment in the choice of his patrons; for they +had more than one living in their gift—and perhaps, knowing +his patrons, none in the dedications themselves. They had, +however, this absurdity, that in freely exposing the servile +practices of dedicators, the writer was himself indulging in +that luxurious sin, which he so forcibly terms “Public Prostitution.” +This early management betrays no equivocal +symptoms of that traffic in <i>Dedications</i>, of which he has been +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span> +so severely accused,<a name='FNanchor_0152' id='FNanchor_0152'></a><a href='#Footnote_0152' class='fnanchor'>[152]</a> and of that paradoxical turn and hardy +effrontery which distinguished his after-life. These dedications +led to preferment, and thus hardily was laid the foundation-stone +of his aspiring fortunes.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span></div> +<p>Till his thirtieth year, Warburton evinced a depraved taste, +but a craving appetite for knowledge. His mind was constituted +to be more struck by the Monstrous than the Beautiful, +much like that Sicilian prince who furnished his villa with +the most hideous figures imaginable:<a name='FNanchor_0153' id='FNanchor_0153'></a><a href='#Footnote_0153' class='fnanchor'>[153]</a> the delight resulting +from harmonious and delicate forms raised emotions of too +weak a nature to move his obliquity of taste; roused, however, +by the surprise excited by colossal ugliness. The discovery +of his intellectual tastes, at this obscure period of his +life, besides in those works we have noticed, is confirmed by +one of the most untoward accidents which ever happened to +a literary man; it was the chance-discovery of a letter he had +written to one of the heroes of the Dunciad, forty years before. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span> +At the time that letter was written, his literary connexions +were formed with second-rate authors; he was in +strict intimacy with Concanen and Theobald, and other “ingenious +gentlemen who made up our last night’s conversation,” +as he expresses himself.<a name='FNanchor_0154' id='FNanchor_0154'></a><a href='#Footnote_0154' class='fnanchor'>[154]</a> This letter is full of the +heresies of taste: one of the most anomalous is the comment +on that well-known passage in Shakspeare, on “the genius +and the mortal instruments;” Warburton’s is a miraculous +specimen of fantastical sagacity and critical delirium, or the +art of discovering meanings never meant, and of illustrations +the author could never have known. Warburton declares +to “the ingenious gentlemen,” (whom afterwards with a +Pharaoh’s heart he hanged by dozens to posterity in the +“Dunciad,”) that “Pope borrowed for want of genius;” that +poet, who, when the day arrived, he was to comment on as +the first of poets! His insulting criticisms on the popular +writings of Addison,—his contempt for what Young calls +“sweet elegant Virgilian prose,”—show how utterly insensible +he was to that classical taste in which Addison had +constructed his materials. But he who could not taste the +delicacy of Addison, it may be imagined might be in raptures +with the rant of Lee. There is an unerring principle in the +false sublime: it seems to be governed by laws, though they +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' name='page_245'></a>245</span> +are not ours; and we know what it will like, that is, we +know what it will mistake for what ought not to be liked, as +surely as we can anticipate what will delight correct taste. +Warburton has pronounced one of the raving passages of poor +Nat “to contain not only the most sublime, but the most +judicious imagery that poetry could conceive or paint.” +<span class='smcap'>Joseph Warton</span>, who indignantly rejects it from his edition +of Pope, asserts that “we have not in our language a more +striking example of true turgid expression, and genuine fustian +and bombast.”<a name='FNanchor_0155' id='FNanchor_0155'></a><a href='#Footnote_0155' class='fnanchor'>[155]</a> Yet such was the man whom ill-fortune +(for the public at least) had chosen to become the commentator +of our greater poets! Again Churchill throws light on +our character:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>He, with an all-sufficient air<br /> +Places himself in the critic’s chair,<br /> +And wrote, to advance his Maker’s praise,<br /> +Comments on rhymes, and notes on plays—<br /> +A judge of genius, though, confest,<br /> +With not one spark of genius blest:<br /> +Among the first of critics placed,<br /> +Though free from every taint of taste.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Not encouraged by the reception his first literary efforts +received, but having obtained some preferment from his +patron, we now come to a critical point in his life. He retreated +from the world, and, during a seclusion of near twenty +years, persevered in uninterrupted studies. The force of his +character placed him in the first order of thinking beings. +This resolution no more to court the world for literary +favours, but to command it by hardy preparation for mighty +labours, displays a noble retention of the appetite for fame; +Warburton scorned to be a scribbler!</p> +<p>Had this great man journalised his readings, as Gibbon has +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' name='page_246'></a>246</span> +done, we should perhaps be more astonished at his miscellaneous +pursuits. He read everything, and, I suspect, with +little distinction, and equal delight.<a name='FNanchor_0156' id='FNanchor_0156'></a><a href='#Footnote_0156' class='fnanchor'>[156]</a> Curiosity, even to its +delirium, was his first passion; which produced those new +systems of hypothetical reasoning by which he startled the +world; and his efforts to save his most ingenious theories +from absurdity resembled, to use his own emphatic words +applied to the philosophy of Leibnitz, “a contrivance against +Fatalism,” for though his genius has given a value to the +wildest paradoxes, paradoxes they remain.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' name='page_247'></a>247</span></div> +<p>But if Warburton read so much, it was not to enforce +opinions already furnished to his hands, or with cold scepticism +to reject them, leaving the reader in despair. He read +that he might write what no one else had written, and which +at least required to be refuted before it was condemned. He +hit upon a <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span>, which prevails through all his +works, and this was <span class='smcap'>Invention</span>; a talent, indeed, somewhat +dangerous to introduce in researches where Truth, and not +Fancy, was to be addressed. But even with all this originality +he was not free from imitation, and has even been +accused of borrowing largely without hinting at his obligations. +He had certainly one favourite model before him: +Warburton has delineated the portrait of a certain author +with inimitable minuteness, while he caught its general effect; +we feel that the artist, in tracing the resemblance of another, +is inspired by all the flattery of a self-painter—he perceived +the kindred features, and he loved them!</p> +<p>This author was <span class='smcap'>Bayle</span>! And I am unfolding the character +of Warburton, in copying the very original portrait:—</p> +<p>“Mr. Bayle is of a quite different character from these Italian +sophists: a writer, whose strength and clearness of <i>reasoning</i> +can be equalled only by the gaiety, easiness, and delicacy of his +<i>wit</i>; <i>who, pervading human nature with a glance, <span class='smcap'>struck +into the province of Paradox,</span> as an exercise for the +restless vigour of his mind</i>: who, with a soul superior to the +sharpest attacks of fortune, and a heart practised to the best +philosophy, had <i>not yet enough of real greatness to overcome +that last foible of superior geniuses</i>, the temptation of +honour, which the <span class='smcap'>Academic Exercise of Wit</span> is conceived +to bring to its professors.”<a name='FNanchor_0157' id='FNanchor_0157'></a><a href='#Footnote_0157' class='fnanchor'>[157]</a></p> +<p>Here, then, we discover the <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span> which +conducted Warburton through all his works, although of the +most opposite natures. I do not give this as an opinion to +be discussed, but as a fact to be demonstrated.</p> +<p>The faculties so eminent in Bayle were equally so in Warburton. +In his early studies he had particularly applied +himself to logic; and was not only a vigorous reasoner, but +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' name='page_248'></a>248</span> +one practised in all the <i>finesse</i> of dialectics. He had wit, +fertile indeed, rather than delicate; and a vast body of erudition, +collected in the uninterrupted studies of twenty +years. But it was the <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span>, or, as he calls it, +“<i>the Academic exercise of Wit</i>,” on an enlarged system, +which carried him so far in the new world of <span class='smcap'>Invention</span> he +was creating.</p> +<p>This was a new characteristic of investigation; it led him +on to pursue his profounder inquiries beyond the clouds of +antiquity; for what he could not <i>discover</i>, he <span class='smcaplc'>CONJECTURED</span> +and <span class='smcaplc'>ASSERTED</span>. Objects, which in the hands of other men +were merely matters resting on authentic researches, now +received the stamp and lustre of original invention. Nothing +was to be seen in the state in which others had viewed it; +the hardiest paradoxes served his purpose best, and this +licentious principle produced unlooked-for discoveries. He +humoured his taste, always wild and unchastised, in search +of the monstrous and the extravagant; and, being a wit, he +delighted in finding resemblances in objects which to more +regulated minds had no similarity whatever. <i>Wit</i> may exercise +its ingenuity as much in combining <i>things</i> unconnected +with each other, as in its odd assemblage of <i>ideas</i>; and +Warburton, as a literary antiquary, proved to be as witty in +his combinations as <span class='smcap'>Butler</span> and <span class='smcap'>Congreve</span> in their comic +images. As this principle took full possession of the mind of +this man of genius, the practice became so familiar, that it is +possible he might at times have been credulous enough to +have confided in his own reveries. As he forcibly expressed +himself on one of his adversaries, Dr. <span class='smcap'>Stebbing</span>, “Thus it is +to have to do with a head whose <i>sense is all run to system</i>.” +“His Academic Wit” now sported amid whimsical theories, +pursued bold but inconclusive arguments, marked out subtile +distinctions, and discovered incongruous resemblances; but +they were maintained by an imposing air of conviction, furnished +with the most prodigal erudition, and they struck out +many ingenious combinations. The importance or the curiosity +of the topics awed or delighted his readers; the principle, +however licentious, by the surprise it raised, seduced +the lovers of novelties. Father <span class='smcap'>Hardouin</span> had studied as +hard as Warburton, rose as early, and retired to rest as late, +and the obliquity of his intellect resembled that of Warburton—but +he was a far inferior genius; he only discovered +that the classical works of antiquity, the finest compositions +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' name='page_249'></a>249</span> +of the human mind, in ages of its utmost refinement, had +been composed by the droning monks of the middle ages; a +discovery which only surprised by its tasteless absurdity—but +the absurdities of Warburton had more dignity, were +more delightful, and more dangerous: they existed, as it +were, in a state of illusion, but illusion which required as +much genius and learning as his own to dissipate. His +spells were to be disturbed only by a magician, great as himself. +Conducted by this solitary principle, Warburton undertook, +as it were, a magical voyage into antiquity. He +passed over the ocean of time, sailing amid rocks, and half +lost on quicksands; but he never failed to raise up some <i>terra +incognita</i>; or point at some scene of the <i>Fata Morgana</i>, +some earthly spot, painted in the heaven one knows not how.</p> +<p>In this secret principle of resolving to <i>invent</i> what no +other had before conceived, by means of <i>conjecture</i> and +<i>assertion</i>, and of maintaining his theories with all the pride +of a sophist, and all the fierceness of an inquisitor, we have +the key to all the contests by which this great mind so long +supported his literary usurpations.</p> +<p>The first step the giant took showed the mightiness of his +stride. His first great work was the famous “Alliance between +Church and State.” It surprised the world, who saw +the most important subject depending on a mere <i>curious</i> +argument, which, like all political theories, was liable to be +overthrown by writers of opposite principles.<a name='FNanchor_0158' id='FNanchor_0158'></a><a href='#Footnote_0158' class='fnanchor'>[158]</a> The term +“Alliance” seemed to the dissenters to infer that the <i>Church</i> +was an independent power, forming a contract with the +<i>State</i>, and not acknowledging that it is only an integral part, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' name='page_250'></a>250</span> +like that of the <i>army</i> or the <i>navy</i>.<a name='FNanchor_0159' id='FNanchor_0159'></a><a href='#Footnote_0159' class='fnanchor'>[159]</a> Warburton had not +probably decided, at that time, on the principle of ecclesiastical +power: whether it was paramount by its divine origin, +as one party asserted; or whether, as the new philosophers, +Hobbes, Selden, and others, insisted, the spiritual was secondary +to the civil power.<a name='FNanchor_0160' id='FNanchor_0160'></a><a href='#Footnote_0160' class='fnanchor'>[160]</a></p> +<p>The intrepidity of this vast genius appears in the plan of +his greater work. The omission of a future state of reward +and punishment, in the Mosaic writings, was perpetually +urged as a proof that the mission was not of divine origin: +the ablest defenders strained at obscure or figurative passages, +to force unsatisfactory inferences; but they were +looking after what could not be found. Warburton at once +boldly acknowledged it was not there; at once adopted all +the objections of the infidels: and roused the curiosity of +both parties by the hardy assertion, that this very <i>omission</i> +was a <i>demonstration</i> of its divine origin.<a name='FNanchor_0161' id='FNanchor_0161'></a><a href='#Footnote_0161' class='fnanchor'>[161]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' name='page_251'></a>251</span></div> +<p>The first idea of this new project was bold and delightful, +and the plan magnificent. Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity, +the three great religions of mankind, were to be +marshalled in all their pomp, and their awe, and their mystery. +But the procession changed to a battle! To maintain +one great paradox, he was branching out into innumerable +ones. This great work was never concluded: the author +wearied himself, without, however, wearying his readers; +and, as his volumes appeared, he was still referring to his +argument, “as far as it is yet advanced.” The <i>demonstration</i> +appeared in great danger of ending in a <i>conjecture</i>; and this +work, always beginning and never ending, proved to be the +glory and misery of his life.<a name='FNanchor_0162' id='FNanchor_0162'></a><a href='#Footnote_0162' class='fnanchor'>[162]</a> In perpetual conflict with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' name='page_252'></a>252</span> +those numerous adversaries it roused, Warburton often shifted +his ground, and broke into so many divisions, that when he +cried out, Victory! his scattered forces seemed rather to be in +flight than in pursuit.<a name='FNanchor_0163' id='FNanchor_0163'></a><a href='#Footnote_0163' class='fnanchor'>[163]</a></p> +<p>The same <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span> led him to turn the poetical +narrative of Æneas in the infernal regions, an episode evidently +imitated by Virgil from his Grecian master, into a +minute description of the initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries. +A notion so perfectly new was at least worth a +commonplace truth. Was it not delightful to have so many +particulars detailed of a secret transaction, which even its +contemporaries of two thousand years ago did not presume to +know anything about? Father Hardouin seems to have +opened the way for Warburton, since he had discovered that +the whole Æneid was an allegorical voyage of St. Peter to +Rome! When Jortin, in one of his “Six Dissertations,” +modestly illustrated Virgil by an interpretation inconsistent +with Warburton’s strange discovery, it produced a memorable +quarrel. Then Hurd, the future shield, scarcely the sword, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' name='page_253'></a>253</span> +of Warburton, made his first sally; a dapper, subtle, and +cold-blooded champion, who could dexterously turn about the +polished weapon of irony.<a name='FNanchor_0164' id='FNanchor_0164'></a><a href='#Footnote_0164' class='fnanchor'>[164]</a> So much our <i>Railleur</i> admired +the volume of Jortin, that he favoured him with “A Seventh +Dissertation, addressed to the Author of the Sixth, on the +Delicacy of Friendship,” one of the most malicious, but the +keenest pieces of irony. It served as the foundation of a new +School of Criticism, in which the arrogance of the master +was to be supported by the pupil’s contempt of men often +his superiors. To interpret Virgil differently from the +modern Stagirite, was, by the aggravating art of the ridiculer, +to be considered as the violation of a moral feeling.<a name='FNanchor_0165' id='FNanchor_0165'></a><a href='#Footnote_0165' class='fnanchor'>[165]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' name='page_254'></a>254</span> +Jortin bore the slow torture and the teasing of Hurd’s dissecting-knife +in dignified silence.</p> +<p>At length a rising genius demonstrated how Virgil could +not have described the Eleusinian Mysteries in the sixth book +of the Æneid. One blow from the arm of Gibbon shivered +the allegorical fairy palace into glittering fragments.<a name='FNanchor_0166' id='FNanchor_0166'></a><a href='#Footnote_0166' class='fnanchor'>[166]</a></p> +<p>When the sceptical Middleton, in his “Essay on the Gift +of Tongues,” pretended to think that “an inspired language +would be perfect in its kind, with all the purity of Plato and +the eloquence of Cicero,” and then asserted that “the style +of the New Testament was utterly rude and barbarous, and +abounding with every fault that can possibly deform a language,” +Warburton, as was his custom, instantly acquiesced; +but hardily maintained that “<i>this very barbarism was one +certain mark of a divine original</i>.”<a name='FNanchor_0167' id='FNanchor_0167'></a><a href='#Footnote_0167' class='fnanchor'>[167]</a>—The curious may follow +his subtile argument in his “Doctrine of Grace;” but, in +delivering this paradox, he struck at the fundamental principles +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' name='page_255'></a>255</span> +of eloquence: he dilated on all the abuses of that human +art. It was precisely his utter want of taste which afforded +him so copious an argument; for he asserted that the principles +of eloquence were arbitrary and chimerical, and its +various modes “mostly fantastical;” and that, consequently, +there was no such thing as a good taste,<a name='FNanchor_0168' id='FNanchor_0168'></a><a href='#Footnote_0168' class='fnanchor'>[168]</a> except what the +<i>consent of the learned</i> had made; an expression borrowed +from Quintilian. A plausible and a consolatory argument for +the greater part of mankind! It, however, roused the indignation +of Leland, the eloquent translator of Demosthenes, and +the rhetorical professor at Trinity College, in Dublin, who has +nobly defended the cause of classical taste and feeling by profounder +principles. His classic anger produced his “Dissertation +on the Principles of Human Eloquence;” a volume so +much esteemed that it is still reprinted. Leland refuted the +whimsical paradox, yet complimented Warburton, who, “with +the spirit and energy of an ancient orator, was writing against +eloquence,” while he showed that the style of the New Testament +was defensible on surer grounds. Hurd, who had fleshed +his polished weapon on poor Jortin, and had been received into +the arms of the hero under whom he now fought, adventured +to cast his javelin at Leland: it was dipped in the cold poison +of contempt and petulance. It struck, but did not canker, +leaves that were immortal.<a name='FNanchor_0169' id='FNanchor_0169'></a><a href='#Footnote_0169' class='fnanchor'>[169]</a> Leland, with the native warmth +of his soil, could not resist the gratification of a reply; but +the nobler part of the triumph was, the assistance he lent to +the circulation of Hurd’s letter, by reprinting it with his own +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' name='page_256'></a>256</span> +reply, to accompany a new edition of his “Dissertation on +Eloquence.”<a name='FNanchor_0170' id='FNanchor_0170'></a><a href='#Footnote_0170' class='fnanchor'>[170]</a></p> +<p>We now pursue the <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span>, operating on lighter +topics; when, turning commentator, with the same originality +as when an author, his character as a literary adventurer +is still more prominent, extorting double senses, discovering +the most fantastical allusions, and making men of +genius but of confined reading, learned, with all the lumber of +his own unwieldy erudition.</p> +<p>When the German professor <span class='smcap'>Crousaz</span> published a rigid +examen of the doctrines in <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> “Essay on Man,” Warburton +volunteered a defence of Pope. Some years before, it +appears that Warburton himself, in a literary club at Newark, +had produced a dissertation against those very doctrines! +where he asserted that “the Essay was collected from the +worst passages of the worst authors.” This probably occurred +at the time he declared that Pope had no genius! <span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke</span> +really <span class='smcaplc'>WROTE</span> the “Essay on Man,” which Pope <i>versified</i>.<a name='FNanchor_0171' id='FNanchor_0171'></a><a href='#Footnote_0171' class='fnanchor'>[171]</a> +His principles may be often objectionable; but those +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' name='page_257'></a>257</span> +who only read this fine philosophical poem for its condensed +verse, its imagery, and its generous sentiments, will run no +danger from a metaphysical system they will not care to comprehend.</p> +<p>But this serves not as an apology for Warburton, who now +undertook an elaborate defence of what he had himself condemned, +and for which purpose he has most unjustly depressed +Crousaz—an able logician, and a writer ardent in the cause of +religion. This commentary on the “Essay on Man,” then, +looks much like the work of a sophist and an adventurer! +Pope, who was now alarmed at the tendency of some of those +principles he had so innocently versified, received Warburton +as his tutelary genius. A mere poet was soon dazzled by the +sorcery of erudition; and he himself, having nothing of that +kind of learning, believed Warburton to be the Scaliger of the +age, for his gratitude far exceeded his knowledge.<a name='FNanchor_0172' id='FNanchor_0172'></a><a href='#Footnote_0172' class='fnanchor'>[172]</a> The poet +died in this delusion: he consigned his immortal works to the +mercy of a ridiculous commentary and a tasteless commentator, +whose labours have cost so much pains to subsequent +editors to remove. Yet from this moment we date the worldly +fortunes of Warburton.—Pope presented him with the entire +property of his works; introduced him to a blind and obedient +patron, who bestowed on him a rich wife, by whom he secured +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' name='page_258'></a>258</span> +a fine mansion; till at length, the mitre crowned his last ambition. +Such was the large chapter of accidents in Warburton’s +life!</p> +<p>There appears in Warburton’s conduct respecting the editions +of the great poets which he afterwards published, something +systematic; he treated the several editors of those very +poets, <span class='smcap'>Theobald, Hanmer</span>, and <span class='smcap'>Grey</span>, who were his friends, +with the same odd sort of kindness: when he was unknown +to the world, he cheerfully contributed to all their labours, +and afterwards abused them with the liveliest severity.<a name='FNanchor_0173' id='FNanchor_0173'></a><a href='#Footnote_0173' class='fnanchor'>[173]</a> It +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' name='page_259'></a>259</span> +is probable that he had himself projected these editions as a +source of profit, but had contributed to the more advanced +labours of his rival editors, merely as specimens of his talent, +that the public might hereafter be thus prepared for his own +more perfect commentaries.</p> +<p>Warburton employed no little art<a name='FNanchor_0174' id='FNanchor_0174'></a><a href='#Footnote_0174' class='fnanchor'>[174]</a> to excite the public +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' name='page_260'></a>260</span> +curiosity respecting his future Shakspeare: he liberally presented +Dr. <span class='smcap'>Birch</span> with his MS. notes for that great work +the “General Dictionary,” no doubt as the prelude of his after-celebrated +edition. Birch was here only a dupe: he escaped, +unlike Theobald, Hanmer, and Grey, from being overwhelmed +with ridicule and contempt. When these extraordinary specimens +of emendatory and illustrative criticism appeared in +the “General Dictionary,” with general readers they excited all +the astonishment of perfect novelty. It must have occurred +to them, that no one as yet had understood Shakspeare; and, +indeed, that it required no less erudition than that of the new +luminary now rising in the critical horizon to display the +amazing erudition of this most recondite poet. Conjectural criticism +not only changed the words but the thoughts of the +author; perverse interpretations of plain matters. Many a +striking passage was wrested into a new meaning: plain words +were subtilised to remove conceits; here one line was rejected, +and there an interpolation, inspired alone by critical +sagacity, pretended to restore a lost one; and finally, a +source of knowledge was opened in the notes, on subjects +which no other critic suspected could, by any ingenuity, +stand connected with Shakspeare’s text.</p> +<p>At length the memorable edition appeared: all the world +knows its chimeras.<a name='FNanchor_0175' id='FNanchor_0175'></a><a href='#Footnote_0175' class='fnanchor'>[175]</a> One of its most remarkable results was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' name='page_261'></a>261</span> +the production of that work, which annihilated the whimsical +labours of Warburton, Edwards’s “Canons of Criticism,” +one of those successful facetious criticisms which enliven our +literary history. Johnson, awed by the learning of Warburton, +and warmed by a personal feeling for a great genius +who had condescended to encourage his first critical labour, +grudgingly bestows a moderated praise on this exquisite satire, +which he characterises for “its airy petulance, suitable enough +to the levity of the controversy.” He compared this attack +“to a fly, which may sting and tease a horse, but yet the +horse is the nobler animal.”<a name='FNanchor_0176' id='FNanchor_0176'></a><a href='#Footnote_0176' class='fnanchor'>[176]</a> Among the prejudices of criticism, +is one which hinders us from relishing a masterly performance, +when it ridicules a favourite author; but to us, +mere historians, truth will always prevail over literary favouritism. +The work of Edwards effected its purpose, that +of “laughing down Warburton to his proper rank and character.”<a name='FNanchor_0177' id='FNanchor_0177'></a><a href='#Footnote_0177' class='fnanchor'>[177]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' name='page_262'></a>262</span></div> +<p>Warburton designates himself as “a critic by profession;” +and tells us, he gave this edition “to deter the <i>unlearned +writer</i> from wantonly trifling with an art he is a stranger to, +at the expense of the integrity of the text of established +authors.” Edwards has placed a N.B. on this declaration:—“A +writer may properly be called <i>unlearned</i>, who, notwithstanding +all his other knowledge, does not understand the subject +which he writes upon.” But the most dogmatical absurdity +was Warburton’s declaration, that it was once his design +to have given “a body of canons for criticism, drawn out in +form, with a glossary;” and further he informs the reader, +that though this has not been done by him, if the reader will +take the trouble, he may supply himself, as these canons of +criticism lie scattered in the course of the notes. This idea +was seized on with infinite humour by Edwards, who, from +these very notes, has framed a set of “Canons of Criticism,” +as ridiculous as possible, but every one illustrated by +authentic examples, drawn from the labours of our new +Stagirite.<a name='FNanchor_0178' id='FNanchor_0178'></a><a href='#Footnote_0178' class='fnanchor'>[178]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' name='page_263'></a>263</span></div> +<p>At length, when the public had decided on the fact of +Warburton’s edition, it was confessed that the editor’s design +had never been to explain Shakspeare! and that he was even +conscious he had frequently imputed to the poet meanings +which he never thought! Our critic’s great object was to +display his own learning! Warburton wrote for Warburton, +and not for Shakspeare! and the literary imposture almost +rivals the confessions of Lander or Psalmanazar!</p> +<p>The same <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span> was pursued in his absurd +edition of Pope. He formed an unbroken Commentary on +the “Essay on Criticism,” to show that that admirable collection +of precepts had been constructed by a systematical +method, which it is well known the poet never designed; +and the same instruments of torture were here used as in the +“Essay on Man,” to reconcile a system of fatalism to the +doctrines of Revelation.<a name='FNanchor_0179' id='FNanchor_0179'></a><a href='#Footnote_0179' class='fnanchor'>[179]</a> Warton had to remove the incumbrance +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' name='page_264'></a>264</span> +of his Commentaries on Pope, while a most laborious +confederacy zealously performed the same task to relieve +Shakspeare. Thus Warburton pursued <span class='smcaplc'>ONE SECRET PRINCIPLE</span> +in all his labours; thus he raised edifices which could +not be securely inhabited, and were only impediments in the +roadway; and these works are now known by the labours +of those who have exerted their skill in laying them in +ruins.</p> +<p>Warburton was probably aware that the <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span> +which regulated his public opinions might lay him open, at +numerous points, to the strokes of ridicule. It is a weapon +which every one is willing to use, but which seems to terrify +every one when it is pointed against themselves. There is +no party or sect which have not employed it in their most +serious controversies: the grave part of mankind protest +against it, often at the moment they have been directing it +for their own purpose. And the inquiry, whether ridicule be +a test of truth, is one of the large controversies in our own +literature. It was opened by Lord Shaftesbury, and zealously +maintained by his school. Akenside, in a note to his +celebrated poem, asserts the efficacy of ridicule as a test of +truth: Lord Kaimes had just done the same. Warburton +levelled his piece at the lord in the bush-fighting of a note; +but came down in the open field with a full discharge of his +artillery on the luckless bard.<a name='FNanchor_0180' id='FNanchor_0180'></a><a href='#Footnote_0180' class='fnanchor'>[180]</a></p> +<p>Warburton designates Akenside under the sneering appellative +of “The Poet,” and alluding to his “sublime account” +of the use of ridicule, insultingly reminds him of “his Master,” +Shaftesbury, and of that school which made morality an object +of taste, shrewdly hinting that Akenside was “a man of +taste;” a new term, as we are to infer from Warburton, for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' name='page_265'></a>265</span> +“a Deist;” or, as Akenside had alluded to Spinoza, he might +be something worse. The great critic loudly protested against +the practice of ridicule; but, in attacking its advocate, he is +himself an evidence of its efficacy, by keenly ridiculing “the +Poet” and his opinions. Dyson, the patron of Akenside, +nobly stepped forwards to rescue his Eagle, panting in the +tremendous gripe of the critical Lion. His defence of Akenside +is an argumentative piece of criticism on the nature of +ridicule, curious, but wanting the graces of the genius who +inspired it.<a name='FNanchor_0181' id='FNanchor_0181'></a><a href='#Footnote_0181' class='fnanchor'>[181]</a></p> +<p>I shall stop one moment, since it falls into our subject, to +record this great literary battle on the use of ridicule, which +has been fought till both parties, after having shed their ink, +divide the field without victory or defeat, and now stand +looking on each other.</p> +<p>The advocates for the use of <span class='smcap'>Ridicule</span> maintain that it is +a natural sense or feeling, bestowed on us for wise purposes +by the Supreme Being, as are the other feelings of beauty +and of sublimity;—the sense of beauty to detect the deformity, +as the sense of ridicule the absurdity of an object: and +they further maintain, that no real virtues, such as wisdom, +honesty, bravery, or generosity, can be ridiculed.</p> +<p>The great Adversary of Ridicule replied that they did not +dare to ridicule the virtues openly; but, by overcharging and +distorting them they could laugh at leisure. “Give them +other names,” he says, “call them but Temerity, Prodigality, +Simplicity, &c., and your business is done. Make them ridiculous, +and you may go on, in the freedom of wit and humour +(as Shaftesbury distinguishes ridicule), till there be +never a virtue left to laugh out of countenance.”</p> +<p>The ridiculers acknowledge that their favourite art may do +mischief, when <i>dishonest men obtrude circumstances foreign to +the object</i>. But, they justly urge, that the use of reason itself +is full as liable to the same objection: grant Spinoza his false +premises, and his conclusions will be considered as true. +Dyson threw out an ingenious illustration. “It is so equally +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' name='page_266'></a>266</span> +in the mathematics; where, in reasoning about a circle, if we +join along with its real properties others that do not belong +to it, our conclusions will certainly be erroneous. Yet who +would infer from hence that <i>the manner of proof</i> is defective +or fallacious?”</p> +<p>Warburton urged the strongest <i>case</i> against the use of +ridicule, in that of Socrates and Aristophanes. In his strong +and coarse illustration he shows, that “by clapping a fool’s +coat on the most immaculate virtue, it stuck on Socrates like +a San Benito, and at last brought him to his execution: it +made the owner resemble his direct opposite; that character +he was most unlike. The consequences are well known.”</p> +<p>Warburton here adopted the popular notion, that the witty +buffoon Aristophanes was the occasion of the death of the +philosopher Socrates. The defence is skilful on the part of +Dyson; and we may easily conceive that on so important a +point Akenside had been consulted. I shall give it in his +own words:—</p> +<p>“The Socrates of Aristophanes is as truly ridiculous a character +as ever was drawn; but it is not the character of +Socrates himself. The object was perverted, and the mischief +which ensued was owing to the dishonesty of him who +persuaded the people that that was the real character of +Socrates, not from any error in the faculty of ridicule itself.”—Dyson +then states the fact as it concerned Socrates. “The +real intention of the contrivers of this ridicule was not so much +to mislead the people, by giving them a bad opinion of +Socrates, as to sound what was at the time the general +opinion of him, that from thence they might judge whether +it would be safe to bring a direct accusation against him. The +most effectual way of making this trial was by ridiculing him; +for they knew, if the people saw his character in its true +light, they would be displeased with the misrepresentation, +and not endure the ridicule. On trial this appeared: the +play met with its deserved fate; and, notwithstanding the +exquisiteness of the wit, was absolutely <i>rejected</i>. A second +attempt succeeded no better; and the abettors of the poet +were so discouraged from pursuing their design against +Socrates, that it was not till <span class='smcaplc'>ABOVE TWENTY YEARS</span> after <i>the +publication of the play</i> that they brought their accusation +against him! It was not, therefore, ridicule that did, or could +destroy Socrates: he was rather sacrificed for the right use of +it himself, against the Sophists, who could not bear the test.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' name='page_267'></a>267</span></div> +<p>Thus, then, stands the argument.—Warburton, reasoning +on the abuses of ridicule, has opened to us all its dangers. Its +advocate concedes that Ridicule, to be a test of Truth, must +not impose on us circumstances which are foreign to the object. +No object can be ridiculed that is not ridiculous. Should this +happen, then the ridicule is false; and, as such, can be proved +as much as any piece of false reasoning. We may therefore +conclude, that ridicule is a taste of congruity and propriety +not possessed by every one; a test which separates truth from +imposture; a talent against the exercise of which most +men are interested to protest; but which, being founded on +the constituent principles of the human mind, is often indulged +at the very moment it is decried and complained of.</p> +<p>But we must not leave this great man without some notice +of that peculiar style of controversy which he adopted, and +which may be distinguished among our <span class='smcap'>Literary Quarrels</span>. +He has left his name to a school—a school which the more +liberal spirit of the day we live in would not any longer +endure. Who has not heard of <span class='smcap'>The Warburtonians</span>?</p> +<p>That <span class='smcaplc'>SECRET PRINCIPLE</span> which directed Warburton in all +his works, and which we have attempted to pursue, could not +of itself have been sufficient to have filled the world with the +name of Warburton. Other scholars have published reveries, +and they have passed away, after showing themselves for a +time, leaving no impression; like those coloured and shifting +shadows on a wall, with which children are amused; but Warburton +was a literary Revolutionist, who, to maintain a new +order of things, exercised all the despotism of a perpetual dictator. +The bold unblushing energy which could lay down +the most extravagant positions, was maintained by a fierce +dogmatic spirit, and by a peculiar style of mordacious contempt +and intolerant insolence, beating down his opponents +from all quarters with an animating shout of triumph, to +encourage those more serious minds, who, overcome by his +genius, were yet often alarmed by the ambiguous tendency of +his speculations.<a name='FNanchor_0182' id='FNanchor_0182'></a><a href='#Footnote_0182' class='fnanchor'>[182]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' name='page_268'></a>268</span></div> +<p>The Warburtonian School was to be supported by the most +licentious principles; by dictatorial arrogance,<a name='FNanchor_0183' id='FNanchor_0183'></a><a href='#Footnote_0183' class='fnanchor'>[183]</a> by gross invective, +and by airy sarcasm;<a name='FNanchor_0184' id='FNanchor_0184'></a><a href='#Footnote_0184' class='fnanchor'>[184]</a> the bitter contempt which, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' name='page_269'></a>269</span> +with its many little artifices, lowers an adversary in the public +opinion, was more peculiarly the talent of one of the aptest +scholars, the cool, the keen, the sophistical Hurd. The +lowest arts of confederacy were connived at by all the disciples,<a name='FNanchor_0185' id='FNanchor_0185'></a><a href='#Footnote_0185' class='fnanchor'>[185]</a> +prodigal of praise to themselves, and retentive of it +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' name='page_270'></a>270</span> +to all others; the world was to be divided into two parts, the +<i>Warburtonians</i> and the <i>Anti</i>.</p> +<p>To establish this new government in the literary world, this +great Revolutionist was favoured by Fortune with two important +aids; the one was a <i>Machine</i>, by which he could wield +public opinion; and the other a <i>Man</i>, who seemed born to be +his minister or his viceroy.</p> +<p>The <i>machine</i> was nothing less than the immortal works of +Pope; as soon as Warburton had obtained a royal patent to +secure to himself the sole property of Pope’s works, the public +were compelled, under the disguise of a Commentary on the +most classical of our Poets, to be concerned with all his literary +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' name='page_271'></a>271</span> +quarrels, and have his libels and lampoons perpetually +before them; all the foul waters of his anger were deposited +here as in a common reservoir.<a name='FNanchor_0186' id='FNanchor_0186'></a><a href='#Footnote_0186' class='fnanchor'>[186]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272' name='page_272'></a>272</span></div> +<p>Fanciful as was the genius of Warburton, it delighted too +much in its eccentric motions, and in its own solitary greatness, +amid abstract and recondite topics, to have strongly attracted +the public attention, had not a party been formed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' name='page_273'></a>273</span> +around him, at the head of which stood the active and subtle +Hurd; and amid the gradations of the votive brotherhood, +the profound <span class='smcap'>Balguy</span>,<a name='FNanchor_0187' id='FNanchor_0187'></a><a href='#Footnote_0187' class='fnanchor'>[187]</a> the spirited <span class='smcap'>Brown</span>,<a name='FNanchor_0188' id='FNanchor_0188'></a><a href='#Footnote_0188' class='fnanchor'>[188]</a> till we descend—</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' name='page_274'></a>274</span></div> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>To his tame jackal, parson <span class='smcap'>Towne</span>.<a name='FNanchor_0189' id='FNanchor_0189'></a><a href='#Footnote_0189' class='fnanchor'>[189]</a> <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><i>Verses on Warburton’s late Edition.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>This Warburtonian party reminds one of an old custom +among our elder poets, who formed a kind of freemasonry +among themselves, by adopting younger poets by the title of +their <i>sons</i>.—But that was a domestic society of poets; this, +a revival of the Jesuitic order instituted by its founder, that—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>By him supported with a proper pride,<br /> +They might hold all mankind as fools beside.<br /> +Might, like himself, teach each adopted son,<br /> +’Gainst all the world, to quote a Warburton.<a name='FNanchor_0190' id='FNanchor_0190'></a><a href='#Footnote_0190' class='fnanchor'>[190]</a> <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Churchill’s</span> “Fragment of a Dedication.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The character of a literary sycophant was never more perfectly +exhibited than in Hurd. A Whig in principle, yet he +had all a courtier’s arts for Warburton; to him he devoted all +his genius, though that, indeed, was moderate; aided him with +all his ingenuity, which was exquisite; and lent his cause a +certain delicacy of taste and cultivated elegance, which, +although too prim and artificial, was a vein of gold running +through his mass of erudition; it was Hurd who aided the +usurpation of Warburton in the province of criticism above +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' name='page_275'></a>275</span> +Aristotle and Longinus.<a name='FNanchor_0191' id='FNanchor_0191'></a><a href='#Footnote_0191' class='fnanchor'>[191]</a> Hurd is justly characterised by +Warton, in his Spenser, vol. ii. p. 36, as “the <i>most sensible</i> +and <i>ingenious</i> of modern critics.”—He was a lover of his +studies; and he probably was sincere, when he once told a +friend of the literary antiquary Cole, that he would have +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276' name='page_276'></a>276</span> +chosen not to quit the university, for he loved retirement; +and on that principle Cowley was his favourite poet, which he +afterwards showed by his singular edition of that poet. He +was called from the cloistered shades to assume the honourable +dignity of a Royal Tutor. Had he devoted his days to +literature, he would have still enriched its stores. But he +had other more supple and more serviceable qualifications. +Most adroit was he in all the archery of controversy: he had +the subtlety that can evade the aim of the assailant, and the +slender dexterity, substituted for vigour, that struck when +least expected. The subaltern genius of Hurd required to be +animated by the heroic energy of Warburton; and the careless +courage of the chief wanted one who could maintain the +unguarded passages he left behind him in his progress.</p> +<p>Such, then, was <span class='smcap'>Warburton</span>, and such the quarrels of this +great author. He was, through his literary life, an adventurer, +guided by that secret principle which opened an immediate +road to fame. By opposing the common sentiments of +mankind, he awed and he commanded them; and by giving a +new face to all things, he surprised, by the appearances of discoveries. +All this, so pleasing to his egotism, was not, however, +fortunate for his ambition. To sustain an authority +which he had usurped; to substitute for the taste he wanted +a curious and dazzling erudition; and to maintain those reckless +decisions which so often plunged him into perils, Warburton +adopted his <i>system of Literary Quarrels</i>. These were +the illegitimate means which raised a sudden celebrity, and +which genius kept alive, as long as that genius lasted; but +Warburton suffered that literary calamity, too protracted a +period of human life: he outlived himself and his fame. This +great and original mind sacrificed all his genius to that secret +principle we have endeavoured to develope—it was a self-immolation!</p> +<p>The learned <span class='smcap'>Selden</span>, in the curious little volume of his +“Table-Talk,” has delivered to posterity a precept for the +learned, which they ought to wear, like the Jewish phylacteries, +as “a frontlet between their eyes.” <i>No man is the +wiser for his learning: it may administer matter to work in, +or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a +man.</i> Sir <span class='smcap'>Thomas Hanmer</span>, who was well acquainted with +Warburton, during their correspondence about Shakspeare, +often said of him:—“The only use he could find in Mr. Warburton +was <i>starting the game</i>; he was not to be trusted in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277' name='page_277'></a>277</span> +<i>running it down</i>.” A just discrimination! His fervid curiosity +was absolutely creative; but his taste and his judgment, +perpetually stretched out by his system, could not save him +from even inglorious absurdities!</p> +<p>Warburton, it is probable, was not really the character he +appears. It mortifies the lovers of genius to discover how a +natural character may be thrown into a convulsed unnatural +state by some adopted system: it is this system, which, +carrying it, as it were, beyond itself, communicates a more +than natural, but a self-destroying energy. All then becomes +reversed! The arrogant and vituperative Warburton was +only such in his assumed character; for in still domestic life +he was the creature of benevolence, touched by generous passions. +But in public life the artificial or the acquired character +prevails over the one which nature designed for us; and +by that all public men, as well as authors, are usually judged +by posterity.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278' name='page_278'></a>278</span> +<a name='POPE_AND_HIS_MISCELLANEOUS_QUARRELS' id='POPE_AND_HIS_MISCELLANEOUS_QUARRELS'></a> +<h3>POPE,</h3> +<h4>AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUARRELS.</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>Pope</span> adopted a system of literary politics—collected with extraordinary +care everything relative to his Quarrels—no politician ever studied to +obtain his purposes by more oblique directions and intricate stratagems—some +of his manœuvres—his systematic hostility not practised with impunity—his +claim to his own works contested—<span class='smcap'>Cibber’s</span> facetious +description of <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> feelings, and <span class='smcap'>Welsted’s</span> elegant satire on his genius—<span class='smcap'>Dennis’s</span> +account of <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> Introduction to him—his political prudence +further discovered in the Collection of all the Pieces relative to the +<i>Dunciad</i>, in which he employed <span class='smcap'>Savage</span>—the <span class='smcap'>Theobaldians</span> and the +<span class='smcap'>Popeians</span>; an attack by a Theobaldian—The <i>Dunciad</i> ingeniously defended, +for the grossness of its imagery, and its reproach of the poverty +of the authors, supposed by <span class='smcap'>Pope</span> himself, with some curious specimens +of literary personalities—the Literary Quarrel between <span class='smcap'>Aaron Hill</span> and +<span class='smcap'>Pope</span> distinguished for its romantic cast—a Narrative of the extraordinary +transactions respecting the publication of <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> Letters; an example +of Stratagem and Conspiracy, illustrative of his character.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Pope</span> has proudly perpetuated the history of his Literary +Quarrels; and he appears to have been among those authors, +surely not forming the majority, who have delighted in, or +have not been averse to provoke, hostility. He has registered +the titles of every book, even to a single paper, or a copy +of verses, in which their authors had committed treason +against his poetical sovereignty.<a name='FNanchor_0192' id='FNanchor_0192'></a><a href='#Footnote_0192' class='fnanchor'>[192]</a> His ambition seemed gratified +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279' name='page_279'></a>279</span> +in heaping these trophies to his genius, while his meaner +passions could compile one of the most voluminous of the +scandalous chronicles of literature. We are mortified on discovering +so fine a genius in the text humbling itself through +all the depravity of a commentary full of spleen, and not without +the fictions of satire. The unhappy influence his <i>Literary +Quarrels</i> had on this great poet’s life remains to be traced. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280' name='page_280'></a>280</span> +He adopted a system of literary politics abounding with +stratagems, conspiracies, manœuvres, and factions.</p> +<p>Pope’s literary quarrels were the wars of his poetical ambition, +more perhaps than of the petulance and strong irritability +of his character. They were some of the artifices he +adopted from the peculiarity of his situation.</p> +<p>Thrown out of the active classes of society from a variety +of causes sufficiently known,<a name='FNanchor_0193' id='FNanchor_0193'></a><a href='#Footnote_0193' class='fnanchor'>[193]</a> concentrating his passions into +a solitary one, his retired life was passed in the contemplation +of his own literary greatness. Reviewing the past, and anticipating +the future, he felt he was creating a new era in our +literature, an event which does not always occur in a century: +but eager to secure present celebrity, with the victory obtained +in the open field, he combined the intrigues of the cabinet: +thus, while he was exerting great means, he practised little +artifices. No politician studied to obtain his purposes by +more oblique directions, or with more intricate stratagems; +and Pope was at once the lion and the fox of Machiavel. +A book might be written on the Stratagems of Literature, as +Frontinus has composed one on War, and among its subtilest +heroes we might place this great poet.</p> +<p>To keep his name alive before the public was one of his +early plans. When he published his “Essay on Criticism,” +anonymously, the young and impatient poet was mortified +with the inertion of public curiosity: he was almost in +despair.<a name='FNanchor_0194' id='FNanchor_0194'></a><a href='#Footnote_0194' class='fnanchor'>[194]</a> Twice, perhaps oftener, Pope attacked Pope;<a name='FNanchor_0195' id='FNanchor_0195'></a><a href='#Footnote_0195' class='fnanchor'>[195]</a> and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281' name='page_281'></a>281</span> +he frequently concealed himself under the names of others, +for some particular design. Not to point out his dark familiar +“Scriblerus,” always at hand for all purposes, he made use +of the names of several of his friends. When he employed +<span class='smcap'>Savage</span> in “a collection of all the pieces, in verse and prose, +published on occasion of the <i>Dunciad</i>,” he subscribed his +name to an admirable dedication to Lord Middlesex, where he +minutely relates the whole history of the <i>Dunciad</i>, “and the +weekly clubs held to consult of hostilities against the <a name='TC_13'></a><ins title="Added quote">author;”</ins> +and, for an express introduction to that work, he used the +name of Cleland, to which is added a note, expressing surprise +that the world did not believe that Cleland was the writer!<a name='FNanchor_0196' id='FNanchor_0196'></a><a href='#Footnote_0196' class='fnanchor'>[196]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282' name='page_282'></a>282</span> +Wanting a pretext for the publication of his letters, he delighted +<span class='smcap'>Curll</span> by conveying to him some printed surreptitious +copies, who soon discovered that it was but a fairy treasure +which he could not grasp; and Pope, in his own defence, had +soon ready the authentic edition.<a name='FNanchor_0197' id='FNanchor_0197'></a><a href='#Footnote_0197' class='fnanchor'>[197]</a> Some lady observed that +Pope “hardly drank tea without a stratagem!” The female +genius easily detects its own peculiar faculty, when it is exercised +with inferior delicacy.</p> +<p>But his systematic hostility did not proceed with equal +impunity: in this perpetual war with dulness, he discovered +that every one he called a dunce was not so; nor did he find +the dunces themselves less inconvenient to him; for many +successfully substituted, for their deficiencies in better qualities, +the lie that lasts long enough to vex a man; and the +insolence that does not fear him: they attacked him at all +points, and not always in the spirit of legitimate warfare.<a name='FNanchor_0198' id='FNanchor_0198'></a><a href='#Footnote_0198' class='fnanchor'>[198]</a> +They filled up his asterisks, and accused him of treason. They +asserted that the panegyrical verses prefixed to his works (an +obsolete mode of recommendation, which Pope condescended +to practise), were his own composition, and to which he had +affixed the names of some dead or some unknown writers. They +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283' name='page_283'></a>283</span> +published lists of all whom Pope had attacked; placing at the +head, “God Almighty; the King;” descending to the “lords +and gentlemen.”<a name='FNanchor_0199' id='FNanchor_0199'></a><a href='#Footnote_0199' class='fnanchor'>[199]</a> A few suspected his skill in Greek; but +every hound yelped in the halloo against his Homer.<a name='FNanchor_0200' id='FNanchor_0200'></a><a href='#Footnote_0200' class='fnanchor'>[200]</a> Yet +the more extraordinary circumstance was, their hardy disputes +with Pope respecting his claim to his own works, and the +difficulty he more than once found to establish his rights. +Sometimes they divided public opinion by even indicating the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284' name='page_284'></a>284</span> +real authors; and witnesses from White’s and St. James’s +were ready to be produced. Among these literary coteries, +several of Pope’s productions, in their anonymous, and even +in their MS. state, had been appropriated by several pseudo +authors; and when Pope called for restitution, he seemed to +be claiming nothing less than their lives. One of these +gentlemen had enjoyed a very fair reputation for more than +two years on the “Memoirs of a Parish-Clerk;” another, on +“The Messiah!” and there were many other vague claims. +All this was vexatious; but not so much as the ridiculous +attitude in which Pope was sometimes placed by his enraged +adversaries.<a name='FNanchor_0201' id='FNanchor_0201'></a><a href='#Footnote_0201' class='fnanchor'>[201]</a> He must have found himself in a more perilous +situation when he hired a brawny champion, or borrowed the +generous courage of some military friend.<a name='FNanchor_0202' id='FNanchor_0202'></a><a href='#Footnote_0202' class='fnanchor'>[202]</a> To all these +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285' name='page_285'></a>285</span> +troubles we may add, that Pope has called down on himself +more lasting vengeance; and the good sense of Theobald, the +furious but often acute remarks of Dennis; the good-humoured +yet keen remonstrance of Cibber; the silver shaft, +tipped with venom, sent from the injured but revengeful Lady +Mary; and many a random shot, that often struck him, inflicted +on him many a sleepless night.<a name='FNanchor_0203' id='FNanchor_0203'></a><a href='#Footnote_0203' class='fnanchor'>[203]</a> The younger +Richardson has recorded the personal sufferings of Pope when, +one day, in taking up Cibber’s letter, while his face was writhing +with agony, he feebly declared that “these things were +as good as hartshorn to him;” but he appeared at that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286' name='page_286'></a>286</span> +moment rather to want a little. And it is probably true, +what Cibber facetiously says of Pope, in his second letter:—“Everybody +tells me that I have made you as uneasy as a +rat in a hot kettle, for a twelvemonth together.”<a name='FNanchor_0204' id='FNanchor_0204'></a><a href='#Footnote_0204' class='fnanchor'>[204]</a></p> +<p>Pope was pursued through life by the insatiable vengeance +of Dennis. The young poet, who had got introduced to him, +among his first literary acquaintances, could not fail, when +the occasion presented itself, of ridiculing this uncouth son of +Aristotle. The blow was given in the character of Appius, in +the “Art of Criticism;” and it is known Appius was instantaneously +recognised by the fierce shriek of the agonised +critic himself. From that moment Dennis resolved to write +down every work of Pope’s. How dangerous to offend certain +tempers, verging on madness!<a name='FNanchor_0205' id='FNanchor_0205'></a><a href='#Footnote_0205' class='fnanchor'>[205]</a> Dennis, too, called on +every one to join him in the common cause; and once he +retaliated on Pope in his own way. Accused by Pope of +being the writer of an account of himself, in Jacob’s “Lives +of the Poets,” Dennis procured a letter from Jacob, which he +published, and in which it appears that Pope’s own character +in this collection, if not written by him, was by him very +carefully corrected on the proof-sheet; so that he stood in +the same ridiculous attitude into which he had thrown +Dennis, as his own trumpeter. Dennis, whose brutal energy +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287' name='page_287'></a>287</span> +remained unsubdued, was a rhinoceros of a critic, shelled up +against the arrows of wit. This monster of criticism awed +the poet; and Dennis proved to be a Python, whom the +golden shaft of Apollo could not pierce.</p> +<p>The political prudence of Pope was further discovered in +the “Collection of all the Pieces relative to the <i>Dunciad</i>,” +on which he employed Savage: these exemplified the justness +of the satire, or defended it from all attacks. The precursor +of the <i>Dunciad</i> was a single chapter in “The +Bathos; or, the Art of Sinking in Poetry;” where the +humorous satirist discovers an analogy between flying-fishes, +parrots, tortoises, &c., and certain writers, whose names are +designated by initial letters. In this unlucky alphabet of +dunces, not one of them but was applied to some writer of +the day; and the loud clamours these excited could not be +appeased by the simplicity of our poet’s declaration, that the +letters were placed at random: and while his oil could not +smooth so turbulent a sea, every one swore to the flying-fish +or the tortoise, as he had described them. It was still more +serious when the <i>Dunciad</i> appeared. Of that class of +authors who depended for a wretched existence on their +wages, several were completely ruined, for no purchasers were +to be found for the works of some authors, after they had +been inscribed in the chronicle of our provoking and inimitable +satirist.<a name='FNanchor_0206' id='FNanchor_0206'></a><a href='#Footnote_0206' class='fnanchor'>[206]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288' name='page_288'></a>288</span></div> +<p>It is in this collection by Savage I find the writer’s admirable +satire on the class of literary prostitutes. It is entitled +“An Author to be Let, by Iscariot Hackney.” It has been +ably commended by Johnson in his “Life of Savage,” and +on his recommendation Thomas Davies inserted it in his +“Collection of Fugitive Pieces;” but such is the careless curiosity +of modern re-publishers, that often, in preserving a +decayed body, they are apt to drop a limb: this was the case +with Davies; for he has dropped the preface, far more exquisite +than the work itself. A morsel of such poignant +relish betrays the hand of the master who snatched the pen +for a moment.</p> +<p>This preface defends Pope from the two great objections +justly raised at the time against the <i>Dunciad</i>: one is, the +grossness and filthiness of its imagery; and the other, its +reproachful allusions to the poverty of the authors.</p> +<p>The <i>indelicacies</i> of the <i>Dunciad</i> are thus wittily apologised +for:—</p> +<p>“They are suitable to the subject; a subject composed, for +the most part, of authors whose writings are the refuse of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289' name='page_289'></a>289</span> +wit, and who in life are the very excrement of Nature. Mr. +Pope has, too, used dung; but he disposes that dung in such +a manner that it becomes rich manure, from which he raises +a variety of fine flowers. He deals in rags; but like an +artist, who commits them to a paper-mill, and brings them +out useful sheets. The chemist extracts a fine cordial from +the most nauseous of all dung; and Mr. Pope has drawn a +sweet poetical spirit from the most offensive and unpoetical +objects of the creation—unpoetical, though eternal writers +of poetry.”</p> +<p>The reflections on the <i>poverty</i> of its heroes are thus ingeniously +defended:—“Poverty, not proceeding from folly, but +which may be owing to virtue, sets a man in an amiable +light; but when our wants are of our own seeking, and prove +the motive of every ill action (for the poverty of bad authors +has always a bad heart for its companion), is it not a vice, +and properly the subject of satire?” The preface then proceeds +to show how “all these <i>said writers</i> might have been +<i>good mechanics</i>.” He illustrates his principles with a most +ungracious account of several of his contemporaries. I shall +give a specimen of what I consider as the polished sarcasm +and caustic humour of Pope, on some favourite subjects.</p> +<p>“Mr. Thomas <i>Cooke</i>.—His enemies confess him not without +merit. To do the man justice, he might have made a +tolerable figure as a <i>Tailor</i>. ’Twere too presumptuous to +affirm he could have been a <i>master</i> in any profession; but, +dull as I allow him, he would not have been despicable for a +third or a fourth hand journeyman. Then had his wants +have been avoided; for, he would at least have learnt to <i>cut +his coat according to his cloth</i>.</p> +<p>“Why would not Mr. <i>Theobald</i> continue an attorney? Is +<a name='TC_14'></a><ins title="Was 'nor'">not</ins> <i>Word-catching</i> more serviceable in splitting a cause, than +explaining a fine poet?</p> +<p>“When Mrs. <i>Haywood</i> ceased to be a strolling-actress, why +might not the lady (though once a theatrical queen) have +subsisted by turning <i>washerwoman</i>? Has not the fall of +greatness been a frequent distress in all ages? She might +have caught a beautiful bubble, as it arose from the suds of +her tub, blown it in air, seen it glitter, and then break! +Even in this low condition, she had played with a bubble; +and what more is the vanity of human greatness?</p> +<p>“Had it not been an honester and more decent livelihood +for Mr. <i>Norton</i> (Daniel De Foe’s son of love by a lady who +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290' name='page_290'></a>290</span> +vended oysters) to have dealt in a <i>fish-market</i>, than to be +dealing out the dialects of Billingsgate in the Flying-post?</p> +<p>“Had it not been more laudable for Mr. <i>Roome</i>, the son of +an <i>undertaker</i>, to have borne a link and a mourning-staff, +in the long procession of a funeral—or even been more decent +in him to have sung psalms, according to education, in an +Anabaptist meeting, than to have been altering the <i>Jovial +Crew, or Merry Beggars</i>, into a <i>wicked</i> imitation of the +<i>Beggar’s Opera</i>?”</p> +<p>This satire seems too exquisite for the touch of Savage, and +is quite in the spirit of the author of the <i>Dunciad</i>. There +is, in Ruffhead’s “Life of Pope,” a work to which Warburton +contributed all his care, a passage which could only have been +written by Warburton. The strength and coarseness of the +imagery could never have been produced by the dull and +feeble intellect of Ruffhead: it is the opinion, therefore, of +Warburton himself, on the <i>Dunciad</i>. “The <i>good purpose</i> +intended by this satire was, to the <i>herd</i> in general, of less +efficacy than our author hoped; for <i>scribblers</i> have not the +common sense of <i>other vermin</i>, who usually abstain from +mischief, when they see any of their kind <i>gibbeted</i> or <i>nailed +up</i>, as terrible examples.”—Warburton employed the same +strong image in one of his threats.</p> +<p>One of Pope’s Literary Quarrels must be distinguished for +its romantic cast.</p> +<p>In the Treatise on the <i>Bathos</i>, the initial letters of the +bad writers occasioned many heartburns; and, among others, +Aaron Hill suspected he was marked out by the letters A. H. +This gave rise to a large correspondence between Hill and +Pope. Hill, who was a very amiable man, was infinitely too +susceptible of criticism; and Pope, who seems to have had +a personal regard for him, injured those nice feelings as little +as possible. Hill had published a panegyrical poem on Peter +the Great, under the title of “The Northern Star;” and the +bookseller had conveyed to him a criticism of Pope’s, of +which Hill publicly acknowledged he mistook the meaning. +When the Treatise of “The Bathos” appeared, Pope insisted +he had again mistaken the initials A. H.—Hill gently attacked +Pope in “a paper of very pretty verses,” as Pope calls +them. When the <i>Dunciad</i> appeared, Hill is said “to have +published pieces, in his youth, bordering upon the bombast.” +This was as light a stroke as could be inflicted; and which +Pope, with great good-humour, tells Hill, might be equally +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291' name='page_291'></a>291</span> +applied to himself; for he always acknowledged, that when a +boy, he had written an Epic poem of that description; would +often quote absurd verses from it, for the diversion of his +friends; and actually inserted some of the most extravagant +ones in the very Treatise on “The Bathos.” Poor Hill, +however, was of the most sickly delicacy, and produced “The +Caveat,” another gentle rebuke, where Pope is represented as +“sneakingly to approve, and want the worth to cherish or +befriend men of merit.” In the course of this correspondence, +Hill seems to have projected the utmost stretch of his +innocent malice; for he told Pope, that he had almost finished +“An Essay on Propriety and Impropriety in Design, Thought, +and Expression, illustrated by examples in both kinds, from +the writings of Mr. Pope;” but he offers, if this intended +work should create the least pain to Mr. Pope, he was willing, +with all his heart, to have it run thus:—“An Essay on Propriety +and Impropriety, &c., illustrated by Examples of the +first, from the writings of Mr. Pope, and of the rest, from +those of the author.”—To the romantic generosity of this extraordinary +proposal, Pope replied, “I acknowledge your +generous offer, to give <i>examples of imperfections</i> rather out +of <i>your own works</i> than mine: I consent, with all my heart, +to your confining them to <i>mine</i>, for two reasons: the one, +that I fear your sensibility that way is greater than my own: +the other is a better; namely, that I intend to correct the +faults you find, if they are such as I expect from Mr. Hill’s +cool judgment.”<a name='FNanchor_0207' id='FNanchor_0207'></a><a href='#Footnote_0207' class='fnanchor'>[207]</a></p> +<p>Where, in literary history, can be found the parallel of +such an offer of self-immolation? This was a literary quarrel +like that of lovers, where to hurt each other would have given +pain to both parties. Such skill and desire to strike, with +so much tenderness in inflicting a wound; so much compliment, +with so much complaint; have perhaps never met together, +as in the romantic hostility of this literary chivalry.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292' name='page_292'></a>292</span> +<a name='A_NARRATIVE_OF_THE_EXTRAORDINARY_TRANSACTIONS_RESPECTING_THE_PUBLICATION_OF_POPES_LETTERS' id='A_NARRATIVE_OF_THE_EXTRAORDINARY_TRANSACTIONS_RESPECTING_THE_PUBLICATION_OF_POPES_LETTERS'></a> +<h3>A NARRATIVE</h3> +<h4>OF THE EXTRAORDINARY TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING THE PUBLICATION OF POPE’S LETTERS.</h4> +</div> +<p><span class='smcap'>Johnson</span> observes, that “one of the passages of <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> life +which seems to deserve some inquiry, was the publication of +his letters by <span class='smcap'>Curll</span>, the rapacious bookseller.”<a name='FNanchor_0208' id='FNanchor_0208'></a><a href='#Footnote_0208' class='fnanchor'>[208]</a> Our great +literary biographer has expended more research on this occasion +than his usual penury of literary history allowed; and +yet has only told the close of the strange transaction—the +previous parts are more curious, and the whole cannot be +separated. Joseph Warton has only transcribed Johnson’s +narrative. It is a piece of literary history of an uncommon +complexion; and it is worth the pains of telling, if Pope, as +I consider him to be, was the subtile weaver of a plot, whose +texture had been close enough for any political conspiracy. +It throws a strong light on the portrait I have touched of +him. He conducted all his literary transactions with the +arts of a Minister of State; and the genius which he wasted on +this literary stratagem, in which he so completely succeeded, +might have been perhaps sufficient to have organised rebellion.</p> +<p>It is well known that the origin of Pope’s first letters +given to the public, arose from the distresses of a cast-off +mistress of one of his old friends (H. Cromwell),<a name='FNanchor_0209' id='FNanchor_0209'></a><a href='#Footnote_0209' class='fnanchor'>[209]</a> who had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293' name='page_293'></a>293</span> +given her the letters of Pope, which she knew how to value: +these she afterwards sold to Curll, who preserved the originals +in his shop, so that no suspicions could arise of their authenticity. +This very collection is now deposited among Rawlinson’s +MSS. at the Bodleian.<a name='FNanchor_0210' id='FNanchor_0210'></a><a href='#Footnote_0210' class='fnanchor'>[210]</a></p> +<p>This single volume was successful; and when Pope, to do +justice to the memory of Wycherley, which had been injured +by a posthumous volume, printed some of their letters, Curll, +who seemed now to consider that all he could touch was his +own property, and that his little volume might serve as a +foundation-stone, immediately announced <i>a new edition</i> of it, +with <i>Additions</i>, meaning to include the letters of Pope and +Wycherley. Curll now became so fond of <i>Pope’s Letters</i>, +that he advertised for any: “no questions to be asked.” +Curll was willing to be credulous: having proved to the +world he had some originals, he imagined these would sanction +even spurious one. A man who, for a particular purpose, +sought to be imposed on, easily obtained his wish: they +translated letters of Voiture to Mademoiselle Rambouillet, +and despatched them to the eager Bibliopolist to print, as +Pope’s to Miss Blount. He went on increasing his collection; +and, skilful in catering for the literary taste of the +town, now inflamed their appetite by dignifying it with “Mr. +Pope’s Literary Correspondence!”</p> +<p>But what were the feelings of Pope during these successive +surreptitious editions? He had discovered that his genuine +letters were liked; the grand experiment with the public had +been made for him, while he was deprived of the profits; yet +for he himself to publish his own letters, which I shall prove +he had prepared, was a thing unheard of in the nation. All +this was vexatious; and to stop the book-jobber and open the +market for himself, was a point to be obtained.</p> +<p>While Curll was proceeding, wind and tide in his favour, +a new and magnificent prospect burst upon him. A certain +person, masked by the initials P. T., understanding Curll +was preparing <i>a Life of Pope</i>, offered him “divers Memoirs +gratuitously;” hinted that he was well known to Pope; but +the poet had lately “treated him as a stranger.” P. T. desires +an answer from E. C. by the <i>Daily Advertiser</i>, which +was complied with. There are passages in this letter which, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294' name='page_294'></a>294</span> +I think, prove Pope to be the projector of it: his family is +here said to be allied to Lord Downe’s; his father is called a +merchant. Pope could not bear the reproach of Lady Mary’s +line:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Hard as thy heart, and as <i>thy birth obscure</i>.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He always hinted at noble relatives; but Tyers tells us, from +the information of a relative, that “his father turns out, at +last, to have been a linen-draper in the Strand:” therefore +P. T. was at least telling a story which Pope had no objection +should be repeated.</p> +<p>The second letter of P. T., for the first was designed only +to break the ice, offers Curll “a large Collection of Letters +from the early days of Pope to the year 1727.” He gives +an excellent notion of their value: “They will open very +many scenes new to the world, and make the most authentic +Life and Memoirs that could be.” He desires they may be +announced to the world immediately, in Curll’s precious style, +that he “might not appear himself to have set the whole +thing a-foot, and afterwards he might plead he had only sent +some letters to complete the Collection.” He asks nothing, +and the originals were offered to be deposited with Curll.</p> +<p>Curll, secure of this promised addition, but still craving for +more and more, composed a magnificent announcement, which, +with P. T.’s entire correspondence, he enclosed in a letter to +Pope himself. The letters were now declared to be a “Critical, +Philological, and Historical Correspondence.”—His own +letter is no bad specimen of his keen sense; but after what had +so often passed, his impudence was equal to the better quality.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,—To convince you of my readiness to oblige you, the +inclosed is a demonstration. You have, as he says, disobliged +a gentleman, the initial letters of whose name are P. T. I +have some other papers in the same hand, relating to your +<i>family</i>, which I will show, if you desire a sight of them. Your +letters to Mr. Cromwell are out of print; and I intend to +print them very beautifully, in an octavo volume. I have +more to say than is proper to write; and if you will give me +a meeting, I will wait on you with pleasure, and close all differences +between you and yours,</p> +<p class='sig3'>“<span class='smcap'>E. Curll.</span>”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Pope, surprised, as he pretends, at this address, consulted +with his friends; everything evil was suggested against Curll. +They conceived that his real design was “to get Pope to look +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295' name='page_295'></a>295</span> +over the former edition of his <a name='TC_15'></a><ins title="Changed to single quotes">‘Letters to Cromwell,’</ins> and then +to print it, as <i>revised</i> by Mr. Pope; as he sent an <i>obscene book</i> +to a <i>Bishop</i>, and then advertised it as <i>corrected</i> and <i>revised</i> +by him;” or perhaps to extort money from Pope for suppressing +the MS. of P. T., and then publish it, saying P. T. had +kept another copy. Pope thought proper to answer only by +this public advertisement:—</p> +<p>“Whereas A. P. hath received a letter from E. C., bookseller, +pretending that a person, the initials of whose name +are P. T., hath offered the said E. C. to print a large Collection +of Mr. P.’s letters, to which E. C. required an answer: +A. P. having never had, nor intending to have, any private +correspondence with the said E. C., gives it him in this manner. +That he knows no such person as P. T.; that he believes +he hath no such collection; and that he thinks the +whole a forgery, and shall not trouble himself at all about it.”</p> +<p>Curll replied, denying he had endeavoured to <i>correspond</i> +with Mr. Pope, and affirms that he had written to him by +<i>direction</i>.</p> +<p>It is now the plot thickens. P. T. suddenly takes umbrage, +accuses Curll of having “betrayed him to ‘Squire Pope,’ but +you and he both shall soon be convinced it was no forgery. +Since you would not comply with my proposal to advertise, I +have printed them at my own expense.” He offers the books +to Curll for sale.</p> +<p>Curll on this has written a letter, which takes a full view of +the entire transaction. He seems to have grown tired of +what he calls “such jealous, groundless, and dark negotiations.” +P. T. now found it necessary to produce something +more than a shadow—an agent appears, whom Curll considered +to be a clergyman, who assumed the name of R. Smith. +The first proposal was, that P. T.’s letters should be returned, +that he might feel secure from all possibility of detection; so +that P. T. terminates his part in this literary freemasonry as +a nonentity.</p> +<p>Here Johnson’s account begins.—“Curll said, that one +evening a man in a clergyman’s gown, but with a lawyer’s +band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed volumes, +which he found to be Pope’s Epistolary Correspondence; that +he asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, +and thought himself authorised to use his purchase +to his own advantage.” Smith, the clergyman, left him some +copies, and promised more.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296' name='page_296'></a>296</span></div> +<p>Curll now, in all the elation of possession, rolled his thunder +in an advertisement still higher than ever.—“Mr. Pope’s +Literary Correspondence regularly digested, from 1704 to +1734:” to lords, earls, baronets, doctors, ladies, &c., with +their respective answers, and whose names glittered in the +advertisement. The original MSS. were also announced to be +seen at his house.</p> +<p>But at this moment Curll had not received many books, +and no MSS. The advertisement produced the effect designed; +it roused public notice, and it alarmed several in the House of +Lords. Pope doubtless instigated his friends there. The +Earl of Jersey moved, that to publish letters of Lords was a +breach of privilege; and Curll was brought before the House.</p> +<p>This was an unexpected incident; and P. T. once more +throws his dark shadow across the path of Curll to hearten +him, had he wanted courage to face all the lords. P. T. writes +to instruct him in his answers to their examination; but to +take the utmost care to conceal P. T.; he assures him that +the lords could not touch a hair of his head if he behaved +firmly; that he should only answer their interrogatories by +declaring he received the letters from different persons; that +some were given, and some were bought. P. T. reminds one, +on this occasion, of Junius’s correspondence on a like threat +with his publisher.</p> +<p>“Curll appeared at the bar,” says Johnson, “and knowing +himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little +reverence. ‘He has,’ said Curll, ‘a knack at versifying; but +in prose I think myself a match for him.’ When the Orders +of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have +been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was +left to seek some other remedy.” The fact, not mentioned by +Johnson, is, that though Curll’s flourishing advertisement had +announced <i>letters written by lords</i>, when the volumes were +examined not one written by a lord appeared.</p> +<p>The letter Curll wrote on the occasion to one of these dark +familiars, the pretended clergyman, marks his spirit and sagacity. +It contains a remarkable passage. Some readers will +be curious to have the productions of so celebrated a personage, +who appears to have exercised considerable talents.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'><i>15th May, 1735.</i></p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Dear Sir</span>,—I am just again going to the Lords to finish +Pope. I desire you to send me the <i>sheets</i> to <i>perfect</i> the first +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297' name='page_297'></a>297</span> +fifty books, and likewise the <i>remaining three hundred books</i>; +and pray be at the Standard Tavern this evening, and I will +pay you twenty pounds more. My defence is right; I only +told the lords I did not know from whence the books came, +and that my wife received them. This was strict truth, and +prevented all further inquiry. <i>The lords declared they had +been made Pope’s tools.</i> I put myself on this single point, +and insisted, as there was not any Peer’s letter in the book, I +had not been guilty of any breach of privilege. I depend +that the <i>books</i> and the <i>imperfections</i> will be sent; and believe +of P. T. what I hope he believes of me.</p> +<p>“For the Rev. Mr. <span class='smcap'>Smith</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The reader observes that Curll talks of a great number of +<i>books not received</i>, and of <i>the few</i> which he has received, as +<i>imperfect</i>. The fact is, the whole bubble is on the point of +breaking. He, masked in the initial letters, and he, who wore +the masquerade dress of a clergyman’s gown with a lawyer’s +band, suddenly picked a quarrel with the duped bibliopolist: +they now accuse him of a design he had of betraying them to +the Lords!</p> +<p>The tantalized and provoked Curll then addressed the following +letter to “The Rev. Mr. Smith,” which, both as a +specimen of this celebrated personage’s “prose,” in which he +thought himself “a match for Pope,” and exhibiting some +traits of his character, will entertain the curious reader.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'><i>Friday, 16 May, 1735.</i></p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,—1st, I am falsely accused. 2. I value not any man’s +change of temper; I will never change my <span class='smcaplc'>VERACITY</span> for +falsehood, in owning a fact of which I am innocent. 3. I did +not own the books came from <i>across the water</i>, nor ever <i>named +you</i>; all I said was, that the books came <i>by water</i>. 4. When +the books were seized, I sent my son to convey a letter to +you; and as you told me everybody knew you in Southwark, +I bid him make a strict inquiry, as I am sure you would have +done in such an exigency. 5. Sir, <i>I have acted justly</i> in this +affair, and that is what I shall always think wisely. 6. I will +be kept no longer in the dark; P. T. is <i>Will o’ the Wisp</i>; +all the books I have had are imperfect; the first fifty had no +titles nor prefaces; the last five bundles seized by the Lords +contained but thirty-eight in each bundle, which amounts to +one hundred and ninety, and fifty, is in all but two hundred +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298' name='page_298'></a>298</span> +and forty books. 7. As to the loss of a future copy, I despise +it, nor will I be concerned with any more such dark suspicious +dealers. But now, sir, I’ll tell you what I will do: +when I have the <i>books perfected</i> which I have already received, +and <i>the rest of the impression</i>, I will pay you for them. But +what do you call this usage? First take a note for a month, +and then want it to be changed for one of Sir Richard Hoare’s. +My note is as good, for any sum I give it, as the Bank, and +shall be as punctually paid. I always say, <i>gold is better than +paper</i>. But if this dark converse goes on, I will instantly +reprint the whole book; and, as a supplement to it, all the +letters P. T. ever sent me, of which I have exact copies, together +with all your originals, and give them in upon oath to +my Lord Chancellor. You talk of <i>trust</i>—P. T. has not +reposed any in me, for he has my money and notes for imperfect +books. Let me see, sir, either P. T. or yourself, or you’ll +find the Scots proverb verified, <i>Nemo me impune lacessit</i>.</p> +<p class='sig2'>“Your abused humble servant,</p> +<p class='sig3'> “<span class='smcap'>E. Curll</span>.</p> +<p>“P.S. Lord —— I attend this day. <span class='smcap'>Lord Delawar +I sup with to-night.</span> Where <i>Pope</i> has one lord, I have +twenty.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>After this, Curll announced “Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, +with the <i>initial correspondence</i> of P. T., R. S. &c.” +But the shadowy correspondents now publicly declared that +they could give <i>no title</i> whatever to Mr. Pope’s letters, with +which they had furnished <span class='smcap'>Curll</span>, and never pretended any; +that therefore any bookseller had the same right of printing +them: and, in respect to money matters between them, he +had given them notes not negotiable, and had never paid them +fully for the copies, perfect and imperfect, which he had sold.</p> +<p>Thus terminated this dark transaction between Curll and +his <i>initial</i> correspondents. He still persisted in printing +several editions of the letters of Pope, which furnished the +poet with a modest pretext to publish an authentic edition—the +very point to which the whole of this dark and intricate +plot seems to have been really directed.<a name='FNanchor_0211' id='FNanchor_0211'></a><a href='#Footnote_0211' class='fnanchor'>[211]</a></p> +<p>Were Pope not concerned in this mysterious transaction, +how happened it that the letters which P. T. actually printed +were genuine? To account for this, Pope promulgated a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299' name='page_299'></a>299</span> +new fact. Since the first publication of his letters to his +friend Cromwell, wrenched from the distressed female who +possessed them, our poet had been advised to collect his +letters; and these he had preserved by inserting them in two +books; either the originals or the copies. For this purpose +an amanuensis or two were employed by Pope when these +books were in the country, and by the Earl of Oxford when +they were in town. Pope pretended that Curll’s letters had +been extracted from these two books, but sometimes imperfectly +transcribed, and sometimes interpolated. Pope, indeed, +offered a reward of twenty pounds to “P. T.” and “R. Smith, +who passed for a clergyman,” if they would come forward +and discover the whole of this affair; or “if they had acted, +as it was reported, by the <i>direction</i> of any other person.” +They never appeared. Lintot, the son of the great rival of +Curll, told Dr. Johnson, that his father had been offered the +same parcel of printed books, and that Pope knew better than +anybody else how Curll obtained the copies.</p> +<p>Dr. Johnson, although he appears not to have been aware +of the subtle intricacy of this extraordinary plot, has justly +drawn this inference: “To make the copies perfect was the +only purpose of Pope, because the numbers offered for sale by +the private messengers, showed that hope of gain could not +have been the motive of the impression. It seems that Pope, +being desirous of printing his letters, and not knowing how +to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country +been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion; +when he could complain that his letters were surreptitiously +printed, he might decently and defensively publish them +himself.”</p> +<p>I have observed, how the first letter of P. T. pretending to +be written by one who owed no kindness to Pope, bears the +evident impression of his own hand; for it contains matters +not exactly true, but exactly what Pope wished should appear +in his own life. That he had prepared his letters for publication, +appears by the story of the two MS. books—that the +printed ones came by water, would look as if they had been +sent from his house at Twickenham; and, were it not absurd +to pretend to decipher initials, P. T. might be imagined to +indicate the name of the owner, as well as his place of abode.</p> +<p>Worsdale, an indifferent painter, was a man of some +humour in personating a character, for he performed Old +Lady Scandal in one of his own farces. He was also a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300' name='page_300'></a>300</span> +literary adventurer, for, according to Mrs. Pilkington’s +Memoirs, wishing to be a poet as well as a mimic, he got her +and her husband to write all the verses which passed with +his name; such a man was well adapted to be this clergyman +with the lawyer’s band, and Worsdale has asserted that he +was really employed by his friend Pope on this occasion.</p> +<p>Such is the intricate narrative of this involved transaction. +Pope completely succeeded, by the most subtile manœuvres +imaginable; the incident which perhaps was not originally +expected, of having his letters brought before the examination +at the House of Lords, most amply gratified his pride, +and awakened public curiosity. “He made the House of +Lords,” says Curll, “his tools.” Greater ingenuity, perplexity, +and secrecy have scarcely been thrown into the conduct +of the writer, or writers, of the Letters of Junius.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301' name='page_301'></a>301</span> +<a name='POPE_AND_CIBBER_CONTAINING__A_VINDICATION_OF_THE_COMIC_WRITER' id='POPE_AND_CIBBER_CONTAINING__A_VINDICATION_OF_THE_COMIC_WRITER'></a> +<h3>POPE AND CIBBER;</h3> +<h4><span class='smcaplc'>CONTAINING</span><br />A VINDICATION OF THE COMIC WRITER.</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>Pope</span> attacked <span class='smcap'>Cibber</span> from personal motives—by dethroning Theobald, in +the <i>Dunciad</i>, to substitute <span class='smcap'>Cibber</span>, he made the satire not apply—<span class='smcap'>Cibber’s</span> +facetious and serious remonstrance—<span class='smcap'>Cibber’s</span> inimitable good-humour—an +apology for what has been called his “effrontery”—perhaps +a modest man, and undoubtedly a man of genius—his humorous +defence of his deficiency in Tragedy, both in acting and writing—Pope +more hurt at being exposed as a ridiculous lover than as a bad man—an +account of “The Egotist, or Colley upon Cibber,” a kind of supplement +to the “Apology for his life,” in which he has drawn his own +character with great freedom and spirit.</p> +<p>Pope’s quarrel with Cibber may serve to check the +haughtiness of genius; it is a remarkable instance how good-humour +can gently draw a boundary round the arbitrary +power, whenever the wantonness of satire would conceal +calumny. But this quarrel will become even more interesting, +should it throw a new light on the character of one +whose originality of genius seems little suspected. Cibber +showed a happy address in a very critical situation, and +obtained an honourable triumph over the malice of a great +genius, whom, while he complained of he admired, and almost +loved the cynic.</p> +<p>Pope, after several “flirts,” as Cibber calls them, from +slight personal motives, which Cibber has fully opened,<a name='FNanchor_0212' id='FNanchor_0212'></a><a href='#Footnote_0212' class='fnanchor'>[212]</a> at +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302' name='page_302'></a>302</span> +length from “peevish weakness,” as Lord Orford has happily +expressed it, closed his insults by dethroning Theobald, and +substituting Cibber; but as he would not lose what he had +already written, this change disturbed the whole decorum of +the satiric fiction. Things of opposite natures, joined into +one, became the poetical chimera of Horace. The hero of +the <i>Dunciad</i> is neither Theobald nor Cibber; Pope forced +a dunce to appear as Cibber; but this was not making Cibber +a dunce. This error in Pope emboldened Cibber in the contest, +for he still insisted that the satire did not apply to +him;<a name='FNanchor_0213' id='FNanchor_0213'></a><a href='#Footnote_0213' class='fnanchor'>[213]</a> and humorously compared the libel “to a purge with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303' name='page_303'></a>303</span> +a wrong label,” and Pope “to an apothecary who did not +mind his business.”<a name='FNanchor_0214' id='FNanchor_0214'></a><a href='#Footnote_0214' class='fnanchor'>[214]</a></p> +<p>Cibber triumphed in the arduous conflict—though sometimes +he felt that, like the Patriarch of old, he was wrestling, +not with an equal, but one of celestial race, “and the hollow +of his thigh was out of joint.” Still, however, he triumphed, +by that singular felicity of character, that inimitable <i>gaieté +de cœur</i>, that honest simplicity of truth, from which flowed +so warm an admiration of the genius of his adversary; and +that exquisite <i>tact</i> in the characters of men, which carried +down this child of airy humour to the verge of his ninetieth +year, with all the enjoyments of strong animal spirits, and all +that innocent egotism which became frequently a source of +his own raillery.<a name='FNanchor_0215' id='FNanchor_0215'></a><a href='#Footnote_0215' class='fnanchor'>[215]</a> He has applied to himself the epithet +“impenetrable,” which was probably in the mind of Johnson +when he noticed his “impenetrable impudence.” A critic has +charged him with “effrontery.”<a name='FNanchor_0216' id='FNanchor_0216'></a><a href='#Footnote_0216' class='fnanchor'>[216]</a> Critics are apt to admit +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304' name='page_304'></a>304</span> +too much of traditional opinion into their own; it is necessary +sometimes to correct the knowledge we receive. For my +part, I can almost believe that Cibber was a <i>modest man</i>!<a name='FNanchor_0217' id='FNanchor_0217'></a><a href='#Footnote_0217' class='fnanchor'>[217]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305' name='page_305'></a>305</span> +as he was most certainly a man of genius. Cibber had lived +a dissipated life, and his philosophical indifference, with his +careless gaiety, was the breastplate which even the wit of +Pope failed to pierce. During twenty years’ persecution for +his unlucky Odes, he never lost his temper; he would read +to his friends the best things pointed against them, with all +the spirit the authors could wish; and would himself write +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306' name='page_306'></a>306</span> +epigrams for the pleasure of hearing them repeated while +sitting in coffee-houses; and whenever they were applauded +as “Palpable hits!”—“Keen!”—“Things with a spirit in +them!”—he enjoyed these attacks on himself by himself.<a name='FNanchor_0218' id='FNanchor_0218'></a><a href='#Footnote_0218' class='fnanchor'>[218]</a> If +this be vanity, it is at least “<i>Cibberian</i>.”</p> +<p>It was, indeed, the singularity of his personal character +which so long injured his genius, and laid him open to the +perpetual attacks of his contemporaries,<a name='FNanchor_0219' id='FNanchor_0219'></a><a href='#Footnote_0219' class='fnanchor'>[219]</a> who were mean +enough to ridicule undisguised foibles, but dared not be just +to the redeeming virtues of his genius. Yet his genius far +exceeded his literary frailties. He knew he was no poet, yet +he would string wretched rhymes, even when not salaried for +them; and once wrote an Essay on Cicero’s character, for +which his dotage was scarcely an apology;—so much he preferred +amusement to prudence.<a name='FNanchor_0220' id='FNanchor_0220'></a><a href='#Footnote_0220' class='fnanchor'>[220]</a> Another foible was to act +tragedies with a squeaking voice<a name='FNanchor_0221' id='FNanchor_0221'></a><a href='#Footnote_0221' class='fnanchor'>[221]</a>, and to write them with a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307' name='page_307'></a>307</span> +genius about the same size for the sublime; but the malice of +his contemporaries seemed to forget that he was creating new +dramatic existences in the exquisite personifications of his +comic characters; and was producing some of our standard +comedies, composed with such real genius, that they still support +the reputation of the English stage.</p> +<p>In the “Apology for his Life,” Cibber had shown himself +a generous and an ill-treated adversary, and at all times was +prodigal of his eulogiums, even after the death of Pope; but, +when remonstrance and good temper failed to sheathe with +their oil the sharp sting of the wasp, as his weakest talent +was not the ludicrous, he resolved to gain the laughers over, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308' name='page_308'></a>308</span> +and threw Pope into a very ridiculous attitude.<a name='FNanchor_0222' id='FNanchor_0222'></a><a href='#Footnote_0222' class='fnanchor'>[222]</a> It was +extorted from Cibber by this insulting line of Pope’s:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>And has not Colley, too, his Lord and w—e?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It seems that Pope had once the same! But a ridiculous +story, suited to the taste of the loungers, nettled Pope more +than the keener remonstrances and the honest truths which +Cibber has urged. Those who write libels, invite imitation.</p> +<p>Besides the two letters addressed by Cibber to Pope, this +quarrel produced a moral trifle, or rather a philosophical +curiosity, respecting Cibber’s own character, which is stamped +with the full impression of all its originality.</p> +<p>The title, so expressive of its design, and the whim and +good-humour of the work, which may be considered as a +curious supplement to the “Apology for his Life,” could +scarcely have been imagined, and most certainly could not +have been executed, but by the genius who dared it. I give +the title in the note.<a name='FNanchor_0223' id='FNanchor_0223'></a><a href='#Footnote_0223' class='fnanchor'>[223]</a> It is a curious exemplification of +what Shaftesbury has so fancifully described as “self-inspection.” +This little work is a conversation between “Mr. +Frankly and his old acquaintance, Colley Cibber.” Cibber +had the spirit of making this Mr. Frankly speak the bitterest +things against himself; and he must have been an attentive +reader of all the keenest reproaches his enemies ever had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309' name='page_309'></a>309</span> +thrown out. This caustic censor is not a man of straw, set +up to be easily knocked down. He has as much vivacity and +wit as Cibber himself, and not seldom has the better of the +argument. But the gravity and the levity blended in this +little piece form admirable contrasts: and Cibber, in this +varied effusion, acquires all our esteem for that open simplicity, +that unalterable good-humour which flowed from +nature, and that fine spirit that touches everything with life; +yet, as he himself confesses, the main accusation of Mr. +Frankly, that “his philosophical air will come out at last mere +vanity in masquerade,” may be true.</p> +<p>I will attempt to collect some specimens of this extraordinary +production, because they harmonise with the design of +the present work, and afford principles, in regard to preserving +an equability of temper, which may guide us in Literary +Quarrels.</p> +<p><i>Frankly</i> observes, on Cibber’s declaration that he is not +uneasy at Pope’s satire, that <a name='TC_16'></a><ins title="Start of very long, multi-paragraph quote">“no</ins> +blockhead is so dull as not +to be sore when he is called so; and (you’ll excuse me) if that +were to be your own case, why should we believe you would +not be as uneasy at it as another blockhead?</p> +<p><i>Author.</i> This is pushing me pretty home indeed; but I wont +give out. For as it is not at all inconceivable, that a +blockhead of my size may have a particular knack of doing +some useful thing that might puzzle a wiser man to be master +of, will not that blockhead still have something in him to be +conceited of? If so, allow me but the vanity of supposing I +may have had some such possible knack, and you will not +wonder (though in many other points I may still be a blockhead) +that I may, notwithstanding, be contented with my +condition.</p> +<p><i>Frankly.</i> Is it not commendable, in a man of parts, to be +warmly concerned for his reputation?</p> +<p><i>Author.</i> In what regards his honesty or honour, I will +make some allowance; but for the reputation of his parts, not +one tittle.</p> +<p><i>Frankly.</i> How! not to be concerned for what half the +learned world are in a continual war about.</p> +<p><i>Author</i>. So are another half about religion; but neither +Turk or Pope, swords or anathemas, can alter truth! There +it stands! always visible to reason, self-defended and immovable! +Whatever it <i>was</i>, or <i>is</i>, it ever <i>will be</i>! As no +attack can alter, so no defence can add to its proportion.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310' name='page_310'></a>310</span></div> +<p><i>Frankly.</i> At this rate, you pronounce all controversies in +wit to be either needless or impertinent.</p> +<p><i>Author.</i> When one in a hundred happens <i>not</i> to be so, or +to make amends for being either by its pleasantry, we ought +in justice to allow it a great rarity. A reply to a just satire +or criticism will seldom be thought better of.</p> +<p><i>Frankly.</i> May not a reply be a good one?</p> +<p><i>Author.</i> Yes, but never absolutely necessary; for as your +work (or reputation) must have been good or bad, before it +was censured, your reply to that censure could not alter it: +it would still be but what it was. If it was good, the attack +could not hurt it: if bad, the reply could not mend it.<a name='FNanchor_0224' id='FNanchor_0224'></a><a href='#Footnote_0224' class='fnanchor'>[224]</a></p> +<p><i>Frankly.</i> But slander is not always so impotent as you +seem to suppose it; men of the best sense may be misled by +it, or, by their not inquiring after truth, may never come at +it; and the vulgar, as they are less apt to be good than ill-natured, +often mistake malice for wit, and have an uncharitable +joy in commending it. Now, when this is the case, +is not a tame silence, upon being satirically libelled, as liable +to be thought guilt or stupidity, as to be the result of innocence +or temper?—Self-defence is a very natural and just +excuse for a reply.</p> +<p><i>Author.</i> Be it so! But still that does not always make +it necessary; for though slander, by their not weighing it, +may pass upon some few people of sense for truth, and might +draw great numbers of the vulgar into its party, the mischief +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311' name='page_311'></a>311</span> +can never be of long duration. <i>A satirical slander, that has +no truth to support it, is only a great fish upon dry land: it +may flounce and fling, and make a fretful pother, but it wont +bite you; you need not knock it on the head; it will soon lie +still, and die quietly of itself.</i></p> +<p><i>Frankly.</i> The single-sheet critics will find you employment.</p> +<p><i>Author.</i> Indeed they wont. +I’m not so mad as to think +myself a match for the invulnerable.</p> +<p><i>Frankly.</i> Have a care; there’s Foulwit; though he can’t +feel, he can bite.</p> +<p><i>Author.</i> Ay, so will bugs and fleas; but that’s only for +sustenance: everything must feed, you know; and your creeping +critics are a sort of vermin, that if they could come to a +king, would not spare him; yet, whenever they can persuade +others to laugh at their jest upon me, I will honestly make +one of the number; but I must ask their pardon, if that +should be all the reply I can afford <a name='TC_17'></a><ins title="End of really long, multi-paragraph quote">them.”</ins></p> +<p>This “boy of seventy odd,” for such he was when he wrote +“The Egotist,” unfolds his character by many lively personal +touches. He declares he could not have “given the world so +finished a coxcomb as Lord Foppington, if he had not found +a good deal of the same stuff in himself to make him with.” +He addresses “A Postscript, To those few unfortunate +Readers and Writers who may not have more sense than the +Author:” and he closes, in all the fulness of his spirit, with +a piece of consolation for those who are so cruelly attacked by +superior genius.</p> +<p>“Let us then, gentlemen, who have the misfortune to lie +thus at the mercy of those whose natural parts happen to be +stronger than our own—let us, I say, make the most of our +sterility! Let us double and treble the ranks of our thickness, +that we may form an impregnable phalanx, and stand +every way in front to the enemy! or, would you still be liable +to less hazard, lay but yourselves down, as I do, flat and quiet +upon your faces, when Pride, Malice, Envy, Wit, or Prejudice +let fly their formidable shot at you, what odds is it they +don’t all whistle over your head? Thus, too, though we may +want the artillery of missive wit to make reprisals, we may at +least in security bid them kiss the tails we have turned to +them. Who knows but, by this our supine, or rather prone +serenity, their disappointed valour may become their own +vexation? Or let us yet, at worst, but solidly stand our +ground, like so many defensive stone-posts, and we may defy the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_312' name='page_312'></a>312</span> +proudest Jehu of them all to drive over us. Thus, gentlemen, +you see that Insensibility is not without its comforts; and as +I give you no worse advice than I have taken myself, and +found my account in, I hope you will have the hardness to +follow it, for your own good and the glory of</p> +<p class='sig1'>“Your impenetrable humble servant,</p> +<p class='sig3'> “C. C.”</p> +<p>After all, one may perceive, that though the good-humour +of poor Cibber was real, still the immortal satire of Pope had +injured his higher feelings. He betrays his secret grief at his +close, while he seems to be sporting with his pen; and though +he appears to confide in the falsity of the satire as his best +chance for saving him from it, still he feels that the caustic +ink of such a satirist must blister and spot wherever it falls. +The anger of Warburton, and the sternness of Johnson, who +seem always to have considered an actor as an inferior being +among men of genius, have degraded Cibber. They never +suspected that “a blockhead of his size could do what wiser +men could not,” and, as a fine comic genius, command a whole +province in human nature.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_313' name='page_313'></a>313</span> +<a name='POPE_AND_ADDISON' id='POPE_AND_ADDISON'></a> +<h3>POPE AND ADDISON.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>The quarrel between <span class='smcap'>Pope</span> and <span class='smcap'>Addison</span> originated in one of the infirmities +of genius—a subject of inquiry even after their death, by Sir <span class='smcap'>William +Blackstone—Pope</span> courts <span class='smcap'>Addison</span>—suspects <span class='smcap'>Addison</span> of jealousy—<span class='smcap'>Addison’s</span> +foible to be considered a great poet—interview between the +rivals, of which the result was the portrait of <span class='smcap'>Atticus</span>, for which <span class='smcap'>Addison</span> +was made to sit.</p> +<p>Among the Literary Quarrels of <span class='smcap'>Pope</span> one acquires dignity +and interest from the characters of both parties. It closed by +producing the severest, but the most masterly portrait of one +man of genius, composed by another, which has ever been +hung on the satiric Parnassus for the contemplation of ages. +<span class='smcap'>Addison</span> must descend to posterity with the dark spots of +<span class='smcap'>Atticus</span> staining a purity of character which had nearly +proved immaculate.</p> +<p>The friendship between Pope and Addison was interrupted by +one of the infirmities of genius. Tempers of watchful delicacy +gather up in silence and darkness motives so shadowy in their +origin, and of such minute growth, that, never breaking out +into any open act, they escape all other eyes but those of the +parties themselves. These causes of enmity are too subtle to +bear the touch; they cannot be inquired after, nor can they +be described; and it may be said that the minds of such men +have rather quarrelled than they themselves: they utter no +complaints, but they avoid each other. All the world perceived +that two authors of the finest genius had separated +from motives on which both were silent, but which had evidently +operated with equal force on both. Their admirers +were very general, and at a time when literature divided with +politics the public interest, the best feelings of the nation were +engaged in tracking the obscure commencements and the +secret growth of this literary quarrel, in which the amiable +and moral qualities of Addison, and the gratitude and honour +of Pope, were equally involved. The friends of either party +pretended that their chiefs entertained a reciprocal regard for +each other, while the illustrious characters themselves were +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_314' name='page_314'></a>314</span> +living in a state of hostility. Even long after these literary +heroes were departed, the same interest was general among +the lovers of literature; but those obscure motives which had +only influenced two minds—those imperceptible events, which +are only events as they are watched by the jealousy of genius—eluded +the most anxious investigation. Yet so lasting and +so powerful was the interest excited by this literary quarrel, +that, within a few years, the elegant mind of Sir <span class='smcap'>William +Blackstone</span> withdrew from the severity of profounder studies +to inquire into the causes of a quarrel which was still exciting +the most opposite opinions. Blackstone has judged and +summed up; but though he evidently inclines to favour +Addison, by throwing into the balance some explanation for +the silence of Addison against the audible complaints of Pope; +though sometimes he pleads as well as judges, and infers as +well as proves; yet even Blackstone has not taken on himself +to deliver a decision. His happy genius has only honoured +literary history by the masterly force and luminous arrangement +of investigation, to which, since the time of Bayle, it +has been too great a stranger.<a name='FNanchor_0225' id='FNanchor_0225'></a><a href='#Footnote_0225' class='fnanchor'>[225]</a></p> +<p>At this day, removed from all personal influence and affections, +and furnished with facts which contemporaries could +not command, we take no other concern in this literary quarrel +but as far as curiosity and truth delight us in the study of +human nature. We are now of no party—we are only historians!</p> +<p>Pope was a young writer when introduced to Addison by +the intervention of that generously-minded friend of both, +Steele. Addison eulogised Pope’s “Essay on Criticism;” +and this fine genius covering with his wing an unfledged +bardling, conferred a favour which, in the estimation of a poet, +claims a life of indelible gratitude.</p> +<p>Pope zealously courted Addison by his poetical aid on +several important occasions; he gave all the dignity that +fine poetry could confer on the science of medals, which +Addison had written on, and wrote the finest prologue in the +language for the Whig tragedy of his friend. Dennis attacked, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_315' name='page_315'></a>315</span> +and Pope defended <i>Cato</i><a name='FNanchor_0226' id='FNanchor_0226'></a><a href='#Footnote_0226' class='fnanchor'>[226]</a>. Addison might have disapproved +both of the manner and the matter of the defence; +but he did more—he insulted Pope by a letter to Dennis, +which Dennis eagerly published as Pope’s severest condemnation. +An alienation of friendship must have already taken +place, but by no overt act on Pope’s side.</p> +<p>Not that, however, Pope had not found his affections +weakened: the dark hints scattered in his letters show that +something was gathering in his mind. Warburton, from his +familiar intercourse with Pope, must be allowed to have +known his literary concerns more than any one; and when +he drew up the narrative,<a name='FNanchor_0227' id='FNanchor_0227'></a><a href='#Footnote_0227' class='fnanchor'>[227]</a> seems to me to have stated uncouthly, +but expressively, the progressive state of Pope’s +feelings. According to that narrative, Pope “reflected,” +that after he had first published “The Rape of the Lock,” +then nothing more than a hasty <i>jeu d’esprit</i>, when he communicated +to Addison his very original project of the whole +sylphid machinery, Addison chilled the ardent bard with his +coldness, advised him against any alteration, and to leave it +as “a delicious little thing, <i>merum sal</i>.” It was then, says +Warburton, “Mr. Pope began to <i>open his eyes</i> to Addison’s +character.” But when afterwards he discovered that Tickell’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_316' name='page_316'></a>316</span> +Homer was opposed to his, and judged, as Warburton says, +“by <i>laying many odd circumstances</i> together,” that Addison,<a name='FNanchor_0228' id='FNanchor_0228'></a><a href='#Footnote_0228' class='fnanchor'>[228]</a> +and not Tickell, was the author—the alienation on Pope’s +side was complete. No open breach indeed had yet taken +place between the rival authors, who, as jealous of dominion +as two princes, would still demonstrate, in their public edicts, +their inviolable regard; while they were only watching the +advantageous moment when they might take arms against +each other.</p> +<p>Still Addison publicly bestowed great encomiums on Pope’s +<i>Iliad</i>, although he had himself composed the rival version, +and in private preferred his own.<a name='FNanchor_0229' id='FNanchor_0229'></a><a href='#Footnote_0229' class='fnanchor'>[229]</a> He did this with the same +ease he had continued its encouragement while Pope was employed +on it. We are astonished to discover such deep politics +among literary Machiavels! Addison had certainly raised up +a literary party. Sheridan, who wrote nearly with the knowledge +of a contemporary, in his “Life of Swift,” would naturally +use the language and the feelings of the time; and in +describing Ambrose Phillips, he adds, he was “one of Mr. +Addison’s little senate.”</p> +<p>But in this narrative I have dropt some material parts. +Pope believed that Addison had employed Gildon to write +against him, and had encouraged Phillips to asperse his character.<a name='FNanchor_0230' id='FNanchor_0230'></a><a href='#Footnote_0230' class='fnanchor'>[230]</a> +We cannot, now, quite demonstrate these alleged facts; +but we can show that Pope believed them, and that Addison +does not appear to have refuted them.<a name='FNanchor_0231' id='FNanchor_0231'></a><a href='#Footnote_0231' class='fnanchor'>[231]</a> Such tales, whether +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317' name='page_317'></a>317</span> +entirely false or partially true, may be considered in this inquiry +of little amount. The greater events must regulate +the lesser ones.<a name='FNanchor_0232' id='FNanchor_0232'></a><a href='#Footnote_0232' class='fnanchor'>[232]</a></p> +<p>Was Addison, then, jealous of Pope? Addison, in every +respect, then, his superior; of established literary fame when +Pope was yet young; preceding him in age and rank; and +fortunate in all the views of human ambition. But what if +Addison’s foible was that of being considered a great poet? +His political poetry had raised him to an undue elevation, +and the growing celebrity of Pope began to offend him, not +with the appearance of a meek rival, with whom he might +have held divided empire, but as a master-spirit, that was +preparing to reign alone. It is certain that Addison was the +most feeling man alive at the fate of his poetry. At the +representation of his <i>Cato</i>, such was his agitation, that had +<i>Cato</i> been condemned, the life of Addison might, too, have +been shortened. When a wit had burlesqued some lines of +this dramatic poem, his uneasiness at the innocent banter was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_318' name='page_318'></a>318</span> +equally oppressive; nor could he rest, till, by the interposition +of a friend, he prevailed upon the author to burn +them.<a name='FNanchor_0233' id='FNanchor_0233'></a><a href='#Footnote_0233' class='fnanchor'>[233]</a></p> +<p>To the facts already detailed, and to this disposition in +Addison’s temper, and to the quick and active suspicions of +Pope, irritable, and ambitious of all the sovereignty of poetry, +we may easily conceive many others of those obscure motives, +and invisible events, which none but Pope, alienated every +day more and more from his affections for Addison, too +acutely perceived, too profoundly felt, and too unmercifully +avenged. These are alluded to when the satirist sings—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Damn with faint praise; assent with civil leer;<br /> +And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;<br /> +Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike;<br /> +Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike, &c.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Accusations crowded faster than the pen could write them +down. Pope never composed with more warmth. No one +can imagine that Atticus was an ideal personage, touched as +it is with all the features of an extraordinary individual. +In a word, it was recognised instantly by the individual himself; +and it was suppressed by Pope for near twenty years, +before he suffered it to escape to the public.</p> +<p>It was some time during their avowed rupture, for the +exact period has not been given, that their friends promoted +a meeting between these two great men. After a mutual +lustration, it was imagined they might have expiated their +error, and have been restored to their original purity. The +interview did take place between the rival wits, and was +productive of some very characteristic ebullitions, strongly +corroborative of the facts as they have been stated here. +This extraordinary interview has been frequently alluded to. +There can be no doubt of the genuineness of the narrative +but I know not on what authority it came into the world.<a name='FNanchor_0234' id='FNanchor_0234'></a><a href='#Footnote_0234' class='fnanchor'>[234]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319' name='page_319'></a>319</span></div> +<p>The interview between Addison and Pope took place in the +presence of Steele and Gay. They met with cold civility. +Addison’s reserve wore away, as was usual with him, when +wine and conversation imparted some warmth to his native +phlegm. At a moment the generous Steele deemed auspicious, +he requested Addison would perform his promise in +renewing his friendship with Pope. Pope expressed his +desire: he said he was willing to hear his faults, and preferred +candour and severity rather than forms of complaisance; +but he spoke in a manner as conceiving Addison, and not +himself, had been the aggressor. So much like their humblest +inferiors do great men act under the influence of common +passions: Addison was overcome with anger, which cost him +an effort to suppress; but, in the formal speech he made, he +reproached Pope with indulging a vanity that far exceeded +his merit; that he had not yet attained to the excellence he +imagined; and observed, that his verses had a different air +when Steele and himself corrected them; and, on this occasion, +reminded Pope of a particular line which Steele had +improved in the “Messiah.”<a name='FNanchor_0235' id='FNanchor_0235'></a><a href='#Footnote_0235' class='fnanchor'>[235]</a> Addison seems at that moment +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_320' name='page_320'></a>320</span> +to have forgotten that he had trusted, for the last line of his +own dramatic poem, rather to the inspiration of the poet he +was so contemptuously lecturing than to his own.<a name='FNanchor_0236' id='FNanchor_0236'></a><a href='#Footnote_0236' class='fnanchor'>[236]</a> He proceeded +with detailing all the abuse the herd of scribblers had +heaped on Pope; and by declaring that his Homer was “an +ill-executed thing,” and Tickell’s had all the spirit. We are +told, he concluded “in a low hollow voice of feigned temper,” +in which he asserted that he had ceased to be solicitous +about his own poetical reputation since he had entered into +more public affairs; but, from friendship for Pope, desired +him to be more humble, if he wished to appear a better man +to the world.</p> +<p>When Addison had quite finished schooling his little rebel, +Gay, mild and timid (for it seems, with all his love for Pope, +his expectations from the court, from Addison’s side, had +tethered his gentle heart), attempted to say something. But +Pope, in a tone far more spirited than all of them, without +reserve told Addison that he appealed from his judgment, +and did not esteem him able to correct his verses; upbraided +him as a pensioner from early youth, directing the learning +which had been obtained by the public money to his own +selfish desire of power, and that he “had always endeavoured +to cut down new-fledged merit.” The conversation now became +a contest, and was broken up without ceremony. Such +was the notable interview between two rival wits, which only +ended in strengthening their literary quarrel; and sent back +the enraged satirist to his inkstand, where he composed a +portrait, for which Addison was made to sit, with the fine +<i>chiar’ oscuro</i> of Horace, and with as awful and vindictive +features as the sombre hand of Juvenal could have designed.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_321' name='page_321'></a>321</span> +<a name='BOLINGBROKE_AND_MALLETS_POSTHUMOUS_QUARREL_WITH_POPE' id='BOLINGBROKE_AND_MALLETS_POSTHUMOUS_QUARREL_WITH_POPE'></a> +<h3>BOLINGBROKE AND MALLET’S POSTHUMOUS QUARREL WITH POPE.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>Lord <span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke</span> affects violent resentment for Pope’s pretended breach +of confidence in having printed his “Patriot +King”—<span class='smcap'>Warburton’s</span> +apology for <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> disinterested +intentions—<span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke</span> instigates +<span class='smcap'>Mallet</span> to libel <span class='smcap'>Pope</span>, after the poet’s death—The real motive for +libelling <span class='smcap'>Pope</span> was <span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke’s</span> personal hatred of <span class='smcap'>Warburton</span>, for +the ascendancy the latter had obtained over the poet—Some account of +their rival conflicts—<span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke</span> had unsettled <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> religious +opinions, and <span class='smcap'>Warburton</span> had confirmed his +faith—<span class='smcap'>Pope</span>, however, +refuses to abjure the Catholic religion—Anecdote of <span class='smcap'>Pope’s</span> anxiety +respecting a future state—<span class='smcap'>Mallet’s</span> intercourse with <span class='smcap'>Pope</span>: anecdote of +“The Apollo Vision,” where <span class='smcap'>Mallet</span> mistook a sarcasm for a compliment—<span class='smcap'>Mallet’s</span> character—Why <span class='smcap'>Leonidas Glover</span> declined writing +the Life of Marlborough—<span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke’s</span> character hit +off—<span class='smcap'>Warburton</span>, +the concealed object of this posthumous quarrel with <span class='smcap'>Pope</span>.</p> +<p>On the death of <span class='smcap'>Pope</span>, 1500 copies of one of Lord <span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke’s</span> +works, “The Patriot King,” were discovered to have +been secretly printed by Pope, but never published. The +honest printer presented the whole to his lordship, who burned +the edition in his gardens at Battersea. The MS. had been +delivered to our poet by his lordship, with a request to print +a few copies for its better preservation, and for the use of a +few friends.</p> +<p>Bolingbroke affected to feel the most lively resentment for +what he chose to stigmatise as “a breach of confidence.” +“His thirst of vengeance,” said Johnson, “incited him to +blast the memory of the man over whom he had wept in his +last struggles; and he employed Mallet, another friend of +Pope, to tell the tale to the public with all its aggravations. +Warburton, whose heart was warm with his legacy, and +tender by the recent separation,” apologised for Pope. The +irregular conduct which Bolingbroke stigmatised as a breach +of trust, was attributed to a desire of perpetuating the work +of his friend, who might have capriciously destroyed it. Our +poet could have no selfish motive; he could not gratify his +vanity by publishing the work as his own, nor his avarice by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_322' name='page_322'></a>322</span> +its sale, which could never have taken place till the death of +its author; a circumstance not likely to occur during Pope’s +lifetime.<a name='FNanchor_0237' id='FNanchor_0237'></a><a href='#Footnote_0237' class='fnanchor'>[237]</a></p> +<p>The vindictive rage of Bolingbroke; the bitter invective he +permitted <span class='smcap'>Mallet</span> to publish, as the editor of his works; and +the two anonymous pamphlets of the latter, which I have +noticed in the article of <span class='smcap'>Warburton</span>; are effects much too +disproportionate to the cause which is usually assigned. +<span class='smcap'>Johnson</span> does not develope the secret motives of what he has +energetically termed “Bolingbroke’s thirst of vengeance.” +He and Mallet carried their secret revenge beyond all bounds: +the lordly stoic and the irritated bardling, under the cloak of +anonymous calumny, have but ill-concealed the malignity of +their passions. Let anonymous calumniators recollect, in +the midst of their dark work, that if they escape the detection +of their contemporaries, their reputation, if they have +any to lose, will not probably elude the researches of the historian;—a +fatal witness against them at the tribunal of +posterity.</p> +<p>The preface of Mallet to the “Patriot King” of Bolingbroke, +produced a literary quarrel; and more pamphlets than +perhaps I have discovered were published on this occasion.</p> +<p>Every lover of literature was indignant to observe that the +vain and petulant Mallet, under the protection of Pope’s</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Guide, philosopher, and friend!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>should have been permitted to have aspersed Pope with the +most degrading language. Pope is here always designated as +“This Man.” Thus “<i>This Man</i> was no sooner dead than +Lord Bolingbroke received information that an entire edition +of 1500 copies of these papers had been printed; that this very +<i>Man</i> had corrected the press, &c.” Could one imagine that +this was the Tully of England, describing our Virgil? For +Mallet was but the mouthpiece of Bolingbroke.</p> +<p>After a careful detection of many facts concerning the +parties now before us, I must attribute the concealed motive +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_323' name='page_323'></a>323</span> +of this outrage on Pope to the election the dying poet made +of Warburton as his editor. A mortal hatred raged between +Bolingbroke and Warburton. The philosophical lord had +seen the mighty theologian ravish the prey from his grasp. +Although Pope held in idolatrous veneration the genius of +Bolingbroke, yet had this literary superstition been gradually +enlightened by the energy of Warburton. They were his +good and his evil genii in a dreadful conflict, wrestling to +obtain the entire possession of the soul of the mortal. Bolingbroke +and Warburton one day disputed before Pope, and +parted never to meet again. The will of Pope bears the trace +of his divided feelings: he left his MSS. to Bolingbroke as his +executor, but his works to Warburton as his editor. The +secret history of Bolingbroke and Warburton with Pope is +little known: the note will supply it.<a name='FNanchor_0238' id='FNanchor_0238'></a><a href='#Footnote_0238' class='fnanchor'>[238]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_324' name='page_324'></a>324</span></div> +<p>But how did the puny Mallet stand connected with these +great men? By the pamphlets published during this literary +quarrel he appears to have enjoyed a more intimate intercourse +with them than is known. In one of them he is +characterised “as a fellow who, while Mr. Pope lived, was as +diligent in licking his feet, as he is now in licking your lordship’s; +and who, for the sake of giving himself an air of importance, +in being joined with you, and for the vanity of +saying ‘the Author and I,’—‘the Editor and me,’—has +sacrificed all his pretensions to friendship, honour, and +humanity.”<a name='FNanchor_0239' id='FNanchor_0239'></a><a href='#Footnote_0239' class='fnanchor'>[239]</a> An anecdote in this pamphlet assigns a sufficient +motive to excite some wrath in a much less irritable +animal than the self-important editor of Bolingbroke’s +Works. The anecdote may be distinguished as</p> +<h4>THE APOLLO VISION.</h4> +<p>“The editor (Mallet) being in company with the person to +whom Mr. Pope has consigned the care of his works (Warburton), +and who, he thought, had some intention of writing +Mr. Pope’s life, told him he had an anecdote, which he believed +nobody knew but himself. I was sitting one day (said +he) with Mr. Pope, in his last illness, who coming suddenly +out of a reverie, which you know he frequently fell into at +that time, and fixing his eyes steadfastly upon me; ‘Mr. M. +(said he), I have had an odd kind of vision. Methought I +saw my own head open, and Apollo came out of it; I then +saw your head open, and Apollo went into it; after which our +heads closed up again.’ The gentleman (Warburton) could +not help smiling at his vanity; and with some humour replied, +‘Why, sir, if I had an intention of writing <i>your</i> life, this +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_325' name='page_325'></a>325</span> +might perhaps be a proper anecdote; but I don’t see, that in +Mr. Pope’s it will be of any consequence at all.’” P. 14.</p> +<p>This exhibits a curious instance of an author’s egotism, or +rather of Mallet’s conceit, contriving, by some means, to have +his name slide into the projected Life of Pope by Warburton, +who appears, however, always to have treated him with the +contempt Pope himself evidently did.<a name='FNanchor_0240' id='FNanchor_0240'></a><a href='#Footnote_0240' class='fnanchor'>[240]</a> What opinion could the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_326' name='page_326'></a>326</span> +poet have entertained of the taste of that weak and vain critic, +who, when Pope published anonymously “The Essay on Man,” +being asked if anything new had appeared, replied that he had +looked over a thing called an “Essay on Man,” but, discovering +the utter want of skill and knowledge in the author, had thrown +it aside. Pope mortified him by confiding to him the secret.</p> +<p>“The Apollo Vision” was a stinging anecdote, and it came +from Warburton either directly or indirectly. This was followed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327' name='page_327'></a>327</span> +up by “A Letter to the Editor of the Letters on the +Spirit of Patriotism, the Idea of a Patriot King,” &c., a dignified +remonstrance of Warburton himself; but “The Impostor +Detected and Convicted, or the Principles and Practices of +the Author of the Spirit of Patriotism (Lord Bolingbroke) +set forth in a clear light, in a Letter to a Member of Parliament +in Town, from his Friend in the Country, 1749,” is a +remarkable production. Lord Bolingbroke is the impostor +and the concealed Jacobite. Time, the ablest critic on these +party productions, has verified the predictions of this seer. +We discover here, too, a literary fact, which is necessary to +complete our present history. It seems that there were +omissions and corrections in the edition Pope printed of “The +Patriot King,” which his caution or his moderation prompted, +and which such a political <a name='TC_18'></a><ins title="Was 'damagogue'">demagogue</ins> as Bolingbroke never +forgave. They are thus alluded to: “Lord B. may remember” +(from a conversation held, at which the writer appears +to have been present), “that a difference in opinion prevailed, +and a few points were urged by that gentleman (Pope) in +opposition to some particular tenets which related to the +limitation of the English monarchy, and to the ideal doctrine +of a patriot king. These were Mr. P.’s reasons for the emendations +he made; and which, together with the consideration +that both their lives were at that time in a declining state, +was the true cause, and no other, of his care to preserve those +letters, by handing them to the press, with the precaution +mentioned by the author.” Indeed the cry raised against the +<i>dead man</i> by Bolingbroke and Mallet, was an artificial one: +that it should ever have tainted the honour of the bard, or +that it should ever have been excited by his “Philosopher and +Friend,” are equally strange; it is possible that the malice of +Mallet was more at work than that of Bolingbroke, who +suffered himself to be the dupe of a man held in contempt by +Pope, by Warburton, and by others. But the pamphlet I +have just noticed might have enraged Bolingbroke, because +his true character is ably drawn in it. The writer says that +“a person in an eminent station of life abroad, when Lord +B—— was at Paris to transact a certain affair, said, <i>C’est +certainement un homme d’esprit, mais un coquin sans probité</i>.” +This was a very disagreeable truth!</p> +<p>In one of these pamphlets, too, Bolingbroke was mortified +at his dignity being lessened by the writer, in comparing his +lordship with their late friend Pope.—“I venture to foretell, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_328' name='page_328'></a>328</span> +that the name of Mr. Pope, in spite of your unmanly endeavours, +shall revive and blossom in the dust, from his own +merits; and presume to remind you, that <i>yours</i>, had it not +been for <i>his</i> genius, <i>his</i> friendship, <i>his</i> idolatrous veneration for +<i>you</i>, might, in a short course of years, have died and been +forgotten.” Whatever the degree of genius Bolingbroke may +claim, doubtless the verse of Pope has embalmed his fame. +I have never been able to discover the authors of these +pamphlets, who all appear of the first rank, and who seem to +have written under the eye of Warburton. The awful and +vindictive Bolingbroke, and the malignant and petulant +Mallet, did not long brood over their anger: he or they gave +it vent on the head of Warburton, in those two furious +pamphlets, which I have noticed in the <a name='TC_19'></a><ins title="Added quote">“Quarrels</ins> of Warburton.” +All these pamphlets were published in the same +year, 1749, so that it is now difficult to arrange them +according to their priority. Enough has been shown to prove, +that the loud outcry of Bolingbroke and Mallet, in their +posthumous attack on Pope, arose from their unforgiving +malice against him, for the preference by which the poet had +distinguished Warburton; and that Warburton, much more +than Pope, was the real object of this masked battery.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='LINTOTS_ACCOUNTBOOK' id='LINTOTS_ACCOUNTBOOK'></a> +<h3>LINTOT’S ACCOUNT-BOOK.</h3> +</div> +<p>An odd sort of a literary curiosity has fallen in my way. It +throws some light on the history of the heroes of the <i>Dunciad</i>; +but such <i>minutiæ literariæ</i> are only for my bibliographical +readers.</p> +<p>It is a book of accounts, which belonged to the renowned +<span class='smcap'>Bernard Lintot</span>, the bookseller, whose character has been +so humorously preserved by Pope, in a dialogue which the +poet has given as having passed between them in Windsor +Forest. The book is entitled “<i>Copies, when Purchased</i>.” +The power of genius is exemplified in the ledger of the bookseller +as much as in any other book; and while I here discover, +that the moneys received even by such men of genius +as Gay, Farquhar, Cibber, and Dr. King, amount to small +sums, and such authors as Dennis, Theobald, Ozell, and +Toland, scarcely amount to anything, that of Pope much exceeds +4000<i>l.</i></p> +<p>I am not in all cases confident of the nature of these +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_329' name='page_329'></a>329</span> +“Copies purchased;” those works which were originally published +by Lintot may be considered as purchased at the sums +specified: some few might have been subsequent to their first +edition. The guinea, at that time, passing for twenty-one +shillings and sixpence, has occasioned the fractions.</p> +<p>I transcribe Pope’s account. Here it appears that he sold +“The Key to the Lock” and “Parnell’s Poems.” The poem +entitled, “To the Author of a Poem called <i>Successio</i>,” appears +to have been written by Pope, and has escaped the researches +of his editors. The smaller poems were contributed to a +volume of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Lintot.<a name='FNanchor_0241' id='FNanchor_0241'></a><a href='#Footnote_0241' class='fnanchor'>[241]</a></p> +<h4><b><span class='smcaplc'>MR. POPE.</span></b></h4> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_330' name='page_330'></a>330</span></div> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="pubs1" summary=""> +<colgroup /> +<colgroup width="2em" /> +<colgroup span="3" width="5em" /> +<tr><td /><td /><td>£</td><td><i>s.</i></td><td><i>d.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2"><i>19 Feb. 1711-12.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Statius, First Book</td><td>}</td><td>16</td><td>2</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td>Vertumnus and Pomona</td><td>}</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>21 March, 1711-12.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>First Edition Rape</td><td /><td>7</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>9 April, 1712.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>To a Lady presenting Voiture</td><td>}</td></tr> +<tr><td>Upon Silence</td><td>}</td><td>3</td><td>16</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td>To the Author of a Poem called <i>Successio</i></td><td>}</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>23 Feb. 1712-13.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Windsor Forest</td><td /><td>32</td><td>5</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>23 July, 1713.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Ode on St. Cecilia’s day</td><td /><td>15</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>20th Feb. 1713-14.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Additions to the Rape</td><td /><td>15</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>1 Feb. 1714-15.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Temple of Fame</td><td /><td>32</td><td>5</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>30 April, 1715.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Key to the Lock</td><td /><td>10</td><td>15</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>17 July, 1716.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Essay on Criticism<a name='FNanchor_0242' id='FNanchor_0242'></a><a href='#Footnote_0242' class='fnanchor'>[242]</a></td><td /><td>15</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>13 Dec. 1721.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Parnell’s Poems</td><td /><td>15</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>23 March, 1713.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Homer, vol. i.</td><td /><td>215</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent4">650 books on royal paper</td><td /><td>176</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>9 Feb. 1715-16.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Homer, vol. ii.</td><td /><td>215</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>7 May, 1716.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent4">650 royal paper</td><td /><td>150</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2">This article is repeated to the sixth volume of +of Homer. To which is to be added another sum +of 840<i>l.</i>, paid for an assignment of all +the copies. The whole of this part of the +account amounting to</td><td /><td>3203</td><td>4</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td>Copy-moneys for the Odyssey, vols. i. ii. iii., +and 750 of each vol. royal paper, 4to.</td><td /><td>615</td><td>6</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ditto for the vols. iv. v. and 750 do.</td><td /><td class='sunder'>425</td><td class='sunder'>18</td><td class='sunder'>7½</td></tr> +<tr><td /><td /><td class='dunder'>£4244</td><td class='dunder'>8</td><td class='dunder'>7½</td></tr> +</table> +<h4><b><span class='smcaplc'>MR. GAY.</span></b></h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="pubs2" summary=""> +<colgroup /> +<colgroup span="3" width="5em" /> +<tr><td /><td>£</td><td><i>s.</i></td><td><i>d.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2"><i>12 May, 1713.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Wife of Bath</td><td>25</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>11 Nov. 1714.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Letter to a Lady</td><td>5</td><td>7</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>14 Feb. 1714.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>The What d’ye call it?</td><td>16</td><td>2</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>22 Dec. 1715.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Trivia</td><td>43</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td>Epistle to the Earl of Burlington</td><td>10</td><td>15</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>4 May, 1717.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Battle of the Frogs</td><td>16</td><td>2</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>8 Jan. 1717.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Three Hours after Marriage</td><td>43</td><td>2</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Mohocks, a Farce, 2<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent4">(Sold the Mohocks to him again.<a name='FNanchor_0243' id='FNanchor_0243'></a><a href='#Footnote_0243' class='fnanchor'>[243]</a>)</td></tr> +<tr><td>Revival of the Wife of Bath</td><td class='sunder'>75</td><td class='sunder'>0</td><td class='sunder'>0</td></tr> +<tr><td /><td>£234</td><td>10</td><td>0</td></tr> +</table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_331' name='page_331'></a>331</span></div> +<h4><b><span class='smcaplc'>MR. DENNIS.</span></b></h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="pubs2" summary=""> +<colgroup /> +<colgroup span="3" width="5em" /> +<tr><td /><td>£</td><td><i>s.</i></td><td><i>d.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2"><i>Feb. 24, 1703-4.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Liberty Asserted, one half share<a name='FNanchor_0245' id='FNanchor_0245'></a><a href='#Footnote_0245' class='fnanchor'>[245]</a></td><td>7</td><td>3</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>10 Nov. 1708.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Appius and Virginia</td><td>21</td><td>10</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>25 April, 1711.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Essay on Public Spirit</td><td>2</td><td>12</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>6 Jan. 1711.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Remarks on Pope’s Essay</td><td>2</td><td>12</td><td>6</td></tr> +</table> +<p>Dennis must have sold himself to criticism from ill-nature, +and not for pay. One is surprised that his two tragedies +should have been worth a great deal more than his criticism. +Criticism was then worth no more than too frequently it +deserves; Dr. Sewel, for his “Observations on the Tragedy +of <i>Jane Shore</i>,” received only a guinea.</p> +<p>I had suggested a doubt whether Theobald attempted to +translate from the original Greek: one would suppose he did +by the following entry, which has a line drawn through it, +as if the agreement had not been executed. Perhaps Lintot +submitted to pay Theobald for <i>not doing</i> the Odyssey when +Pope undertook it.</p> +<h4><b><span class='smcaplc'>MR. THEOBALD.</span></b></h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="pubs2" summary=""> +<colgroup /> +<colgroup span="3" width="5em" /> +<tr><td /><td>£</td><td><i>s.</i></td><td><i>d.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2"><i>23 May, 1713.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Plato’s Phædon</td><td>5</td><td>7</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td>For <i>Æsculus’s</i> Trag.</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent4">being part of Ten Guineas.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>12 June, 1714.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>La Motte’s Homer</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>6</td></tr> +</table> +<blockquote> +<p><i>April</i> 21, 1714. Articles signed by Mr. Theobald, to translate for B. +Lintot the 24 books of Homer’s Odyssey into English blank verse. Also +the four Tragedies of Sophocles, called Œdipus Tyrannus, Œdipus Coloneus, +Trachiniæ, and Philoctetes, into English blank verse, with Explanatory +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_332' name='page_332'></a>332</span> +Notes to the twenty-four Books of the Odyssey, and to the four +Tragedies. To receive, for translating every 450 Greek verses, with Explanatory +Notes thereon, the sum of 2<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i></p> +<p>To translate likewise the Satires and Epistles of Horace into English +rhyme. For every 120 Latin lines so translated, the sum of 1<i>l.</i> 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> +<p>These Articles to be performed, according to the time specified, under +the penalty of fifty pounds, payable by either party’s default in performance.</p> +<p>Paid in hand, 2<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i></p> +</blockquote> +<p>It appears that Toland never got above 5<i>l.</i>, 10<i>l.</i>, or 20<i>l.</i>, +for his publications. See his article in “Calamities of +Authors,” p. <a href='#page_155'>155</a>. I discovered the humiliating conditions +that attended his publications, from an examination of his +original papers. All this author seems to have reaped from +a life devoted to literary enterprise, and philosophy, and +patriotism, appears not to have exceeded 200<i>l.</i></p> +<p>Here, too, we find that the facetious Dr. King threw away +all his sterling wit for five miserable pounds, though “The +Art of Cookery,” and that of “Love,” obtained a more +honourable price. But a mere school-book probably inspired +our lively genius with more real facetiousness than any of +those works which communicate so much to others.</p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="pubs2" summary=""> +<colgroup /> +<colgroup span="3" width="5em" /> +<tr><td /><td>£</td><td><i>s.</i></td><td><i>d.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2"><i>18 Feb. 1707-8.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Paid for Art of Cookery</td><td>32</td><td>5</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>16 Feb. 1708-9.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Paid for the First Part of Transactions</td><td>5</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td>Paid for his Art of Love</td><td>32</td><td>5</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>23 June, 1709.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Paid for the Second Part of the Transactions<a name='FNanchor_0246' id='FNanchor_0246'></a><a href='#Footnote_0246' class='fnanchor'>[246]</a></td><td>5</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>4 March, 1709-10.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Paid for the History of Cajamai</td><td>5</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>10 Nov. 1710.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Paid for King’s Gods</td><td>50</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="indent2 padtop"><i>1 July, 1712.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Useful Miscellany, Part I</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td>Paid for the Useful Miscellany</td><td>3</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr> +</table> +<p>Lintot utters a groan over “The Duke of Buckingham’s +Works” (Sheffield), for “having been <i>jockeyed</i> of them by +Alderman Barber and Tonson.” Who can ensure literary +celebrity? No bookseller would <i>now</i> regret being <i>jockeyed</i> +out of his Grace’s works!</p> +<p>The history of plays appears here somewhat curious:—tragedies, +then the fashionable dramas, obtained a considerable +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_333' name='page_333'></a>333</span> +price; for though Dennis’s luckier one reached only to 21<i>l.</i>, +Dr. Young’s <i>Busiris</i> acquired 84<i>l.</i> Smith’s <i>Phædra and +Hippolytus</i>, 50<i>l.</i>; Rowe’s <i>Jane Shore</i>, 50<i>l.</i> +15<i>s.</i>; and <i>Jane +Gray</i>, 75<i>l.</i> 5<i>s.</i> Cibber’s <i>Nonjuror</i> obtained 105<i>l.</i> for the +copyright.</p> +<p>Is it not a little mortifying to observe, that among all these +customers of genius whose names enrich the ledger of the +bookseller, Jacob, that “blunderbuss of law,” while his law-books +occupy in space as much as Mr. Pope’s works, the +amount of his account stands next in value, far beyond many +a name which has immortalised itself!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='POPES_EARLIEST_SATIRE' id='POPES_EARLIEST_SATIRE'></a> +<h3>POPE’S EARLIEST SATIRE.</h3> +</div> +<p>We find by the first edition of Lintot’s “Miscellaneous +Poems,” that the anonymous lines “To the Author of a +Poem called <i>Successio</i>,” was a literary satire by Pope, written +when he had scarcely attained his fourteenth year. This +satire, the first probably he wrote for the press, and in which +he has succeeded so well, that it might have induced him to +pursue the bent of his genius, merits preservation. The juvenile +composition bears the marks of his future excellences: it +has the tune of his verse, and the images of his wit. Thirty +years afterwards, when occupied by the <i>Dunciad</i>, he transplanted +and pruned again some of the original images.</p> +<p>The hero of this satire is Elkanah Settle. The subject is +one of those Whig poems, designed to celebrate the happiness +of an uninterrupted “Succession” in the Crown, at the time +the Act of Settlement passed, which transferred it to the +Hanoverian line. The rhymer and his theme were equally +contemptible to the juvenile Jacobite poet.</p> +<p>The hoarse and voluminous Codrus of Juvenal aptly designates +this eternal verse-maker;—one who has written with +such constant copiousness, that no bibliographer has presumed +to form a complete list of his works.<a name='FNanchor_0247' id='FNanchor_0247'></a><a href='#Footnote_0247' class='fnanchor'>[247]</a></p> +<p>When Settle had outlived his temporary rivalship with +Dryden, and was reduced to mere Settle, he published party-poems, +in folio, composed in Latin, accompanied by his own +translations. These folio poems, uniformly bound, except +that the arms of his patrons, or rather his purchasers, richly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_334' name='page_334'></a>334</span> +gilt, emblazon the black morocco, may still be found. These +presentation-copies were sent round to the chiefs of the party, +with a mendicant’s petition, of which some still exist. To +have a clear conception of the <i>present views</i> of some politicians, +it is necessary to read their history backwards. In 1702, +when Settle published “Successio,” he must have been a +Whig. In 1685 he was a Tory, commemorating, by a heroic +poem, the coronation of James II., and writing periodically +against the Whigs. In 1680 he had left the Tories for the +Whigs, and conducted the whole management of burning the +Pope, then a very solemn national ceremony.<a name='FNanchor_0248' id='FNanchor_0248'></a><a href='#Footnote_0248' class='fnanchor'>[248]</a> A Whig, a +pope-burner, and a Codrus, afforded a full draught of inspiration +to the nascent genius of our youthful satirist.</p> +<p>Settle, in his latter state of wretchedness, had one standard +<i>elegy</i> and <i>epithalamium</i> printed off with <i>blanks</i>. By the ingenious +contrivance of inserting the name of any considerable +person who died or was married, no one who had gone out of +the world or was entering into it but was equally welcome to +this dinnerless livery-man of the draggled-tailed Muses. I +have elsewhere noticed his last exit from this state of poetry +and of pauperism, when, leaping into a green dragon which +his own creative genius had invented, in a theatrical booth, +Codrus, in hissing flames and terrifying-morocco folds, discovered +“the fate of talents misapplied!”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED “SUCCESSIO.”</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Begone, ye critics, and restrain your spite;<br /> +Codrus writes on, and will for ever write.<br /> +The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone,<br /> +As clocks run fastest when most lead is on.<a name='FNanchor_0249' id='FNanchor_0249'></a><a href='#Footnote_0249' class='fnanchor'>[249]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_335' name='page_335'></a>335</span><br /> +What though no bees around your cradle flew,<br /> +Nor on your lips distill’d their golden dew;<br /> +Yet have we oft discover’d in their stead,<br /> +A swarm of drones that buzz’d about your head.<br /> +When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre,<br /> +Attentive blocks stand round you, and admire.<br /> +Wit past through thee no longer is the same,<br /> +As meat digested takes a different name;<a name='FNanchor_0250' id='FNanchor_0250'></a><a href='#Footnote_0250' class='fnanchor'>[250]</a><br /> +But sense must sure thy safest plunder be,<br /> +Since no reprisals can be made on thee.<br /> +Thus thou mayst rise, and in thy daring flight<br /> +(Though ne’er so weighty) reach a wondrous height:<br /> +So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly,<br /> +And pond’rous slugs move nimbly through the sky.<a name='FNanchor_0251' id='FNanchor_0251'></a><a href='#Footnote_0251' class='fnanchor'>[251]</a><br /> +Sure Bavius copied Mævius to the full,<br /> +And <span class='smcap'>Chærilus</span><a name='FNanchor_0252' id='FNanchor_0252'></a><a href='#Footnote_0252' class='fnanchor'>[252]</a> taught <span class='smcap'>Codrus</span> to be dull;<br /> +Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o’er<br /> +This needless labour, and contend no more<br /> +To prove a <i>dull Succession</i> to be true,<br /> +Since ’tis enough we find it so in you.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_336' name='page_336'></a>336</span> +<a name='THE_ROYAL_SOCIETY' id='THE_ROYAL_SOCIETY'></a> +<h3>THE ROYAL SOCIETY.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>The Royal Society</span> at first opposed from various quarters—their Experimental +Philosophy supplants the Aristotelian methods—suspected of +being the concealed Advocates of Popery, Arbitrary Power, and Atheism—disappointments +incurred by their promises—the simplicity of the +early Inquirers—ridiculed by the Wits and others—Narrative of a +quarrel between a Member of the Royal Society and an Aristotelian—Glanvill +writes his “Plus Ultra,” to show the Improvements of Modern +Knowledge—Character of Stubbe of Warwick—his Apology, from himself—opposes +the “Plus Ultra” by the “Plus Ultra reduced to a +Nonplus”—his “Campanella revived”—the Political Projects of Campanella—Stubbe +persecuted, and menaced to be publicly whipped; his +Roman spirit—his “Legends no Histories”—his “Censure on some +Passages of the History of the Royal Society”—Harvey’s ambition +to be considered the Discoverer of the Circulation of the Blood, +which he demonstrates—Stubbe describes the Philosophy of Science—attacks +Sprat’s Dedication to the King—The Philosophical Transactions +published by Sir Hans Sloane ridiculed by Dr. King—his new Species +of Literary Burlesque—King’s character—these attacks not ineffectually +renewed by Sir John Hill.</p> +<p>The Royal Society, on its first establishment, at the era of +the Restoration, encountered fierce hostilities; nor, even at +later periods, has it escaped many wanton attacks. A great +revolution in the human mind was opening with that establishment; +for the spirit which had appeared in the recent +political concussion, and which had given freedom to opinion, +and a bolder scope to enterprise, had now reached the literary +and philosophical world; but causes of the most opposite +natures operated against this institution of infant science.</p> +<p>In the first place, the new experimental philosophy, full of +inventions and operations, proposed to supplant the old scholastic +philosophy, which still retained an obscure jargon of +terms, the most frivolous subtilties, and all those empty and +artificial methods by which it pretended to decide on all topics. +Too long it had filled the ear with airy speculation, while it +starved the mind that languished for sense and knowledge. +But this emancipation menaced the power of the followers of +Aristotle, who were still slumbering in their undisputed authority, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_337' name='page_337'></a>337</span> +enthroned in our Universities. For centuries the world +had been taught that the philosopher of Stagira had thought +on every subject: Aristotle was quoted as equal authority +with St. Paul, and his very image has been profanely looked +on with the reverence paid to Christ. <span class='smcap'>Bacon</span> had fixed a +new light in Europe, and others were kindling their torches +at his flame. When the great usurper of the human understanding +was once fairly opposed to Nature, he betrayed too +many symptoms of mere humanity. Yet this great triumph +was not obtained without severe contention; and upon the +Continent even blood has been shed in the cause of words. +In our country, the University of Cambridge was divided by +a party who called themselves <i>Trojans</i>, from their antipathy +to the <i>Greeks</i>, or the Aristotelians; and once the learned +Richard Harvey, the brother of Gabriel, the friend of Spenser, +stung to madness by the predominant powers, to their utter +dismay set up their idol on the school-gates, with his heels +upwards, and ass’s ears on his head. But at this later period, +when the Royal Society was established, the war was more +open, and both parties more inveterate. Now the world +seemed to think, so violent is the reaction of public opinion, +that they could reason better without Aristotle than with +him: that he had often taught them nothing more than self-evident +propositions, or had promoted that dangerous idleness +of maintaining paradoxes, by quibbles and other captious subtilties. +The days had closed of the “illuminated,” the “profound,” +and the “irrefragable,” titles, which the scholastic +heroes had obtained; and the Aristotelian four modes, by +which all things in nature must exist, of <i>materialiter</i>, <i>formaliter</i>, +<i>fundamentaliter</i>, and <i>eminenter</i>, were now considered as +nothing more than the noisy rattles, or chains of cherry-stones, +which had too long detained us in the nursery of the +human mind.<a name='FNanchor_0253' id='FNanchor_0253'></a><a href='#Footnote_0253' class='fnanchor'>[253]</a> The world had been cheated with words +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_338' name='page_338'></a>338</span> +instead of things; and the new experimental philosophy insisted +that men should be less loquacious, but more laborious.</p> +<p>Some there were, in that unsettled state of politics and +religion, in whose breasts the embers of the late Revolution +were still hot: they were panic-struck that the advocates of +popery and arbitrary power were returning on them, disguised +as natural philosophers. This new terror had a very +ludicrous origin:—it arose from some casual expressions, in +which the Royal Society at first delighted, and by which an +air of mystery was thrown over its secret movements: such +was that “Universal Correspondence” which it affected to +boast of; and the vaunt to foreigners of its “Ten Secretaries,” +when, in truth, all these magnificent declarations were only +objects of their wishes. Another fond but singular expression, +which the illustrious <span class='smcap'>Boyle</span> had frequently applied to +it in its earliest state, when only composed of a few friends, +calling it “The Invisible College,” all concurred to make the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_339' name='page_339'></a>339</span> +Royal Society wear the appearance of a conspiracy against +the political freedom of the nation. At a time, too, when, +according to the historian of the Royal Society, “almost +every family was widely disagreed among themselves on +matters of religion,” they believed that this “new experimental +philosophy was subversive of the Christian faith!”<a name='FNanchor_0254' id='FNanchor_0254'></a><a href='#Footnote_0254' class='fnanchor'>[254]</a> +and many mortally hated the newly-invented optical glasses, +the telescope and the microscope, as atheistical inventions, +which perverted our sight, and made everything appear in a +new and false light! Sprat wrote his celebrated “History of +the Royal Society,” to show that experimental philosophy +was neither designed for the extinction of the Universities, +nor of the Christian religion, which were really imagined to +be in danger.</p> +<p>Others, again, were impatient for romantic discoveries; +miracles were required, some were hinted at, while some were +promised. In the ecstasy of imagination, they lost their +soberness, forgetting that they were but the historians of +nature, and not her prophets.<a name='FNanchor_0255' id='FNanchor_0255'></a><a href='#Footnote_0255' class='fnanchor'>[255]</a> But amid these dreams of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_340' name='page_340'></a>340</span> +hope and fancy, the creeping experimentalist was still left +boasting of improvements, so slow that they were not perceived, +and of novelties so absurd that they too often raised +the laugh against their grave and unlucky discoverers. The +philosophers themselves seemed to have been fretted into the +impatient humour which they attempted to correct; and the +amiable Evelyn becomes an irritated satirist, when he attempts +to reply to the repeated question of that day, “What +have they done?”<a name='FNanchor_0256' id='FNanchor_0256'></a><a href='#Footnote_0256' class='fnanchor'>[256]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_341' name='page_341'></a>341</span></div> +<p>But a source of the ridicule which was perpetually flowing +against the Royal Society, was the almost infantine simplicity +of its earliest members, led on by their honest zeal; and the +absence of all discernment in many trifling and ludicrous researches, +which called down the malice of the wits;<a name='FNanchor_0257' id='FNanchor_0257'></a><a href='#Footnote_0257' class='fnanchor'>[257]</a> there +was, too, much of that unjust contempt between the parties, +which students of opposite pursuits and tastes so liberally +bestow on each other. The researches of the Antiquarian +Society were sneered at by the Royal, and the antiquaries +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_342' name='page_342'></a>342</span> +avenged themselves by their obstinate incredulity at the prodigies +of the naturalists; the student of classical literature +was equally slighted by the new philosophers; who, leaving +the study of words and the elegancies of rhetoric for the +study merely of things, declared as the cynical ancient did of +metaphors, “Poterimus vivere sine illis”—We can do very +well without them! The ever-witty South, in his oration at +Oxford, made this poignant reflection on the Royal Society—“Mirantur +nihil nisi pulices, pediculos, et seipsos.” They can +admire nothing except fleas, lice, and themselves! And even +Hobbes so little comprehended the utility of these new pursuits, +that he considered the Royal Society merely as so many +labourers, who, when they had washed their hands after their +work, should leave to others the polishing of their discourses. +He classed them, in the way they were proceeding, with +apothecaries, and gardeners, and mechanics, who might now +“all put in for, and get the prize.” Even at a later period, +Sir William Temple imagined the virtuosi to be only so many +Sir Nicholas Gimcracks; and contemptuously called them, +from the place of their first meeting, “the Men of Gresham!” +doubtless considering them as wise as “the Men of Gotham!” +Even now, men of other tempers and other studies are too +apt to refuse the palm of philosophy to the patient race of +naturalists.<a name='FNanchor_0258' id='FNanchor_0258'></a><a href='#Footnote_0258' class='fnanchor'>[258]</a> Wotton, who wrote so zealously at the commencement +of the last century in favour of modern knowledge, +is alarmed lest the effusions of wit, in his time, should +“deaden the industry of the philosophers of the next age; +for,” he adds, “nothing wounds so effectually as a jest; and +when men once become ridiculous, their labours will be +slighted, and they will find few imitators.” The alarm shows +his zeal, but not his discernment: since curiosity in hidden +causes is a passion which endures with human nature. “The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_343' name='page_343'></a>343</span> +philosophers of the next age” have shown themselves as persevering +as their predecessors, and the wits as malicious. +The contest between men of meditation and men of experiment, +is a very ancient quarrel; and the “divine” Socrates +was no friend to, and even a ridiculer of, those very pursuits +for which the Royal Society was established.<a name='FNanchor_0259' id='FNanchor_0259'></a><a href='#Footnote_0259' class='fnanchor'>[259]</a></p> +<p>In founding this infant empire of knowledge, a memorable +literary war broke out between Glanvill, the author of the +treatise on “Witches,” &c., and Stubbe, a physician, a man +of great genius. It is the privilege of genius that its controversies +enter into the history of the human mind; what is +but temporary among the vulgar of mankind, with the curious +and the intelligent become monuments of lasting interest. +The present contest, though the spark of contention flew out +of a private quarrel, at length blazed into a public controversy.</p> +<p>The obscure individual who commenced the fray, is forgotten +in the boasted achievements of his more potent ally; +he was a clergyman named Cross, the Vicar of Great Chew, +in Somersetshire, a stanch Aristotelian.</p> +<p>Glanvill, a member of the Royal Society, and an enthusiast +for the new philosophy, had kindled the anger of the peripatetic, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_344' name='page_344'></a>344</span> +who was his neighbour, and who had the reputation +of being the invincible disputant of his county.<a name='FNanchor_0260' id='FNanchor_0260'></a><a href='#Footnote_0260' class='fnanchor'>[260]</a> Some, who +had in vain contended with Glanvill, now contrived to inveigle +the modern philosopher into an interview with this +redoubted champion.</p> +<p>When Glanvill entered the house, he perceived that he was +to begin an acquaintance in a quarrel, which was not the +happiest way to preserve it. The Vicar of Great Chew sat +amid his congregated admirers. The peripatetic had promised +them the annihilation of the new-fashioned virtuoso, +and, like an angry boar, had already been preluding by +whetting his tusks. Scarcely had the first cold civilities +passed, when Glanvill found himself involved in single combat +with an assailant armed with the ten categories of Aristotle. +Cross, with his <i>Quodam modo</i>, and his <i>Modo quodam</i>, with +his <i>Ubi</i> and his <i>Quando</i>, scattered the ideas of the simple +experimentalist, who, confining himself to a simple recital of +<i>facts</i> and a description of <i>things</i>, was referring, not to the +logic of Aristotle, but to the works of nature. The imperative +Aristotelian was wielding weapons, which, says Glanvill, +“were nothing more than like those of a cudgel-player, or +fencing-master.”<a name='FNanchor_0261' id='FNanchor_0261'></a><a href='#Footnote_0261' class='fnanchor'>[261]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_345' name='page_345'></a>345</span></div> +<p>The last blow was still reserved, when Cross asserted that +Aristotle had more opportunities to acquire knowledge than +the Royal Society, or all the present age had, or could have, +for this definitive reason, “because Aristotle did, <i>totam peragrare +Asiam</i>.” Besides, in the Chew philosophy, where +novelty was treason, improvements or discoveries could never +exist. Here the Aristotelian made his stand; and at length, +gently hooking Glanvill between the horns of a dilemma, the +entrapped virtuoso threw himself into an unguarded affirmation; +at which the Vicar of Great Chew, shouting in triumph, +with a sardonic grin, declared that Glanvill and his Royal +Society had now avowed themselves to be atheistical! This +made an end of the interview, and a beginning of the quarrel.<a name='FNanchor_0262' id='FNanchor_0262'></a><a href='#Footnote_0262' class='fnanchor'>[262]</a></p> +<p>Glanvill addressed an expostulatory letter to the inhuman +Aristotelian, who only replied by calling it a recantation, +asserting that the affair had finished with the conviction.</p> +<p>On this, Glanvill produced his “Plus Ultra,”<a name='FNanchor_0263' id='FNanchor_0263'></a><a href='#Footnote_0263' class='fnanchor'>[263]</a> on the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_346' name='page_346'></a>346</span> +modern improvements of knowledge. The quaint title referred +to that Asian argument which placed the boundaries of knowledge +at the ancient limits fixed by Aristotle, like the pillars of +Hercules, on which was inscribed <i>Ne plus ultra</i>, to mark the +extremity of the world. But Glanvill asserted we might +advance still further—<i>plus ultra</i>! To this book the Aristotelian +replied with such rancour, that he could not obtain a +licence for the invective either at Oxford or London. Glanvill +contrived to get some extracts, and printed a small number of +copies for his friends, under the sarcastic title of “The Chew +Gazette,”—a curiosity, we are told, of literary scolding, and +which might now, among literary trinkets, fetch a Roxburgh +prize.</p> +<p>Cross, maddened that he could not get his bundle of peripatetic +ribaldries printed, wrote ballads, which he got sung as +it chanced. But suppressed invectives and eking rhymes could +but ill appease so fierce a mastiff: he set on the poor F.R.S. +an animal as rabid, but more vigorous than himself—both of +them strangely prejudiced against the modern improvements +of knowledge; so that, like mastiffs in the dark, they were +only the fiercer.</p> +<p>This was Dr. Henry Stubbe, a physician of Warwick—one +of those ardent and versatile characters, strangely made up +of defects as strongly marked as their excellences. He was +one of those authors who, among their numerous remains, +leave little of permanent value; for their busy spirits too +keenly delight in temporary controversy, and they waste the +efforts of a mind on their own age, which else had made the +next their own. Careless of worldly opinions, these extraordinary +men, with the simplicity of children, are mere beings of +sensation; perpetually precipitated by their feelings, with +slight powers of reflection, and just as sincere when they act +in contradiction to themselves, as when they act in contradiction +to others. In their moral habits, therefore, we are often +struck with strange contrasts; their whole life is a jumble of +actions; and we are apt to condemn their versatility of principles +as arising from dishonest motives; yet their temper +has often proved more generous, and their integrity purer, +than those who have crept up in one unvarying progress to an +eminence which they quietly possess, without any of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_347' name='page_347'></a>347</span> +ardour of these original, perhaps whimsical, minds. The most +tremendous menace to a man of this class would be to threaten +to write the history of his life and opinions. When Stubbe +attacked the Royal Society, this threat was held out against +him. But menaces never startled his intrepid genius; he roved +in all his wild greatness; and, always occupied more by present +views than interested by the past events of his life, he cared +little for his consistency in the high spirit of his independence.</p> +<p>The extraordinary character of Stubbe produced as uncommon +a history. Stubbe had originally been a child of fortune, +picked up at Westminster school by Sir Henry Vane the +younger, who sent him to Oxford; where this effervescent +genius was, says Wood, “kicked, and beaten, and whipped.”<a name='FNanchor_0264' id='FNanchor_0264'></a><a href='#Footnote_0264' class='fnanchor'>[264]</a> +But if these little circumstances marked the irritability and +boldness of his youth, it was equally distinguished by an +entire devotion to his studies. Perhaps one of the most +anomalous of human characters was that of his patron, Sir +Henry Vane the younger (whom Milton has immortalised in +one of the noblest of sonnets), the head of the Independents, +who combined with the darkest spirit of fanaticism the clear +views of the most sagacious politician. The gratitude of +Stubbe lasted through all the changeful fortunes of the chief +of a faction—a long date in the records of human affection! +Stubbe had written against monarchy, the church, the university, +&c.; for which, after the Restoration, he was accused by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_348' name='page_348'></a>348</span> +his antagonists. He exults in the reproach; he replies with +all that frankness of simplicity, so beautiful amid our artificial +manners. He denies not the charge; he never trims, nor +glosses over, nor would veil, a single part of his conduct. He +wrote to serve his patrons, but never himself. I preserve the +whole of this noble passage in the note.<a name='FNanchor_0265' id='FNanchor_0265'></a><a href='#Footnote_0265' class='fnanchor'>[265]</a> Wood bears witness +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_349' name='page_349'></a>349</span> +to his perfect disinterestedness. He never partook of the +prosperity of his patron, nor mixed with any parties, loving +the retirement of his private studies; and if he scorned and +hated one party, the Presbyterians, it was, says Wood, because +his high generous nature detested men “void of generous +souls, sneaking, snivelling, &c.” Stubbe appears to have carried +this philosophical indifference towards objects of a higher +interest than those of mere profit; for, at the Restoration, he +found no difficulty in conforming to the Church<a name='FNanchor_0266' id='FNanchor_0266'></a><a href='#Footnote_0266' class='fnanchor'>[266]</a> and to the +Government. The king bestowed on him the title of his +physician; yet, for the sake of making philosophical experiments, +Stubbe went to Jamaica, and intended to have proceeded +to Mexico and Peru, pursuing his profession, but still +an adventurer. At length Stubbe returned home; established +himself as a physician at Warwick, where, though he died +early, he left a name celebrated.<a name='FNanchor_0267' id='FNanchor_0267'></a><a href='#Footnote_0267' class='fnanchor'>[267]</a> The fertility of his pen +appears in a great number of philosophical, political, and +medical publications. But all his great learning, the facility +of his genius, his poignant wit, his high professional character, +his lofty independence, his scorn of practising the little mysterious +arts of life, availed nothing; for while he was making +himself popular among his auditors, he was eagerly depreciated +by those who would not willingly allow merit to a man +who owned no master, and who feared no rival.</p> +<p>Literary coteries were then held at coffee-houses;<a name='FNanchor_0268' id='FNanchor_0268'></a><a href='#Footnote_0268' class='fnanchor'>[268]</a> and +there presided the voluble Stubbe, with “a big and magisterial +voice, while his mind was equal to it,” says the characterising +Wood; but his attenuated frame seemed too delicate +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_350' name='page_350'></a>350</span> +to hold long so unbroken a spirit. It was an accident, however, +which closed this life of toil and hurry and <a name='TC_20'></a><ins title="Was 'petulent'">petulant</ins> +genius. Going to a patient at night, Stubbe was drowned in +a very shallow river, “his head (adds our cynic, who had +generously paid the tribute of his just admiration with his +strong peculiarity of style) being then intoxicated with bibbing, +but more with talking and snuffing of powder.”</p> +<p>Such was the adversary of the Royal Society! It is quite +in character that, under the government of Cromwell, he +himself should have spread a taste for what was then called +“The New Philosophy” among our youth and gentlemen, +with the view of rendering the clergy contemptible; or, as he +says, “to make them appear egregious fools in matters of +common discourse.” He had always a motive for his actions, +however opposite they were; pretending that he was never +moved by caprice, but guided by principle. One of his adversaries, +however, has reason to say, that judging him by his +“printed papers, he was a man of excellent contradictory +parts.” After the Restoration, he furnished as odd, but as +forcible a reason, for opposing the Royal Society. At that +time the nation, recent from republican ardours, was often +panic-struck by papistical conspiracies, and projects of arbitrary +power; and it was on this principle that he took part +against the Society. Influenced by Dr. Fell and others, he +suffered them to infuse these extravagant opinions into his +mind. No private ends appear to have influenced his changeable +conduct; and in the present instance he was sacrificing +his personal feelings to his public principles; for Stubbe was +then in the most friendly correspondence with the illustrious +Boyle, the father of the Royal Society, who admired the +ardour of Stubbe, till he found its inconvenience.<a name='FNanchor_0269' id='FNanchor_0269'></a><a href='#Footnote_0269' class='fnanchor'>[269]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_351' name='page_351'></a>351</span></div> +<p>Stubbe opened his formidable attacks, for they form a +series, by replying to the “Plus Ultra” of Glanvill, with a +title as quaint, “The <i>Plus Ultra</i> reduced to a <i>Non-plus</i>, in +animadversions on Mr. Glanvill and the Virtuosi.” For a +pretence for this violent attack, he strained a passage in +Glanvill; insisting that the honour of the whole faculty of +which he was a member was deeply concerned to refute +Glanvill’s assertion, that “the ancient physicians could not +cure a cut finger.”—This Glanvill denied he had ever affirmed +or thought;<a name='FNanchor_0270' id='FNanchor_0270'></a><a href='#Footnote_0270' class='fnanchor'>[270]</a> but war once resolved on, a pretext as slight as +the present serves the purpose; and so that an odium be raised +against the enemy, the end is obtained before the injustice is +acknowledged. This is indeed the history of other wars than +those of words. The present was protracted with an hostility +unsubduing and unsubdued. At length the malicious ingenuity, +or the heated fancy, of Stubbe, hardly sketched a +political conspiracy, accusing the <span class='smcap'>Royal Society</span> of having +adopted the monstrous projects of <span class='smcap'>Campanella</span>;—an +anomalous genius, who was confined by the Inquisition the +greater part of his life, and who, among some political reveries, +projected the establishment of a universal empire, though he +was for shaking off the yoke of authority in the philosophical +world. He was for one government and one religion throughout +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_352' name='page_352'></a>352</span> +Europe, but in other respects he desired to leave the +minds of men quite free. Campanella was one of the new +lights of the age; and his hardy, though wild genius much +more resembled our Stubbe, who denounced his extravagancies, +than any of the Royal Society, to whom he was so +artfully compared.</p> +<p>This tremendous attack appeared in Stubbe’s “Campanella +Revived, or an Enquiry into the History of the Royal Society; +whether the Virtuosi there do not pursue the projects of +Campanella, for reducing England into Popery; relating the +quarrel betwixt H. S. and the R. S., &c. 1670.”<a name='FNanchor_0271' id='FNanchor_0271'></a><a href='#Footnote_0271' class='fnanchor'>[271]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_353' name='page_353'></a>353</span></div> +<p>Such was the dread which his reiterated attacks caused the +Royal Society, that they employed against him all the petty +persecutions of power and intrigue. “Thirty legions,” says +Stubbe, alluding to the famous reply of the philosopher, who +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_354' name='page_354'></a>354</span> +would not dispute with a crowned head, “were to be called to +aid you against a young country physician, who had so long +discontinued studies of this nature.” However, he announces +that he has finished three more works against the Royal +Society, and has a fourth nearly ready, if it be necessary to +prove that the rhetorical history of the Society by Sprat +must be bad, because “no eloquence can be complete if the +subject-matter be foolish!” His adversaries not only +threatened to write his life,<a name='FNanchor_0272' id='FNanchor_0272'></a><a href='#Footnote_0272' class='fnanchor'>[272]</a> but they represented him to the +king as a libeller, who ought to be whipped at a cart’s tail; a +circumstance which Stubbe records with the indignation of a +Roman spirit.<a name='FNanchor_0273' id='FNanchor_0273'></a><a href='#Footnote_0273' class='fnanchor'>[273]</a> They stopped his work several times, and by +some stratagem they hindered him from correcting the press; +but nothing could impede the career of his fearless genius. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_355' name='page_355'></a>355</span> +He treated with infinite ridicule their trivial or their marvellous +discoveries in his “Legends no Histories,” and his +“Censure on some Passages of the History of the Royal +Society.” But while he ridiculed, he could instruct them; +often contributing new knowledge, which the Royal Society +had certainly been proud to have registered in their history. +In his determination of depreciating the novelties of his day, +he disputes even the honour of <span class='smcap'>Harvey</span> to the discovery of +the circulation of the blood: he attributes it to <span class='smcap'>Andreas +Cæsalpinus</span>, who not only discovered it, but had given it the +name of <i>Circulatio Sanguinis</i>.<a name='FNanchor_0274' id='FNanchor_0274'></a><a href='#Footnote_0274' class='fnanchor'>[274]</a></p> +<p>Stubbe was not only himself a man of science, but a caustic +satirist, who blends much pleasantry with his bitterness. In +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_356' name='page_356'></a>356</span> +the first ardour of philosophical discovery, the Society, delighted +by the acquisition of new facts, which, however, rarely +proved to be important, and were often ludicrous in their +detail, appear to have too much neglected the arts of reasoning; +they did not even practise common discernment, or +what we might term philosophy, in its more enlarged sense.<a name='FNanchor_0275' id='FNanchor_0275'></a><a href='#Footnote_0275' class='fnanchor'>[275]</a> +Stubbe, with no respect for “a Society,” though dignified by +the addition of “Royal,” says, “a cabinet of virtuosi are but +pitiful reasoners. Ignorance is infectious; and ’tis possible +for men to grow fools by contact. I will speak to the virtuosi +in the language of the Romish Saint Francis (who, in the wilderness, +so humbly addressed his only friends,) ‘<i>Salvete, +fratres asini! Salvete, fratres lupi!</i>’” As for their Transactions +and their History, he thinks “they purpose to grow +famous, as the Turks do to gain Paradise, <i>by treasuring up +all the waste paper they meet with</i>.” He rallies them on +some ridiculous attempts, such as “An Art of Flying;” an art, +says Stubbe, in which they have not so much as effected the +most facile part of the attempt, which is to break their necks!</p> +<p>Sprat, in his dedication to the king, had said that “the +establishment of the Royal Society was an enterprise equal +to the most renowned actions of the best princes.” One +would imagine that the notion of a monarch founding a +society for the cultivation of the sciences could hardly be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_357' name='page_357'></a>357</span> +made objectionable; but, in literary controversy, genius has +the power of wresting all things to its purpose by its own +peculiar force, and the art of placing every object in the light +it chooses, and can thus obtain our attention in spite of our +conviction. I will add the curious animadversion of Stubbe +on Sprat’s compliment to the king:—</p> +<p>“Never Prince acquired the fame of great and good by +any knickknacks—but by actions of political wisdom, courage, +justice,” &c.</p> +<p>Stubbe shows how Dionysius and Nero had been depraved +by these <i>mechanic philosophers</i>—that</p> +<p>“An Aristotelian would never pardon himself if he compared +<i>this</i> heroical enterprise with the actions of our Black +Prince or Henry V.; or with Henry VIII. in demolishing +abbeys and rejecting the papal authority; or Queen Elizabeth’s +exploits against Spain; or her restoring the Protestant +religion, putting the Bible into English, and supporting the +Protestants beyond sea. But the reason he (Sprat) gives +why the establishment of the Royal Society of experimentators +equals the most renowned actions of the best princes, +is such a pitiful one as Guzman de Alfarache never met with +in the whole extent of the <i>Hospital of Fools</i>—‘To increase +the power, by new arts, of conquered nations!’ These consequences +are twisted like the <i>cordage of Ocnus</i>, the God of +Sloth, in hell, which are fit for nothing but <i>to fodder asses +with</i>. If our historian means by <i>every little invention to increase +the powers of mankind</i>, as an enterprise of such +renown, he is deceived; this glory is not due to such as go +about with a dog and a hoop, nor to the practicers of legerdemain, +or upon the high or low rope; not to every mountebank +and his man Andrew; all which, with many other +mechanical and experimental philosophers, do in some sort +increase the powers of mankind, and differ no more from some +of the virtuosi, than <i>a cat in a hole</i> doth from <i>a cat out of a +hole</i>; betwixt which that inquisitive person <span class='smcap'>Asdryasdust +Tossoffacan</span> found a very great resemblance. ’Tis not the increasing +of the <i>powers of mankind</i> by a pendulum watch, nor +spectacles whereby divers may see under water, nor the new +ingenuity of apple-roasters, nor every petty discovery or instrument, +must be put in comparison, much less preferred, +before <i>the protection and enlargement of empires</i>.”<a name='FNanchor_0276' id='FNanchor_0276'></a><a href='#Footnote_0276' class='fnanchor'>[276]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_358' name='page_358'></a>358</span></div> +<p>Had Stubbe’s death not occurred, this warfare had probably +continued. He insisted on a complete victory. He had forced +the Royal Society to disclaim their own works, by an announcement +that they were not answerable, as a body, for the +various contributions which they gave the world: an advertisement +which has been more than once found necessary to +be renewed. As for their historian Sprat, our intrepid Stubbe +very unexpectedly offered to manifest to the parliament that +this courtly adulator, by his book, was chargeable with high +treason; if they believed that the Royal Society were really +engaged so deeply as he averred in the portentous Cæsarean +Popery of Campanella. Glanvill, who had “insulted all +university learning,” had been immolated at the pedestal of +Aristotle. “I have done enough,” he adds, “since my animadversions +contain more than they all knew; and that these +have shown that the <i>virtuosi</i> are very great impostors, or +men of little reading;” alluding to the various discoveries +which they promulgated as novelties, but which Stubbe +had asserted were known to the ancients and others of a +later period. This forms a perpetual accusation against the +inventors and discoverers, who may often exclaim, “Perish +those who have done our good works before us!” “The Discoveries +of the Ancients and Moderns” by Dutens, had this +book been then published, might have assisted our keen investigator; +but our combatant ever proudly met his adversaries +single-handed.</p> +<p>The “Philosophical Transactions” were afterwards accused +of another kind of high treason, against grammar and common +sense. It was long before the collectors of facts practised +the art of writing on them; still later before they could +philosophise, as well as observe: Bacon and Boyle were at +first only imitated in their patient industry. When Sir +<span class='smcap'>Hans Sloane</span> was the secretary of the Royal Society, he, +and most of his correspondents, wrote in the most confused +manner imaginable. A wit of a very original cast, the facetious +Dr. <span class='smcap'>King</span>,<a name='FNanchor_0277' id='FNanchor_0277'></a><a href='#Footnote_0277' class='fnanchor'>[277]</a> took advantage of their perplexed and often +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_359' name='page_359'></a>359</span> +unintelligible descriptions; of the meanness of their style, +which humbled even the great objects of nature; of their +credulity that heaped up marvels, and their vanity that +prided itself on petty discoveries, and invented a new species +of satire. <span class='smcap'>Sloane</span>, a name endeared to posterity, whose life +was that of an enthusiast of science, and who was the founder +of a national collection; and his numerous friends, many of +whose names have descended with the regard due to the +votaries of knowledge, fell the victims. Wit is an unsparing +leveller.</p> +<p>The new species of literary burlesque which King seems to +have invented, consists in selecting the very expressions and +absurd passages from the original he ridiculed, and framing +out of them a droll dialogue or a grotesque narrative, he +adroitly inserted his own remarks, replete with the keenest +irony, or the driest sarcasm.<a name='FNanchor_0278' id='FNanchor_0278'></a><a href='#Footnote_0278' class='fnanchor'>[278]</a> Our arch wag says, “The +bulls and blunders which Sloane and his friends so naturally +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_360' name='page_360'></a>360</span> +pour forth cannot be misrepresented, so careful I am in producing +them.” King still moves the risible muscles of his +readers. “The Voyage to Cajamai,” a travestie of Sloane’s +valuable “History of Jamaica,” is still a peculiar piece of +humour; and it has been rightly distinguished as “one +of the severest and merriest satires that was ever written in +prose.”<a name='FNanchor_0279' id='FNanchor_0279'></a><a href='#Footnote_0279' class='fnanchor'>[279]</a> The author might indeed have blushed at the +labour bestowed on these drolleries; he might have dreaded +that humour so voluminous might grow tedious; but King, +often with a <span class='smcap'>Lucianic</span> spirit, with flashes of <span class='smcap'>Rabelais</span>, and +not seldom with the causticity of his friend Swift, dissipated +life in literary idleness, with parodies and travesties on most +of his contemporaries; and he made these little things often +more exquisite at the cost of consuming on them a genius +capable of better. A parodist or a burlesquer is a wit who +is perpetually on the watch to catch up or to disguise an +author’s words, to swell out his defects, and pick up his blunders—to +amuse the public! King was a wit, who lived on +the highway of literature, appropriating, for his own purpose, +the property of the most eminent passengers, by a dextrous +mode no other had hit on. What an important lesson the +labours of King offer to real genius! Their temporary humour +lost with their prototypes becomes like a paralytic +limb, which, refusing to do its office, impedes the action of +the vital members.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Wotton</span>, in summing up his “Reflections upon Ancient +and Modern Learning,” was doubtful whether knowledge +would improve in the next age proportionably as it had done +in his own. “The humour of the age is visibly altered,” he +says, “from what it had been thirty years ago. Though the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_361' name='page_361'></a>361</span> +Royal Society has weathered the rude attacks of Stubbe,” yet +“the sly insinuations of the <i>Men of Wit</i>,” with “the <i>public +ridiculing</i> of all who spend their time and fortunes in scientific +or curious researches, have so taken off the edge of those who +have opulent fortunes and a love to learning, that these +studies begin to be contracted amongst physicians and +mechanics.”—He treats King with good-humour. “A man +is got but a very little way (in philosophy) that is concerned +as often as such a merry gentleman as Dr. King shall think +fit to make himself sport.”<a name='FNanchor_0280' id='FNanchor_0280'></a><a href='#Footnote_0280' class='fnanchor'>[280]</a></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_362' name='page_362'></a>362</span> +<a name='SIR_JOHN_HILL_WITH__THE_ROYAL_SOCIETY_FIELDING_SMART_C' id='SIR_JOHN_HILL_WITH__THE_ROYAL_SOCIETY_FIELDING_SMART_C'></a> +<h3>SIR JOHN HILL,</h3> +<h4><span class='smcaplc'>WITH</span><br />THE ROYAL SOCIETY, FIELDING, SMART, &c.</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>A Parallel between Orator <span class='smcap'>Henley</span> and Sir <span class='smcap'>John Hill</span>—his love of the +Science of Botany, with the fate of his “Vegetable System”—ridicules +scientific Collectors; his “Dissertation on Royal Societies,” and his +“Review of the Works of the Royal Society”—compliments himself +that he is <span class='smcaplc'>NOT</span> a Member—successful in his attacks on the Experimentalists, +but loses his spirit in encountering the Wits—“The +Inspector”—a paper war with <span class='smcap'>Fielding</span>—a literary stratagem—battles +with <span class='smcap'>Smart</span> and <span class='smcap'>Woodward—Hill</span> appeals to the Nation for the Office +of Keeper of the Sloane Collection—closes his life by turning Empiric—Some +Epigrams on <span class='smcap'>Hill</span>—his Miscellaneous Writings.</p> +<p>In the history of literature we discover some who have +opened their career with noble designs, and with no deficient +powers, yet unblest with stoic virtues, having missed, in their +honourable labours, those rewards they had anticipated, they +have exhibited a sudden transition of character, and have left +only a name proverbial for its disgrace.</p> +<p>Our own literature exhibits two extraordinary characters, +indelibly marked by the same traditional odium. The wit +and acuteness of Orator <span class='smcap'>Henley</span>, and the science and vivacity +of the versatile Sir <span class='smcap'>John Hill</span>, must separate them from +those who plead the same motives for abjuring all moral +restraint, without having ever furnished the world with a +single instance that they were capable of forming nobler +views.</p> +<p>This <i>orator</i> and this <i>knight</i> would admit of a close parallel;<a name='FNanchor_0281' id='FNanchor_0281'></a><a href='#Footnote_0281' class='fnanchor'>[281]</a> +both as modest in their youth as afterwards remarkable for +their effrontery. Their youth witnessed the same devotedness +to study, with the same inventive and enterprising genius. +Hill projected and pursued a plan of botanical travels, to form +a collection of rare plants: the patronage he received was too +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_363' name='page_363'></a>363</span> +limited, and he suffered the misfortune of having anticipated +the national taste for the science of botany by half a century. +Our young philosopher’s valuable “Treatise on Gems,” from +Theophrastus, procured for him the warm friendship of the +eminent members of the Royal Society. To this critical +period of the lives of Henley and of Hill, their resemblance is +striking; nor is it less from the moment the surprising revolution +in their characters occurred.</p> +<p>Pressed by the wants of life, they lost its decencies. +Henley attempted to poise himself against the University; +Hill against the Royal Society. Rejected by these learned +bodies, both these Cains of literature, amid their luxuriant +ridicule of eminent men, still evince some claims to rank +among them. The one prostituted his genius in his +“Lectures;” the other, in his “Inspectors.” Never two +authors were more constantly pelted with epigrams, or +buffeted in literary quarrels. They have met with the same +fate; covered with the same odium. Yet Sir John Hill, this +despised man, after all the fertile absurdities of his literary +life, performed more for the improvement of the “Philosophical +Transactions,” and was the cause of diffusing a more +general taste for the science of botany, than any other contemporary. +His real ability extorts that regard which his +misdirected ingenuity, instigated by vanity, and often by more +worthless motives, had lost for him in the world.<a name='FNanchor_0282' id='FNanchor_0282'></a><a href='#Footnote_0282' class='fnanchor'>[282]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_364' name='page_364'></a>364</span></div> +<p>At the time that Hill was engaged in several large compilations +for the booksellers, his employers were desirous that the +honours of an F.R.S. should ornament his title-page. This +versatile genius, however, during these graver works, had suddenly +emerged from his learned garret, and, in the shape of a +fashionable lounger, rolled in his chariot from the Bedford to +Ranelagh; was visible at routs; and sate at the theatre a +tremendous arbiter of taste, raising about him tumults and +divisions;<a name='FNanchor_0283' id='FNanchor_0283'></a><a href='#Footnote_0283' class='fnanchor'>[283]</a> and in his “Inspectors,” a periodical paper which +he published in the <i>London Daily Advertiser</i>, retailed all +the great matters relating to himself, and all the little matters +he collected in his rounds relating to others. Among other +personalities, he indulged his satirical fluency on the scientific +collectors. The Antiquarian Society were twitted as medal-scrapers +and antediluvian knife-grinders; conchologists were +turned into cockleshell merchants; and the naturalists were +made to record pompous histories of stickle-hacks and cockchafers. +Cautioned by Martin Folkes, President of the Royal +Society,<a name='FNanchor_0284' id='FNanchor_0284'></a><a href='#Footnote_0284' class='fnanchor'>[284]</a> not to attempt his election, our enraged comic philosopher, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_365' name='page_365'></a>365</span> +who had preferred his jests to his friends, now discovered +that he had lost three hundred at once. Hill could not +obtain three signatures to his recommendation. Such was +the real, but, as usual, not the ostensible, motive of his formidable +attack on the Royal Society. He produced his +“Dissertation on Royal Societies, in a letter from a Sclavonian +nobleman to his friend,” 1751; a humorous prose satire, +exhibiting a ludicrous description of a tumultuous meeting at +the Royal Society, contrasted with the decorum observed in +the French Academy; and moreover, he added a <i>conversazione</i> +in a coffee-house between some of the members.</p> +<p>Such was the declaration of war, in a first act of hostility; +but the pitched-battle was fought in “A Review of the Works +of the Royal Society, in eight parts,” 1751. This literary +satire is nothing less than a quarto volume, resembling, in its +form and manner, the Philosophical Transactions themselves; +printed as if for the convenience of members to enable them +to bind the “Review” with the work reviewed. Voluminous +pleasantry incurs the censure of that tedious trifling which +it designs to expose. In this literary facetia, however, no inconsiderable +knowledge is interspersed with the ridicule. +Perhaps Hill might have recollected the successful attempts +of Stubbe on the Royal Society, who contributed that curious +knowledge which he pretended the Royal Society wanted; +and with this knowledge he attempted to combine the humour +of Dr. King.<a name='FNanchor_0285' id='FNanchor_0285'></a><a href='#Footnote_0285' class='fnanchor'>[285]</a></p> +<p>Hill’s rejection from the Royal Society, to another man +would have been a puddle to step over; but he tells a story, +and cleanly passes on, with impudent adroitness.<a name='FNanchor_0286' id='FNanchor_0286'></a><a href='#Footnote_0286' class='fnanchor'>[286]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_366' name='page_366'></a>366</span></div> +<p>Hill, however, though he used all the freedom of a satirist, +by exposing many ridiculous papers, taught the Royal Society +a more cautious selection. It could, however, obtain no forgiveness +from the parties it offended; and while the respectable +men whom Hill had the audacity to attack, Martin Folkes, +the friend and successor of Newton, and Henry Baker, the +naturalist, were above his censure,—his own reputation remained +in the hands of his enemies. While Hill was gaining +over the laughers on his side, that volatile populace soon discovered +that the fittest object to be laughed at was our +literary Proteus himself.</p> +<p>The most egregious egotism alone could have induced this +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_367' name='page_367'></a>367</span> +versatile being, engaged in laborious works, to venture to give +the town the daily paper of <i>The Inspector</i>, which he supported +for about two years. It was a light scandalous chronicle all +the week, with a seventh-day sermon. His utter contempt +for the genius of his contemporaries, and the bold conceit of +his own, often rendered the motley pages amusing. <i>The Inspector</i> +became, indeed, the instrument of his own martyrdom; +but his impudence looked like magnanimity; for he endured, +with undiminished spirit, the most biting satires, the most +wounding epigrams, and more palpable castigations.<a name='FNanchor_0287' id='FNanchor_0287'></a><a href='#Footnote_0287' class='fnanchor'>[287]</a> His +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_368' name='page_368'></a>368</span> +vein of pleasantry ran more freely in his attacks on the Royal +Society than in his other literary quarrels. When Hill had +not to banter ridiculous experimentalists, but to encounter +wits, his reluctant spirit soon bowed its head. Suddenly even +his pertness loses its vivacity; he becomes drowsy with dulness, +and, conscious of the dubiousness of his own cause, he +skulks away terrified: he felt that the mask of quackery and +impudence which he usually wore was to be pulled off by the +hands now extended against him.</p> +<p>A humorous warfare of wit opened between Fielding, in his +<i>Covent-Garden Journal</i>, and Hill, in his <i>Inspector</i>. <i>The +Inspector</i> had made the famous lion’s head, at the Bedford, +which the genius of Addison and Steele had once animated, +the receptacle of his wit; and the wits asserted, of this now +<i>inutile lignum</i>, that it was reduced to a mere state of <i>blockheadism</i>. +Fielding occasionally gave a facetious narrative of +a paper war between the forces of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, +the literary hero of the <i>Covent-Garden Journal</i>, and the army +of Grub-street; it formed an occasional literary satire. Hill’s +lion, no longer Addison’s or Steele’s, is not described without +humour. Drawcansir’s “troops are kept in awe by a strange +mixed monster, not much unlike the famous chimera of old. +For while some of our Reconnoiterers tell us that this monster +has the appearance of a lion, others assure us that his ears are +much longer than those of that generous beast.”</p> +<p>Hill ventured to notice this attack on his “blockhead;” +and, as was usual with him, had some secret history to season +his defence with.</p> +<p>“The author of ‘Amelia,’ whom I have only once seen, told +me, at that accidental meeting, he held the present set of +writers in the utmost contempt; and that, in his character of +Sir Alexander Drawcansir, he should treat them in the most +unmerciful manner. He assured me he had always excepted +me; and after honouring me with some encomiums, he proceeded +to mention a conduct which would be, he said, useful +to both; this was, the amusing our readers with a mock fight; +giving blows that would not hurt, and sharing the advantage +in silence.”<a name='FNanchor_0288' id='FNanchor_0288'></a><a href='#Footnote_0288' class='fnanchor'>[288]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_369' name='page_369'></a>369</span></div> +<p>Thus, by reversing the fact, Hill contrived to turn aside +the frequent stories against him by a momentary artifice, +arresting or dividing public opinion. The truth was, more +probably, as Fielding relates it, and the story, as we shall see, +then becomes quite a different affair. At all events, Hill incurred +the censure of the traitor who violates a confidential +intercourse.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>And if he lies not, must at least betray. <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Pope.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Fielding lost no time in reply. To have brought down the +<i>Inspector</i> from his fastnesses into the open field, was what our +new General only wanted: a battle was sure to be a victory. +Our critical Drawcansir has performed his part, with his indifferent +puns, but his natural facetiousness.</p> +<p>“It being reported to the General that a <i>hill</i> must be +levelled, before the Bedford coffee-house could be taken, orders +were given; but this was afterwards found to be a mistake; +for this <i>hill</i> was only a little paltry <i>dunghill</i>, and had long +before been levelled with the dirt. The General was then +informed of a report which had been spread by his <i>lowness</i>, +the Prince of Billingsgate, in the Grub-street army, that his +Excellency had proposed, by a <i>secret treaty</i> with that Prince, +to carry on the war only in appearance, and so to betray the +common cause; upon which his Excellency said with a smile:—‘If +the betrayer of a private treaty could ever deserve the +least credit, yet his Lowness here must proclaim himself +either a liar or a fool. None can doubt but that he is the +former, if he hath feigned this treaty; and I think few would +scruple to call him the latter, if he had rejected it.’ The +General then declared the fact stood thus:—‘His Lowness +came to my tent on an affair of his own. I treated him, +though a commander in the enemy’s camp, with civility, and +even kindness. I told him, with the utmost good-humour, I +should attack his Lion; and that he might, if he pleased, in +the same manner defend him; from which, said I, no great +loss can happen on either side—’”</p> +<p><i>The Inspector</i> slunk away, and never returned to the challenge.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_370' name='page_370'></a>370</span></div> +<p>During his inspectorship, he invented a whimsical literary +stratagem, which ended in his receiving a castigation more +lasting than the honours performed on him at Ranelagh by +the cane of a warm Hibernian. Hill seems to have been +desirous of abusing certain friends whom he had praised in +the <i>Inspectors</i>; so volatile, like the loves of coquettes, are +the literary friendships of the “Scribleri.” As this could not +be done with any propriety there, he published the first +number of a new paper, entitled <i>The Impertinent</i>. Having +thus relieved his private feelings, he announced the cessation +of this new enterprise in his <i>Inspectors</i>, and congratulated +the public on the ill reception it had given to the <i>Impertinent</i>, +applauding them for their having shown by this that +“their indignation was superior to their curiosity.” With +impudence all his own, he adds—“It will not be easy to say +too much in favour of the candour of the town, which has +despised a piece that cruelly and unjustly attacked Mr. Smart +the poet.” What innocent soul could have imagined that +<i>The Impertinent</i> and <i>The Inspector</i> were the same individual? +The style is a specimen of <i>persiflage</i>; the thin +sparkling thought; the pert vivacity, that looks like wit +without wit; the glittering bubble, that rises in emptiness;—even +its author tells us, in <i>The Inspector</i>, it is “the most +pert, the most pretending,” &c.<a name='FNanchor_0289' id='FNanchor_0289'></a><a href='#Footnote_0289' class='fnanchor'>[289]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_371' name='page_371'></a>371</span></div> +<p>Smart, in return for our Janus-faced critic’s treatment, +balanced the amount of debtor and creditor with a pungent +Dunciad <i>The Hilliad</i>. Hill, who had heard of the rod in +pickle, anticipated the blow, to break its strength; and, according +to his adopted system, introduced himself and Smart, +with a story of his having recommended the bard to his bookseller, +“who took him into salary on my approbation. I +betrayed him into the profession, and having starved upon it, +he has a right to abuse me.” This story was formally denied +by an advertisement from Newbery, the bookseller.</p> +<p>“The Hilliad” is a polished and pointed satire. The hero +is thus exhibited on earth, and in heaven.</p> +<p>On earth, “a tawny sibyl,” with “an old striped curtain—”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>And tatter’d tapestry o’er her shoulders hung—<br /> +Her loins with patchwork cincture were begirt,<br /> +That more than spoke diversity of dirt.<br /> +Twain were her teeth, and single was her eye—<br /> +Cold palsy shook her head——</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>with “moon-struck madness,” awards him all the wealth and +fame she could afford him for sixpence; and closes her orgasm +with the sage admonition—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>The chequer’d world’s before thee; go, farewell!<br /> +Beware of Irishmen; and learn to spell!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But in heaven, among the immortals, never was an unfortunate +hero of the vindicative Muses so reduced into nothingness! +Jove, disturbed at the noise of this thing of wit, +exclaims, that nature had never proved productive in vain +before, but now,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>On mere privation she bestow’d a frame,<br /> +And dignified a nothing with a name;<br /> +A wretch devoid of use, of sense, of grace,<br /> +The insolvent tenant of incumber’d space!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Pallas hits off the style of Hill, as</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>The neutral nonsense, neither false nor true—<br /> +Should Jove himself, in calculation mad,<br /> +Still negatives to blank negations add;<br /> +How could the barren ciphers ever breed;<br /> +But nothing still from nothing would proceed.<br /> +Raise, or depress, or magnify, or blame,<br /> +Inanity will ever be the same.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_372' name='page_372'></a>372</span></div> +<p>But Phœbus shows there may still be something produced +from inanity.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>E’en blank privation has its use and end—<br /> +From emptiness, how sweetest music flows!<br /> +How absence, to possession adds a grace,<br /> +And modest vacancy, to all gives place.<br /> +So from Hillario, some effect may spring;<br /> +E’en him—that slight penumbra of a thing!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The careless style of the fluent Inspectors, beside their +audacity, brought Hill into many scrapes. He called Woodward, +the celebrated harlequin, “the meanest of all characters.” +This Woodward resented in a pamphlet-battle, in +which Hill was beaten at all points.<a name='FNanchor_0290' id='FNanchor_0290'></a><a href='#Footnote_0290' class='fnanchor'>[290]</a> But Hill, or the +Monthly Reviewer, who might be the same person, for that +journal writes with the tenderness of a brother of whatever +relates to our hero, pretends that the Inspector only meant, +that “the character of Harlequin (if a thing so unnatural and +ridiculous ought to be called a character) was the <i>meanest</i> on +the stage!”<a name='FNanchor_0291' id='FNanchor_0291'></a><a href='#Footnote_0291' class='fnanchor'>[291]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_373' name='page_373'></a>373</span></div> +<p>I will here notice a characteristic incident in Hill’s literary +life, of which the boldness and the egotism is scarcely paralleled, +even by Orator Henley. At the time the Sloane Collection +of Natural History was purchased, to form a part of +our grand national establishment, the British Museum, Hill +offered himself, by public advertisement, in one of his <i>Inspectors</i>, +as the properest person to be placed at its head. The +world will condemn him for his impudence. The most reasonable +objection against his mode of proceeding would be, that +the thing undid itself; and that the very appearance, by +public advertisement, was one motive why so confident an +offer should be rejected. Perhaps, after all, Hill only wanted +to <i>advertise himself</i>.</p> +<p>But suppose that Hill was the man he represents himself +to be, and he fairly challenges the test, his conduct only +appears eccentric, according to routine. Unpatronised and +unfriended men are depressed, among other calamities, with +their quiescent modesty; but there is a rare spirit in him who +dares to claim favours, which he thinks his right, in the most +public manner. I preserve, in the note, the most striking +passages of this extraordinary appeal.<a name='FNanchor_0292' id='FNanchor_0292'></a><a href='#Footnote_0292' class='fnanchor'>[292]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_374' name='page_374'></a>374</span></div> +<p>At length, after all these literary quarrels, Hill survived his +literary character. He had written himself down to so low a +degree, that whenever he had a work for publication, his employers +stipulated, in their contracts, that the author should +conceal his name; a circumstance not new among a certain +race of writers.<a name='FNanchor_0293' id='FNanchor_0293'></a><a href='#Footnote_0293' class='fnanchor'>[293]</a> But the genius of Hill was not annihilated +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_375' name='page_375'></a>375</span> +by being thrown down so violently on his mother earth; like +Anthæus, it rose still fresh; and like Proteus, it assumed new +forms.<a name='FNanchor_0294' id='FNanchor_0294'></a><a href='#Footnote_0294' class='fnanchor'>[294]</a> Lady Hill and the young Hills were claimants on +his industry far louder than the evanescent epigrams which +darted around him: these latter, however, were more numerous +than ever dogged an author in his road to literary celebrity.<a name='FNanchor_0295' id='FNanchor_0295'></a><a href='#Footnote_0295' class='fnanchor'>[295]</a> +His science, his ingenuity, and his impudence once more +practised on the credulity of the public, with the innocent +quackery of attributing all medicinal virtues to British herbs. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_376' name='page_376'></a>376</span> +He made many walk out, who were too sedentary; they were +delighted to cure headaches by feverfew tea; hectic fevers by +the daisy; colics by the leaves of camomile, and agues by its +flowers. All these were accompanied by plates of the plants, +with the Linnæan names.<a name='FNanchor_0296' id='FNanchor_0296'></a><a href='#Footnote_0296' class='fnanchor'>[296]</a> This was preparatory to the +<i>Essences</i> of Sage, <i>Balsams</i> of Honey, and <i>Tinctures</i> of +Valerian. Simple persons imagined they were scientific +botanists in their walks, with Hill’s plates in their hands. +But one of the newly-discovered virtues of British herbs was, +undoubtedly, that of placing the discoverer in a chariot.</p> +<p>In an Apology for the character of Sir John Hill, published +after his death, where he is painted with much beauty of +colouring, and elegance of form, the eruptions and excrescences +of his motley physiognomy, while they are indicated—for +they were too visible to be entirely omitted in anything pretending +to a resemblance—are melted down, and even touched +into a grace. The Apology is not unskilful, but the real purpose +appears in the last page; where we are informed that +Lady Hill, fortunately for the world, possesses all his valuable +recipes and herbal remedies!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_377' name='page_377'></a>377</span> +<a name='BOYLE_AND_BENTLEY' id='BOYLE_AND_BENTLEY'></a> +<h3>BOYLE AND BENTLEY.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>A Faction of Wits at Oxford the concealed movers of this Controversy—Sir +<span class='smcap'>William Temple’s</span> opinions the ostensible cause; Editions of classical +Authors by young Students at Oxford the probable one—<span class='smcap'>Boyle’s</span> first +attack in the Preface to his “Phalaris”—<span class='smcap'>Bentley</span>, after a silence of three +years, betrays his feelings on the literary calumny of <span class='smcap'>Boyle—Boyle</span> +replies by the “Examination of Bentley’s Dissertation”—<span class='smcap'>Bentley</span> rejoins +by enlarging it—the effects of a contradictory Narrative at a distant +time—<span class='smcap'>Bentley’s</span> suspicions of the origin of the “Phalaris,” and “The +Examination,” proved by subsequent facts—<span class='smcap'>Bentley’s</span> dignity when +stung at the ridicule of Dr. <span class='smcap'>King</span>—applies a classical pun, and nicknames +his facetious and caustic Adversary—<span class='smcap'>King </span>invents an extraordinary +Index to dissect the character of <span class='smcap'>Bentley</span>—specimens of the Controversy; +<span class='smcap'>Boyle’s</span> menace, anathema, and ludicrous humour—<span class='smcap'>Bentley’s</span> sarcastic +reply not inferior to that of the Wits.</p> +<p>The splendid controversy between <span class='smcap'>Boyle</span> and <span class='smcap'>Bentley</span> was +at times a strife of gladiators, and has been regretted as the +opprobrium of our literature; but it should be perpetuated to +its honour; for it may be considered, on one side at least, as +a noble contest of heroism.</p> +<p>The ostensible cause of the present quarrel was inconsiderable; +the concealed motive lies deeper; and the party feelings +of the haughty Aristarchus of Cambridge, and a faction of +wits at Oxford, under the secret influence of Dean Aldrich, +provoked this fierce and glorious contest.</p> +<p>Wit, ridicule, and invective, by cabal and stratagem, obtained +a seeming triumph over a single individual, but who, like the +Farnesian Hercules, personified the force and resistance of incomparable +strength. “The Bees of Christchurch,” as this +conspiracy of wits has been called, so musical and so angry, +rushed in a dark swarm about him, but only left their fine +stings in the flesh they could not wound. He only put out +his hand in contempt, never in rage. The Christchurch +men, as if doubtful whether wit could prevail against learning, +had recourse to the maliciousness of personal satire. They +amused an idle public, who could even relish sense and Greek, +seasoned as they were with wit and satire, while Boyle was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_378' name='page_378'></a>378</span> +showing how Bentley wanted wit, and Bentley was proving +how Boyle wanted learning.</p> +<p>To detect the origin of the controversy, we must find the +seed-plot of Bentley’s volume in Sir William Temple’s “Essay +upon Ancient and Modern Learning,” which he inscribed to +his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. Sir William, +who had caught the contagion of the prevalent literary controversy +of the times, in which the finest geniuses in Europe +had entered the lists, imagined that the ancients possessed a +greater force of genius, with some peculiar advantages—that +the human mind was in a state of decay—and that our knowledge +was nothing more than scattered fragments saved out of +the general shipwreck. He writes with a premeditated +design to dispute the improvements or undervalue the inventions +of his own age. Wotton, the friend of Bentley, replied by +his curious volume of “Reflections on Ancient and Modern +Learning.” But Sir William, in his ardour, had thrown out +an unguarded opinion, which excited the hostile contempt of +Bentley. “The oldest books,” he says, “we have, are still +in their kind the best; the two most ancient that I know of, +in prose, are ‘Æsop’s Fables’ and ‘Phalaris’s Epistles.’”—The +“Epistles,” he insists, exhibit every excellence of “a +statesman, a soldier, a wit, and a scholar.” That ancient +author, who Bentley afterwards asserted was only “some +dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk.”</p> +<p>Bentley, bristled over with Greek, perhaps then considered +that to notice a vernacular and volatile writer ill assorted +with the critic’s <i>Fastus</i>. But about this time Dean Aldrich +had set an example to the students of Christchurch of publishing +editions of classical authors. Such juvenile editorships +served as an easy admission into the fashionable literature +of Oxford. Alsop had published the “Æsop;” and Boyle, +among other “young gentlemen,” easily obtained the favour +of the dean, “to <i>desire</i> him to undertake an edition of the +‘Epistles of Phalaris.’” Such are the modest terms Boyle +employs in his reply to Bentley, after he had discovered the +unlucky choice he had made of an author.</p> +<p>For this edition of “Phalaris” it was necessary to collate a +MS. in the king’s library; and Bentley, about this time, had +become the royal librarian. Boyle did not apply directly to +Bentley, but circuitously, by his bookseller, with whom the +doctor was not on terms. Some act of civility, or a Mercury +more “formose,” to use one of his latinisms, was probably +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_379' name='page_379'></a>379</span> +expected. The MS. was granted, but the collator was negligent; +in six days Bentley reclaimed it, “four hours” had been +sufficient for the purpose of collation.</p> +<p>When Boyle’s “Phalaris” appeared, he made this charge +in the preface, that having ordered the Epistles to be collated +with the MS. in the king’s library, the collator was prevented +perfecting the collation by the <i>singular humanity</i> of the +library-keeper, who refused any further use of the MS.; <i>pro +singulari suâ humanitate negavit</i>: an expression that sharply +hit a man marked by the haughtiness of his manners.<a name='FNanchor_0297' id='FNanchor_0297'></a><a href='#Footnote_0297' class='fnanchor'>[297]</a></p> +<p>Bentley, on this insult, informed Boyle of what had passed. +He expected that Boyle would have civilly cancelled the page; +though he tells us he did not require this, because, “to have +insisted on the cancel, might have been forcing a gentleman +to too low a submission;”—a stroke of delicacy which will +surprise some to discover in the strong character of Bentley. +But he was also too haughty to ask a favour, and too conscious +of his superiority to betray a feeling of injury. Boyle +replied, that the bookseller’s account was quite different from +the doctor’s, who had spoken slightingly of him. Bentley +said no more.</p> +<p>Three years had nearly elapsed, when Bentley, in a new +edition of his friend Wotton’s book, published “A Dissertation +on the Epistles of the Ancients;” where, reprehending the +false criticism of Sir William Temple, he asserted that the +“Fables of Æsop” and the “Epistles of Phalaris” were alike +spurious. The blow was levelled at Christchurch, and all +“the bees” were brushed down in the warmth of their +summer-day.</p> +<p>It is remarkable that Bentley kept so long a silence; +indeed, he had considered the affair so trivial, that he had preserved +no part of the correspondence with Boyle, whom no +doubt he slighted as the young editor of a spurious author. +But Boyle’s edition came forth, as Bentley expresses it, “with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_380' name='page_380'></a>380</span> +a sting in its mouth.” This, at first, was like a cut finger—he +breathed on it, and would have forgotten it; but the nerve +was touched, and the pain raged long after the stroke. Even +the great mind of Bentley began to shrink at the touch of +literary calumny, so different from the vulgar kind, in its +extent and its duration. He betrays the soreness he would +wish to conceal, when he complains that “the false story has +been spread all over England.”</p> +<p>The statement of Bentley produced, in reply, the famous +book of Boyle’s “Examination of Bentley’s Dissertation.” It +opens with an imposing narrative, highly polished, of the +whole transaction, with the extraordinary furniture of documents, +which had never before entered into a literary controversy—depositions—certificates—affidavits—and +private +letters. Bentley now rejoined by his enlarged “Dissertation +on Phalaris,” a volume of perpetual value to the lovers of +ancient literature, and the memorable preface of which, itself +a volume, exhibits another Narrative, entirely differing from +Boyle’s. These produced new replies and new rejoinders. +The whole controversy became so perplexed, that it has +frightened away all who have attempted to adjust the particulars. +With unanimous consent they give up the cause, +as one in which both parties studied only to contradict each +other. Such was the fate of a Narrative, which was made +out of the recollections of the parties, with all their passions +at work, after an interval of three years. In each, the +memory seemed only retentive of those passages which best +suited their own purpose, and which were precisely those the +other party was most likely to have forgotten. What was +forgotten, was denied; what was admitted, was made to refer +to something else; dialogues were given which appear never +to have been spoken; and incidents described which are +declared never to have taken place; and all this, perhaps, +without any purposed violation of truth. Such were the +dangers and misunderstandings which attended a Narrative +framed out of the broken or passionate recollections of the +parties on the watch to confound one another.<a name='FNanchor_0298' id='FNanchor_0298'></a><a href='#Footnote_0298' class='fnanchor'>[298]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_381' name='page_381'></a>381</span></div> +<p>Bentley’s Narrative is a most vigorous production: it +heaves with the workings of a master-spirit; still reasoning +with such force, and still applying with such happiness the +stores of his copious literature, had it not been for this literary +quarrel, the mere English reader had lost this single +opportunity of surveying that commanding intellect.</p> +<p>Boyle’s edition of “Phalaris” was a work of parade, designed +to confer on a young man, who bore an eminent name, +some distinction in the literary world. But Bentley seems +to have been well-informed of the secret transactions at +Christchurch. In his first attack he mentions Boyle as “the +young gentleman of great hopes, whose name is set to the +edition;” and asserts that the editor, no more than his own +“Phalaris,” has written what was ascribed to him. He persists +in making a plurality of a pretended unity, by multiplying +Boyle into a variety of little personages, of “new +editors,” our “annotators,” our “great geniuses.”<a name='FNanchor_0299' id='FNanchor_0299'></a><a href='#Footnote_0299' class='fnanchor'>[299]</a> Boyle, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_382' name='page_382'></a>382</span> +touched at these reflections, declared “they were levelled at +a learned society, in which I had the happiness to be educated; +as if ‘Phalaris’ had been made up by contributions +from several hands.” Pressed by Bentley to acknowledge +the assistance of Dr. John Freind, Boyle confers on him the +ambiguous title of “The Director of Studies.” Bentley +links the Bees together—Dr. Freind and Dr. Alsop. “The +Director of Studies, who has lately set out Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’ +with a paraphrase and notes, is of the same size for +learning with the late editor of the Æsopian Fables. They +bring the nation into contempt abroad, and themselves into +it at home;” and adds to this magisterial style, the mortification +of his criticism on Freind’s Ovid, as on Alsop’s +Æsop.</p> +<p>But Boyle assuming the honours of an edition of “Phalaris,” +was but a venial offence, compared with that committed +by the celebrated volume published in its defence.</p> +<p>If Bentley’s suspicions were not far from the truth, that +“the ‘Phalaris’ had been <i>made up by contributions</i>,” they +approached still closer when they attacked “The Examination +of his Dissertation.” Such was the assistance which +Boyle received from all “the Bees,” that scarcely a few ears +of that rich sheaf fall to his portion. His efforts hardly reach +to the mere narrative of his transactions with Bentley. All +the varied erudition, all the Attic graces, all the inexhaustible +wit, are claimed by others; so that Boyle was not +materially concerned either in his “Phalaris,” or in the more +memorable work.<a name='FNanchor_0300' id='FNanchor_0300'></a><a href='#Footnote_0300' class='fnanchor'>[300]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_383' name='page_383'></a>383</span></div> +<p>The Christchurch party now formed a literary conspiracy +against the great critic; and as treason is infectious when +the faction is strong, they were secretly engaging new associates; +Whenever any of the party published anything themselves, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_384' name='page_384'></a>384</span> +they had sworn to have always “a fling at Bentley,” +and intrigued with their friends to do the same.</p> +<p>They procured Keil, the professor of astronomy, in so grave +a work as “The Theory of the Earth,” to have a fling at +Bentley’s boasted sagacity in conjectural criticism. Wotton, +in a dignified reproof, administered a spirited correction to +the party-spirit; while his love of science induced him generously +to commend Keil, and intimate the advantages the +world may derive from his studies, “as he grows older.” +Even Garth and Pope struck in with the alliance, and condescended +to pour out rhymes more lasting than even the +prose of “the Bees.”</p> +<p>But of all the rabid wits who, fastening on their prey, never +drew their fangs from the noble animal, the facetious Dr. +King seems to have been the only one who excited Bentley’s +anger. Persevering malice, in the teasing shape of caustic +banter, seems to have affected the spirit even of Bentley.</p> +<p>At one of those conferences which passed between Bentley +and the bookseller, King happened to be present; and being +called on by Boyle to bear his part in the drama, he performed +it quite to the taste of “the Bees.” He addressed a +letter to Dean Aldrich, in which he gave one particular: +and, to make up a sufficient dose, dropped some corrosives. +He closes his letter thus:—“That scorn and contempt which +I have naturally for pride and insolence, makes me remember +that which otherwise I might have forgotten.” Nothing +touched Bentley more to the quick than reflections on “his +pride and insolence.” Our defects seem to lose much of their +character, in reference to ourselves, by habit and natural disposition; +yet we have always a painful suspicion of their +existence; and he who touches them with no tenderness is +never pardoned. The invective of King had all the bitterness +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_385' name='page_385'></a>385</span> +of truth. Bentley applied a line from Horace; which showed +that both Horace and Bentley could pun in anger:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Proscripti <i>Regis Rupili</i> pus atque venenum.<a name='FNanchor_0301' id='FNanchor_0301'></a><a href='#Footnote_0301' class='fnanchor'>[301]</a>—<i>Sat.</i> i. 7.<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'>The filth and venom of <i>Rupilius King</i>.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The particular incident which King imperfectly recollected, +made afterwards much noise among the wits, for giving them +a new notion of the nature of ancient MSS. King relates +that Dr. Bentley said—“If the MS. were collated, it would +be worth nothing for the future.” Bentley, to mortify the +pertness of the bookseller, who would not send his publications +to the Royal Library, had said that he ought to do so, +were it but to make amends for the damage the MS. would +sustain by his printing the various readings; “for,” added +Bentley, “after the various lections were once taken and +printed, <i>the MS. would be like a squeezed orange, and little +worth for the future</i>.” This familiar comparison of a MS. +with a squeezed orange provoked the epigrammatists. Bentley, +in retorting on King, adds some curious facts concerning +the fate of MSS. after they have been printed; but is aware, +he says, of what little relish or sense the Doctor has of MSS., +who is better skilled in “the catalogue of ales, his Humty-Dumty, +Hugmatee, Three-threads, and the rest of that glorious +list, than in the catalogue of MSS.” King, in his +banter on Dr. Lister’s journey to Paris, had given a list of +these English beverages. It was well known that he was in +too constant an intercourse with them all. Bentley nicknames +King through the progress of his Controversy, for his +tavern-pleasures, Humty-Dumty, and accuses him of writing +more in a tavern than in a study. He little knew the injustice +of his charge against a student who had written notes on +22,000 books and MSS.; but they were not Greek ones.</p> +<p>All this was not done with impunity. An irritated wit +only finds his adversary cutting out work for him. A second +letter, more abundant with the same pungent qualities, fell +on the head of Bentley. King says of the arch-critic—“He +thinks meanly, I find, of my reading; yet for all that, I dare +say I have read more than any man in England besides <i>him</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_386' name='page_386'></a>386</span> +and <i>me</i>; for I have read his book all over.”<a name='FNanchor_0302' id='FNanchor_0302'></a><a href='#Footnote_0302' class='fnanchor'>[302]</a> Nor was this +all; “Humty-Dumty” published eleven “Dialogues of the +Dead,” supposed to be written by a student at Padua, concerning +“one Bentivoglio, a very troublesome critic in the +world;” where, under the character of “Signior Moderno,” +Wotton falls into his place. Whether these dialogues mortified +Bentley, I know not: they ought to have afforded him +very high amusement. But when a man is at once tickled +and pinched, the operation requires a gentler temper than +Bentley’s. “Humty-Dumty,” indeed, had Bentley too often +before him. There was something like inveteracy in his wit; +but he who invented the remarkable index to Boyle’s book, +must have closely studied Bentley’s character. He has given +it with all its protuberant individuality.<a name='FNanchor_0303' id='FNanchor_0303'></a><a href='#Footnote_0303' class='fnanchor'>[303]</a></p> +<p>Bentley, with his peculiar idiom, had censured “all the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_387' name='page_387'></a>387</span> +stiffness and stateliness, and operoseness of style, quite alien +from the character of ‘Phalaris,’ a man of business and despatch.” +Boyle keenly turns his own words on Bentley. +“<i>Stiffness and stateliness, and operoseness of style</i>, is indeed +quite <i>alien from the character of a man of business</i>; and +being but a <i>library-keeper</i>, it is not over-modestly done, to +oppose his judgment and taste to that of Sir <span class='smcap'>William +Temple</span>, who knows more of these things than Dr. Bentley does +of Hesychius and Suidas. Sir William Temple has spent a +good part of his life in transacting affairs of state: he has +written to kings, and they to him; and this has qualified +him to judge how kings should write, much better than the +<i>library-keeper at St. James’s</i>.”—This may serve as a specimen +of the Attic style of the controversy. Hard words sometimes +passed. Boyle complains of some of the <i>similes</i> which +Bentley employs, more significant than elegant. For the +new readings of “Phalaris,” “he likens me to a bungling +tinker mending old kettles.” Correcting the faults of the +version, he says, “The first epistle cost me four pages in +scouring;” and, “by the help of a Greek proverb, he calls +me downright ass.” But while Boyle complains of these +sprinklings of ink, he himself contributes to Bentley’s “Collection +of Asinine Proverbs,” and “throws him in one out +of Aristophanes,” of “an ass carrying mysteries:” “a proverb,” +says Erasmus, (as ‘the Bees’ construe him.) “applied +to those who were preferred to some place they did not deserve, +as when a <i>dunce</i> was made a <i>library-keeper</i>.”</p> +<p>Some ambiguous threats are scattered in the volume, while +others are more intelligible. When Bentley, in his own defence, +had referred to the opinions which some learned +foreigners entertained of him—they attribute these to “the +foreigners, because they are foreigners—we, that have the +happiness of a nearer conversation with him, know him +better; and we may perhaps take an opportunity of setting +these mistaken strangers right in their opinions.” They +threaten him with his character, “in a tongue that will last +longer, and go further, than their own;” and, in the imperious +style of Festus, add:—“Since Dr. Bentley has appealed +to foreign universities, to foreign universities he must +go.” Yet this is light, compared with the odium they would +raise against him by the menace of the resentments of a +whole society of learned men.</p> +<p>“<i>Single adversaries</i> die and drop off; but <i>societies</i> are immortal: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_388' name='page_388'></a>388</span> +their resentments are sometimes delivered down from +hand to hand; and when once they have begun with a man, +there is no knowing when they will leave him.”</p> +<p>In reply to this literary anathema, Bentley was furnished, +by his familiarity with his favourite authors, with a fortunate +application of a term, derived from Phalaris himself. Cicero +had conveyed his idea of Cæsar’s cruelty by this term, which +he invented from the very name of the tyrant.<a name='FNanchor_0304' id='FNanchor_0304'></a><a href='#Footnote_0304' class='fnanchor'>[304]</a></p> +<p>“There is a certain temper of mind that Cicero calls +<i>Phalarism</i>; a spirit like Phalaris’s. One would be apt to +imagine that a portion of it had descended upon some of his +translators. The gentleman has given a broad hint more +than once in his book, that if I proceed further against Phalaris, +I may draw, perhaps, a duel, or a stab upon myself; +a generous threat to a divine, who neither carries arms nor +principles fit for that sort of controversy. I expected such +usage from the spirit of Phalarism.”</p> +<p>In this controversy, the amusing fancy of “the Bees” +could not pass by Phalaris without contriving to make some +use of that brazen bull by which he tortured men alive. Not +satisfied in their motto, from the Earl of Roscommon, with +wedging “the great critic, like Milo, in the timber he strove +to rend,” they gave him a second death in their finis, by +throwing Bentley into Phalaris’s bull, and flattering their +vain imaginations that they heard him “bellow.”</p> +<p>“He has defied Phalaris, and used him very coarsely, under +the assurance, as he tells us, that ‘he is out of his reach.’ +Many of Phalaris’s enemies thought the same thing, and +repented of their vain confidence afterwards in his <i>bull</i>. Dr. +Bentley is perhaps, by this time, or will be suddenly, satisfied +that he also has presumed a little too much upon his distance; +but it will be too late to repent when he begins to bellow.”<a name='FNanchor_0305' id='FNanchor_0305'></a><a href='#Footnote_0305' class='fnanchor'>[305]</a></p> +<p>Bentley, although the solid force of his mind was not +favourable to the lighter sports of wit, yet was not quite +destitute of those airy qualities; nor does he seem insensible +to the literary merits of “that odd work,” as he calls Boyle’s +volume, which he conveys a very good notion of:—“If his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_389' name='page_389'></a>389</span> +book shall happen to be preserved anywhere as an useful +commonplace book for ridicule, banter, and all the topics of +calumny.” With equal dignity and sense he observes on the +ridicule so freely used by both parties—“I am content that +what is the greatest virtue of his book should be counted the +greatest fault of mine.”</p> +<p>His reply to “Milo’s fate,” and the tortures he was supposed +to pass through when thrown into Phalaris’s bull, is a +piece of sarcastic humour which will not suffer by comparison +with the volume more celebrated for its wit.</p> +<p>“The facetious examiner seems resolved to vie with Phalaris +himself in the science of <i>Phalarism</i>; for his revenge is +not satisfied with one single death of his adversary, but he +will kill me over and over again. He has slain me twice by +two several deaths! one, in the first page of his book; and +another, in the last. In the title-page I die the death of +Milo, the Crotonian:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'>——Remember Milo’s end,</p> +<p class='cg'>Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“The application of which must be this:—That as Milo, +after his victories at six several Olympiads, was at last conquered +and destroyed in wrestling with a <i>tree</i>, so I, after I +had attained to some small reputation in letters, am to be +quite baffled and run down by <i>wooden antagonists</i>. But in +the end of his book he has got me into Phalaris’s bull, and +he has the pleasure of fancying that he hears me <i>begin to +bellow</i>. Well, since it is certain that I am in the bull, I +have performed the part of a sufferer. For as the cries of +the tormented in old Phalaris’s bull, being conveyed through +pipes lodged in the machine, were turned into music for the +entertainment of the tyrant, so the complaints which my +torments express from me, being conveyed to Mr. Boyle by +this answer, are all dedicated to his pleasure and diversion. +But yet, methinks, when he was setting up to be <i>Phalaris +junior</i>, the very omen of it might have deterred him. As the +old tyrant himself at last bellowed in his own bull, his +imitators ought to consider that at long run their own +actions may chance to overtake them.”—p. 43.</p> +<p>Wit, however, enjoyed the temporary triumph; not but +that some, in that day, loudly protested against the award.<a name='FNanchor_0306' id='FNanchor_0306'></a><a href='#Footnote_0306' class='fnanchor'>[306]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_390' name='page_390'></a>390</span> +“The Episode of Bentley and Wotton,” in “The Battle of +the Books,” is conceived with all the caustic imagination of +the first of our prose satirists. There Bentley’s great qualities +are represented as “tall, without shape or comeliness; +large, without strength or proportion.” His various erudition, +as “armour patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces;” +his book, as “the sound” of that armour, “loud and dry, like +that made by the fall of a sheet of lead from the roof of some +steeple;” his haughty intrepidity, as “a vizor of brass, tainted +by his breath, corrupted into copperas, nor wanted gall from +the same fountain; so that, whenever provoked by anger or +labour, an atramentous quality of most malignant nature was +seen to distil from his lips.” Wotton is “heavy-armed and +slow of foot, lagging behind.” They perish together in one +ludicrous death. Boyle, in his celestial armour, by a stroke +of his weapon, transfixes both “the lovers,” “as a cook +trusses a brace of woodcocks, with iron skewer piercing the +tender sides of both. Joined in their lives, joined in their +death, so closely joined, that Charon would mistake them +both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare.” +Such is the candour of wit! The great qualities of an adversary, +as in Bentley, are distorted into disgraceful attitudes; +while the suspicious virtues of a friend, as in Boyle, not passed +over in prudent silence, are ornamented with even spurious +panegyric.</p> +<p>Garth, catching the feeling of the time, sung—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>And to a Bentley ’tis we owe a Boyle.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Posterity justly appreciates the volume of Bentley for its +stores of ancient literature; and the author, for that peculiar +sagacity in emending a corrupt text, which formed his distinguishing +characteristic as a classical critic; and since his +book but for this literary quarrel had never appeared, reverses +the names in the verse of the “Satirist.”</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_391' name='page_391'></a>391</span> +<a name='PARKER_AND_MARVELL' id='PARKER_AND_MARVELL'></a> +<h3>PARKER AND MARVELL.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>Marvell</span> the founder of “a newly-refined art of jeering buffoonery”—his +knack of nicknaming his adversaries—<span class='smcap'>Parker’s</span> Portrait—<span class='smcap'>Parker</span> suddenly +changes his principles—his declamatory style—<span class='smcap'>Marvell</span> prints his +anonymous letter as a motto to “The Rehearsal Transprosed”—describes +him as an “At-all”—<span class='smcap'>Marvell’s</span> ludicrous description of the whole posse +of answers summoned together by <span class='smcap'>Parker—Marvell’s</span> cautious allusion +to <span class='smcap'>Milton</span>—his solemn invective against <span class='smcap'>Parker</span>—anecdote of <span class='smcap'>Marvell</span> +and <span class='smcap'>Parker—Parker</span> retires after the second part of “The Rehearsal +Transprosed”—The Recreant, reduced to silence, distils his secret vengeance +in a posthumous libel.</p> +<p>One of the legitimate ends of satire, and one of the proud +triumphs of genius, is to unmask the false zealot; to beat +back the haughty spirit that is treading down all; and if it +cannot teach modesty, and raise a blush, at least to inflict +terror and silence. It is then that the satirist does honour +to the office of the executioner.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>As one whose whip of steel can with a lash<br /> +Imprint the characters of shame so deep,<br /> +Even in the brazen forehead of proud Sin,<br /> +That not eternity shall wear it out.<a name='FNanchor_0307' id='FNanchor_0307'></a><a href='#Footnote_0307' class='fnanchor'>[307]</a></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The quarrel between <span class='smcap'>Parker</span> and <span class='smcap'>Marvell</span> is a striking +example of the efficient powers of genius, in first humbling, +and then annihilating, an unprincipled bravo, who had placed +himself at the head of a faction.</p> +<p>Marvell, the under-secretary and the bosom-friend of Milton, +whose fancy he has often caught in his verse, was one of the +greatest wits of the luxuriant age of Charles II.; he was a +master in all the arts of ridicule; and his inexhaustible spirit +only required some permanent subject to have rivalled the +causticity of Swift, whose style, in neatness and vivacity, +seems to have been modelled on his.<a name='FNanchor_0308' id='FNanchor_0308'></a><a href='#Footnote_0308' class='fnanchor'>[308]</a> But Marvell placed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_392' name='page_392'></a>392</span> +the oblation of genius on a temporary altar, and the sacrifice +sunk with it; he wrote to the times, and with the times his +writings have passed away; yet something there is incorruptible +in wit, and wherever its salt has fallen, that part is still +preserved.</p> +<p>Such are the vigour and fertility of Marvell’s writings, that +our old Chronicler of Literary History, Anthony Wood, considers +him as the founder of “the then newly-refined art +(though much in mode and fashion almost ever since) of +sportive and jeering buffoonery;”<a name='FNanchor_0309' id='FNanchor_0309'></a><a href='#Footnote_0309' class='fnanchor'>[309]</a> and the crabbed humorist +describes “this pen-combat as briskly managed on both sides; +a jerking flirting way of writing entertaining the reader, by +seeing two such right cocks of the game so keenly engaging +with sharp and dangerous weapons.”—Burnett calls Marvell +“the liveliest droll of the age, who writ in a burlesque strain, +but with so peculiar and entertaining a conduct, that from +the king to the tradesman, his books were read with great +pleasure.” Charles II. was a more polished judge than these +uncouth critics; and, to the credit of his impartiality,—for that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_393' name='page_393'></a>393</span> +witty monarch and his dissolute court were never spared by +Marvell, who remained inflexible to his seduction—he deemed +Marvell the best prose satirist of the age. But Marvell had +other qualities than the freest humour and the finest wit in +this “newly-refined art,” which seems to have escaped these +grave critics—a vehemence of solemn reproof, and an eloquence +of invective, that awes one with the spirit of the +modern Junius,<a name='FNanchor_0310' id='FNanchor_0310'></a><a href='#Footnote_0310' class='fnanchor'>[310]</a> and may give some notion of that more +ancient satirist, whose writings are said to have so completely +answered their design, that, after perusal, their victim hanged +himself on the first tree; and in the present case, though the +delinquent did not lay violent hands on himself, he did what, +for an author, may be considered as desperate a course, +“withdraw from the town, and cease writing for some +years.”<a name='FNanchor_0311' id='FNanchor_0311'></a><a href='#Footnote_0311' class='fnanchor'>[311]</a></p> +<p>The celebrated work here to be noticed is Marvell’s “Rehearsal +Transprosed;” a title facetiously adopted from Bayes +in “The Rehearsal Transposed” of the Duke of Buckingham. +It was written against the works and the person of +Dr. Samuel Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, whom he +designates under the character of Bayes, to denote the incoherence +and ridiculousness of his character. Marvell had a +peculiar knack of calling names,—it consisted in appropriating +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_394' name='page_394'></a>394</span> +a ludicrous character in some popular comedy, and +dubbing his adversaries with it. In the same spirit he ridiculed +Dr. Turner, of Cambridge, a brother-genius to Parker, +by nicknaming him “Mr. Smirk, the Divine in Mode,” the +name of the Chaplain in Etherege’s “Man of Mode,” and thus, +by a stroke of the pen, conveyed an idea of “a neat, starched, +formal, and forward divine.” This application of a fictitious +character to a real one, this christening a man with ridicule, +though of no difficult invention, is not a little hazardous to +inferior writers; for it requires not less wit than Marvell’s to +bring out of the real character the ludicrous features which +mark the factitious prototype.</p> +<p>Parker himself must have his portrait, and if the likeness +be justly hit off, some may be reminded of a resemblance. +Mason applies the epithet of “Mitred Dullness” to him: but +although he was at length reduced to railing and to menaces, +and finally mortified into silence, this epithet does not suit so +hardy and so active an adventurer.</p> +<p>The secret history of Parker may be collected in Marvell,<a name='FNanchor_0312' id='FNanchor_0312'></a><a href='#Footnote_0312' class='fnanchor'>[312]</a> +and his more public one in our honest chronicler, Anthony +Wood. Parker was originally educated in strict sectarian +principles; a starch Puritan, “fasting and praying with the +Presbyterian students weekly, and who, for their refection +feeding only on thin broth made of oatmeal and water, were +commonly called <i>Gruellers</i>.” Among these, says Marvell, +“it was observed that he was wont to put more graves than +all the rest into his porridge, and was deemed one of the +<i>preciousest</i><a name='FNanchor_0313' id='FNanchor_0313'></a><a href='#Footnote_0313' class='fnanchor'>[313]</a> young men in the University.” It seems that +these mortified saints, both the brotherhood and the sisterhood, +held their chief meetings at the house of “Bess Hampton, +an old and crooked maid that drove the trade of laundry, +who, being from her youth very much given to the godly +party, as they call themselves, had frequent meetings, especially +for those that were her customers.” Such is the +dry humour of honest Anthony, who paints like the Ostade +of literary history.</p> +<p>But the age of sectarism and thin gruel was losing all its +coldness in the sunshine of the Restoration; and this “preciousest +young man,” from praying and caballing against +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_395' name='page_395'></a>395</span> +episcopacy, suddenly acquainted the world, in one of his dedications, +that Dr. Ralph Bathurst had “rescued him from the +chains and fetters of an unhappy education,” and, without +any intermediate apology, from a sullen sectarian turned a +flaming highflyer for the “supreme dominion” of the Church.<a name='FNanchor_0314' id='FNanchor_0314'></a><a href='#Footnote_0314' class='fnanchor'>[314]</a></p> +<p>It is the after-conduct of Parker that throws light on this +rapid change. On speculative points any man may be suddenly +converted; for these may depend on facts or arguments +which might never have occurred to him before. But when +we watch the weathercock chopping with the wind, so pliant +to move, and so stiff when fixed—when we observe this “preciousest +grueller” clothed in purple, and equally hardy in the +most opposite measures—become a favourite with James II., +and a furious advocate for arbitrary power; when we see him +railing at and menacing those, among whom he had committed +as many extravagances as any of them;<a name='FNanchor_0315' id='FNanchor_0315'></a><a href='#Footnote_0315' class='fnanchor'>[315]</a> can we +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_396' name='page_396'></a>396</span> +hesitate to decide that this bold, haughty, and ambitious man +was one of those who, having neither religion nor morality +for a casting weight, can easily fly off to opposite extremes? +and whether a puritan or a bishop, we must place his zeal +to the same side of his religious ledger—that of the profits of +barter!</p> +<p>The quarrel between Parker and Marvell originated in a +preface,<a name='FNanchor_0316' id='FNanchor_0316'></a><a href='#Footnote_0316' class='fnanchor'>[316]</a> written by Parker, in which he had poured down +his contempt and abuse on his old companions, the Nonconformists. +It was then Marvell clipped his wings with his +“Rehearsal Transprosed;” his wit and humour were finely +contrasted with Parker’s extravagances, set off in his declamatory +style; of which Marvell wittily describes “the +volume and circumference of the periods, which, though he +takes always to be his chiefest strength, yet, indeed, like too +great a line, weakens the defence, and requires too many men +to make it good.” The tilt was now opened, and certain +masqued knights appeared in the course; they attempted to +grasp the sharp and polished weapon of Marvell, to turn it +on himself.<a name='FNanchor_0317' id='FNanchor_0317'></a><a href='#Footnote_0317' class='fnanchor'>[317]</a> But Marvell, with malicious ingenuity, sees +Parker in them all—they so much resembled their master! +“There were no less,” says the wit, “than six scaramouches +together on the stage, all of them of the same gravity and +behaviour, the same tone, the same habit, that it was impossible +to discern which was the true author of the ‘Ecclesiastical +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_397' name='page_397'></a>397</span> +Polity.’ I believe he imitated the wisdom of some other +princes, who have sometimes been persuaded by their servants +to disguise several others in the regal garb, that the enemy +might not know in the battle whom to single.” Parker, in +fact, replied to Marvell anonymously, by “A Reproof to the +Rehearsal Transprosed,” with a mild exhortation to the +magistrate to crush with the secular arm the pestilent wit, +the servant of Cromwell, and the friend of Milton. But this +was not all; something else, anonymous too, was despatched to +Marvell: it was an extraordinary letter, short enough to have +been an epigram, could Parker have written one; but short as +it was, it was more in character, for it was only a threat of +assassination! It concluded with these words: “If thou +darest to print any lie or libel against Dr. Parker, by the +Eternal God I will cut thy throat.” Marvell replied to “the +Reproof,” which he calls a printed letter, by the second part +of “the Rehearsal Transprosed;” and to the unprinted letter, +by publishing it on his own title-page.</p> +<p>Of two volumes of wit and broad humour, and of the most +galling invective, one part flows so much into another, that +the volatile spirit would be injured by an analytical process. +But Marvell is now only read by the curious lovers of our +literature, who find the strong, luxuriant, though not the +delicate, wit of the wittiest age, never obsolete: the reader +shall not, however, part from Marvell without some slight +transplantations from a soil whose rich vegetation breaks out +in every part.</p> +<p>Of the pleasantry and sarcasm, these may be considered as +specimens. Parker was both author and licenser of his own +work on “Ecclesiastical Polity;”<a name='FNanchor_0318' id='FNanchor_0318'></a><a href='#Footnote_0318' class='fnanchor'>[318]</a> and it appears he got the +licence for printing Marvell’s first <i>Rehearsal</i> recalled. The +Church appeared in danger when the doctor discovered he was +so furiously attacked. Marvell sarcastically rallies him on his +dual capacity:—</p> +<p>“He is such an <i>At-all</i>, of so many capacities, that he would +excommunicate any man who should have presumed to intermeddle +with any one of his provinces. Has he been an +author? he is too the licenser. Has he been a father? he +will stand too for godfather. Had he acted <i>Pyramus</i>, he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_398' name='page_398'></a>398</span> +would have been <i>Moonshine</i> too, and the <i>Hole in the Wall</i>. +That first author of ‘Ecclesiastical Polity,’ (such as his) Nero, +was of the same temper. He could not be contented with +the Roman empire, unless he were too his own precentor; and +lamented only the detriment that mankind must sustain at +his death, in losing so considerable a fiddler.”</p> +<p>The satirist describes Parker’s arrogance for those whom +Parker calls the vulgar, and whom he defies as “a rout of +wolves and tigers, apes and buffoons;” yet his personal fears +are oddly contrasted with his self-importance: “If he chance +but to sneeze, he prays that the <i>foundations of the earth</i> be +not shaken.—Ever since he crept up to be but the <i>weathercock +of a steeple</i>, he trembles and cracks at every puff of wind +that blows about him, as if the <i>Church of England</i> were falling.” +Parker boasted, in certain philosophical “Tentamina,” +or essays of his, that he had confuted the atheists: Marvell +declares, “If he had reduced any atheist by his book, he can +only pretend to have converted them (as in the old Florentine +wars) by mere tiring them out, and perfect weariness.” A +pleasant allusion to those mock fights of the Italian mercenaries, +who, after parading all day, rarely unhorsed a single +cavalier.</p> +<p>Marvell blends with a ludicrous description of his answerers +great fancy:—</p> +<p>“The whole <i>Posse Archidiaconatus</i> was raised to repress +me; and great rising there was, and sending post every way +to pick out the ablest ecclesiastical droles to prepare an +answer. Never was such a hubbub made about a sorry book. +One flattered himself with being at least a surrogate; another +was so modest as to set up with being but a paritor; while +the most generous hoped only to be graciously smiled upon +at a good dinner; but the more hungry starvelings generally +looked upon it as an immediate call to a benefice; and he +that could but write an answer, whatsoever it were, took it +for the most dexterous, cheap, and legal way of simony. As +is usual on these occasions, there arose no small competition +and mutiny among the pretenders.”</p> +<p>It seems all the body had not impudence enough, and had +too nice consciences, and could not afford an extraordinary +expense in wit for the occasion. It was then</p> +<p>“The author of the ‘Ecclesiastical Polity’ altered his +lodgings to a calumny-office, and kept open chamber for all +comers, that he might be supplied himself, or supply others, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_399' name='page_399'></a>399</span> +as there was occasion. But the information came in so slenderly, +that he was glad to make use of anything rather than +sit <a name='TC_21'></a><ins title="Was 'ut'">out</ins>; +and there was at last nothing so slight, but it grew +material; nothing so false, but he resolved it should go for +truth; and what wanted in matter, he would make out with +invention and artifice. So that he and his remaining comrades +seemed to have set up a glass-house, the model of which +he had observed from the height of his window in the neighbourhood, +and the art he had been initiated into ever since +from the manufacture (he will criticise because not orifacture) +of <i>soap-bubbles</i>, he improved by degrees to the mystery of +making <i>glass-drops</i>, and thence, in running leaps, mounted by +these virtues to be Fellow of the Royal Society, Doctor of +Divinity, Parson, Prebend, and Archdeacon. The furnace was +so hot of itself, that there needed no coals, much less any +one to blow them. One burnt the weed, another calcined the +flint, a third melted down that mixture; but he himself +fashioned all with his breath, and polished with his style, till, +out of a mere jelly of sand and ashes, he had furnished a +whole cupboard of things, so brittle and incoherent, that +the least touch would break them again in pieces, and so +transparent, that every man might see through them.”</p> +<p>Parker had accused Marvell with having served Cromwell, +and being the friend of Milton, then living, at a moment +when such an accusation not only rendered a man odious, but +put his life in danger.<a name='FNanchor_0319' id='FNanchor_0319'></a><a href='#Footnote_0319' class='fnanchor'>[319]</a> Marvell, who now perceived that +Milton, whom he never looked on but with the eyes of reverential +awe, was likely to be drawn into his quarrel, touches +on this subject with infinite delicacy and tenderness, but not +with diminished energy against his malignant adversary, +whom he shows to have been an impertinent intruder in +Milton’s house, where indeed he had first known him. He +cautiously alludes to our English Homer by his initials: at +that moment the very name of Milton would have tainted +the page!</p> +<p>“J. M. was, and is, a man of great learning and sharpness +of wit, as any man. It was his misfortune, living in a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_400' name='page_400'></a>400</span> +tumultuous time, to be tossed on the wrong side; and he writ, +<i>flagrante bello</i>, certain dangerous treatises. But some of his +books, upon which you take him at advantage, were of no +other nature than that one writ by your own father; only +with this difference, that your father’s, which I have by me, +was written with the same design, but with much less wit or +judgment, for which there was no remedy, unless you will +supply his judgment with his high Court of Justice. At his +Majesty’s happy return, J. M. did partake, even as you yourself +did, for all your huffing, of his royal clemency, and has +ever since expiated himself in a retired silence. Whether it +were my foresight, or my good fortune, I never contracted +any friendship or confidence with you; but then it was you +frequented J. M. incessantly, and haunted his house day by +day. What discourses you there used, he is too generous to +remember. But for you to insult over his old age, to traduce +him by your scaramouches, and in your own person, as a +schoolmaster, who was born and hath lived more ingenuously +and liberally than yourself!”</p> +<p>Marvell, when he lays by his playful humour and fertile fancy +for more solemn remonstrances, assumes a loftier tone, and a +severity of invective, from which, indeed, Parker never recovered.</p> +<p>Accused by Parker of aiming to degrade the clerical character, +Marvell declares his veneration for that holy vocation, +and that he reflected even on the failings of the men, from +whom so much is expected, with indulgent reverence:—</p> +<p>“Their virtues are to be celebrated with all encouragement; +and if their vices be not notoriously palpable, let the +eye, as it defends its organ, so conceal the object by connivance.” +But there are cases when even to write satirically +against a clergyman may be not only excusable, but necessary:—“The +man who gets into the church by the belfry or +the window, ought never to be borne in the pulpit; and so +the man who illustrates his own corrupt doctrines with as ill +a conversation, and adorns the lasciviousness of his life with +an equal petulancy of style and language.”—In such a concurrence +of misdemeanors, what is to be done? The example +and the consequence so pernicious! which could not be, “if +our great pastors but exercise the wisdom of common shepherds, +by parting with one to stop the infection of the whole +flock, when his rottenness grows notorious. Or if our clergy +would but use the instinct of other creatures, and chastise the +blown deer out of their herd, such mischiefs might easily be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_401' name='page_401'></a>401</span> +remedied. In this case it is that I think a clergyman is laid +open to the pen of any one that knows how to manage it; +and that every person who has either wit, learning, or sobriety, +is licensed, if debauched, to curb him; if erroneous, +to catechise him; and if foul-mouthed and biting, to muzzle +him. Such an one would never have come into the church, +but to take sanctuary; rather wheresoever men shall find the +footing of so wanton a satyr out of his own bounds, the neighbourhood +ought, notwithstanding all his pretended capering +divinity, to hunt him through the woods, with hounds and +horse, home to his harbour.”</p> +<p>And he frames an ingenious apology for the freedom of his +humour, in this attack on the morals and person of his adversary:—</p> +<p>“To write against him (says Marvell) is the odiousest task +that ever I undertook, and has looked to me all the while +like the cruelty of a living dissection; which, however it may +tend to public instruction, and though I have picked out the +noxious creature to be anatomised, yet doth scarce excuse +the offensiveness of the scent and fouling of my fingers: therefore, +I will here break off abruptly, leaving many a vein not +laid open, and many a passage not searched into. But if I +have undergone the drudgery of the most loathsome part +already (which is his personal character), I will not defraud +myself of what is more truly pleasant, the conflict with, if it +may be so called, his reason.”</p> +<p>It was not only in these “pen-combats” that this Literary +Quarrel proceeded; it seems also to have broken out in the +streets; for a tale has been preserved of a rencontre, which +shows at once the brutal manners of Parker, and the exquisite +wit of Marvell. Parker meeting Marvell in the streets, the +bully attempted to shove him from the wall: but, even there, +Marvell’s agility contrived to lay him sprawling in the kennel; +and looking on him pleasantly, told him to “lie there +for a son of a whore!” Parker complained to the Bishop of +Rochester, who immediately sent for Marvell, to reprimand +him; but he maintained that the doctor had so called himself, +in one of his recent publications; and pointing to the preface, +where Parker declares “he is ‘a true son of his mother, the +Church of England:’ and if you read further on, my lord, +you find he says: ‘The Church of England has spawned two +bastards, the Presbyterians and the Congregationists;’ ergo, +my lord, he expressly declares that he is the <i>son of a whore</i>!”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_402' name='page_402'></a>402</span></div> +<p>Although Parker retreated from any further attack, after +the second part of “The Rehearsal Transprosed,” he in truth +only suppressed passions to which he was giving vent in +secrecy and silence. That, indeed, was not discovered till a posthumous +work of his appeared, in which one of the most +striking parts is a most disgusting caricature of his old antagonist. +Marvell was, indeed, a republican, the pupil of +Milton, and adored his master: but his morals and his manners +were Roman—he lived on the turnip of Curtius, and he +would have bled at Philippi. We do not sympathise with +the fierce republican spirit of those unhappy times that +scalped the head feebly protected by a mitre or a crown. +But the private virtues and the rich genius of such a man +are pure from the taint of party. We are now to see how far +private hatred can distort, in its hideous vengeance, the resemblance +it affects to give after nature. Who could imagine +that Parker is describing Marvell in these words?—</p> +<p>“Among these insolent revilers of great fame for ribaldry +was one Marvell. From his youth he lived in all manner of +wickedness; and thus, with a singular petulancy from nature, +he performed the office of a satirist for the faction, not so +much from the quickness of his wit, as from the sourness of +his temper. A vagabond, ragged, hungry poetaster, beaten +at every tavern, where he daily received the rewards of his +impudence in kicks and blows.<a name='FNanchor_0320' id='FNanchor_0320'></a><a href='#Footnote_0320' class='fnanchor'>[320]</a> By the interest of Milton, +to whom he was somewhat agreeable for his malignant wit, +he became the under-secretary to Cromwell’s secretary.”</p> +<p>And elsewhere he calls him “a drunken buffoon,” and asserts +that “he made his conscience more cheap than he had formerly +made his reputation;” but the familiar anecdote of +Marvell’s political honesty, when, wanting a dinner, he declined +the gold sent to him by the king, sufficiently replies +to the calumniator. Parker, then in his retreat, seems not +to have been taught anything like modesty by his silence, +as Burnet conjectured; who says, “That a face of brass must +grow red when it is burnt as his was.” It was even then +that the recreant, in silence, was composing the libel, which +his cowardice dared not publish, but which his invincible +malice has sent down to posterity.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_403' name='page_403'></a>403</span> +<a name='DAVENANT_AND_A_CLUB_OF_WITS' id='DAVENANT_AND_A_CLUB_OF_WITS'></a> +<h3>D’AVENANT</h3> +<h4>AND A CLUB OF WITS.</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>Calamities</span> of Epic Poets—Character and Anecdotes of <span class='smcap'>D’Avenant</span>—attempts +a new vein of invention—the Critics marshalled against each +other on the “Gondibert”—<span class='smcap'>D’Avenant’s</span> sublime feelings of Literary Fame—attacked +by a Club of Wits in two books of Verses—the strange +misconception hitherto given respecting the Second Part—various specimens +of the Satires on Gondibert, the Poet, and his Panegyrist <span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span>—the +Poet’s silence; and his neglect of the unfinished Epic, while the +<a name='TC_22'></a><ins title="Was 'Philosoper'">Philosopher</ins> keenly retorts on the Club, and will not allow of any authority +in <span class='smcap'>Wit</span>.</p> +<p>The memoirs of epic poets, in as far as they relate to the +history of their own epics, would be the most calamitous of +all the suitors of the Muses, whether their works have +reached us, or scarcely the names of the poets. An epic, +which has sometimes been the labour of a life, is the game of +the wits and the critics. One ridicules what is written; the +other censures for what has not been written:—and it has +happened, in some eminent instances, that the rudest assailants +of him who “builds the lofty rhyme,” have been his +ungenerous contemporaries. Men, whose names are now endeared +to us, and who have left their +<span lang="el" title="KTÊMA ES AEI">ΚΤΗΜΑ ΕΣ ΑΕΙ</span>, +which +<span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span> so energetically translates “a possession for everlasting,” +have bequeathed an inheritance to posterity, of +which they have never been in the receipt of the revenue. +“The first fruits” of genius have been too often gathered to +place upon its tomb. Can we believe that <span class='smcap'>Milton</span> did not +endure mortification from the neglect of “evil days,” as certainly +as Tasso was goaded to madness by the systematic +frigidity of his critics? He who is now before us had a mind +not less exalted than Milton or Tasso; but was so effectually +ridiculed, that he has only sent us down the fragment of a +great work.</p> +<p>One of the curiosities in the history of our poetry, is the +<span class='smcap'>Gondibert</span> of <span class='smcap'>D’Avenant</span>; and the fortunes and the fate of +this epic are as extraordinary as the poem itself. Never has +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_404' name='page_404'></a>404</span> +an author deserved more copious memoirs than the fertility +of this man’s genius claims. His life would have exhibited +a moving picture of genius in action and in contemplation. +With all the infirmities of lively passions, he had all the +redeeming virtues of magnanimity and generous affections; +but with the dignity and the powers of a great genius, falling +among an age of wits, he was covered by ridicule. D’Avenant +was a man who had viewed human life in all its shapes, +and had himself taken them. A poet and a wit, the creator +of the English stage with the music of Italy and the scenery +of France; a soldier, an emigrant, a courtier, and a politician:—he +was, too, a state-prisoner, awaiting death with his +immortal poem in his hand;<a name='FNanchor_0321' id='FNanchor_0321'></a><a href='#Footnote_0321' class='fnanchor'>[321]</a> and at all times a philosopher!</p> +<p>That hardiness of enterprise which had conducted him +through life, brought the same novelty, and conferred on +him the same vigour in literature.</p> +<p>D’Avenant attempted to open a new vein of invention in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_405' name='page_405'></a>405</span> +narrative poetry; which not to call <i>epic</i>, he termed <i>heroic</i>; +and which we who have more completely emancipated ourselves +from the arbitrary mandates of Aristotle and Bossu, +have since styled romantic. Scott, Southey, and Byron have +taught us this freer scope of invention, but characterised by +a depth of passion which is not found in D’Avenant. In his age, +the title which he selected to describe the class of his poetical +narrative, was a miserable source of petty criticism. It was +decreed that every poem should resemble another poem, on +the plan of the ancient epic. This was the golden age of +“the poet-apes,” till they found that it was easier to produce +epic writers than epic readers.</p> +<p>But our poet, whose manly genius had rejected one great +absurdity, had the folly to adopt another. The first reformers +are always more heated with zeal than enlightened by +sagacity. The four-and-twenty chapters of an epic, he perceived, +were but fantastical divisions, and probably, originally, +but accidental; yet he proposed another form as chimerical; +he imagined that by having only five he was constructing +his poem on the dramatic plan of five acts. He might with +equal propriety have copied the Spanish comedy which I once +read, in twenty-five acts, and in no slender folio. “Sea-marks +(says D’Avenant, alluding to the works of antiquity) are +chiefly useful to <i>coasters</i>, and serve not those who have the +ambition of <i>discoverers</i>, that love to sail in untried seas;” +and yet he was attempting to turn an epic poem into a monstrous +drama, from the servile habits he had contracted from +his intercourse with the theatre! This error of the poet has, +however, no material influence on the “Gondibert,” as it has +come down to us; for, discouraged and ridiculed, our +adventurer never finished his voyage of discovery. He who +had so nobly vindicated the freedom of the British Muse from +the meanness of imitation, and clearly defined what such a +narrative as he intended should be, “a perfect glass of nature, +which gives us a familiar and easy view of ourselves,” did not +yet perceive that there is no reason why a poetical narrative +should be cast into any particular form, or be longer or shorter +than the interest it excites will allow.</p> +<p>More than a century and a half have elapsed since the first +publication of “Gondibert,” and its merits are still a subject of +controversy; and indubitable proof of some inherent excellence +not willingly forgotten. The critics are marshalled on +each side, one against the other, while between these formidable +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_406' name='page_406'></a>406</span> +lines stands the poet, with a few scattered readers;<a name='FNanchor_0322' id='FNanchor_0322'></a><a href='#Footnote_0322' class='fnanchor'>[322]</a> but what +is more surprising in the history of the “Gondibert,” the poet +is a great poet, the work imperishable!</p> +<p>The “Gondibert” has poetical defects fatal for its popularity; +the theme was not happily chosen; the quatrain has been +discovered by capricious ears to be unpleasing, though its +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_407' name='page_407'></a>407</span> +solemnity was felt by Dryden.<a name='FNanchor_0323' id='FNanchor_0323'></a><a href='#Footnote_0323' class='fnanchor'>[323]</a> The style is sometimes +harsh and abrupt, though often exquisite; and the fable is +deficient in that rapid interest which the story-loving readers +of all times seem most to regard. All these are diseases +which would have long since proved mortal in a poem less +vital; but our poet was a commanding genius, who redeemed +his bold errors by his energetic originality. The luxuriancy +of his fancy, the novelty of his imagery, the grandeur of his +views of human life; his delight in the new sciences of his +age;—these are some of his poetical virtues. But, above all, +we dwell on the impressive solemnity of his philosophical +reflections, and his condensed epigrammatic thoughts. The +work is often more ethical than poetical; yet, while we feel +ourselves becoming wiser at every page, in the fulness of our +minds we still perceive that our emotions have been seldom +stirred by passion. The poem falls from our hands! yet is +there none of which we wish to retain so many single verses. +D’Avenant is a poetical Rochefoucault; the sententious force of +his maxims on all human affairs could only have been composed +by one who had lived in a constant intercourse with mankind.<a name='FNanchor_0324' id='FNanchor_0324'></a><a href='#Footnote_0324' class='fnanchor'>[324]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_408' name='page_408'></a>408</span></div> +<p>A delightful invention in this poem is “the House of +Astragon,” a philosophical residence. Every great poet is +affected by the revolutions of his age. The new experimental +philosophy had revived the project of Lord Bacon’s learned +retirement, in his philosophical romance of the <i>Atalantis</i>; +and subsequently in a time of civil repose after civil war, +Milton, Cowley, and Evelyn attempted to devote an abode to +science itself. These tumults of the imagination subsided in +the establishment of the Royal Society. D’Avenant anticipated +this institution. On an estate consecrated to philosophy +stands a retired building on which is inscribed, “Great Nature’s +Office,” inhabited by sages, who are styled “Nature’s Registers,” +busily recording whatever is brought to them by “a +throng of Intelligencers,” who make “patient observations” +in the field, the garden, the river, on every plant, and “every +fish, and fowl, and beast.” Near at hand is “Nature’s +Nursery,” a botanical garden. We have also “a Cabinet of +Death,” “the Monument of Bodies,” an anatomical collection, +which leads to “the Monument of vanished Minds,” as the +poet finely describes the library. Is it not striking to find, +says Dr. Aikin, so exact a model of <i>the school of Linnæus</i>?</p> +<p>This was a poem to delight a philosopher; and Hobbes, in +a curious epistle prefixed to the work, has strongly marked its +distinct beauties. “Gondibert” not only came forth with the +elaborate panegyric of Hobbes, but was also accompanied by +the high commendatory poems of Waller and Cowley; a cause +which will sufficiently account for the provocations it inflamed +among the poetical crew; and besides these accompaniments, +there is a preface of great length, stamped with all the force +and originality of the poet’s own mind; and a postscript, as +sublime from the feelings which dictated it as from the time +and place of its composition.</p> +<p>In these, this great genius pours himself out with all that +“glory of which his large soul appears to have been full,” as +Hurd has nobly expressed it.<a name='FNanchor_0325' id='FNanchor_0325'></a><a href='#Footnote_0325' class='fnanchor'>[325]</a> Such a conscious dignity of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_409' name='page_409'></a>409</span> +character struck the petulant wits with a provoking sense of +their own littleness.</p> +<p>A club of wits caballed and produced a collection of short +poems sarcastically entitled “Certain Verses written by several +of the Author’s Friends, to be reprinted in the Second Edition +of ‘Gondibert,’” 1653. Two years after appeared a brother +volume, entitled “The Incomparable Poem of Gondibert vindicated +from the Wit-Combats of Four Esquires; Clinias, +Dametas, Sancho and Jack Pudding;”<a name='FNanchor_0326' id='FNanchor_0326'></a><a href='#Footnote_0326' class='fnanchor'>[326]</a> with these mottoes:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span lang="el" title="Koteei kai aoidos aoidô">Κοτέει καὶ ἀοίδος ἀοίδῳ</span>.</p> +<p class='cg'>Vatum quoque gratia, rara est.<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'>Anglicè,</p> +<p class='center cg'>One wit-brother</p> +<p class='center cg'>Envies another.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_410' name='page_410'></a>410</span></div> +<p>Of these rare tracts, we are told by Anthony Wood and all +subsequent literary historians, too often mere transcribers of +title-pages, that the second was written by our author himself. +Would not one imagine that it was a real vindication, +or at least a retort-courteous on these obliging friends. The +irony of the whole volume has escaped their discovery. The +second tract is a continuation of the satire: a mock defence, +where the sarcasm and the pretended remonstrance are sometimes +keener than the open attack. If, indeed, D’Avenant +were the author of a continuation of a satire on himself, it is +an act of <i>felo de se</i> no poet ever committed; a self-flagellation +by an iron whip, where blood is drawn at every stroke, +the most penitent bard never inflicted on himself. Would +D’Avenant have bantered his proud labour, by calling it “incomparable?” +And were it true, that he felt the strokes of +their witty malignity so lightly, would he not have secured his +triumph by finishing that “Gondibert,” “the monument of his +mind?” It is too evident that this committee of wits hurt +the quiet of a great mind.</p> +<p>As for this series of literary satires, it might have been +expected, that since the wits clubbed, this committee ought to +have been more effective in their operations. Many of their +papers were, no doubt, more blotted with their wine than their +ink. Their variety of attack is playful, sarcastic, and malicious. +They were then such exuberant wits, that they could make even +ribaldry and grossness witty. My business with these wicked +trifles is only as they concerned the feelings of the great poet, +whom they too evidently hurt, as well as the great philosopher +who condescended to notice these wits, with wit more dignified +than their own.</p> +<p>Unfortunately for our “jeered Will,” as in their usual court-style +they call him, he had met with “a foolish mischance,” +well known among the collectors of our British portraits. +There was a feature in his face, or rather no feature at all, that +served as a perpetual provocative: there was no precedent of +such a thing, says Suckling, in “The Sessions of the Poets”—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>In all their records, in verse or in prose,<br /> +There was none of a Laureat who wanted a nose.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Besides, he was now doomed—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Nor could old Hobbes<br /> +Defend him from dry bobbs.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The preface of “Gondibert,” the critical epistle of Hobbes, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_411' name='page_411'></a>411</span> +and the poems of the two greatest poets in England, were first +to be got rid of. The attack is brisk and airy.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>UPON THE PREFACE.</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Room for the best of poets heroic,<br /> +If you’ll believe two wits and a Stoic.<br /> +Down go the <i>Iliads</i>, down go the <i>Æneidos</i>:<br /> +All must give place to the <i>Gondiberteidos</i>.<br /> +For to <i>Homer</i> and <i>Virgil</i> he has a just pique,<br /> +Because one’s writ in Latin, the other in Greek;<br /> +Besides an old grudge (our critics they say so)<br /> +With <i>Ovid</i>, because his sirname was <i>Naso</i>.<br /> +If fiction the fame of a poet thus raises,<br /> +What poets are you that have writ his praises?<br /> +But we justly quarrel at this our defeat;<br /> +You give us a stomach, he gives us no meat.<br /> +A preface to no book, a porch to no house;<br /> +Here is the mountain, but where is the mouse?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>This stroke, in the mock defence, is thus warded off, with a +slight confession of the existence of “the mouse.”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Why do you bite, you men of fangs<br /> +(That is, of teeth that forward hangs),<br /> +And charge my dear Ephestion<br /> +With want of meat? you want digestion.<br /> +We poets use not so to do,<br /> +To find men meat and stomach too.<br /> +You have the book, you have the house,<br /> +And mum, good Jack, and catch the mouse.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Among the personal foibles of D’Avenant appears a desire +to disguise his humble origin; and to give it an air of lineal +descent, he probably did not write his name as his father had +done. It is said he affected, at the cost of his mother’s +honour, to insinuate that he was the son of Shakspeare, who +used to bait at his father’s inn.<a name='FNanchor_0327' id='FNanchor_0327'></a><a href='#Footnote_0327' class='fnanchor'>[327]</a> These humorists first reduce +D’Avenant to “Old Daph.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_412' name='page_412'></a>412</span></div> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Denham, come help me to laugh,<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'>At old Daph,</p> +<p class='cg'>Whose fancies are higher than chaff.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Daph swells afterwards into “Daphne;” a change of sex +inflicted on the poet for making one of his heroines a man; +and this new alliance to Apollo becomes a source of perpetual +allusion to the bays—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Cheer up, small wits, now <i>you</i> shall crowned be,—<br /> +Daphne himself is turn’d into a tree.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>One of the club inquires about the situation of <i>Avenant</i>—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——where now it lies,<br /> +Whether in Lombard,<a name='FNanchor_0328' id='FNanchor_0328'></a><a href='#Footnote_0328' class='fnanchor'>[328]</a> or the skies.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Because, as seven cities disputed for the birth of Homer, so +after ages will not want towns claiming to be <i>Avenant</i>—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Some say by <i>Avenant</i> no place is meant,<br /> +And that our Lombard is without descent;<br /> +And as, by <i>Bilk</i>, men mean there’s nothing there,<br /> +So come from <i>Avenant</i>, means from <i>no where</i>.<br /> +Thus <i>Will</i>, intending <i>D’Avenant</i> to grace,<br /> +Has made a notch in’s name like that in’s face.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>D’Avenant had been knighted for his good conduct at the +siege of Gloucester, and was to be tried by the Parliament, +but procured his release without trial. This produces the following +sarcastic epigram:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>UPON FIGHTING WILL.</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +The King knights Will for fighting on his side;<br /> +Yet when Will comes for fighting to be tried,<br /> +There is not one in all the armies can<br /> +Say they e’er felt, or saw, this fighting man.<br /> +Strange, that the Knight should not be known i’ th’ field;<br /> +A face well charged, though nothing in his shield.<br /> +Sure fighting Will like <i>basilisk</i> did ride<br /> +Among the troops, and all that <i>saw</i> Will died;<br /> +Else how could Will, for fighting, be a Knight,<br /> +And none alive that ever saw Will fight?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Of the malignancy of their wit, we must preserve one +specimen. They probably harassed our poet with anonymous +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_413' name='page_413'></a>413</span> +despatches from the Club: for there appears another poem on +D’Avenant’s anger on such an occasion:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>A LETTER SENT TO THE GOOD KNIGHT.</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Thou hadst not been thus long neglected,<br /> +But we, thy four best friends, expected,<br /> +Ere this time, thou hadst stood corrected.<br /> +But since that planet governs still,<br /> +That rules thy tedious fustain quill<br /> +’Gainst nature and the Muses’ will;<br /> +When, by thy friends’ advice and care,<br /> +’Twas hoped, in time, thou wouldst despair<br /> +To give ten pounds to write it fair;<br /> +Lest thou to all the world would show it,<br /> +We thought it fit to let thee know it:<br /> +Thou art a damn’d insipid poet!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>These literary satires contain a number of other “pasquils,” +burlesquing the characters, the incidents, and the stanza, of +the <span class='smcap'>Gondibert</span>: some not the least witty are the most +gross, and must not be quoted; thus the wits of that day +were poetical suicides, who have shortened their lives by their +folly.</p> +<p>D’Avenant, like more than one epic poet, did not tune to +his ear the <i>names</i> of his personages. They have added, to +show that his writings are adapted to an easy musical singer, +the names of his heroes and heroines, in these verses:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Hurgonil, Astolpho, Borgia, Goltha, Tibalt,<br /> +Astragon, Hermogild, Ulfinor, Orgo, Thula.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And “epithets that will serve for any substantives, either in +this part or the next.”</p> +<p>Such are the labours of the idlers of genius, envious of the +nobler industry of genius itself!—How the great author’s +spirit was nourished by the restoratives of his other friends, +after the bitter decoctions prescribed by these “Four,” I fear +we may judge by the unfinished state in which “Gondibert” +has come down to us. D’Avenant seems, however, to have +guarded his dignity by his silence; but Hobbes took an opportunity +of delivering an exquisite opinion on this Club of +Wits, with perfect philosophical indifference. It is in a letter +to the Hon. <span class='smcap'>Edward Howard</span>, who requested to have his +sentiments on another heroic poem of his own, “The British +Princes.”</p> +<p>“My judgment in poetry hath, you know, been once already +censured, by very good wits, for commending <a name='TC_23'></a><ins title="Changed to single quotes">‘Gondibert;’</ins> +but yet they have not, I think, disabled my testimony. For, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_414' name='page_414'></a>414</span> +<i>what authority is there in wit</i>? A jester may have it; a man +in drink may have it, and be fluent over-night, and wise and +dry in the morning. What is it? or who can tell whether it +be better to have it, or be without it, especially if it be a +pointed wit? I will take my liberty to praise what I like, +as well as they do to reprehend what they do not like.”</p> +<p>The stately “Gondibert” was not likely to recover favour in +the court of Charles the Second, where man was never regarded +in his true greatness, but to be ridiculed; a court +where the awful presence of Clarendon became so irksome, +that the worthless monarch exiled him; a court where nothing +was listened to but wit at the cost of sense, the injury of +truth, and the violation of decency; where a poem of magnitude +with new claims was a very business for those volatile +arbiters of taste; an epic poem that had been travestied and +epigrammed, was a national concern with them, which, next +to some new state-plot, that occurred oftener than a new +epic, might engage the monarch and his privy council. These +were not the men to be touched by the compressed reflections +and the ideal virtues personified in this poem. In the court +of the laughing voluptuary the manners as well as the morals +of these satellites of pleasure were so little heroic, that those +of the highest rank, both in birth and wit, never mentioned +each other but with the vulgar familiarity of nicknames, or +the coarse appellatives of Dick, Will, and Jack! Such was +the era when the serious “Gondibert” was produced, and such +were the judges who seem to have decided its fate.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_415' name='page_415'></a>415</span> +<a name='THE__PAPERWARS_OF_THE_CIVIL_WARS' id='THE__PAPERWARS_OF_THE_CIVIL_WARS'></a> +<h3><span class='smcaplc'>THE</span><br />PAPER-WARS OF THE CIVIL WARS.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>The “Mercuries” and “Diurnals,” archives of political fictions—“The +Diurnals,” in the pay of the Parliament, described by <span class='smcap'>Butler</span> and +<span class='smcap'>Cleveland</span>—Sir <span class='smcap'>John Birkenhead</span> excels in sarcasm, with specimens +of his “Mercurius Aulicus”—how he corrects his own lies—Specimens +of the Newspapers on the side of the Commonwealth.</p> +<p>Among these battles of logomachy, in which so much ink +has been spilt, and so many pens have lost their edge—at a +very solemn period in our history, when all around was distress +and sorrow, stood forwards the facetious ancestors of that +numerous progeny who still flourish among us, and who, without +a suspicion of their descent, still bear the features of their +progenitors, and inherit so many of the family humours. +These were the <span class='smcap'>Mercuries</span> and <span class='smcap'>Diurnals</span>—the newspapers +of our Civil Wars.</p> +<p>The distinguished heroes of these Paper-Wars, Sir John +Birkenhead, Marchmont Needham, and Sir Roger L’Estrange, +I have elsewhere portrayed.<a name='FNanchor_0329' id='FNanchor_0329'></a><a href='#Footnote_0329' class='fnanchor'>[329]</a> We have had of late correct +lists of these works; but no one seems as yet to have given +any clear notion of their spirit and their manner.</p> +<p>The London Journals in the service of the Parliament were +usually the <i>Diurnals</i>. These politicians practised an artifice +which cannot be placed among “the lost inventions.” As +these were hawked about the metropolis to spur curiosity, +often languid from over-exercise, or to wheedle an idle spectator +into a reader, every paper bore on its front the inviting +heads of its intelligence. Men placed in the same circumstances +will act in the same manner, without any notion of +imitation; and the passions of mankind are now addressed by +the same means which our ancestors employed, by those who +do not suspect they are copying them.</p> +<p>These <i>Diurnals</i> have been blasted by the lightnings of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_416' name='page_416'></a>416</span> +Butler and Cleveland. Hudibras is made happy at the idea +that he may be</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Register’d by fame eternal,<br /> +In deathless pages of <span class='smcap'>Diurnal</span>.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But Cleveland has left us two remarkable effusions of his +satiric and vindictive powers, in his curious character of “A +Diurnal Maker,” and “A London Diurnal.” He writes in +the peculiar vein of the wit of those times, with an originality +of images, whose combinations excite surprise, and whose +abundance fatigues our weaker delicacy.</p> +<p>“A Diurnal-Maker is the Sub-Almoner of History; Queen +Mab’s Register; one whom, by the same figure that a North-country +pedler is a merchantman, you may style an author. +The silly countryman who, seeing an ape in a scarlet coat, +blessed his young worship, and gave his landlord joy of the +hopes of his house, did not slander his compliment with worse +application than he that names this shred an historian. To +call him an Historian is to knight a Mandrake; ’tis to view +him through a perspective, and, by that gross hyperbole, to +give the reputation of an engineer to a maker of mousetraps. +When these weekly fragments shall pass for history, let the +poor man’s box be entitled the Exchequer, and the alms-basket +a Magazine. Methinks the Turke should license +Diurnals, because he prohibits learning and books.” He +characterises the Diurnal as “a puny chronicle, scarce pin-feathered +with the wings of time; it is a history in sippets; +the English Iliads in a nutshell; the Apocryphal Parliament’s +Book of Maccabees in single sheets.”</p> +<p>But Cleveland tells us that these Diurnals differ from a +<i>Mercurius Aulicus</i> (the paper of his party),—“as the Devil +and his Exorcist, or as a black witch doth from a white one, +whose office is to unravel her enchantments.”</p> +<p>The <i>Mercurius Aulicus</i> was chiefly conducted by Sir <span class='smcap'>John +Birkenhead</span>, at Oxford, “communicating the intelligence +and affairs of the court to the rest of the kingdom.” Sir +John was a great wag, and excelled in sarcasm and invective; +his facility is equal to repartee, and his spirit often reaches to +wit: a great forger of tales, who probably considered that a +romance was a better thing than a newspaper.<a name='FNanchor_0330' id='FNanchor_0330'></a><a href='#Footnote_0330' class='fnanchor'>[330]</a> The royal +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_417' name='page_417'></a>417</span> +party were so delighted with his witty buffoonery, that Sir +John was recommended to be Professor of Moral Philosophy +at Oxford. Did political lying seem to be a kind of moral +philosophy to the feelings of a party? The originality of +Birkenhead’s happy manner consists in his adroit use of sarcasm: +he strikes it off by means of a parenthesis. I shall +give, as a specimen, one of his summaries of what the <i>Parliamentary +Journals</i> had been detailing during the week.</p> +<p>“The Londoners in print this week have been pretty +copious. They say that <i>a troop of the Marquess of Newcastle’s +horse have submitted to the Lord Fairfax</i>. (They +were part of the <i>German</i> horse which came over in the +<i>Danish</i> fleet.)<a name='FNanchor_0331' id='FNanchor_0331'></a><a href='#Footnote_0331' class='fnanchor'>[331]</a> That the Lord <i>Wilmot hath been dead five +weeks, but the Cavaliers concealed his death</i>. (Remember +this!) That <i>Sir John Urrey<a name='FNanchor_0332' id='FNanchor_0332'></a><a href='#Footnote_0332' class='fnanchor'>[332]</a> is dead and buried at Oxford</i>. +(He died the same day with the Lord Wilmot.) That the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_418' name='page_418'></a>418</span> +<i>Cavaliers, before they have done, will <span class='smcap'>Hurrey</span> all men into +misery</i>. (This quibble hath been six times printed, and +nobody would take notice of it; now let’s hear of it no +more!) That <i>all the Cavaliers which Sir William Waller +took prisoners (besides 500) tooke the National Covenant</i>. +(Yes, all he took (besides 500) tooke the Covenant.) That +2000 <i>Irish Rebels landed in Wales</i>. (You called them English +Protestants till you cheated them of their money.) That <i>Sir +William Brereton left 140 good able men in Hawarden Castle</i>. +(’Tis the better for Sir Michael Earnley, who hath taken the +Castle.) That <i>the Queen hath a great deafnesse</i>. (Thou +hast a great blister on thy tongue.) That <i>the Cavaliers +burned all the suburbs of Chester, that Sir William Brereton +might find no shelter to besiedge it</i>. (There was no hayrick, +and Sir William cares for no other shelter.)<a name='FNanchor_0333' id='FNanchor_0333'></a><a href='#Footnote_0333' class='fnanchor'>[333]</a> The <span class='smcap'>Scottish +Dove</span> says (there are Doves in Scotland!) that <i>Hawarden +Castle had but forty men in it when the Cavaliers took it</i>. +(Another told you there were 140 lusty stout fellows in it: +for shame, gentlemen! conferre Notes!) That <i>Colonel Norton +at Rumsey took 200 prisoners</i>. (I saw them counted: +they were just two millions.) Then the <i>Dove</i> hath this sweet passage: +<i>O Aulicus, thou profane wretch, that darest scandalize +<span class='smcap'>God’s</span> saints, darest thou call that loyal subject Master Pym a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_419' name='page_419'></a>419</span> +traitor</i>? (Yes, pretty <i>Pigeon</i>,<a name='FNanchor_0334' id='FNanchor_0334'></a><a href='#Footnote_0334' class='fnanchor'>[334]</a> he was charged with six +articles by his Majesty’s Atturney Generall.) Next he says, +that <i>Master Pym died like Moses upon the Mount</i>. (He did +not die upon the mount, but should have done.) Then he +says <i>Master Pym died in a good old age, like Jacob in Egypt</i>. +(Not like Jacob, yet just as those died in Egypt in the days +of Pharaoh.”)<a name='FNanchor_0335' id='FNanchor_0335'></a><a href='#Footnote_0335' class='fnanchor'>[335]</a></p> +<p>As Sir John was frequently the propagator of false intelligence, +it was necessary at times to seem scrupulous, and to +correct some slight errors. He does this very adroitly, without +diminishing his invectives.</p> +<p>“We must correct a mistake or two in our two last weeks. +We advertised you of certain money speeches made by Master +<i>John</i> Sedgwick: on better information, it was not <i>John</i>, but +<i>Obadiah</i>, Presbyter of Bread-street, who in the pulpit in hot +weather used to unbutton his doublet, which John, who +wanteth a thumbe, forbears to practise. And when we told +you last week of a committee of <i>Lawyers</i> appointed to put +their new <i>Seale</i> in execution, we named, among others, Master +George Peard.<a name='FNanchor_0336' id='FNanchor_0336'></a><a href='#Footnote_0336' class='fnanchor'>[336]</a> I confess this was no small errour to reckon +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_420' name='page_420'></a>420</span> +Master Peard among the <i>Lawyers</i>, because he now lies sicke, +and so farre from being their new <i>Lord Keeper</i>, that he now +despairs to become their <i>Door Keeper</i>, which office he performed +heretofore. But since Master Peard has become +desperately sick; and so his vote, his law, and haire have all +forsook him, his corporation of Barnstable have been in perfect +health and loyalty. The town of Barnstable having +submitted to the King, this will no doubt be a special cordial +for their languishing Burgess. And yet the man may grow +hearty again when he hears of the late defeat given to his +Majesty’s forces in Lincolnshire.”</p> +<p>This paper was immediately answered by <span class='smcap'>Marchmont +Needham</span>, in his “Mercurius Britannicus,” who cannot +boast the playful and sarcastic bitterness of Sir John; yet is +not the dullest of his tribe. He opens his reply thus:</p> +<p>“Aulicus will needs venture his soule upon the other <i>half-sheet</i>; +and this week he <i>lies</i>, as completely as ever he did in +<i>two full sheets</i>; full of as many scandals and fictions, +full of as much stupidity and ignorance, full of as many +tedious untruths as ever. And because he would <i>recrute</i> +the reputation of his wit, he falls into the company of +our <i>Diurnals</i> very furiously, and there lays about him in the +midst of our weekly pamphlets; and he casts in the few +squibs, and the little wildfire he hath, dashing out his conceits; +and he takes it ill that the poore scribblers should +tell a story for their living; and after a whole week spent at +Oxford, in inke and paper, to as little purpose as <i>Maurice</i> +spent his shot and powder at <i>Plimouth</i>, he gets up, about +Saturday, into a jingle or two, for he cannot reach to a full +jest; and I am informed that the three-quarter conceits in the +last leafe of his Diurnall cost him fourteen pence in <i>aqua vitæ</i>.”</p> +<p>Sir John never condescends formally to reply to Needham, +for which he gives this singular reason:—“As for this +libeller, we are still resolved to take no notice till we find +him able to spell his own name, which to this hour <span class='smcap'>Britannicus</span> +never did.”</p> +<p>In the next number of Needham, who had always written +it <i>Brittanicus</i>, the correction was silently adopted. There +was no crying down the etymology of an Oxford malignant.</p> +<p>I give a short narrative of the political temper of the times, +<a name='TC_24'></a><ins title="Added missing i">in</ins> their unparalleled gazettes.</p> +<p>At the first breaking out of the parliament’s separation +from the royal party, when the public mind, full of consternation +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_421' name='page_421'></a>421</span> +in that new anarchy, shook with the infirmity of +childish terrors, the most extravagant reports were as eagerly +caught up as the most probable, and served much better the +purposes of their inventors. They had daily discoveries of +new conspiracies, which appeared in a pretended correspondence +written from Spain, France, Italy, or Denmark: they +had their amusing literature, mixed with their grave politics; +and a dialogue between “a Dutch mariner and an English +ostler,” could alarm the nation as much as the last letter +from their “private correspondent.” That the wildest rumours +were acceptable appears from their contemporary Fuller. +Armies were talked of, concealed under ground by the king, +to cut the throats of all the Protestants in a night. He assures +us that one of the most prevailing dangers among the +Londoners was “a design laid for a mine of powder under +the Thames, to cause the river to drown the city.” This +desperate expedient, it seems, was discovered just in time to +prevent its execution; and the people were devout enough to +have a public thanksgiving, and watched with a little more +care that the Thames might not be blown up. However, +the plot was really not so much at the bottom of the Thames +as at the bottom of their purses. Whenever they wanted +100,000<i>l.</i> they raised a plot, they terrified the people, they +appointed a thanksgiving-day, and while their ministers addressed +to God himself all the news of the week, and even +reproached him for the rumours against their cause, all ended, +as is usual at such times, with the gulled multitude contributing +more heavily to the adventurers who ruled them than +the legal authorities had exacted in their greatest wants. +“The Diurnals” had propagated thirty-nine of these “Treasons, +or new Taxes,” according to one of the members of the House +of Commons, who had watched their patriotic designs.</p> +<p>These “Diurnals” sometimes used such language as the +following, from <i>The Weekly Accompt</i>, January, 1643:—</p> +<p>“This day afforded no newes at all, but onely what was +<i>heavenly</i> and <i>spiritual</i>;” and he gives an account of the +public fast, and of the grave divine Master Henderson’s sermon, +with his texts in the morning; and in the afternoon, +another of Master Strickland, with his texts—and of their +spiritual effect over the whole parliament!<a name='FNanchor_0337' id='FNanchor_0337'></a><a href='#Footnote_0337' class='fnanchor'>[337]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_422' name='page_422'></a>422</span></div> +<p>Such news as the following was sometimes very agreeable:—</p> +<p>“From Oxford it is informed, that on Sunday last was +fortnight in the evening, Prince Rupert, accompanied with +some lords, and other cavaliers, <i>danced through the streets +openly, with music before them</i>, to one of the colleges; where, +after they had stayed about half an houre, they returned back +again, dancing with the same music; and immediately there +followed <i>a pack of women, or curtizans</i>, as it may be supposed, +for they were hooded, and could not be knowne; and +this the party who related affirmed he saw with his own +eyes.”</p> +<p>On this the Diurnal-maker pours out severe anathemas—and +one with a <i>note</i>, that “<i>dancing</i> and <i>drabbing</i> are inseparable +companions, and follow one another close at the heels.” +He assures his readers, that the malignants, or royalists, only +fight like sensual beasts, to maintain their dancing and drabbing!—Such +was the revolutionary tone here, and such the +arts of faction everywhere. The matter was rather peculiar +to our country, but the principle was the same as practised +in France. Men of opposite characters, when acting for the +same concealed end, must necessarily form parallels.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_423' name='page_423'></a>423</span> +<a name='POLITICAL_CRITICISM_ON_LITERARY_COMPOSITIONS' id='POLITICAL_CRITICISM_ON_LITERARY_COMPOSITIONS'></a> +<h3>POLITICAL CRITICISM</h3> +<h4>ON LITERARY COMPOSITIONS.</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>Anthony Wood</span> and <span class='smcap'>Locke—Milton</span> and <span class='smcap'>Sprat—Burnet</span> and his History—<span class='smcap'>Prior</span> +and <span class='smcap'>Addison—Swift</span> and <span class='smcap'>Steele—Wagstaffe</span> and <span class='smcap'>Steele—Steele</span> +and <span class='smcap'>Addison—Hooke</span> and <span class='smcap'>Middleton—Gilbert Wakefield—Marvel</span> +and <span class='smcap'>Milton—Clarendon</span> and <span class='smcap'>May</span>.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Voltaire</span>, in his letters on our nation, has hit off a marked +feature in our national physiognomy. “So violent did I find +parties in London, that I was assured by several that the +Duke of <span class='smcap'>Marlborough</span> was a coward, and Mr. <span class='smcap'>Pope</span> a +fool.”</p> +<p>A foreigner indeed could hardly expect that in collecting +the characters of English authors by English authors (a labour +which has long afforded me pleasure often interrupted by indignation)—in +a word, that a class of literary history should +turn out a collection of personal quarrels. Would not this +modern Baillet, in his new <i>Jugemens des Sçavans</i>, so ingeniously +inquisitive but so infinitely confused, require to be initiated +into the mysteries of that spirit of party peculiar to our free +country!</p> +<p>All that boiling rancour which sputters against the +thoughts, the style, the taste, the moral character of an +author, is often nothing more than practising what, to give +it a name, we may call <i>Political Criticism in Literature</i>; +where an author’s literary character is attacked solely from +the accidental circumstance of his differing in opinion from +his critics on subjects unconnected with the topics he +treats of.</p> +<p>Could Anthony Wood, had he not been influenced by this +political criticism, have sent down <span class='smcap'>Locke</span> to us as “a man +of a turbulent spirit, clamorous, and never contented, prating +and troublesome?”<a name='FNanchor_0338' id='FNanchor_0338'></a><a href='#Footnote_0338' class='fnanchor'>[338]</a> But Locke was the antagonist of +<span class='smcap'>Filmer</span>, that advocate of arbitrary power; and Locke is +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_424' name='page_424'></a>424</span> +described “as bred under a fanatical tutor,” and when in +Holland, as one of those who under the Earl of Shaftesbury +“stuck close to him when discarded, and carried on the <i>trade +of faction</i> beyond and within the seas several years after.” +In the great original genius, born, like <span class='smcap'>Bacon</span> and <span class='smcap'>Newton</span>, +to create a new era in the history of the human mind, this +political literary critic, who was not always deficient in his +perceptions of genius, could only discover “a trader in faction,” +though in his honesty he acknowledges him to be “a +noted writer.”</p> +<p>A more illustrious instance of party-spirit operating against +works of genius is presented to us in the awful character of +<span class='smcap'>Milton</span>. From earliest youth to latest age endowed with +all the characteristics of genius; fervent with all the inspirations +of study; in all changes still the same great literary +character as Velleius Paterculus writes of one of his heroes—“Aliquando +fortunâ, semper animo maximus:” while in his +own day, foreigners, who usually anticipate posterity, were +inquiring after Milton, it is known how utterly disregarded +he lived at home. The divine author of the “Paradise Lost” +was always connected with the man for whom a reward was +offered in the <i>London Gazette</i>. But in their triumph, the +lovers of monarchy missed their greater glory, in not separating +for ever the republican Secretary of State from the +rival of Homer.</p> +<p>That the genius of Milton pined away in solitude, and that +all the consolations of fame were denied him during his life, +from this political criticism on his works, is generally known; +but not perhaps that this spirit propagated itself far beyond +the poet’s tomb. I give a remarkable instance. Bishop +Sprat, who surely was capable of feeling the poetry of Milton, +yet from political antipathy retained such an abhorrence of +his <i>name</i>, that when the writer of the Latin Inscription on +the poet <span class='smcap'>John Philips</span>, in describing his versification, applied +to it the term <i>Miltono</i>, Sprat ordered it to be erased, as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_425' name='page_425'></a>425</span> +polluting a monument raised in a church.<a name='FNanchor_0339' id='FNanchor_0339'></a><a href='#Footnote_0339' class='fnanchor'>[339]</a> A mere critical +opinion on versification was thus sacrificed to political feeling:—a +stream indeed which in its course has hardly yet worked +itself clear. It could only have been the strong political feeling +of Warton which could have induced him to censure the +prose of Milton with such asperity, while he closed his critical +eyes on its resplendent passages, which certainly he wanted +not the taste to feel,—for he caught in his own pages, occasionally, +some of the reflected warmth. This feeling took full +possession of the mind of Johnson, who, with all the rage of +political criticism on subjects of literature, has condemned the +finest works of Milton, and in one of his terrible paroxysms +has demonstrated that the Samson Agonistes is “a tragedy +which ignorance has admired and bigotry applauded.” Had +not Johnson’s religious feelings fortunately interposed between +Milton and his “Paradise,” we should have wanted the present +noble effusion of his criticism; any other Epic by Milton +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_426' name='page_426'></a>426</span> +had probably sunk beneath his vigorous sophistry, and his +tasteless sarcasm. Lauder’s attack on Milton was hardily +projected, on a prospect of encouragement, from this political +criticism on the literary character of Milton; and he succeeded +as long as he could preserve the decency of the delusion.</p> +<p>The Spirit of Party has touched with its plague-spot the +character of Burnet; it has mildewed the page of a powerful +mind, and tainted by its suspicions, its rumours, and its censures, +his probity as a man. Can we forbear listening to all +the vociferations which faction has thrown out? Do we not +fear to trust ourselves amid the multiplicity of his facts? +And when we are familiarised with the variety of his historical +portraits, are we not startled when it is suggested that “they +are tinged with his own passions and his own weaknesses?” +Burnet has indeed made “his humble appeal to the great God +of Truth” that he has given it as fully as he could find it; +and he has expressed his abhorrence of “a lie in history,” so +much greater a sin than a lie in common discourse, from its +lasting and universal nature. Yet these hallowing protestations +have not saved him! A cloud of witnesses, from +different motives, have risen up to attaint his veracity and +his candour; while all the Tory wits have ridiculed his style, +impatiently inaccurate, and uncouthly negligent, and would +sink his vigour and ardour, while they expose the meanness +and poverty of his genius. Thus the literary and the moral +character of no ordinary author have fallen a victim to party-feeling.<a name='FNanchor_0340' id='FNanchor_0340'></a><a href='#Footnote_0340' class='fnanchor'>[340]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_427' name='page_427'></a>427</span></div> +<p>But this victim to political criticism on literature was himself +criminal, and has wreaked his own party feelings on the +<i>Papist</i> Dryden, and the <i>Tory</i> Prior; Dryden he calls, in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_428' name='page_428'></a>428</span> +most unguarded language, “a monster of immodesty and impurity +of all sorts.” There had been a literary quarrel +between Dryden and Burnet respecting a translation of +Varillas’ “History of Heresies;” Burnet had ruined the credit +of the papistical author while Dryden was busied on the +translation; and as Burnet says, “he has wreaked his malice +on me for spoiling his three months’ labour.” In return, he +kindly informs Dryden, alluding to his poem of “The Hind +and the Panther,” “that he is the author of the <i>worst</i> poem +the age has produced;” and that as for “his morals, it is +scarce possible to grow a worse man than he was”—a personal +style not to be permitted in any controversy, but to bring +this passion on the hallowed ground of history, was not +“casting away his shoe” in the presence of the divinity of +truth.<a name='FNanchor_0341' id='FNanchor_0341'></a><a href='#Footnote_0341' class='fnanchor'>[341]</a> It could only have been the spirit of party which +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_429' name='page_429'></a>429</span> +induced Burnet, in his History, to mention with contempt +and pretended ignorance so fine a genius as “<i>one Prior</i>, who +had been Jersey’s secretary.” It was the same party-feeling +in the Tory Prior, in his elegant “Alma,” where he has interwoven +so graceful a wreath for Pope, that could sneer at the +fine soliloquy of the Roman Cato of the Whig Addison:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>I hope you would not have me die<br /> +<i>Like simple Cato in the play</i>,<br /> +For anything that he can say.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It was the same spirit which would not allow that Garth +was the author of his celebrated poem—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Garth did not write his own Dispensary,</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>as Pope ironically alludes to the story of the times:—a contemporary +wit has recorded this literary injury, by repeating +it.<a name='FNanchor_0342' id='FNanchor_0342'></a><a href='#Footnote_0342' class='fnanchor'>[342]</a> And Swift, who once exclaimed to Pope, “The deuce +take party!” was himself the greatest sinner of them all. He, +once the familiar friend of Steele till party divided them, not +only emptied his shaft of quivers against his literary character, +but raised the horrid yell of the war-whoop in his inhuman +exultation over the unhappy close of the desultory life +of a man of genius. Bitterly has he written—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>From perils of a hundred jails,<br /> +Withdrew to starve, and die in Wales.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>When Steele published “The Crisis,” Swift attacked the +author in so exquisite a piece of grave irony, that I am +tempted to transcribe his inimitable parallels of a triumvirate +composed of the writer of the <i>Flying Post</i>, Dunton the +literary projector, and poor Steele: the one, the Iscariot of +hackney scribes; the other a crack-brained scribbling bookseller, +who boasted he had a thousand projects, fancied he had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_430' name='page_430'></a>430</span> +methodised six hundred, and was ruined by the fifty he executed. +The following is a specimen of that powerful irony in +which Swift excelled all other writers; that fine Cervantic +humour, that provoking coolness which Swift preserves while +he is panegyrising the objects of his utter contempt.</p> +<p>“Among the present writers on the Whig side, I can recollect +but <i>three</i> of any great distinction, which are the <i>Flying +Post</i>, Mr. Dunton, and the Author of <a name='TC_25'></a><ins title="Changed to single quotes">‘The Crisis.’</ins> The first +of these seems to have been much sunk in reputation since the +sudden retreat of the only true, genuine, original author, Mr. +Ridpath, who is celebrated by the <i>Dutch Gazetteer</i> as one of +<i>the best pens in England</i>. Mr. Dunton hath been longer and +more conversant in books than any of the three, as well as +more voluminous in his productions: however, having employed +his studies in so great a variety of other subjects, he +hath, I think, but lately turned his genius to politics. His +famous tract entitled <a name='TC_26'></a><ins title="Changed to single quotes">‘Neck or Nothing’</ins> must be allowed to +be the shrewdest piece, and written with the most spirit of +any which hath appeared from that side since the change of +the ministry. It is indeed a most cutting satire upon the +Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke; and I wonder none of +our friends ever undertook to answer it. I confess I was at +first of the same opinion with several good judges, who from +the style and manner suppose it to have issued from the sharp +pen of the Earl of Nottingham; and I am still apt to think +it might receive his lordship’s last hand. The third and +principal of this triumvirate is the author of <a name='TC_27'></a><ins title="Changed to single quotes">‘The Crisis,’</ins> +who, although he must yield to the <i>Flying Post</i> in knowledge +of the world and skill in politics, and to Mr. Dunton in keenness +of satire and variety of reading, hath yet other qualities +enough to denominate him a writer of a superior class to +either, provided he would a little regard the propriety and +disposition of his words, consult the grammatical part, and +get some information on the subject he intends to handle.”<a name='FNanchor_0343' id='FNanchor_0343'></a><a href='#Footnote_0343' class='fnanchor'>[343]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_431' name='page_431'></a>431</span></div> +<p>So far this fine ironical satire may be inspected as a model; +the polished weapon he strikes with so gracefully, is allowed +by all the laws of war; but the political criticism on the +literary character, the party feeling which degrades a man of +genius, is the drop of poison on its point.</p> +<p>Steele had declared in the “Crisis” that he had always +maintained an inviolable respect for the clergy. Swift (who +perhaps was aimed at in this instance, and whose character, +since the publication of “The Tale of a Tub,” lay under a +suspicion of an opposite tendency) turns on Steele with all +the vigour of his wit, and all the causticity of retort:—</p> +<p>“By this he would insinuate that those papers among the +<i>Tatlers</i> and <i>Spectators</i>, where the whole order is abused, were +not his own. I will appeal to all who know the flatness of +his style, and the barrenness of his invention, whether he doth +not grossly prevaricate? <i>Was he ever able to walk without +his leading-strings, or swim without bladders, without +being discovered by his hobbling or his sinking?</i>”</p> +<p>Such was the attack of Swift, which was pursued in the +<i>Examiner</i>, and afterwards taken up by another writer. This +is one of the evils resulting from the wantonness of genius: it +gives a contagious example to the minor race; its touch opens +a new vein of invention, which the poorer wits soon break +into; the loose sketch of a feature or two from its rapid hand +is sufficient to become a minute portrait, where not a hair is +spared by the caricaturist. This happened to Steele, whose +literary was to be sacrificed to his political character; and this +superstructure was confessedly raised on the malicious hints +we have been noticing. That the <i>Examiner</i> was the seed-plot +of “The Character of Richard St—le, Esq.,” appears by its +opening—“It will be no injury, I am persuaded, to the +<i>Examiner</i> to <i>borrow him</i> a little (Steele), upon promise of +returning him safe, as children do their playthings, when their +mirth is over, and, they have done with them.”</p> +<p>The author of the “Character of Richard St—le, Esq.,” +was Dr. Wagstaffe, one of those careless wits<a name='FNanchor_0344' id='FNanchor_0344'></a><a href='#Footnote_0344' class='fnanchor'>[344]</a> who lived to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_432' name='page_432'></a>432</span> +repent a crazy life of wit, fancy, and hope, and an easy, indolent +one, whose genial hours force up friends like hot-house +plants, that bloom and flower in the spot where they are +raised, but will not endure the change of place and season—this +wit caught the tone of Swift, and because, as his editor +tells us, “he had some friends in the ministry, and thought +he could not take a better way to oblige them than by showing +his dislike to a gentleman who had so much endeavoured +to oppose them,” he sat down to write a libel with all the +best humour imaginable; for, adds this editor, “he was so far +from having any personal pique or enmity against Mr. Steele, +that at the time of his writing he did not so much as know +him, even by sight.” This principle of “having some +friends in the ministry,” and not “any knowledge” of the +character to be attacked, has proved a great source of invention +to our political adventurers;—thus Dr. Wagstaffe was +fully enabled to send down to us a character where the moral +and literary qualities of a genius, to whom this country owes +so much as the father of periodical papers, are immolated to +his political purpose. This severe character passed through +several editions. However the careless Steele might be willing +to place the elaborate libel to the account of party writings, +if he did not feel disturbed at reproaches and accusations, +which are confidently urged, and at critical animadversions, to +which the negligence of his style sometimes laid him too +open, his insensibility would have betrayed a depravity in his +morals and taste which never entered into his character.<a name='FNanchor_0345' id='FNanchor_0345'></a><a href='#Footnote_0345' class='fnanchor'>[345]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_433' name='page_433'></a>433</span></div> +<p>Steele was doomed even to lose the friendship of Addison +amid political discords; but on that occasion Steele showed that +his taste for literature could not be injured by political animosity. +It was at the close of Addison’s life, and on occasion +of the Peerage Bill, Steele published “The Plebeian,” a +cry against enlarging the aristocracy. Addison replied with +“The Old Whig,” Steele rejoined without alluding to the +person of his opponent. But “The Old Whig” could not +restrain his political feelings, and contemptuously described +“little Dicky, whose trade it was to write pamphlets.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_434' name='page_434'></a>434</span> +Steele replied with his usual warmth; but indignant at the +charge of “vassalage,” he says, “I will end this paper, by +firing every free breast with that noble exhortation of the +tragedian—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights,<br /> +The generous plan of power deliver’d down<br /> +From age to age, <a name='TC_28'></a><ins title="Added quote">&c.”</ins></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Thus delicately he detects the anonymous author, and thus +energetically commends, while he reproves him!</p> +<p>Hooke (a Catholic), after he had written his “Roman +History,” published “Observations on Vertot, Middleton, &c., +on the Roman Senate,” in which he particularly treated Dr. +Middleton with a disrespect for which the subject gave no +occasion: this was attributed to the Doctor’s <i>offensive</i> letter +from Rome. Spelman, in replying to this concealed motive +of the Catholic, reprehends him with equal humour and bitterness +for his desire of <i>roasting a Protestant parson</i>.</p> +<p>Our taste, rather than our passions, is here concerned; but +the moral sense still more so. The malice of faction has long +produced this literary calamity; yet great minds have not +always degraded themselves; not always resisted the impulse +of their finer feelings, by hardening them into insensibility, or +goading them in the fury of a misplaced revenge. How +delightful it is to observe Marvell, the Presbyterian and +Republican wit, with that generous temper that instantly discovers +the alliance of genius, warmly applauding the great +work of Butler, which covered his own party with odium and +ridicule. “He is one of an excellent wit,” says Marvell, “and +whoever dislikes the choice of his subject, cannot but commend +the performance.”<a name='FNanchor_0346' id='FNanchor_0346'></a><a href='#Footnote_0346' class='fnanchor'>[346]</a></p> +<p>Clarendon’s profound genius could not expand into the same +liberal feelings. He highly commends May for his learning, +his wit and language, and for his Supplement to Lucan, which +he considered as “one of the best epic poems in the English +language;” but this great spirit sadly winces in the soreness +of his feelings when he alludes to May’s “History of the +Parliament;” then we discover that this late “ingenious person” +performed his part “so meanly, that he seems to have +lost his wit when he left his honesty.” Behold the political +criticism in literature! However we may incline to respect +the feelings of Clarendon, this will not save his judgment nor +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_435' name='page_435'></a>435</span> +his candour. We read May now, as well as Clarendon; nor +is the work of May that of a man who “had lost his wits,” +nor is it “meanly performed.” Warburton, a keen critic of +the writers of that unhappy and that glorious age for both +parties, has pronounced this “History” to be “a just composition, +according to the rules of history; written with much +judgment, penetration, manliness, and spirit, and with a candour +that will greatly increase your esteem, when you understand +that he wrote by order of his masters the Parliament.”</p> +<p>Thus have authors and their works endured the violations +of party feelings; a calamity in our national literature which +has produced much false and unjust criticism.<a name='FNanchor_0347' id='FNanchor_0347'></a><a href='#Footnote_0347' class='fnanchor'>[347]</a> The better +spirit of the present times will maintain a safer and a more +honourable principle,—the true objects of <span class='smcap'>Literature</span>, the +cultivation of the intellectual faculties, stand entirely unconnected +with <span class='smcap'>Politics</span> and <span class='smcap'>Religion</span>, let this be the +imprescriptible right of an author. In our free country +unhappily they have not been separated—they run together, +and in the ocean of human opinions, the salt and bitterness of +these mightier waves have infected the clear waters from the +springs of the Muses. I once read of a certain river that ran +through the sea without mixing with it, preserving its crystalline +purity and all its sweetness during its course; so that +it tasted the same at the Line as at the Poles. This stream +indeed is only to be found in the geography of an old +romance; literature should be this magical stream!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_436' name='page_436'></a>436</span> +<a name='HOBBES_AND_HIS_QUARRELS_INCLUDING__AN_ILLUSTRATION_OF_HIS_CHARACTER' id='HOBBES_AND_HIS_QUARRELS_INCLUDING__AN_ILLUSTRATION_OF_HIS_CHARACTER'></a> +<h3>HOBBES, AND HIS QUARRELS;</h3> +<h4><span class='smcaplc'>INCLUDING</span><br />AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS CHARACTER.</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>Why <span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span> disguised his sentiments—why his philosophy degraded him—of +the sect of the <span class='smcap'>Hobbists</span>—his <span class='smcap'>Leviathan</span>; its principles adapted to +existing circumstances—the author’s difficulties on its first appearance—the +system originated in his fears, and was a contrivance to secure the +peace of the nation—its duplicity and studied ambiguity illustrated by +many facts—the advocate of the national religion—accused of atheism—<span class='smcap'>Hobbe’s</span> +religion—his temper too often tried—attacked by opposite parties—Bishop +<span class='smcap'>Fell’s</span> ungenerous conduct—makes <span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span> regret that +juries do not consider the quarrels of authors of any moment—the +mysterious panic which accompanied him through life—its probable +cause—he pretends to recant his opinions—he is speculatively bold, and +practically timorous—an extravagant specimen of the anti-social philosophy—the +<span class='smcaplc'>SELFISM</span> of <span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span>—his high sense of his works, in regard +to foreigners and posterity—his <a name='TC_29'></a><ins title="Was 'montrous'">monstrous</ins> egotism—his devotion to his +literary pursuits—the despotic principle of the <span class='smcap'>Leviathan</span> of an innocent +tendency—the fate of systems of opinions.</p> +<p>The history of the philosopher of Malmesbury exhibits a +large picture of literary controversy, where we may observe +how a persecuting spirit in the times drives the greatest men +to take refuge in the meanest arts of subterfuge. Compelled +to disguise their sentiments, they will not, however, suppress +them; and hence all their ambiguous proceedings, all +that ridicule and irony, and even recantation, with which ingenious +minds, when forced to their employ, have never failed +to try the patience, or the sagacity, of intolerance.<a name='FNanchor_0348' id='FNanchor_0348'></a><a href='#Footnote_0348' class='fnanchor'>[348]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_437' name='page_437'></a>437</span></div> +<p>The character of Hobbes will, however, serve a higher +moral design. The force of his intellect, the originality of +his views, and the keenest sagacity of observation, place him +in the first order of minds; but he has mortified, and then +degraded man into a mere selfish animal. From a cause we +shall discover, he never looked on human nature but in terror +or in contempt. The inevitable consequence of that mode of +thinking, or that system of philosophy, is to make the philosopher +the abject creature he has himself imagined; and it is +then he libels the species from his own individual experience.<a name='FNanchor_0349' id='FNanchor_0349'></a><a href='#Footnote_0349' class='fnanchor'>[349]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_438' name='page_438'></a>438</span> +More generous tempers, men endowed with warmer imaginations, +awake to sympathies of a higher nature, will indignantly +reject the system, which has reduced the unlucky +system-maker himself to such a pitiable condition.</p> +<p>Hobbes was one of those original thinkers who create a +new era in the philosophical history of their nation, and perpetuate +their name by leaving it to a sect.<a name='FNanchor_0350' id='FNanchor_0350'></a><a href='#Footnote_0350' class='fnanchor'>[350]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_439' name='page_439'></a>439</span></div> +<p>The eloquent and thinking Madame de Staël has asserted +that “Hobbes was an <i>Atheist</i> and a <i>Slave</i>.” Yet I still +think that Hobbes believed, and proved, the necessary existence +of a Deity, and that he loved freedom, as every sage +desires it. It is now time to offer an apology for one of those +great men who are the contemporaries of all ages, and, by fervent +inquiry, to dissipate that traditional cloud which hangs +over one of “those monuments of the mind” which Genius +has built with imperishable materials.</p> +<p>The author of the far-famed “Leviathan” is considered as +a vehement advocate for absolute monarchy. This singular +production may, however, be equally adapted for a republic; +and the monstrous principle may be so innocent in its nature, +as even to enter into our own constitution, which presumes to +be neither.<a name='FNanchor_0351' id='FNanchor_0351'></a><a href='#Footnote_0351' class='fnanchor'>[351]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_440' name='page_440'></a>440</span></div> +<p>As “The Leviathan” produced the numerous controversies +of Hobbes, a history of this great moral curiosity enters into +our subject.</p> +<p>Hobbes, living in times of anarchy, perceived the necessity +of re-establishing authority with more than its usual force. +But how were the divided opinions of men to melt together, +and where in the State was to be placed <i>absolute power</i>? for a +remedy of less force he could not discover for that disordered +state of society which he witnessed. Was the sovereign or the +people to be invested with that mighty power which was to +keep every other quiescent?—a topic which had been discussed +for ages, and still must be, as the humours of men incline—was, +I believe, a matter perfectly indifferent to our philosopher, +provided that whatever might be the government, absolute +power could somewhere be lodged in it, to force men to act +in strict conformity. He discovers his perplexity in the dedication +of his work. “In a way beset with those that contend +on one side for too great liberty, on the other side for +too much authority, ’tis hard to pass between the points of +both unwounded.” It happened that our cynical Hobbes had +no respect for his species; terrified at anarchy, he seems to +have lost all fear when he flew to absolute power—a sovereign +remedy unworthy of a great spirit, though convenient +for a timid one like his own. Hobbes considered men merely +as animals of prey, living in a state of perpetual hostility, and +his solitary principle of action was self-preservation at any +price.</p> +<p>He conjured up a political phantom, a favourite and fanciful +notion, that haunted him through life. He imagined that +the <i>many</i> might be more easily managed by making them up +into an artificial <i>One</i>, and calling this wonderful political +unity the <i>Commonwealth</i>, or the <i>Civil Power</i>, or the <i>Sovereign</i>, +or by whatever name was found most pleasing; he personified +it by the image of “Leviathan.”<a name='FNanchor_0352' id='FNanchor_0352'></a><a href='#Footnote_0352' class='fnanchor'>[352]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_441' name='page_441'></a>441</span></div> +<p>At first sight the ideal monster might pass for an innocent +conceit; and there appears even consummate wisdom in +erecting a colossal power for our common security; but +Hobbes assumed that <i>Authority</i> was to be supported to its +extreme pitch. <i>Force</i> with him appeared to constitute <i>right</i>, +and <i>unconditional submission</i> then became a <i>duty</i>: these were +consequences quite natural to one who at his first step degraded +man by comparing him to a watch, and who would +not have him go but with the same nicety of motion, wound +up by a great key.</p> +<p>To be secure, by the system of Hobbes, we must at least +lose the glory of our existence as intellectual beings. He +would persuade us into the dead quietness of a commonwealth +of puppets, while he was consigning into the grasp of his +“Leviathan,” or sovereign power, the wire that was to communicate +a mockery of vital motion—a principle of action +without freedom. The system was equally desirable to the +Protector Cromwell as to the regal Charles. A conspiracy +against mankind could not alarm their governors: it is not +therefore surprising that the usurper offered Hobbes the office +of Secretary of State; and that he was afterwards pensioned +by the monarch.</p> +<p>A philosophical system, moral or political, is often nothing +more than a temporary expedient to turn aside the madness +of the times by substituting what offers an appearance of +relief; nor is it a little influenced by the immediate convenience +of the philosopher himself; his personal character +enters a good deal into the system. The object of Hobbes in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_442' name='page_442'></a>442</span> +his “Leviathan” was always ambiguous, because it was, in +truth, one of these systems of expediency, conveniently adapted +to what has been termed of late “existing circumstances.” His +sole aim was to keep all things in peace, by creating one +mightiest power in the State, to suppress instantly all other +powers that might rise in insurrection. In his times, the +establishment of despotism was the only political restraint he +could discover of sufficient force to chain man down, amid +the turbulence of society; but this concealed end he is perpetually +shifting and disguising; for the truth is, no man +loved slavery less.<a name='FNanchor_0353' id='FNanchor_0353'></a><a href='#Footnote_0353' class='fnanchor'>[353]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_443' name='page_443'></a>443</span></div> +<p>The system of Hobbes could not be limited to politics: he +knew that the safety of the people’s morals required an +<i>Established Religion</i>. The alliance between Church and State +had been so violently shaken, that it was necessary to cement +them once more. As our philosopher had been terrified in +his politics by the view of its contending factions, so, in religion, +he experienced the same terror at the hereditary rancours +of its multiplied sects. He could devise no other means than +to attack the mysteries and dogmas of theologians, those +after-inventions and corruptions of Christianity, by which the +artifices of their chiefs had so long split them into perpetual +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_444' name='page_444'></a>444</span> +factions:<a name='FNanchor_0354' id='FNanchor_0354'></a><a href='#Footnote_0354' class='fnanchor'>[354]</a> he therefore asserted that the religion of the +people ought to exist, in strict conformity to the will of the +State.<a name='FNanchor_0355' id='FNanchor_0355'></a><a href='#Footnote_0355' class='fnanchor'>[355]</a></p> +<p>When Hobbes wrote against mysteries, the mere polemics +sent forth a cry of his impiety; the philosopher was branded +with Atheism;—one of those artful calumnies, of which, after +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_445' name='page_445'></a>445</span> +a man has washed himself clean, the stain will be found to +have dyed the skin.<a name='FNanchor_0356' id='FNanchor_0356'></a><a href='#Footnote_0356' class='fnanchor'>[356]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_446' name='page_446'></a>446</span></div> +<p>To me it appears that Hobbes, to put an end to these +religious wars, which his age and country had witnessed, perpetually +kindled by crazy fanatics and intolerant dogmatists, +insisted that the <i>crosier</i> should be carried in the <i>left</i> hand of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_447' name='page_447'></a>447</span> +his Leviathan, and the <i>sword</i> in his right.<a name='FNanchor_0357' id='FNanchor_0357'></a><a href='#Footnote_0357' class='fnanchor'>[357]</a> He testified, as +strongly as man could, by his public actions, that he was a +Christian of the Church of England, “as by law established,” +and no enemy to the episcopal order; but he dreaded the encroachments +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_448' name='page_448'></a>448</span> +of the Churchmen in his political system; jealous +of that <i>supremacy</i> at which some of them aimed. Many enlightened +bishops sided with the philosopher.<a name='FNanchor_0358' id='FNanchor_0358'></a><a href='#Footnote_0358' class='fnanchor'>[358]</a> At a time +when Milton sullenly withdrew from every public testimonial +of divine worship, Hobbes, with more enlightened views, +<i>attended Church service</i>, and strenuously supported <i>an established +religion</i>; yet one is deemed a religious man, and the +other an Atheist! Were the actions of men to be decisive of +their characters, the reverse might be inferred.</p> +<p>The temper of our philosopher, so ill-adapted to contradiction, +was too often tried; and if, as his adversary, Harrington, +in the “Oceana,” says, “Truth be a spark whereunto objections +are like bellows,” the mind of Hobbes, for half a century, +was a very forge, where the hammer was always beating, and +the flame was never allowed to be extinguished. Charles II. +strikingly described his worrying assailants. “Hobbes,” said +the king, “was a bear against whom the Church played their +young dogs, in order to exercise them.”<a name='FNanchor_0359' id='FNanchor_0359'></a><a href='#Footnote_0359' class='fnanchor'>[359]</a> A strange repartee +has preserved the causticity of his wit. Dr. Eachard, perhaps +one of the prototypes of Swift, wrote two admirable ludicrous +dialogues, in ridicule of Hobbes’s “State of Nature.”<a name='FNanchor_0360' id='FNanchor_0360'></a><a href='#Footnote_0360' class='fnanchor'>[360]</a> These +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_449' name='page_449'></a>449</span> +were much extolled, and kept up the laugh against the philosophic +misanthropist: once when he was told that the clergy +said that “Eachard had crucified Hobbes,” he bitterly retorted, +“Why, then, don’t they fall down and <i>worship</i> me?”<a name='FNanchor_0361' id='FNanchor_0361'></a><a href='#Footnote_0361' class='fnanchor'>[361]</a></p> +<p>“The Leviathan” was ridiculed by the wits, declaimed against +by the republicans, denounced by the monarchists, and menaced +by the clergy. The commonwealth man, the dreamer of +equality, Harrington, raged at the subtile advocate for despotic +power; but the glittering bubble of his fanciful “Oceana” +only broke on the mighty sides of the Leviathan, wasting its +rainbow tints: the mitred Bramhall, at “The Catching of +Leviathan, or the Great Whale,” flung his harpoon, demonstrating +consequences from the principles of Hobbes, which he +as eagerly denied. But our ambiguous philosopher had the +hard fate to be attacked even by those who were labouring to +the same end.<a name='FNanchor_0362' id='FNanchor_0362'></a><a href='#Footnote_0362' class='fnanchor'>[362]</a> The literary wars of Hobbes were fierce and +long; heroes he encountered, but heroes too were fighting by +his side. Our chief himself wore a kind of magical armour; +for, either he denied the consequences his adversaries deduced +from his principles, or he surprised by new conclusions, which +many could not discover in them; but by such means he had not +only the art of infusing confidence among the <i>Hobbists</i>, but +the greater one of dividing his adversaries, who often retreated, +rather fatigued than victorious. Hobbes owed this +partly to the happiness of a genius which excelled in controversy, +but more, perhaps, to the advantage of the ground he +occupied as a metaphysician: the usual darkness of that spot +is favourable to those shiftings and turnings which the equivocal +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_450' name='page_450'></a>450</span> +possessor may practise with an unwary assailant. Far +different was the fate of Hobbes in the open daylight of +mathematics: there his hardy genius lost him, and his sophistry +could spin no web; as we shall see in the memorable war +of twenty years waged between Hobbes and Dr. Wallis. But +the gall of controversy was sometimes tasted, and the flames +of persecution flashed at times in the closet of our philosopher. +The ungenerous attack of Bishop Fell, who, in the +Latin translation of Wood’s “History of the University of +Oxford,” had converted eulogium into the most virulent +abuse,<a name='FNanchor_0363' id='FNanchor_0363'></a><a href='#Footnote_0363' class='fnanchor'>[363]</a> without the participation of Wood, who resented it +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_451' name='page_451'></a>451</span> +with his honest warmth, was only an arrow snatched from a +quiver which was every day emptying itself on the devoted +head of our ambiguous philosopher. Fell only vindicated +himself by a fresh invective on “the most vain and waspish +animal of Malmesbury,” and Hobbes was too frightened to +reply. This was the Fell whom it was so difficult to assign +a reason for not liking:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>I don’t like thee, Dr. Fell,<br /> +The reason why I cannot tell,<br /> +But I don’t like thee, Dr. Fell!</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>A curious incident in the history of the mind of this philosopher, +was the mysterious panic which accompanied him to +his latest day. It has not been denied that Hobbes was subject +to occasional terrors: he dreaded to be left without company; +and a particular instance is told, that on the Earl of +Devonshire’s removal from Chatsworth, the philosopher, then +in a dying state, insisted on being carried away, though on a +feather-bed. Various motives have been suggested to account +for this extraordinary terror. Some declared he was afraid of +spirits; but he was too stout a materialist!<a name='FNanchor_0364' id='FNanchor_0364'></a><a href='#Footnote_0364' class='fnanchor'>[364]</a>—another, that +he dreaded assassination; an ideal poniard indeed might scare +even a materialist. But Bishop Atterbury, in a sermon on +<i>the Terrors of Conscience</i>, illustrates their nature by the +character of our philosopher. Hobbes is there accused of attempting +to destroy the principles of religion against his own +inward conviction: this would only prove the insanity of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_452' name='page_452'></a>452</span> +Hobbes! The Bishop shows that “the disorders of <i>conscience</i> +are not a <i>continued</i>, but an <i>intermitting</i> disease;” so that the +patient may appear at intervals in seeming health and real +ease, till the fits return: all this he applies to the case of our +philosopher. In reasoning on human affairs, the shortest way +will be to discover human motives. The spirit, or the assassin +of Hobbes, arose from the bill brought into Parliament, when +the nation was panic-struck on the fire of London, against +Atheism and Profaneness; he had a notion that a writ <i>de +heretico comburendo</i> was intended for him by Bishop Seth +Ward, his <i>quondam</i> admirer.<a name='FNanchor_0365' id='FNanchor_0365'></a><a href='#Footnote_0365' class='fnanchor'>[365]</a> His spirits would sink at +those moments; for in the philosophy of Hobbes, the whole +universe was concentrated in the small space of <span class='smcap'>Self</span>. There +was no length he refused to go for what he calls “the natural +right of preservation, which we all receive from the uncontrollable +dictates of <span class='smcap'>Necessity</span>.” He exhausts his imagination +in the forcible descriptions of his extinction: “the +terrible enemy of nature, Death,” is always before him. The +“inward horror” he felt of his extinction, Lord Clarendon +thus alludes to: “If Mr. Hobbes and some other man were +both condemned to death (which is the most formidable thing +Mr. Hobbes can conceive)”—and Dr. Eachard rallies him on +the infinite anxiety he bestowed on his <i>body</i>, and thinks that +“he had better compound to be kicked and beaten twice a +day, than to be so dismally tortured about an old rotten carcase.” +Death was perhaps the only subject about which +Hobbes would not dispute.</p> +<p>Such a materialist was then liable to terrors; and though, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_453' name='page_453'></a>453</span> +when his works were burnt, the author had not a hair singed, +the convulsion of the panic often produced, as Bishop Atterbury +expresses it, “an intermitting disease.”</p> +<p>Persecution terrified Hobbes, and magnanimity and courage +were no virtues in his philosophy. He went about hinting +that he was not obstinate (that is, before the Bench of +Bishops); that his opinions were mere conjectures, proposed +as exercises for the powers of reasoning. He attempted +(without meaning to be ludicrous) to make his <i>opinions</i> a +distinct object from his <i>person</i>; and, for the good order of the +latter, he appealed to the family chaplain for his attendance at +divine service, from whence, however, he always departed at +the sermon, insisting that the chaplain could not teach him +anything. It was in one of these panics that he produced his +“Historical Narrative of Heresy, and the Punishment thereof,” +where, losing the dignity of the philosophic character, he +creeps into a subterfuge with the subtilty of the lawyer; +insisting that “The Leviathan,” being published at a time +when there was no distinction of creeds in England (the +Court of High Commission having been abolished in the +troubles), that therefore none could be heretical.<a name='FNanchor_0366' id='FNanchor_0366'></a><a href='#Footnote_0366' class='fnanchor'>[366]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_454' name='page_454'></a>454</span></div> +<p>No man was more speculatively bold, and more practically +timorous;<a name='FNanchor_0367' id='FNanchor_0367'></a><a href='#Footnote_0367' class='fnanchor'>[367]</a> and two very contrary principles enabled him, +through an extraordinary length of life, to deliver his opinions +and still to save himself: these were his excessive vanity and +his excessive timidity. The one inspired his hardy originality, +and the other prompted him to protect himself by any means. +His love of glory roused his vigorous intellect, while his fears +shrunk him into his little self. Hobbes, engaged in the cause +of truth, betrayed her dignity by his ambiguous and abject +conduct: this was a consequence of his selfish philosophy; +and this conduct has yielded no dubious triumph to the noble +school which opposed his cynical principles.</p> +<p>A genius more luminous, sagacity more profound, and +morals less tainted, were never more eminently combined than +in this very man, who was so often reduced to the most abject +state. But the anti-social philosophy of Hobbes terminated +in preserving a pitiful state of existence. He who considered +nothing more valuable than life, degraded himself by the +meanest artifices of self-love,<a name='FNanchor_0368' id='FNanchor_0368'></a><a href='#Footnote_0368' class='fnanchor'>[368]</a> and exulted in the most cynical +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_455' name='page_455'></a>455</span> +truths.<a name='FNanchor_0369' id='FNanchor_0369'></a><a href='#Footnote_0369' class='fnanchor'>[369]</a> The philosophy of Hobbes, founded on fear and +suspicion, and which, in human nature, could see nothing +beyond himself, might make him a wary politician, but always +an imperfect social being. We find, therefore, that the philosopher +of Malmesbury adroitly retained a friend at court, to +protect him at an extremity; but considering all men alike, +as bargaining for themselves, his friends occasioned him as +much uneasiness as his enemies. He lived in dread that the +Earl of Devonshire, whose roof had ever been his protection, +should at length give him up to the Parliament! There are +no friendships among cynics!</p> +<p>To such a state of degradation had the selfish philosophy +reduced one of the greatest geniuses; a philosophy true only +for the wretched and the criminal.<a name='FNanchor_0370' id='FNanchor_0370'></a><a href='#Footnote_0370' class='fnanchor'>[370]</a> But those who feel moving +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_456' name='page_456'></a>456</span> +within themselves the benevolent principle, and who delight +in acts of social sympathy, are conscious of passions and motives, +which the others have omitted in their system. And the +truth is, these “unnatural philosophers,” as Lord Shaftesbury +expressively terms them, are by no means the monsters they tell +us they are: their practice is therefore usually in opposition +to their principles. While Hobbes was for chaining down +mankind as so many beasts of prey, he surely betrayed his +social passion, in the benevolent warnings he was perpetually +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_457' name='page_457'></a>457</span> +giving them; and while he affected to hold his brothers in +contempt, he was sacrificing laborious days, and his peace of +mind, to acquire celebrity. Who loved glory more than this +sublime cynic?—“<i>Glory</i>,” says our philosopher, “by those +whom it displeaseth, is called <i>Pride</i>; by those whom it +pleaseth, it is termed <i>a just valuation of himself</i>.”<a name='FNanchor_0371' id='FNanchor_0371'></a><a href='#Footnote_0371' class='fnanchor'>[371]</a> Had +Hobbes defined, as critically, the passion of <i>self-love</i>, without +resolving all our sympathies into a single monstrous one, we +might have been disciplined without being degraded.</p> +<p>Hobbes, indeed, had a full feeling of the magnitude of his +labours, both for foreigners and posterity, as he has expressed +it in his life. He disperses, in all his works, some Montaigne-like +notices of himself, and they are eulogistic. He has not +omitted any one of his virtues, nor even an apology for his +deficiency in others. He notices with complacency how +Charles II. had his portrait placed in the royal cabinet; how +it was frequently asked for by his friends, in England and in +France.<a name='FNanchor_0372' id='FNanchor_0372'></a><a href='#Footnote_0372' class='fnanchor'>[372]</a> He has written his life several times, in verse and +in prose; and never fails to throw into the eyes of his adversaries +the reputation he gained abroad and at home.<a name='FNanchor_0373' id='FNanchor_0373'></a><a href='#Footnote_0373' class='fnanchor'>[373]</a> He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_458' name='page_458'></a>458</span> +delighted to show he was living, by annual publications; and +exultingly exclaims, “That when he had silenced his adversaries, +he published, in the eighty-seventh year of his life, +the Odyssey of Homer, and the next year the Iliad, in English +verse.”</p> +<p>His greatest imperfection was a monstrous egotism—the +fate of those who concentrate all their observations in their +own individual feelings. There are minds which may think +too much, by conversing too little with books and men. +Hobbes exulted he had read little; he had not more than +half-a-dozen books about him; hence he always saw things in +his own way, and doubtless this was the cause of his mania +for disputation.</p> +<p>He wrote against dogmas with a spirit perfectly dogmatic. +He liked conversation on the terms of his own political system, +provided absolute authority was established, peevishly +referring to his own works whenever contradicted; and his +friends stipulated with strangers, that “they should not dispute +with the old man.” But what are we to think of that +pertinacity of opinion which he held even with one as great +as himself? Selden has often quitted the room, or Hobbes +been driven from it, in the fierceness of their battle.<a name='FNanchor_0374' id='FNanchor_0374'></a><a href='#Footnote_0374' class='fnanchor'>[374]</a> Even +to his latest day, the “war of words” delighted the man of +confined reading. The literary duels between Hobbes and +another hero celebrated in logomachy, the Catholic priest, +Thomas White, have been recorded by Wood. They had both +passed their eightieth year, and were fond of paying visits to +one another: but the two literary Nestors never met to part +in cool blood, “wrangling, squabbling, and scolding on philosophical +matters,” as our blunt and lively historian has +described.<a name='FNanchor_0375' id='FNanchor_0375'></a><a href='#Footnote_0375' class='fnanchor'>[375]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_459' name='page_459'></a>459</span></div> +<p>His little qualities were the errors of his own selfish philosophy; +his great ones were those of nature. He was a votary +to his studies:<a name='FNanchor_0376' id='FNanchor_0376'></a><a href='#Footnote_0376' class='fnanchor'>[376]</a> he avoided marriage, to which he was inclined; +and refused place and wealth, which he might have +enjoyed, for literary leisure. He treated with philosophic +pleasantry his real contempt of money.<a name='FNanchor_0377' id='FNanchor_0377'></a><a href='#Footnote_0377' class='fnanchor'>[377]</a> His health and his +studies were the sole objects of his thoughts; and notwithstanding +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_460' name='page_460'></a>460</span> +that panic which so often disturbed them, he wrote +and published beyond his ninetieth year. He closes the metrical +history of his life with more dignity than he did his +life itself; for his mind seems always to have been greater +than his actions. He appeals to his friends for the congruity +of his life with his writings; for his devotion to justice; and +for a generous work, which no miser could have planned; +and closes thus:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>And now complete my four-and-eighty years,<br /> +Life’s lengthen’d plot is o’er, and the last scene appears.<a name='FNanchor_0378' id='FNanchor_0378'></a><a href='#Footnote_0378' class='fnanchor'>[378]</a></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Of the works of Hobbes we must not conclude, as Hume +tells us, that “they have fallen into neglect;” nor, in the +style with which they were condemned at Oxford, that “they +are pernicious and damnable.” The sanguine opinion of +the author himself was, that the mighty “Leviathan” will +stand for all ages, defended by its own strength; for the +rule of justice, the reproof of the ambitious, the citadel of +the Sovereign, and the peace of the people.<a name='FNanchor_0379' id='FNanchor_0379'></a><a href='#Footnote_0379' class='fnanchor'>[379]</a> But the smaller +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_461' name='page_461'></a>461</span> +treatises of Hobbes are not less precious. Locke is the +pupil of Hobbes, and it may often be doubtful whether the +scholar has rivalled the nervous simplicity and the energetic +originality of his master.</p> +<p>The genius of Hobbes was of the first order; his works +abound with the most impressive truths, in all the simplicity +of thought and language, yet he never elevates nor delights. +Too faithful an observer of the miserable human nature before +him, he submits to expedients; he acts on the defensive; and +because he is in terror, he would consider security to be the +happiness of man. In <i>Religion</i> he would stand by an +established one; yet thus he deprives man of that moral +freedom which God himself has surely allowed us. Locke +has the glory of having first given distinct notions of the +nature of toleration. In <i>Politics</i> his great principle is the +establishment of <i>Authority</i>, or, as he terms it, an “entireness +of sovereign power:” here he seems to have built his arguments +with such eternal truths and with such a contriving +wisdom as to adapt his system to all the changes of government. +Hobbes found it necessary in his day to place this +despotism in the hands of his colossal monarch; and were +Hobbes now living, he would not relinquish the principle, +though perhaps he might vary the application; for if +Authority, strong as man can create it, is not suffered to +exist in our free constitution, what will become of our freedom? +Hobbes would now maintain his system by depositing +his “entireness of sovereign power” in the Laws of his +Country. So easily shifted is the vast political machine of +the much abused “Leviathan!” The <i>Citizen</i> of Hobbes, like +the <i>Prince</i> of Machiavel, is alike innocent, when the end of +their authors is once detected, amid those ambiguous means +by which the hard necessity of their times constrained their +mighty genius to disguise itself.</p> +<p>It is, however, remarkable of <i>Systems of Opinions</i>, that the +founder’s celebrity has usually outlived his sect’s. Why are +systems, when once brought into practice, so often discovered +to be fallacies? It seems to me the natural progress of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_462' name='page_462'></a>462</span> +system-making. A genius of this order of invention long +busied with profound observations and perpetual truths, would +appropriate to himself this assemblage of his ideas, by stamping +his individual mark on them; for this purpose he strikes +out some mighty paradox, which gives an apparent connexion +to them all: and to this paradox he forces all parts into subserviency. +It is a minion of the fancy, which his secret pride +supports, not always by the most scrupulous means. Hence the +system itself, with all its novelty and singularity, turns out to +be nothing more than an ingenious deception carried on for +the glory of the inventor; and when his followers perceive +they were the dupes of his ingenuity, they are apt, in quitting +the system, to give up all; not aware that the parts are as +true as the whole together is false; the sagacity of Genius +collected the one, but its vanity formed the other!</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_463' name='page_463'></a>463</span> +<a name='HOBBESS_QUARRELS_WITH__DR_WALLIS_THE_MATHEMATICIAN' id='HOBBESS_QUARRELS_WITH__DR_WALLIS_THE_MATHEMATICIAN'></a> +<h3>HOBBES’S QUARRELS</h3> +<h4><span class='smcaplc'>WITH</span><br />DR. WALLIS THE MATHEMATICIAN.</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>Hobbes’s</span> passion for the study of Mathematics began late in life—attempts +to be an original discoverer—attacked by <span class='smcap'>Wallis</span>—various replies and +rejoinders—nearly maddened by the opposition he encountered—after +four years of truce, the war again renewed—character of <span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span> by Dr. +<span class='smcap'>Wallis</span>, a specimen of invective and irony; serving as a remarkable +instance how the greatest genius may come down to us disguised by the +arts of an adversary—<span class='smcap'>Hobbes’s</span> noble defence of himself; of his own great +reputation; of his politics; and of his religion—a literary stratagem of +his—reluctantly gives up the contest, which lasted twenty years.</p> +<p>The Mathematical War between <span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span> and the celebrated +Dr. <span class='smcap'>Wallis</span> is now to be opened. A series of battles, the +renewed campaigns of more than twenty years, can be +described by no term less eventful. Hobbes himself considered +it as a war, and it was a war of idle ambition, in which +he took too much delight. His “Amata Mathemata” +became his pride, his pleasure, and at length his shame. +He attempted to maintain his irruption into a province +he ought never to have entered in defiance, by “a new +method;” but having invaded the powerful natives, he seems +to have almost repented the folly, and retires, leaving “the +unmanageable brutes” to themselves:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Ergo meam statuo non ultra perdere opellam<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Indocile expectans discere posse pecus.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>His language breathes war, while he sounds his retreat, and +confesses his repulse. The Algebraists had all declared against +the Invader.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Wallisius contra pugnat; victusque videbar<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Algebristarum Theiologumque scholis,<br /> +Et simul eductus Castris exercitus omnis<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Pugnæ securus Wallisianus ovat.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Pugna placet vertor—<br /> +Bella mea audisti—&c.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_464' name='page_464'></a>464</span></div> +<p>So that we have sufficient authority to consider this Literary +Quarrel as a war, and a “Bellum Peloponnesiacum” too, for +it lasted as long. Political, literary, and even personal feelings +were called in to heat the temperate blood of two +Mathematicians.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>What means this tumult in a Vestal’s veins?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Hobbes was one of the many victims who lost themselves +in squaring the circle, and doubling the cube. He applied, +late in life, to mathematical studies, not so much, he says, to +learn the subtile demonstrations of its figures, as to acquire +those habits of close reasoning, so useful in the discovery of +new truths, to prove or to refute. So justly he reasoned on +mathematics; but so ill he practised the science, that it made +him the most unreasonable being imaginable, for he resisted +mathematical demonstration, itself!<a name='FNanchor_0380' id='FNanchor_0380'></a><a href='#Footnote_0380' class='fnanchor'>[380]</a></p> +<p>His great and original character could not but prevail in +everything he undertook; and his egotism tempted him to +raise a name in the world of Science, as he had in that of +Politics and Morals. With the ardour of a young mathematician, +he exclaimed, “<i>Eureka!</i>” “I have found it.” The +quadrature of the circle was indeed the common Dulcinea of +the Quixotes of the time; but they had all been disenchanted. +Hobbes alone clung to his ridiculous mistress. Repeatedly +confuted, he was perpetually resisting old reasonings and producing +new ones. Were only genius requisite for an able +mathematician, Hobbes had been among the first; but patience +and docility, not fire and fancy, are necessary. His reasonings +were all paralogisms, and he had always much to say, from +not understanding the subject of his inquiries.</p> +<p>When Hobbes published his “De Corpore Philosophico,” +1655, he there exulted that he had solved the great mystery. +Dr. Wallis, the Savilian professor of mathematics at Oxford,<a name='FNanchor_0381' id='FNanchor_0381'></a><a href='#Footnote_0381' class='fnanchor'>[381]</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_465' name='page_465'></a>465</span> +with a deep aversion to Hobbes’s political and religious sentiments, +as he understood them, rejoiced to see this famous +combatant descending into his own arena. He certainly was +eager to meet him single-handed; for he instantly confuted +Hobbes, by his “Elenchus Geometriæ Hobbianæ.” Hobbes, +who saw the newly-acquired province of his mathematics in +danger, and which, like every new possession, seemed to +involve his honour more than was necessary, called on all the +world to be witnesses of this mighty conflict. He now published +his work in English, with a sarcastic addition, in a +magisterial tone, of “<i>Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics +in Oxford</i>.” These were Seth Ward<a name='FNanchor_0382' id='FNanchor_0382'></a><a href='#Footnote_0382' class='fnanchor'>[382]</a> and Wallis, +both no friends to Hobbes, and who hungered after him as a +relishing morsel. Wallis now replied in English, by “Due +Correction for Mr. Hobbes, or School-discipline for not saying +his Lessons Right,” 1656. That part of controversy which +is usually the last had already taken place in their choice of +phrases.<a name='FNanchor_0383' id='FNanchor_0383'></a><a href='#Footnote_0383' class='fnanchor'>[383]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_466' name='page_466'></a>466</span></div> +<p>In the following year the campaign was opened by Hobbes +with +“<span lang="el" title="STIGMAI">ΣΤΙΓΜΑΙ</span>; +or, <i>marks</i> of the absurd Geometry, <i>rural +Language</i>, Scottish Church-politics, and Barbarisms, of John +Wallis.” Quick was the routing of these fresh forces; not +one was to escape alive! for Wallis now took the field with +“Hobbiani Puncti dispunctio! or, the undoing of Mr. Hobbes’s +Points; in answer to Mr. Hobbes’s +<span lang="el" title="STIGMAI">ΣΤΙΓΜΑΙ</span>, +<i>id est</i>, Stigmata +Hobbii.” Hobbes seems now to have been reduced to great +straits; perhaps he wondered at the obstinacy of his adversary. +It seems that Hobbes, who had been used to other +studies, and who confesses all the algebraists were against +him, could not conceive a point to exist without quantity; or +a line could be drawn without latitude; or a superficies be +without depth or thickness; but mathematicians conceive +them without these qualities, when they exist abstractedly in +the mind; though, when for the purposes of science they are +produced to the senses, they necessarily have all the qualities. +It was understanding these figures, in the vulgar way, which +led Hobbes into a labyrinth of confusions and absurdities.<a name='FNanchor_0384' id='FNanchor_0384'></a><a href='#Footnote_0384' class='fnanchor'>[384]</a> +They appear to have nearly maddened the clear and vigorous +intellect of our philosopher; for he exclaims, in one of these +writings:—</p> +<p>“I alone am mad, or they are all out of their senses: so +that no third opinion can be taken, unless any will say that +we are all mad.”</p> +<p>Four years of truce were allowed to intervene between the +next battle; when the irrefutable Hobbes, once more collecting +his weak and his incoherent forces, arranged them, as well +as he was able, into “Six Dialogues,” 1661. The utter annihilation +he intended for his antagonist fell on himself. +Wallis borrowing the character of “The Self-tormentor” from +Terence, produced “Hobbius Heauton-timorumenos (Hobbes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_467' name='page_467'></a>467</span> +the Self-tormentor); or, a Consideration of Mr. Hobbes’s +Dialogues; addressed to Robert Boyle,” 1662.</p> +<p>This attack of Wallis is of a very opposite character to the +arid discussion of abstract blunders in geometry. He who +began with points, and doubling the cube, and squaring the +circle, now assumes a loftier tone, and carrying his personal +and moral feelings into a mere controversy between two idle +mathematicians, he has formed a solemn invective, and edged +it with irony. I hope the reader has experienced sufficient +interest in the character of Hobbes to read the long, but +curious extract I shall now transcribe, with that awe and +reverence which the old man claims. It will show how even +the greatest genius may be disguised, when viewed through +the coloured medium of an adversary. One is, however, surprised +to find such a passage in a mathematical work.</p> +<p>“He doth much improve; I mean he doth, <i>proficere in +pejus</i>; more, indeed, than I could reasonably have expected +he would have done;—insomuch, that I cannot but profess +some relenting thoughts (though I had formerly occasion to +use him somewhat coarsely), to see an old man thus fret and +torment himself to no purpose. You, too, should pity your +antagonist; not as if he did deserve it, but because he needs +it; and as Chremes, in Terence, of his Senex, his self-tormenting +Menedemus—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Cum videam miserum hunc tam excruciarier<br /> +Miseret me ejus. Quod potero adjutabo senem.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“Consider the temper of the man, to move your pity; a +person <i>extremely passionate and peevish, and wholly impatient +of contradiction</i>. A temper which, whether it be a greater +fault or torment (to one who must so often meet with what +he is so ill able to bear), is hard to say.</p> +<p>“And to this fretful humour you must add another as bad, +which feeds it. You are therefore next to consider him as +<i>one highly opinionative and magisterial</i>. <i>Fanciful</i> in his conceptions, +and deeply enamoured with those <i>phantasmes</i>, without +a rival. He doth not spare to profess, upon all occasions, +how incomparably he thinks himself to have <i>surpassed all</i>, +ancient, modern, schools, academies, persons, societies, philosophers, +divines, heathens, Christians; how despicable he thinks +all their writings in comparison of his; and what hopes he +hath, that, by <i>the sovereign command of some absolute prince, +all other doctrines being exploded, his new dictates should be</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_468' name='page_468'></a>468</span> +<i>peremptorily +imposed, to be alone taught in all schools and +pulpits, and universally submitted to</i>. To recount all which +he speaks of himself <i>magnificently</i>, and <i>contemptuously</i> of +others, would fill a volume. Should some idle person read +over all his books, and collecting together his arrogant and +supercilious speeches, applauding himself, and despising all +other men, set them forth in one <i>synopsis</i>, with this title, +<i>Hobbius de se</i>—what a pretty piece of pageantry this would +make!</p> +<p>“The admirable sweetness of your own nature has not +given you the experience of such a temper: yet your contemplation +must have needs discerned it, in those symptoms +which you have seen it work in others, like the strange effervescence, +ebullition, fumes, and fetors, which you have sometimes +given yourself the content to observe, in some active +<i>acrimonious</i> chymical <i>spirits</i> upon the injection of some contrariant +<i>salts</i> strangely vexing, fretting, and tormenting itself, +while it doth but administer <i>sport</i> to the unconcerned spectator. +Which temper, being so eminent in the person we have +to deal with, your generous nature, which cannot but pity +affliction, how much soever deserved, must needs have some +compassion for him: who, besides those exquisite <i>torments</i> +wherewith he doth afflict himself, like that</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——quo Siculi non invenere Tyranni<br /> +Tormentum majus—</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>is unavoidably exposed to those two great <i>mischiefs</i>; an incapacity +to be <i>taught what he doth not know</i>, or to be <i>advised +when he thinks amiss</i>; and moreover, to this <i>inconvenience</i>, +that he must never <i>hear his faults but from his adversaries</i>; +for those who are willing to be reputed <i>friends</i> must either +not advertise what they see amiss, or incommode themselves.</p> +<p>“But, you will ask, what need he thus torment himself? +What need of pity? If <i>he have hopes</i> to be admitted the <i>sole +dictator in philosophy</i>, civil and natural, in schools and pulpits, +and to be owned as the only <i>magister sententiarum</i>, what +would he have more?</p> +<p>“True, <i>if he have</i>; but what <i>if he have not</i>? That he <i>had</i> +some hopes of such an honour, he hath not been sparing to let +us know, and was providing against the <i>envy</i> that might +attend it (<i>nec deprecabor invidiam, sed augendo, ulciscar</i>, +was his resolution); but I doubt these hopes are at an end. +He did not find (as he expected) that the <i>fairies and hobgoblins</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_469' name='page_469'></a>469</span> +(for such he reputes all that went before him) did vanish presently, +upon the first appearance of his <i>sunshine</i>: and, which +is worse, while he was on the one side guarding himself against +<i>envy</i>, he is, on the other side, unhappily <i>surprised</i> by a worse +enemy, called <i>contempt</i>, and with which he is less able to +grapple.</p> +<p>“I forbear to mention (lest I might seem to reproach that +age which I reverence) the <i>disadvantages</i> which he may sustain +by his old age. ’Tis possible that time and age, in a +person somewhat <i>morose</i>, may have riveted faster that preconceived +opinion of his own worth and excellency beyond +others. ’Tis possible, also, that he may have <i>forgotten</i> much +of what once he knew. He may, perhaps, be sometimes more +<i>secure</i> than <i>safe</i>; while trusting to what he thinks a firm +foundation, his footing fails him; nor always so vigilant or +quicksighted as to discern the <i>incoherence</i> or <i>inconsequence</i> of +his own discourses; unwilling, notwithstanding, to make use +of the eyes of other men, lest he should seem thereby to disparage +his own; but certainly (though his <i>will</i> may be as +good as ever) his <i>parts</i> are less vegete and nimble, as to <i>invention</i> +at least, than in his younger <a name='TC_30'></a><ins title="Changed comma to period">days.</ins></p> +<p>“While he had endeavoured only to <i>raise an expectation</i>, +or put the world in hopes of what great things he had in +hand (<i>to render all philosophy as clear and certain as Euclid’s +Elements</i>), if he had then <i>died</i>, it might, perhaps, have been +thought by some that the world had been deprived of <i>a great +philosopher</i>, and learning sustained an invaluable loss, by the +abortion of <i>so desired a piece</i>. But since that <i>Partus Montis</i> +is come to light, and found to be no more than what little +animals have brought forth, and that <i>deformed</i> enough and +<i>unamiable</i>, he might have sooner gone off the stage with more +advantage than now he is like to do; such is the misfortune +for a man to <i>outlive his reputation</i>!</p> +<p>“By this time, perhaps, you may see cause to <i>pity</i> him +while you see him <i>falling</i>. But if you consider him <i>tumbling +headlong</i> from so great a height, ’twill make some addition to +that <i>compassion</i> which doth already begin to work. You are +therefore next to consider that when, upon the account of +<i>geometry</i>, he was unsafely mounted to that height of vanity, +he did unhappily fall into the hands of two mathematicians, +who have used him so unmercifully as would have put a person +of <i>greater patience</i> into <i>passion</i>, and meeting with such a +<i>temper</i>, have so discomposed him that he hath ever since +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_470' name='page_470'></a>470</span> +<i>talked idly</i>: and to augment the grief, these mathematicians +were both divines—he had rather have fallen by any other +hand. These <i>mathematical divines</i> (a term which he had +thought incomponible) began to unravel the wrong end; and +while he thought they should have first <i>untiled the roof</i>, and +by degrees gone downward, they strike at the <i>foundation</i>, and +make the building tumble all at once; and that in such confusion, +that by dashing one part against another, they make +each help to destroy the whole. They first fall upon his <i>last +reserve</i>, and rout his <i>mathematics</i> beyond a possibility of +<i>rallying</i>; and by <i>firing his magazine</i> upon the first assault, +make his own weapons <i>fight against him</i>. Not contented +herewith, they enter the <i>breach</i>, and pursue the <i>rout</i> through +his Logics, Physics, Metaphysics, Theology, where they find +all in confusion.”</p> +<p>This invective and irony from this celebrated mathematician, +so much out of the path of his habitual studies, might have +proved a tremendous blow; but the genius of Hobbes was +invulnerable to mere human opposition, unless accompanied by +the supernatural terrors of penal fires or perpetual dungeons. +Our hero received the whole discharge of this battering train, +and stood invulnerable, while he returned the fire in “Considerations +upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and +Religion of Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, written by way +of Letter to a learned person, Dr. Wallis,” 1662.</p> +<p>It is an extraordinary production. His lofty indignation +retorts on the feeble irony of his antagonist with keen and +caustic accusations; and the green strength of youth was still +seen in the old man whose head was covered with snows.</p> +<p>From this spirited apology for himself I shall give some +passages. Hobbes thus replied to Dr. Wallis, who affected to +consider the old man as a fit object for commiseration.</p> +<p>“You would make him contemptible, and move Mr. Boyle +to pity him. This is a way of railing too much beaten to be +thought witty: besides, ’tis no argument of your contempt +to spend upon him so many angry lines, as would have furnished +you with a dozen of sermons. If you had in good +earnest despised him, you would have let him alone, as he does +Dr. Ward, Mr. Baxter, Pike, and others, that have reviled him +as you do. As for his reputation beyond the seas, it fades not +yet; and because, perhaps, you have no means to know it, I will +cite you a passage of an epistle written by a learned Frenchman +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_471' name='page_471'></a>471</span> +to an eminent person in France, in a volume of epistles.” +Hobbes quotes the passage at length, in which his name +appears joined with Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and Gassendi.</p> +<p>In reply to Wallis’ sarcastic suggestion that an idle person +should collect together Hobbes’s arrogant and supercilious +speeches applauding himself, under one title, <i>Hobbius de se</i>, +he says—</p> +<p>“Let your idle person do it; Mr. Hobbes shall acknowledge +them under his hand, and be commended for it, and you +scorned. A certain Roman senator having propounded something +in the assembly of the people, which they, misliking, +made a noise at, boldly bade them hold their peace, and told +them he knew better what was good for the commonwealth +than all they; and his words are transmitted to us as an +argument of his virtue; <i>so much do truth and vanity alter the +complexion of self-praise</i>. You can have very little skill in +morality, that cannot see the justice of commending a man’s +self, as well as of anything else, in his own defence; and it +was want of prudence in you to constrain him to a thing +that would so much displease you.</p> +<p>“When you make his <i>age</i> a reproach to him, and show no +cause that might impair the faculties of his mind, but only age, +I admire how you saw not that you reproached all old men in +the world as much as him, and warranted all young men, at a +certain time which they themselves shall define, to call you +<i>fool</i>! Your dislike of old age you have also otherwise sufficiently +signified, in venturing so fairly as you have done to +escape it. But that is no great matter to one that hath so +many marks upon him of much greater reproaches. By Mr. +Hobbes’s calculation, that derives prudence from experience, +and experience from age, you are a very young man; but, by +your own reckoning, you are older already than <a name='TC_31'></a><ins title="Removed quote">Methuselah.</ins></p> +<p>“During the late trouble, who made both Oliver and the +people mad but the preachers of your principles? But besides +the wickedness, see the folly of it. You thought to make +them mad, but just to such a degree as should serve your own +turn; that is to say, mad, and yet just as wise as yourselves. +Were you not very imprudent to think to govern madness?”—p. +15.</p> +<p>“The king was hunted as a partridge in the mountains, +and though the hounds have been hanged, yet the hunters +were as guilty as they, and deserved no less punishment. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_472' name='page_472'></a>472</span> +And the decypherers (Wallis had decyphered the royal +letters),<a name='FNanchor_0385' id='FNanchor_0385'></a><a href='#Footnote_0385' class='fnanchor'>[385]</a> and all that blew the horn, are to be reckoned +among the hunters. Perhaps you would not have had the +prey killed, but rather have kept it tame. And yet who can +tell? I have read of few kings deprived of their power by +their own subjects that have lived any long time after it, for +reasons that every man is able to conjecture.”</p> +<p>He closes with a very odd image of the most cynical +contempt:—</p> +<p>“Mr. Hobbes has been always far from provoking any man, +though, when he is provoked, you find his pen as sharp as +yours. All you have said is error and railing; that is, <i>stinking +wind</i>, such as a jade lets fly when he is too hard girt upon +a full belly. I have done. I have considered you now, but +will not again, whatsoever preferment any of your friends +shall procure you.”</p> +<p>These were the pitched battles; but many skirmishes occasionally +took place. Hobbes was even driven to a <i>ruse de +guerre</i>. When he found his mathematical character in the +utmost peril, there appeared a pamphlet, entitled “Lux +Mathematica, &c., or, Mathematical Light struck out +from the clashings between Dr. John Wallis, Professor of +Geometry in the celebrated University of Oxford (celeberrima +Academia), and Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury; +augmented with many and shining rays of the Author, R. R.” +1672.</p> +<p>Here the victories of Hobbes are trumpeted forth, but the +fact is, that R. R. should have been T. H. It was Hobbes’s +own composition! R. R. stood for <i>Roseti Repertor</i>, that is, +the Finder of the Rosary, one of the titles of Hobbes’s mathematical +discoveries. Wallis asserts that this R. R. may still +serve, for it may answer his own book, “Roseti Refutator, or, +the Refuter of the Rosary.”</p> +<p>Poor Hobbes gave up the contest reluctantly; if, indeed, +the controversy may not be said to have lasted all his life. +He acknowledges he was writing to no purpose; and that the +medicine was obliged to yield to the disease.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Sed nil profeci, magnis authoribus Error<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Fultus erat, cessit sic Medicina malo.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_473' name='page_473'></a>473</span></div> +<p>He seems to have gone down to the grave, in spite of all +the reasonings of the geometricians on this side of it, with a +firm conviction that its superficies had both depth and thickness.<a name='FNanchor_0386' id='FNanchor_0386'></a><a href='#Footnote_0386' class='fnanchor'>[386]</a> +Such were the fruits of a great genius, entering into a +province out of his own territories; and, though a most +energetic reasoner, so little skilful in these new studies, that +he could never know when he was confuted and refuted.<a name='FNanchor_0387' id='FNanchor_0387'></a><a href='#Footnote_0387' class='fnanchor'>[387]</a></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_474' name='page_474'></a>474</span> +<a name='JONSON_AND_DECKER' id='JONSON_AND_DECKER'></a> +<h3>JONSON AND DECKER.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'><span class='smcap'>Ben Jonson</span> appears to have carried his military spirit into the literary republic—his +gross convivialities, with anecdotes of the prevalent taste in +that age for drinking-bouts—his “Poetaster” a sort of <i>Dunciad</i>, besides +a personal attack on the frequenters of the theatres, with anecdotes—his +Apologetical Dialogue, which was not allowed to be repeated—characters +of <span class='smcap'>Decker</span> and of <span class='smcap'>Marston—Decker’s</span> Satiromastix, a parody on +<span class='smcap'>Jonson’s</span> “Poetaster”—<span class='smcap'>Ben</span> exhibited under the character of “Horace +Junior”—specimens of that literary satire; its dignified remonstrance, +and the honourable applause bestowed on the great bard—some foibles in +the literary habits of <span class='smcap'>Ben</span>, alluded to by <span class='smcap'>Decker—Jonson’s</span> noble reply +to his detractors and rivals.</p> +<p>This quarrel is a splendid instance how genius of the first +order, lavishing its satirical powers on a number of contemporaries, +may discover, among the crowd, some individual +who may return with a right aim the weapon he has himself +used, and who will not want for encouragement to attack the +common assailant: the greater genius is thus mortified by a +victory conceded to the inferior, which he himself had taught +the meaner one to obtain over him.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Jonson</span>, in his earliest productions, “Every Man in his +Humour,” and “Every Man out of his Humour,” usurped +that dictatorship, in the Literary Republic, which he so +sturdily and invariably maintained, though long and hardily +disputed. No bard has more courageously foretold that posterity +would be interested in his labours; and often with +very dignified feelings he casts this declaration into the teeth +of his adversaries: but a bitter contempt for his brothers and +his contemporaries was not less vehement than his affections +for those who crowded under his wing. To his “sons” and his +admirers he was warmly attached, and no poet has left behind +him, in MS., so many testimonies of personal fondness, +in the inscriptions and addresses, in the copies of his works +which he presented to friends: of these I have seen more +than one fervent and impressive.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Drummond</span> of Hawthornden, who perhaps carelessly and +imperfectly minuted down the heads of their literary conference +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_475' name='page_475'></a>475</span> +on the chief authors of the age, exposes the severity of +criticism which Ben exercised on some spirits as noble as his +own. The genius of Jonson was rough, hardy, and invincible, +of which the frequent excess degenerated into ferocity; and +by some traditional tales, this ferocity was still inflamed by +large potations: for Drummond informs us, “Drink was the +element in which he lived.”<a name='FNanchor_0388' id='FNanchor_0388'></a><a href='#Footnote_0388' class='fnanchor'>[388]</a> Old Ben had given, on two +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_476' name='page_476'></a>476</span> +occasions, some remarkable proofs of his personal intrepidity. +When a soldier, in the face of both armies, he had fought single-handed +with his antagonist, had slain him, and carried off his +arms as trophies. Another time he killed his man in a duel. +Jonson appears to have carried the same military spirit into +the Literary Republic.</p> +<p>Such a genius would become more tyrannical by success, +and naturally provoked opposition, from the proneness of mankind +to mortify usurped greatness, when they can securely do it. +The man who hissed the poet’s play had no idea that he might +himself become one of the dramatic personages. Ben then +produced his “Poetaster,” which has been called the <i>Dunciad</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_477' name='page_477'></a>477</span> +of those times; but it is a <i>Dunciad</i> without notes. The personages +themselves are now only known by their general +resemblance to nature, with the exception of two characters, +those of <i>Crispinus and Demetrius</i>.<a name='FNanchor_0389' id='FNanchor_0389'></a><a href='#Footnote_0389' class='fnanchor'>[389]</a></p> +<p>In “The Poetaster,” Ben, with flames too long smothered, +burst over the heads of all rivals and detractors. His enemies +seem to have been among all classes; personages recognised +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_478' name='page_478'></a>478</span> +on the scene as soon as viewed; poetical, military, legal, and +histrionic. It raised a host in arms. Jonson wrote an apologetical +epilogue, breathing a firm spirit, worthy of himself; +but its dignity was too haughty to be endured by contemporaries, +whom genius must soothe by equality. This apologetical +dialogue was never allowed to be repeated; now we may do it +with pleasure. Writings, like pictures, require a particular light +and distance to be correctly judged and inspected, without any +personal inconvenience.</p> +<p>One of the dramatic personages in this epilogue inquires</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>I never saw the play breed all this tumult.<br /> +What was there in it could so deeply offend,<br /> +And stir so many hornets?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The author replies:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——————I never writ that piece<br /> +More innocent, or empty of offence;<br /> +Some salt it had, but neither tooth nor gall.<br /> +——————Why, they say you tax’d<br /> +The law and lawyers, captains, and the players,<br /> +By their particular names.<br /> +——————It is not so:<br /> +I used no names. My books have still been taught<br /> +To spare the persons, and to speak the vices.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And he proceeds to tell us, that to obviate this accusation +he had placed his scenes in the age of Augustus.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest<br /> +Of those great master-spirits, did not want<br /> +Detractors then, or practisers against them:<br /> +And by this line, although no parallel,<br /> +I hoped at last they would sit down and blush.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But instead of their “sitting down and blushing,” we +find—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>That they fly buzzing round about my nostrils;<br /> +And, like so many screaming grasshoppers<br /> +Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Names were certainly not necessary to portraits, where +every day the originals were standing by their side. This +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_479' name='page_479'></a>479</span> +is the studied pleading of a poet, who knows he is concealing +the truth.</p> +<p>There is a passage in the play itself where Jonson gives +the true cause of “the tumult” raised against him. Picturing +himself under the character of his favourite Horace, he makes +the enemies of Horace thus describe him, still, however, preserving +the high tone of poetical superiority.</p> +<p>“Alas, sir, Horace is a mere sponge. Nothing but humours +and observations he goes up and down sucking from every +society, and when he comes home squeezes himself dry again. +He will pen all he knows. He will sooner lose his best friend +than his least jest. What he once drops upon paper against +a man, lives eternally to upbraid him.”</p> +<p>Such is the true picture of a town-wit’s life! The age of +Augustus was much less present to Jonson than his own; and +Ovid, Tibullus, and Horace were not the personages he cared +so much about, as “that society in which,” it was said, “he +went up and down sucking in and squeezing himself dry:” +the formal lawyers, who were cold to his genius; the sharking +captains, who would not draw to save their own swords, and +would cheat “their friend, or their friend’s friend,” while +they would bully down Ben’s genius; and the little sycophant +histrionic, “the twopenny<a name='FNanchor_0390' id='FNanchor_0390'></a><a href='#Footnote_0390' class='fnanchor'>[390]</a> tear-mouth, copper-laced scoundrel, +stiff-toe, who used to travel with pumps full of gravel +after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and +barrel-heads to an old crackt trumpet;” and who all now made +a party with some rival of Jonson.</p> +<p>All these personages will account for “the tumult” which +excites the innocent astonishment of our author. These only +resisted him by “filling every ear with noise.” But one of +the “screaming grasshoppers held by the wings,” boldly +turned on the holder with a scorpion’s bite; and Decker, who +had been lashed in “The Poetaster,” produced his “Satiromastix, +or the untrussing of the humorous Poet.” Decker was a +subordinate author, indeed; but, what must have been very +galling to Jonson, who was the aggressor, indignation proved +such an inspirer, that Decker seemed to have caught some +portion of Jonson’s own genius, who had the art of making +even Decker popular; while he discovered that his own laurel-wreath +had been dexterously changed by the “Satiromastix” +into a garland of “stinging nettles.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_480' name='page_480'></a>480</span></div> +<p>In “The Poetaster,” <i>Crispinus</i> is the picture of one of those +impertinent fellows who resolve to become poets, having an +equal aptitude to become anything that is in fashionable +request. When Hermogenes, the finest singer in Rome, +refused to sing, <i>Crispinus</i> gladly seizes the occasion, and +whispers the lady near him—“Entreat the ladies to entreat +me to sing, I beseech you.” This character is marked by a +ludicrous peculiarity which, turning on an individual characteristic, +must have assisted the audience in the true application. +Probably Decker had some remarkable head of hair,<a name='FNanchor_0391' id='FNanchor_0391'></a><a href='#Footnote_0391' class='fnanchor'>[391]</a> +and that his locks hung not like “the curls of Hyperion;” +for the jeweller’s wife admiring among the company the persons +of Ovid, Tibullus, &c., <i>Crispinus</i> acquaints her that they +were poets, and, since she admires them, promises to become a +poet himself. The simple lady further inquires, “if, when he +is a poet, his looks will change? and particularly if his hair +will change, and be like those gentlemen’s?” “A man,” +observes <i>Crispinus</i>, “may be a poet, and yet not change his +hair.” “Well!” exclaims the simple jeweller’s wife, “we shall +see your cunning; yet if you can change your hair, I pray +do it.”</p> +<p>In two elaborate scenes, poor Decker stands for a full-length. +Resolved to be a poet, he haunts the company of Horace: he +meets him in the street, and discovers all the variety of his +nothingness: he is a student, a stoic, an architect: everything +by turns, “and nothing long.” Horace impatiently attempts +to escape from him, but <i>Crispinus</i> foils him at all points. +This affectionate admirer is even willing to go over the world +with him. He proposes an ingenious project, if Horace will +introduce him to Mæcenas. <i>Crispinus</i> offers to become “his +assistant,” assuring him that “he would be content with the +next place, not envying thy reputation with thy patron;” and +he thinks that Horace and himself “would soon lift out of +favour Virgil, Varius, and the best of them, and enjoy them +wholly to ourselves.” The restlessness of Horace to extricate +himself from this “Hydra of Discourse,” the passing friends +whom he calls on to assist him, and the glue-like pertinacity +of <i>Crispinus</i>, are richly coloured.</p> +<p>A ludicrous and exquisitely satirical scene occurs at the trial +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_481' name='page_481'></a>481</span> +of <i>Crispinus</i> and his colleagues. Jonson has here introduced +an invention, which a more recent satirist so happily applied +to our modern Lexiphanes, Dr. Johnson, for his immeasurable +polysyllables. Horace is allowed by Augustus to make +<i>Crispinus</i> swallow a certain pill; the light vomit discharges a +great quantity of hard matter, to clear</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>His brain and stomach of their tumorous heats.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>These consist of certain affectations in style, and adulteration +of words, which offended the Horatian taste: “the basin” +is called quickly for and <i>Crispinus</i> gets rid easily of some, but +others were of more difficult passage:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘Magnificate!’ that came up somewhat hard!<br /> +<br /> +<i>Crispinus.</i> ‘O barmy froth——’<br /> +<br /> +<i>Augustus.</i> What’s that?<br /> +<br /> +<i>Crispinus.</i> ‘Inflate!—Turgidous!—and Ventositous’—<br /> +<br /> +<i>Horace.</i> ‘Barmy froth, inflate, turgidous, and ventosity are come <a name='TC_32'></a><ins title="Added quote">up.’</ins><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tibullus.</i> O terrible windy words!<br /> +<br /> +<i>Gallus.</i> A sign of a windy brain.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But all was not yet over: “Prorumpt” made a terrible +rumbling, as if his spirit was to have gone with it; and +there were others which required all the kind assistance of +the Horatian “light vomit.” This satirical scene closes with +some literary admonitions from the grave Virgil, who details +to <i>Crispinus</i> the wholesome diet to be observed after his surfeits, +which have filled</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>His blood and brain thus full of crudities.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Virgil’s counsels to the vicious neologist, who debases the +purity of English diction by affecting new words or +phrases, may too frequently be applied.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms<br /> +To stuff out a peculiar dialect;<br /> +But let your matter run before your words.<br /> +And if at any time you chance to meet<br /> +Some Gallo-Belgick phrase, you shall not straight<br /> +Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment,<br /> +But let it pass; and do not think yourself<br /> +Much damnified, if you do leave it out<br /> +When not the sense could well receive it.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Virgil adds something which breathes all the haughty +spirit of Ben: he commands <i>Crispinus</i>:</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_482' name='page_482'></a>482</span></div> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><span class='indent4'> </span>——————Henceforth, learn<br /> +To bear yourself more humbly, nor to swell<br /> +Or breathe your insolent and idle spite<br /> +On him whose laughter can your worst affright:</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>and dismisses him</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>To some dark place, removed from company;<br /> +He will talk idly else after his physic.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“The Satiromastix” may be considered as a parody on +“The Poetaster.” Jonson, with classical taste, had raised his +scene in the court of Augustus: Decker, with great unhappiness, +places it in that of William Rufus. The interest of +the piece arises from the dexterity with which Decker has +accommodated those very characters which Jonson has satirised +in his “Poetaster.” This gratified those who came +every day to the theatre, delighted to take this mimetic revenge +on the arch bard.</p> +<p>In Decker’s prefatory address “To the World,” he observes, +“Horace haled his Poetasters to the bar;<a name='FNanchor_0392' id='FNanchor_0392'></a><a href='#Footnote_0392' class='fnanchor'>[392]</a> the Poetasters +untrussed Horace: Horace made himself believe that his +Burgonian wit<a name='FNanchor_0393' id='FNanchor_0393'></a><a href='#Footnote_0393' class='fnanchor'>[393]</a> might desperately challenge all comers, +and that none durst take up the foils against him.” But +Decker is the Earl Rivers! He had been blamed for the +personal attacks on Jonson; for “whipping his fortunes and +condition of life; where the more noble reprehension had been +of his mind’s deformity:” but for this he retorts on Ben. +Some censured Decker for barrenness of invention, in bringing +on those characters in his own play whom Jonson had stigmatised; +but “it was not improper,” he says, “to set the +same dog upon Horace, whom Horace had set to worry +others.” Decker warmly concludes with defying the Jonsonians.</p> +<p>“Let that mad dog Detraction bite till his teeth be worn +to the stumps; Envy, feed thy snakes so fat with poison till +they burst; World, let all thy adders shoot out their Hydra-headed +forked stings! I thank thee, thou true Venusian +Horace, for these good words thou givest me. <i>Populus me +sibilat, at mihi plaudo.</i>”</p> +<p>The whole address is spirited. Decker was a very popular +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_483' name='page_483'></a>483</span> +writer, whose numerous tracts exhibit to posterity a more +detailed narrative of the manners of the town in the Elizabethan +age than is elsewhere to be found.</p> +<p>In Decker’s Satiromastix, Horace junior is first exhibited in +his study, rehearsing to himself an ode: suddenly the Pindaric +rapture is interrupted by the want of a rhyme; this is +satirically applied to an unlucky line of Ben’s own. One of +his “sons,” Asinius Bubo, who is blindly worshipping his +great idol, or “his Ningle,” as he calls him, amid his admiration +of Horace, perpetually breaks out into digressive accounts +of what sort of a man his friends take him to be. +For one, Horace in wrath prepares an epigram: and for <i>Crispinus</i> +and <i>Fannius</i>, brother bards, who threaten “they’ll +bring your life and death on the stage, as a bricklayer in a +play,” he says, “I can bring a prepared troop of gallants, +who, for my sake, shall distaste every unsalted line in their +fly-blown comedies.” “Ay,” replies Asinius, “and all men +of my rank!” <i>Crispinus</i>, Horace calls “a light voluptuous +reveller,” and <i>Fannius</i> “the slightest cobweb-lawn piece of a +poet.” Both enter, and Horace receives them with all +friendship.</p> +<p>The scene is here conducted not without skill. Horace +complains that</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><span class='indent4'> </span>————————When I dip my pen<br /> +In distill’d roses, and do strive to drain<br /> +Out of mine ink all gall—<br /> +Mine enemies, with sharp and <a name='TC_33'></a><ins title="Was 'searchin'">searching</ins> eyes,<br /> +Look through and through me.<br /> +And when my lines are measured out as straight<br /> +As even parallels, ’tis strange, that still,<br /> +Still some imagine that they’re drawn awry.<br /> +The error is not mine, but in their eye,<br /> +That cannot take proportions.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>To the querulous satirist, <i>Crispinus</i> replies with dignified +gravity—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Horace! to stand within the shot of galling tongues<br /> +Proves not your guilt; for, could we write on paper<br /> +Made of these turning leaves of heaven, the clouds,<br /> +Or speak with angels’ tongues, yet wise men know<br /> +That some would shake the head, though saints should sing;<br /> +Some snakes must hiss, because they’re born with stings.<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>——————Be not you grieved<br /> +If that which you mould fair, upright, and smooth,<br /> +Be screw’d awry, made crooked, lame, and vile,<br /> +By racking comments.— +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_484' name='page_484'></a>484</span><br /> +So to be bit it rankles not, for Innocence<br /> +May with a feather brush off the foul wrong.<br /> +But when your <i>dastard wit will strike at men<br /> +In corners, and in riddles fold the vices<br /> +Of your best friends</i>, you must not take to heart<br /> +If they take off all gilding from their pills,<br /> +And only offer you the bitter core.—</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>At this the galled Horace winces. <i>Crispinus</i> continues, +that it is in vain Horace swears, that</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>———————He puts on<br /> +The office of an executioner,<br /> +Only to strike off the swoln head of sin,<br /> +Where’er you find it standing. Say you swear,<br /> +And make damnation, parcel of your oath,<br /> +That when your lashing jests make all men bleed,<br /> +Yet you whip none—court, city, country, friends,<br /> +Foes, all must smart alike.—</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p><i>Fannius</i>, too, joins, and shows Ben the absurd oaths he +takes, when he swears to all parties, that he does not mean +them. How, then, of five hundred and four, five hundred</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Should all point with their fingers in one instant,<br /> +At one and the same man?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Horace is awkwardly placed between these two friendly +remonstrants, to whom he promises perpetual love.</p> +<p>Captain Tucca, a dramatic personage in Jonson’s Poetaster, +and a copy of his own Bobadil, whose original the poet had +found at “Powles,” the fashionable lounge of that day, is +here continued with the same spirit; and as that character +permitted from the extravagance of its ribaldry, it is now +made the vehicle for those more personal retorts, exhibiting +the secret history of Ben, which perhaps twitted the great +bard more than the keenest wit, or the most solemn admonition +which Decker could ever attain. Jonson had cruelly +touched on Decker being out at elbows, and made himself too +merry with the histrionic tribe: he, who was himself a poet, +and had been a Thespian! The blustering captain thus +attacks the great wit:—“Do’st stare, my Saracen’s head at +Newgate? I’ll march through thy Dunkirk guts, for shooting +jests at me.” He insists that as Horace, “that sly knave, +whose shoulders were once seen lapp’d in a player’s old cast +cloak,” and who had reflected on <i>Crispinus’s</i> satin doublet +being ravelled out; that he should wear one of <i>Crispinus’s</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_485' name='page_485'></a>485</span> +“old cast sattin suits,” and that <i>Fannius</i> should write a +couple of scenes for his own “strong garlic comedies,” and +Horace should swear that they were his own—he would easily +bear “the guilt of conscience.” “Thy Muse is but a hagler, +and wears clothes upon best be trust (a humorous Deckerian +phrase)—thou’rt <i>great</i> in somebody’s books for this!” Did +it become Jonson to gibe at the histrionic tribe, who is himself +accused of “treading the stage, as if he were treading mortar.”<a name='FNanchor_0394' id='FNanchor_0394'></a><a href='#Footnote_0394' class='fnanchor'>[394]</a> +He once put up—“a supplication to be a poor journeyman +player, and hadst been still so, but that thou couldst not set +<i>a good face</i> upon’t. Thou hast forget how thou ambled’st in +leather-pilch, by a play-waggon in the highway; and took’st +mad Jeronimo’s part, to get service among the mimics,” &c.</p> +<p>Ben’s person was, indeed, not gracious in the playfulness of +love or fancy. A female, here, thus delineates Ben:—</p> +<p>“That same Horace has the most ungodly face, by my fan; +it looks for all the world like a rotten russet-apple, when ’tis +bruised. It’s better than a spoonful of cinnamon-water next +my heart, for me to hear him speak; he sounds it so i’ th’ +nose, and talks and rants like the poor fellows under Ludgate—to +see his face make faces, when he reads his songs and +sonnets.”</p> +<p>Again, we have Ben’s face compared with that of his +favourite, Horace’s—“You staring Leviathan! look on the +sweet visage of Horace; look, parboil’d face, look—he has not +his face punchtfull of eyelet-holes, like the cover of a warming-pan.”</p> +<p>Joseph Warton has oddly remarked that most of our poets +were handsome men. Jonson, however, was not poetical on +that score; though his bust is said to resemble Menander’s.</p> +<p>Such are some of the personalities with which Decker +recriminated.</p> +<p>Horace is thrown into many ludicrous situations. He is +told that “admonition is good meat.” Various persons bring +forward their accusations; and Horace replies that they envy +him,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Because I hold more worthy company.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The greatness of Ben’s genius is by no means denied by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_486' name='page_486'></a>486</span> +his rivals; and Decker makes <i>Fannius</i> reply, with noble feelings, +and in an elevated strain of poetry:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Good Horace, no! my cheeks do blush for thine,<br /> +As often as thou speakst so; where one true<br /> +And nobly virtuous spirit, for thy best part<br /> +Loves thee, I wish one, ten; even from my heart!<br /> +I make account, I put up as deep share<br /> +In any good man’s love, which thy worth earns,<br /> +As thou thyself; we envy not to see<br /> +Thy friends with bays to crown thy poesy.<br /> +No, here the gall lies;—We, that know what stuff<br /> +Thy very heart is made of, know the stalk<br /> +On which thy learning grows, and can give life<br /> +To thy, once dying, baseness; yet must we<br /> +Dance anticke on your paper—.<br /> +But were thy warp’d soul put in a new mould,<br /> +I’d wear thee as a jewel set in gold.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>To which one adds, that “jewels, master Horace, must be +hanged, you know.” This “Whip of Men,” with Asinius +his admirer, are brought to court, transformed into satyrs, +and bound together: “not lawrefied, but nettle-fied;” crowned +with a wreath of nettles.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>With stinging-nettles crown his stinging wit.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Horace is called on to swear, after Asinius had sworn to +give up his “Ningle.”</p> +<p>“Now, master Horace, you must be a more horrible swearer; +for your oath must be, like your wits, of many colours; and +like a broker’s book, of many parcels.”</p> +<p>Horace offers to swear till his hairs stand up on end, to be +rid of this sting. “Oh, this sting!” alluding to the nettles. +“’Tis not your sting of conscience, is it?” asks one. In the +inventory of his oaths, there is poignant satire, with strong +humour; and it probably exhibits some foibles in the literary +habits of our bard.</p> +<p>He swears “Not to hang himself, even if he thought any +man could write plays as well as himself; not to bombast +out a new play with the old linings of jests stolen from the +<i>Temple’s Revels</i>; not to sit in a gallery, when your comedies +have entered their actions, and there make vile and bad faces +at every line, to make men have an eye to you, and to make +players afraid; not to venture on the stage, when your play +is ended, and exchange courtesies and compliments with gallants +to make all the house rise and cry—‘That’s Horace +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_487' name='page_487'></a>487</span> +that’s he that pens and purges humours.’ When you bid all +your friends to the marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, +your Wits and Necessities—<i>alias</i>, a poet’s Whitsun-ale—you +shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, +in bookbinders’ shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary-kings, +have done homage to you, or paid quarterage. Moreover, +when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and +out to his company, and gives you money for God’s sake—you +will swear not to make scald and wry-mouthed jests upon +his knighthood. When your plays are misliked at court, you +shall not cry Mew! like a puss-cat, and say, you are glad you +write out of the courtier’s element; and in brief, when you +sup in taverns, amongst your betters, you shall swear not to +dip your manners in too much sauce; nor, at table, to fling +epigrams or play-speeches about you.”</p> +<p>The king observes, that</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——————————He whose pen<br /> +Draws both corrupt and clear blood from all men<br /> +Careless what vein he pricks; let him not rave<br /> +When his own sides are struck; blows, blows do crave.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Such were the bitter apples which Jonson, still in his youth, +plucked from the tree of his broad satire, that branched over +all ranks in society. That even his intrepidity and hardiness +felt the incessant attacks he had raised about him, appears +from the close of the Apologetical Epilogueto “The Poetaster;” +where, though he replies with all the consciousness of genius, +and all its haughtiness, he closes with a determination to give +over the composition of comedies! This, however, like all +the vows of a poet, was soon broken; and his masterpieces +were subsequently produced.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><i>Friend.</i> Will you not answer then the libels?<br /> +<br /> +<i>Author.</i> No.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Friend.</i> Nor the <a name='TC_34'></a><ins title="Added period">Untrussers.</ins><br /> +<br /> +<i>Author.</i> Neither.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Friend.</i> You are undone, then.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Author.</i> With whom?<br /> +<br /> +<i>Friend.</i> The world.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Author.</i> The bawd!<br /> +<br /> +<i>Friend.</i> It will be taken to be stupidity or tameness in you.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Author.</i> But they that have incensed me, can in soul<br /> +Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare<br /> +To spurn or baffle them; or squirt their eyes<br /> +With ink or urine: or I could do worse,<br /> +Arm’d with Archilochus’ fury, write iambicks,<br /> +Would make the desperate lashers hang themselves.—</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_488' name='page_488'></a>488</span></div> +<p>His Friend tells him that he is accused that “all his +writing is mere railing;” which Jonson nobly compares to +“the salt in the old comedy;” that they say, that he is slow, +and “scarce brings forth a play a year.”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><i>Author.</i> ——————’Tis true,<br /> +I would they could not say that I did that.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He is angry that their</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——————Base and beggarly conceits<br /> +Should carry it, by the multitude of voices,<br /> +Against the most abstracted work, opposed<br /> +To the stufft nostrils of the drunken rout.—</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And then exclaims with admirable enthusiasm—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>O this would make a learn’d and liberal soul<br /> +To rive his stained quill up to the back,<br /> +And damn his long-watch’d labours to the fire;<br /> +Things, that were born, when none but the still night,<br /> +And the dumb candle, saw his pinching throes.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And again, alluding to these mimics—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>This ’tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips,<br /> +And apts me rather to sleep out my time,<br /> +Than I would waste it in contemned strifes<br /> +With these vile Ibides, these unclean birds,<br /> +That make their mouths their clysters, and still purge<br /> +From their hot entrails.<a name='FNanchor_0395' id='FNanchor_0395'></a><a href='#Footnote_0395' class='fnanchor'>[395]</a> But I leave the monsters<br /> +To their own fate. And since the Comic Muse<br /> +Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try<br /> +If Tragedy have a more kind aspect.<br /> +Leave me! There’s something come into my thought<br /> +That must and shall be sung, high and aloof,<br /> +Safe from the wolf’s black jaw, and the dull ass’s hoof.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Friend.</i> I reverence these raptures, and obey them.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_489' name='page_489'></a>489</span></div> +<p>Such was the noble strain in which Jonson replied to his +detractors in the town and to his rivals about him. Yet this +poem, composed with all the dignity and force of the bard, +was not suffered to be repeated. It was stopped by authority. +But Jonson, in preserving it in his works, sends it “<span class='smcap'>TO +POSTERITY</span>, that it may make a difference between their +manners that provoked me then, and mine that neglected them +ever.”</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_490' name='page_490'></a>490</span> +<a name='CAMDEN_AND_BROOKE' id='CAMDEN_AND_BROOKE'></a> +<h3>CAMDEN AND BROOKE.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>Literary, like political history, is interested in the cause of an obscure +individual, when deprived of his just rights—character of <span class='smcap'>Camden—Brooke’s</span> +“Discovery of Errors” in the “Britannia”—his work disturbed +in the printing—afterwards enlarged, but never suffered to be +published—whether <span class='smcap'>Brooke’s</span> motive was personal rancour!—the persecuted +author becomes vindictive—his keen reply to <span class='smcap'>Camden—Camden’s</span> +beautiful picture of calumny—<span class='smcap'>Brooke</span> furnishes a humorous companion-piece—<span class='smcap'>Camden’s</span> +want of magnanimity and justice—when great +authors are allowed to suppress the works of their adversary, the public +receives the injury and the insult.</p> +<p>In the literary as well as the political commonwealth, the +cause of an obscure individual violently deprived of his just +rights is a common one. We protest against the power of +genius itself, when it strangles rather than wrestles with its +adversary, or combats in mail against a naked man. The +general interests of literature are involved by the illegitimate +suppression of a work, of which the purpose is to correct +another, whatever may be the invective which accompanies +the correction: nor are we always to assign to malignant +motives even this spirit of invective, which, though it betrays +a contracted genius, may also show the earnestness of an honest +one.</p> +<p>The quarrel between <span class='smcap'>Camden</span>, the great author of the +“Britannia,” and <span class='smcap'>Brooke</span>, the “York Herald,” may illustrate +these principles. It has hitherto been told to the shame +of the inferior genius; but the history of Brooke was imperfectly +known to his contemporaries. Crushed by oppression, +his tale was marred in the telling. A century sometimes +passes away before the world can discover the truth even of a +private history.</p> +<p>Brooke is aspersed as a man of the meanest talents, insensible +to the genius of Camden, rankling with envy at his fame, +and correcting the “Britannia” out of mere spite.</p> +<p>When the history of Brooke is known, and his labours +fairly estimated, we shall blame him much less than he has +been blamed; and censure Camden, who has escaped all censure, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_491' name='page_491'></a>491</span> +and whose conduct, in the present instance, was destitute +of magnanimity and justice.</p> +<p>The character of the author of “Britannia” is great, and +this error of his feelings, now first laid to his charge, may be +attributed as much to the weakness of the age as to his own +extreme timidity, and perhaps to a little pride. Conscious as +was Camden of enlarged views, we can easily pardon him for +the contempt he felt, when he compared them with the +subordinate ones of his cynical adversary.</p> +<p>Camden possessed one of those strongly directed minds +which early in life plan some vast labour, while their imagination +and their industry feed on it for many successive +years; and they shed the flower and sweetness of their lives +in the preparation of a work which at its maturity excites +the gratitude of their nation. His passion for our national +antiquities discovered itself even in his school-days, grew up +with him at the University; and, when afterwards engaged +in his public duties as master at Westminster school, he there +composed his “Britannia,” “at spare hours, and on festival +days.” To the perpetual care of his work, he voluntarily +sacrificed all other views in life, and even drew himself away +from domestic pleasures; for he refused marriage and preferments, +which might interrupt his beloved studies! The work +at length produced, received all the admiration due to so great +an enterprise; and even foreigners, as the work was composed +in the universal language of learning, could sympathise with +Britons, when they contemplated the stupendous labour. +Camden was honoured by the titles (for the very names of +illustrious genius become such), of the Varro, the Strabo, and +the Pausanias of Britain.</p> +<p>While all Europe admired the “Britannia,” a cynical +genius, whose mind seemed bounded by his confined studies, +detected one error amidst the noble views the mighty volume +embraced; the single one perhaps he could perceive, and for +which he stood indebted to his office as “York Herald.” +Camden, in an appendage to the end of each county, had +committed numerous genealogical errors, which he afterwards +affected, in his defence, to consider as trivial matters in so +great a history, and treats his adversary with all the contempt +and bitterness he could inflict on him; but Ralph +Brooke entertained very high notions of the importance of +heraldical studies, and conceived that the “Schoolmaster” +Camden, as he considered him, had encroached on the rights +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_492' name='page_492'></a>492</span> +and honours of his College of Heralds. When particular objects +engage our studies, we are apt to raise them in the scale +of excellence to a degree disproportioned to their real value; +and are thus liable to incur ridicule. But it should be considered +that many useful students are not philosophers, and +the pursuits of their lives are never ridiculous to them. It is +not the interest of the public to degrade this class too low. +Every species of study contributes to the perfection of human +knowledge, by that universal bond which connects them all +in a philosophical mind.</p> +<p>Brooke prepared “A Discovery of Certain Errors in the +Much-commended Britannia.” When we consider Brooke’s +character, as headstrong with heraldry as Don Quixote’s with +romances of chivalry, we need not attribute his motives (as +Camden himself, with the partial feelings of an author, does, +and subsequent writers echo) to his envy at Camden’s promotion +to be Clarencieux King of Arms; for it appears that +Brooke began his work before this promotion. The indecent +excesses of his pen, with the malicious charges of plagiarism +he brings against Camden for the use he made of Leland’s +collections, only show the insensibility of the mere heraldist +to the nobler genius of the historian. Yet Brooke had no +ordinary talents: his work is still valuable for his own peculiar +researches; but his <i>naïve</i> shrewdness, his pointed precision, +the bitter invective, and the caustic humour of his +cynical pen, give an air of originality, if not of genius, which +no one has dared to notice. Brooke’s first work against +Camden was violently disturbed in its progress, and hurried, +in a mutilated state, into the world, without licence or a +publisher’s name. Thus impeded, and finally crushed, the +howl of persecution followed his name; and subsequent +writers servilely traced his character from their partial predecessors.</p> +<p>But Brooke, though denied the fair freedom of the press, +and a victim to the powerful connexions of Camden, calmly +pursued his silent labour with great magnanimity. He +wrote his “Second Discovery of Errors,” an enlargement of +the first. This he carefully finished for the press, but could +never get published. The secret history of the controversy +may be found there.<a name='FNanchor_0396' id='FNanchor_0396'></a><a href='#Footnote_0396' class='fnanchor'>[396]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_493' name='page_493'></a>493</span></div> +<p>Brooke had been loudly accused of indulging a personal +rancour against Camden, and the motive of his work was +attributed to envy of his great reputation; a charge constantly +repeated.</p> +<p>Yet this does not appear, for when Brooke first began his +“Discovery of Errors,” he did not design its publication; for +he liberally offered Camden his Observations and Collections. +They were fastidiously, perhaps haughtily, rejected; on this +pernicious and false principle, that to correct his errors in +genealogy might discredit the whole work. On which absurdity +Brooke shrewdly remarks—“As if healing the sores would +have maimed the body.” He speaks with more humility on +this occasion than an insulted, yet a skilful writer, was likely +to do, who had his labours considered, as he says, “worthy +neither of thanks nor acceptance.”</p> +<p>“The rat is not so contemptible but he may help the lion, +at a pinch, out of those nets wherein his strength is hampered; +and the words of an inferior may often carry matter +in them to admonish his superior of some important consideration; +and surely, of what account soever I might have +seemed to this learned man, yet, in respect to my profession +and courteous offer, (I being an officer-of-arms, and he then +but a schoolmaster), might well have vouchsafed the perusal +of my notes.”</p> +<p>When he published, our herald stated the reasons of writing +against Camden with good-humour, and rallies him on his +“incongruity in his principles of heraldry—for which I +challenge him!—for depriving some nobles of issue to succeed +them, who had issue, of whom are descended many worthy +families: denying barons and earls that were, and making +barons and earls of others that were not; mistaking the son +for the father, and the father for the son; affirming legitimate +children to be illegitimate, and illegitimate to be legitimate; +and framing incestuous and unnatural marriages, making the +father to marry the son’s wife, and the son his own mother.”</p> +<p>He treats Camden with the respect due to his genius, +while he judiciously distinguishes where the greatest ought to +know when to yield.</p> +<p>“The most abstruse arts I profess not, but yield the palm +and victory to mine adversary, that great learned Mr. Camden, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_494' name='page_494'></a>494</span> +with whom, yet, a long experimented navigator may contend +about his chart and compass, about havens, creeks, and +sounds; so I, an ancient herald, a little dispute, without imputation +of audacity, concerning the honour of arms, and the +truth of honourable descents.”</p> +<p>Brooke had seen, as he observes, in four editions of the +“Britannia,” a continued race of errors, in false descents, &c., +and he continues, with a witty allusion:—</p> +<p>“Perceiving that even the brains of many learned men +beyond the seas had misconceived and miscarried in the +travail and birth of their relations, being gotten, as it were, +with child (as Diomedes’s mares) by the blasts of his erroneous +puffs; I could not but a little question the original father +of their absurdities, being so far blown, with the trumpet of +his learning and fame, into foreign lands.”</p> +<p>He proceeds with instances of several great authors on the +Continent having been misled by the statements of Camden.</p> +<p>Thus largely have I quoted from Brooke, to show, that at +first he never appears to have been influenced by the mean +envy, or the personal rancour, of which he is constantly +accused. As he proceeded in his work, which occupied him +several years, his reproaches are whetted with a keener edge, +and his accusations are less generous. But to what are we +to attribute this? To the contempt and persecution Brooke +so long endured from Camden: these acted on his vexed and +degraded spirit, till it burst into the excesses of a man heated +with injured feelings.</p> +<p>When Camden took his station in the Herald’s College +with Brooke, whose offers of his notes he had refused to +accept, they soon found what it was for two authors to live +under the same roof, who were impatient to write against +each other. The cynical York, at first, would twit the new +king-of-arms, perpetually affirming that “his predecessor was +a more able herald than any who lived in this age:” a truth, +indeed, acknowledged by Dugdale. On this occasion, once +the king-of-arms gave malicious York “the lie!” reminding +the crabbed herald of “his own learning; who, as a scholar, +was famous through all the provinces of Christendom.” “So +that (adds Brooke) now I learnt, that before him, when we +speak in commendation of any other, to say, I must always +except Plato.” Camden would allow of no private communication +between them; and in <i>Sermonibus Convivalibus</i>, in his +table-talk, “the heat and height of his spirit” often scorched +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_495' name='page_495'></a>495</span> +the contemned Yorkist, whose rejected “Discovery of Errors” +had no doubt been too frequently enlarged, after such rough +convivialities. Brooke now resolved to print; but, in printing +the work, the press was disturbed, and his house was entered +by “this learned man, his friends, and the stationers.” The +latter were alarmed for the sale of the “Britannia,” which +might have been injured by this rude attack. The work was +therefore printed in an unfinished state: part was intercepted; +and the author stopped, by authority, from proceeding any +further. Some imperfect copies got abroad.</p> +<p>The treatment the exasperated Brooke now incurred was +more provoking than Camden’s refusal of his notes, and the +haughtiness of his “Sermonibus Convivalibus.” The imperfect +work was, however, laid before the public, so that Camden +could not refuse to notice its grievous charges. He composed +an angry reply in Latin, addressed <i>ad Lectorem</i>! and never +mentioning Brooke by name, contemptuously alludes to him +only by a <i>Quidam</i> and <i>Iste</i> (a certain person, and He!)—“He +considers me (cries the mortified Brooke, in his second suppressed +work) as an <i>Individuum vagum</i>, and makes me but a +<i>Quidam</i> in his pamphlet, standing before him as a schoolboy, +while he whips me. Why does he reply in Latin to an +English accusation? He would disguise himself in his school-rhetoric; +wherein, like the cuttle-fish, being stricken, he thinks +to hide and shift himself away in the ink of his rhetoric. I +will clear the waters again.”</p> +<p>He fastens on Camden’s former occupation, virulently +accusing him of the manners of a pedagogue:—“A man may +perceive an immoderate and eager desire of vainglory growing +in hand, ever since he used to teach and correct children +for these things, according to the opinion of some, <i>in mores +et naturam abeunt</i>.” He complains of “the school-hyperboles” +which Camden exhausts on him, among which Brooke +is compared to “the strumpet Leontion,” who wrote against +“the divine Theophrastus.” To this Brooke keenly replies:</p> +<p>“Surely, had Theophrastus dealt with women’s matters, a +woman, though mean, might in reason have contended with +him. A king must be content to be laughed at if he come +into Apelles’s shop, and dispute about colours and portraiture. +I am not ambitious nor envious to carp at matters of higher +learning than matters of heraldry, which I profess: that is +the slipper, wherein I know a slip when I find it. But see +your cunning; you can, with the blur of your pen, dipped in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_496' name='page_496'></a>496</span> +copperas and gall, make me learned and unlearned; nay, you +can almost change my sex, and make me a whore, like +Leontion; and, taking your silver pen again, make yourself +the divine Theophrastus.”</p> +<p>At the close of Camden’s answer, he introduced the allegorical +picture of Calumny, that elegant invention of the +Grecian fancy of Apelles, painted by him when suffering +under the false accusations of a rival. The picture is described +by Lucian; but it has received many happy touches +from the classical hand of the master of Westminster School. +As a literary satire, he applies it with great dignity. I give +here a translation, but I preserve the original Latin in the note +as Camden’s reply to Brooke is not easily to be procured.</p> +<p>“But though I am not disposed to waste more words on +these, and this sort of men, yet I cannot resist the temptation +of adding a slight sketch, for I cannot give that vivacity +of colouring of the picture of the great artist Apelles that our +Antiphilus and the like, whose ears are ever open to calumny, +may, in contemplating it, find a reflection of themselves.</p> +<p>“On the right hand sits a man, who, to show his credulity, +is remarkable for his prodigious ears, similar to those of +Midas. He extends his hand to greet Calumny, who is approaching +him. The two diminutive females around him are +Ignorance and Suspicion. Opposite to them, Calumny advances, +betraying in her countenance and gesture the savage rage and +anger working in her tempestuous breast: her left hand holds +a flaming torch; while with her right she drags by the hair +a youth, who, stretching his uplifted hands to Heaven, is calling +on the immortal powers to bear testimony to his innocence. +She is preceded by a man of a pallid and impure +appearance, seemingly wasting away under some severe disease, +except that his eye sparkles, and has not the dulness usual to +such. That Envy is here meant, you readily conjecture. Some +diminutive females, frauds and deceits, attend her as companions, +whose office is to encourage and instruct, and studiously +to adorn their mistress. In the background, Repentance, +sadly arrayed in a mournful, worn-out, and ragged garment, +who, with averted head, with tears and shame, acknowledges +and prepares to receive Truth, approaching from a distance.”<a name='FNanchor_0397' id='FNanchor_0397'></a><a href='#Footnote_0397' class='fnanchor'>[397]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_497' name='page_497'></a>497</span></div> +<p>This elegant picture, so happily introduced into a piece of +literary controversy, appears to have only slightly affected +the mind of Brooke, which was probably of too stout a grain +to take the folds of Grecian drapery. Instead of sympathising +with its elegance, he breaks out into a horse-laugh; and, +what is quite unexpected among such grave inquiries into a +ludicrous tale in verse, which, though it has not Grecian +fancy, has broad English humour, where he maliciously insinuates +that Camden had appropriated to his own use, or +“new-coated his ‘Britannia’” with Leland’s MSS., and disguised +what he had stolen.</p> +<p><a name='TC_35'></a><ins title="Removed quote">Now</ins>, to show himself as good a painter as he is a herald, +he propounded, at the end of his book, a table (<i>i.e.</i> a picture) +of his own invention, being nothing comparable to “Apelles,” +as he himself confesseth, and we believe him; for, like the +rude painter that was fain to write, ‘This is a Horse,’ upon +his painted horse, he writes upon his picture the names of all +that furious rabble therein expressed—which, for to requite +him, I will return a tale of John Fletcher (some time of +Oxford) and his horse. Neither can this fable be any disparagement +to his table, being more ancient and authenticall, +and far more conceipted than his envious picture. And thus +it was:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>A TALE (NOT OF A ROASTED) BUT OF A PAINTED HORSE.</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +<span class='smcap'>John Fletcher</span>, famous, and a man well known,<br /> +But using not his sirname’s trade alone,<a name='FNanchor_0398' id='FNanchor_0398'></a><a href='#Footnote_0398' class='fnanchor'>[398]</a><br /> +Did hackney out poor jades for common hire,<br /> +Not fit for any pastime but to tire.<br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_498' name='page_498'></a>498</span><br /> +His conscience, once, surveying his jade’s stable,<br /> +Prick’d him, for keeping horses so unable.<br /> +“Oh why should I,” saith John, “by scholars thrive,<br /> +For jades that will not carry, lead, nor drive?”<br /> +<br /> +To mend the matter, out he starts, one night,<br /> +And having spied a palfrey somewhat white,<br /> +He takes him up, and up he mounts his back,<br /> +Rides to his house, and there he turns him black;<br /> +<br /> +Marks him in forehead, feet, in rump, and crest,<br /> +As coursers mark those horses which are best.<br /> +So neatly John had coloured every spot,<br /> +That the right owner sees him, knows him not.<br /> +<br /> +Had he but feather’d his new-painted breast,<br /> +He would have seemèd Pegasus at least.<br /> +Who but John Fletcher’s horse, in all the town,<br /> +Amongst all hackneys, purchased this renown?<br /> +<br /> +But see the luck; John Fletcher’s horse, one night,<br /> +By rain was wash’d again almost to white.<br /> +His first right owner, seeing such a change,<br /> +Thought he should know him, but his hue was strange!<br /> +<br /> +But eyeing him, and spying out his steed,<br /> +By flea-bit spots of his now washèd weed,<br /> +Seizes the horse; so Fletcher was attainted,<br /> +And did confess the horse—he stole and painted.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>To close with honour to Brooke; in his graver moments he +warmly repels the accusation Camden raised against him, as +an enemy to learning, and appeals to many learned scholars, +who had tasted of his liberality at the Universities, towards +their maintenance; but, in an elevated tone, he asserts his +right to deliver his animadversions as York Herald.</p> +<p>“I know (says Brooke) the great advantage my adversary +has over me, in the received opinion of the world. If some +will blame me for that my writings carry some characters of +spleen against him, men of pure affections, and not partial, +will think reason that he should, by ill hearing, lose the pleasure +he conceived by ill speaking. But since I presume not +to understand above that which is meet for me to know, I +must not be discouraged, nor fret myself, because of the +malicious; for I find myself seated upon a rock, that is sure +from tempest and waves, from whence I have a prospect into +his errors and waverings. I do confess his great worth and +merit, and that we Britons are in some sort beholding to +him; and might have been much more, if God had lent him +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_499' name='page_499'></a>499</span> +the grace to have played the faithful steward, in the talent +committed to his trust and charge.”</p> +<p>Such was the dignified and the intrepid reply of Ralph +Brooke, a man whose name is never mentioned without an +epithet of reproach; and who, in his own day, was hunted +down, and not suffered, vindictive as he was no doubt, to +relieve his bitter and angry spirit, by pouring it forth to the +public eye.<a name='FNanchor_0399' id='FNanchor_0399'></a><a href='#Footnote_0399' class='fnanchor'>[399]</a></p> +<p>But the story is not yet closed. Camden, who wanted the +magnanimity to endure with patient dignity the corrections +of an inferior genius, had the wisdom, with the meanness, +silently to adopt his useful corrections, but would never confess +the hand which had brought them.<a name='FNanchor_0400' id='FNanchor_0400'></a><a href='#Footnote_0400' class='fnanchor'>[400]</a></p> +<p>Thus hath Ralph Brooke told his own tale undisturbed, +and, after the lapse of more than a century, the press has been +opened to him. Whenever a great author is suffered to gag +the mouth of his adversary, Truth receives the insult. But +there is another point more essential to inculcate in literary +controversy. Ought we to look too scrupulously into the +motives which may induce an inferior author to detect the +errors of a greater? A man from no amiable motive may perform +a proper action: Ritson was useful after Warton; nor +have we a right to ascribe it to any concealed motives, which, +after all, may be doubtful. In the present instance, our much-abused +Ralph Brooke first appears to have composed his elaborate +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_500' name='page_500'></a>500</span> +work from the most honourable motives: the offer he +made of his Notes to Camden seems a sufficient evidence. +The pride of a great man first led Camden into an error, and +that error plunged him into all the barbarity of persecution; +thus, by force, covering his folly. Brooke over-valued his +studies: it is the nature of those peculiar minds adapted to +excel in such contracted pursuits. He undertook an ungracious +office, and he has suffered by being placed by the side of the +illustrious genius with whom he has so skilfully combated in +his own province; and thus he has endured contempt, without +being contemptible. The public are not less the debtors to +such unfortunate, yet intrepid authors.<a name='FNanchor_0401' id='FNanchor_0401'></a><a href='#Footnote_0401' class='fnanchor'>[401]</a></p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_501' name='page_501'></a>501</span> +<a name='MARTIN_MARPRELATE' id='MARTIN_MARPRELATE'></a> +<h3>MARTIN MAR-PRELATE.</h3> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>Of the two prevalent factions in the reign of Elizabeth, the Catholics and +the Puritans—Elizabeth’s philosophical indifference offends both—Maunsell’s +Catalogue omits the books of both parties—of the Puritans, “the +mild and moderate, with the fierce and fiery,” a great religious body +covering a political one—Thomas Cartwright, the chief of the Puritans, +and his rival Whitgift—attempts to make the Ecclesiastical paramount +to the Civil Power—his plan in dividing the country into comitial, provincial, +and national assemblies, to be concentrated under the secret head +at Warwick, where Cartwright was elected “perpetual Moderator!”—after +the most bitter controversies, Cartwright became very compliant to +his old rival Whitgift, when Archbishop of Canterbury—of <span class='smcap'>Martin +Mar-Prelate</span>—his sons—specimens of their popular ridicule and invective—Cartwright +approves of this mode of controversy—better counteracted +by the wits than by the grave admonishers—specimens of the +<span class='smcap'>Anti-Martin Mar-Prelates</span>—of the authors of these surreptitious +publications.</p> +<p>The Reformation, or the new Religion, as it was then called, +under Elizabeth, was the most philosophical she could form, +and therefore the most hateful to the zealots of all parties. +It was worthy of her genius, and of a better age! Her sole +object was, a deliverance from the Papal usurpation. Her +own supremacy maintained, she designed to be the great sovereign +of a great people; and the Catholic, for some time, was +called to her council-board, and entered with the Reformer +into the same church. But wisdom itself is too weak to regulate +human affairs, when the passions of men rise up in +obstinate insurrection. Elizabeth neither won over the Reformers +nor the Catholics. An excommunicating bull, precipitated +by Papal Machiavelism, driving on the brutalised obedience +of its slaves, separated the friends. This was a political +error arising from a misconception of the weakness of our +government; and when discovered as such, a tolerating dispensation +was granted “till better times;” an unhealing expedient, +to join again a dismembered nation! It would surprise +many, were they aware how numerous were our ancient +families and our eminent characters who still remained +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_502' name='page_502'></a>502</span> +Catholics.<a name='FNanchor_0402' id='FNanchor_0402'></a><a href='#Footnote_0402' class='fnanchor'>[402]</a> The country was then divided, and Englishmen +who were heroic Romanists fell the terrible victims.</p> +<p>On the other side, the national evil took a new form. It +is probable that the Queen, regarding the mere ceremonies of +religion, now venerable with age, as matters of indifference, +and her fine taste perhaps still lingering amid the solemn +gorgeousness of the Roman service, and her senses and her +emotions excited by the religious scenery, did not share in +that abhorrence of the paintings and the images, the chant +and the music, the censer and the altar, and the pomp of the +prelatical habits, which was prompting many well-intentioned +Reformers to reduce the ecclesiastical state into apostolical +nakedness and primitive rudeness. She was slow to meet +this austerity of feeling, which in this country at length +extirpated those arts which exalt our nature, and for this +these pious Vandals nicknamed the Queen “the untamed +heifer;” and the fierce Knox expressly wrote his “First Blast +Against the Monstrous Government of Women.” Of these +Reformers, many had imbibed the republican notions of +Calvin. In their hatred of Popery, they imagined that they +had not gone far enough in their wild notions of reform, for +they viewed it, still shadowed out in the new hierarchy of the +bishops. The fierce Calvin, in his little church at Geneva, +presumed to rule a great nation on the scale of a parish institution; +copying the apostolical equality at a time when the +Church (say the Episcopalians) had all the weakness of infancy, +and could live together in a community of all things, +from a sense of their common poverty. Be this as it may, +the dignified ecclesiastical order was a vulnerable institution, +which could do no greater injury, and might effect as much +public good as any other order in the state.<a name='FNanchor_0403' id='FNanchor_0403'></a><a href='#Footnote_0403' class='fnanchor'>[403]</a> My business +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_503' name='page_503'></a>503</span> +is not with this discussion. I mean to show how the republican +system of these Reformers ended in a political struggle +which, crushed in the reign of Elizabeth, and beaten down in +that of James, so furiously triumphed under Charles. Their +history exhibits the curious spectacle of a great religious body +covering a political one—such as was discovered among the +Jesuits, and such as may again distract the empire, in some +new and unexpected shape.</p> +<p>Elizabeth was harassed by the two factions of the intriguing +Catholic and the disguised Republican. The age +abounded with libels.<a name='FNanchor_0404' id='FNanchor_0404'></a><a href='#Footnote_0404' class='fnanchor'>[404]</a> Many a <i>Benedicite</i> was handed to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_504' name='page_504'></a>504</span> +her from the Catholics; but a portentous personage, masked, +stepped forth from a club of <span class='smcap'>Puritans</span>, and terrified the +nation by continued visitations, yet was never visible till the +instant of his adieus—“starting like a guilty thing upon a +fearful summons!”</p> +<p>Men echo the tone of their age, yet still the same unvarying +human nature is at work; and the Puritans,<a name='FNanchor_0405' id='FNanchor_0405'></a><a href='#Footnote_0405' class='fnanchor'>[405]</a> who in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_505' name='page_505'></a>505</span> +reign of Elizabeth imagined it was impossible to go too far +in the business of reform, were the spirits called <i>Roundheads</i> +under Charles, and who have got another nickname in +our days. These wanted a Reformation of a Reformation—they +aimed at reform, but they designed Revolution; and +they would not accept of toleration, because they had determined +on predominance.<a name='FNanchor_0406' id='FNanchor_0406'></a><a href='#Footnote_0406' class='fnanchor'>[406]</a></p> +<p>Of this faction, the chief was <span class='smcap'>Thomas Cartwright</span>, a +person of great learning, and doubtless of great ambition. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_506' name='page_506'></a>506</span> +Early in life a disappointed man, the progress was easy to a +disaffected subject. At a Philosophy Act, in the University +of Cambridge, in the royal presence, the queen preferred and +rewarded his opponent for the slighter and more attractive +elegances in which the learned Cartwright was deficient. He +felt the wound rankle in his ambitious spirit. He began, as +Sir George Paul, in his “Life of Archbishop Whitgift,” expresses +it, “to kick against her Ecclesiastical Government.” +He expatriated himself several years, and returned fierce with +the republican spirit he had caught among the Calvinists at +Geneva, which aimed at the extirpation of the bishops. It +was once more his fate to be poised against another rival, +Whitgift, the Queen’s Professor of Divinity. Cartwright, in +some lectures, advanced his new doctrines; and these innovations +soon raised a formidable party, “buzzing their conceits +into the green heads of the University.”<a name='FNanchor_0408' id='FNanchor_0408'></a><a href='#Footnote_0408' class='fnanchor'>[408]</a> Whitgift regularly +preached at Cartwright, but to little purpose; for when +Cartwright preached at St. Mary’s they were forced to take +down the windows. Once our sly polemic, taking advantage +of the absence of Whitgift, so powerfully operated, in three +sermons on one Sunday, that in the evening his victory declared +itself, by the students of Trinity College rejecting +their surplices, as Papistical badges. Cartwright was now +to be confuted by other means. The University refused him +his degree of D.D.; condemned the lecturer to silence; and +at length performed that last feeble act of power, expulsion. +In a heart already alienated from the established authorities, +this could only envenom a bitter spirit. Already he had felt +a personal dislike to royalty, and now he had received an insult +from the University: these were motives which, though +concealed, could not fail to work in a courageous mind, whose +new forms of religion accorded with his political feelings. +The “Degrees” of the University, which he now declared to +be “unlawful,” were to be considered “as limbs of Antichrist.” +The whole hierarchy was to be exterminated for a +republic of Presbyters; till, through the church, the republican, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_507' name='page_507'></a>507</span> +as we shall see, discovered a secret passage to the +Cabinet of his Sovereign, where he had many protectors.</p> +<p>Such is my conception of the character of Cartwright. +The reader is enabled to judge for himself by the note.<a name='FNanchor_0409' id='FNanchor_0409'></a><a href='#Footnote_0409' class='fnanchor'>[409]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_508' name='page_508'></a>508</span></div> +<p>But Cartwright, chilled by an imprisonment, and witnessing +some of his party condemned, and some executed, after +having long sustained the most elevated and rigid tone, suddenly +let his alp of ice dissolve away in the gentlest thaw +that ever occurred in political life. Ambitious he was, but +not of martyrdom! His party appeared once formidable,<a name='FNanchor_0410' id='FNanchor_0410'></a><a href='#Footnote_0410' class='fnanchor'>[410]</a> +and his protection at Court sure. I have read several letters +of the Earl of Leicester, in MS., that show he always +shielded Cartwright, whenever in danger. Many of the ministers +of Elizabeth were Puritans; but doubtless this was +before their state policy had detected the politicians in mask. +When some of his followers had dared to do what he had +only thought, he appears to have forsaken them. They reproached +him for this left-handed policy, some of the boldest +of them declaring that they had neither acted nor written +anything but what was warranted by his principles. I do +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_509' name='page_509'></a>509</span> +not know many political ejaculations more affecting than that +of Henry Barrow, said to have been a dissipated youth, when +Cartwright refused, before Barrow’s execution, to allow of a +conference. The deluded man, after a deep sigh, said: “Shall +I be thus forsaken by him? Was it not he that brought me +first into these briars? and will he now leave me in the same? +Was it not from him alone that I took my grounds? Or did +I not, out of such premises as he pleased to give me, infer +those propositions, and deduce those conclusions, for which I +am now kept in these bonds?” He was soon after executed, +with others.</p> +<p>Then occurred one of those political spectacles at which +the simple-minded stare, and the politic smile; when, after +the most cruel civil war of words,<a name='FNanchor_0411' id='FNanchor_0411'></a><a href='#Footnote_0411' class='fnanchor'>[411]</a> Cartwright wrote very +compliant letters to his old rival, Whitgift, now Archbishop +of Canterbury; while the Archbishop was pleading with the +Queen in favour of the inveterate Republican, declaring that +had Cartwright not so far engaged himself in the beginning, +he thought he would have been, latterly, drawn into conformity. +To clear up this mysterious conduct, we must observe +that Cartwright seems to have graduated his political +ambition to the degree the government touched of weakness +or of strength; and besides, he was now growing prudent as +he was growing rich. For it seems that he who was for +scrambling for the Church revenues, while telling the people +of the Apostles, <i>silver and gold they had none</i>, was himself +“feeding too fair and fat” for the meagre groaning state of a +pretended reformation. He had early in life studied that part +of the law by which he had learned the marketable price of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_510' name='page_510'></a>510</span> +landed property; and as the cask still retains its old flavour, +this despiser of bishops was still making the best interest for +his money by land-jobbing.<a name='FNanchor_0412' id='FNanchor_0412'></a><a href='#Footnote_0412' class='fnanchor'>[412]</a></p> +<p>One of the memorable effects of this attempted innovation +was that continued stream of libels which ran throughout +the nation, under the portentous name of Martin Mar-Prelate.<a name='FNanchor_0413' id='FNanchor_0413'></a><a href='#Footnote_0413' class='fnanchor'>[413]</a> +This extraordinary personage, in his collective form, for he is +to be splitted into more than one, long terrified Church and +State. He walked about the kingdom invisibly, dropping here +a libel, and there a proclamation for sedition; but wherever +<i>Martinism</i> was found, <i>Martin</i> was not. He prided himself +in what he calls “Pistling the Bishops.” Sometimes he hints +to his pursuers how they may catch him, for he prints, +“within two furlongs of a bouncing priest,” or “in Europe;” +while he acquaints his friends, who were so often uneasy for +his safety, that “he has neither wife nor child,” and prays +“they may not be anxious for him, for he wishes that his head +might not go to the grave in peace.”—“I come, with the rope +about my neck, to save you, howsoever it goeth with me.” +His press is interrupted, he is silent, and Lambeth seems to +breathe in peace. But he has “a son; nay, five hundred +sons!” and <i>Martin Junior</i> starts up! He inquires</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_511' name='page_511'></a>511</span></div> +<p>“Where his father is; he who had studied the art of pistle-making? +Why has he been tongue-tied these four or five +months? Good Nuncles (the bishops), have you closely +murthered the gentleman in some of your prisons? Have +you choaked him with a fat prebend or two? I trow my +father will swallow down no such pills, for he would thus soon +purge away all the conscience he hath. Do you mean to have +the keeping of him? What need that? he hath five hundred +sons in the land. My father would be sorry to put you to any +such cost as you intend to be at with him. A meaner house, +and less strength than the Tower, the Fleet, or Newgate, +would serve him well enough. He is not of that ambitious +vein that many of his brethren the bishops are, in seeking for +more costly houses than even his father built for him.”</p> +<p>This same “Martin Junior,” who, though he is but young, +as he says, “has a pretty smattering gift in this pistle-making; +and I fear, in a while, I shall take a pride in it.” He +had picked up beside a bush, where it had dropped from somebody, +an imperfect paper of his father’s:—</p> +<p>“Theses Martinianæ—set forth as an after-birth of the noble +gentleman himselfe, by a pretty stripling of his, Martin +Junior, and dedicated by him to his good nuncka, Maister +John Cankerbury (i.e. Canterbury). Printed without a sly +privilege of the Cater Caps”—(i.e. the square caps the +bishops wore).</p> +<p>But another of these five hundred sons, who declares himself +to be his “reverend and elder brother, heir to the +renowned <i>Martin Mar-Prelate</i> the Great,” publishes</p> +<p>“The just Censure and Reproof of Martin Junior; where, +lest the Springall should be utterly discouraged in his good +meaning, you shall finde that he is not bereaved of his due +commendation.”</p> +<p><i>Martin Senior</i>, after finding fault with <i>Martin Junior</i> for +“his rash and indiscreet headiness,” notwithstanding agrees +with everything he had said. He confirms all, and cheers +him; but charges him,</p> +<p>“Should he meet their father in the street, never to ask +his blessing, but walke smoothly and circumspectly; and if anie +offer to talk with thee of Martin, talke thou straite of the +voyage into Portugal, or of the happie death of the Duke of +Guise, or some such accident; but meddle not with thy +father. Only, if thou have gathered anie thing in visitation +for thy father, intreate him to signify, in some secret printed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_512' name='page_512'></a>512</span> +pistle, where a will have it lefte. I feare least some of us +should fall into John Canterburie’s hand.”</p> +<p>Such were the mysterious personages who, for a long time, +haunted the palaces of the bishops and the vicarages of the +clergy, disappearing at the moment they were suddenly perceived +to be near. Their slanders were not only coarse +buffooneries, but the hottest effusions of hatred, with an unparalleled +invective of nicknames.<a name='FNanchor_0414' id='FNanchor_0414'></a><a href='#Footnote_0414' class='fnanchor'>[414]</a> Levelled at the bishops, +even the natural defects, the personal infirmities, the domestic +privacies, much more the tyranny, of these now “petty +popes,” now “bouncing priests,” now “terrible priests,” were +the inexhaustible subjects of these popular invectives.<a name='FNanchor_0415' id='FNanchor_0415'></a><a href='#Footnote_0415' class='fnanchor'>[415]</a> Those +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_513' name='page_513'></a>513</span> +“pillars of the State” were now called “its caterpillars;” and +the inferior clergy, who perhaps were not always friendly to +their superiors, yet dreaded this new race of innovators, +were distinguished as “halting neutrals.” These invectives +were well farced for the gross taste of the multitude; and +even the jargon of the lowest of the populace affected, and +perhaps the coarse malignity of two <i>cobblers</i> who were connected +with the party, often enlivened the satirical page. +The <i>Martin Mar-Prelate</i> productions are not, however, effusions +of genius; they were addressed to the coarser passions +of mankind, their hatred and contempt. The authors were +grave men, but who affected to gain over the populace with a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_514' name='page_514'></a>514</span> +popular familiarity.<a name='FNanchor_0416' id='FNanchor_0416'></a><a href='#Footnote_0416' class='fnanchor'>[416]</a> In vain the startled bishops remonstrated: +they were supposed to be criminals, and were little +attended to as their own advocates. Besides, they were +solemn admonishers, and the mob are composed of laughers +and scorners.</p> +<p>The Court-party did not succeed more happily when they +persecuted Martin, broke up his presses, and imprisoned his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_515' name='page_515'></a>515</span> +assistants. Never did sedition travel so fast, nor conceal +itself so closely; for they employed a moveable press; and, +as soon as it was surmised that Martin was in Surrey, it was +found he was removed to Northamptonshire, while the next +account came that he was showing his head in Warwickshire. +And long they invisibly conveyed themselves, till in Lancashire +the snake was scotched by the Earl of Derby, with all its +little brood.<a name='FNanchor_0417' id='FNanchor_0417'></a><a href='#Footnote_0417' class='fnanchor'>[417]</a></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_516' name='page_516'></a>516</span></div> +<p>These pamphlets were “speedily dispersed and greedily +read,” not only by the people; they had readers and even +patrons among persons of condition. They were found in +the corners of chambers at Court; and when a prohibition +issued that no person should carry about them any of the +Mar-Prelate pamphlets on pain of punishment, the Earl of +Essex observed to the Queen, “What then is to become of +me?” drawing one of these pamphlets out of his bosom, and +presenting it to her.</p> +<p>The Martinists were better counteracted by the Wits, in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_517' name='page_517'></a>517</span> +some extraordinary effusions, prodigal of humour and invective +Wit and raillery were happily exercised against these masked +divines: for the gaiety of the Wits was not foreign to their +feelings. The Mar-Prelates showed merry faces, but it was +with a sardonic grin they had swallowed the convulsing herb; +they horridly laughed against their will—at bottom all was +gloom and despair. The extraordinary style of their pamphlets, +concocted in the basest language of the populace, might +have originated less from design than from the impotence of +the writers. Grave and learned persons have often found to +their cost that wit and humour must spring from the soil; +no art of man can plant them there. With such, this play +and grace of the intellect can never be the movements of their +nature, but its convulsions.</p> +<p>Father Martin and his two sons received “A sound boxe +of the eare,” in “a pistle” to “the father and the two sonnes, +Huffe, Ruffe, and Snuffe, the three tame ruffians of the +Church, who take pepper in the nose because they cannot +marre prelates grating,” when they once met with an adversary +who openly declared—</p> +<p>“I profess rayling, and think it is as good a cudgel for a +Martin as a stone for a dogge, or a whip for an ape, or poison +for a rat. Who would curry an ass with an ivory comb? +Give this beast thistles for provender. I doe but yet angle +with a silken flie, to see whether Martins will nibble; and if +I see that, why then I have wormes for the nonce, and will +give them line enough, like a trowte, till they swallow both +hooke and line, and then, Martin, beware your gills, for I’ll +make you daunce at the pole’s end.”</p> +<p>“Fill thy answer as full of lies as of lines, swell like a +toade, hiss like an adder, bite like a dog, and chatter like a +monkey, my pen is prepared, and my mind; and if you +chaunce to find anie worse words than you broughte, let +them be put in your dad’s dictionarie. Farewell, and be +hanged; and I pray God you fare no worse.—Yours at an +hour’s warning.”</p> +<p>This was the proper way to reply to such writers, by +driving them out of the field with their own implements of +warfare. “Pasquill of England”<a name='FNanchor_0418' id='FNanchor_0418'></a><a href='#Footnote_0418' class='fnanchor'>[418]</a> admirably observed of the +papers of this faction—“Doubt not but that the same reckoning +in the ende will be made of you which your favourers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_518' name='page_518'></a>518</span> +commonly make of their old shooes—when they are past +wearing, they barter them awaie for newe broomes, or carrie +them forth to the dunghill and leave them there.” The +writers of these Martin Mar-Prelate books have been tolerably +ascertained,<a name='FNanchor_0419' id='FNanchor_0419'></a><a href='#Footnote_0419' class='fnanchor'>[419]</a> considering the secrecy with which they were +printed—sometimes at night, sometimes hid in cellars, and +never long in one place: besides the artifices used in their +dispersion, by motley personages, held together by an invisible +chain of confederacy. Conspiracy, like other misery, +“acquaints a man with strange bedfellows;” and the present +confederacy combined persons of the most various descriptions, +and perhaps of very opposite views. I find men of learning, +and of rigid lives, intimately associated with dissipated, or +with too ardently-tempered youths; connected, too, with +maniacs, whose lunacy had taken a revolutionary turn; and +men of rank combining with old women and cobblers.<a name='FNanchor_0420' id='FNanchor_0420'></a><a href='#Footnote_0420' class='fnanchor'>[420]</a> Such +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_519' name='page_519'></a>519</span> +are the party-coloured apostles of insurrection! and thus their +honourable and dishonourable motives lie so blended together, +that the historian cannot separate them. At the moment +the haughty spirit of a conspirator is striking at the head of +established authority, he is himself crouching to the basest +intimates; and to escape often from an ideal degradation, +he can bear with a real one.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_520' name='page_520'></a>520</span></div> +<p>Of the heads of this party, I shall notice Penry and Udall, +two self-devoted victims to Nonconformity. The most active +was John Penry, or <i>Ap Henry</i>. He exulted that “he was +born and bred in the mountains of Wales:” he had, however, +studied at both our Universities. He had all the heat of his +soil and of his party. He “wished that his head might not +go down to the grave in peace,” and was just the man to +obtain his purpose. When he and his papers were at length +seized, Penry pleaded that he could not be tried for sedition, +professing unbounded loyalty to the Queen: such is the usual +plea of even violent Reformers. Yet how could Elizabeth be +the sovereign, unless she adopted the mode of government +planned by these Reformers? In defence of his papers, he +declared that they were only the private memorandums of a +scholar, in which, during his wanderings about the kingdom, +he had collected all the objections he had heard against the +government. Yet these, though written down, might not be +his own. He observed that they were not even English, nor +intelligible to his accusers; but a few Welshisms could not +save Ap Henry; and the judge, assuming the hardy position, +that <i>scribere est agere</i>, the author found more honour conferred +on his MSS. than his genius cared to receive. It was +this very principle which proved so fatal, at a later period, to +a more elevated politician than Penry; yet Algernon Sidney, +perhaps, possessed not a spirit more Roman.<a name='FNanchor_0421' id='FNanchor_0421'></a><a href='#Footnote_0421' class='fnanchor'>[421]</a> State necessity +claimed another victim; and this ardent young man, whose +execution had been at first unexpectedly postponed, was suddenly +hurried from his dinner to a temporary gallows; a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_521' name='page_521'></a>521</span> +circumstance marked by its cruelty, but designed to prevent +an expected tumult.<a name='FNanchor_0422' id='FNanchor_0422'></a><a href='#Footnote_0422' class='fnanchor'>[422]</a></p> +<p>Contrasted with this fiery Mar-Prelate was another, the +learned subtile John Udall. His was the spirit which dared +to do all that Penry had dared, yet conducting himself in the +heat of action with the tempered wariness of age: “If they +silence me as a minister,” said he, “it will allow me leisure +to write; and then I will give the bishops such a blow as +shall make their hearts ache.” It was agreed among the +party neither to deny, or to confess, writing any of their +books, lest among the suspected the real author might thus +be discovered, or forced solemnly to deny his own work; and +when the Bishop of Rochester, to catch Udall by surprise, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_522' name='page_522'></a>522</span> +suddenly said, “Let me ask you a question concerning your +book,” the wary Udall replied, “It is not yet proved to be +mine!” He adroitly explained away the offending passages +the lawyers picked out of his book, and in a contest between +him and the judge, not only repelled him with his own arms, +but when his lordship would have wrestled on points of divinity, +Udall expertly perplexed the lawyer by showing he +had committed an anachronism of four hundred years! He +was equally acute with the witnesses; for when one deposed +that he had seen a catalogue of Udall’s library, in which was +inserted “The Demonstration of Discipline,” the anonymous +book for which Udall was prosecuted; with great ingenuity +he observed that this was rather an argument that he was +not the author, for “scholars use not to put their own books +in the catalogue of those they have in their study.” We +observe with astonishment the tyrannical decrees of our +courts of justice, which lasted till the happy Revolution. +The bench was as depraved in their notions of the rights of +the subject in the reign of Elizabeth as in those of Charles +II. and James II. The Court refused to hear Udall’s witnesses, +on this strange principle, that “witnesses in favour of +the prisoner were against the queen!” To which Udall replied, +“It is for the queen to hear all things when the life of +any of her subjects is in question.” The criminal felt what +was just more than his judges; and yet the judge, though to +be reprobated for his mode, calling so learned a man +“Sirrah!” was right in the thing, when he declared that +“you would bring the queen and the crown under your +girdles.” It is remarkable that Udall repeatedly employed +that expression which Algernon Sidney left as his last legacy +to the people, when he told them he was about to die for +“that <i>Old Cause</i> in which I was from my youth engaged.” +Udall perpetually insisted on “<i>The Cause</i>.” This was a term +which served at least for a watchword: it rallied the scattered +members of the republican party. The precision of the +expression might have been difficult to ascertain; and, perhaps, +like every popular expedient, varied with “existing circumstances.” +I did not, however, know it had so remote an +origin as in the reign of Elizabeth; and suspect it may still +be freshened up, and varnished over, for any present occasion.</p> +<p>The last stroke for Udall’s character is the history of his +condemnation. He suffered the cruel mockery of a pardon +granted conditionally, by the intercession of the Scottish +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_523' name='page_523'></a>523</span> +monarch but never signed by the Queen—and Udall mouldered +away the remnant of his days in a rigid imprisonment.<a name='FNanchor_0423' id='FNanchor_0423'></a><a href='#Footnote_0423' class='fnanchor'>[423]</a> +Cartwright and Travers, the chief movers of this +faction, retreated with haste and caution from the victims +they had conducted to the place of execution, while they +themselves sunk into a quiet forgetfulness and selfish repose.</p> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<a name='SUPPLEMENT_TO_MARTIN_MARPRELATE' id='SUPPLEMENT_TO_MARTIN_MARPRELATE'></a> +<h3>SUPPLEMENT TO MARTIN MAR-PRELATE.</h3> +</div> +<p>As a literary curiosity, I shall preserve a very rare poetical +tract, which describes with considerable force the Revolutionists +of the reign of Elizabeth. They are indeed those of +wild democracy; and the subject of this satire will, I fear, be +never out of time. It is an admirable political satire against +a mob-government. In our poetical history, this specimen +too is curious, for it will show that the stanza in alternate +rhymes, usually denominated elegiac, is adapted to very opposite +themes. The solemnity of the versification is impressive, +and the satire equally dignified and keen.</p> +<p>The taste of the mere modern reader had been more gratified +by omitting some unequal passages; but, after deliberation, +I found that so short a composition would be injured by +dismembering extracts. I have distinguished by italics the +lines to which I desire the reader’s attention, and have added +a few notes to clear up some passages which might appear +obscure.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_524' name='page_524'></a>524</span></div> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcap'><b>RYTHMES AGAINST MARTIN MARRE-PRELATE.<a name='FNanchor_0424' id='FNanchor_0424'></a><a href='#Footnote_0424' class='fnanchor'>[424]</a></b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +<i>Ordo Sacerdotum fatuo turbatur ab omni,<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>Labitur et passim Religionis honos.</i><br /> +<br /> +Since Reason, <i>Martin</i>, cannot stay thy pen,<br /> +We ’il see what rime will do; have at thee then!<br /> +<br /> +A Dizard late skipt out upon our stage,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But in a sacke, that no man might him see;<br /> +And though we know not yet the paltrie page,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Himselfe hath <i>Martin</i> made his name to bee.<br /> +A proper name, and for his feates most fit;<br /> +The only thing wherein he hath shew’d wit.<br /> +<br /> +Who knoweth not, that Apes, men <i>Martins</i> call,<a name='FNanchor_0425' id='FNanchor_0425'></a><a href='#Footnote_0425' class='fnanchor'>[425]</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Which beast, this baggage seemes as ’t were himselfe:<br /> +So as both nature, nurture, name, and all,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Of that’s expressed in this apish elfe.<br /> +Which Ile make good to Martin Marre-als face,<br /> +In three plaine poynts, and will not bate an ace.<br /> +<br /> +For, first, <i>the Ape delights with moppes and mowes,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And mocketh Prince and Peasants all alike</i>;<br /> +<i>This jesting Jacke</i>, that no good manners knowes,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span><i>With his Asse-heeles presumes all states to strike</i>.<br /> +Whose scoffes so stinking in each nose doth smell,<br /> +As all mouthes saie of Dolts he beares the bell.<br /> +<br /> +Sometimes his chappes do walke in poynts too high,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Wherein the Ape himself a Woodcock tries.<br /> +Sometimes with floutes he drawes his mouth awrie,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And sweares by his ten bones, and falselie lies.<br /> +Wherefore be he what he will I do not passe;<br /> +He is the paltriest Ape that euer was.<br /> +<br /> +Such fleering, leering, jeering fooles bopeepe,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Such hahas! teehees! weehees! wild colts play; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_525' name='page_525'></a>525</span><br /> +Such Sohoes! whoopes and hallowes; hold and keepe;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Such rangings, ragings, reuelings, roysters ray;<br /> +With so foule mouth, and knaue at euery catch,<br /> +’Tis some knaue’s nest did surely <i>Martin</i> hatch.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Now out he runnes with Cuckowe king of May,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Then in he leapes with a wild Morrice daunce</i>;<br /> +Then strikes he up <i>Dame Lawson’s</i><a name='FNanchor_0426' id='FNanchor_0426'></a><a href='#Footnote_0426' class='fnanchor'>[426]</a> lustie lay;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Then comes Sir <i>Jeffrie’s</i> ale-tub, tapp’d by chaunce,<br /> +Which makes me gesse, and I can shrewdly smell,<br /> +He loues both t’ one and t’other passing well.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Then straight, as though he were distracted quite,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>He chafeth like a cut-purse layde in warde</i>;<br /> +<i>And rudely railes with all his maine and might,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Against both knights and lords without regard</i>:<br /> +So as <i>Bridewell</i> must tame his dronken fits,<br /> +And <i>Bedlem</i> help to bring him to his wits.<br /> +<br /> +But, <i>Martin</i>, why, in matters of such weight,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Dost thou thus <i>play the dawe, and dauncing foole</i>?<br /> +O sir (quoth he) <i>this is a pleasant baite<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>For men of sorts</i>, to traine them to my schoole.<br /> +<i>Ye noble states, how can you like hereof,<br /> +A shamelesse Ape at your sage head should scoffe?</i><br /> +<br /> +Good Noddie, now leaue scribbling in such matters;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>They are no tooles for fooles to tend unto;<br /> +Wise men regard not what mad monkies patters!<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>’Twere trim a beast should teach men what to do.<br /> +Now <i>Tarleton’s</i> dead, the consort lackes a Vice.<br /> +For knaue and foole thou maist bear prick and price.<br /> +<br /> +The sacred sect, and perfect pure precise,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Whose cause must be by <i>Scoggin’s</i> jests mainteinde,<br /> +Ye shewe, although that Purple, Apes disguise,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Yet Apes are still, and so must be, disdainde.<br /> +<i>For though your Lyons lookes weake eyes escapes,<br /> +Your babling bookes bewraies you all for Apes.</i><br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_526' name='page_526'></a>526</span><br /> +The next point is, <i>Apes use to tosse and teare<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>What once their fidling fingers fasten on</i>;<br /> +<i>And clime aloft, and cast downe euery where,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And neuer staie till all that stands be gon!</i><br /> +Now whether this in <i>Martin</i> be not true,<br /> +You wiser heads marke here what doth ensue.<br /> +<br /> +What is it not that <i>Martin</i> doth not rent?<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Cappes, tippets, gownes, black chiuers, rotchets white;<br /> +Communion bookes, and homelies: yea, so bent<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>To teare, as women’s wimples feele his spite.<br /> +Thus tearing all, as all apes use to doo,<br /> +He teares withall the Church of Christ in two.<br /> +<br /> +Marke now what thinges he meanes to tumble downe,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>For to this poynt to look is worth the while,<br /> +In one that makes no choice ’twixt cap and crowne,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Cathedral churches he would fain untile,<br /> +And snatch up bishops’ lands, and catch away<br /> +All gaine of learning for his prouling pray.<br /> +<br /> +<i>And thinke you not he will pull downe at length<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>As well the top from tower as cocke from steeple</i>;<br /> +<i>And when his head hath gotten some more strength,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>To play with Prince as now he doth with People</i>:<br /> +Yes, he that now saith, Why should Bishops bee?<br /> +Will next crie out, <i>Why Kings? The Saincts are free!</i><br /> +<br /> +The Germaine boores with Clergiemen began,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But neuer left till Prince and Peeres were dead.<br /> +<i>Jacke Leyden was a holy zealous man,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But ceast not till the Crowne was on his head.</i><br /> +And <i>Martin’s</i> mate, <i>Jacke Strawe</i>, would alwaies ring,<br /> +The Clergie’s faults, but sought to kill the King.<br /> +<br /> +“Oh that,” quoth <i>Martin</i>, “<i>chwere</i> a Nobleman!”<a name='FNanchor_0427' id='FNanchor_0427'></a><a href='#Footnote_0427' class='fnanchor'>[427]</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Avaunt, vile villain! ’tis not for such swads.<br /> +And of the Counsell, too: marke Princes then:<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>These roomes are raught at by these lustie lads.<br /> +<i>For Apes must climbe, and neuer stay their wit,<br /> +Untill on top of highest hilles they sit.</i><br /> +<br /> +What meane they els, in euery towne to craue<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Their Priest and King like Christ himself to be:<br /> +<i>And for one Pope ten thousand Popes to have,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And to controll the highest he or she?</i><br /> +Aske Scotland that, whose King so long they crost,<br /> +As he was like his kingdome to haue lost.<br /> +<br /> +Beware ye States and Nobles of this lande,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>The Clergie is but one of these men’s buttes.<br /> +<i>The Ape at last on master’s necke will stande:<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Then gegge betimes these gaping greedie gutts.</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_527' name='page_527'></a>527</span><br /> +<i>Least that too soone, and then too late ye feele,<br /> +He strikes at head that first began with heele.</i><br /> +<br /> +The third tricke is, <i>what Apes by flattering waies<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Cannot come by with biting, they will snatch</i>;<br /> +Our <i>Martin</i> makes no bones, but plainely saies,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Their fists shall walke, they will both bite and scratch.<br /> +He’ll make their hearts to ake, and will not faile,<br /> +<i>Where pen cannot, their penknife shall prevail</i>.<a name='FNanchor_0428' id='FNanchor_0428'></a><a href='#Footnote_0428' class='fnanchor'>[428]</a><br /> +<br /> +But this is false, he saith he did but mock:<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>A foole he was, that so his words did scanne.<br /> +He only meant with pen their pates to knocke;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>A knaue he is, that so turns cat in pan.<br /> +But, <i>Martin</i>, sweare and stare as deepe as hell,<br /> +Thy sprite, thy spite and mischeuous minde doth tell.<br /> +<br /> +<i>The thing that neither Pope with booke nor bull,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Nor Spanish King with ships could doe without,<br /> +Our <span class='smcap'>Martins</span> heere at home will worke at full:<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>If Prince curbe not betimes that rabble rout.</i><br /> +That is, destroy both Church and State and all;<br /> +For if t’ one faile, the other needes must fall.<br /> +<br /> +Thou England, then, whom God doth make so glad<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Through Gospel’s grace and Prince’s prudent reigne,<br /> +Take heede lest thou at last be made as sad,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Through <i>Martin’s</i> makebates marring, to thy paine.<br /> +For he marrs all and maketh nought, nor will,<br /> +Saue lies and strife, and works for <i>England’s</i> ill.<br /> +<br /> +<i>And ye graue men that answere <span class='smcap'>Martin’s</span> mowes,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>He mocks the more, and you in vain loose times.<br /> +Leaue Apes to Doggs to baite, their skins to Crowes</i>,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And let old <i>Lanam</i><a name='FNanchor_0429' id='FNanchor_0429'></a><a href='#Footnote_0429' class='fnanchor'>[429]</a> lashe him with his rimes.<br /> +<i>The beast is proud when men read his enditings</i>;<br /> +Let his workes goe the waie of all wast writings.<br /> +<br /> +Now, <i>Martin</i>, you that say you will spawne out<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Your brawling brattes, in euery towne to dwell,<br /> +<i>We will provide in each place for your route,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>A bell and whippe that Apes do loue so well.</i><br /> +And if yo skippe, and will not wey the checke,<br /> +We ’il haue a springe, and catche you by the necke.<br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_528' name='page_528'></a>528</span><br /> +And so adieu, mad <i>Martin</i>-mar-the-land<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Leaue off thy worke, and “more work”<a name='FNanchor_0430' id='FNanchor_0430'></a><a href='#Footnote_0430' class='fnanchor'>[430]</a> hearest thou me<br /> +Thy work’s nought worth, take better worke in hand.<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span><i>Thou marr’st thy worke, and thy work will marre thee.</i><br /> +Worke not anewe, least it doth work thy wracke,<br /> +And then make worke for him that worke doth lacke.<br /> +<br /> +And this I warn thee, Martin Monckies-face,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Take heed of me; my rime doth charm thee bad.<br /> +I am a rimer of the Irish race,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And haue alreadie rimde thee staring mad.<br /> +But if thou cease not thy bald jests to spread,<br /> +I’le never leave till I have rimde thee dead.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<hr class='toprule' /> +<div class='chsp'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_529' name='page_529'></a>529</span> +<a name='LITERARY_QUARRELS_FROM__PERSONAL_MOTIVES' id='LITERARY_QUARRELS_FROM__PERSONAL_MOTIVES'></a> +<h3>LITERARY QUARRELS</h3> +<h4><span class='smcaplc'>FROM</span><br />PERSONAL MOTIVES</h4> +</div> +<p class='chnote'>Anecdote of a <span class='smcap'>Bishop</span> and a <span class='smcap'>Doctor</span>—Dr. <span class='smcap'>Middleton</span> and Dr. <span class='smcap'>Bentley—Warburton</span> +and Dr. <span class='smcap'>Taylor—Warburton</span> and <span class='smcap'>Edwards—Swift</span> and +<span class='smcap'>Dryden—Pope</span> and <span class='smcap'>Bentley</span>—why fiction is necessary for satire, according +to Lord <span class='smcap'>Rochester’s</span> confession—<span class='smcap'>Rowe</span> and <span class='smcap'>Addison—Pope</span> +and <span class='smcap'>Atterbury</span>—Sir <span class='smcap'>John Hawkins</span> and <span class='smcap'>George Steevens</span>—a fierce +controversial author a dangerous neighbour—a ludicrous instance of a +literary quarrel from personal motives between <span class='smcap'>Bohun</span> and the <span class='smcap'>Wykehamists</span>.</p> +<p>Literary Quarrels have abundantly sprung from mere personal +motives; and controversies purely literary, sometimes +of magnitude, have broken out, and been voluminously carried +on, till the public are themselves involved in the contest, +while the true origin lies concealed in some sudden squabble; +some neglect of petty civility; some unlucky epithet; or some +casual observation dropped without much consideration, which +mortified or enraged the author. How greatly has passion +prevailed in literary history! How often the most glorious +pages in the chronicles of literature are tainted with the secret +history which must be placed by their side, so that the origin +of many considerable works, which do so much honour to the +heads of their authors, sadly accuse their hearts. But the +heaven of Virgil was disturbed with quarrels—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ? <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><i>Æneid.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Can heavenly minds such high resentment show? <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><i>Dryden.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And has not a profound observer of human affairs declared, +<i>Ex privatis odiis respublica crescit?</i> individual hatreds aggrandize +the republic. This miserable philosophy will satisfy +those who are content, from private vices, to derive public +benefits. One wishes for a purer morality, and a more noble +inspiration.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_530' name='page_530'></a>530</span></div> +<p>To a literary quarrel from personal motives we owe the +origin of a very remarkable volume. When Dr. Parr delivered +his memorable sermon, which, besides the “<i>sesquipedalia +verba</i>,” was perhaps the longest that ever was heard—if +not listened to—Bishop Hurd, who had always played +the part of one of the most wary of politicians in private life, +and who had occasion once adroitly to explain the French +word <i>Retenue</i>, which no man better understood, in a singularly +unguarded moment, sarcastically observed that he did +not like “the doctor’s long vernacular sermon.” The happy +epithet was soon conveyed to the classical ear of the modern +Grecian: it was a wasp in it! The bishop had, in the days +of literary adventure, published some pieces of irony, which +were thought more creditable to his wit than his feelings—and +his great patron, Warburton, certain juvenile prose and +verse—all of which they had rejected from their works. But +this it is to be an author!—his errors remain when he has +outlived and corrected them. The mighty and vindictive +Grecian in rage collected them all; exhausted his own genius +in perpetuating follies; completed the works of the two +bishops in utter spite; and in “Tracts by Warburton and a +Warburtonian,” has furnished posterity with a specimen of +the force of his own “vernacular” style, giving a lesson to +the wary bishop, who had scarcely wanted one all his life—of +the dangers of an unlucky epithet!</p> +<p>Dr. Conyers Middleton, the author of the “Life of Cicero,” +seldom wrote but out of pique; and he probably owed his +origin as an author to a circumstance of this nature. Middleton +when young was a <i>Dilettante</i> in music; and Dr. Bentley, +in contempt, applied the epithet “fiddling Conyers.” +Had the irascible Middleton broken his violin about the head +of the learned Grecian, and thus terminated the quarrel, the +epithet had then cost Bentley’s honour much less than it +afterwards did. It seems to have excited Middleton to deeper +studies, which the great Bentley not long after felt when he +published proposals for an edition of the New Testament in +Greek. Middleton published his “Remarks, paragraph by +paragraph, upon the proposals,” to show that Bentley had +neither talents nor materials proper for the work. This +opened a great paper-war, and again our rabid wolf fastened +on the majestic lion, “paragraph by paragraph.” And though +the lion did affect to bear in contempt the fangs of his little +active enemy, the flesh was torn. “The proposals” sunk +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_531' name='page_531'></a>531</span> +before the “paragraph by paragraph,” and no edition of the +Greek Testament by Bentley ever appeared. Bentley’s proposals +at first had met with the greatest success; the subscription-money +amounted to two thousand pounds, and it +was known that his nephew had been employed by him to +travel abroad to collect these MSS. He declared he would +make use of no MS. that was not a thousand years old, or +above; of which sort he had collected twenty, so that they +made up a total of twenty thousand years. He was four +years studying them before he issued his proposals. The +Doctor rested most on eight Greek MSS., the most recent of +which was one thousand years old. All this wore a very +imposing appearance. At a touch the whole magnificent +edifice fell to pieces! Middleton says, “His twenty old +MSS. shrink at once to eight, and he is forced again to own +that even of these eight there are only four which had not +been used by Dr. Mill;” and these Middleton, by his sarcastic +reasoning, at last reduces to “some pieces only of the New +Testament in MS.” So that twenty MSS. and their twenty +thousand years were battered by the “fiddling Conyers” into +a solitary fragment of little value! Bentley returned the +subscription-money, and would not publish; the work still lies +in its prepared state, and some good judges of its value have +expressed a hope to see it yet published. But Bentley himself +was not untainted in this dishonourable quarrel: he well +knew that Middleton was the author of this severe attack; +but to show his contempt of the real author, and desirous, in +his turn, of venting his disappointment on a Dr. Colbatch, +he chose to attribute it to him, and fell on Colbatch with a +virulence that made the reply perfectly libellous, if it was +Bentley’s, as was believed.</p> +<p>The irascibility of Middleton, disguising itself in a literary +form, was still more manifested by a fact recorded of him by +Bishop Newton. He had applied to Sir Robert Walpole for +the mastership of the Charter-house, who honestly informed +him that Bishop Sherlock, with the other Bishops, were +against his being chosen. Middleton attributed the origin of +this opposition to Bishop Sherlock, and wreaked his vengeance +by publishing his “Animadversions upon Sherlock’s Discourses +on Prophecy.” The book had been long published, and had +passed through successive editions; but Middleton pretended +he had never seen them before, and from this time Lambeth-house +was a strong provocative for his vindictive temper.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_532' name='page_532'></a>532</span></div> +<p>Nor was the other great adversary of Middleton, he who so +long affected to be the lord paramount, the Suzerain in the +feudal empire, rather than the republic of letters—Warburton +himself—less easily led on to these murderous acts of personal +rancour. A pamphlet of the day has preserved an anecdote +of this kind. Dr. Taylor, the Chancellor of Lincoln, once +threw out in company an opinion derogatory to the scholarship +of Warburton, who seems to have had always some choice +spirits of his legion as spies in the camp of an enemy, and +who sought their tyrant’s grace by their violation of the social +compact. The tyrant himself had an openness, quite in contrast +with the dark underworks of his satellites. He boldly +interrogated our critic, and Taylor replied, undauntedly and +more poignantly than Warburton might have suspected, that +“he did not recollect ever <i>saying</i> that Dr. Warburton was no +scholar, but that indeed he had always <i>thought</i> so.” To this +intrepid spirit the world owes one of the remarkable prefaces +to the “Divine Legation”—in which the Chancellor of Lincoln, +intrepid as he was, stands like a man of straw, to be buffeted +and tossed about with all those arts of distortion which the +wit and virulence of Warburton almost every day was practising +at his “established places of execution,” as his prefaces +and notes have been wittily termed.</p> +<p>Even Warburton himself, who committed so many personal +injuries, has, in his turn, most eminently suffered from the +same motive. The personal animosity of a most ingenious +man was the real cause of the utter destruction of Warburton’s +critical reputation. Edwards, the author of the “Canons +of Criticism,” when young and in the army, was a visitor at +Allen’s of Prior-park, the patron of Warburton; and in those +literary conversations which usually occupied their evenings, +Warburton affected to show his superiority in his acquaintance +with the Greek writers, never suspecting that a red coat +covered more Greek than his own—which happened unluckily +to be the case. Once, Edwards in the library, taking down a +Greek author, explained a passage in a manner which did not +suit probably with some new theory of the great inventor of +so many; a contest arose, in which Edwards discovered how +Warburton came by his illegitimate knowledge of Greek +authors: Edwards attempted to convince him that he really +did not understand Greek, and that his knowledge, such as it +was, was derived from French translations—a provoking act +of literary kindness, which took place in the presence of Ralph +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_533' name='page_533'></a>533</span> +Allen and his niece, who, though they could not stand as +umpires, did as witnesses. An incurable breach took place +between the parties, and from this trifling altercation, Edwards +produced the bitter “Canons of Criticism,” and Warburton +those foaming notes in the <i>Dunciad</i>.</p> +<p>Such is the implacable nature of literary irascibility! Men +so tenderly alive to intellectual sensibility, find even the +lightest touch profoundly enter into the morbid constitution +of the literary temper; and even minds of a more robust +nature have given proof of a sickly delicacy hanging about +them quite unsuspected. Swift is a remarkable instance of +this kind: the foundation of the character of this great wit +was his excellent sense. Yet having, when young, composed +one of the wild Pindarics of the time, addressed to the Athenian +Society, and Dryden judiciously observing that “cousin +Jonathan would never be a poet,” the enraged wit, after he +had reached the maturity of his own admirable judgment, +and must have been well aware of the truth of the friendly +prediction, could never forgive it. He has indulged the utmost +licentiousness of personal rancour; he even puns miserably +on his name to degrade him as the <i>emptiest</i> of writers. His +spirited translation of Virgil, which was admired even by Pope, +he levels by the most grotesque sarcastic images to mark +the poet’s diminutive genius—he says this version-maker is +so lost in Virgil, that he is like “the lady in a lobster; a mouse +under a canopy of state; a shrivelled beau within the penthouse +of a full-bottomed perriwig.” He never was generous +enough to contradict his opinion, and persisted in it to the +last. Some critic, about Swift’s own time, astonished at his +treatment of Dryden, declares he must have been biassed by +some prejudice—the anecdote here recorded, not then probably +known, discovers it.</p> +<p>What happened to Pope on the publication of his Homer +shows all the anxious temper of the author. Being in company +with Bentley, the poet was very desirous of obtaining +the doctor’s opinion of it, which Bentley contrived to parry +as well as he could; but in these matters an author who calculates +on a compliment, will risk everything to obtain it. The +question was more plainly put, and the answer was as plainly +given. Bentley declared that “the verses were good verses, +but the work is not Homer—it is Spondanus!” From this +interview posterity derives from the mortified poet the full-length +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_534' name='page_534'></a>534</span> +figure of “<i>the slashing</i> Bentley,” in the fourth book +of the Dunciad:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>The mighty Scholiast, whose unwearied pains<br /> +Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton’s strains.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>When Bentley was told by some officious friend that Pope +had abused him, he only replied, “Ay, like enough! I spoke +against his Homer, and the <i>portentous cub</i> never forgives!” +Part of Pope’s severe criticism only is true; but to give full +effect to their severity, poets always infuse a certain quantity +of fiction. This is an artifice absolutely necessary to practise; +so I collect from a great master in the arts of satire, and who +once honestly avowed that no satire could be composed +unless it was <i>personal</i>; and no personalities would sufficiently +adorn a poem without <i>lies</i>. This great satirist was Rochester. +Burnet details a curious conversation between himself and his +lordship on this subject. The bishop tells us that “he +would often go into the country, and be for some months +wholly employed in study, or the sallies of his wit chiefly +directed to satire. And this he often defended to me by saying, +there were some people that could not be kept in order, +or admonished, but in this way.” Burnet remonstrated, and +Rochester replied—“A man could not write with life unless +he were <i>heated by revenge</i>; for to make a satire without +resentments, upon the cold notions of philosophy, was as if +a man would, in cold blood, cut men’s throats who had never +offended him. And he said, the <i>lies</i> in these libels came often +in as <i>ornaments</i>, that could not be spared without <i>spoiling the +beauty</i> of the poem.” It is as useful to know how the +materials of satire are put together; as thus the secret of +pulling it to pieces more readily may sometimes be obtained.</p> +<p>These facts will sufficiently establish this disgraceful principle +of the personal motives which have influenced the +quarrels of authors, and which they have only disguised by +giving them a literary form. Those who are conversant in +literary history can tell how many works, and some considerable +ones, have entirely sprung out of the vengeance of +authors. Johnson, to whom the feelings of the race were so +well known, has made a curious observation, which none but +an author could have made:—“The best advice to authors +would be, that they should keep out of the way of one +another.” He says this in the “Life of Rowe,” on the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_535' name='page_535'></a>535</span> +occasion of Addison’s Observations on Rowe’s Character. +Rowe had expressed his happiness to Pope at Addison’s +promotion; and Pope, who wished to conciliate +Addison towards Rowe, mentioned it, adding, that he +believed Rowe was sincere. Addison replied, “That he +did not suspect Rowe feigned; but <i>the levity of his heart is +such, that he is struck with any new adventure</i>: and it would +affect him just in the same manner as if he heard I was going +to be hanged.” Warburton adds that Pope said he could not +deny but Addison understood Rowe well. Such is the fact +on which Johnson throws out an admirable observation:—“This +censure time has not left us the power of confirming or +refuting; but observation daily shows that much stress is not +to be laid on hyperbolical accusations and pointed sentences, +which even he that utters them desires to be applauded, rather +than credited. Addison can hardly be supposed to have meant +all that he said. <i>Few characters can bear the microscopic +scrutiny of <span class='smcaplc'>WIT</span> quickened by <span class='smcaplc'>ANGER</span>.</i>” I could heap up facts +to demonstrate this severe truth. Even of Pope’s best +friends, some of their severities, if they ever reached him, +must have given the pain he often inflicted. His friend +Atterbury, to whom he was so partial, dropped an expression, +in the heat of conversation, which Pope could never have forgiven; +that our poet had “a crooked mind in a crooked body.” +There was a rumour, after Pope’s death, that he had left +behind him a satirical “Life of Dean Swift.” Let genius, +whose faculty detects the foibles of a brother, remember he is +a rival, and be a generous one. In that extraordinary morsel +of literary history, the “Conversations of Ben Jonson with +his friend Drummond of Hawthornden,” preserving his +opinions of his contemporaries, if I err not in my recollection, +I believe that he has not spoken favourably of a single individual!</p> +<p>The personal motives of an author, influencing his literary +conduct, have induced him to practise meannesses and subterfuges. +One remarkable instance of this nature is that of Sir +John Hawkins, who indeed had been hardly used by the caustic +pleasantries of George Steevens. Sir John, in his edition of +Johnson, with ingenious malice contrived to suppress the +acknowledgment made by Johnson to Steevens of his diligence +and sagacity, at the close of his preface to Shakspeare. +To preserve the panegyric of Steevens mortified Hawkins +beyond endurance; yet, to suppress it openly, his character +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_536' name='page_536'></a>536</span> +as an editor did not permit. In this dilemma he pretended +he reprinted the preface from the edition of 1765; which, as +it appeared before Johnson’s acquaintance with Steevens, +could not contain the tender passage. However, this was +unluckily discovered to be only a subterfuge, to get rid of the +offensive panegyric. On examination, it proved not true; +Hawkins did not reprint from this early edition, but from the +latest, for all the corrections are inserted in his own. “If +Sir John were to be tried at Hicks’s Hall (long the seat of +that justice’s glory), he would be found guilty of <i>clipping</i>,” +archly remarks the periodical critic.</p> +<p>A fierce controversial author may become a dangerous +neighbour to another author: a petulant fellow, who does +not write, may be a pestilent one; but he who prints a book +against us may disturb our life in endless anxieties. There +was once a dean who actually teased to death his bishop, +wore him out in journeys to London, and at length drained +all his faculties—by a literary quarrel from personal motives.</p> +<p>Dr. <span class='smcap'>Thomas Pierce</span>, Dean of Sarum—a perpetual controversialist, +and to whom it was dangerous to refuse a request, +lest it might raise a controversy—wanted a prebend +of Dr. <span class='smcap'>Ward</span>, Bishop of Salisbury, for his son Robert. He +was refused; and now, studying revenge, he opened a controversy +with the bishop, maintaining that the king had the +right of bestowing all dignities in all cathedrals in the kingdom, +and not the bishops. This required a reply from the +bishop, who had been formerly an active controversialist +himself. Dean Pierce renewed his attack with a folio +volume, entitled “A Vindication of the King’s Sovereign +Right, &c.,” 1683.—Thus it proceeded, and the web thickened +around the bishop in replies and rejoinders. It cost him +many tedious journeys to London, through bad roads, fretting +at “the King’s Sovereign Right” all the way; and, in the +words of a witness, “in unseasonable times and weather, +that by degrees his spirits were exhausted, his memory quite +gone, and he was totally unfitted for business.”<a name='FNanchor_0431' id='FNanchor_0431'></a><a href='#Footnote_0431' class='fnanchor'>[431]</a> Such was +the fatal disturbance occasioned by Dean Pierce’s folio of +“The King’s Sovereign Right,” and his son Bob being left +without a prebend!</p> +<p>I shall close this article with a very ludicrous instance of a +literary quarrel from personal motives. This piece of secret +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_537' name='page_537'></a>537</span> +history had been certainly lost, had not Bishop Lowth condescended +to preserve it, considering it as necessary to assign +a sufficient reason for the extraordinary libel it produced.</p> +<p>Bohun, an antiquarian lawyer, in a work entitled “The +English Lawyer,” in 1732, in illustrating the origin of the +Act of <i>Scandalum Magnatum</i>, which arose in the time of +William of Wykeham, the chancellor and bishop of Edward +III. and the founder of New College, in Oxford; took that +opportunity of committing the very crime on the venerable +manes of Wykeham himself. He has painted this great man +in the darkest colours. Wykeham is charged with having +introduced “Alice Piers, his niece or,” &c., for the truth is +he was uncertain who she was, to use his peculiar language, +“into the king’s bosom;” to have joined her in excluding the +Black Prince from all power in the state; and he hints at +this hero having been poisoned by them; of Wykeham’s embezzling +a million of the public money, and, when chancellor, +of forging an Act of Parliament to indemnify himself, and +thus passing his own pardon. It is a singularity in this +libellous romance, that the contrary of all this only is true. +But Bohun has so artfully interwoven his historical patches +of misrepresentations, surmises, and fictions, that he succeeded +in framing an historical libel.</p> +<p>Not satisfied with this vile tissue, in his own obscure +volume, seven years afterwards, being the editor of a work of +high reputation, Nathaniel Bacon’s “Historical and Political +Discourse of the Laws and Government of England,” he +further satiated his frenzy by contriving to preserve his libel +in a work which he was aware would outlive his own.</p> +<p>Whence all this persevering malignity? Why this quarrel +of Mr. Bohun, of the Middle Temple, with the long-departed +William of Wykeham?</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He took all these obscure pains, and was moved with this +perpetual rancour against William of Wykeham, merely to +mortify the Wykehamists; and slandered their founder, with +the idea that the odium might be reflected on New College. +Bohun, it seems, had a quarrel with them concerning a lease +on which he had advanced money; but the holder had contrived +to assign it to the well-known Eustace Budgell: the +college confirmed the assignment. At an interview before +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_538' name='page_538'></a>538</span> +the warden, high words had arisen between the parties: the +warden withdrew, and the wit gradually shoved the antiquary +off the end of the bench on which they were sitting: a blow +was struck, and a cane broken. Bohun brought an action, +and the Wykehamites travelled down to give bail at Westminster +Hall, where the legal quarrel was dropped, and the +literary one then began. Who could have imagined that the +venerable bishop and chancellor of Edward III. was to be +involved in a wretched squabble about a lease with an antiquary +and a wit? “Fancying,” says Bishop Lowth, “he +could inflict on the Society of New College a blow which +would affect them more sensibly by wounding the reputation +of their founder, he set himself to collect everything he could +meet with that was capable of being represented to his discredit, +and to improve it with new and horrible calumnies of +his own invention.” Thus originated this defamatory attack +on the character of William of Wykeham! And by arts +which active writers may practise, and innocent readers cannot +easily suspect, a work of the highest reputation, like that +of Nathaniel Bacon’s, may be converted into a vehicle of +personal malignity, while the author himself disguises his +real purpose under the specious appearance of literature! +The present case, it must be acknowledged, is peculiar, where +a dead person was attacked with a spirit of rancour to which +the living only appear subject; but the author was an antiquary, +who lived as much with the dead as the living: his +personal motive was the same as those already recorded, and +here he was acting with a double force on the dead and the +living!</p> +<p>But here I stop my hand, my list would else be too complete. +Great names are omitted—Whitaker and Gibbon;<a name='FNanchor_0432' id='FNanchor_0432'></a><a href='#Footnote_0432' class='fnanchor'>[432]</a> +Pope and Lord Hervey;<a name='FNanchor_0433' id='FNanchor_0433'></a><a href='#Footnote_0433' class='fnanchor'>[433]</a> Wood and South;<a name='FNanchor_0434' id='FNanchor_0434'></a><a href='#Footnote_0434' class='fnanchor'>[434]</a> Rowe, Mores, +and Ames;<a name='FNanchor_0435' id='FNanchor_0435'></a><a href='#Footnote_0435' class='fnanchor'>[435]</a> and George Steevens and Gough.<a name='FNanchor_0436' id='FNanchor_0436'></a><a href='#Footnote_0436' class='fnanchor'>[436]</a></p> +<p>This chapter is not honourable to authors; but historians +are only Lord Chief Justices, who must execute the laws, +even on their intimate friends, when standing at the bar. +The chapter is not honourable—but it may be useful; and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_539' name='page_539'></a>539</span> +that is a quality not less valuable to the public. It lets in +their readers to a kind of knowledge, which opens a necessary +comment on certain works, and enlarges our comprehension of +their spirit.</p> +<p>If in the heat of controversy authors imprudently attack +each other with personalities, they are only scattering mud and +hurling stones, and will incur the ridicule or the contempt of +those who, unfriendly to the literary character, feel a secret +pleasure in its degradation; but let them learn, that to open a +literary controversy from mere personal motives; thus to conceal +the dagger of private hatred under the mantle of literature, +is an expedient of short duration, for the secret history +is handed down with the book; and when once the dignity of +the author’s character sinks in the meanness of his motives, +powerful as the work may be, even Genius finds its lustre +diminished, and Truth itself becomes suspicious.</p> +<hr class='pb' /> +<div class='chsp' style='padding-top:0'> +<a name='FOOTNOTES' id='FOOTNOTES'></a> +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0001' id='Footnote_0001'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0001'><span class='label'>[1]</span></a> +<p>A modern writer observes, that “Valeriano is chiefly known to the +present times by his brief but curious and interesting work, <i>De Literatorum +Infelicitate</i>, which has preserved many anecdotes of the principal scholars +of the age, not elsewhere to be found.”—<span class='smcap'>Roscoe’s</span> <i>Leo X.</i> vol. iv. p. 175.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0002' id='Footnote_0002'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0002'><span class='label'>[2]</span></a> +<p>There is also a bulky collection of this kind, entitled, <i>Analecta de +Calamitate Literatorum</i>, edited by Mencken, the author of <i>Charlataneria +Eruditorum</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0003' id='Footnote_0003'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0003'><span class='label'>[3]</span></a> +<p>From the Grecian <i>Psyche</i>, or the soul, the Germans have borrowed +this expressive term. They have a <i>Psychological Magazine</i>. Some of +our own recent authors have adopted the term peculiarly adapted to the +historian of the human mind.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0004' id='Footnote_0004'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0004'><span class='label'>[4]</span></a> +<p>It has been lately disclosed that <span class='smcap'>Home</span>, the author of “Douglas,” was +pensioned by Lord Bute to answer all the papers and pamphlets of the +Government, and to be a vigilant defender of the measures of Government.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0005' id='Footnote_0005'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0005'><span class='label'>[5]</span></a> +<p>I have elsewhere portrayed the personal characters of the hireling +chiefs of these paper wars: the versatile and unprincipled Marchmont +Needham, the Cobbett of his day; the factious Sir Roger L’Estrange; and +the bantering and profligate Sir John Birkenhead.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0006' id='Footnote_0006'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0006'><span class='label'>[6]</span></a> +<p>An ample view of these lucubrations is exhibited in the early volumes +of the <i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0007' id='Footnote_0007'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0007'><span class='label'>[7]</span></a> +<p>It was said of this man that “he had submitted to labour at the +press, like a horse in a mill, till he became as blind and as wretched.” To +show the extent of the conscience of this class of writers, and to what +lengths mere party-writers can proceed, when duly encouraged, Oldmixon, +who was a Whig historian, if a violent party-writer ought ever to be +dignified by so venerable a title, unmercifully rigid to all other historians, +was himself guilty of the crimes with which he so loudly accused others. +He charged three eminent persons with interpolating Lord Clarendon’s +History; this charge was afterwards disproved by the passages being produced +in his Lordship’s own handwriting, which had been fortunately +preserved; and yet this accuser of interpolation, when employed by Bishop +Kennett to publish his collection of our historians, made no scruple of falsifying +numerous passages in Daniel’s Chronicle, which makes the first +edition of that collection of no value.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0008' id='Footnote_0008'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0008'><span class='label'>[8]</span></a> +<p>Smollett died in a small abode in the neighbourhood of Leghorn, +where he had resided some time in the hope of recovering his shattered +health; and where he wrote his “Humphrey Clinker.” His friends had +tried in vain to procure for him the appointment of consul to any one of +the ports of the Mediterranean. He is buried in the English cemetery at +Leghorn.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0009' id='Footnote_0009'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0009'><span class='label'>[9]</span></a> +<p>It stands opposite Dalquhurn House, where he was born, near the +village of Renton, Dumbartonshire. Had Smollett lived a few more years, +he would have been entitled to an estate of about 1000<i>l.</i> a year. There is +also a cenotaph to his memory on the banks of Leven-water, which he has +consecrated in one of his best poems.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0010' id='Footnote_0010'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0010'><span class='label'>[10]</span></a> +<p>The following facts will show the value of <i>literary property</i>; immense +profits and cheap purchases! The manuscript of “Robinson Crusoe” ran +through the whole trade, and no one would print it; the bookseller who did +purchase it, who, it is said, was not remarkable for his discernment, but for +a speculative turn, got a thousand guineas by it. How many have the +booksellers since accumulated? Burn’s “Justice” was disposed of by its +author for a trifle, as well as Buchan’s “Domestic Medicine;” these works +yield annual incomes. Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield” was sold in the +hour of distress, with little distinction from any other work in that class of +composition; and “Evelina” produced five guineas from the niggardly +trader. Dr. Johnson fixed the price of his “Biography of the Poets” at +two hundred guineas; and Mr. Malone observes, the booksellers in the +course of twenty-five years have probably got five thousand. I could add a +great number of facts of this nature which relate to living writers; the +profits of their own works for two or three years would rescue them from +the horrors and humiliation of pauperism. It is, perhaps, useful to record, +that, while the compositions of genius are but slightly remunerated, though +sometimes as productive as “the household stuff” of literature, the latter +is rewarded with princely magnificence. At the sale of the Robinsons, the +copyright of “Vyse’s Spelling-book” was sold at the enormous price of +2200<i>l.</i>, with an <i>annuity</i> of fifty guineas to the author!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0011' id='Footnote_0011'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0011'><span class='label'>[11]</span></a> +<p>The circumstance, with the poet’s dignified petition, and the King’s +honourable decree, are preserved in “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. i. p. 406.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0012' id='Footnote_0012'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0012'><span class='label'>[12]</span></a> +<p>The elder Tonson’s portrait represents him in his gown and cap, holding +in his right hand a volume lettered “Paradise Lost”—such a favourite +object was Milton and copyright! Jacob Tonson was the founder of a race +who long honoured literature. His rise in life is curious. He was at first +unable to pay twenty pounds for a play by Dryden, and joined with another +bookseller to advance that sum; the play sold, and Tonson was afterwards +enabled to purchase the succeeding ones. He and his nephew died worth +two hundred thousand pounds.—Much old Tonson owed to his own industry; +but he was a mere trader. He and Dryden had frequent bickerings; +he insisted on receiving 10,000 verses for two hundred and sixty-eight +pounds, and poor Dryden threw in the finest Ode in the language towards +the number. He would pay in the base coin which was then current; +which was a loss to the poet. Tonson once complained to Dryden, that he +had only received 1446 lines of his translation of Ovid for his Miscellany +for fifty guineas, when he had calculated at the rate of 1518 lines for forty +guineas; he gives the poet a piece of critical reasoning, that he considered +he had a better bargain with “Juvenal,” which is reckoned “not so easy +to translate as Ovid.” In these times such a mere trader in literature has +disappeared.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0013' id='Footnote_0013'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0013'><span class='label'>[13]</span></a> +<p>Sir James Burrows’ Reports on the question concerning Literary Property, +4to. London, 1773.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0014' id='Footnote_0014'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0014'><span class='label'>[14]</span></a> +<p>Mirror of Parliament, 3529.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0015' id='Footnote_0015'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0015'><span class='label'>[15]</span></a> +<p>See “Amenities of Literature” for an account of this author.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0016' id='Footnote_0016'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0016'><span class='label'>[16]</span></a> +<p>A coster-monger, or Costard-monger, is a dealer in apples, which are +so called because they are shaped like a <i>costard</i>, <i>i.e.</i> a man’s head. +<i>Steevens.</i>—Johnson explains the phrase eloquently: “In these times when +the prevalence of trade has produced that meanness, that rates the merit +of everything by money.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0017' id='Footnote_0017'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0017'><span class='label'>[17]</span></a> +<p>An abundance of these amusing tracts eagerly bought up in their day, +but which came in the following generation to the ballad-stalls, are in the +present enshrined in the cabinets of the curious. Such are the revolutions +of literature! [It is by no means uncommon to find them realise sums at +the rate of a guinea a page; but it is to be solely attributed to their extreme +rarity; for in many instances the reprints of such tracts are worthless.]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0018' id='Footnote_0018'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0018'><span class='label'>[18]</span></a> +<p>Poverty and the gaol alternated with tavern carouses or the place of +honour among the wild young gallants at the playhouses. They were +gentlemen or beggars as daily circumstances ordained. When this was the +case with such authors as Greene, Peele, and Massinger, we need not +wonder at finding “a whole knot” of writers in infinitely worse plight, who +lived (or starved) by writing ballads and pamphlets on temporary subjects. +In a brief tract, called “The Downfall of Temporising Poets,” published +1641, they are said to be “an indifferent strong corporation, twenty-three of +you sufficient writers, besides Martin Parker,” who was the great ballad and +pamphlet writer of the day. The shifts they were put to, and the difficulties +of their living, is denoted in the reply of one of the characters in this +tract, who on being asked if he has money, replies “Money? I wonder +where you ever see poets have money two days together; I sold a copy last +night, and have spent the money; and now have another copy to sell, but +nobody will buy it.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0019' id='Footnote_0019'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0019'><span class='label'>[19]</span></a> +<p>Chatterton had written a political essay for “The North Briton,” +which opened with the preluding flourish of “A spirited people freeing +themselves from insupportable slavery:” it was, however, though accepted, +not printed, on account of the Lord Mayor’s death. The patriot thus calculated +the death of his great patron!</p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="pubs2" summary=""> +<colgroup /> +<colgroup span="3" width="5em" /> +<tr><td colspan="3" /><td>£</td><td><i>s.</i></td><td><i>d.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lost by his death in this Essay</td><td colspan="2" /><td>1</td><td>11</td><td>6</td></tr> +<tr><td>Gained in Elegies</td><td>£2</td><td>2</td></tr> +<tr><td>—— in Essays</td><td class="sunder">3</td><td class="sunder">3</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" /><td class="sunder">5</td><td class="sunder">5</td><td class="sunder">0</td></tr> +<tr><td>Am glad he is dead by</td><td colspan="2" /><td>£3</td><td>13</td><td>6</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0020' id='Footnote_0020'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0020'><span class='label'>[20]</span></a> +<p>This author, now little known but to the student of our rarer early +poets, was a native of Shrewsbury, and had served in the army. He wrote +a large number of poetical pieces, all now of the greatest rarity; their +names have been preserved by that industrious antiquary Joseph Ritson, in +his <i>Bibliographia +<a name='TC_36'></a><ins title="Extra comma removed">Poetica</ins></i>. The principal one was termed “The Worthiness +of Wales,” and is written in laudation of the Principality. He was +frequently employed to supply verses for Court Masques and Pageantry. He +composed “all the devises, pastimes, and plays at Norwich” when Queen +Elizabeth was entertained there; as well as gratulatory verses to her at +Woodstock. He speaks of his mind as “never free from studie,” and his +body “seldom void of toyle”—“and yet both of them neither brought +greate benefits to the life, nor blessing to the soule” he adds, in the words +of a man whose hope deferred has made his heart sick!—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0021' id='Footnote_0021'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0021'><span class='label'>[21]</span></a> +<p><i>Villanellas</i>, or rather “<i>Villanescas</i>, are properly country rustic +songs, but commonly taken for ingenious ones made in imitation of them.”—<span class='smcap'>Pineda.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0022' id='Footnote_0022'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0022'><span class='label'>[22]</span></a> +<p>This practice of dedications had indeed flourished before; for authors +had even prefixed numerous dedications to the same work, or dedicated to +different patrons the separate divisions. Fuller’s “Church History” is +disgraced by the introduction of twelve title-pages, besides the general one; +with as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty inscriptions, +addressed to benefactors; for which he is severely censured by Heylin. +It was an expedient to procure dedication fees; for publishing books by +<i>subscription</i> was an art not then discovered.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0023' id='Footnote_0023'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0023'><span class='label'>[23]</span></a> +<p>The price of the dedication of a play was even fixed, from five to ten +guineas, from the Revolution to the time of George I., when it rose to +twenty—but sometimes a bargain was to be struck—when the author and +the play were alike indifferent. Even on these terms could vanity be +gratified with the coarse luxury of panegyric, of which every one knew the +price.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0024' id='Footnote_0024'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0024'><span class='label'>[24]</span></a> +<p>This circumstance was so notorious at the time, that it occasioned a +poetical satire in a dialogue between Motteux and his patron Henningham—preserved +in that vast flower-bed or dunghill, for it is both, of “Poems +on Affairs of State,” vol. ii. 251. The patron, in his zeal to omit no possible +distinction that could attach to him, had given one circumstance +which no one but himself could have known, and which he thus regrets:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'>“<span class='smcaplc'>PATRON.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +I must confess I was to blame<br /> +That one particular to name;<br /> +The rest could never have been known,<br /> +<i>I made the style so like thy own</i>.<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>POET.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +I beg your pardon, Sir, for that!<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'>PATRON.</span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +Why d——e what would you be at?<br /> +<i>I writ below myself</i>, you sot!<br /> +Avoiding figures, tropes, what not;<br /> +For fear I should my fancy <i>raise<br /> +Above the level of thy plays</i>!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0025' id='Footnote_0025'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0025'><span class='label'>[25]</span></a> +<p>“<i>Athenæ Britannicæ</i>, or a Critical History of the Oxford and Cambridge +Writers and Writings, with those of the Dissenters and Romanists, +as well as other Authors and Worthies, both Domestic and Foreign, both +Ancient and Modern. Together with an occasional freedom of thought, in +criticising and comparing the parallel qualifications of the most eminent +authors and their performances, both in MS. and print, both at home and +abroad. By M. D. London, 1716.” On the first volume of this series, Dr. +Farmer, a bloodhound of unfailing scent in curious and obscure English +books, has written on the leaf “This is the only copy I have met with.” +Even the great bibliographer, Baker, of Cambridge, never met but with +three volumes (the edition at the British Museum is in seven), sent him as +a great curiosity by the Earl of Oxford, and now deposited in his collection +at St. John’s College. Baker has written this memorandum in the first +volume: “Few copies were printed, so the work has become scarce, and +for that reason will be valued. The book in the greatest part is borrowed +from modern historians, but yet contains some things more uncommon, and +not easily to be met with.” How superlatively rare must be the English +volumes which the eyes of Farmer and Baker never lighted on!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0026' id='Footnote_0026'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0026'><span class='label'>[26]</span></a> +<p>These clubs are described in Macky’s “Journey through England,” 1724. +He says they were formed to uphold the Royalist party on the accession of +King George I. “This induced a set of gentlemen to establish <i>Mughouses</i> +in all the corners of this great city, for well-affected tradesmen to meet and +keep up the spirit of loyalty to the Protestant succession,” and to be ready +to join their forces for the suppression of the other party. “Many an +encounter they had, till at last the Parliament was obliged by a law to put +an end to this city strife, which had this good effect, that upon the pulling +down of the Mughouse in Salisbury Court, for which some boys were +hanged on this act, the city has not been troubled with them since.” It +was the custom in these houses to allow no other drink but ale to be consumed, +which was brought in mugs of earthenware; a chairman was elected, +and he called on the members of the company for songs, which were generally +party ballads of a strongly-worded kind, as may be seen in the small +collection printed in 1716, entitled “A Collection of State Songs, Poems, +&c., published since the Rebellion, and sung in the several Mughouses in +the cities of London and Westminster.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0027' id='Footnote_0027'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0027'><span class='label'>[27]</span></a> +<p>My researches could never obtain more than one letter of Cowley’s—it +is but an elegant trifle—returning thanks to his friend Evelyn for some +seeds and plants. “The Garden” of Evelyn is immortalised in a delightful +Ode of Cowley’s, as well as by Evelyn himself. Even in this small note +we may discover the touch of Cowley. The original is in Astle’s collection.</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='center smcaplc'>MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQ.</p> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>Barn Elms, March 23, 1663.</i></p> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,—There is nothing more pleasant than to see kindness in a person for +whom we have great esteem and respect: no, not the sight of your garden +in May, or even the having such an one; which makes me more obliged +to return you my most humble thanks for the testimonies I have lately +received of you, both by your letter and your presents. I have already +sowed such of your seeds as I thought most proper upon a hot-bed; but +cannot find in all my books a catalogue of these plants which require that +culture, nor of such as must be set in pots; which defects, and all others, +I hope shortly to see supplied, as I hope shortly to see your work of Horticulture +finished and published; and long to be in all things your disciple, +as I am in all things now,</p> +<p class='sig1'>“Sir, your most humble and most obedient Servant,</p> +<p class='sig3'> “<span class='smcap'>A. Cowley.</span>”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>[Barn Elms, from whence this letter is dated, was the first country residence +of Cowley. It lies low on the banks of the Thames, and here the poet +was first seized with a fever, which obliged him to remove; but he chose an +equally improper locality for a man of his temperament, in Chertsey, where +he died from the effects of a severe cold.]</p> +<p>Such were the ordinary letters which passed between two men whom it +would be difficult to parallel for their elegant tastes and gentle dispositions. +Evelyn’s beautiful retreat at Sayes Court, at Deptford, is described by a +contemporary as “a garden exquisite and most boscaresque, and, as it were, +an exemplar of his book of Forest-trees.” It was the entertainment and +wonder of the greatest men of those times, and inspired the following lines +of Cowley, to Evelyn and his lady, who excelled in the arts her husband +loved; for she designed the frontispiece to his version of Lucretius—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“In books and gardens thou hast placed aright<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>(Things well which thou dost understand,<br /> +And both dost make with thy laborious hand)<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Thy noble innocent delight;<br /> +And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Both pleasures more refined and sweet;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>The fairest garden in her looks,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And in her mind the wisest books.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0028' id='Footnote_0028'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0028'><span class='label'>[28]</span></a> +<p>A term the French apply to those <i>botches</i> which bad poets use to +make out their metre.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0029' id='Footnote_0029'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0029'><span class='label'>[29]</span></a> +<p>This comedy was first presented very hurriedly for the amusement of +Prince Charles as he passed through Cambridge to York. Cowley himself +describes it, then, as “neither <i>made</i> nor <i>acted</i>, but <i>rough-drawn</i> by him, +and <i>repeated</i> by his scholars” for this temporary purpose. After the Restoration +he endeavoured to do more justice to his juvenile work, by remodelling +it, and producing it at the Duke of York’s theatre. But as many of the +characters necessarily retained the features of the older play, and times had +changed; it was easy to affix a false stigma to the poet’s pictures of the old +Cavaliers; and the play was universally condemned as a satire on the +Royalists. It was reproduced with success at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn +Fields, as long afterwards as the year 1730.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0030' id='Footnote_0030'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0030'><span class='label'>[30]</span></a> +<p>The anecdote, probably little known, may be found in “The Judgment +of Dr. Prideaux in Condemning the Murder of Julius Cæsar by the Conspirators +as a most villanous act, maintained,” 1721, p. 41.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0031' id='Footnote_0031'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0031'><span class='label'>[31]</span></a> +<p>He was the youngest son of the celebrated minister, Sir Robert +Walpole.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0032' id='Footnote_0032'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0032'><span class='label'>[32]</span></a> +<p>In his letters there are uncommon instances of vivacity, whenever +pointed against authors. The following have not yet met the public eye. +What can be more maliciously pungent than this on Spence? “As I know +Mr. J. Spence, I do not think I should have been so much delighted as Dr. +Kippis with reading his letters. He was a good-natured harmless little +soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius. It was a neat fiddle-faddle +bit of sterling, that had read good books, and kept good company; +but was too trifling for use, and only fit to please a child.”—On Dr. Nash’s +first volume of ‘Worcestershire’: “It is a folio of prodigious corpulence, +and yet dry enough; but it is finely dressed with many heads and views.” +He characterises Pennant; “<i>He</i> is not one of our plodders (alluding to +Gough); rather the other extreme; his <i>corporal</i> spirits (for I cannot call +them <i>animal</i>) do not allow him to digest anything. He gave a round jump +from ornithology to antiquity, and, as if they had any relation, thought he +understood everything that lay between them. The report of his being +disordered is not true; he has been with me, and at least is as composed as +ever I saw him.” His literary correspondence with his friend Cole abounds +with this easy satirical criticism—he delighted to ridicule authors!—as +well as to starve the miserable artists he so grudgingly paid. In the very +volumes he celebrated the arts, he disgraced them by his penuriousness; so +that he loved to indulge his avarice at the expense of his vanity!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0033' id='Footnote_0033'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0033'><span class='label'>[33]</span></a> +<p>This opinion on Walpole’s talent for letter-writing was published in +1812, many years before the public had the present collection of his letters; +my prediction has been amply verified. He wrote a great number to +Bentley, the son of Dr. Bentley, who ornamented Gray’s works with some +extraordinary designs. Walpole, who was always proud and capricious, +observes his friend Cole, broke with Bentley because he would bring his +wife with him to Strawberry-hill. He then asked Bentley for all his letters +back, but he would not in return give Bentley’s own.</p> +<p>This whole correspondence abounded with literature, criticism, and wit +of the most original and brilliant composition. This is the opinion of no +friend, but an admirer, and a good judge; for it was Bentley’s own.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0034' id='Footnote_0034'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0034'><span class='label'>[34]</span></a> +<p>This is the renowned Strawberry-hill, a villa still standing on the +banks of the Thames, between Teddington and Twickenham, but now +despoiled of the large collection of pictures, curiosities, and articles of <i>vertu</i> +so assiduously collected by Walpole during a long life. The ground on +which it stands was originally partially occupied by a small cottage, built +by a nobleman’s coachman for a lodging-house, and occupied by a toy-woman +of the name of Chevenix. Hence Walpole says of it, in a letter to +General Conway, “it is a little plaything house that I got out of Mrs. +Chevenix’s shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0035' id='Footnote_0035'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0035'><span class='label'>[35]</span></a> +<p>Walpole’s characters are not often to be relied on, witness his injustice +to Hogarth as a painter, and his insolent calumny of Charles I. His +literary opinions of James I. and of Sidney might have been written without +any acquaintance with the works he has so maliciously criticised. In +his account of Sidney he had silently passed over the “Defence of Poetry;” +and in his second edition has written this avowal, that “he had forgotten +it; a proof that I at least did not think it sufficient foundation for so high +a character as he acquired.” How heartless was the polished cynicism +which could dare to hazard this false criticism! Nothing can be more imposing +than his volatile and caustic criticisms on the works of James I., yet +he had probably never opened that folio he so poignantly ridicules. He +doubts whether two pieces, “The Prince’s Cabala,” and “The Duty of a +King in his Royal Office,” were genuine productions of James I. The truth +is that both these works are nothing more than extracts printed with those +separate titles and drawn from the king’s “Basilicon Doron.” He had +probably neither read the extracts nor the original.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0036' id='Footnote_0036'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0036'><span class='label'>[36]</span></a> +<p>It was such a person as Cole of Milton, his correspondent of forty years, +who lived at a distance, and obsequious to his wishes, always looking up to +him, though never with a parallel glance—with whom he did not quarrel, +though if Walpole could have read the private notes Cole made in his MSS. +at the time he was often writing the civilest letters of admiration,—even +Cole would have been cashiered from his correspondence. Walpole could +not endure equality in literary men.—Bentley observed to Cole, that +Walpole’s pride and hauteur were excessive; which betrayed themselves in +the treatment of Gray who had himself too much pride and spirit <i>to forgive +it</i> when matters were made up between them, and Walpole invited +Gray to Strawberry-hill. When Gray came, he, without any ceremony, told +Walpole that though he waited on him as civility required, yet by <i>no +means would he ever be there on the terms of their former friendship, +which he had totally cancelled</i>.—From <span class='smcap'>Cole’s MSS.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0037' id='Footnote_0037'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0037'><span class='label'>[37]</span></a> +<p>It is curious to observe that Kippis, who classifies with the pomp of +enumeration his heap of pamphlets, imagines that, as Blackmore’s Epic is +consigned to oblivion, so likewise must be the criticism, which, however, +he confesses he could never meet with. An odd fate attends Dennis’s +works: his criticism on a bad work ought to survive it, as good works have +survived his criticisms.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0038' id='Footnote_0038'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0038'><span class='label'>[38]</span></a> +<p>See in Dennis’s “Original Letters” one to Tonson, entitled, “On the +conspiracy against the reputation of Mr. Dryden.” It was in favour of +<i>folly</i> against <i>wisdom</i>, <i>weakness</i> against <i>power</i>, &c.; <i>Pope</i> against <i>Dryden</i>. +He closes with a well-turned period. “Wherever genius runs through a +work, I forgive its faults; and wherever that is wanting, no beauties can +touch me. Being struck by Mr. Dryden’s genius, I have no eyes for his +errors; and I have no eyes for his enemies’ beauties, because I am not +struck by their genius.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0039' id='Footnote_0039'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0039'><span class='label'>[39]</span></a> +<p>In the narrative of his frenzy (quoted p. <a href='#page_56'>56</a>), his <i>personnel</i> is thus +given. “His aspect was furious, his eyes were rather fiery than lively, +which he rolled about in an uncommon manner. He often opened his +mouth as if he would have uttered some matter of importance, but the +sound seemed lost inwardly. His beard was grown, which they told me he +would not suffer to be shaved, believing the modern dramatic poets had +corrupted all the barbers of the town to take the first opportunity of cutting +his throat. His eyebrows were grey, long, and grown together, which he +knit with indignation when anything was spoken, insomuch that he seemed +not to have smoothed his forehead for many years.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0040' id='Footnote_0040'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0040'><span class='label'>[40]</span></a> +<p>There is an epigram on Dennis by Savage, which Johnson has preserved +in his Life; and I feel it to be a very correct likeness, although Johnson +censures Savage for writing an epigram against Dennis, while he was living +in great familiarity with the critic. Perhaps that was the happiest moment +to write the epigram. The anecdote in the text doubtless prompted “the +fool” to take this fair revenge and just chastisement. Savage has brought +out the features strongly, in these touches—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Say what revenge on Dennis can be had,<br /> +Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad.<br /> +On one so poor you cannot take the law,<br /> +On one so old your sword you scorn to draw.<br /> +Uncaged then, let the harmless monster rage,<br /> +Secure in dulness, madness, want, and age!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0041' id='Footnote_0041'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0041'><span class='label'>[41]</span></a> +<p>Dennis points his heavy cannon of criticism and thus bombards that +aerial edifice, the “Rape of the Lock.” He is inquiring into the nature of +<i>poetical machinery</i>, which, he oracularly pronounces, should be religious, +or allegorical, or political; asserting the “Lutrin” of Boileau to be a trifle +only in appearance, covering the deep political design of reforming the +Popish Church!—With the yard of criticism he takes measure of the +slender graces and tiny elegance of Pope’s aerial machines, as “less considerable +than the <i>human persons</i>, which is <i>without precedent</i>. Nothing +can be so contemptible as the <i>persons</i> or so foolish as the understandings of +these <i>hobgoblins</i>. Ariel’s speech is one continued impertinence. After he +has talked to them of black omens and dire disasters that threaten his +heroine, those bugbears dwindle to the breaking a piece of china, to staining +a petticoat, the losing a fan, or a bottle of sal volatile—and what makes +Ariel’s speech more ridiculous is the <i>place</i> where it is spoken, on the sails +and cordage of Belinda’s barge.” And then he compares the Sylphs to the +Discord of Homer, whose feet are upon the earth, and head in the skies. +“They are, indeed, beings so diminutive that they bear the same proportion +to the rest of the intellectual that <i>Eels in vinegar</i> do to the rest of +the material world; the latter are only to be seen through microscopes, and +the former only through the false optics of a Rosicrucian understanding.” +And finally, he decides that “these diminutive beings are only <i>Sawney</i> +(that is, Alexander Pope), taking the change; for it is he, a little lump of +flesh, that talks, instead of a little spirit.” Dennis’s profound gravity contributes +an additional feature of the burlesque to these heroi-comic poems +themselves, only that Dennis cannot be playful, and will not be good-humoured.</p> +<p>On the same tasteless principle he decides on the improbability of that +incident in the “Conscious Lovers” of Steele, raised by Bevil, who, having +received great obligations from his father, has promised not to marry without +his consent. On this Dennis, who rarely in his critical progress will +stir a foot without authority, quotes four formidable pages from Locke’s +“Essay on Government,” to prove that, at the age of discretion, a man is +free to dispose of his own actions! One would imagine that Dennis was +arguing like a special pleader, rather than developing the involved action +of an affecting drama. Are there critics who would pronounce Dennis to be +a very <i>sensible</i> brother? It is here too he calls Steele “a twopenny +author,” alluding to the price of the “Tatlers”—but this cost Dennis dear!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0042' id='Footnote_0042'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0042'><span class='label'>[42]</span></a> +<p>“The narrative of the frenzy of Mr. John Dennis,” published in the +Miscellanies of Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, and said to have been written +by Pope, is a grave banter on his usual violence. It professes to be the account +of the physician who attended him at the request of a servant, who +describes the first attack of his madness coming on when “a poor simple +child came to him from the printers; the boy had no sooner entered the +room, but he cried out ‘the devil was come!’” The constant idiosyncrasy +he had that his writings against France and the Pope might endanger his +liberty, is amusingly hit off; “he perpetually starts and runs to the window +when any one knocks, crying out ‘’Sdeath! a messenger from the French +King; I shall die in the Bastile!’”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0043' id='Footnote_0043'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0043'><span class='label'>[43]</span></a> +<p>So little is known of this singular man, that Mr. Dibdin, in his very +curious “Bibliomania,” was not able to recollect any other details than +those he transcribed from Warburton’s “Commentary on the Dunciad.” +In Mr. Nichols’ “History of Leicestershire” a more copious account of +Henley may be found; to their facts something is here added. It was, +however, difficult to glean after so excellent a harvest-home. To the author +of the “Life of Bowyer,” and other works devoted to our authors, our +literary history is more indebted, than to the labours of any other contemporary. +He is the Prosper Marchand of English literature.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0044' id='Footnote_0044'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0044'><span class='label'>[44]</span></a> +<p>It is, perhaps, unnecessary to point out this allusion of Pope to our +ancient <i>mysteries</i>, where the <i>Clergy</i> were the <i>actors</i>; among which, the +<i>Vice</i> or <i>Punch</i> was introduced. (See “Curiosities of Literature.”)</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0045' id='Footnote_0045'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0045'><span class='label'>[45]</span></a> +<p>Specimens of Henley’s style may be most easily referred to in the +“Spectator,” Nos. 94 and 518. The communication on punning, in the first; +and that of judging character by exteriors, in the last; are both attributed +to Henley.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0046' id='Footnote_0046'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0046'><span class='label'>[46]</span></a> +<p>The title is, “Esther, Queen of Persia, an historical Poem, in four +books; by John Henley, B.A. of St. John’s College, Cambridge. 1714.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0047' id='Footnote_0047'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0047'><span class='label'>[47]</span></a> +<p>Many of the rough drafts of his famed discourses delivered at the +Oratory are preserved in the library of the Guildhall, London. The +advertisements he drew up for the papers, announcing their subject, +are generally exceedingly whimsical, and calculated to attract popular +attention.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0048' id='Footnote_0048'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0048'><span class='label'>[48]</span></a> +<p>This narrative is subscribed A. Welstede. Warburton maliciously +quotes it as a life of Henley, written by Welsted—doubtless designed to +lower the writer of that name, and one of the heroes of the Dunciad. The +public have long been deceived by this artifice; the effect, I believe, of +Warburton’s dishonesty.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0049' id='Footnote_0049'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0049'><span class='label'>[49]</span></a> +<p>Every lecture is dedicated to some branch of the royal family. Among +them one is on “University Learning,” an attack.—“On the English +History and Historians,” extremely curious.—“On the Languages, Ancient +and Modern,” full of erudition.—“On the English Tongue,” a valuable +criticism at that moment when our style was receiving a new polish from +Addison and Prior. Henley, acknowledging that these writers had raised +<i>correctness</i> of expression to its utmost height, adds, though, “if I mistake +not, something to the detriment of that <i>force</i> and <i>freedom</i> that ought, with +the most concealed art, to be a perfect copy of nature in all compositions.” +This is among the first notices of that artificial style which has vitiated our +native idiom, substituting for its purity an affected delicacy, and for its +vigour profuse ornament. Henley observes that, “to be perspicuous, pure, +elegant, copious, and harmonious, are the chief good qualities of writing the +English tongue; they are attained by study and practice, and lost by the +contrary: but <i>imitation</i> is to be avoided; they cannot be made our own but +by keeping the force of our understandings superior to our models; by +<i>rendering our thoughts the original, and our words the copy</i>.”—“On Wit +and Imagination,” abounding with excellent criticism.—“On grave conundrums +and serious buffoons, in defence of burlesque discourses, from the +most weighty authorities.”—“A Dissertation upon Nonsense.” At the +close he has a fling at his friend Pope; it was after the publication of the +Dunciad. “Of Nonsense there are celebrated professors; Mr. Pope grows +witty like Bays in the ‘Rehearsal,’ by selling bargains (his subscriptions +for Homer), praising himself, laughing at his joke, and making his own +works the test of any man’s criticism; but he seems to be in some jeopardy; +for the ghost of Homer has lately spoke to him in Greek, and Shakspeare +resolves to bring him, as he has brought Shakspeare, to a tragical conclusion. +Mr. Pope suggests the last choice of a subject for writing a book, by +making the <i>Nonsense</i> of others his argument; while his own puts it out of +any writer’s power to confute him.” In another fling at Pope, he gives the +reason why Mr. Pope adds the dirty dialect to that of the water, and is in +love with the Nymphs of Fleet ditch; and in a lecture on the spleen he +announced “an anatomical discovery, that Mr. Pope’s spleen is bigger than +his head!”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0050' id='Footnote_0050'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0050'><span class='label'>[50]</span></a> +<p>Thus he anticipated the term, since become so notorious among +German theologians.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0051' id='Footnote_0051'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0051'><span class='label'>[51]</span></a> +<p>It is preserved in the “Historical Register,” vol. xi. for 1726. It is +curious and well written.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0052' id='Footnote_0052'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0052'><span class='label'>[52]</span></a> +<p>“Gentleman’s Magazine,” vol. lvii. p. 876.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0053' id='Footnote_0053'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0053'><span class='label'>[53]</span></a> +<p>His “Defence of the Oratory” is a curious performance. He pretends +to derive his own from great authority. “St. Paul is related, Acts 28, to +have dwelt <i>two whole years in his own hired house</i>, and to have received +all that came in unto him, teaching those things which concern the Lord +Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. This was at +<i>Rome</i>, and doubtless was his practice in his other travels, there being the +same reason in the thing to produce elsewhere the like circumstances.” +He proceeds to show “the calumnies and reproaches, and the novelty and +impiety, with which Christianity, at its first setting out, was charged, as a +mean, abject institution, not only useless and unserviceable, but pernicious +to the public and its professors, as the refuse of the world.”—Of the false +accusations raised against Jesus—all this he applies to himself and his +oratory—and he concludes, that “Bringing men to think rightly will +always be reckoned a depraving of their minds by those who are desirous to +keep them in a mistake, and who measure all truth by the standard of +their own narrow opinions, views, and passions. The principles of this +institution are those of right reason: the first ages of Christianity; true +facts, clear criticism, and polite literature—if these corrupt the mind, to +find a place where the mind will not be corrupted will be impracticable.” +Thus speciously could “the Orator” reason, raising himself to the height +of apostolical purity. And when he was accused that he <i>did all for lucre</i>, +he retorted, that “some <i>do nothing</i> for it;” and that “he preached more +charity sermons than any clergyman in the kingdom.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0054' id='Footnote_0054'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0054'><span class='label'>[54]</span></a> +<p>He once advertised an oration on marriage, which drew together an +overflowing assembly of females, at which, solemnly shaking his head, he +told the ladies, that “he was afraid, that oftentimes, as well as now, they +came to church in hopes to get husbands, rather than be instructed by the +preacher;” to which he added a piece of wit not quite decent. He congregated +the trade of shoemakers, by offering to show the most expeditious +method of making shoes: he held out a boot, and cut off the leg part. He +gave a lecture, which he advertised was “for the instruction of those who +do not like it; it was on the philosophy, history, and great use of <i>Nonsense</i> +to the learned, political, and polite world, who excel in it.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0055' id='Footnote_0055'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0055'><span class='label'>[55]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Cobden, one of George the Second’s chaplains, having, in 1748, +preached a sermon at St. James’s from these words, “Take away the +wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in +righteousness,” it gave so much displeasure, that the doctor was struck out +of the list of chaplains; and the next Saturday the following parody of his +text appeared as a motto to Henley’s advertisement:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Away with the wicked before the king,<br /> +And away with the wicked behind him;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>His throne it will bless<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>With righteousness,<br /> +And we shall know where to find him.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Chalmer’s</span> “Biographical Dictionary.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0056' id='Footnote_0056'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0056'><span class='label'>[56]</span></a> +<p>The history of the closing years of Henley’s life is thus given in “The +History of the Robin Hood Society,” 1764, a political club, whose debates +he occasionally enlivened:—“The Orator, with various success, still kept +up his <i>Oratory</i>, <i>King George’s</i>, or <i>Charles’s Chapel</i>, as he differently +termed it, till the year 1759, when he died. At its first establishment it +was amazingly crowded, and money flowed in upon him apace; and between +whiles it languished and drooped: but for some years before its author’s +death it dwindled away so much, and fell into such an hectic state, that +the few friends of it feared its decease was very near. The doctor, indeed, +kept it up to the last, determined it should live as long as he did, and +actually exhibited many evenings to empty benches. Finding no one at length +would attend, he admitted the acquaintances of his door-keeper, runner, +mouth-piece, and some other of his followers, gratis. On the 13th of +October, however, the doctor died, and the Oratory ceased; no one having +iniquity or impudence sufficient to continue it on.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0057' id='Footnote_0057'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0057'><span class='label'>[57]</span></a> +<p>Hogarth has preserved his features in the parson who figures so conspicuously +in his “Modern Midnight Conversation.” His off-hand style of +discourse is given in the <i>Gray’s-Inn Journal</i>, 1753 (No. 18), in an +imaginary meeting of the political Robin Hood Society, where he figures as +Orator Bronze, and exclaims:—“I am pleased to see this assembly—you’re +a twig from me; a chip of the old block at Clare Market;—I am the old +block, invincible; <i>coup de grace</i> as yet unanswered. We are brother +rationalists; logicians upon fundamentals! I love ye all—I love mankind +in general—give me some of that porter.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0058' id='Footnote_0058'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0058'><span class='label'>[58]</span></a> +<p>Hawkesworth, in the second paper of the “Adventurer,” has composed, +from his own feelings, an elegant description of intellectual and +corporeal labour, and the sufferings of an author, with the uncertainty of +his labour and his reward.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0059' id='Footnote_0059'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0059'><span class='label'>[59]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Fuller’s “Medicina Gymnastica, or, a treatise concerning the +power of Exercise, with respect to the Animal Œconomy, fifth edition, +1718,” is useful to remind the student of what he is apt to forget; for the +object of this volume is to <i>substitute exercise for medicine</i>. He wrote the +book before he became a physician. He considers horse-riding as the best +and noblest of all exercises, it being “a mixed exercise, partly active and +partly passive, while other sorts, such as walking, running, stooping, or the +like, require some labour and more strength for their performance.” +Cheyne, in his well-known treatise of “The English Malady,” published +about twenty years after Fuller’s work, acknowledges that riding on horseback +is the best of all exercises, for which he details his reasons. “Walking,” +he says, “though it will answer the same end, yet is it more +laborious and tiresome;” but amusement ought always to be combined with +the exercise of a student; the mind will receive no refreshment by a solitary +walk or ride, unless it be agreeably withdrawn from all thoughtfulness and +anxiety; if it continue studying in its recreations, it is the sure means +of obtaining neither of its objects—a friend, not an author, will at such a +moment be the better companion.</p> +<p>The last chapter in Fuller’s work contains much curious reading on the +ancient physicians, and their gymnastic courses, which Asclepiades, the +pleasantest of all the ancient physicians, greatly studied; he was most +fortunate in the invention of exercises to supply the place of much physic, +and (says Fuller) no man in any age ever had the happiness to obtain so +general an applause; Pliny calls him the delight of mankind. Admirable +physician, who had so many ways, it appears, to make physic agreeable! +He invented the <i>lecti pensiles</i>, or hanging beds, that the sick might be +rocked to sleep; which took so much at that time, that they became a great +luxury among the Romans.</p> +<p>Fuller judiciously does not recommend the gymnastic courses, because +horse-riding, for persons of delicate constitutions, is preferable; he discovers +too the reason why the ancients did not introduce this mode of exercise—it +arose from the simple circumstance of their not knowing the use of stirrups, +which was a later invention. Riding with the ancients was, therefore, +only an exercise for the healthy and the robust; a horse without stirrups +was a formidable animal for a valetudinarian.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0060' id='Footnote_0060'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0060'><span class='label'>[60]</span></a> +<p>Home was at the time when he wrote “Douglas” a clergyman in the +Scottish Church; the theatre was then looked upon by the religious Scotsmen +with the most perfect abhorrence. Many means were taken to deter the +performance of the play; and as they did not succeed, others were tried to +annoy the author, until their persevering efforts induced him to withdraw +himself entirely from the clerical profession.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0061' id='Footnote_0061'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0061'><span class='label'>[61]</span></a> +<p>The objection to his tragedy was made chiefly by his parishioners at +South Leith, who were strongly opposed to their minister being in any way +connected with the theatre. He therefore resigned his appointment, and +settled in London, which he never afterwards abandoned, dying there in +1788.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0062' id='Footnote_0062'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0062'><span class='label'>[62]</span></a> +<p>This admirable little work is entitled “A Dissertation on the Governments, +Manners, and Spirit of Asia; Murray, 1787.” It is anonymous; but +the publisher informed me it was written by Logan. His “Elements of the +Philosophy of History” are valuable. His “Sermons” have been republished.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0063' id='Footnote_0063'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0063'><span class='label'>[63]</span></a> +<p>The finest provinces of Egypt gained from a neglected waste.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0064' id='Footnote_0064'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0064'><span class='label'>[64]</span></a> +<p>An attempt has been made to deprive Logan of the authorship of this +poem. He had edited (very badly) the poems of a deceased friend, Michael +Bruce; and the friends of the latter claimed this poem as one of them. In +the words of one who has examined the evidence it may be sufficient to say, +“his claim is not only supported by internal evidence, but the charge was +never advanced against him while he was alive to repel it.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0065' id='Footnote_0065'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0065'><span class='label'>[65]</span></a> +<p>“The Comforts of Life” were written in prison; “The Miseries” +(by Jas. Beresford) necessarily in a drawing-room. The works of authors +are often in contrast with themselves; melancholy authors are the most +jocular, and the most humorous the most melancholy.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0066' id='Footnote_0066'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0066'><span class='label'>[66]</span></a> +<p>Kennett was characterised throughout life by a strong party feeling, +which he took care to display on every occasion. He was born at Dover in +1660, and his first publication, at the age of twenty, gave great offence to +the Whig party; it was in the form of a letter from a Student at Oxford to a +friend in the country, concerning the approaching parliament. He scarcely +ever published a sermon without so far mixing party matters in it as to +obtain replies and rejoinders; the rector of Whitechapel employed an artist +to place his head on Judas’s shoulders in the picture of the Last Supper +done for that church, and to make the figure unmistakeable, placed the +<i>patch</i> on the forehead which Kennett wore, to conceal a scar he got by the +bursting of a gun. His diligence and application through life was extraordinary. +He assisted Anthony Wood in collecting materials for his +“Athenæ Oxonienses;” and, like Oldys, was continually employed in +noting books, or in forming manuscript collections on various subjects, all +of which were purchased by the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of +Lansdowne, and were sold with the rest of his manuscripts to the British +Museum. He died in 1714, of a fever he had contracted in a journey to +Italy.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0067' id='Footnote_0067'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0067'><span class='label'>[67]</span></a> +<p>See Bishop Kennett’s Letter in Nichols’s “Life of Bowyer,” +<ins title="Added period">vol.</ins> i, +383.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0068' id='Footnote_0068'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0068'><span class='label'>[68]</span></a> +<p>The best account of the Rev. Wm. Cole is to be found in Nichols’s +“Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,” vol. i. His life was eventless, +and passed in studious drudgery. He had all that power of continuous application +which will readily form immense manuscript collections. In this +way his life was passed, occasionally aiding from his enormous stores the +labours of others. He was an early and intimate acquaintance of Horace +Walpole’s, and they visited France together in 1765. Browne Willis, the +antiquary, gave him the rectory of Blecheley, in Buckinghamshire, and +he was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Burnham, near Eton. He +died in 1782, in the 68th year of his age, having chiefly employed a long +life in noting on all subjects, until his manuscripts became a small library +of themselves, which he bequeathed to the British Museum, with an order +that they should not be opened for twenty years. They are correctly +characterised by Nichols: he says, “many of the volumes exhibit striking +traits of Mr. Cole’s own character; and a man of sufficient leisure might +pick out of them abundance of curious matter.” He left a diary behind +him which for puerility could not be exceeded, and of which Nichols +gives several ridiculous specimens. If his parrot died, or his man-servant +was bled; if he sent a loin of pork to a friend, and got a quarter of lamb +in return; “drank coffee with Mrs. Willis,” or “sent two French wigs to +a London barber,” all is faithfully recorded. It is a true picture of a lover +of labour, whose constant energy must be employed, and will write even if +the labour be worthless.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0069' id='Footnote_0069'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0069'><span class='label'>[69]</span></a> +<p>Cole’s collection, ultimately bequeathed by him to the British Museum, +is comprised in 92 volumes, and is arranged among the additional manuscripts +there, of which it forms Nos. 5798 to 5887.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0070' id='Footnote_0070'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0070'><span class='label'>[70]</span></a> +<p>In his “Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of +Prodigies.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0071' id='Footnote_0071'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0071'><span class='label'>[71]</span></a> +<p>This, his most valuable work, has been most carefully edited, with +numerous additions by Dr. Bliss, and is the great authority for Lives of +Oxford men. Its author, born at Oxford in 1632, died there in 1695, having +devoted his life strictly to study.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0072' id='Footnote_0072'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0072'><span class='label'>[72]</span></a> +<p>Harleian MSS. 7523.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0073' id='Footnote_0073'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0073'><span class='label'>[73]</span></a> +<p>The late Richard Clark, of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey, +published in 1823 “An Account of the National Anthem, entitled God +save the King,” in which he satisfactorily proves “that Carey neither had, +nor could have had, any claim at all to this composition,” which he traces +back to the celebrated composer, Dr. John Bull, who he believes composed +it for the entertainment given by the Merchant Taylors Company to King +James I., in 1607. Ward, in his “Lives of the Gresham Professors,” +gives a list of Bull’s compositions, then in the possession of Dr. Pepusch +(who arranged the music for the <i>Beggar’s Opera</i>), and Art. 56 is “God +save the King.” At the Doctor’s death, his manuscripts, amounting to +two cartloads, were scattered or sold for waste-paper, and this was one of +the number. Clark ultimately recovered this MS.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0074' id='Footnote_0074'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0074'><span class='label'>[74]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Zachary Grey was throughout a long life a busy contributor to +literature. The mere list of his productions, in divinity and history, +occupy some pages of our biographical dictionaries. He was born 1687, +and died at Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, in 1766. In private he was noted +for mild and pleasing manners. His “Hudibras,” which was first published +in 1744, in two octavo volumes, is now the standard edition.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0075' id='Footnote_0075'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0075'><span class='label'>[75]</span></a> +<p>Cole’s MSS.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0076' id='Footnote_0076'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0076'><span class='label'>[76]</span></a> +<p>This version of Lord Berners has been reprinted.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0077' id='Footnote_0077'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0077'><span class='label'>[77]</span></a> +<p>Those who desire to further investigate the utter misery of female +authorship may be referred to Whyte’s vivid description of an interview +with Mrs. Clarke (the daughter of Colley Cibber), about the purchase of a +novel. It is appended to an edition of his own poems, printed at Dublin, +1792; and has been reproduced in Hone’s “Table Book,” vol. i.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0078' id='Footnote_0078'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0078'><span class='label'>[78]</span></a> +<p>It is much to the honour of Carte, that the French acknowledge that +his publication of the “Rolles Gascognes” gave to them the first idea of +their learned work, the “Notice des Diplomes.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0079' id='Footnote_0079'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0079'><span class='label'>[79]</span></a> +<p>This paper, which is a great literary curiosity, is preserved by Mr. +Nichols in his “Literary History,” vol. ii.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0080' id='Footnote_0080'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0080'><span class='label'>[80]</span></a> +<p>Of <span class='smcap'>Akenside</span> few particulars have been recorded, for the friend who +best knew him was of so cold a temper with regard to public opinion, that +he has not, in his account, revealed a solitary feature in the character of +the poet. Yet Akenside’s mind and manners were of a fine romantic cast, +drawn from the moulds of classical antiquity. Such was the charm of his +converse, that he even heated the cold and sluggish mind of Sir John Hawkins, +who has, with unusual vivacity, described a day spent with him in +the country. As I have mentioned the fictitious physician in “Peregrine +Pickle,” let the same page show the real one. I shall transcribe Sir John’s +forgotten words—omitting his “neat and elegant dinner:”—“Akenside’s +conversation was of the most delightful kind, learned, instructive, and, +without any affectation of wit, cheerful and entertaining. One of the +pleasantest days of my life I passed with him, Mr. Dyson, and another +friend, at Putney—where the enlivening sunshine of a summer’s day, and +the view of an unclouded sky, were the least of our gratifications. In perfect +good-humour with himself and all about him, he seemed to feel a joy +that he lived, and poured out his gratulations to the great Dispenser of all +felicity in expressions that Plato himself might have uttered on such an +occasion. In conversations with select friends, and those whose studies +had been nearly the same with his own, it was a usual thing with him, in +libations to the memory of eminent men among the ancients, to bring their +characters into view, and expatiate on those particulars of their lives that +had rendered them famous.” Observe the arts of the ridiculer! he seized +on the romantic enthusiasm of Akenside, and turned it to <i>the cookery of +the ancients</i>!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0081' id='Footnote_0081'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0081'><span class='label'>[81]</span></a> +<p>This pamphlet has been ascribed to John Lilly, but it must be confessed +that its native vigour strangely contrasts with the famous <i>Euphuism</i> +of that refined writer. [There can, however, be little doubt that he was +the author of this tract, as he is alluded to more than once as such by +Harvey in his “Pierce’s Supererogation;”—“would that Lilly had alwaies +been <i>Euphues</i> and never <i>Pap-hatchet</i>.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span>]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0082' id='Footnote_0082'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0082'><span class='label'>[82]</span></a> +<p>Tarleton appears to have had considerable power of extemporising +satirical rhymes on the fleeting events of his own day. A collection of his +Jests was published in 1611; the following is a favourable specimen:—“There +was a nobleman asked Tarleton what he thought of soldiers in time +of peace. Marry, quoth he, they are like chimneys in summer.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0083' id='Footnote_0083'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0083'><span class='label'>[83]</span></a> +<p>A long list of Elderton’s popular rhymes is given by Ritson in his +“Bibliographia Poetica.” One of them, on the “King of Scots and Andrew +Browne,” is published in Percy’s “Reliques,” who speaks of him as “a +facetious fuddling companion, whose tippling and whose rhymes rendered +him famous among his contemporaries.” Ritson is more condensed and less +civil in his analysis; he simply describes him as “a ballad-maker by profession, +and drunkard by habit.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0084' id='Footnote_0084'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0084'><span class='label'>[84]</span></a> +<p>Harvey, in the title-page of his “Pierce’s Supererogation,” has placed +an emblematic woodcut, expressive of his own confidence, and his contempt +of the wits. It is a lofty palm-tree, with its durable and impenetrable +trunk; at its feet lie a heap of serpents, darting their tongues, and filthy +toads, in vain attempting to pierce or to pollute it. The Italian motto, +wreathed among the branches of the palm, declares, <i>Il vostro malignare +non giova nulla</i>: Your malignity avails nothing.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0085' id='Footnote_0085'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0085'><span class='label'>[85]</span></a> +<p>Among those Sonnets, in Harvey’s “Foure Letters, and certaine Sonnets, +especially touching Robert Greene and other parties by him abused, +1592,” there is one, which, with great originality of conception, has an +equal vigour of style, and causticity of satire, on Robert Greene’s death. +John Harvey the physician, who was then dead, is thus made to address +the town-wit, and the libeller of himself and his family. If Gabriel was +the writer of this singular Sonnet, as he undoubtedly is of the verses to +Spenser, subscribed Hobynol, it must be confessed he is a Poet, which he +never appears in his English hexameters:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><b><span class='smcap'>John Harvey</span> the Physician’s Welcome to <span class='smcap'>Robert Greene</span>!</b></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +“Come, fellow Greene, come to thy gaping grave,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Bid vanity and foolery farewell,<br /> +That ouerlong hast plaid the mad-brained knaue,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And ouerloud hast rung the bawdy bell.<br /> +Vermine to vermine must repair at last;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>No fitter house for busie folke to dwell;<br /> +Thy conny-catching pageants are past<a name='FNanchor_0086' id='FNanchor_0086'></a><a href='#Footnote_0086' class='fnanchor'>[86]</a>,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Some other must those arrant stories tell;<br /> +These hungry wormes thinke long for their repast;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Come on; I pardon thy offence to me;<br /> +It was thy living; be not so aghast!<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>A fool and a physitian may agree!<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And for my brothers never vex thyself;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>They are not to disease a buried elfe.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0086' id='Footnote_0086'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0086'><span class='label'>[86]</span></a> +<p>Greene had written “The Art of Coney-catching.” He was a great +adept in the arts of a town-life.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0087' id='Footnote_0087'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0087'><span class='label'>[87]</span></a> +<p>Sir Egerton Brydges in his reprint of “Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit,” +has given the only passage from “The Quip for an Upstart Courtier,” +which at all alludes to Harvey’s father. He says with great justice, “there +seems nothing in it sufficiently offensive to account for the violence of +Harvey’s anger.” The Rev. A. Dyce, so well known from his varied researches +in our dramatic literature, is of opinion that the offensive passage +has been removed from the editions which have come down to us. Without +some such key it is impossible to comprehend Harvey’s implacable hatred, +or the words of himself and friends when they describe Greene as an “impudent +railer in an odious and desperate mood,” or his satire as “spiteful +and villanous abuse.” The occasion of the quarrel was an attack by +Richard Harvey, who had the folly to “mis-term all our poets and writers +about London, <i>piperly make-plays</i> and <i>make-bates</i>,” as Nash informs us; +“hence Greene being chief agent to the company, for he writ more than +four other, took occasion to canvass him a little,—about some seven or +eight lines, which hath plucked on an invective of so many leaves.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0088' id='Footnote_0088'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0088'><span class='label'>[88]</span></a> +<p>Nash was a great favourite with the wits of his day. One calls him +“our true English Aretine,” another, “Sweet satyric Nash,” a third +describes his Muse as “armed with a gag-tooth (a tusk), and his pen possessed +with Hercules’s furies.” He is well characterised in “The Return +from Parnassus.”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“His style was witty, tho’ he had some gall;<br /> +Something he might have mended, so may all;<br /> +Yet this I say, that for <i>a mother’s wit</i>,<br /> +Few men have ever seen the like of it.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Nash abounds with “Mother-wit;” but he was also educated at the +University, with every advantage of classical studies.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0089' id='Footnote_0089'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0089'><span class='label'>[89]</span></a> +<p><i>Bombast</i> was the tailors’ term in the Elizabethan era for the stuffing +of horsehair or wool used for the large breeches then in fashion; hence the +term was applied to high-sounding phrases—“all sound and fury, signifying +nothing.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0090' id='Footnote_0090'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0090'><span class='label'>[90]</span></a> +<p>These were the loose heavy breeches so constantly worn by Swiss +soldiers as to become a national costume, and which has been handed down +to us by the artists of the day in a variety of forms. They obtained the +name of <i>galeaze</i>, from their supposed resemblance to the broad-bottomed +ship called a galliass.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0091' id='Footnote_0091'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0091'><span class='label'>[91]</span></a> +<p>A cade is 500 herrings; a great quantity of an article of no value.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0092' id='Footnote_0092'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0092'><span class='label'>[92]</span></a> +<p>Harvey’s love of dress, and desire to indulge it cheaply, is satirically +alluded to by Nash, in confuting Harvey’s assertion that Greene’s wardrobe +at his death was not worth more than three shillings—“I know a broker +in a spruce leather jerkin shall give you thirty shillings for the doublet +alone, if you can help him to it. Hark in your ear! he had a very fair +cloak, with sleeves of a goose green, it would serve you as fine as may be. +No more words; if you be wise, play the good husband, and listen after it, +you may buy it ten shillings better cheap than it cost him. By St. Silver, +it is good to be circumspect in casting for the world; there’s a great many +<i>ropes</i> go to ten shillings? If you want a greasy pair of silk stockings to +shew yourself in the court, they are there to be had too, amongst his +moveables.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0093' id='Footnote_0093'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0093'><span class='label'>[93]</span></a> +<p>This unlucky Venetian velvet coat of Harvey had also produced a +“Quippe for an Vpstart Courtier, or a quaint dispute between Veluet-breeches +and Cloth-breeches,” which poor Harvey declares was “one of +the most licentious and intolerable invectives.” This blow had been struck +by Greene on the “Italianated” Courtier.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0094' id='Footnote_0094'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0094'><span class='label'>[94]</span></a> +<p>“Pierce’s Supererogation, or a new praise of the Old Asse,” 1593.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0095' id='Footnote_0095'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0095'><span class='label'>[95]</span></a> +<p>Harvey’s opponents were much nimbler penmen, and could strike off +these lampoons with all the facility of writers for the stage. Thus Nash +declares, in his “Have with you to Saffron Walden,” that he leaves Lilly, +who was also attacked, to defend himself, because “in as much time as he +spends in taking tobacco one week, he can compile that would make +Gabriell repent himself all his life after.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0096' id='Footnote_0096'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0096'><span class='label'>[96]</span></a> +<p>He had written an antiquarian work on the descent of Brutus on our +island.—The party also who at the University attacked the opinions of +Aristotle were nicknamed the <i>Trojans</i>, as determined enemies of the +<i>Greeks</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0097' id='Footnote_0097'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0097'><span class='label'>[97]</span></a> +<p>It may be curious to present Stuart’s idea of the literary talents of +Henry. Henry’s unhappy turn for humour, and a style little accordant +with historical dignity, lie fairly open to the critic’s animadversion. But the +research and application of the writer, for that day, were considerable, and +are still appreciated. But we are told that “he neither furnishes entertainment +nor instruction. Diffuse, vulgar, and ungrammatical, he strips +history of all her ornaments. As an antiquary, he wants accuracy and +knowledge; and, as an historian, he is destitute of fire, taste, and sentiment. +His work is a gazette, in which we find actions and events, without +their causes; and in which we meet with the names, without the characters +of personages. He has amassed all the refuse and lumber of the times he +would record.” Stuart never imagined that the time would arrive when +the name of Henry would be familiar to English readers, and by many that +of Stuart would not be recollected.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0098' id='Footnote_0098'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0098'><span class='label'>[98]</span></a> +<p>The critique on Henry, in the <i>Monthly Review</i>, was written by +Hume—and, because the philosopher was candid, he is here said to +have doted.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0099' id='Footnote_0099'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0099'><span class='label'>[99]</span></a> +<p>So sensible was even the calm Newton to critical attacks, that Whiston +tells us he lost his favour, which he had enjoyed for twenty years, for contradicting +Newton in his old age; for no man was of “a more fearful temper.” +Whiston declares that he would not have thought proper to have +published his work against Newton’s “Chronology” in his lifetime, “because +I knew his temper so well, that I should have expected it would have +killed him; as Dr. Bentley, Bishop Stillingfleet’s chaplain, told me, that +he believed Mr. Locke’s thorough confutation of the Bishop’s metaphysics +about the Trinity hastened his end.” Pope writhed in his chair from the +light shafts which Cibber darted on him; yet they were not tipped with the +poison of the Java-tree. Dr. Hawkesworth, <i>died of criticism</i>.—Singing-birds +cannot live in a storm.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0100' id='Footnote_0100'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0100'><span class='label'>[100]</span></a> +<p>In one of his own publications he quotes, with great self-complacency, +the following lines on himself:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The wits who drink water and suck sugar-candy,<br /> +Impute the strong spirit of Kenrick to brandy:<br /> +They are not so much out; the matter in short is,<br /> +He sips <i>aqua-vitæ</i> and spits <i>aqua-fortis</i>.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0101' id='Footnote_0101'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0101'><span class='label'>[101]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Kenrick’s character and career is thus summed up in the “Biographia +Dramatica:”—“This author, with singular abilities, was neither +happy or successful. Few persons were ever less respected by the world; +still fewer have created so many enemies, or dropped into the grave so +little regretted by their contemporaries. He was seldom without an enemy +to attack or defend himself from.” He was the son of a London citizen, +and is said to have served an apprenticeship to a brass-rule maker. One +of his best known literary works was a comedy called <i>Falstaff’s Wedding</i>, +which met with considerable success upon the stage, although its author +ventured on the difficult task of adopting Shakespeare’s characters, and +putting new words into the mouth of the immortal Sir John and his satellites.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0102' id='Footnote_0102'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0102'><span class='label'>[102]</span></a> +<p>That all these works should not be wanting to posterity, Prynne deposited +the complete collection in the library of Lincoln’s-Inn, about forty +volumes in folio and quarto. Noy, the Attorney-General, Prynne’s great +adversary, was provoked at the society’s acceptance of these ponderous +volumes, and promised to send them the voluminous labours of Taylor the +water-poet, to place by their side; he judged, as Wood says, that “Prynne’s +books were worth little or nothing; that his proofs were no arguments, and +his affirmations no testimonies.” But honest Anthony, in spite of his prejudices +against Prynne, confesses, that though “by the generality of +scholars they are looked upon to be rather rhapsodical and confused than +polite or concise, yet, for antiquaries, critics, and sometimes for divines, +they are useful.” Such erudition as Prynne’s always retains its value—the +author who could quote a hundred authors on “the unloveliness of +love-locks,” will always make a good literary chest of drawers, well filled, +for those who can make better use of their contents than himself.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0103' id='Footnote_0103'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0103'><span class='label'>[103]</span></a> +<p>Prynne seems to have considered being debarred from pen, ink, and +books as an act more barbarous than the loss of his ears. See his curious +book of “A New Discovery of the Prelate’s Tyranny;” it is a complete collection +of everything relating to Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton; three +political fanatics, who seem impatiently to have courted the fate of Marsyas. +Prynne, in his voluminous argument, proving the illegality of the sentences +he had suffered, in his ninth point thus gives way to all the feelings of +Martinus Scriblerus:—“Point 9th, that the prohibiting of me pen, ink, +paper, and books, is against law.” He employs an argument to prove that +the abuse of any lawful thing never takes away the use of it; therefore the +law does not deprive gluttons or drunkards of necessary meat and drink; +this analogy he applies to his pen, ink, and books, of which they could not +deprive him, though they might punish him for their abuse. He asserts +that the popish prelates, in the reign of Mary, were the first who invented +this new torture of depriving a scribbler of pen and ink. He quotes a long +passage from Ovid’s Tristia, to prove that, though exiled to the Isle of +Pontus for his wanton books of love, pen and ink were not denied him to +compose new poems; that St. John, banished to the Isle of Patmos by +the persecuting Domitian, still was allowed pen and ink, for there he +wrote the Revelation—and he proceeds with similar facts. Prynne’s +books abound with uncommon facts on common topics, for he had no +discernment; and he seems to have written to convince himself, and not +the public.</p> +<p>But to show the extraordinary perseverance of Prynne in his love of +scribbling, I transcribe the following title of one of his extraordinary +works. He published “Comfortable Cordial against Discomfortable Fears +of Imprisonment, containing some Latin verses, sentences and texts of +Scripture, <i>written by Mr. Wm. Prynne on his chamber-walls in</i> the Tower +of London during his imprisonment there; translated by him into English +verse,” 1641. Prynne literally verifies Pope’s description—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Is there who lock’d from ink and paper, scrawls<br /> +With desperate charcoal round his darken’d walls?”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>We have also a catalogue of printed books written by Wm. Prynne, of +Lincoln’s-Inn, Esq., in these classes—</p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<colgroup /> +<colgroup width="2em" /> +<colgroup /> +<tr><td>Before</td><td>}</td></tr> +<tr><td>During</td><td>}</td><td>his imprisonment, with the motto <i>Jucundi acti labores</i>. 1643.</td></tr> +<tr><td>Since</td><td>}</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0104' id='Footnote_0104'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0104'><span class='label'>[104]</span></a> +<p>The interesting particulars of this interview have been preserved by +the Archbishop himself—and it is curious to observe how Laud could now +utter the same tones of murmur and grief to which Prynne himself had +recently given way. Studied insult in these cases accompanies power in +the hands of a faction. I collect these particulars from “The History of +the Troubles and Tryal of Archbishop Laud,” and refer to Vicars’s “God +in the Mount, or a Parliamentarie Chronicle,” p. 344, for the Puritanic +triumphs.</p> +<p>“My implacable enemy, Mr. Pryn, was picked out as a man whose +malice might be trusted to make the search upon me, and he did it exactly. +The manner of the search upon me was thus: Mr. Pryn came into the +Tower so soon as the gates were open—commanded the Warder to open my +door—he came into my chamber, and found me in bed—Mr. Pryn seeing +me safe in bed, falls first to my pockets to rifle them—it was expressed in +the warrant that he should search my pockets. Did they remember, when +they gave this warrant, how odious it was to Parliaments, and some of themselves, +to have the pockets of men searched? I rose, got my gown upon my +shoulders, and he held me in the search till past nine in the morning (he +had come in betimes in the morning in the month of May). He took from +me twenty-one bundles of papers which I had prepared for my defence, &c., +a little book or diary, containing all the occurrences of my life, and my +book of private devotions; both written with my own hand. Nor could I +get him to leave this last; he must needs see what passed between God +and me. The last place he rifled was a trunk which stood by my bedside; +in that he found nothing but about forty pounds in money, for +my necessary expenses, which he meddled not with, and a bundle of some +gloves. This bundle he was so careful to open, as that he caused each +glove to be looked into; upon this I tendered him one pair of the gloves, +which he refusing, I told him he might take them, and fear no bribe, for he +had already done me all the mischief he could, and I asked no favour of +him; so he thanked me, took the gloves, and bound up my papers, and went +his way.”—Prynne had a good deal of <i>cunning</i> in his character, as well +as fortitude. He had all the subterfuges and quirks which, perhaps, form +too strong a feature in the character of “an utter Barrister of Lincoln’s +Inn.” His great artifice was secretly printing extracts from the diary of +Laud, and placing a copy in the hands of every member of the House, which +was a sudden stroke on the Archbishop, when at the bar, that at the moment +overcame him. Once when Prynne was printing one of his libels, he +attempted to deny being the author, and ran to the printing-house to +distribute the forms, but it was proved he had corrected the proof and the +revise. Another time, when he had written a libellous letter to the Archbishop, +Noy, the Attorney-General, sent for Prynne from his prison, and +demanded of him whether the letter was of his own handwriting. Prynne +said he must see and read the letter before he could determine; and when +Noy gave it to him, Prynne tore it to pieces, and threw the fragments out +of the window, that it might not be brought in evidence against him. +Noy had preserved a copy, but that did not avail him, as Prynne well +knew that the misdemeanour was in the letter itself; and Noy gave up the +prosecution, as there was now no remedy.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0105' id='Footnote_0105'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0105'><span class='label'>[105]</span></a> +<p>Breviate of the Bishop’s intolerable usurpations, p. 35.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0106' id='Footnote_0106'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0106'><span class='label'>[106]</span></a> +<p>While Keeper of the Records, he set all the great energies of his +nature to work upon the national archives. The result appeared in three +folio volumes of the greatest value to the historian. They were published +irregularly, and at intervals of time—thus the second volume was issued +in 1665; the first in 1666; and the third in 1670. The first two volumes +are of the utmost rarity, nearly all the copies having been destroyed in the +great fire of London.—<span class='smcap'>Ed</span>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0107' id='Footnote_0107'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0107'><span class='label'>[107]</span></a> +<p>Hume, in his History, has given some account of this enormous quarto; +to which I refer the reader, vol. vi. chap. lii.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0108' id='Footnote_0108'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0108'><span class='label'>[108]</span></a> +<p>Milton admirably characterises Prynne’s absurd learning, as well as +his character, in his treatise on “The likeliest means to remove hirelings +out of the Church,” as “a late hot querist for tythes, whom ye may know +by <i>his wits lying ever beside him in the margin, to be ever beside his wits +in the text</i>. A fierce Reformer once; now rankled with a contrary heat.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0109' id='Footnote_0109'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0109'><span class='label'>[109]</span></a> +<p>The very expression Prynne himself uses, see p. 668 of the Histriomastix; +where having gone through “three squadrons,” he commences a +fresh chapter thus: “The fourth squadron of authorities is the venerable +troope of 70 several renowned ancient fathers;” and he throws in more +than he promised, all which are quoted volume and page, as so many +“play-confounding arguments.” He has quoted perhaps from three to +four hundred authors on a single point.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0110' id='Footnote_0110'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0110'><span class='label'>[110]</span></a> +<p>Toland was born in Ireland, in 1669, of Roman Catholic parents, but +became a zealous opponent of that faith before he was sixteen; after which +he finished his education at Glasgow and Edinburgh; he retired to study at +Leyden, where he formed the acquaintance of Leibnitz and other learned +men. His first book, published in 1696, and entitled “Christianity not +Mysterious,” was met by the strongest denunciation from the pulpit, was +“presented” by the grand jury of Middlesex, and ordered to be burnt by +the common hangman by the Parliament of Ireland. He was henceforth +driven for employ to literature; and in 1699 was engaged by the Duke of +Newcastle to edit the “Memoirs of Denzil, Lord Hollis;” and afterwards +by the Earl of Oxford on a new edition of Harrington’s “Oceana.” He +then visited the Courts of Berlin and Hanover. He published many +works on politics and religion, the latter all remarkable for their deistical +tendencies, and died in March, 1722, at the age of 53.—<span class='smcap'>Ed</span>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0111' id='Footnote_0111'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0111'><span class='label'>[111]</span></a> +<p>These letters will interest every religious person; they may be found +in Toland’s posthumous works, vol. ii. p. 295.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0112' id='Footnote_0112'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0112'><span class='label'>[112]</span></a> +<p>Toland pretends to prove that “there is nothing in the Christian +Religion, not only which is contrary to reason, but even which is above it.”—He +made use of some arguments (says Le Clerc) that were drawn from +Locke’s Treatise on the Human Understanding. I have seen in MS. a +finished treatise by Locke on Religion, addressed to Lady Shaftesbury; +Locke gives it as a translation from the French. I regret my account is +so imperfect; but the possessor may, perhaps, be induced to give it to the +public. The French philosophers have drawn their first waters from +English authors; and Toland, Tindale, and Woolston, with Shaftesbury, +Bolingbroke, and Locke, were among their earliest acquisitions.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0113' id='Footnote_0113'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0113'><span class='label'>[113]</span></a> +<p>In examining the original papers of Toland, which are preserved, I +found some of his agreements with booksellers. For his description of +Epsom he was to receive only four guineas in case 1000 were sold. He +received ten guineas for his pamphlet on Naturalising the Jews, and ten +guineas more in case Bernard Lintott sold 2000. The words of this +agreement run thus: “Whenever Mr. Toland calls for ten guineas, after +the first of February next, I promise to pay them, if I <i>cannot show</i> that +200 of the copies remain unsold.” What a sublime person is an author! +What a misery is authorship! The great philosopher who creates systems +that are to alter the face of his country, must stand at the counter to count +out 200 unsold copies!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0114' id='Footnote_0114'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0114'><span class='label'>[114]</span></a> +<p>Des Maiseaux frees Toland from this calumny, and hints at his own +personal knowledge of the author—but he does not know what a foreign +writer authenticates, that this blasphemous address to Bacchus is a parody +of a prayer in the Roman ritual, written two centuries before by a very +proper society of <i>Pantheists</i>, a club of drunkards!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0115' id='Footnote_0115'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0115'><span class='label'>[115]</span></a> +<p>Warburton has well described Des Maiseaux: “All the Life-writers +we have had are, indeed, strange insipid creatures. The verbose tasteless +Frenchman seems to lay it down as a principle that every life must be a +book, and what is worse, it proves a book without a life; for what do we +know of Boileau, after all his tedious stuff?”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0116' id='Footnote_0116'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0116'><span class='label'>[116]</span></a> +<p>One of these philosophical conferences has been preserved by Beausobre, +who was indeed the party concerned. He inserted it in the “Bibliothèque +Germanique,” a curious literary journal, in 50 volumes, written by +L’Enfant, Beausobre, and Formey. It is very copious, and very curious, +and is preserved in the General Dictionary, art. Toland. The parties, +after a warm contest, were very wisely interrupted by the Queen, when +she discovered they had exhausted their learning, and were beginning to +rail at each other.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0117' id='Footnote_0117'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0117'><span class='label'>[117]</span></a> +<p>A political society which obtained its name from the malt liquors consumed +at its meetings, and which was popularly termed October from the +month when it was usually brewed. This club advocated the claims of +the House of Hanover, and may have originated the Mughouses noted +in p. <a href='#page_32'>32</a>.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0118' id='Footnote_0118'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0118'><span class='label'>[118]</span></a> +<p>I subjoin, for the gratification of the curious, the titles of a few of +these books. “Spanhemii Opera;” “Clerici Pentateuchus;” “Constantini +Lexicon Græco-Latinum;” “Fabricii Codex Apocryphus Vet. et Nov. Test.;” +“Synesius de Regno;” “Historia Imaginum Cœlestium Gosselini,” 16 +volumes; “Caryophili Dissertationes;” “Vonde Hardt Ephemerides Philologicæ;” +“Trismegisti Opera;” “Recoldus, et alia Mahomedica;” all the +Works of Buxtorf; “Salviani Opera;” “Reland de Relig. Mahomedica;” +“Galli Opuscula Mythologica;” “Apollodori Bibliotheca;” “Palingenius;” +“Apuleius;” and every classical author of antiquity. As he was then employed +in his curious history of the Druids, of which only a specimen is +preserved, we may trace his researches in the following books: “Luydii +Archæologia Britannica;” “Old Irish Testament,” &c.; “Maccurtin’s +History of Ireland;” “O’Flaherty’s Ogygia;” “Epistolarum Hibernicarum;” +“Usher’s Religion of the ancient Irish;” “Brand’s Isles of Orkney +and Zetland;” “Pezron’s Antiquités des Celtes.”</p> +<p>There are some singular papers among these fragments. One title of a +work is “Priesthood without Priestcraft; or Superstition distinguished +from Religion, Dominion from Order, and Bigotry from Reason, in the most +principal Controversies about Church government, which at present divide +and deform Christianity.” He has composed “A Psalm before Sermon in +praise of Asinity.” There are other singular titles and works in the mass +of his papers.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0119' id='Footnote_0119'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0119'><span class='label'>[119]</span></a> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'>A lover of all literature,</p> +<p class='center cg'>and knowing more than ten languages;</p> +<p class='center cg'>a champion for truth,</p> +<p class='center cg'>an assertor of liberty,</p> +<p class='center cg'>but the follower or dependant of no man;</p> +<p class='center cg'>nor could menaces nor fortune bend him;</p> +<p class='center cg'>the way he had chosen he pursued,</p> +<p class='center cg'>preferring honesty to his interest.</p> +<p class='cg'>His spirit is joined with its ethereal father<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'>from whom it originally proceeded;</p> +<p class='center cg'>his body likewise, yielding to Nature,</p> +<p class='center cg'>is again laid in the lap of its mother:</p> +<p class='center cg'>but he is about to rise again in eternity,</p> +<p class='center cg'>yet never to be the same <span class='smcap'>Toland</span> more.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0120' id='Footnote_0120'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0120'><span class='label'>[120]</span></a> +<p>Mr. Nichols’s “Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele,” +vol. i. p. 77.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0121' id='Footnote_0121'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0121'><span class='label'>[121]</span></a> +<p>Steele has given a delightful piece of self-biography towards the end +of his “Apology for Himself and his Writings,” p. 80, 4to.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0122' id='Footnote_0122'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0122'><span class='label'>[122]</span></a> +<p>In the “Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele,” edition of +1809, are preserved these extraordinary love-despatches; “Prue” used poor +Steele at times very ill; indeed Steele seems to have conceived that his +warm affections were all she required, for Lady Steele was usually left +whole days in solitude, and frequently in want of a guinea, when Steele +could not raise one. He, however, sometimes remonstrates with her very +feelingly. The following note is an instance:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Dear Wife</span>,—I have been in great pain of body and mind since I +came out. You are extremely cruel to a generous nature, which has a tenderness +for you that renders your least <i>dishumour</i> insupportably afflicting. +After short starts of passion, not to be inclined to reconciliation, is what is +against all rules of Christianity and justice. When I come home, I beg to +be kindly received; or this will have as ill an effect upon my fortune, as on +my mind and body.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In a postscript to another billet, he thus “sneers at Lady Steele’s excessive +attention to money”:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Your man Sam owes me threepence, which must be deducted in the +account between you and me; therefore, pray take care to get it in, or +stop it.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such despatches as the following were sent off three or four times in a +day:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“I beg of you not to be impatient, though it be an hour before you see</p> +<p class='sig2'>“Your obliged husband,</p> +<p class='sig3'> <span class='smcap'>R. Steele.</span>”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Dear Prue</span>,—Don’t be displeased that I do not come home till eleven +o’clock.</p> +<p class='sig2'>Yours, ever.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Dear Prue</span>,—Forgive me dining abroad, and let Will carry the papers +to Buckley’s.</p> +<p class='sig2'>Your fond devoted</p> +<p class='sig3'> R. S.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Dear Prue</span>,—I am very sleepy and tired, but could not think of +closing my eyes till I had told you I am, dearest creature, your most affectionate, +faithful husband,</p> +<p class='ralign'><span class='smcap'>R. Steele.</span></p> +<p>“From the Press, One in the morning.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It would seem by the following note that this hourly account of himself +was in consequence of the connubial mandate of his fair despot:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class='smcap'>Dear Prue</span>,—It is a strange thing, because you are handsome, that +you will not behave yourself with the obedience that people of worse +features do—but that I must be always giving you an account of every +trifle and minute of my time. I send this to tell you I am waiting to be +sent for again when my Lord Wharton is stirring.”</p> +</blockquote> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0123' id='Footnote_0123'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0123'><span class='label'>[123]</span></a> +<p>Leland, in his magnificent plan, included several curious departments. +Jealous of the literary glory of the Italians, whom he compares to the +Greeks for accounting all nations barbarous and unlettered, he had composed +four books “De Viris Illustribus”, on English Authors, to force them to +acknowledge the illustrious genius, and the great men of Britain. Three +books “De Nobilitate Britannica” were to be “as an ornament and a right +comely garland.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0124' id='Footnote_0124'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0124'><span class='label'>[124]</span></a> +<p>What reason is there to suppose with Granger that his bust, so +admirably engraven by Grignion, is supposititious? Probably struck by +the premature old age of a man who died in his fortieth year, he condemned +it by its appearance; but not with the eye of the physiognomist.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0125' id='Footnote_0125'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0125'><span class='label'>[125]</span></a> +<p>Ancient Funerall Monuments, p. 692.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0126' id='Footnote_0126'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0126'><span class='label'>[126]</span></a> +<p>In a letter to Joseph Warton.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0127' id='Footnote_0127'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0127'><span class='label'>[127]</span></a> +<p>Burton, the author of “The Anatomy of Melancholy,” offers a striking +instance. Bishop Kennett, in his curious “Register and Chronicle,” has +preserved the following particulars of this author. “In an interval of +vapours <i>he would be extremely pleasant, and raise laughter in any company</i>. +Yet I have heard that nothing at last could make him laugh but +going down to the Bridge-foot at Oxford, and hearing the bargemen scold +and storm and swear at one another; at which he would set his hands to +his sides, and laugh most profusely; yet in his chamber so mute and mopish, +that he was suspected to be <i>felo de se</i>.” With what a fine strain of poetic +feeling has a modern bard touched this subject!—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“As a beam o’er the face of the waters may glow,<br /> +While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,<br /> +So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile,<br /> +Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Moore’s</span> “Irish Melodies.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0128' id='Footnote_0128'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0128'><span class='label'>[128]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Edmund Castell offers a remarkable instance to illustrate our present +investigation. He more than devoted his life to his “Lexicon Heptaglotton.” +It is not possible, if there are tears that are to be bestowed on +the afflictions of learned men, to read his pathetic address to Charles II., +and forbear. He laments the seventeen years of incredible pains, during +which he thought himself idle when he had not devoted sixteen or eighteen +hours a day to this labour; that he had expended all his inheritance (it is +said more than twelve thousand pounds); that it had broken his constitution, +and left him blind as well as poor. When this invaluable Polyglott +was published, the copies remained unsold in his hands; for the learned +Castell had anticipated the curiosity and knowledge of the public by a full +century. He had so completely devoted himself to oriental studies, that +they had a very remarkable consequence, for he had totally forgotten his +own language, and could scarcely spell a single word. This appears in +some of his English Letters, preserved by Mr. Nichols in his valuable +“Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,” vol. iv. Five hundred +of these Lexicons, unsold at the time of his death, were placed by Dr. +Castell’s niece in a room so little regarded, that scarcely one complete copy +escaped the rats, and “the whole load of learned rags sold only for seven +pounds.” The work at this moment would find purchasers, I believe, at +forty or fifty pounds.—The learned <span class='smcap'>Sale</span>, who first gave the world a +genuine version of the Koran, and who had so zealously laboured in forming +that “Universal History” which was the pride of our country, pursued +his studies through a life of want—and this great orientalist (I grieve to +degrade the memoirs of a man of learning by such mortifications), when he +quitted his studies too often wanted a change of linen, and often wandered +in the streets in search of some compassionate friend who would supply +him with the meal of the day!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0129' id='Footnote_0129'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0129'><span class='label'>[129]</span></a> +<p>The following are extracts from Ockley’s letters to the Earl of Oxford, +which I copy from the originals:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>Cambridge Castle, May 2, 1717.</i></p> +<p>“I am here in the prison for debt, which must needs be an unavoidable +consequence of the distractions in my family. I enjoy more repose, indeed, +here, than I have tasted these many years, but the circumstance of a family +obliges me to go out as soon as I can.”</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p class='ralign'>“<i>Cambridge, Sept. 7, 1717.</i></p> +<p>“I have at last found leisure in my confinement to finish my Saracen +history, which I might have hoped for in vain in my perplexed circumstances.”</p> +</blockquote> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0130' id='Footnote_0130'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0130'><span class='label'>[130]</span></a> +<p>Cowel’s book, “The Interpreter,” though professedly a mere explanation +of law terms, was believed to contain allusions or interpretations of +law entirely adapted to party feeling. Cowel was blamed by both parties, +and his book declared to infringe the royal prerogative or the liberties of +the subject. It was made one of the articles against Laud at his trial, +that he had sanctioned a new edition of this work to countenance King +Charles in his measures. Cowel had died long before this (October, 1611); +he had retired again to collegiate life as soon as he got free of his political +persecutions.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0131' id='Footnote_0131'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0131'><span class='label'>[131]</span></a> +<p>“The Discoverie of Witchcraft, necessary to be known for the undeceiving +of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the Preservation of Poor +People.” Third edition, 1665. This was about the time that, according +to Arnot’s Scots Trials, the expenses of burning a witch amounted to +ninety-two pounds, fourteen shillings, Scots. The unfortunate old woman +cost two trees, and employed two men to watch her closely for thirty days! +One ought to recollect the past follies of humanity, to detect, perhaps, +some existing ones.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0132' id='Footnote_0132'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0132'><span class='label'>[132]</span></a> +<p>Except by the hand of literary charity; he was more than once +relieved by the Literary Fund. Such are the authors only whom it is wise +to patronise.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0133' id='Footnote_0133'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0133'><span class='label'>[133]</span></a> +<p>A letter found among the papers of the late Mr. Windham, which +Mr. Malone has preserved.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0134' id='Footnote_0134'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0134'><span class='label'>[134]</span></a> +<p>There is an affecting <i>remonstrance</i> of Dryden to Hyde, Earl of +Rochester, on the state of his poverty and neglect—in which is this remarkable +passage:—“It is enough for one age to have <i>neglected</i> Mr. +Cowley and <i>starved</i> Mr. Butler.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0135' id='Footnote_0135'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0135'><span class='label'>[135]</span></a> +<p>The author explains the nature of his book in his title-page when he +calls it “A Chorographicall Description of tracts, rivers, mountaines, forests, +and other parts of this renowned Isle of Great Britaine, with intermixture +of the most remarquable stories, antiquities, wonders, rarityes, pleasures, +and commodities of the same; digested in a Poem.” The maps with which +it is illustrated are curious for the impersonations of the nymphs of wood and +water, the sylvan gods, and other characters of the poem; to which the +learned Selden supplied notes. Ellis calls it “a wonderful work, exhibiting +at once the learning of an historian, an antiquary, a naturalist, and a geographer, +and embellished by the imagination of a poet.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0136' id='Footnote_0136'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0136'><span class='label'>[136]</span></a> +<p>In the dedication of the first part to Prince Henry, the author says of +his work, “it cannot want envie: for even in the birth it alreadie finds +that.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0137' id='Footnote_0137'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0137'><span class='label'>[137]</span></a> +<p>An elegant poet of our times alludes, with due feeling, to these personal +sacrifices. Addressing Poetry, he exclaims—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“In devotion to thy heavenly charms,<br /> +I clasp’d thy altar with my infant arms;<br /> +For thee neglected the wide field of wealth;<br /> +The toils of interest, and the sports of health.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>How often may we lament that poets are too apt “to clasp the altar +with infant arms.” Goldsmith was near forty when he published his +popular poems—and the greater number of the most valued poems were +produced in mature life. When the poet begins in “infancy,” he too +often contracts a habit of writing verses, and sometimes, in all his life, +never reaches poetry.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0138' id='Footnote_0138'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0138'><span class='label'>[138]</span></a> +<p>Vol. ii. p. 355.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0139' id='Footnote_0139'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0139'><span class='label'>[139]</span></a> +<p>My old favourite cynic, with all his rough honesty and acute discrimination, +Anthony Wood, engraved a sketch of Stockdale when he etched +with his aqua-fortis the personage of a brother:—“This Edward Waterhouse +wrote a rhapsodical, indigested, whimsical work; and not in the +least to be taken into the hand of any sober scholar, unless it be to make +him laugh or wonder at the simplicity of some people. He was a cock-brained +man, and afterwards took orders.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0140' id='Footnote_0140'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0140'><span class='label'>[140]</span></a> +<p>It was published in quarto in 1673, and has engravings of the principal +scene in each act, and a frontispiece representing the Duke’s Theatre in +Dorset Gardens, where it was first acted publicly; it had been played twice +at court before this, by noble actors, “persons of such birth and honour,” +says Settle, “that they borrowed no greatness from the characters they +acted.” The prologues were written by Lords Mulgrave and Rochester, +and the utmost <i>éclat</i> given to the five long acts of rhyming bombast, which +was declared superior to any work of Dryden’s. As City Poet <a name='TC_38'></a><ins title="Was 'afterwardss'">afterwards</ins> +Settle composed the pageants, speeches, and songs for the Lord <a name='TC_39'></a><ins title="Was 'Mayor'">Mayor’s</ins> +Shows from 1691 to 1708. Towards the close of his career he became <a name='TC_40'></a><ins title="Original split across lines as ‘im,' and ‘poverished,'">impoverished</ins>, +and wrote from necessity on all subjects. One of his plays, composed +for Mrs. Mynns’ booth in Bartholomew Fair, has been twice printed, +though both editions are now uncommonly rare. It is called the “Siege +of Troy;” and its popularity is attested by Hogarth’s print of Southwark +Fair, where outside of Lee and Harper’s great theatrical booth is exhibited +a painting of the Trojan horse, and the announcement “The Siege of Troy +is here.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0141' id='Footnote_0141'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0141'><span class='label'>[141]</span></a> +<p>One of his lively adversaries, the author of the “Canons of Criticism,” +observed the difficulty of writing against an author whose reputation so +much exceeded the knowledge of his works. “It is my misfortune,” says +<span class='smcap'>Edwards</span>, “in this controversy, to be engaged with a person who is better +known by his <i>name</i> than his <i>works</i>; or, to speak more properly, whose +<i>works are more known than read</i>.”—<i>Preface to the Canons of Criticism.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0142' id='Footnote_0142'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0142'><span class='label'>[142]</span></a> +<p>Aristotle’s Rhetoric, B. III. c. 16.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0143' id='Footnote_0143'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0143'><span class='label'>[143]</span></a> +<p>The materials for a “Life of Warburton” have been arranged by Mr. +<span class='smcap'>Nichols</span> with his accustomed fidelity.—<i>See his Literary Anecdotes.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0144' id='Footnote_0144'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0144'><span class='label'>[144]</span></a> +<p>It is probable I may have drawn my meteor from our volcanic author +himself, who had his lucid moments, even in the deliriums of his imagination. +Warburton has rightly observed, in his “Divine Legation,” p. 203, +that “<i>Systems</i>, <i>Schemes</i>, and <i>Hypotheses</i>, all bred of heat, in the warm +regions of <i>Controversy</i>, like meteors in a troubled sky, have each its turn +to <i>blaze</i> and <i>fly</i> away.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0145' id='Footnote_0145'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0145'><span class='label'>[145]</span></a> +<p>It seems, even by the confession of a Warburtonian, that his master +was of “a human size;” for when Bishop <span class='smcap'>Lowth</span> rallies the Warburtonians +for their subserviency and credulity to their master, he aimed a gentle +stroke at Dr. <span class='smcap'>Brown</span>, who, in his “Essays on the Characteristics,” had +poured forth the most vehement panegyric. In his “Estimate of Manners +of the Times,” too, after a long <i>tirade</i> of their badness in regard to taste +and learning, he thus again eulogizes his mighty master:—“Himself is +abused, and his friends insulted for his sake, by those who never read his +writings; or, if they did, could neither taste nor comprehend them; while +every little aspiring or despairing scribbler eyes him as Cassius did Cæsar: +and whispers to his fellow—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world<br /> +Like a Colossus; and we petty men<br /> +Walk under his huge legs, and peep about<br /> +To find ourselves dishonourable graves.’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>No wonder, then, if the malice of the Lilliputian tribe be bent against this +dreaded <span class='smcap'>Gulliver</span>; if they attack him with poisoned arrows, whom they +cannot subdue by strength.”</p> +<p>On this Lowth observes, that “this Lord Paramount in his pretensions +<i>doth bestride the narrow world</i> of literature, and has cast out his shoe +over all the regions of science.” This leads to a ludicrous comparison of +Warburton, with King Pichrochole and his three ministers, who, in <span class='smcap'>Urquhart’s</span> +admirable version of the French wit, are Count Merdaille, the +Duke of Smalltrash, and the Earl Swashbuckler, who set up for universal +monarchy, and made an imaginary expedition through all the quarters of +the world, as Rabelais records, and the bishop facetiously quotes. Dr. +Brown afterwards seemed to repent his panegyric, and contrives to make +his gigantic hero shrink into a moderate size. “I believe still, every little +aspiring fellow continues thus to eye him. For myself, I have ever considered +him as <i>a man</i>, yet considerable among his species, as the following +part of the paragraph <i>clearly demonstrates</i>. I speak of him here as <i>a +Gulliver</i> indeed; yet still of <i>no more than human size</i>, and only apprehended +to be of <i>colossal magnitude</i> by certain of his Lilliputian enemies.” +Thus subtilely would poor Dr. Brown save appearances! It must be confessed +that, in a dilemma, never was a giant got rid of so easily!—The +plain truth, however, was, that Brown was then on the point of quarrelling +with Warburton; for he laments, in a letter to a friend, that “he had not +avoided all personal panegyric. I had thus saved myself the trouble of +setting right a character which I far over-painted.” A part of this letter is +quoted in the “Biographia Britannica.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0146' id='Footnote_0146'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0146'><span class='label'>[146]</span></a> +<p>“Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the +collections of their respective works,” itself a collection which our shelves +could ill spare, though maliciously republished by Dr. <span class='smcap'>Parr</span>. The dedication +by Parr stands unparalleled for comparative criticism. It is the +eruption of a volcano; it sparkles, it blazes, and scatters light and destruction. +How deeply ought we to regret that this Nazarite suffered his +strength to be shorn by the Delilahs of spurious fame. Never did this +man, with his gifted strength, grasp the pillars of a temple, to shake its +atoms over Philistines; but pleased the childlike simplicity of his mind +by pulling down houses over the heads of their unlucky inhabitants. He +consumed, in local and personal literary quarrels, a genius which might +have made the next age his own. With all the stores of erudition, and all +the eloquence of genius, he mortified a country parson for his politics, and a +London accoucheur for certain obstetrical labours performed on Horace; +and now his collected writings lie before us, volumes unsaleable and unread. +His insatiate vanity was so little delicate, as often to snatch its sweetmeat +from a foul plate; it now appears, by the secret revelations in Griffith’s +own copy of his “Monthly Review,” that the writer of a very elaborate +article on the works of Dr. Parr, was no less a personage than the Doctor himself. +His egotism was so declamatory, that it unnaturalized a great mind, +by the distortions of Johnsonian mimicry; his fierceness, which was pushed +on to brutality on the unresisting, retreated with a child’s terrors when +resisted; and the pomp of petty pride in table triumphs and evening circles, +ill compensated for the lost century he might have made his own!</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Lord o’er the greatest, to the least a slave,<br /> +Half-weak, half-strong, half-timid, and half-brave;<br /> +To take a compliment of too much pride,<br /> +And yet most hurt when praises are denied.<br /> +Thou art so deep discerning, yet so blind,<br /> +So learn’d, so ignorant, cruel, yet so kind;<br /> +So good, so bad, so foolish, and so wise;—<br /> +By turns I love thee, and by turns despise.<br /> +<span class='indent6'> </span>MS. <span class='smcap'>Anon.</span> (said to be by the late Dr. <span class='smcap'>Homer</span>.)</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0147' id='Footnote_0147'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0147'><span class='label'>[147]</span></a> +<p>The “Quarterly Review,” vol. vii. p. 383.—So masterly a piece of +criticism has rarely surprised the public in the leaves of a periodical publication. +It comes, indeed, with the feelings of another age, and the reminiscences +of the old and vigorous school. I cannot implicitly adopt all the +sentiments of the critic, but it exhibits a highly-finished portrait, enamelled +by the love of the artist.—This article was written by the late Dr. Whitaker, +the historian of Craven, &c.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0148' id='Footnote_0148'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0148'><span class='label'>[148]</span></a> +<p>When Warburton, sore at having been refused academical honours at +Oxford, which were offered to Pope, then his fellow-traveller, and who, in +consequence of this refusal, did himself not accept them—in his controversy +with Lowth (then the Oxford Professor), gave way to his angry spirit, and +struck at the University itself, for its political jesuitism, being a place +where men “were taught to distinguish between <i>de facto</i> and <i>de jure</i>,” +caustic was the retort. Lowth, by singular felicity of application, touched +on Warburton’s original designation, in a character he hit on in Clarendon. +After remonstrating with spirit and dignity on this petulant attack, which +was not merely personal, Lowth continues:—“Had I not your lordship’s +example to justify me, I should think it a piece of extreme impertinence to +inquire where <span class='smcaplc'>YOU</span> were bred; though one might justly plead, in excuse for +it, a natural curiosity to know <i>where</i> and <i>how</i> such a phenomenon was produced. +It is commonly said that your lordship’s education was of that +particular kind, concerning which it is a remark of that great judge of men +and manners, Lord Clarendon (on whom you have, therefore, with a wonderful +happiness of allusion, justness of application, and elegance of expression, +conferred ‘the unrivalled title of the Chancellor of Human Nature’), +that it peculiarly disposes men to be proud, insolent, and pragmatical.” +Lowth, in a note, inserts Clarendon’s character of Colonel Harrison: “He +had been bred up in the place of a clerk, under a lawyer of good account in +those parts; which kind of education introduces men into the language and +practice of business; and if it be not resisted by the great ingenuity of the +person, inclines young men to more pride than any other kind of breeding, +and disposes them to be pragmatical and insolent.” “Now, my lord +(Lowth continues), as you have in your whole behaviour, and in all your +writings, remarkably distinguished yourself by your humility, lenity, meekness, +forbearance, candour, humanity, civility, decency, good manners, +good temper, moderation with regard to the opinions of others, and a +modest diffidence of your own, this unpromising circumstance of your education +is so far from being a disgrace to you, that it highly redounds to +your praise.”—<i>Lowth’s Letter to the Author of the D. L.</i> p. 63.</p> +<p>Was ever weapon more polished and keen? This Attic style of controversy +finely contrasts with the tasteless and fierce invective of the Warburtonians, +although one of them is well known to have managed too adroitly +the cutting instrument of irony; but the frigid malignancy of Hurd +diminishes the pleasure we might find in his skill. Warburton ill concealed +his vexation in the contempt he vented in a letter to Hurd on this occasion. +“All you say about Lowth’s pamphlet breathes the purest spirit of friendship. +His <i>wit</i> and his <i>reasoning</i>, God knows, and I also, (as a certain +critic said once in a matter of the like great importance), are much below +the qualities that deserve those names.”—He writes too of “this man’s +boldness in publishing his letters.”—“If he expects an answer, he will +certainly find himself disappointed; though I believe I could make <i>as good +sport with this devil of a vice</i>, for the public diversion, as ever was made +with him in the old Moralities.”—But Warburton did reply! Had he ever +possessed one feeling of taste, never would he have figured the elegant +Lowth as this grotesque personage. He was, however, at that moment +sharply stung!</p> +<p>This circumstance of <i>Attorneyship</i> was not passed over in Mallet’s +“Familiar Epistle to the Most Impudent Man Living.” Comparing, in the +Spirit of “familiarity,” Arnall, an impudent scribbling attorney and political +scribe, with Warburton, he says, “You have been an attorney as well +as he, but a little more impudent than he was; for Arnall never presumed +to conceal his turpitude under the gown and the scarf.” But this is mere +invective!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0149' id='Footnote_0149'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0149'><span class='label'>[149]</span></a> +<p>I have given a tempered opinion of his motive for this sudden conversion +from Attorneyship to Divinity; for it must not be concealed, in our +inquiry into Warburton’s character, that he has frequently been accused of +a more worldly one. He was so fierce an advocate for some important +causes he undertook, that his sincerity has been liable to suspicion; the +pleader, in some points, certainly acting the part of a sophist. Were we +to decide by the early appearances of his conduct, by the rapid change of +his profession, by his obsequious servility to his country squire, and by +what have been termed the hazardous “fooleries in criticism, and outrages +in controversy,” which he systematically pursued, he looks like one not in +earnest; and more zealous to maintain the character of his own genius, +than the cause he had espoused. Leland once exclaimed, “What are we +to think of the writer and his intentions? Is he really sincere in his +reasonings?” Certain it is, his paradoxes often alarmed his friends, to +repeat the words of a great critic, by “the absurdity of his criticism, the +heterodoxy of his tenets, and the brutality of his invectives.” Our Juvenal, +who, whatever might be the vehemence of his declamation, reflected +always those opinions which floated about him, has drawn a full-length +figure. He accounts for Warburton’s early motive in taking the cassock, +as being</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“——————thereto drawn<br /> +By some faint omens of the Lawn,<br /> +And on the truly Christian plan,<br /> +To make himself a gentleman:<br /> +A title, in which Form arrayed him,<br /> +Tho’ Fate ne’er thought of when she made him. <br /> +To make himself a man of note,<br /> +He in defence of Scripture wrote:<br /> +So long he wrote, and long about it,<br /> +That e’en believers ’gan to doubt it.<br /> +He wrote too of the Holy Ghost;<br /> +Of whom, no more than doth a post,<br /> +He knew; nor, should an angel show him,<br /> +Would he or know, or choose to know him.”<br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Churchill’s</span> “Duellist.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>I would not insinuate that Warburton is to be ranked among the class +he so loudly denounced, that of “Free-thinkers;” his mind, warm with +imagination, seemed often tinged with credulity. But from his want of +sober-mindedness, we cannot always prove his earnestness in the cause he +advocated. He often sports with his fancies; he breaks out into the most +familiar levity; and maintains, too broadly, subtile and refined principles, +which evince more of the political than the primitive Christian. It is certain +his infidelity was greatly suspected; and Hurd, to pass over the stigma +of Warburton’s sudden conversion to the Church, insinuates that “<i>an early +seriousness of mind</i> determined him to the ecclesiastical profession.”—“It +may be so,” says the critic in the “Quarterly Review,” no languid admirer +of this great man; “but the symptoms of that <i>seriousness were very +equivocal afterwards</i>; and the <i>certainty of an early provision, from a +generous patron in the country</i>, may perhaps be considered by those who +are disposed to assign human conduct to ordinary motives, as quite adequate +to the effect.”</p> +<p>Dr. Parr is indignant at such surmises; but the feeling is more honourable +than the decision! In an admirable character of Warburton in the +“Westminster Magazine” for 1779, it is acknowledged, “at his outset in +life he was suspected of being inclined to infidelity; and it was not till +many years had elapsed, that the orthodoxy of his opinions was generally +assented to.” On this Dr. Parr observes, “Why Dr. Warburton was <i>ever</i> +suspected of secret infidelity I know not. What he was <i>inclined to think</i> +on subjects of religion, before, perhaps, he had leisure or ability to examine +them, depends only upon obscure surmise, or vague report.” The +words <i>inclined to think</i> seems a periphrase for <i>secret infidelity</i>. Our critic +attributes these reports to “an English dunce, whose blunders and +calumnies are now happily forgotten, and repeated by a French buffoon, +whose morality is not commensurate with his wit.”—<i>Tracts</i> by Warburton, +&c., p. 186.</p> +<p>“The English Dunce” I do not recollect; of this sort there are so +many! Voltaire is “the French buffoon;” who, indeed, compares Warburton +in his bishopric, to Peachum in the Beggar’s Opera—who, as Keeper +of Newgate, was for hanging all his old accomplices!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0150' id='Footnote_0150'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0150'><span class='label'>[150]</span></a> +<p>Warburton was far more extravagant in a later attempt which he made +to expound the odd visions of a crack-brained Welshman, a prophesying +knave; a knave by his own confession, and a prophet by Warburton’s. +This commentary, inserted in Jortin’s “Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,” +considerably injured the reputation of Jortin. The story of Warburton +and his Welsh Prophet would of itself be sufficient to detect the +shiftings and artifices of his genius. <span class='smcap'>Rice</span> or <span class='smcap'>Arise Evans!</span> was one of the +many prophets who rose up in Oliver’s fanatical days; and Warburton had +the hardihood to insert, in Jortin’s learned work, a strange commentary to +prove that Arise Evans, in Cromwell’s time, in his “Echo from Heaven,” +had manifestly <i>prophesied the Hanoverian Succession</i>! The Welshman +was a knave by his own account in subscribing with his <i>right</i> hand the confession +he calls his prophecy, before a justice, and with his <i>left</i>, that which +was his recantation, signed before the recorder, adding, “I know the +bench and the people thought I recanted; but, alas! they were deceived;” +and this Warburton calls “an uncommon fetch of wit,” to save the truth +of the prophecy, though not the honour of the prophet. If Evans meant +anything, he meant what was then floating in all men’s minds, the probable +restoration of the Stuarts. By this prelude of that inventive genius which +afterwards commented, in the same spirit, on the Æneid of Virgil, and the +“Divine Legation, itself,” and made the same sort of discoveries, he +fixed himself in this dilemma: either Warburton was a greater impostor +than Arise Evans, or he was more credulous than even any follower of the +Welsh prophet, if he really had any. But the truth is, that Warburton +was always writing for a present purpose, and believed, and did not believe, +as it happened. “Ordinary men believe <i>one</i> side of a contradiction at a +time, whereas his lordship” (says his admirable antagonist) “frequently believes, +or at least defends <i>both</i>. So that it would have been no great +wonder if he should maintain that Evans was both a real prophet and an +impostor.” Yet this is not the only awkward attitude into which Warburton +has here thrown himself. To strain the vision of the raving Welshman to +events of which he could have no notion, Warburton has plunged into the +most ludicrous difficulties, all which ended, as all his discoveries have done, +in making the fortune of an adversary who, like the Momus of Homer, +has raised through the skies “inextinguishable laughter,” in the amusing +tract of “Confusion worse Confounded, Rout on Rout, or the Bishop of +G——’s Commentary on Arise Evans; by <a name='TC_41'></a><ins title="Changed period to comma">Indignatio,”</ins> 1772. The writer +was the learned Henry Taylor, the author of Ben Mordecai’s Apology.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0151' id='Footnote_0151'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0151'><span class='label'>[151]</span></a> +<p>The correct taste of Lowth with some humour describes the last sentence +of the “Enquiry on Prodigies” as “the Musa Pedestris got on +horseback in a high prancing style.” He printed it in measured lines, +without, however, changing the place of a single word, and it produced +blank verse. Thus it reads—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Methinks I see her like the mighty Eagle<br /> +renewing her immortal youth, and purging<br /> +her opening sight at the unobstructed beams<br /> +of our benign meridian Sun,” &c.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Such a glowing metaphor, in the uncouth prose of Warburton, startled +Lowth’s classical ear. It was indeed “the Musa Pedestris who had got +on horseback in a high prancing style;” for as it has since been pointed +out, it is a well-known passage towards the close of the Areopagitica of +Milton, whose prose is so often purely poetical. See Birch’s Edition of +Milton’s Prose Works, I. 158. Warburton was familiarly conversant with +our great vernacular writers at a time when their names generally were +better known than their works, and when it was considered safe to pillage +their most glorious passages. Warburton has been convicted of snatching +their purple patches, and sewing them into his coarser web, without any +acknowledgment; he did this in the present remarkable instance, and at a +later day, in the preface to his “Julian,” he laid violent hands on one of +Raleigh’s splendid metaphors.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0152' id='Footnote_0152'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0152'><span class='label'>[152]</span></a> +<p>When Warburton was considered as a Colossus of literature, <span class='smcap'>Ralph</span>, +the political writer, pointed a severe allusion to the awkward figure he +makes in these Dedications. “The Colossus himself creeps between the +legs of the late Sir Robert Sutton; in what posture, or for what purpose, +need not be explained.”</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Churchill</span> has not passed by unnoticed Warburton’s humility, even to +weakness, combined with pride which could rise to haughtiness.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“He was so proud, that should he meet<br /> +The twelve apostles in the street,<br /> +He’d turn his nose up at them all,<br /> +And shove his Saviour from the wall.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Yet this man</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——“Fawned through all his life<br /> +For patrons first, then for a wife;<br /> +Wrote <i>Dedications</i>, which must make <br /> +The heart of every Christian quake.”<br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><i>The Duellist.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It is certain that the proud and supercilious Warburton long crouched +and fawned. <span class='smcap'>Mallet</span>, at least, well knew all that passed between Warburton +and Pope. In the “Familiar Epistle” he asserts that Warburton +was introduced to Pope by his “nauseous flattery.” A remarkable instance, +besides the dedications we have noticed, occurred in his correspondence +with Sir Thomas Hanmer. He did not venture to attack “The +Oxford Editor,” as he sarcastically distinguishes him, without first demanding +back his letters, which were immediately returned, from Sir +Thomas’s high sense of honour. Warburton might otherwise have been +shown strangely to contradict himself, for in these letters he had been most +lavish of his flatteries and encomiums on the man whom he covered with +ridicule in the preface to his Shakspeare. See “An Answer to certain +Passages in Mr. W.’s Preface to Shakspeare,” 1748.</p> +<p>His dedication to the plain unlettered Ralph Allen of Bath, his greatest +of patrons, of his “Commentary on Pope’s Essay on Man,” is written in +the same spirit as those to Sir Robert Sutton; but the former unlucky gentleman +was more publicly exposed by it. The subject of this dedication turns +on “the growth and progress of <i>Fate</i>, divided into four principal branches!” +There is an episode about <i>Free-will</i> and <i>Nature</i> and <i>Grace</i>, and “a <i>contrivance</i> +of Leibnitz about <i>Fatalism</i>.” Ralph Allen was a good Quaker-like +man, but he must have lost his temper if he ever read the dedication! +Let us not, however, imagine that Warburton was at all insensible to this +violation of literary decorum; he only sacrificed <i>propriety</i> to what he considered +a more urgent principle—his own personal interest. No one had a +juster conception of the true nature of <i>dedications</i>; for he says in the +famous one “to the Free-thinkers:”—“I could never approve the custom +of dedicating books to men whose professions made them strangers to the subject. +A Discourse on the Ten Predicaments to a Leader of Armies, or a System +of Casuistry to a Minister of State, always appeared to me a high absurdity.”</p> +<p>All human characters are mixed—true! yet still we feel indignant to discover +some of the greatest often combining the most opposite qualities; +and then they are not so much mixed as the parts are naturally joined +together. Could one imagine that so lofty a character as Warburton could +have been liable to have incurred even the random stroke of the satirist? +whether true or false, the events of his life, better known at this day than +in his own, will show. Churchill says that</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“He could cringe and creep, be civil,<br /> +And hold a stirrup to the devil,<br /> +If, <i>in a journey to his mind</i>,<br /> +He’d let him mount, and ride behind.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The author of the “Canons of Criticism,” with all his sprightly sarcasm, +gives a history of Warburton’s later Dedications. “The first edition +of ‘The Alliance’ came out without a dedication, but was presented +to the bishops; and when nothing came of that, the second was addressed +to both the Universities; and when nothing came of that, the third was +dedicated to a noble Earl, and nothing has yet come of that.” Appendix +to “Canons of Criticism,” seventh edit. 261.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0153' id='Footnote_0153'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0153'><span class='label'>[153]</span></a> +<p>The palace here alluded to is fully described in a volume of “Travels +through Sicily and Malta,” by P. Brydone, F.R.S., in 1770. He describes +it as belonging to “the Prince of Palermo, a man of immense fortune, +who has devoted his whole life to the study of monsters and chimeras, +greater and more ridiculous than ever entered into the imagination of the +wildest writers of romance and knight-errantry.” He tells us this palace +was surrounded by an army of statues, “not one made to represent any +object in nature. He has put the heads of men to the bodies of every +sort of animal, and the heads of every other animal to the bodies of men. +Sometimes he makes a compound of five or six animals that have no +sort of resemblance in nature. He puts the head of a lion on the neck +of a goose, the body of a lizard, the legs of a goat, the tail of a fox; on +the back of this monster he puts another, if possible still more hideous, +with five or six heads, and a bush of horns. There is no kind of horn in +the world he has not collected, and his pleasure is to see them all flourishing +upon the same head.” The interior of the house was decorated in the +same monstrous style, and the description, unique of its kind, occupies several +pages of Mr. Brydone’s book.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0154' id='Footnote_0154'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0154'><span class='label'>[154]</span></a> +<p>This letter was written in 1726, and first found by Dr. Knight in +1750, in fitting up a house where Concanen had probably lodged. It was +suppressed, till Akenside, in 1766, printed it in a sixpenny pamphlet, +entitled “An Ode to Mr. Edwards.” He preserved the curiosity, with +“all its peculiarities of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.” The insulted +poet took a deep revenge for the contemptuous treatment he had received +from the modern Stagirite. The “peculiarities” betray most evident marks +of the self-taught lawyer; the orthography and the double letters were +minted in the office. [Thus he speaks of Addison as this “exact <i>Mr.</i> of +propriety,” and of his own studies of the English poets “to trace them to +their sources; and observe what <i>oar</i>, as well as what slime and gravel +they brought down with them.”] When I looked for the letter in <i>Akenside’s +Works</i>, I discovered that it had been silently dropped. Some interest, +doubtless, had been made to suppress it, for Warburton was humbled when +reminded of it. Malone, fortunately, has preserved it in his Shakspeare, +where it may be found, in a place not likely to be looked into for it, at the +close of <i>Julius Cæsar</i>: this literary curiosity had otherwise been lost for +posterity; its whole history is a series of wonderful escapes.</p> +<p>By this document we became acquainted with the astonishing fact, that +Warburton, early in life, was himself one of those very dunces whom he +has so unmercifully registered in their Doomsday-book; one who admired +the genius of his brothers, and spoke of Pope with the utmost contempt! +[Thus he says, “Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of leisure, and +Pope for want of genius!”]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0155' id='Footnote_0155'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0155'><span class='label'>[155]</span></a> +<p>Lee introduces Alexander the Great, saying,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“When Glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood<br /> +Perch’d on my beaver in the Granic flood,<br /> +When Fortune’s self my standard trembling bore,<br /> +And the pale Fates stood frighted on the shore;<br /> +When the Immortals on the billows rode,<br /> +And I myself appear’d the leading god!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>In the province of taste Warburton was always at sea without chart or +compass, and was as unlucky in his panegyric on Milton as on Lee. He +calls the “Paradise Regained” “a charming poem, <i>nothing inferior</i> in +the <i>poetry</i> and the <i>sentiments</i> to the Paradise Lost.” Such extravagance +could only have proceeded from a critic too little sensible to the essential +requisites of poetry itself.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0156' id='Footnote_0156'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0156'><span class='label'>[156]</span></a> +<p>Such opposite studies shot themselves into the most fantastical forms +in his rocket-writings, whether they streamed in “The Divine Legation,” or +sparkled in “The Origin of Romances,” or played about in giving double +senses to Virgil, Pope, and Shakspeare. <span class='smcap'>Churchill</span>, with a good deal of +ill-nature and some truth, describes them:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“A curate first, he read and read,<br /> +And laid in, while he should have fed<br /> +The souls of his neglected flock,<br /> +Of rending, such a mighty stock,<br /> +That he o’ercharged the weary brain<br /> +With more than she could well contain;<br /> +More than she was with spirit fraught<br /> +To turn and methodise to thought;<br /> +And which, <i>like ill-digested food,<br /> +To humours turn’d, and not to blood</i>.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The opinion of <span class='smcap'>Bentley</span>, when he saw “The Divine Legation,” was a +sensible one. “This man,” said he, “has a monstrous appetite, with a +very bad digestion.”</p> +<p>The Warburtonians seemed to consider his great work, as the Bible by +which all literary men were to be sworn. <span class='smcap'>Lowth</span> ridicules their credulity. +“‘The Divine Legation,’ it seems, contains in it all knowledge, divine and +human, ancient and modern: it is a perfect Encyclopædia, including all +history, criticism, divinity, law, politics, from the law of Moses down to +the Jew bill, and from Egyptian hieroglyphics to modern Rebus-writing, +&c.”</p> +<p>“In the 2014 pages of the unfinished ‘Divine Legation,’” observes the +sarcastic <span class='smcap'>Gibbon</span>, “four hundred authors are quoted, from St. Austin +down to Scarron and Rabelais!”</p> +<p>Yet, after all that satire and wit have denounced, listen to an enlightened +votary of Warburton. He asserts that “The ‘Divine Legation’ has +taken its place at the head, not to say of English theology, but almost of +English literature. To the composition of this prodigious performance, +<span class='smcap'>Hooker</span> and <span class='smcap'>Stillingfleet</span> could have contributed the erudition, <span class='smcap'>Chillingworth</span> +and <span class='smcap'>Locke</span> the acuteness, <span class='smcap'>Taylor</span> an imagination even more wild +and copious, <span class='smcap'>Swift</span>, and perhaps, <span class='smcap'>Eachard</span>, the sarcastic vein of wit; +but what power of understanding, except <span class='smcap'>Warburton’s</span>, could first have +amassed all these materials, and then compacted them into a bulky +and elaborate work, so consistent and harmonious.”—<i>Quarterly Review.</i> +vol. vii.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0157' id='Footnote_0157'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0157'><span class='label'>[157]</span></a> +<p>“The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated,” vol. i. sec. iv. Observe +the remarkable expression, “that last foible of superior <a name='TC_42'></a><ins title="Added quote">genius.”</ins> +He had evidently running in his mind Milton’s line on Fame—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“That last infirmity of noble minds.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>In such an exalted state was Warburton’s mind when he was writing +this, his own character.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0158' id='Footnote_0158'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0158'><span class='label'>[158]</span></a> +<p>The author of “The Canons of Criticism” addressed a severe sonnet +to Warburton; and alludes to the “Alliance”:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Reign he sole king in paradoxal land,<br /> +And for Utopia plan his idle schemes<br /> +Of <i>visionary leagues, alliance vain<br /> +’Twixt</i> Will <i>and</i> Warburton—”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>On which he adds this note, humorously stating the grand position of the +work:—“The whole argument by which the <i>alliance between Church and +State</i> is established, Mr. Warburton founds upon this supposition—‘That +people, considering themselves in a religious capacity, may contract with +themselves, considered in a civil capacity.’ The conceit is ingenious, but +is not his own. <i>Scrub</i>, in the <i>Beaux Stratagem</i>, had found it out long +ago: he considers himself as acting the different parts of all the servants +in the family; and so <i>Scrub</i>, the coachman, ploughman, or justice’s clerk, +might contract with <i>Scrub</i>, the butler, for such a quantity of ale as the +other assumed character demanded.”—Appendix, p. 261.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0159' id='Footnote_0159'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0159'><span class='label'>[159]</span></a> +<p>“Monthly Review,” vol. xvi. p. 324, the organ of the dissenters.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0160' id='Footnote_0160'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0160'><span class='label'>[160]</span></a> +<p>See article <span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span>, for his system. The great Selden was an <i>Erastian</i>; +a distinction extremely obscure. <i>Erastus</i> was a Swiss physician of +little note, who was for restraining the ecclesiastical power from all temporal +jurisdiction. Selden did him the honour of adopting his principles. +Selden wrote against the <i>divine right</i> of tithes, but allowed the <i>legal</i> right, +which gave at first great offence to the clergy, who afterwards perceived +the propriety of his argument, as Wotton has fully acknowledged.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0161' id='Footnote_0161'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0161'><span class='label'>[161]</span></a> +<p>It does not always enter into the design of these volumes to examine +those great works which produced <i>literary quarrels</i>. But some may be +glad to find here a word on this original project.</p> +<p>The grand position of the <i>Divine Legation</i> is, that the knowledge of the +immortality of the soul, or a future state of reward and punishment, is +absolutely necessary in the moral government of the universe. The author +shows how it has been inculcated by all good legislators, so that no religion +could ever exist without it; but the Jewish could, from its peculiar government, +which was theocracy—a government where the presence of God himself +was perpetually manifested by miracles and new ordinances: and hence +temporal rewards and punishments were sufficient for that people, to whom +the unity and power of the Godhead were never doubtful. As he proceeded, +he would have opened a new argument, viz., that the Jewish +religion was only the <i>part</i> of a revelation, showing the necessity of a further +one for its <i>completion</i>, which produced Christianity.</p> +<p>When Warburton was in good spirits with his great work (for he was not +always so), he wrote thus to a friend:—“You judge right, that the <i>next</i> +volume of the D. L. will not be the <i>last</i>. I thought I had told you that +I had divided the work into three parts: the first gives you a view of +Paganism; the second, of Judaism; and the third, of Christianity. <i>You +will wonder</i> how this last inquiry can come into <i>so simple an argument</i> +as that which I undertake to enforce. I have not room to tell you more +than this—that after I have proved a future state not to be, <i>in fact</i> +in the Mosaic dispensation, I next show that, if Christianity be true, <i>it +could not possibly be there</i>; and this necessitates me to explain the nature +of Christianity, with which the whole ends. But this <i>inter nos</i>. If it be +known, I should possibly have somebody writing against <i>this part too</i> before +it appears.”—Nichols’s “Literary Anecdotes,” vol. v. p. 551.</p> +<p>Thus he exults in the true tone, and with all the levity of a sophist. +It is well that a true feeling of religion does not depend on the quirks and +quibbles of human reasonings, or, what are as fallible, on masses of fanciful +erudition.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0162' id='Footnote_0162'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0162'><span class='label'>[162]</span></a> +<p>Warburton lost himself in the labyrinth he had so ingeniously constructed. +This work harassed his days and exhausted his intellect. Observe +the tortures of a mind, even of so great a mind as that of Warburton’s, +when it sacrifices all to the perishable vanity of sudden celebrity. Often +he flew from his task in utter exhaustion and despair. He had quitted the +smooth and even line of truth, to wind about and split himself on all the +crookedness of paradoxes. He paints his feelings in a letter to Birch. He +says—“I was so disgusted with an old subject, that I had deferred it from +month to month and year to year.” He had recourse to “an expedient;” +which was, “to set the press on work, and so oblige himself to supply +copy.” Such is the confession of the author of the “Divine Legation!” +this “encyclopædia” of all ancient and modern lore—all to proceed from +“a simple argument!” But when he describes his sufferings, hard is the +heart of that literary man who cannot sympathise with such a giant caught +in the toils! I give his words:—“Distractions of various kinds, inseparable +from human life, joined with a naturally melancholy habit, contribute +greatly to increase my indolence. This makes my reading wild and desultory; +and I seek refuge from <i>the uneasiness of thought</i>, from any book, +let it be what it will. <i>By my manner of writing upon subjects, you +would naturally imagine they afford me pleasure, and attach me thoroughly. +I will assure you</i>, No!”—Nichols’s “Literary Anecdotes,” +vol. v. p. 562.</p> +<p>Warburton had not the cares of a family—they were merely literary +ones. The secret cause of his “melancholy,” and his “indolence,” and +that “want of attachment and pleasure to his subjects;” which his friends +“naturally imagined” afforded him so much, was the controversies he had +kindled, and the polemical battles he had raised about him. However +boldly he attacked in return, his heart often sickened in privacy; for +how often must he have beheld his noble and his whimsical edifices built +on sands, which the waters were perpetually eating into!</p> +<p>At the last interview of Warburton with Pope, the dying poet exhorted +him to proceed with “The Divine Legation.” “Your reputation,” said +he, “as well as your duty, is concerned in it. People say you can get no +farther in your proof. Nay, Lord Bolingbroke himself bids me expect no +such thing.” This anecdote is rather extraordinary; for it appears in +“Owen Ruffhead’s Life of Pope,” p. 497, a work written under the eye of +Warburton himself; and in which I think I could point out some strong +touches from his own hand on certain important occasions, when he would +not trust to the creeping dulness of Ruffhead.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0163' id='Footnote_0163'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0163'><span class='label'>[163]</span></a> +<p>His temerity had raised against him not only infidels, but Christians. +If any pious clergyman now wrote in favour of the opinion that God’s people +believed in the immortality of the soul—which can we doubt they did? and +which <a name='TC_43'></a><ins title="Was 'Manasseh'">Menasseh</ins> Ben Israel has written his treatise, “De Resurrectione +Mortuorum,” to prove—it was a strange sight to behold a bishop seeming +to deny so rational and religious a creed! Even Dr. Balguy confessed to +Warburton, that “there was one thing in the argument of the ‘Divine +Legation’ that stuck more with candid men than all the rest—how a +religion without a future state could be worthy of God!” This Warburton +promised to satisfy, by a fresh appendix. His volatile genius, however, +was condemned to “the pelting of a merciless storm.” Lowth told him—“You +give yourself out as <i>demonstrator</i> of the <i>divine legation</i> of Moses; +it has been often demonstrated before; a young student in theology might +undertake to give a better—that is, a more satisfactory and irrefragable +demonstration of it in five pages than you have done in five volumes.”—Lowth’s +“Letter to Warburton,” p. 12.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0164' id='Footnote_0164'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0164'><span class='label'>[164]</span></a> +<p>Hurd was the son of a Staffordshire farmer, and was placed by him +at Rugely, from whence he was removed to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. +At the age of twenty-six he published a pamphlet entitled “Remarks on +a late Book entitled ‘An Inquiry into the Rejection of the Christian +Miracles by the Heathens, by William Weston,’” which met with considerable +attention. In 1749, on the occasion of publishing a commentary on +Horace’s “Ars Poetica,” he complimented Warburton so strongly as to +ensure his favour. Warburton returned it by a puff for Hurd in his edition +of Pope, and the two became fast friends. It was a profitable connexion +to Hurd, for by the intercession of Warburton he was appointed one of the +Whitehall preachers, a preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, and Archdeacon of Gloucester. +He repaid Warburton by constant praises in print, and so far succeeded +with that vain man, that when he read the dedication he made to +him of his “Commentary on the Epistle to Augustus,” he wrote to him +with mock humility—“I will confess to you how much satisfaction the +groundless part of it, that which relates to myself, gave me.” When Dr. +Jortin very properly spoke of Warburton with less of subserviency than the +overbearing bishop desired, Hurd at once came forward to fight for Warburton +in print, in a satirical treatise on “The Delicacy of Friendship,” +which highly delighted his patron, who at once wrote to Dr. Lowth, stating +him to be “a man of very superior talents, of genius, learning, and virtue; +indeed, a principal ornament of the age he lives in.” Hurd was made +Bishop of Lichfield in 1775, and of Winchester in 1779. He died in the +year 1808.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0165' id='Footnote_0165'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0165'><span class='label'>[165]</span></a> +<p>The Attic irony was translated into plain English, in “Remarks on +Dr. Warburton’s Account of the Sentiments of the Early Jews,” 1757; and +the following rules for all who dissented from Warburton are deduced:—“You +must not write on the same subject that he does. You must not +glance at his arguments, even without naming him or so much as referring +to him. If you find his reasonings ever so faulty, you must not presume +to furnish him with better of your own, even though you prove, and are +desirous to support his conclusions. When you design him a compliment, +you must express it in full form, and with all the circumstance of panegyrical +approbation, without impertinently qualifying your civilities by +assigning a reason why you think he deserves them, as this might possibly +be taken for a hint that you know something of the matter he is writing +about as well as himself. You must never call any of his <i>discoveries</i> by +the name of <i>conjectures</i>, though you allow them their full proportion of +elegance, learning, &c.; for you ought to know that this capital genius +never proposed anything to the judgment of the public (though ever so new +and uncommon) with diffidence in his life. Thus stands the decree prescribing +our demeanour towards this sovereign in the Republic of Letters, +as we find it promulged, and bearing date at the palace of Lincoln’s Inn, +Nov. 25, 1755.”—From whence Hurd’s “Seventh Dissertation” was +dated.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0166' id='Footnote_0166'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0166'><span class='label'>[166]</span></a> +<p>Gibbon’s “Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of +the Æneid.” Dr. Parr considers this clear, elegant, and decisive work of +criticism, as a complete refutation of Warburton’s discovery.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0167' id='Footnote_0167'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0167'><span class='label'>[167]</span></a> +<p>It is curious enough to observe that Warburton himself, acknowledging +this to be a paradox, exultingly exclaims, “Which, <i>like so many others</i> +I have had the <span class='smcaplc'>ODD FORTUNE</span> to advance, will be seen to be only another +name for Truth.” This has all the levity of a sophist’s language! Hence +we must infer that some of the most important subjects could not be understood +and defended, but by Warburton’s “<i>odd fortune</i>!” It was this +levity of ideas that raised a suspicion that he was not always sincere. He +writes, in a letter, of “living in mere spite, to rub another volume of the +‘Divine Legation’ in the noses of bigots and zealots.” He employs the +most ludicrous images, and the coarsest phrases, on the most solemn subjects. +In one of his most unlucky paradoxes with Lowth, on the age and +style of the writings of Job, he accuses that elegant scholar of deficient discernment; +and, in respect to style, as not “distinguishing partridge from +horseflesh;” and in quoting some of the poetical passages, of “paying +with an old song,” and “giving rhyme for reason.” Alluding to some one +of his adversaries, whom he calls “the weakest, as well as the wickedest +of all mankind,” he employs a striking image—“I shall hang him and his +fellows, as they do vermin in a warren, and leave them to posterity, to +stink and blacken in the wind.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0168' id='Footnote_0168'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0168'><span class='label'>[168]</span></a> +<p>Warburton, in this work (the “Doctrine of Grace,”) has a curious +passage, too long to quote, where he observes, that “The Indian and Asiatic +eloquence was esteemed hyperbolic and puerile by the more phlegmatic +inhabitants of Rome and Athens: and the Western eloquence, in its turn, +frigid or insipid, to the hardy and inflamed imaginations of the East. The +same expression, which in one place had the utmost simplicity, had in +another the utmost sublime.” The jackal, too, echoes the roar of the +lion; for the polished Hurd, whose taste was far more decided than Warburton’s, +was bold enough to add, in his Letter to Leland, “That which +is thought supremely <i>elegant</i> in one country, passes in another for <i>finical</i>; +while what in this country is accepted under the idea of <i>sublimity</i>, is derided +in that other as no better than <i>bombast</i>.” So unsettled were the +<i>no-taste</i> of Warburton, and the <i>prim-taste</i> of Hurd!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0169' id='Footnote_0169'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0169'><span class='label'>[169]</span></a> +<p>The Letter to Leland is characterised in the “Critical Review” for +April, 1765, as the work of “a preferment-hunting toad-eater, who, while +his patron happened to go out of his depth, tells him that he is treading +good ground; but at the same time offers him the use of a cork-jacket to +keep him above water.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0170' id='Footnote_0170'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0170'><span class='label'>[170]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Thomas Leland was born in Dublin in 1722, and was educated in +Trinity College, in that city. Having obtained a Fellowship there, he depended +on that alone, and devoted a long life to study, and the production +of various historical and theological works; as well as a “History of +Ireland,” published in 1773. He died in 1785.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0171' id='Footnote_0171'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0171'><span class='label'>[171]</span></a> +<p>In a rough attack on Warburton, respecting Pope’s privately printing +1500 copies of the “Patriot King” of Bolingbroke, which I conceive to +have been written by Mallet, I find a particular account of the manner in +which the “Essay on Man” was written, over which Johnson seems to +throw great doubts.</p> +<p>The writer of this angry epistle, in addressing Warburton, says: “If +you were as intimate with Mr. Pope as you pretend, you must know the +truth of a fact which several others, as well as I, who never had the honour +of a personal acquaintance with Lord Bolingbroke or Mr. Pope, have heard. +The fact was related to me by a certain Senior Fellow of one of our Universities, +who was very intimate with Mr. Pope. He started some objections, +one day, at Mr. Pope’s house, to the doctrine contained in the Ethic +Epistles: upon which Mr. Pope told him that he would soon convince him +of the truth of it, by laying the argument at large before him; for which +purpose he gave him <i>a large prose manuscript</i> to peruse, telling him, at +the same time, the author’s name. From this perusal, whatever other +conviction the doctor might receive, he collected at least this: that Mr. +Pope had from his friend not only the <i>doctrine</i>, but even the <i>finest and +strongest ornaments of his Ethics</i>. Now, if this fact be true (as I question +not but you know it to be so), I believe no man of candour will attribute +such merit to Mr. Pope as you would insinuate, for acknowledging the +wisdom and the friendship of the man who was his instructor in philosophy; +nor consequently that this acknowledgment, and the <i>dedication of his own +system, put into a poetical dress by Mr. Pope</i>, laid his lordship under the +necessity of never resenting any injury done to him by the poet afterwards. +Mr. Pope told no more than literal truth, in calling Lord Bolingbroke his +<i>guide, philosopher, and friend</i>.” The existence of this very manuscript +volume was authenticated by Lord Bathurst, in a conversation with Dr. +Blair and others, where he said, “he had read the MS. in Lord Bolingbroke’s +handwriting, and was at a loss whether most to admire the elegance +of Lord Bolingbroke’s prose, or the beauty of Mr. Pope’s verse.”—See the +letter of Dr. Blair in “Boswell’s Life of Johnson.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0172' id='Footnote_0172'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0172'><span class='label'>[172]</span></a> +<p>Of many instances, the following one is the most curious. When +Jarvis published his “Don Quixote,” Warburton, who was prompt on +whatever subject was started, presented him with “A Dissertation on the +Origin of the Books of Chivalry.” When it appeared, it threw Pope, their +common friend, into raptures. He writes, “I knew you as certainly as the +ancients did the gods, by the first pace and the very gait.” True enough! +Warburton’s strong genius stamped itself on all his works. But neither +the translating painter, nor the simple poet, could imagine the heap of absurdities +they were admiring! Whatever Warburton here asserted was +false, and whatever he conjectured was erroneous; but his blunders were +quite original.—The good sense and knowledge of Tyrwhitt have demolished +the whole edifice, without leaving a single brick standing. The absurd +rhapsody has been worth preserving, for the sake of the masterly confutation: +no uncommon result of Warburton’s literary labours!</p> +<p>It forms the concluding note in Shakspeare’s <i>Love’s Labour Lost</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0173' id='Footnote_0173'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0173'><span class='label'>[173]</span></a> +<p>Of <span class='smcap'>Theobald</span> he was once the companion, and to Sir <span class='smcap'>Thomas Hanmer</span> +he offered his notes for his edition. [Hanmer’s Shakspeare was given in +1742 to the University of Oxford, for its benefit, and was printed at +the University Press, under the management of Dr. Smith and Dr. Shippon. +Sir Thomas paid the expenses of the engravings by Gravelot prefixed to +each play. The edition was published in 4to. in 1744, it was printed on +the “finest royal paper,” and does not warrant the severity of Pope, whose +editing was equally faulty.] Sir Thomas says he found Warburton’s notes +“sometimes just, but mostly wild and out of the way.” Warburton paid +a visit to Sir Thomas for a week, which he conceived was to assist him in +perfecting his darling text; but hints were now dropped by Warburton, +that <i>he</i> might publish the work corrected, by which a greater sum of money +might be got than could be by that plaything of Sir Thomas, which shines +in all its splendour in the Dunciad; but this project did not suit Hanmer, +whose life seemed greatly to depend on the magnificent Oxford edition, +which “was not to go into the hands of booksellers.” On this, Warburton, +we are told by Hanmer, “flew into a great rage, and there is an end +of the story.” With what haughtiness he treats these two friends, for once +they were such! Had the Dey of Algiers been the editor of Shakspeare, +he could not have issued his orders more peremptorily for the decapitation +of his rivals. Of Theobald and Hanmer he says, “the one was recommended +to me as a poor man, the other as a poor critic: and to each of +them at different times I communicated a great number of observations, +which they managed, as they saw fit, to the relief of their several distresses. +Mr. Theobald was naturally turned to industry and labour. What he read +he could transcribe; but as to what he thought, if ever he did think, he +could but ill express, so he read on: and by that means got a character of +learning, without risking to every observer the imputation of wanting a +better talent.”—See what it is to enjoy too close an intimacy with a man +of wit! “As for the Oxford Editor, he wanted nothing (alluding to Theobald’s +want of money) but what he might very well be without, the reputation +of a critic,” &c. &c.—<i>Warburton’s Preface to Shakspeare.</i></p> +<p>His conduct to Dr. <span class='smcap'>Grey</span>, the editor of Hudibras, cannot be accounted +for by any known fact. I have already noticed their quarrels in the +“Calamities of Authors.” Warburton cheerfully supplied Grey with +various notes on Hudibras, though he said he had thought of an edition +himself, and they were gratefully acknowledged in Grey’s Preface; but behold! +shortly afterwards they are saluted by Warburton as “an execrable +heap of nonsense;” further, he insulted Dr. Grey for the <i>number</i> of his +publications! Poor Dr. Grey and his “Coadjutors,” as Warburton sneeringly +called others of his friends, resented this by “A Free and Familiar +Letter to that Great Preserver of Pope and Shakspeare, the Rev. +Mr. William Warburton.” The doctor insisted that Warburton had had +sufficient share in those very notes to be considered as one of the “Coadjutors.” +“I may venture to say, that whoever was the <i>fool of the company</i> +before he entered (or <i>the fool of the piece</i>, in his own diction) he was +certainly so after he engaged in that work; for, as Ben Jonson observes, ‘he +that <i>thinks</i> himself the <i>Master-Wit</i> is commonly the <i>Master-Fool</i>.’”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0174' id='Footnote_0174'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0174'><span class='label'>[174]</span></a> +<p>Warburton certainly used little intrigues: he trafficked with the +obscure Reviews of the times. He was a correspondent in “The Works of +the Learned,” where the account of his first volume of the Divine Legation, +he says, is “a nonsensical piece of stuff;” and when Dr. Doddridge offered +to draw up an article for his second, the favour was accepted, and it was +sent to the miserable journal, though acknowledged “to be too good for it.” +In the same journal were published all his specimens of Shakspeare, some +years after they had appeared in the “General Dictionary,” with a high +character of these wonderful discoveries.—“The Alliance,” when first published, +was announced in “The Present State of the Republic of Letters,” +to be the work of a gentleman whose capacity, judgment, and learning +deserve some eminent dignity in the Church of England, of which he is +“now an inferior minister.”—One may presume to guess at “the gentleman,” +a little impatient for promotion, who so much cared whether Warburton was +only “now an inferior minister.”</p> +<p>These are little arts. Another was, that Warburton sometimes acted +Falstaff’s part, and ran his sword through the dead! In more instances +than one this occurred. Sir Thomas Hanmer was dead when Warburton, +then a bishop, ventured to assert that Sir Thomas’s letter concerning their +intercourse about Shakspeare was “one continued falsehood from beginning +to end.” The honour and veracity of Hanmer must prevail over the +“liveliness” of Warburton, for Hurd lauds his “<i>lively</i> preface to his +Shakspeare.” But the “Biographia Britannica” bears marks of Warburton’s +violence, in a cancelled sheet. See the <i>Index</i>, art. <span class='smcap'>Hanmer</span>; [where +we are told “the sheet being castrated at the instance of Mr., now Dr. +Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, it has been reprinted as an appendix to +the work,” it consisted in the suppression of one of Hanmer’s letters.] He +did not choose to attack Dr. Middleton in form, during his lifetime, but +reserved his blow when his antagonist was no more. I find in Cole’s MSS. +this curious passage:—“It was thought, at Cambridge, that Dr. Middleton +and Dr. Warburton did not cordially esteem one another; yet both being +keen and thorough sportsmen, they were mutually afraid to engage to each +other, for fear of a fall. If that was the case, the bishop judged prudently, +however fairly it may be looked upon, to stay till it was out of the power +of his adversary to make any reply, before he gave his answer.” Warburton +only replied to Middleton’s “Letter from Rome,” in his fourth edition of +the “Divine Legation,” 1765.—When Dyson firmly defended his friend +Akenside from the rude attacks of Warburton, it is observed, that he bore +them with “prudent patience:” he never replied!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0175' id='Footnote_0175'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0175'><span class='label'>[175]</span></a> +<p>These critical <i>extravaganzas</i> are scarcely to be paralleled by “Bentley’s +Notes on Milton.” How Warburton turned “an allegorical mermaid” +into “the Queen of Scots;”—showed how Shakspeare, in one word, and +with one epithet “the majestic world,” described the <i>Orbis Romanus</i>, +alluded to the Olympic Games, &c.; yet, after all this discovery, seems +rather to allude to a story about Alexander, which Warburton happened to +recollect at that moment;—and how he illustrated Octavia’s idea of the +fatal consequences of a civil war between Cæsar and Antony, who said it +would “cleave the world,” by the story of Curtius leaping into the chasm;—how +he rejected “<i>allowed</i>, with absolute power,” as not English, and +read “<i>hallowed</i>,” on the authority of the Roman Tribuneship being called +<i>Sacro-sancta Potestas</i>; how his emendations often rose from puns; as for +instance, when, in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, it is said of the Friar, that “the city +is much obliged to <i>him</i>,” our new critic consents to the sound of the word, +but not to the spelling, and reads <i>hymn</i>; that is, to laud, to praise! +These, and more extraordinary instances of perverting ingenuity and abused +erudition, would form an uncommon specimen of criticism, which may be +justly ridiculed, but which none, except an exuberant genius, could have +produced. The most amusing work possible would be a real Warburton’s +Shakspeare, which would contain not a single thought, and scarcely an expression, +of Shakspeare’s!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0176' id='Footnote_0176'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0176'><span class='label'>[176]</span></a> +<p>Had Johnson known as much as we do of Warburton’s opinion of his +critical powers, it would have gone far to have cured his amiable prejudice +in favour of Warburton, who really was a critic without taste, and who +considered literature as some do politics, merely as a party business. I +shall give a remarkable instance. When Johnson published his first critical +attempt on <i>Macbeth</i>, he commended the critical talents of Warburton; +and Warburton returned the compliment in the preface to his Shakspeare, +and distinguishes Johnson as “a man of parts and genius.” But, +unluckily, Johnson afterwards published his own edition; and, in his +editorial capacity, his public duty prevailed over his personal feelings: all +this went against Warburton; and the opinions he now formed of Johnson +were suddenly those of insolent contempt. In a letter to Hurd, he writes: +“Of <i>this Johnson</i>, you and I, I believe, think alike!” And to another +friend: “The remarks he makes, in every page, on <i>my Commentaries</i>, are +full of <i>insolence and malignant reflections</i>, which, had they not in them <i>as +much folly as malignity</i>, I should have reason to be offended with.” He +consoles himself, however, that Johnson’s notes, accompanying his own, +will enable even “the trifling part of the public” not to mistake in the +comparison.—<span class='smcap'>Nichols’s</span> “Literary Anecdotes,” vol. v. p. 595.</p> +<p>And what became of Johnson’s noble Preface to Shakspeare? Not a +word on that!—Warburton, who himself had written so many spirited ones, +perhaps did not like to read one finer than his own,—so he passed it +by! He travelled through Egypt, but held his hands before his eyes at +a pyramid!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0177' id='Footnote_0177'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0177'><span class='label'>[177]</span></a> +<p>Thomas Edwards chiefly led the life of a literary student, though he +studied for the Bar at Lincoln’s-Inn, and was fully admitted a member +thereof. He died unmarried at the age of 58. He descended from a +family of lawyers; possessed a sufficient private property to ensure independence, +and died on his own estate of Turrick, in Buckinghamshire. +Dr. Warton observes, “This attack on Mr. Edwards is not of weight +sufficient to weaken the effects of his excellent ‘Canons of Criticism,’ all +impartial critics allow these remarks to have been decisive and judicious, +and his book remains unrefuted and unanswerable.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0178' id='Footnote_0178'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0178'><span class='label'>[178]</span></a> +<p>Some grave dull men, who did not relish the jests, doubtless the booksellers, +who, to buy the <i>name of Warburton</i>, had paid down 500<i>l.</i> for the +edition, loudly complained that Edwards had injured both him and them, +by stopping the sale! On this Edwards expresses his surprise, how “a +little twelvepenny pamphlet could stop the progress of eight large octavo +volumes;” and apologises, by applying a humorous story to Warburton, +for “puffing himself off in the world for what he is not, and now being +discovered.”—“I am just in the case of a friend of mine, who, going to +visit an acquaintance, upon entering his room, met a person going out of +it:—‘Prythee, Jack,’ says he, ‘what do you do with that fellow?’ ‘Why, +’tis Don Pedro di Mondongo, my Spanish master.’—‘Spanish master!’ replies +my friend; ‘why, he’s an errant Teague; I know the fellow well +enough: ’tis Rory Gehagan. He may possibly have been in Spain; but, +depend on’t, he will sell you the Tipperary brogue for pure Castilian.’ +Now honest Rory has just the same reason of complaint against this +gentleman as Mr. Warburton has against me, and I suppose abused him +as heartily for it; but nevertheless the gentleman did both parties justice.”</p> +<p>Some secret history is attached to this publication, so fatal to Warburton’s +critical character in English literature. This satire, like too many +which have sprung out of literary quarrels, arose from <i>personal motives</i>! +When Edwards, in early life, after quitting college, entered the army, he +was on a visit at Mr. Allen’s, at Bath, whose niece Warburton afterwards +married. Literary subjects formed the usual conversation. Warburton, +not suspecting the red coat of covering any Greek, showed his accustomed +dogmatical superiority. Once, when the controversy was running high, +Edwards taking down a Greek author, explained a passage in a manner +quite contrary to Warburton. He did unluckily something more—he +showed that Warburton’s mistake had arisen from having used a French +translation!—and all this before Ralph Allen and his niece! The doughty +critic was at once silenced, in sullen indignation and mortal hatred. To +this circumstance is attributed Edwards’s “Canons of Criticism,” which +were followed up by Warburton with incessant attacks; in every new +edition of Pope, in the “Essay on Criticism,” and the Dunciad. Warburton +asserts that Edwards is a very dull writer (witness the pleasantry +that carries one through a volume of no small size), that he is a libeller +(because he ruined the critical character of Warburton)—and “a libeller +(says Warburton, with poignancy), is nothing but a Grub-street critic run +to seed.”—He compares Edwards’s wit and learning to his ancestor Tom +Thimble’s, in the <i>Rehearsal</i> (because Edwards read Greek authors in their +original), and his air of good-nature and politeness, to Caliban’s in the +<i>Tempest</i> (because he had so keenly written the “Canons of Criticism”).—I +once saw a great literary curiosity: some <i>proof-sheets</i> of the Dunciad +of Warburton’s edition. I observed that some of the bitterest notes were +<i>after-thoughts</i>, written on those proof-sheets after he had prepared the +book for the press—one of these additions was his note on Edwards. Thus +Pope’s book afforded renewed opportunities for all the personal hostilities +of this singular genius!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0179' id='Footnote_0179'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0179'><span class='label'>[179]</span></a> +<p>In the “Richardsoniana,” p. 264, the younger Richardson, who was +admitted to the intimacy of Pope, and collated the press for him, gives +some curious information about Warburton’s Commentary, both upon the +“Essay on Man” and the “Essay on Criticism.” “Warburton’s discovery +of the ‘regularity’ of Pope’s ‘Essay on Criticism,’ and ‘the whole scheme’ +of his ‘Essay on Man,’ I happen to <i>know</i> to be mere absurd refinement in +creating conformities; and this from Pope himself, though he thought fit to +adopt them afterwards.” The genius of Warburton might not have found +an invincible difficulty in proving that the “Essay on Criticism” was in fact +an Essay on Man, and the reverse. Pope, before he knew Warburton, +always spoke of his “Essay on Criticism” as “an irregular collection of +thoughts thrown together as Horace’s ‘Art of Poetry’ was.” “As for the +‘Essay on Man,’” says Richardson, “I <i>know</i> that he never dreamed of the +scheme he afterwards adopted; but he had taken terror about the clergy, +and Warburton himself, at the general alarm of its fatalism and deistical +tendency, of which my father and I talked with him frequently at Twickenham, +without his appearing to understand it, or ever thinking to alter +those passages which we suggested.”—This extract is to be valued, for the +information is authentic; and it assists us in throwing some light on the +subtilty of Warburton’s critical impositions.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0180' id='Footnote_0180'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0180'><span class='label'>[180]</span></a> +<p>The postscript to Warburton’s “Dedication to the Freethinkers,” is +entirely devoted to Akenside; with this bitter opening, “The Poet was too +full of the subject and of himself.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0181' id='Footnote_0181'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0181'><span class='label'>[181]</span></a> +<p>“An Epistle to the Rev. Mr. Warburton, occasioned by his Treatment +of the Author of ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination,’” 1744. While Dyson +repels Warburton’s accusations against “the Poet,” he retorts some against +the critic himself. Warburton often perplexed a controversy by a subtile +change of a word; or by breaking up a sentence; or by contriving some +absurdity in the shape of an inference, to get rid of it in a mock triumph. +These little weapons against the laws of war are insidiously practised in +the war of words. Warburton never replied.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0182' id='Footnote_0182'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0182'><span class='label'>[182]</span></a> +<p>The paradoxical title of his great work was evidently designed to +attract the unwary. “The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated—<i>from +the omission of a future state</i>!” It was long uncertain whether it was +“a covert attack on Christianity, instead of a defence of it.” I have here +no concern with Warburton’s character as a polemical theologist; this has +been the business of that polished and elegant scholar, Bishop Lowth, who +has shown what it is to be in Hebrew literature “a Quack in Commentatorship, +and a Mountebank in Criticism.” He has fully entered into all +the absurdity of Warburton’s “ill-starred Dissertation on Job.” It is +curious to observe that Warburton in the wild chase of originality, often +too boldly took the bull by the horns, for he often adopted the very +reasonings and objections of infidels!—for instance, in arguing on the truth +of the Hebrew text, because the words had no points when a living language, +he absolutely prefers the Koran for correctness! On this Lowth +observes: “You have been urging the same argument that <i>Spinoza</i> employed, +in order to destroy the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to +introduce infidelity and atheism.” Lowth shows further, that “this was +also done by ‘a society of gentlemen,’ in their ‘Sacerdotism Displayed,’ +said to be written by ‘a select committee of the Deists and Freethinkers +of Great Britain,’ whose author Warburton himself had represented to be +‘the forwardest devil of the whole legion.’” Lowth, however, concludes +that all the mischief has arisen only from “your lordship’s undertaking to +treat of a subject with which you appear to be very much unacquainted.”—<span class='smcap'>Lowth’s</span> +<i>Letter</i>, p. 91.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0183' id='Footnote_0183'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0183'><span class='label'>[183]</span></a> +<p>Lowth remonstrated with Warburton on his “supreme authority:”—“I +did not care to protest against the authoritative manner in which you +proceeded, or to question <i>your investiture in the high office of Inquisitor +General and Supreme Judge of the Opinions of the Learned</i>, which you +had long before assumed, and had <i>exercised with a ferocity and a despotism +without example in the Republic of Letters, and hardly to be paralleled +among the disciples of Dominic</i>; exacting their opinions to the standard +of your <a name='TC_44'></a><ins title="Was 'infallibilty'">infallibility</ins>, and prosecuting with implacable hatred every one that +presumed to differ from you.”—<span class='smcap'>Lowth’s</span> <i>Letter to W.</i>, p. 9.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0184' id='Footnote_0184'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0184'><span class='label'>[184]</span></a> +<p>Warburton had the most cutting way of designating his adversaries, +either by the most vehement abuse or the light petulance that expressed his +ineffable contempt. He says to one, “Though your teeth are short, what +you want in teeth you have in venom, and know, as all other creatures do, +where your strength lies.” He thus announces in one of the prefaces to +the “Divine Legation” the name of the author of a work on “A Future +State of Rewards and Punishments,” in which were some objections to +Warburton’s theory:—“I shall, therefore, but do what indeed would be +justly reckoned the cruellest of all things, <i>tell my reader the name of this +miserable</i>; which we find to be <span class='smcap'>J. Tillard</span>.” “Mr. Tillard was first condemned +(says the author of ‘Confusion Worse Confounded,’) as a ruffian +that stabs a man in the dark, because he did <i>not</i> put his name to his book +against the ‘Divine Legation;’ and afterwards condemned as lost to shame, +both as a man and a writer, because he <i>did</i> put his name to it.” Would +not one imagine this person to be one of the lowest of miscreants? He +was a man of fortune and literature. Of this person Warburton says in a +letter, “This is a man of fortune, and it is well he is so, for I have spoiled +his trade as a writer; and as he was very abusive, free-thinking, and anonymous, +I have not spared to expose his ignorance and ill faith.” But afterwards, +having discovered that he was a particular friend to Dr. Oliver, he +makes awkward apologies, and declares he would not have <i>gone so far</i> had +he known this! He was often so vehement in his abuse that I find he confessed +it himself, for, in preparing a new edition of the “Divine Legation,” +he tells Dr. Birch that he has made “several omissions of passages +which were thought <i>vain</i>, <i>insolent</i>, and <i>ill-natured</i>.”</p> +<p>It is amusing enough to observe how he designates men as great as himself. +When he mentions the learned Hyde, he places him “at the head +of a rabble of lying orientalists.” When he alludes to Peters, a very +learned and ingenious clergyman, he passes by him as “The Cornish +Critic.” A friend of Peters observed that “he had given Warburton ‘a +Cornish hug,’ of which he might be sore as long as he lived.” Dr. Taylor, +the learned editor of Demosthenes, he selects from “his fellows,” that is, +other dunces: a delicacy of expression which offended scholars. He +threatens Dr. Stebbing, who had preserved an anonymous character, “to +catch this Eel of Controversy, since he hides his head by the tail, the only +part that sticks out of the mud, more dirty indeed than slippery, and still +more weak than dirty, as passing through a trap where he was forced at +every step to leave part of his skin—that is, his system.” Warburton has +often true wit. With what provoking contempt he calls Sir Thomas Hanmer +always “The Oxford Editor!” and in his attack on Akenside, never +fails to nickname him, in derision, “The Poet!” I refer the reader to a +postscript of his “Dedication to the Freethinkers,” for a curious specimen +of supercilious causticity in his description of Lord Kaimes as a critic, and +Akenside as “The Poet!” Of this pair he tells us, in bitter derision, +“they are both men of taste.” Hurd imitated his master successfully, by +using some qualifying epithet, or giving an adversary some odd nickname, +or discreetly dispensing a little mortifying praise. The antagonists he +encounters were men sometimes his superiors, and these he calls “sizeable +men.” Some are styled “insect blasphemers!” The learned Lardner is +reduced to “the laborious Dr. Lardner;” and “Hume’s History” is +treated with the discreet praise of being “the most readable history we +have.” He carefully hints to Leland that “he had never read his works, +nor looked into his translations; but what he has <i>heard</i> of his writings +makes him think favourably of him.” Thus he teases the rhetorical professor +by mentioning the “elegant translation which, <i>they say</i>, you have +made of Demosthenes!” And he understands that he is “a scholar, who, +<i>they say</i>, employs himself in works of learning and taste.”</p> +<p>Lowth seems to have discovered this secret art of Warburton; for he +says, “You have a set of names always at hand, a kind of infamous list, +or black calendar, where every offender is sure to find a niche ready to +receive him; nothing so easy as the application, and slight provocation is +sufficient.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0185' id='Footnote_0185'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0185'><span class='label'>[185]</span></a> +<p>Sometimes Warburton left his battles to be fought by subaltern genius; +a circumstance to which Lowth, with keen pleasantry, thus alludes:—“Indeed, +my lord, I was afterwards much surprised, when, having been +with great civility dismissed from your presence, I found <i>your footman at +your door, armed with his master’s cane, and falling upon me without +mercy</i>, yourself looking on and approving, and having probably put the +weapon with proper orders into his hands. You think, it seems, that I +ought to have taken my beating quietly and patiently, in respect to the +livery which he wore. I was not of so tame a disposition: I wrested the +weapon from him, and broke it. Your lordship, it seems, by an oblique +blow, got an unlucky rap on the knuckles; though you may thank yourself +for it, you lay the blame on me.”—<span class='smcap'>Lowth’s</span> <i>Letter to W.</i>, p. 11.</p> +<p>Warburton and Hurd frequently concerted together on the manner of +attack and defence. In one of these letters of Hurd’s it is very amusing to +read—“Taylor is a more creditable dunce than Webster. What do you +think to do with the Appendix against Tillard and Sykes? Why might +not Taylor rank with them,” &c. The Warburtonians had also a system +of <i>espionage</i>. When Dr. Taylor was accused by one of them of having <i>said</i> +that Warburton was no scholar, the learned Grecian replied that he did not +recollect ever <i>saying</i> that Dr. Warburton was no scholar, but that indeed +he had always <i>thought</i> so. Hence a tremendous quarrel! Hurd, the +Mercury of our Jupiter, cast the first light shaft against the doctor, then +Chancellor of Lincoln, by alluding to the Preface of his work on Civil Law +as “<i>a certain thing</i> prefatory to a learned work, intituled ‘The Elements +of Civil Law:’” but at length Jove himself rolled his thunder on the hapless +chancellor. The doctor had said in his work, that “the Roman emperors +persecuted the first Christians, not so much from a dislike of their +tenets as from a jealousy of their nocturnal assemblies.” Warburton’s +doctrine was, that “they held nocturnal assemblies because of the persecution +of their enemies.” One was the fact, and the other the consequence. +But the Chancellor of Lincoln was to be outrageously degraded among the +dunces! that was the real motive; the “nocturnal assemblies” only the +ostensible one. A pamphleteer, in defence of the chancellor, in reply, +thought that in “this literary persecution” it might be dangerous “if +Dr. Taylor should be provoked to <i>prove in print</i> what he only <i>dropped in +conversation</i>.” How innocent was this gentleman of the arts and stratagems +of logomachy, or book-wars! The <i>proof</i> would not have altered the +cause: Hurd would have disputed it tooth and nail; Warburton was +running greater risks, every day of his life, than any he was likely to +receive from this flourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the +Chancellor of Lincoln the butt of his sarcastic pleasantry; and this object +was secured by Warburton’s forty pages of preface, in which the chancellor +stands to be buffeted like an ancient quintain, “a mere lifeless block.” +All this came upon him for only <i>thinking</i> that Warburton was no <i>scholar</i>!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0186' id='Footnote_0186'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0186'><span class='label'>[186]</span></a> +<p>See what I have said at the close of the note, pp. <a href='#page_262'>262-3</a>. In a collection +entitled “Verses occasioned by Mr. Warburton’s late Edition of Mr. +Pope’s Works,” 1751, are numerous epigrams, parodies, and similes on it. +I give one:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“As on the margin of Thames’ silver flood<br /> +Stand little <i>necessary</i> piles of wood,<br /> +So Pope’s fair page appears with <i>notes</i> disgraced:<br /> +Put down the nuisances, ye men of taste!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Lowth has noticed the use Warburton made of his patent for vending +Pope. “I thought you might possibly whip me at the cart’s-tail in a note +to the ‘Divine Legation,’ the ordinary place of your literary executions; +or <i>pillory me in the Dunciad</i>, another engine which, as legal proprietor, +you have very ingeniously and judiciously applied to the same purpose; +or, perhaps, have ordered me a kind of Bridewell correction, by one of your +beadles, in a pamphlet.”—<span class='smcap'>Lowth’s</span> +<a name='TC_45'></a><i><ins title="Added quote">“Letter</ins> to Warburton,”</i> p. 4.</p> +<p>Warburton carried the licentiousness of the pen in all these notes to the +<i>Dunciad</i> to a height which can only be paralleled in the gross logomachies +of Schioppius, Gronovius, and Scaliger, and the rest of that snarling +crew. But his wit exceeded even his grossness. He was accused of not +sparing—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Round-house wit and Wapping choler.”<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>[Verses occasioned by Mr. W.’s late Edition of Pope.]</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And one of his most furious assailants thus salutes him:—“Whether you +are a wrangling Wapping attorney, a pedantic pretender to criticism, an +impudent paradoxical priest, or an animal yet stranger, an heterogeneous +medley of all three, as your farraginous style seems to confess.”—An Epistle +to the Author of a Libel entitled “A Letter to the Editor of Bolingbroke’s +Works,” &c.—See <span class='smcap'>Nichols</span>, vol. v. p. 651.</p> +<p>I have ascertained that Mallet was the author of this furious epistle. +He would not acknowledge what he dared not deny. Warburton treated +Mallet, in this instance, as he often did his superiors—he never replied! +The silence seems to have stung this irascible and evil spirit: he returned +again to the charge, with another poisoned weapon. His rage produced +“A <i>Familiar</i> Epistle to the Most Impudent Man Living,” 1749. The style +of this second letter has been characterised as “bad enough to disgrace +even gaols and garrets.” Its virulence could not well exceed its predecessor. +The oddness of its title has made this worthless thing often inquired +after. It is merely personal. It is curious to observe Mallet, in this +pamphlet, treat Pope as an object of pity, and call him “this poor man.” +[David Mallet was the son of an innkeeper, who, by means of the party he +wrote for, obtained lucrative appointments under Government, and died +rich. He was unscrupulous in his career, and ready as a writer to do the +most unworthy things. The death of Admiral Byng was hastened by the +unscrupulous denunciations of Mallet, who was pensioned in consequence.] +Orator Henley took some pains, on the first appearance of this catching +title, to assure his friends that it did not refer to <i>him</i>. The title proved +contagious; which shows the abuse of Warburton was very agreeable. +Dr. Z. Grey, under the title of “A Country Curate,” published “A Free +and <i>Familiar</i> Letter to the Great Refiner of Pope and Shakspeare,” 1750; +and in 1753, young Cibber tried also at “A <i>Familiar</i> Epistle to Mr. +William Warburton, from Mr. Theophilus Cibber,” prefixed to the “Life +of Barton Booth.” Dr. Z. Grey’s “freedom and <i>familiarity</i>” are designed +to show Warburton that he has no wit; but unluckily, the doctor having +none himself, his arguments against Warburton’s are not decisive. “The +<i>familiarity</i>” of Mallet is that of a scoundrel, and the <i>younger</i> Cibber’s +that of an idiot: the genius of Warburton was secure. Mallet overcharged +his gun with the fellest intentions, but found his piece, in bursting, annihilated +himself. The popgun of the <i>little</i> Theophilus could never have +been heard!</p> +<p>[Warburton never lost a chance of giving a strong opinion against Mallet; +and Dr. Johnson says, “When Mallet undertook to write the ‘Life of +Marlborough,’ Warburton remarked that he might perhaps forget that +Marlborough was a general, as he had forgotten that Bacon was a philosopher.”]</p> +<p>But Warburton’s rage was only a part of his <i>secret principle</i>; for can +anything be more witty than his attack on poor <span class='smcap'>Cooper</span>, the author of +“The Life of Socrates?” Having called his book “a late worthless and +now forgotten thing, called ‘The Life of Socrates,’” he adds, “where the +head of the author has just made a shift to do the office of a <i>camera +obscura</i>, and represent things in an inverted order, himself <i>above</i>, and +Rollin, Voltaire, and every other author of reputation, <i>below</i>.” When +Cooper complained of this, and of some severer language, to Warburton, +through a friend, Warburton replied that Cooper had attacked him, and +that he had only taken his revenge “with a slight joke.” Cooper was +weak and vain enough to print a pamphlet, to prove that this was a serious +accusation, and no joke; and if it was a joke, he shows it was not a correct +one. In fact, Cooper could never comprehend how his head was like +a <i>camera obscura</i>! Cooper was of the Shaftesburian school—philosophers +who pride themselves on “the harmony” of their passions, but are too +often in discords at a slight disturbance. He equalled the virulence of +Warburton, but could not attain to the wit. “I found,” says Cooper, +“previous to his pretended witticism about the <i>camera obscura</i>, such +miserable spawn of wretched malice, as nothing but the inflamed brain +of a rank monk could conceive, or the oyster-selling maids near London +Bridge could utter.” One would not suppose all this came from the school +of Plato, but rather from the tub of Diogenes. Something must be allowed +for poor Cooper, whose “Life of Socrates” had been so positively asserted +to be “a late worthless and forgotten thing.” It is curious enough to +observe Cooper declaring, after this sally, that Warburton “has very unfortunately +used the word <i>impudent</i> (which epithet Warburton had applied +to him), as it naturally reminds every reader that the pamphlet published +about two years ago, addressed ‘to the most impudent man living,’ was +universally acknowledged to be dedicated to our commentator.” Warburton +had always the <i>Dunciad</i> in his head when a new quarrel was +rising, which produced an odd blunder on the side of Edwards, and provoked +that wit to be as dull as Cooper. Warburton said, in one of his +notes on Edwards, who had entitled himself “a gentleman of Lincoln’s +Inn,”—“This gentleman, as he is pleased to call himself, is in reality a +gentleman only of the <i>Dunciad</i>, or, to speak him better, in the plain +language of our honest ancestors to such mushrooms, a <i>gentleman of the +last edition</i>.” Edwards misunderstood the allusion, and sore at the personal +attack which followed, of his having “eluded the solicitude of his +careful father,” considered himself “degraded of his gentility,” that it +was “a reflection on his birth,” and threatened to apply to “Mr. Warburton’s +Masters of the Bench, for degrading a ‘barrister of their house.’” +This afforded a new triumph to Warburton, in a new note, where he explains +his meaning of these “mushrooms,” whom he meant merely as +literary ones; and assures “Fungoso and his friends, who are all gentlemen, +that he meant no more than that Edwards had become a gentleman +<i>of the last edition of the Dunciad</i>!” Edwards and his fungous friends +had understood the phrase as applied to new-fangled gentry. One of these +wits, in the collection of verses cited above, says to Warburton:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“This mushroom has made sauce for you.<br /> +He’s meat; thou’rt poison—plain enough—<br /> +If he’s a <i>mushroom</i>, thou’rt a <i>puff</i>!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Warburton had the full command over the <i>Dunciad</i>, even when Pope was +alive, for it was in consequence of Warburton’s being refused a degree at +Oxford, that the poet, though one had been offered to himself, produced the +celebrated lines of “Apollo’s Mayor and Aldermen,” in the fourth <i>Dunciad</i>. +Thus it is that the personal likes and dislikes of witty men come +down to posterity, and are often mistaken as just satire, when, after all, +they are nothing but <span class='smcap'>Literary Quarrels</span>, seldom founded on truth, and +very often complete falsehoods!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0187' id='Footnote_0187'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0187'><span class='label'>[187]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Thomas Balguy was the son of a learned father, at whose rectory +of Northallerton he was born; he was appointed Archdeacon of Salisbury +in 1759, and afterwards Archdeacon of Winchester. He died at the prebendal +house of the latter city in 1795, at the age of 74. His writings +are few—chiefly on church government and authority, which brought him +into antagonism with Dr. Priestley and others, who objected to the high +view he took of its position. With Hurd and Warburton he was always +intimate; his sermon on the consecration of the former was one of the +sources of adverse attack; the latter notes his death as that of “an old +and esteemed friend.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0188' id='Footnote_0188'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0188'><span class='label'>[188]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Brown was patronised and “pitied” by Warburton for years. +He used him, but spoke of him disparagingly, as “a helpless creature in +the ways of the world.” Nichols speaks of him as an “elegant, ingenious, +and unhappy author.” His father was a native of Scotland; his +son was born at Rothbury, in Northumberland, educated at Cambridge, +made minor canon at Carlisle, but resigned it in disgust, living in obscurity +in that city several years, till the Rebellion of 1745, when he acted +as a volunteer at the siege of the Castle, and behaved with great intrepidity. +His publication of an “Essay on Satire,” on the death of Pope, led to his +acquaintance with Warburton, who helped him to the rectory of Horksley, near +Colchester; but he quarrelled with his patron, as he afterwards quarrelled +with others. He then settled down to the vicarage of St. Nicholas, Newcastle, +but not for long, as an educational scheme of the Empress of Russia +offered him inducements to leave England; but his health failed him before +he could carry out his intentions, irritability succeeded, and his disappointments, +real and imaginary, led him to commit suicide in the fifty-first year +of his age. He seems to have been a continual trouble to Warburton, who +often alludes to his unsettled habits—and schooled him occasionally after +his own fashion. Thus he writes in 1777:—“Brown is here; I think rather +faster than ordinary, but no wiser. You cannot imagine the tenderness +they all have of his tender places, and with how unfeeling a hand I probe +them.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0189' id='Footnote_0189'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0189'><span class='label'>[189]</span></a> +<p>Towne is so far “unknown to fame” that his career is unrecorded by +our biographers; he was content to work for, and under the guidance of +Warburton, as a literary drudge.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0190' id='Footnote_0190'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0190'><span class='label'>[190]</span></a> +<p>Warburton, indeed, was always looking about for fresh recruits: a circumstance +which appears in the curious Memoirs of the late Dr. Heathcote, +written by himself. Heathcote, when young, published anonymously a +pamphlet in the Middletonian controversy. By the desire of Warburton, +the bookseller transmitted his compliments to the anonymous author. “I +was greatly surprised,” says Heathcote, “but soon after perceived that +Warburton’s state of authorship being a state of war, <i>it was his custom to +be particularly attentive to all young authors, in hopes of enlisting them +into his service</i>. Warburton was more than civil, when necessary, on +these occasions, and would procure such adventurers some slight patronage.”—<span class='smcap'>Nichols’s</span> +“Literary Anecdotes,” vol. v. p. 536.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0191' id='Footnote_0191'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0191'><span class='label'>[191]</span></a> +<p>We are astonished at the boldness of the minor critic, when, even after +the fatal edition of Warburton’s Shakspeare, he should still venture, in the +life of his great friend, to assert that “this fine edition must ever be highly +valued by men of sense and taste; a spirit congenial to that of the author +breathing throughout!”</p> +<p>Is it possible that the man who wrote this should ever have read the +“Canons of Criticism?” Yet is it to be supposed that he who took so +lively an interest in the literary fortunes of his friend should <i>not</i> have read +them? The Warburtonians appear to have adopted one of the principles of +the Jesuits in their controversies, which was to repeat arguments which +had been confuted over and over again; to insinuate that they had not been +so! But this was not too much to risk by him who, in his dedication of +“Horace’s Epistle to Augustus,” with a Commentary, had hardily and +solemnly declared that “Warburton, in his <i>enlarged view of things</i>, had +not only revived the two models of Aristotle and Longinus, but had rather +struck out <i>a new original plan of criticism</i>, which should unite the virtues +of each of them. This experiment was made on the two greatest of our +own poets—Shakspeare and Pope. Still (he adds, addressing Warburton) +<i>you went farther</i>, by joining to those powers a perfect insight into human +nature; and so ennobling the exercise of literary by the justest moral +censure, <i>you have now, at length, advanced criticism to its full glory</i>.”</p> +<p>A perpetual intercourse of mutual adulation animated the sovereign and +his viceroy, and, by mutual support, each obtained the same reward: two +mitres crowned the greater and the minor critic. This intercourse was +humorously detected by the lively author of “Confusion Worse Confounded.”—“When +the late Duke of R.,” says he, “kept wild beasts, it was a +common diversion to make two of his bears drunk (not metaphorically with +flattery, but literally with strong ale), and then daub them over with +honey. It was excellent sport to see how lovingly (like a couple of critics) +they would lick and claw one another.” It is almost amazing to observe +how Hurd, who naturally was of the most frigid temperament, and the +most subdued feelings, warmed, heated, and blazed in the progressive stages +“of that pageantry of praise spread over the Rev. Mr. Warburton, when +the latter was advancing fast towards a bishoprick,” to use the words of +Dr. Parr, a sagacious observer of man. However, notwithstanding the +despotic mandates of our Pichrocole and his dapper minister, there were +who did not fear to meet the greater bear of the two so facetiously described +above. And the author of “Confusion Worse Confounded” tells a +familiar story, which will enliven the history of our great critic. “One of +the bears mentioned above happened to get loose, and was running along the +street in which a tinker was gravely walking. The people all cried, +‘Tinker! tinker! beware of the bear!’ Upon this Magnano faced about +with great composure; and raising his staff, knocked down Bruin, then +setting his arms a-kimbo, walked off very sedately; only saying, ‘Let the +bear beware of the tinker,’ which is now become a proverb in those parts.”—“Confusion +Worse Confounded,” p. 75.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0192' id='Footnote_0192'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0192'><span class='label'>[192]</span></a> +<p>Pope collected these numerous literary libels with extraordinary care. +He had them bound in volumes of all sizes; and a range of twelves, octavos, +quartos, and folios were marshalled in portentous order on his shelves. +He wrote the names of the writers, with remarks on these <i>Anonymiana</i>. +He prefixed to them this motto, from Job: “Behold, my desire is, that +mine adversary had written a book: surely I would take it upon my +shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me.” xxxi. 35. Ruffhead, who wrote +Pope’s Life under the eye of Warburton, who revised every sheet of the +volume, and suffered this mere lawyer and singularly wretched critic to +write on, with far inferior taste to his own—offered “the entire collection +to any public library or museum, whose search is after <i>curiosities</i>, and may +be desirous of enriching their common treasure with it: it will be freely at +the service of that which asks first.” Did no one accept the invitation? +As this was written in 1769, it is evidently pointed towards the British +Museum; but there I have not heard of it. This collection must have +contained much of the Secret Memoirs of Grub-street: it was always a +fountain whence those “waters of bitterness,” the notes in the <i>Dunciad</i>, +were readily supplied. It would be curious to discover by what stratagem +Pope obtained all that secret intelligence about his Dunces, with which he +has burthened posterity, for his own particular gratification. Arbuthnot, +it is said, wrote some notes merely literary; but Savage, and still humbler +agents, served him as his <i>Espions de Police</i>. He pensioned Savage to his +last day, and never deserted him. In the account of “the phantom Moore,” +Scriblerus appeals to Savage to authenticate some story. One curious +instance of the fruits of Savage’s researches in this way he has himself preserved, +in his memoirs of “An Author to be Let, by Iscariot Hackney.” +This portrait of “a perfect Town-Author” is not deficient in spirit: the +hero was one Roome, a man only celebrated in the <i>Dunciad</i> for his “funereal +frown.” But it is uncertain whether this fellow had really so dismal +a countenance; for the epithet was borrowed from his profession, being the +son of an undertaker! Such is the nature of some satire! Dr. Warton +is astonished, or mortified, for he knew not which, to see the pains and +patience of Pope and his friends in compiling the Notes to the <i>Dunciad</i>, to +trace out the lives and works of such paltry and forgotten scribblers. “It +is like walking through the darkest alleys in the dirtiest part of St. Giles’s.” +Very true! But may we not be allowed to detect the vanities of human +nature at St. Giles’s as well as St. James’s? Authors, however obscure, +are always an amusing race to authors. The greatest find their own +passions in the least, though distorted, or cramped in too small a compass.</p> +<p>It is doubtless from Pope’s great anxiety for his own literary celebrity that +we have been furnished with so complete a knowledge of the grotesque groups +in the <i>Dunciad</i>. “Give me a shilling,” said Swift, facetiously, “and I +will insure you that posterity shall never know one single enemy, excepting +those whose memory you have preserved.” A very useful hint for a man +of genius to leave his wretched assailants to dissolve away in their own +weakness. But Pope, having written a <i>Dunciad</i>, by accompanying it with +a commentary, took the only method to interest posterity. He felt that +Boileau’s satires on bad authors are liked only in the degree the objects +alluded to are known. But he loved too much the subject for its own sake. +He abused the powers genius had conferred on him, as other imperial sovereigns +have done. It is said that he kept the whole kingdom in awe of him. +In “the frenzy and prodigality of vanity,” he exclaimed—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“————Yes, I am proud to see<br /> +Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Tacitus Gordon said of him, that Pope seemed to persuade the nation +that all genius and ability were confined to him and his friends.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0193' id='Footnote_0193'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0193'><span class='label'>[193]</span></a> +<p>Pope, in his energetic Letter to Lord <span class='smcap'>Hervey</span>, that “masterpiece of +invective,” says Warton, which Tyers tells us he kept long back from publishing, +at the desire of Queen Caroline, who was fearful her counsellor +would become insignificant in the public esteem, and at last in her own, +such was the power his genius exercised;—has pointed out one of these +causes. It describes himself as “a private person under penal laws, and +many other disadvantages, not for want of honesty or conscience; yet it is +by these alone I have hitherto lived <i>excluded from all posts of profit or +trust</i>. I can interfere with the views of no man.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0194' id='Footnote_0194'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0194'><span class='label'>[194]</span></a> +<p>The first publisher of the “Essay on Criticism” must have been a +Mr. Lewis, a Catholic bookseller in Covent-garden; for, from a descendant +of this Lewis, I heard that Pope, after publication, came every day, persecuting +with anxious inquiries the cold impenetrable bookseller, who, as the +poem lay uncalled for, saw nothing but vexatious importunities in a +troublesome youth. One day, Pope, after nearly a month’s publication, +entered, and in despair tied up a number of the poems, which he addressed +to several who had a reputation in town, as judges of poetry. The +scheme succeeded, and the poem, having reached its proper circle, soon got +into request.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0195' id='Footnote_0195'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0195'><span class='label'>[195]</span></a> +<p>He was the author of “The Key to the Lock,” written to show that +“The Rape of the Lock” was a political poem, designed to ridicule the +Barrier Treaty; [so called from the arrangement made at the Peace of +Utrecht between the ministers of Great Britain and the States General, as +to the towns on the frontiers of the Dutch, which were to be permanently +strengthened as barrier fortresses. Pope, in the mask of Esdras Barnivelt, +apothecary, thus makes out his poem to be a political satire. “Having said +that by the <i>lock</i> is meant the <i>Barrier Treaty</i>—first then I shall discover, +that Belinda represents Great Britain, or (which is the same thing) her late +Majesty. This is plainly seen in the description of her,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Alluding to the ancient name of Albion, from her white cliffs, and to the +cross which is the ensign of England. The baron who cuts off the lock, or +Barrier Treaty, is the Earl of Oxford. Clarissa, who lent the scissors, my +Lady Masham. Thalestris, who provokes Belinda to resent the loss of the +lock or treaty, the Duchess of Marlborough; and Sir Plume, who is moved +by Thalestris to re-demand it of Great Britain, Prince Eugene, +<a name='TC_46'></a><ins title="Added quote">“who</ins> came +hither for that purpose.” He concludes 32 pages of similar argument by +saying, “I doubt not if the persons most concerned would but order Mr. +Bernard Lintott, the printer and publisher of this dangerous piece, to be +taken into custody and examined, many further discoveries might be made +both of this poet’s and his abettors secret designs, which are doubtless of +the utmost importance to Government.” Such is a specimen of Pope’s +chicanery.] Its innocent extravagance could only have been designed to +increase attention to a work, which hardly required any such artifice. [In +the preface to this production, “the uncommon sale of this book” is stated +as one reason for the publication; “above six thousand of them have been +already vended.”] In the same spirit he composed the “Guardian,” in +which Phillips’s Pastorals were insidiously preferred to his own. Pope sent +this ironical, panegyrical criticism on Phillips anonymously to the “Guardian,” +and Steele not perceiving the drift, hesitated to publish it, till Pope +advised it. Addison detected it. I doubt whether we have discovered all +the <i>supercheries</i> of this kind. After writing the finest works of genius, +he was busily employed in attracting the public attention to them. In the +antithesis of his character, he was so great and so little! But he knew +mankind! and present fame was the great business of his life.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0196' id='Footnote_0196'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0196'><span class='label'>[196]</span></a> +<p>Cleland was the son of Colonel Cleland, an old friend of Pope; he +and his son had served in the East Indian army; but the latter returned +to London, and became a sort of literary jackal to Pope, and a hack +author for the booksellers. He wrote several moral and useful works; +but as they did not pay well, he wrote an immoral one, for which he +obtained a better price, and a pension of 100<i>l.</i> a-year, on condition that +he never wrote in that manner again. This was obtained for him by Lord +Granville, after Cleland had been cited before the Privy Council, and +pleaded poverty as the reason for such authorship.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0197' id='Footnote_0197'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0197'><span class='label'>[197]</span></a> +<p>The narrative of this dark transaction, which seems to have been +imperfectly known to Johnson, being too copious for a note, will be found +at the close of this article.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0198' id='Footnote_0198'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0198'><span class='label'>[198]</span></a> +<p>A list of all the pamphlets which resulted from the <i>Dunciad</i> would +occupy a large space. Many of them were as grossly personal as the celebrated +poem. The poet was frequently ridiculed under the names of “Pope +Alexander” (from his dictatorial style), and “Sawney.” In “an heroic +poem occasioned by the <i>Dunciad</i>,” published in 1728, the poet’s snug +retreat at Twickenham is thus alluded to:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Sawney! a mimic sage of huge renown,<br /> +To Twick’nam bow’rs retir’d, enjoys his wealth,<br /> +His malice and his muse: in grottoes cool,<br /> +And cover’d arbours, dreams his hours away.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>A fragment of Pope’s celebrated grotto still remains; the house is +destroyed. Pope spent all his spare cash over his Twickenham villa. +“I never save anything,” he said once to Spence; and the latter has left +a detailed account of what he meant to do in the further decoration of his +garden if he had lived. As he gained a sum of money, he regularly spent +it in this way.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0199' id='Footnote_0199'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0199'><span class='label'>[199]</span></a> +<p>Pope is, perhaps, the finest <i>character-painter</i> of all satirists. +Atterbury, after reading the portrait of Atticus, advised him to proceed +in a way which his genius had pointed out; but Arbuthnot, with his +dying breath, conjured him “to reform, and not to chastise;” that is, +not to spare the vice, but the person. It is said, Pope answered, that, to +correct the world with due effect, they become inseparable; and that, +deciding by his own experience, he was justified in his opinion. Perhaps, +at first, he himself wavered; but he strikes bolder as he gathers strength. +The two first editions of the <i>Dunciad</i>, now before me, could hardly be +intelligible: they exhibit lines after lines gaping with an hiatus, or obscured +with initial letters: in subsequent editions, the names stole into their +places. We are told, that the personalities in his satires quickened the +sale: the portraits of Sporus, Bufo, Clodius, Timon, and Atossa, were +purchased by everybody; but when he once declared, respecting the <i>characters</i> +of one of his best satires, that no real persons were intended, it +checked public curiosity, which was felt in the sale of that edition. Personality +in his satires, no doubt, accorded with the temper and the talent of +Pope; and the malice of mankind afforded him all the conviction necessary +to indulge it. Yet Young could depend solely on abstract characters and +pure wit; and I believe that his “Love of Fame” was a series of admirable +satires, which did not obtain less popularity than Pope’s. Cartwright, one +of the poetical sons of Ben Jonson, describes, by a beautiful and original +image, the office of the satirist, though he praises Jonson for exercising a +virtue he did not always practise; as Swift celebrates Pope with the same +truth, when he sings:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Yet malice never was his aim;<br /> +He lash’d the vice, but spared the name.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Cartwright’s lines are:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'>“————’tis thy skill</p> +<p class='cg'>To strike the vice, and spare the person still;<br /> +As he who, when he saw the serpent wreath’d<br /> +About his sleeping son, and as he breathed,<br /> +Drink in his soul, did so the shot contrive,<br /> +To kill the beast, but keep the child alive.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0200' id='Footnote_0200'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0200'><span class='label'>[200]</span></a> +<p>Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, published a letter in Mist’s Journal, +insisting that Pope had <i>mistaken the whole character of Thersites</i>, from +ignorance of the language. I regret I have not drawn some notes from +that essay. The subject might be made curious by a good Greek scholar, +if Pope has really erred in the degree Cooke asserts. Theobald, who +seems to have been a more classical scholar than has been allowed, besides +some versions from the Greek tragic bards, commenced a translation of the +<i>Odyssey</i> as soon as Pope’s <i>Iliad</i> appeared.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0201' id='Footnote_0201'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0201'><span class='label'>[201]</span></a> +<p>In one of these situations, Pope issued a very grave, but very ludicrous, +advertisement. They had the impudence to publish an account of +Pope having been flagellated by two gentlemen in Ham Walks, during his +evening promenade. This was avenging Dennis for what he had undergone +from the narrative of his madness. In “The Memoirs of Grub-street,” +vol. i. p. 96, this tingling narrative appears to have been the ingenious +forgery of Lady Mary! On this occasion, Pope thought it necessary to publish +the following advertisement in the <i>Daily Post</i>, June 14, 1728:—</p> +<p>“Whereas, there has been a scandalous paper cried aloud about the +streets, under the title of ‘A Pop upon Pope,’ insinuating that I was +whipped in Ham Walks on Thursday last:—This is to give notice, that I +did not stir out of my house at Twickenham on that day; and the same +is a malicious and ill-founded report.—A. P.”</p> +<p>[Spence, on the authority of Pope’s half-sister, says: “When some of the +people that he had put into the <i>Dunciad</i> were so enraged against him, and +threatened him so highly, he loved to walk alone to Richmond, only he +would take a large faithful dog with him, and pistols in his pocket. He +used to say to us when we talked to him about it, that ‘with pistols the +least man in England was above a match for the largest.’”]</p> +<p>It seems that Phillips hung up a birchen-rod at Button’s. Pope, in one +of his letters, congratulates himself that he never attempted to use it. +[His half-sister, Mrs. Rackett, testifies to Pope’s courage; she says, “My +brother never knew what fear was.”]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0202' id='Footnote_0202'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0202'><span class='label'>[202]</span></a> +<p>According to the scandalous chronicle of the day, Pope, shortly after the +publication of the <i>Dunciad</i>, had a tall Irishman <a name='TC_47'></a><ins title="Was 'Irishmant o'">to</ins> attend him. Colonel +Duckett threatened to cane him, for a licentious stroke aimed at him, +which Pope recanted. Thomas Bentley, nephew to the doctor, for the +treatment his uncle had received, sent Pope a challenge. The modern, like +the ancient Horace, was of a nature liable to panic at such critical moments. +Pope consulted some military friends, who declared that his +<i>person</i> ought to protect him from any such redundance of valour as was +thus formally required; however, one of them accepted the challenge for +him, and gave Bentley the option either of fighting or apologising; who, +on this occasion, proved, what is usual, that the easiest of the two was the +quickest done.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0203' id='Footnote_0203'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0203'><span class='label'>[203]</span></a> +<p>I shall preserve one specimen, so classically elegant, that Pope himself +might have composed it. It is from the pen of that Leonard Welsted +whose “Aganippe” Pope has so shamefully characterised—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Flow, Welsted, flow, like thine inspirer, beer!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Can the reader credit, after this, that Welsted, who was clerk in ordinary +at the Ordnance Office, was a man of family and independence, of elegant +manners and a fine fancy, but who considered poetry only as a passing +amusement? He has, however, left behind, amid the careless productions +of his muse, some passages wrought up with equal felicity and power. +There are several original poetical views of nature scattered in his works, +which have been collected by Mr. Nichols, that would admit of a comparison +with some of established fame.</p> +<p>Welsted imagined that the spirit of English poetry was on its decline in +the age of Pope, and allegorises the state of our poetry in a most ingenious +comparison. The picture is exquisitely wrought, like an ancient +gem: one might imagine Anacreon was turned critic:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“A flask I rear’d whose sluice began to fail,<br /> +And told, from Phærus, this facetious tale:—<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Sabina, very old and very dry,<br /> +Chanced, on a time, an <span class='smcaplc'>EMPTY FLASK</span> to spy:<br /> +The flask but lately had been thrown aside,<br /> +With the rich grape of Tuscan vineyards dyed;<br /> +But lately, gushing from the slender spout,<br /> +Its life, in purple streams, had issued out.<br /> +<i>The costly flavour still to sense remain’d</i>,<br /> +And still its sides the violet colour stain’d:<br /> +A sight so sweet taught wrinkled age to smile;<br /> +Pleased, she imbibes the generous fumes awhile,<br /> +Then, downwards turn’d, the vessel gently props,<br /> +And drains with patient care the lucid drops:<br /> +O balmy spirit of Etruria’s vine!<br /> +O fragrant flask, she said, too lately mine!<br /> +<i>If such delights, <span class='smcaplc'>THOUGH EMPTY</span>, thou canst yield</i>, <br /> +What wondrous raptures hadst thou given if filled!”<br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><i>Palœmon to Cœlia at Bath, or the Triumvirate.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“The empty flask” only retaining “the costly flavour,” was the verse of +Pope.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0204' id='Footnote_0204'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0204'><span class='label'>[204]</span></a> +<p>Pope was made to appear as ridiculous as possible, and often nicknamed +“Poet Pug,” from the frontispiece to an attack in reply to his own, +termed “Pope Alexander’s Supremacy and Infallibility examined.” It +represents Pope as a misshapen monkey leaning on a pile of books, in the +attitude adopted by Jervas in his portrait of the poet.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0205' id='Footnote_0205'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0205'><span class='label'>[205]</span></a> +<p>Dennis tells the whole story. “At his first coming to town he was +importunate with Mr. Cromwell to introduce him to me. The recommendation +engaged me to be about thrice in company with him; after which I +went to the country, till I found myself most insolently attacked in his very +superficial ‘Essay on Criticism,’ by which he endeavoured to destroy the +reputation of a man who had published pieces of criticism, and to set up +his own. I was moved with indignation to that degree, that I immediately +writ remarks on that essay. I also writ upon part of his translation of +‘Homer,’ his ‘Windsor Forest,’ and his infamous ‘Temple of Fame.’” +In the same pamphlet he says:—“Pope writ his ‘Windsor Forest’ in envy +of Sir John Denham’s ‘Cooper’s Hill;’ his infamous ‘Temple of Fame’ +in envy of Chaucer’s poem upon the same subject; his ‘Ode on St. +Cecilia’s Day,’ in envy of Dryden’s ‘Feast of Alexander.’” In reproaching +Pope with his peculiar rhythm, that monotonous excellence, which soon +became mechanical, he has an odd attempt at a pun:—“Boileau’s Pegasus +has all his paces; the Pegasus of Pope, like a <i>Kentish post-horse</i>, is always +upon the <i>Canterbury</i>.”—“Remarks upon several Passages in the Preliminaries +to the <i>Dunciad</i>,” 1729.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0206' id='Footnote_0206'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0206'><span class='label'>[206]</span></a> +<p>Two parties arose in the literary republic, the <i>Theobaldians</i> and the +<i>Popeians</i>. The “Grub-street Journal,” a kind of literary gazette of some +campaigns of the time, records the skirmishes with tolerable neutrality, +though with a strong leaning in favour of the prevailing genius.</p> +<p>The <i>Popeians</i> did not always do honour to their great leader; and the +<i>Theobaldians</i> proved themselves, at times, worthy of being engaged, had +fate so ordered it, in the army of their renowned enemy. When Young +published his “Two Epistles to Pope, on the Authors of the Age,” there +appeared “One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope, in Answer to two of Dr. Young’s.” +On this, a Popeian defends his master from some extravagant accusations +in “The Grub-street Memoirs.” He insists, as his first principle, that all +accusations against a man’s character without an attestor are presumed to +be slanders and lies, and in this case every gentleman, though “Knight of +the Bathos,” is merely a liar and scoundrel.</p> +<p>“You assure us he is not only a bad poet, but a stealer from bad poets: +if so, you have just cause to complain of invasion of property. You assure +us he is not even a versifier, but steals the <i>sound</i> of his verses; now, to +<i>steal a sound</i> is as ingenious as to <i>paint an echo</i>. You cannot bear <i>gentlemen</i> +should be treated as vermin and reptiles; now, to be impartial, you +were compared to <i>flying-fishes</i>, <i>didappers</i>, <i>tortoises</i>, and <i>parrots</i>, &c., not +vermin, but curious and beautiful creatures”—alluding to the abuse, in +this “Epistle,” on such authors as Atterbury, Arbuthnot, Swift, the Duke +of Buckingham, &c. The Popeian concludes:—</p> +<p>“After all, <i>your poem</i>, to comfort you, is more innocent than the <i>Dunciad</i>; +for in the one there’s no man abused but is very well pleased to be +abused in such company; whereas in the other there’s no man so much as +named, but is extremely affronted to be ranked with such people as style +each other the <i>dullest of men</i>.”</p> +<p>The publication of the <i>Dunciad</i>, however, drove the <i>Theobaldians</i> +out of the field. Guerillas, such as the “One Epistle,” sometimes +appeared, but their heroes struck and skulked away. A <i>Theobaldian</i>, in +an epigram, compared the <i>Dunciad</i> of Pope to the offspring of the +celebrated Pope Joan. The neatness of his wit is hardly blunted by a pun. +He who talks of Pope’s “stealing a sound,” seems to have practised that +invisible art himself, for the verse is musical as Pope’s.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><span class='smcaplc'><b>TO THE AUTHOR OF THE DUNCIAD.</b></span></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +“With rueful eyes thou view’st thy wretched race,<br /> +The child of guilt, and destined to disgrace.<br /> +Thus when famed Joan usurp’d the Pontiff’s chair,<br /> +With terror she beheld her new-born heir:<br /> +Ill-starr’d, ill-favour’d into birth it came;<br /> +In vice begotten, and brought forth with shame!<br /> +In vain it breathes, a lewd abandon’d hope!<br /> +And calls in vain, the unhallow’d father—Pope!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The answers to this epigram by the Popeians are too gross. The “One +Epistle” is attributed to James Moore Smyth, in alliance with Welsted +and other unfortunate heroes.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0207' id='Footnote_0207'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0207'><span class='label'>[207]</span></a> +<p>The six Letters are preserved in Ruffhead’s Appendix, No. 1.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0208' id='Footnote_0208'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0208'><span class='label'>[208]</span></a> +<p>Curll was a bookseller, from whose shop issued many works of an +immoral class, yet he chose for his sign “The Bible and Dial,” which were +displayed over his shop in Fleet-street. The satire of Pope’s Dunciad +seems fairly to have been earned, as we may judge from the class of books still +seen in the libraries of curious collectors, and which are certainly unfitted +for more general circulation. For these publications he was fined by the +Court of King’s Bench, and on one occasion stood in the pillory as a punishment. +Yet himself and Lintot were the chief booksellers of the era, until +Tonson arose, and by taking a more enlarged view of the trade, laid the +foundation of the great publishing houses of modern times.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0209' id='Footnote_0209'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0209'><span class='label'>[209]</span></a> +<p>Cromwell was one of the gay young men who frequented coffee-houses +and clubs when Pope, also a young man, did the same, and corresponded +freely with him for a few years, when the intimacy almost entirely ceased. +The lady was a Mrs. Thomas, who became a sort of literary hack to Curll, +and is celebrated in the Dunciad under the name of Corinna. Roscoe, +in his edition of Pope, says, “Of Henry Cromwell little is known, further +than what is learnt from this correspondence, from which he appears to have +been a man of respectable connections, talents, and education, and to have intermingled +pretty freely in the gallantries of fashionable life.” He seems to +have been somewhat eccentric, and the correspondence of Pope only lasted +from 1708 to 1711.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0210' id='Footnote_0210'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0210'><span class='label'>[210]</span></a> +<p>Pope, in his conversations with Spence, says, “My letters to Cromwell +were written with a design that does not generally appear: they were not +written in sober sadness.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0211' id='Footnote_0211'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0211'><span class='label'>[211]</span></a> +<p>Pope’s victory over Curll is represented by Hogarth in a print ostentatiously +hung in the garret of his “Distressed Poet.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0212' id='Footnote_0212'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0212'><span class='label'>[212]</span></a> +<p>Johnson says, that though “Pope attacked Cibber with acrimony, the +provocation is not easily discoverable.” But the statements of Cibber, +which have never been contradicted, show sufficient motives to excite the +poetic irascibility. It was Cibber’s “fling” at the unowned and condemned +comedy of the triumvirate of wits, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, +<i>Three Hours after Marriage</i>, when he performed Bayes in the <i>Rehearsal</i>, +that incurred the immortal odium. There was no malice on +Cibber’s side; for it was then the custom to restore the zest of that obsolete +dramatic satire, by introducing allusions to any recent theatrical event. +The plot of this ridiculous comedy hinging on the deep contrivance of two +lovers getting access to the wife of a virtuoso, “one curiously swathed up +like an Egyptian mummy, and the other slily covered in the pasteboard +skin of a crocodile,” was an incident so <i>extremely natural</i>, that it seemed +congenial with the high imagination and the deep plot of a Bayes! Poor +Cibber, in the gaiety of his <i>impromptu</i>, made the “fling;” and, unluckily, it +was applauded by the audience! The irascibility of Pope too strongly +authenticated one of the three authors. “In the swelling of his heart, +after the play was over, he came behind the scenes with his lips pale and +his voice trembling, to call me to account for the insult; and accordingly +fell upon me with all the foul language that a wit out of his senses would +be capable of, choked with the foam of his passion.” Cibber replied with +dignity, insisted on the privilege of the character, and that he would repeat +the same jest as long as the public approved of it. Pope would have +certainly approved of Cibber’s manly conduct, had he not been the author +himself. To this circumstance may be added the reception which the town +and the court bestowed on Cibber’s “Nonjuror,” a satire on the politics of +the jacobite faction; Pope appears, under the assumed name of <i>Barnevelt</i>, +to have published “an odd piece of wit, proving that the Nonjuror, in its +design, its characters, and almost every scene of it, was a closely-couched +jacobite libel against the Government.” Cibber says that “this was so +shrewdly maintained, that I almost liked the jest myself.” Pope seems to +have been fond of this new species of irony; for, in the Pastorals of +Phillips, he showed the same sort of ingenuity, and he repeated the same +charge of political mystery against his own finest poem; for he proved by +many “merry inuendoes,” that “The Rape of the Lock” was as audacious +a libel as the pretended Barnevelt had made out the Nonjuror to be. +See note, p. <a href='#page_280'>280</a>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0213' id='Footnote_0213'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0213'><span class='label'>[213]</span></a> +<p>Cibber did not obtrude himself in this contest. Had he been merely a +poor vain creature, he had not preserved so long a silence. His good-temper +was without anger, but he remonstrates with no little dignity, +when he chooses to be solemn; though to be playful was more natural to +him. “If I have lain so long stoically silent, or unmindful of your satirical +favours, it was not so much for want of a proper reply, as that I +thought there never needed a public one; for all people of sense would +know what truth or falsehood there was in what you said of me, without +my wisely pointing it out to them. Nor did I choose to follow your example, +of being so much a self-tormentor, as to be concerned at whatever +opinion of me any published invective might infuse into people unknown to +me. Even the malicious, though they may like the libel, don’t always +believe it.” His reason for reply is, that his silence should not be farther +reproached “as a plain confession of my being a bankrupt in wit, if I +don’t immediately answer those bills of discredit you have drawn upon +me.” There is no doubt that Cibber perpetually found instigators to encourage +these attacks; and one forcible argument he says was, that “a +disgrace, from such a pen, would stick upon me to posterity.” He seems +to be aware that his acquaintance cheer him to the lists “for their particular +amusement.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0214' id='Footnote_0214'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0214'><span class='label'>[214]</span></a> +<p>“His edition of Shakspeare proved no better than a foil to set off the +superiority of Theobald’s; and Cibber bore away the palm from him in the +drama. We have an account of two attempts of Pope’s, one in each of +the two principal branches of this species of poetry, and both unsuccessful. +The fate of the comedy has been already mentioned (in page 300), +and the tragedy was saved from the like fate by one not less ignominious, +being condemned and burnt by his own hands. It was called <i>Cleone</i>, and +formed upon the same story as a late one wrote and published by Mr. +Dodsley with the same title in 1759. See Dodsley’s Preface.”—<i>Biographia +Britannica</i>, 1760.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0215' id='Footnote_0215'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0215'><span class='label'>[215]</span></a> +<p>Armstrong, who was a keen observer of man, has expressed his uncommon +delight in the company of Cibber. “Beside his abilities as a +writer (as a writer of comedies, Armstrong means), and the singular +variety of his powers as an actor, he was to the last one of the most +agreeable, cheerful, and best-humoured men you would ever wish to converse +with.”—Warton’s <i>Pope</i>, vol. iv. 160.</p> +<p>Cibber was one of those rare beings whose dispositions Hume describes +“as preferable to an inheritance of 10,000<i>l.</i> a year.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0216' id='Footnote_0216'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0216'><span class='label'>[216]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Aikin, in his Biographical Dictionary, has thus written on +Cibber: “It cannot be doubted, that, at the time, the contest was more +painful to Pope than to Cibber. But Pope’s satire is immortal, whereas +Cibber’s sarcasms are no longer read. <i>Cibber may therefore be represented +to future times with less credit for abilities than he really deserves</i>; for he +was certainly no dunce, though not, in the higher sense of the word, a +man of genius. <i>His effrontery and vanity</i> could not be easily overcharged, +even by a foe. Indeed, they are striking features in the portrait drawn by +himself.” Dr. Aikin’s political morality often vented its indignation at the +successful injustice of great power! Why should not the same spirit conduct +him in the Literary Republic? With the just sentiments he has given +on Cibber, it was the duty of an intrepid critic to raise a moral feeling +against the despotism of genius, and to have protested against the arbitrary +power of Pope. It is participating in the injustice to pass it by, without +even a regret at its effect.</p> +<p>As for Cibber himself, he declares he was <i>not impudent</i>, and I am disposed +to take his own word, for he <i>modestly</i> asserts this, in a remark on +Pope’s expression,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“‘Cibberian forehead,’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“by which I find you modestly mean <i>Cibberian impudence</i>, as a sample of +the strongest.—Sir, your humble servant—but pray, sir, in your ‘Epistle +to Dr. Arbuthnot’ (where, by the way, in your ample description of a great +Poet, you slily hook in a whole hat-full of virtues to your own character) +have not you this particular line?</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘And thought a <i>Lie</i>, in verse or prose, the same—’”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Cibber laments it is not so, for “any accusation in smooth verse will always +sound well, though it is not tied down to have a tittle of truth in it, +when the strongest defence in poor humble prose, not having that harmonious +advantage, takes nobody by the ear—very hard upon an innocent +man! For suppose in prose, now, I were as confidently to insist that you +were an <i>honest</i>, <i>good-natured</i>, <i>inoffensive creature</i>, would my barely saying +so be any proof of it? No sure. Why then, might it not be supposed +an equal truth, that both our assertions were equally false? <i>Yours</i>, when +you call me <i>impudent</i>; <i>mine</i>, when I call you <i>modest</i>, &c. While my +superiors suffer me occasionally to sit down with them, I hope it will be +thought that rather the <i>Papal</i> than the <i>Cibberian</i> forehead ought to be out +of countenance.” I give this as a specimen of Cibber’s serious reasonings—they +are poor; and they had been so from a greater genius; for ridicule and +satire, being only a mere abuse of eloquence, can never be effectually opposed +by truisms. Satire must be repelled by satire; and Cibber’s <i>sarcasms</i> +obtained what Cibber’s <i>reasonings</i> failed in.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0217' id='Footnote_0217'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0217'><span class='label'>[217]</span></a> +<p>Vain as Cibber has been called, and vain as he affects to be, he has +spoken of his own merits as a comic writer,—and he was a very great +one,—with a manly moderation, very surprising indeed in a vain man. +Pope has sung in his <i>Dunciad</i>, most harmoniously inhuman,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“How, with less reading than makes felons scape,<br /> +Less human genius than God gives an ape,<br /> +Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,<br /> +A patch’d, vamp’d, future, old, revived new piece;<br /> +’Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Congreve, and Corneille,<br /> +Can make a <span class='smcap'>Cibber, Johnson,</span> and <span class='smcap'>Ozell</span>.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Blasting as was this criticism, it could not raise the anger of the gay +and careless Cibber. Yet what could have put it to a sharper test? +Johnson and Ozell are names which have long disappeared from the dramatic +annals, and could only have been coupled with Cibber to give an +idea of what the satirist meant by “the human genius of an ape.” But +listen to the mild, yet the firm tone of Cibber—he talks like injured innocence, +and he triumphs over Pope, in all the dignity of truth.—I appeal to +Cibber’s posterity!</p> +<p>“And pray, sir, why my name under this scurvy picture? I flatter +myself, that if you had not put it there, nobody else would have thought +it like me; nor can I easily believe that you yourself do: but perhaps you +imagined it would be a laughing ornament to your verse, and had a mind +to divert other people’s spleen with it as well as your own. Now let me +hold up my head a little, and then we shall see how the features hit me.” +He proceeds to relate, how “many of those plays have lived the longer for +my meddling with them.” He mentions several, which “had been dead +to the stage out of all memory, which have since been in a constant course +of acting above these thirty or forty years.” And then he adds: “Do +those altered plays at all take from the merit of those <i>more successful +pieces</i>, which were <i>entirely my own</i>?—When a man is abused, he has a +right to speak even laudable truths of himself, to confront his slanderer. +Let me therefore add, that my first Comedy of <i>The Fool in Fashion</i> was +as much (though not so valuable) an original, as any work Mr. Pope himself +has produced. It is now forty-seven years since its first appearance +on the stage, where it has kept its station, to this very day, without ever +lying one winter dormant. Nine years after this, I brought on <i>The Careless +Husband</i>, with still greater success; and was that too</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘A patch’d, vamp’d, future, old, revived new piece?’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Let the many living spectators of these plays, then, judge between us, +whether the above verses came from the honesty of a satirist, who would +be thought, like you, the upright censor of mankind. Sir, this libel was +below you! Satire, without truth, recoils upon its author, and must, at +other times, render him suspected of prejudice, even where he may be +just; as frauds, in religion, make more atheists than converts; and the +bad heart, Mr. Pope, that points an injury with verse, makes it the more +unpardonable, as it is not the result of sudden passion, but of an indulged +and slowly-meditating ill-nature. What a merry mixed mortal has nature +made you, that can debase that strength and excellence of genius to the +lowest human weakness, that of offering unprovoked injuries, at the +hazard of your being ridiculous too, when the venom you spit falls short of +your aim!” I have quoted largely, to show that Cibber was capable of +exerting a dignified remonstrance, as well as pointing the lightest, yet +keenest, shafts of sarcastic wit.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0218' id='Footnote_0218'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0218'><span class='label'>[218]</span></a> +<p>Ayre’s “Memoirs of Pope,” vol. ii. p. 82.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0219' id='Footnote_0219'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0219'><span class='label'>[219]</span></a> +<p>Even the “Grub-street Journal” had its jest on his appointment to +the laureateship. In No. 52 was the following epigram:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Well, said Apollo, still ’tis mine<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>To give the real laurel:<br /> +For that my Pope, my son divine,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Of rivals ends the quarrel.<br /> +But guessing who would have the luck<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>To be the birth-day fibber,<br /> +I thought of Dennis, Tibbald, Duck,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But never dreamt of Cibber!”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0220' id='Footnote_0220'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0220'><span class='label'>[220]</span></a> +<p>It may be reasonably doubted, however, if vanity had not something +to do with this—the vanity of appearing as a philosophical writer, and +astonishing the friends who had considered him only as a good comedian. +The volume was magnificently printed in quarto on fine paper, “for the +author,” in 1747. It is entitled, “The Character and Conduct of Cicero +Considered, from the History of his Life by the Rev. Dr. Middleton; with +occasional Essays and Observations upon the most Memorable Facts and +Persons during that Period.” The entire work is a series of somewhat too-familiar +notes on the various passages of “Cicero’s Life and Times,” as narrated +by Middleton. He terms the unsettled state after the death of Sylla +“an uncomfortable time for those sober citizens who had a mind and a +right to be quiet.” His professional character breaks forth when he speaks +of Roscius instructing Cicero in acting; and in the very commencement of +his grave labour he rambles back to the theatre to quote a scene from +Vanbrugh’s <i>Relapse</i>, as a proof how little fashionable readers <i>think</i> while +they <i>read</i>. Colley’s well-meaning but free-and-easy reflections on the +gravities of Roman history, in the progress of his work, are remarkable, +and have all the author’s coarse common sense, but very little depth or +refinement—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0221' id='Footnote_0221'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0221'><span class='label'>[221]</span></a> +<p>With what good-humour he retorts a piece of sly malice of Pope’s; +who, in the notes to the <i>Dunciad</i>, after quoting Jacob’s account of Cibber’s +talents, adds—“Mr. Jacob omitted to remark that he is particularly +admirable in tragedy.” To which Cibber rejoins—“Ay, sir, and your +remark has omitted, too, that (with all his commendations) I can’t dance +upon the rope, or make a saddle, nor play upon the organ. My dear, dear +Mr. Pope, how could a man of your stinging capacity let so tame, so +low a reflection escape him? Why, this hardly rises above the petty +malice of Miss Molly. ‘Ay, ay, you may think my sister as handsome as +you please, but if you were to see her legs!’ If I have made so many +crowded theatres laugh, and in the right place, too, for above forty years +together, am I to make up the number of your dunces, because I have not +the equal talent of making them cry too? Make it your own case. Is what +you have excelled in at all the worse for your having so dismally dabbled +in the farce of <i>Three Hours after Marriage</i>? What mighty reason will +the world have to laugh at my weakness in tragedy, more than at yours in +comedy?”</p> +<p>I will preserve one anecdote of that felicity of temper—that undisturbed +good-humour which never abandoned Cibber in his most distressful moments. +When he brought out, in 1724, his <i>Cæsar in Egypt</i>, at a great expense, +and “a beggarly account of empty boxes” was the result, it raised some +altercations between the poet and his brother managers, the bard still +struggling for another and another night. At length he closed the quarrel +with a pun, which confessed the misfortune, with his own good-humour. +In a periodical publication of the times I find the circumstance recorded +in this neat epigram:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><b><i>On the Sixth Night of <span class='smcap'>Cibber’s</span> “Cæsar in Egypt.”</i></b></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +When the pack’d audience from their posts retired,<br /> +And Julius in a general hiss expired;<br /> +Sage Booth to Cibber cried, “Compute our gains!<br /> +These dogs of Egypt, and their dowdy queans,<br /> +But ill requite these habits and these scenes,<br /> +To rob Corneille for such a motley piece:<br /> +His geese were swans; but zounds! thy swans are geese!”<br /> +Rubbing his firm invulnerable brow,<br /> +The bard replied—“The critics must allow<br /> +’Twas ne’er in <i>Cæsar’s destiny</i> <span class='smcaplc'>TO RUN</span>!”<br /> +Wilks bow’d, and bless’d the gay pacific pun.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0222' id='Footnote_0222'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0222'><span class='label'>[222]</span></a> +<p>A wicked wag of a lord had enticed Pope into a tavern, and laid a +love-plot against his health. Cibber describes his resolute interference by +snatching “our little Homer by the heels. This was done for the honour +of our nation. Homer would have been too serious a sacrifice to our +evening’s amusement.” He has metamorphosed our Apollo into a “Tom-tit;” +but the Ovidian warmth, however ludicrous, will not <i>now</i> admit of +a narrative. This story, by our comic writer, was accompanied by a print, +that was seen by more persons, probably, than read the <i>Dunciad</i>. In his +second letter, Cibber, alluding to the vexation of Pope on this ridiculous +story, <ins title="Changed single quote to double">observes—“To</ins> +have been exposed as <i>a bad man</i>, ought to have +given thee thrice the concern of being shown a <i>ridiculous lover</i>.” And +now that he had discovered that he could touch the nerves of Pope, he +throws out one of the most ludicrous analogies to the figure of our bard:—“When +crawling in thy dangerous deed of darkness, I gently, with a finger +and a thumb, picked off thy small round body by thy long legs, like a +spider making love in a cobweb.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0223' id='Footnote_0223'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0223'><span class='label'>[223]</span></a> +<p>“The <span class='smcap'>Egotist</span>, or Colley upon Cibber; being his own picture retouched +to so <i>plain</i> a likeness that no one <i>now</i> would have the face to +own it <span class='smcaplc'>BUT HIMSELF</span>.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘But one stroke more, and that shall be my last.’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p class='ralign'><i>London</i>, 1743.<span class='rindent4'> </span><br /> + <span class='smcap'>Dryden</span>.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0224' id='Footnote_0224'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0224'><span class='label'>[224]</span></a> +<p>How many good authors might pursue their studies in quiet, would +they never reply to their critics but on matters of fact, in which their +honour may be involved. I have seen very tremendous criticisms on some +works of real genius, like serpents on marble columns, wind and dart +about, and spit their froth, but they die away on the pillars that enabled +them to erect their malignant forms to the public eye. They fall in due +time; and weak must be the substance of that pillar which does not stand, +and look as beautiful, when the serpents have crawled over it, as before. +Dr. Brown, in his “Letter to Bishop Lowth,” has laid down an axiom in +literary criticism:—“<i>A mere literary attack</i>, however well or ill-founded, +would not easily have drawn me into a <i>public expostulation</i>; for every +man’s true literary character is best seen in his own writings. Critics +may rail, disguise, insinuate, or pervert; yet still the object of their censures +lies equally open to all the world. Thus the world becomes a competent +judge of the merits of the work animadverted on. Hence, the +mere <i>author</i> hath a fair chance for a fair decision, at least among the +judicious; and it is of no mighty consequence what opinions the <i>injudicious</i> +form concerning mental abilities. For this reason, I have never +replied to any of those numerous critics who have on different occasions +honoured me with their regard.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0225' id='Footnote_0225'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0225'><span class='label'>[225]</span></a> +<p>Sir William Blackstone’s Discussion on the Quarrel between Addison +and Pope was communicated by Dr. Kippis in his “Biographia Britannica,” +vol. i. p. 56. Blackstone is there designated as “a gentleman of +considerable rank, to whom the public is obliged for works of much higher +importance.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0226' id='Footnote_0226'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0226'><span class='label'>[226]</span></a> +<p>Dennis asserts in one of his pamphlets that Pope, fermenting with +envy at the success of Addison’s <i>Cato</i>, went to Lintot, and persuaded +him to engage this redoubted critic to write the remarks on <i>Cato</i>—that +Pope’s gratitude to Dennis for having complied with his request was the +well-known narrative of Dennis “being placed as a lunatic in the hands of +Dr. Norris, a curer of mad people, at his house in Hatton-garden, though +at the same time I appeared publicly every day, both in the park and in +the town.” Can we suppose that Dennis tells a falsehood respecting Pope’s +desiring Lintot to engage Dennis to write down <i>Cato</i>? If true, did +Pope wish to see Addison degraded, and at the same time take an opportunity +of ridiculing the critic, without, however, answering his arguments? +The secret history of literature is like that of politics?</p> +<p>[Dennis took a strong dislike to Addison’s <i>Cato</i>, and his style of +criticism is thus alluded to in the humorous account of his frenzy written +by Pope: “On all sides of his room were pinned a great many sheets of a +tragedy called <i>Cato</i>, with notes on the margin by his own hand. The +words <i>absurd</i>, <i>monstrous</i>, <i>execrable</i>, were everywhere written in such large +characters, that I could read them without my spectacles.” Warton says that +“Addison highly disapproved of this bitter satire on Dennis, and Pope was +not a little chagrined at this disapprobation; for the narrative was intended +to court the favour of Addison, by defending his <i>Cato</i>: in which seeming +defence Addison was far from thinking our author sincere.”]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0227' id='Footnote_0227'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0227'><span class='label'>[227]</span></a> +<p>In the notes to the Prologue to the Satires.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0228' id='Footnote_0228'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0228'><span class='label'>[228]</span></a> +<p>Pope’s conjecture was perfectly correct. Dr. Warton confirms it from +a variety of indisputable authorities.—Warton’s “Pope,” vol. iv. p. 34.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0229' id='Footnote_0229'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0229'><span class='label'>[229]</span></a> +<p>In the “Freeholder,” May, 1716.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0230' id='Footnote_0230'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0230'><span class='label'>[230]</span></a> +<p>Pope himself thus related the matter to Spence: “Phillips seemed to +have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations; and +Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherly, in which he had abused both me +and my relations very grossly. Lord Warwick himself told me one day +that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be well with Mr. Addison; that +his jealous temper would never admit of a settled friendship between us, +and to convince me of what he had said, assured me that Addison had +encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals, and had given him ten guineas +after they were published.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0231' id='Footnote_0231'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0231'><span class='label'>[231]</span></a> +<p>The strongest parts of Sir William Blackstone’s discussion turn on +certain inaccurate dates of Ruffhead, in his statements, which show them +to be inconsistent with the times when they are alleged to have happened. +These erroneous dates had been detected in an able article in the Monthly +Review on that work, April, 1769. Ruffhead is a tasteless, confused, and +unskilful writer—Sir William has laid great stress on the incredible story +of Addison paying Gildon to write against Pope, “a man so amiable in his +moral character.” It is possible that the Earl of Warwick, who conveyed +the information, might have been a malicious, lying youth; but then Pope +had some knowledge of mankind—he believed the story, for he wrote +instantly, with honest though heated feelings, to Addison, and sent him, at +that moment, the first sketch of the character of Atticus. Addison used +him very civilly ever after—but it does not appear that Addison ever contradicted +the tale of the officious Earl. All these facts, which Pope +repeated many years after to Spence, Sir William was not acquainted with, +for they were transcribed from Spence’s papers by Johnson, after Blackstone +had written. [This is fully in accordance with his previous conduct, +as he described it to Spence; on the first notification of the Earl of Warwick’s +news, “the next day when I was heated with what I had heard, I +wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unacquainted +with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak severely of him, in +return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; and that I should rather +tell himself freely of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it +should be something in the following manner: I then adjoined the first +sketch of what has since been called my Satire on Addison. Mr. Addison +used me very civilly ever after, and never did me any injustice that I know +of from that time to his death, which was about three years after.”]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0232' id='Footnote_0232'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0232'><span class='label'>[232]</span></a> +<p>That Addison did occasionally divert Pope’s friends from him, appears +from the advice which Lady Mary Wortley Montague says he gave to +her—“Leave him as soon as you can, he will certainly play you some devilish +trick else: he has an appetite to satire.” Malone thinks this may have +been said under the irritation produced by the verses on Addison, which +Pope sent to him, as described above. Pope’s love of satire, and unflinching +use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison’s nervous dislike to +it.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0233' id='Footnote_0233'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0233'><span class='label'>[233]</span></a> +<p>From Lord Egmont’s MS. Collections.—See the “Addenda +Kippis’s Biographia Britannica.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0234' id='Footnote_0234'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0234'><span class='label'>[234]</span></a> +<p>The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable interview +I have hitherto only traced to “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of +A. Pope, Esq., by William Ayre, Esq.,” 1745, vol. i. p. 100. This work +comes in a very suspicious form; it is a huddled compilation, yet contains +some curious matters; and pretends, in the title-page, to be occasionally +drawn from “original MSS. and the testimonies of persons of honour.” +He declares, in the preface, that he and his friends “had means and some +helps which were never public.” He sometimes appeals to several noble +friends of Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publication, and +that of its execution, are not in its favour. These volumes were written +within six months of the decease of our poet; have no publisher’s name; +and yet the author, whoever he was, took out “a patent, under his +majesty’s royal signet,” for securing the copyright. This Ayre is so obscure +an author, though a translator of Tasso’s “Aminta,” that he seems to +have escaped even the minor chronicles of literature. At the time of its +publication there appeared “Remarks on Squire Ayre’s Memoirs of Pope.” +The writer pretends he has discovered him to be only one of the renowned +Edmund Curll’s “squires,” who, about that time, had created an order of +literary squires, ready to tramp at the funeral of every great personage +with his life. The “Remarker” then addresses Curll, and insinuates he +speaks from personal knowledge of the man:—“You have an adversaria +of title-pages of your own contrivance, and which your authors are to write +books to. Among what you call <i>the occasional, or black list</i>, I have seen +Memoirs of Dean Swift, Pope, &c.” Curll, indeed, was then sending forth +many pseudo squires, with lives of “Congreve,” “Mrs. Oldfield,” &c.; all +which contained some curious particulars, picked up in coffee-houses, conversations, +or pamphlets of the day. This William Ayre I accept as “a +squire of low degree,” but a real personage. As for this interview, Ayre +was certainly incompetent to the invention of a single stroke of the conversations +detailed: where he obtained all these interesting particulars, I have +not discovered. Johnson alludes to this interview, states some of its results, +but refers to no other authority than floating rumours.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0235' id='Footnote_0235'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0235'><span class='label'>[235]</span></a> +<p>The line stood originally, and nearly literally copied from Isaiah—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes;”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>which Steele retouched, as it now stands—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“From every face he wipes off every tear.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks, has too +much of modern quaintness. The difficulty of choice lies between that +naked simplicity which scarcely affects, and those strokes of art which are +too apparent.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0236' id='Footnote_0236'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0236'><span class='label'>[236]</span></a> +<p>The last line of Addison’s tragedy read originally—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“And oh! ’twas this that ended Cato’s life.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>A very weak line, which was altered at the suggestion of Pope as it stands +at present:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“And robs the guilty world of Cato’s life.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0237' id='Footnote_0237'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0237'><span class='label'>[237]</span></a> +<p>At the time, to season the tale for the babble of Literary Tattlers, it +was propagated that <span class='smcap'>Pope</span> intended, on the death of <span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke</span>, to sell +this eighteenpenny pamphlet at a guinea a copy; which would have produced +an addition of as many hundreds to the thousands which the poet +had honourably reaped from his Homer. This was the ridiculous lie of +the day, which lasted long enough to obtain its purpose, and to cast an +odium on the shade of Pope. Pope must have been a miserable calculator +of <i>survivorships</i>, if ever he had reckoned on this.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0238' id='Footnote_0238'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0238'><span class='label'>[238]</span></a> +<p>Splendid as was the genius of Bolingbroke, the gigantic force of Warburton +obtained the superiority. Had the contest solely depended on the +effusions of genius, Bolingbroke might have prevailed; but an object more +important than human interests induced the poet to throw himself into the +arms of Warburton.</p> +<p>The “Essay on Man” had been reformed by the subtle aid of Warburton, +in opposition to the objectionable principles which Bolingbroke had +infused into his system of philosophy: this, no doubt, had vexed Bolingbroke. +But another circumstance occurred of a more mortifying nature. When +Pope one day showed Warburton Bolingbroke’s “Letters on the Study and +Use of History,” printed, but not published, and concealing the name of +the author, Warburton not only made several very free strictures on that +work, but particularly attacked a digression concerning the authenticity of +the Old Testament. Pope requested him to write his remarks down as +they had occurred, which he instantly did; and Pope was so satisfied with +them, that he crossed out the digression in the printed book, and sent the +animadversions to Lord Bolingbroke, then at Paris. The style of the great +dogmatist, thrown out in heat, must no doubt have contained many fiery +particles, all which fell into the most inflammable of minds. Pope soon discovered +his officiousness was received with indignation. Yet when Bolingbroke +afterwards met Warburton he dissimulated: he used the language of +compliment, but in a tone which claimed homage. The two most arrogant +geniuses who ever lived, in vain exacted submission from each other: they +could allow of no divided empire, and they were born to hate each other. +Bolingbroke suppressed his sore feelings, for at that very time he was employed +in collecting matter to refute the objections; treasuring up his +secret vengeance against Pope and Warburton, which he threw out immediately +on the death of Pope. I collect these particulars from Ruffhead, +p. 527, and whenever, in that volume, Warburton’s name is introduced, it +must be considered as coming from himself.</p> +<p>The reasonings of Bolingbroke appear at times to have disturbed the +religious faith of our poet, and he owed much to Warburton in having that +faith confirmed. But Pope rejected, with his characteristic good sense, +Warburton’s tampering with him to abjure the Catholic religion. On the +belief of a future state, Pope seems often to have meditated with great +anxiety; and an anecdote is recorded of his latest hours, which shows how +strongly that important belief affected him. A day or two before his death +he was at times delirious, and about four o’clock in the morning he rose +from bed and went to the library, where a friend who was watching him +found him busily writing. He persuaded him to desist, and withdrew the +paper he had written. The subject of the thoughts of the delirious poet +was a new theory on the “Immortality of the Soul,” in which he distinguished +between those material objects which tended to strengthen his +conviction, and those which weakened it. The paper which contained +these disordered thoughts was shown to Warburton, and surely has been +preserved.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0239' id='Footnote_0239'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0239'><span class='label'>[239]</span></a> +<p>“A letter to the Lord Viscount B——ke, occasioned by his treatment of +a deceased friend.” Printed for A. Moore, without date. This pamphlet +either came from Warburton himself, or from one of his intimates. The +writer, too, calls Pope his friend.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0240' id='Footnote_0240'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0240'><span class='label'>[240]</span></a> +<p>We find also the name of Mallet closely connected with another person +of eminence, the Patriot-Poet, Leonidas Glover. I take this opportunity +of correcting a surmise of Johnson’s in his Life of Mallet, respecting +Glover, and which also places Mallet’s character in a true light.</p> +<p>A minute life of Mallet might exhibit a curious example of mediocrity +of talent, with but suspicious virtues, brought forward by the accident of +great connexions, placing a bustling intriguer much higher in the scale of +society than “our philosophy ever dreamt of.” Johnson says of Mallet, +that “It was remarkable of him, that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen +did not commend.” From having been accidentally chosen as private +tutor to the Duke of Montrose, he wound himself into the favour of the +party at Leicester House; he wrote tragedies conjointly with Thomson, and +was appointed, with Glover, to write the Life of the Duke of Marlborough. +Yet he had already shown to the world his scanty talent for biography in +his “Life of Lord Bacon,” on which Warburton so acutely animadverted.</p> +<p>According to Johnson’s account, the Duchess of Marlborough assigned the +task of writing the Life of the Duke to Glover and to Mallet, with a remuneration +of a thousand pounds. She must, however, have mortified the +poets by subjoining the sarcastic prohibition that “no verses should be +inserted.” Johnson adds, “Glover, <i>I suppose, rejected with disdain the +legacy</i>, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet.”</p> +<p>The cause why Glover declined this work could not, indeed, be known to +Johnson: it arose from a far more dignified motive than the petty disdain +of the legacy, which our great literary biographer has surmised. It can +now be told in his own words, which I derive from a very interesting +extract communicated to me by my friend Mr. Duppa, from that portion of +the MS. Memoirs of Glover not yet published.</p> +<p>I shall first quote the remarkable codicil from the original will of her +Grace, which Mr. Duppa took the pains to consult. She assigns her +reasons for the choice of her historians, and discriminates between the two +authors. After bequeathing the thousand pounds for them, she adds: “I +believe Mr. Glover is a very honest man, who wishes, as I do, all the good +that can happen, to preserve the liberties and laws of England. Mr. +Mallet was recommended to me by the late Duke of Montrose, whom I +admired extremely for his great steadiness and behaviour in all things that +related to the preservation of our laws and the public good.”—Thus her +Grace has expressed a personal knowledge and confidence in Glover, distinctly +marked from her “recommended” acquaintance Mallet.</p> +<p>Glover refused the office of historian, not from “disdain of the +legacy,” nor for any deficient zeal for the hero whom he admired. He +refused it with sorrowful disappointment; for, besides the fantastical restrictions +of “not writing any verses;” and the cruel one of yoking such a +patriot with the servile Mallet, there was one which placed the revision of +the work in the hands of the Earl of Chesterfield: this was the <i>circumstance</i> +at which the dignified genius of Glover revolted. Chesterfield’s +mean political character had excited his indignation; and he has drawn a +lively picture of this polished nobleman’s “eager prostitution,” in his +printed Memoirs, recently published under the title of “Memoirs of a +celebrated Literary and Political Character,” p. 24.</p> +<p>In the following passage, this great-minded man, for such he was, +“unburthens his heart in a melancholy digression from his plain narrative.”</p> +<p>“Composing such a narrative (alluding to his own Memoirs) and endeavouring +to establish such a temper of mind, I cannot at intervals refrain +from regret that the <i>capricious restrictions</i> in the Duchess of Marlborough’s +will, appointing me to write the life of her illustrious husband, +compelled me to reject the undertaking. There, conduct, valour, and success +abroad; prudence, perseverance, learning, and science, at home; +would have shed some portion of their graces on their historian’s page: a +mediocrity of talent would have felt an unwonted elevation in the bare +attempt of transmitting so splendid a period to succeeding ages.” Such +was the dignified regret of Glover!</p> +<p>Doubtless, he disdained, too, his colleague; but Mallet reaped the whole +legacy, and still more, a pension: pretending to be always occupied on the +Life of Marlborough, and every day talking of the great discoveries he had +made, he contrived to make this nonentity serve his own purposes. Once +hinting to Garrick, that, in spite of chronology, by some secret device of +anticipation, he had reserved a niche in this great work for the Roscius of +his own times, the gratitude of Garrick was instant. He recollected that +Mallet was a tragedy-writer; and it also appeared that our dramatic +bardling had one ready. As for the pretended Life of Marlborough, not a +line appears ever to have been written!</p> +<p>Such was the end of the ardent solicitude and caprice of the Duchess of +Marlborough, exemplified in the last solemn act of life, where she betrayed +the same warmth of passion, and the same arrogant caprice she had always +indulged, at the cost of her judgment, in what Pope emphatically terms +“the trade of the world.” She was</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The wisest fool much time has ever made.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Even in this darling project of her last ambition, to immortalise her +name, she had incumbered it with such arrogant injunctions, mixed up +such contrary elements, that they were certain to undo their own purpose. +Such was the barren harvest she gathered through a life of passion, +regulated by no principle of conduct. One of the most finished portraits of +Pope is the Atossa, in his “Epistle on Woman.” How admirably he shows +what the present instant proves, that she was one who, always possessing +the <i>means</i>, was sure to lose the <i>ends</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0241' id='Footnote_0241'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0241'><span class='label'>[241]</span></a> +<p>“Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, by several Hands,” 1712.—The +second edition appeared in 1714; and in the title-page are enumerated +the poems mentioned in this account, and Pope’s name affixed, as if he +were the actual editor—an idea which Mr. Nichols thought he affected to +discountenance. It is probable that Pope was the editor. We see, by this +account, that he was paid for his contributions.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0242' id='Footnote_0242'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0242'><span class='label'>[242]</span></a> +<p>This was a new edition, published conjointly by Lintot and Lewis, the +Catholic bookseller and early friend of Pope, of whom, and of the first +edition, 1711, I have preserved an anecdote, p. <a href='#page_280'>280</a>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0243' id='Footnote_0243'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0243'><span class='label'>[243]</span></a> +<p>The late Isaac Reed, in the Biog. Dramatica, was uncertain whether +Gay was the author of this unacted drama. It is a satire on the inhuman +frolics of the bucks and bloods of those days, who imitated the savageness +of the Indians whose name they assumed.<a name='FNanchor_0244' id='FNanchor_0244'></a><a href='#Footnote_0244' class='fnanchor'>[244]</a> Why Gay repurchased “The +Mohocks,” remains to be discovered. Was it another joint production with +Pope?—The literary co-partnership between Pope and Gay has never been +opened to the curious. It is probable that Pope was consulted, if not +concerned, in writing “The What d’ye call it?” which, Jacob says in his +“Poetical Register,” “exposes several of our eminent poets.” Jacob published +while Gay was living, and seems to allude to this literary co-partnership; +for, speaking of Gay, he says: “that having an inclination to +poetry, by the strength of his own genius, and the <i>conversation</i> of Mr. +Pope, he has made some progress in poetical writings.”</p> +<p>This tragi-comical farce of “The Mohocks” is satirically dedicated to +Dennis, “as a <i>horrid</i> and <i>tremendous</i> piece, formed on the model of his +own ‘Appius and Virginia.’” This touch seems to come from the finger +of Pope. It is a mock-tragedy, for the Mohocks themselves rant in blank +verse; a feeble performance, far inferior to its happier predecessor, “The +What d’ye call it?”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0244' id='Footnote_0244'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0244'><span class='label'>[244]</span></a> +<p>The brutal amusements of these “Mohocks,” and the helpless terror +of London, is scarcely credible in modern days. Wild bands of drunken men +nightly infested the streets, attacking and ill-using every passer-by. A +favourite pastime was to surround their victim with drawn swords, pricking +him on every side as he endeavoured to escape. Many persons were +maimed and dangerously wounded. Gay, in his <i>Trivia</i>, has noted some of +their more innocent practical jokes; and asks—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Who has not trembled at the Mohock’s name?<br /> +Was there a watchman took his hourly rounds,<br /> +Safe from their blows or new invented wounds?”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Swift, in his notes to Stella, has expressed his dread, while in London, +of being maimed, or perhaps killed, by them.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0245' id='Footnote_0245'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0245'><span class='label'>[245]</span></a> +<p>Bought of Mr. George Strahan, bookseller.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0246' id='Footnote_0246'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0246'><span class='label'>[246]</span></a> +<p>For an account of these humorous pieces, see the following article on +“The Royal Society.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0247' id='Footnote_0247'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0247'><span class='label'>[247]</span></a> +<p>The fullest account we have of Settle, a busy scribe in his day, is in +Mr. Nichols’s “Literary Anecdotes,” vol. i. p. 41.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0248' id='Footnote_0248'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0248'><span class='label'>[248]</span></a> +<p>It was the custom when party feeling ran high on the subject of +papacy, towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, to get up +these solemn mock-processions of the Pope and Cardinals, accompanied +with figures to represent Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, and other subjects well +adapted to heat popular feelings, and parade them through the streets of +London. The day chosen for this was the anniversary of the Coronation of +Queen Elizabeth (Nov. 17), and when the procession reached Temple-bar, +the figure of the Pope was tossed from his chair by one dressed as the Devil +into a great bonfire made opposite the statue of Queen Elizabeth, on the +city side of Temple-bar. Two rare tracts describe these “solemn mock-processions,” +as they are termed, in 1679 and 1680. Prints were also +published depicting the whole proceedings, and descriptive pamphlets from +the pen of Settle, who arranged these shows.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0249' id='Footnote_0249'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0249'><span class='label'>[249]</span></a> +<p>Thus altered in the <i>Dunciad</i>, book i., ver. 183—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“As clocks to weight their nimble motions owe,<br /> +The wheels above urged by the load below.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0250' id='Footnote_0250'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0250'><span class='label'>[250]</span></a> +<p>This original image a late caustic wit (Horne Tooke), who probably +had never read this poem, employed on a certain occasion. Godwin, who +had then distinguished himself by his genius and by some hardy paradoxes, +was pleading for them as hardily, by showing that they did not originate in +him—that they were to be found in Helvetius, in Rousseau, and in +other modern philosophers. “Ay,” retorted the cynical wit; “so you eat +at my table venison and turtle, but from you the same things come quite +changed!” The original, after all, is in Donne, long afterwards versified +by our poet. See Warton’s edition, vol. iv. p. 257. Pope must have been +an early reader of Donne.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0251' id='Footnote_0251'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0251'><span class='label'>[251]</span></a> +<p>Thus altered in the <i>Dunciad</i>, book i. ver. 181—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,<br /> +And pond’rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0252' id='Footnote_0252'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0252'><span class='label'>[252]</span></a> +<p>Perhaps, by <i>Chærilus</i>, the juvenile satirist designated <i>Flecknoe</i>, or +<i>Shadwell</i>, who had received their immortality of dulness from his master, +catholic in poetry and opinions, Dryden.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0253' id='Footnote_0253'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0253'><span class='label'>[253]</span></a> +<p>Some may be curious to have these monkish terms defined. <i>Causes</i> +are distinguished by Aristotle into four kinds:—The material cause, <i>ex +qua</i>, out of which things are made; the formal cause, <i>per quam</i>, by which +a thing is that which it is, and nothing else; the efficient cause, <i>a qua</i>, by +the agency of which anything is produced; and the final cause, <i>propter +quam</i>, the end for which it is produced. Such are his notions in his +Phys. 1. ii. c. iii., referred to by Brucker and Formey in their Histories of +Philosophy. Of the Scholastic Metaphysics, <i>Sprat</i>, the historian of the +Royal Society, observes, “that the lovers of that cloudy knowledge boast +that it is an excellent instrument to refine and make subtle the minds of +men. But there may be <i>a greater excess in the subtlety of men’s wits</i> +than in their <i>thickness</i>; as we see those threads, which are of too fine a +spinning, are found to be more useless than those which are homespun and +gross.”—<i>History of the Royal Society</i>, p. 326.</p> +<p>In the history of human folly, often so closely connected with that of +human knowledge, some of the schoolmen (the commentators on Aquinas +and others) prided themselves, and were even admired for their impenetrable +obscurity! One of them, and our countryman, is singularly commended +by Cardan, for that “only one of his arguments was enough to +puzzle all posterity; and that, when he had grown old, he wept because +he could not understand his own books.” Baker, in his Reflections upon +Learning, who had examined this schoolman, declares that his obscurity is +such, as if he never meant to be understood. The extravagances of the +schoolmen are, however, not always those of Aristotle. Pope, and the +wits of that day, like these early members of the Royal Society, decried +Aristotle, who did not probably fall in the way of their studies. His +great imperfections are in natural philosophy; but he still preserves his +eminence for his noble treatises of Ethics, and Politics, and Poetics, notwithstanding +the imperfect state in which these have reached us. Dr. +Copleston and Dr. Gillies have given an energetic testimony to their perpetual +value. Pope, in satirising the University as a nest of dunces, considered +the followers of Aristotle as so many stalled oxen, “<i>fat bulls of +Basan</i>.”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“A hundred head of Aristotle’s friends.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Dunciad.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Swift has drawn an allegorical personage of Aristotle, by which he +describes the nature of his works. “He stooped much, and made use of +a staff; his visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice +hollow;” descriptive of his abrupt conciseness, his harsh style, the obscurities +of his dilapidated text, and the deficiency of feeling, which his studied +compression, his deep sagacity, and his analytical genius, so frequently +exhibit.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0254' id='Footnote_0254'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0254'><span class='label'>[254]</span></a> +<p>Sprat makes an ingenious observation on the notion of those who declared +that “<i>the most learned ages are still the most atheistical, and the +ignorant the most devout</i>.” He says this had become almost proverbial, but +he shows that piety is little beholden to those who make this distinction. +“The Jewish law forbids us to offer up to God a sacrifice that has a +blemish; but these men bestow the most excellent of men on the devil, +and only assign to religion those men and those times which have the +greatest blemish of human nature, even a defect in their knowledge and +understanding.”—<i>History of the Royal Society</i>, p. 356.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0255' id='Footnote_0255'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0255'><span class='label'>[255]</span></a> +<p>Science, at its birth, is as much the child of imagination as curiosity; +and, in rapture at the new instrument it has discovered, it impatiently +magnifies its power. To the infant, all improvements are wonders; it +chronicles even its dreams, and has often described what it never has seen, +delightfully deceived; the cold insults of the cynics, the wits, the dull, +and the idle, maliciously mortify the infant in its sports, till it returns to +slow labour and patient observation. It is rather curious, however, that +when science obtains a certain state of maturity, it is liable to be attacked +by the same fits of the marvellous which affected its infancy;—and the +following extract from one of the enthusiastic <i>Virtuosi</i> in the infancy of +science, rivals the visions of “the perfectibility of man” of which we hear +so much at this late period. Some, perhaps, may consider these strong +tendencies of the imagination, breaking out at these different periods in the +history of science, to indicate results, of which the mind feels a consciousness, +which the philosopher should neither indulge nor check.</p> +<p>“Should these heroes go on (the Royal Society) as they have happily +begun, they will fill the world with wonders; and posterity will find many +things that are now but <i>rumours</i>, verified into practical <i>realities</i>. It may be, +some ages hence, a <i>voyage</i> to the southern unknown tracts, yea, possibly the +<i>Moon</i>, will not be more strange than one to America. To them that come +after us, it may be as ordinary to <i>buy a pair of wings</i> to fly into remotest +regions, as now <i>a pair of boots</i> to ride a journey. And to confer at the +distance of the Indies, by <i>sympathetic conveyances</i>, may be as usual to +future times, as to us in a literary correspondence. The restoration of +<i>grey hairs to juvenility</i>, and renewing the <i>exhausted marrow</i>, may at +length, be effected without a miracle; and the turning the now-comparative +<i>desert world</i> into a <i>paradise</i>, may not improbably be expected from late +<i>agriculture</i>.</p> +<p>“Those that judge by the narrowness of former principles and successes, +will smile at these paradoxical expectations. But the great inventions of +latter ages, which altered the face of all things, in their naked proposals +and mere suppositions, were to former times as ridiculous. To have talked +of a new earth to have been discovered, had been a romance to antiquity; +and to sail without sight of stars or shores, by the guidance of a mineral, +a story more absurd than the flight of Dædalus. That men should speak +after their tongues were ashes, or communicate with each other in differing +hemispheres, before the invention of letters, could not but have been +thought a fiction. Antiquity would not have believed the almost incredible +force of our cannons, and would as coldly have entertained the wonders of +the telescope.”—<span class='smcap'>Glanvill</span>, <i>Scepsis Scientifica</i>, p. 133.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0256' id='Footnote_0256'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0256'><span class='label'>[256]</span></a> +<p>Evelyn, whose elegant mind, one would have imagined, had been little +susceptible of such vehement anger, in the preface to his “Sylva,” scolds +at no common rate: “Well-meaning people are led away by the noise of a +few ignorant and comical buffoons, who, with an insolence suitable to their +understanding, are still crying out, <i>What have the Society done?</i>” He +attributes all the opposition and ridicule the Society encountered to a personage +not usual to be introduced into a philosophical controversy—“The +Enemy of Mankind.” But it was well to denounce the devil himself, as +the Society had nearly lost the credit of fearing him. Evelyn insists that +“next to the propagation of our most holy faith,” that of the new philosophy +was desirable both for the king and the nation; “for,” he adds, +“it will survive the triumphs of the proudest conquerors; since, when all +their pomp and noise is ended, they are those <i>little things in black</i>, whom +now in scorn they term philosophers and fops, to whom they must be obliged +for making their names outlast the pyramids, whose founders are as unknown +as the heads of the Nile.” Why Evelyn designates the philosophers +as <i>little things in black</i>, requires explanation. Did they affect a dress of +this colour in the reign of Charles II., or does he allude to the dingy +appearance of the chemists?</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0257' id='Footnote_0257'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0257'><span class='label'>[257]</span></a> +<p>It is not easy to credit the simplicity of these early inquirers. In a +Memorial in Sprat’s History, entitled, “Answers returned by Sir Philliberto +Vernatti to certain Inquiries sent by order of the Royal Society;” +among some of the most extraordinary questions and descriptions of nonentities, +which must have fatigued Sir Philliberto, who then resided in +Batavia, I find the present:—“Qy. 8. What ground there may be for +that relation concerning <i>horns taking root, and growing about Goa</i>?” It +seems the question might as well have been asked at London, and answered +by some of the members themselves; for Sir Philliberto gravely replied—“Inquiring +about this, a friend laughed, and told me it was a jeer put +upon the Portuguese, because the women of Goa are counted none of the +chastest.” Inquiries of this nature, and often the most trivial objects set +off with a singular minuteness of description, tempted the laugh of the +scoffers. Their great adversary, Stubbe, ridiculing their mode of giving +instructions for inquiries, regrets that the paper he received from them +had been lost, otherwise he would have published it. “The great Mr. +Boyle, when he brought it, tendered it with blushing and disorder,” at the +simplicity of the Royal Society! And indeed the royal founder himself, +who, if he was something of a philosopher, was much more of a wit, set +the example. The Royal Society, on the day of its creation, was the whetstone +of the wit of their patron. When Charles II. dined with the members +on the occasion of constituting them a Royal Society, towards the close +of the evening he expressed his satisfaction in being the first English +monarch who had laid a foundation for a society who proposed that their +sole studies should be directed to the investigation of the arcana of nature; +and added with that peculiar gravity of countenance he usually wore on +such occasions, that among such learned men he now hoped for a solution +to a question which had long perplexed him. The case he thus stated:—“Suppose +two pails of water were fixed in two different scales that were +equally poised, and which weighed equally alike, and that two live bream, +or small fish, were put into either of these pails, he wanted to know the +reason why that pail, with such addition, should not weigh more than the +other pail which stood against it.” Every one was ready to set at quiet +the royal curiosity; but it appeared that every one was giving a different +opinion. One, at length, offered so ridiculous a solution, that another of +the members could not refrain from a loud laugh; when the King, turning +to him, insisted that he should give his sentiments as well as the rest. +This he did without hesitation, and told his majesty, in plain terms, that +he denied the fact! On which the King, in high mirth, exclaimed—“Odds +fish, brother, you are in the right!” The jest was not ill designed. +The story was often useful, to cool the enthusiasm of the scientific visionary, +who is apt often to account for what never has existed.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0258' id='Footnote_0258'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0258'><span class='label'>[258]</span></a> +<p>Pope was severe in his last book of the <i>Dunciad</i> on the students +of insects, flowers, &c.; and R.O. Cambridge followed out the idea of a +mad virtuoso in his “Scribleriad,” which he has made up from the absurd +or trifling parts of natural history and philosophy. His hero is—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“A much-enduring man, whose curious soul<br /> +Bore him with ceaseless toil from pole to pole;<br /> +Insatiate endless knowledge to obtain,<br /> +Thro’ woes by land, thro’ dangers on the main.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He collects curiosities from all parts of the world; studies occult and +natural sciences; and is at last beatified by electrical glories at a meeting +of hermetical philosophers. This poem is elucidated by notes, which +point the allusions to the works or doings of the old philosophers.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0259' id='Footnote_0259'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0259'><span class='label'>[259]</span></a> +<p>Evelyn, who could himself be a wit occasionally, was, however, much +annoyed by the scorners. He applies to these wits a passage in Nehemiah +ii. 19, which describes those who laughed at the <i>builders of Jerusalem</i>. +“These are the Sanballats, the Horonites, who disturb our men upon the +wall; but <i>let us rise up and build</i>!” He describes these Horonites of +wit as “magnificent fops, whose talents reach but to the adjusting of their +perukes.” But the Royal Society was attacked from other quarters, which +ought to have assisted them. Evelyn, in his valuable treatise on forest-trees, +had inserted a new project for making cider; and Stubbe insisted, +that in consequence “much cider had been spoiled within these three +years, by following the directions published by the commands of the Royal +Society.” They afterwards announced that they never considered themselves +as answerable for their own memoirs, which gave Stubbe occasion +to boast that he had forced them to deny what they had written. A passage +in Hobbes’s “Considerations upon his Reputation, &c.,” is as remarkable +for the force of its style as for that of sense, and may be applicable +to <i>some</i> at this day, notwithstanding the progress of science, and the +importance attached to their busy idleness.</p> +<p>“Every man that hath spare money can get furnaces, and buy coals. +Every man that hath spare money can be at the charge of making great +moulds, &c., and so may have the best and greatest telescopes. They can +get engines made, recipients made, and try conclusions; but they are +never the more philosophers for all this. ’Tis laudable to bestow money +on curious or useful delights, but that is none of the praises of a philosopher.” +p. 53.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0260' id='Footnote_0260'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0260'><span class='label'>[260]</span></a> +<p>Glanvill was a learned man, but evidently superstitious, particularly +in all that related to witchcraft and apparitions; the reality of both being +insisted on by him in a series of books which he published at various +periods of his life, and which he continually worked upon with new arguments +and instances, in spite of all criticism or opposition. He was a +member of the Royal Society, prebend of Worcester, and rector of Bath, +where he died, October 4, 1680.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0261' id='Footnote_0261'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0261'><span class='label'>[261]</span></a> +<p>The ninth chapter in the “Plus Ultra,” entitled “The Credit of +Optic Glasses vindicated against a disputing man, who is afraid to believe +his eyes against Aristotle,” gives one of the ludicrous incidents of this +philosophical visit. The disputer raised a whimsical objection against the +science of optics, insisting that the newly-invented glasses, the telescope, +the microscope, &c., were all deceitful and fallacious; for, said the Aristotelian, +“take two spectacles, use them at the same time, and you will +not see so well as with one singly—<i>ergo</i>, your microscopes and telescopes +are impostors.” How this was forced into a syllogism does not appear; +but still the conclusion ran, “We can see better through one pair than +two, therefore all perspectives are fallacious!”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>One proposition for sense,<br /> +And t’other for convenience,</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>will make a tolerable syllogism for a logician in despair. The Aristotelian +was, however, somewhat puzzled by a problem which he had himself raised—“Why +we cannot see with two pair of spectacles better than with one +singly?” for the man of axioms observed, “<i>Vis unita fortior</i>,” “United +strength <i>is stronger</i>.” It is curious enough, in the present day, to observe +the sturdy Aristotelian denying these discoveries, and the praises of optics, +and “the new glasses,” by Glanvill. “If this philosopher,” says the +member of the Royal Society, “had spared some of those thoughts to the +profitable doctrine of optics which he hath spent upon <i>genus</i> and <i>species</i>, +we had never heard of this objection.” And he replies to the paradox +which the Aristotelian had raised by “Why cannot he write better with +<i>two pens</i> than with a <i>single one</i>, since <i>Vis unita fortior</i>? When he hath +answered this <i>Quære</i>, he hath resolved his own. The reason he gave why +it should be so, is the reason why ’tis not.” Such are the squabbles of +infantine science, which cannot as yet discover causes, although it has +ascertained effects.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0262' id='Footnote_0262'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0262'><span class='label'>[262]</span></a> +<p>This appears in chap. xviii. of the “Plus Ultra.” With great simplicity +Glanvill relates:—“At this period of the conference, the disputer +lost all patience, and with sufficient spite and rage told me ‘that I was an +atheist!—that he had indeed desired my acquaintance, but would have no +more on’t,’ and so turned his back and went away, giving me time only to +answer that ‘I had no great reason to lament the loss of an acquaintance +that could be so easily forfeited.’” The following chapter vindicates the +Royal Society from the charge of atheism! to assure the world they were +not to be ranked “among the black conspirators against Heaven!” We +see the same objections again occurring in the modern system of geology.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0263' id='Footnote_0263'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0263'><span class='label'>[263]</span></a> +<p>This book was so scarce in 1757, that the writer in the “Biographia +Britannica” observes that this “small but elegant treatise is still very +much esteemed by the curious, being become so scarce as not to be met +with in other hands.” Oldys, in 1738, had, in his “British Librarian,” +selected this work among the scarce and valuable books of which he has +presented us with so many useful analyses.</p> +<p>The history of books is often curious. At one period a book is scarce +and valuable, and at another is neither one nor the other. This does not +always depend on the caprice of the public, or what may be called literary +fashions. Glanvill’s “Plus Ultra” is probably now of easy occurrence; +like a prophecy fully completed, the uncertain event being verified, the +prophet has ceased to be remembered.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0264' id='Footnote_0264'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0264'><span class='label'>[264]</span></a> +<p>His early history is given by Wood in his usual style. His father had +been a Lincolnshire parson, who was obliged to leave his poor curacy because +“anabaptistically inclined,” and fled to Ireland, whence his mother +and her children were obliged to return on the breaking out of the rebellion +of 1641, and landed at Liverpool; afterward, says Wood, “they all beated +it on the hoof thence to London, where she, gaining a comfortable subsistence +by her needle, sent her son Henry, being then ten years of age, to +the collegiate school at Westminster. At that time Mr. Richard Busbie was +the chief master, who finding the boy have pregnant parts to a miracle, did +much favour and encourage him. At length Sir Henry Vane, junior (the same +who was beheaded on Tower Hill, 1662), coming casually into the school +with Dr. Lambert Osbaldiston, he did, at the master’s motion, take a kindness +to the said boy, and gave him the liberty to resort to his house, and +to fill that belly which otherwise had no sustenance but what one penny +could purchase for his dinner: and as for his breakfast, he had none, except +he got it by making somebody’s exercise. Soon after, Sir Henry got him +to be a king’s scholar; and his master perceiving him to be beyond his +years in proficiency, he gave him money to buy books, clothes, and his +teaching for nothing.” Such was the humble beginning of a learned man, +who lived to be a formidable opponent to the whole body of the Royal +Society.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0265' id='Footnote_0265'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0265'><span class='label'>[265]</span></a> +<p>When Sprat and Glanvill, and others, had threatened to write his life, +Stubbe draws this apology for it, while he shows how much, in a time of +revolutions, the Royal Society might want one for themselves.</p> +<p>“I was so far from being daunted at those rumours and threats, that I +enlarged much this book thereupon, and resolved to charge the enemy +home when I saw how weak a resistance I should meet with. I knew +that recriminations were no answers. I understood well that the passages +of a life like mine, spent in different places with much privacy and obscurity, +was unknown to them; that even those actions they would fix their +greatest calumnies upon, were such as that they understood not the grounds, +nor had they learning enough and skill to condemn. I was at Westminster +School when the late king was beheaded. I never took covenant nor engagement. +In sum, <i>I served my patron</i>. I endeavoured to express my <i>gratitude</i> +to him who had relieved me, being a <i>child</i>, and in great poverty (the +rebellion in Ireland having deprived my parents of all means wherewith to +educate me); who made me a king’s scholar; preferred me to Christchurch +College, Oxon.; and who often supplied me with money when my tender +years gave him little hopes of any return; and who protected me amidst +the <i>Presbyterians</i>, and <i>Independents</i>, and other <i>sects</i>. With none thereof +did I contract any relation or acquaintance; my familiarity never engaged +me with ten of that party; and my genius and humour inclined me to +fewer. I neither enriched, nor otherwise advanced myself, during the late +troubles; and shared the common <i>odium</i> and <i>dangers</i>, not <i>prosperity</i>, +with my <i>benefactor</i>. I believe no generous man, who hath the least sense +of bravery, will condemn me; and I profess I am ashamed rather to have +done so little, than that I have done so much, for him that so frankly +obliged a <i>stranger</i> and a <i>child</i>. When Gracchus was put to death for +sedition, that faithful friend and accomplice of his was dismissed, and +mentioned with honour by all posterity, who, when he was impeached, +<i>justified his treason</i> by the avowing a <i>friendship</i> so great that, whatever +Gracchus had commanded him, he would not have declined it. And being +further questioned, whether he would have burned the capitol at his +bidding? he replied again, that he should have done it; but Gracchus +would not bid such a thing. They that knew me heretofore, know I have +a thousand times thus apologised for myself; adding, that in <i>vassals</i> and +<i>slaves</i>, and persons <i>transcendently obliged</i>, their fidelity exempted them +from all ignominy, though the principal <i>lords</i>, <i>masters</i>, and <i>patrons</i>, might +be accounted <i>traitors</i>. My youth and other circumstances incapacitated +me from rendering him any great services; but <i>all that I did</i>, and <i>all that +I writ</i>, had no other aim than <i>his interest</i>; nor do I care how much any man +can inodiate my former writings, as long as they were subservient to him.</p> +<p>“Having made this declaration, let them (or more able men than they) +write the life of a man who hath some virtues of the most celebrated times, +and hath preserved himself free from the vices of these. My reply shall +be a scornful silence.”—Preface to Stubbe’s “Legends no Histories,” 1670.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0266' id='Footnote_0266'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0266'><span class='label'>[266]</span></a> +<p>His reasons for conformity on these important objects are given with +his usual simplicity. “I have at length removed all the umbrages I ever +lay under. I have joined myself to the Church of England, not only upon +account of its being <i>publicly imposed</i> (which in <i>things indifferent</i> is no +small consideration, as I learned from the Scottish transactions at Perth), +but because it is <i>the least defining</i>, and consequently <i>the most comprehensive +and fitting to be national</i>.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0267' id='Footnote_0267'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0267'><span class='label'>[267]</span></a> +<p>He died at Bath in 1676, where he had gone in attendance upon +several of his patients from the neighbourhood of Warwick, where he for +a long time practised as a physician. His old antagonist Glanvill was at +that time rector of the Abbey Church in which he was buried, and so became +the preacher of his funeral sermon. Wood says he “said no great +matter of him.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0268' id='Footnote_0268'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0268'><span class='label'>[268]</span></a> +<p>Pope said to Spence, “It was Dryden who made Will’s coffee-house +the great resort for the wits of his time. After his death Addison transferred +it to Button’s, who had been a servant of his.” Will’s coffee-house +was at the corner of Bow-street, Covent-garden, and Button’s close by in +Russell-street.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0269' id='Footnote_0269'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0269'><span class='label'>[269]</span></a> +<p>“Some years after the king’s restoration he took pet against the +Royal Society, (for which before he had a great veneration,) and being encouraged +by Dr. Jo. Fell, no admirer of that society, became in his writings +an inveterate enemy against it for several pretended reasons: among which +were, first, that the members thereof intended to bring a contempt upon +ancient and solid learning, upon Aristotle, to undermine the universities, +and reduce them to nothing, or at least to be very inconsiderable. Secondly, +that at long running to destroy the established religion, and involve +the nation in popery, and I know not what, &c. So dexterous was his +pen, whether <i>pro</i> or <i>con</i>, that few or none could equal, answer, or come +near him. He was a person of most admirable parts, had a most prodigious +memory, though his enemies would not acknowledge it, but said he +read indexes; was the most noted Latinist and Grecian of his age; and +after he had been put upon it, was so great an enemy to the <i>virtuosi</i> of his +time, I mean those of the Royal Society, that, as he saith, they alarmed him +with dangers and troubles even to the hazard of his life and fortunes.”—<i>Wood.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0270' id='Footnote_0270'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0270'><span class='label'>[270]</span></a> +<p>The aspersed passage in Glanvill is this: “The philosophers of elder +times, though their wits were excellent, yet the way they took was not +like to bring much advantage to knowledge, or any of the uses of human +life, being, for the most part, that of <i>Notion</i> and <i>Dispute</i>, which still runs +round in a labyrinth of talk, but advanceth nothing. <i>These methods</i>, in so +many centuries, <i>never brought the world so much practical beneficial +knowledge as could help towards the cure of a cut finger</i>.” Plus Ultra, +p. 7.—Stubbe, with all the malice of a wit, drew his inference, and +turned the point unfairly against his adversary!</p> +<p>I shall here observe how much some have to answer, in a literary court +of conscience, when they unfairly depreciate the works of a contemporary; +and how idly the literary historian performs his task, whenever he +adopts the character of a writer from another who is his adversary. This +may be particularly shown in the present instance.</p> +<p><span class='smcap'>Morhoff</span>, in his <i>Polyhistor Litteraria</i>, censures the <i>Plus Ultra</i> of +Glanvill, conceiving that he had treated with contempt all ages and nations +but his own. The German bibliographer had never seen the book, but took +its character from Stubbe and Meric Casaubon. The design of the <i>Plus +Ultra</i>, however, differs little from the other works of Glanvill, which +Morhoff had seen, and has highly commended.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0271' id='Footnote_0271'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0271'><span class='label'>[271]</span></a> +<p>The political reverie of Campanella was even suspected to cover very +opposite designs to those he seemed to be proposing to the world. He attempted +to turn men’s minds from all inquiries into politics and religion, to +mere philosophical ones. He wished that the passions of mankind might +be so directed, as to spend their force in philosophical discussions, and in +improvements in science. He therefore insisted on a uniformity on those +great subjects which have so long agitated modern Europe; for the ancients +seem to have had no wars merely for religion, and perhaps none for +modes of government. One may discover an enlightened principle in the +project; but the character of Campanella was a jumble of sense, subtlety, +and wildness. He probably masked his real intentions. He appears an +advocate for the firm establishment of the papal despotism; yet he aims to +give an enlightened principle to regulate the actions of mankind. The intentions +of a visionary are difficult to define. If he were really an advocate +for despotism, what occasioned an imprisonment for the greater part of +his days? Did he lay his project much deeper than the surface of things? +Did Campanella imagine that, if men were allowed to philosophise with +the utmost freedom, the despotism of religion and politics would dissolve +away in the weakness of its quiescent state?</p> +<p>The project is a chimera—but, according to the projector, the political +and religious freedom of <i>England</i> formed its greatest obstacle. Part of +his plan, therefore, includes the means of weakening the Insular heretics +by intestine divisions—a mode not seldom practised by the continental +powers of France and Spain.</p> +<p>The political project of this fervid genius was, that his “Prince,” the +Spanish king, should be the mightiest sovereign in Europe. For this, he +was first to prohibit all theological controversies from the Transalpine +schools, those of Germany, &c. “A controversy,” he observes, “always +shows a kind of victory, and may serve as an authority to a bad cause.” +He would therefore admit of no commentaries on the Bible, to prevent all +diversity of opinion. He would have revived the ancient philosophical +sects, instead of the modern religious sects.</p> +<p>The <i>Greek</i> and the <i>Hebrew</i> languages were not to be taught! for the +republican freedom of the ancient Jews and Grecians had often proved destructive +of monarchy. Hobbes, in the bold scheme of his <i>Leviathan</i>, +seems to have been aware of this fatality. Campanella would substitute +for these ancient languages the study of the <i>Arabic</i> tongue! The troublesome +Transalpine wits might then employ themselves in confuting the +Turks, rather than in vexing the Catholics; so closely did sagacity and +extravagance associate in the mind of this wild genius. But <i>Mathematical</i> +and <i>Astronomical</i> schools, and other institutions for the encouragement +of the <i>mechanical arts</i>, and particularly those to which the northern +genius is most apt, as navigation, &c., were to occupy the studies of the +people, divert them from exciting fresh troubles, and withdraw them from +theological factions. Campanella thus would make men great in science, +having first made them slaves in politics; a philosophical people were to +be the subjects of despots—not an impossible event!</p> +<p>His plan, remarkable enough, of <i>weakening the English</i>, I give in his +words:—“No better way can possibly be found than by causing divisions +and dissensions among them, and by continually keeping up the same; +which will furnish the Spaniard and the French with advantageous opportunities. +As for their religion, which is a moderated Calvinism, that +cannot be so easily extinguished and rooted out there, unless there were +some schools set up in Flanders, where the English have great commerce, +by means of which there may be scattered abroad the seeds of schism and +division. These people being of a nature which is still desirous of novelties +and change, they are easily wrought over to anything.” These <i>schools</i> +were tried at Douay in Flanders, and at Valladolid in Spain, and other +places. They became nests of rebellion for the English Catholics; or for +any one, who, being discontented with government, was easily converted to +any religion which aimed to overturn the British Constitution. The <i>secret +history</i> of the Roman Catholics in England remains yet to be told: they +indeed had their martyrs and their heroes; but the <i>public effects</i> appear in +the frequent executions which occurred in the reigns of Elizabeth and +James.</p> +<p>Stubbe appears to have imagined that the <span class='smcap'>Royal Society</span> was really +formed on the principle of Campanella; to withdraw the people from intermeddling +with <i>politics</i> and <i>religion</i>, by engaging them merely in philosophical +pursuits.—The reaction of the public mind is an object not always +sufficiently indicated by historians. The vile hypocrisy and mutual persecutions +of the numerous fanatics occasioned very relaxed and tolerant +principles of religion at the Restoration; as, the democratic fury having +spent itself, too great an indulgence was now allowed to monarchy. +Stubbe was alarmed that, should Popery be established, the crown of +England would become feudatory to foreign power, and embroil the nation +in the restitution of all the abbey lands, of which, at the Reformation, the +Church had so zealously been plundered. He was still further alarmed +that the <i>virtuosi</i> would influence the education of our youth to these purposes; +“an evil,” says he, “which has been guarded against by our ancestors +in founding <i>free-schools</i>, by uniformity of instruction cementing +men’s minds.” We now smile at these terrors; perhaps they were sometimes +real. The absolute necessity of strict conformity to the prevalent +religion of Europe was avowed in that unrivalled scheme of despotism, +which menaced to efface every trace of popular freedom, and the independence +of nations, under the dominion of Napoleon.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0272' id='Footnote_0272'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0272'><span class='label'>[272]</span></a> +<p>To this threat of writing his life, we have already noticed the noble +apology he has drawn up for the versatility of his opinions. See p. <a href='#page_347'>347</a>. +At the moment of the Restoration it was unwise for any of the parties to +reproach another for their opinions or their actions. In a national revolution, +most men are implicated in the general reproach; and Stubbe said, on +this occasion, that “he had observed worse faces in the society than his +own.” Waller, and Sprat, and Cowley had equally commemorated the +protectorship of Cromwell and the restoration of Charles. Our satirist +insidiously congratulates himself that “<i>he</i> had never compared Oliver the +regicide to Moses, or his son to Joshua;” nor that he had ever written any +Pindaric ode, “dedicated to the happy memory of the most renowned +Prince Oliver, Lord Protector:” nothing to recommend “the sacred urn” +of that blessed spirit to the veneration of posterity; as if</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“His <i>fame</i>, like men, the elder it doth grow,<br /> +Will of itself turn <i>whiter</i> too,<br /> +Without what needless art can do.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>These lines were, I think, taken from Sprat himself! Stubbe adds, it +would be “imprudent in them to look beyond the act of indemnity and +oblivion, which was more necessary to the Royal Society than to me, who +joined with no party, &c.”—<i>Preface to “Legends no Histories.”</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0273' id='Footnote_0273'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0273'><span class='label'>[273]</span></a> +<p>He has described this intercourse of his enemies at court with the +king, where, when this punishment was suggested, “a generous personage, +altogether unknown to me, being present, bravely and frankly interposed, +saying, that ‘whatever I was, I was a Roman; that Englishmen +were not so precipitously to be condemned to so exemplary a punishment; +that representing that book to be a libel against the king was too remote a +consequence to be admitted of in a nation free-born, and governed by laws, +and tender of ill precedents.’” It was a noble speech, in the relaxed +politics of the court of Charles II. He who made it deserved to have had +his name more explicitly told: he is designated as “that excellent Englishman, +the great ornament of this age, nation, and House of Commons; +he whose single worth balanceth much of the debaucheries, follies, and +impertinences of the kingdom.”—<i>A Reply unto the Letter written to Mr. +Henry Stubbe, Oxford, 1671</i>, p. 20.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0274' id='Footnote_0274'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0274'><span class='label'>[274]</span></a> +<p>Stubbe gives some curious information on this subject. Harvey published +his Treatise at Frankfort, 1628, but Cæsalpinus’s work had appeared +in 1593. Harvey adopted the notion, and more fully and perspicuously +proved it. I shall give what Stubbe says. “Harvey, in his two +Answers to Riolan, nowhere asserts the invention so to himself, as to deny +that he had the intimation or notion from Cæsalpinus; and his silence I +take for a tacit confession. His <i>ambition of glory</i> made him <i>willing to be +thought the author of a paradox</i> he had so illustrated, and brought upon +the stage, where <i>it lay unregarded</i>, and in all probability buried in oblivion; +yet such was his modesty, as not to vindicate it to himself by telling +a lie.”—<span class='smcap'>Stubbe’s</span> <i>Censure</i>, &c., p. 112.</p> +<p>I give this literary anecdote, as it enters into the history of most discoveries, +of which the <i>improvers</i>, rather than the <i>inventors</i>, are usually +the most known to the world. Bayle, who wrote much later than Stubbe, +asserts the same, and has preserved the entire passage, art. <i>Cæsalpinus</i>. +It is said Harvey is more expressly indebted to a passage in Servetus, +which Wotton has given in the preface to his “Reflections on Ancient and +Modern Learning,” edition 1725. The notion was probably then afloat, +and each alike contributed to its development. Thus it was disputed with +Copernicus, whether his great discovery of a fixed sun, and the earth +wheeling round that star, was his own; others had certainly observed it; +yet the invention was still Copernican: for that great genius alone corrected, +extended, and gave perfection to a hint, till it expanded to a +system.</p> +<p>So gradual have often been the great inventions of genius. What others +<i>conjectured</i>, and some <i>discovered</i>, Harvey <i>demonstrated</i>. The fate of +Harvey’s discovery is a curious instance of that patience and fortitude +which genius must too often exert in respect to itself. Though Harvey +lived to his eightieth year, he hardly witnessed his great discovery established +before he died; and it has been said, that he was the only one of +his contemporaries who lived to see it in some repute. No physician +adopted it; and when it got into vogue, they then disputed whether he +was the inventor! Sir William Temple denied not only the discovery, but +the doctrine of the Circulation of the Blood. “Sense can hardly allow +it; which,” says he, “in this dispute must be satisfied as well as reason, +before mankind will concur.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0275' id='Footnote_0275'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0275'><span class='label'>[275]</span></a> +<p>Stubbe has an eloquent passage, which describes the philosophy of +science. The new Experimental School had perhaps too wholly rejected +some virtues of the old one; the cultivation of the human understanding, +as well as the mere observation on the facts that they collected; an error +which has not been entirely removed.</p> +<p>“That art of reasoning by which the prudent are discriminated from +fools, which methodiseth and facilitates our discourses, which informs us +of the validity of consequences and the probability of arguments, and manifests +the fallacies of impostors; that art which gives life to solid eloquence, +and which renders Statesmen, Divines, Physicians, and Lawyers accomplished; +how is this cried down and vilified by the ignoramuses of these +days! What contempt is there raised upon the disputative Ethics of Aristotle +and the Stoics; and those moral instructions, which have produced +the Alexanders and the Ptolemies, the Pompeys and the Ciceroes, are now +slighted in comparison of <i>day-labouring</i>! Did we live at Sparta, where +the daily employments were the exercises of substantial virtue and gallantry, +and <i>men</i>, like <i>setting dogs</i>, were rather <i>bred up</i> unto, than <i>taught</i> +reason and worth, it were a more tolerable proposal (though the different +policy of these times would not admit of it); but this <i>working</i>, so recommended, +is but the <i>feeding of carp in the air</i>, &c. As for the study of +Politics, and all critical learning, these are either pedantical, or tedious, +to those who have <i>a shorter way of studying men</i>.”—<i>Preface to “Legends +no Histories.”</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0276' id='Footnote_0276'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0276'><span class='label'>[276]</span></a> +<p>“Legends no Histories,” p. 5.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0277' id='Footnote_0277'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0277'><span class='label'>[277]</span></a> +<p>Dr. King was allied to the families of Clarendon and Rochester; he +took a degree as Doctor of Civil Law, and soon got into great practice. +“He afterwards went with the Earl of Pembroke, Lord-Lieutenant, to +Ireland, where he became Judge Advocate, Sole Commissioner of the Prizes, +Keeper of the Records, Vicar-General to the Lord Primate of Ireland; was +countenanced by persons of the highest rank, and might have made a +fortune. But so far was he from heaping up riches, that he returned to +England with no other treasure than a few merry poems and humorous +essays, and returned to his student’s place in Christ Church.”—<i>Enc. +Brit.</i> He was assisted by Bolingbroke; but when his patronage failed, +Swift procured him the situation of editor to “Barber’s Gazette.” He +ultimately took to drinking; Lintot the bookseller, told Pope, “I remember +Dr. King could write verses in a tavern three hours after he could +not speak.” His last patron was Lord Clarendon, and he died in apartments +he had provided for him in London, Dec. 25, 1712, and was buried +in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey at the expense of his lordship.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0278' id='Footnote_0278'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0278'><span class='label'>[278]</span></a> +<p>Sloane describes Clark, the famous posture-master, “Phil. Trans.” No. +242, certainly with the wildest grammar, but with many curious particulars; +the gentleman in one of Dr. King’s Dialogues inquires the secretary’s +opinion of the causes of this man’s wonderful pliability of limbs; a +question which Sloane had thus solved, with colloquial ease: it depended +upon “bringing the body to it, by using himself to it.”</p> +<p>In giving an account of “a child born without a brain”—“Had it lived +long enough,” said King, “it would have made an excellent publisher of +Philosophical Transactions!”</p> +<p>Sloane presented the Royal Society with “a figure of a Chinese, representing +one of that nation using an ear-picker, and expressing great satisfaction +therein.”—“Whatever pleasure,” said that learned physician, +“the Chinese may take in thus picking their ears, I am certain most +people in these parts, who have had their hearing impaired, have had such +misfortune first come to them by picking their ears too much.”—He is so +<i>curious</i>, says King, that the secretary took as much satisfaction in looking +upon the ear-picker, as the Chinese could do in picking their ears!</p> +<p>But “What drowning is”—that “Hanging is only apoplexy!” that +“Men cannot swallow when they are dead!” that “No fish die of fevers!” +that “Hogs s—t soap, and cows s—t fire!” that the secretary had +“Shells, called <i>Blackmoor’s-teeth</i>, I suppose from their <i>whiteness</i>!” and +the learned <span class='smcap'>Ray’s</span>, that grave naturalist, incredible description of “a very +curious little instrument!” I leave to the reader and Dr. King.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0279' id='Footnote_0279'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0279'><span class='label'>[279]</span></a> +<p>Sir Hans Sloane was unhappily not insensible to these ludicrous +assaults, and in the preface to his “History of Jamaica,” 1707, a work +so highly prized for its botanical researches, absolutely anticipated this +fatal facetiousness, for thus he delivers himself:—“Those who strive to +make ridiculous anything of this kind, and think themselves great wits, +but are very ignorant, and understand nothing of the argument, these, if one +were afraid of them, and consulted his own ease, might possibly hinder +the publication of any such work, the efforts to be expected from them, +making possibly some impression upon persons of equal dispositions; but +considering that I have the approbation of others, whose judgment, knowledge, +&c., I have great reason to value; and considering that these sorts +of men have been in all ages ready to do the like, not only to ordinary +persons and their equals, but even to abuse their prince and blaspheme +their Maker, I shall, as I have ever since I seriously considered this +matter, think of and treat them with the greatest contempt.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0280' id='Footnote_0280'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0280'><span class='label'>[280]</span></a> +<p>Dr. King’s dispersed works have fortunately been collected by Mr. +Nichols, with ample illustrations, in three vols. 8vo, 1776. The “Useful +Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of Learning,” form a collection +of ludicrous dissertations of Antiquarianism, Natural Philosophy, Criticism, +&c., where his own peculiar humour combines with his curious reading. +[In this he burlesqued the proceedings of the Royal and Antiquarian +Societies with some degree of spirit and humour. By turning vulgar lines +into Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon, a learned air is given to some papers +on childish subjects. One learned doctor communicates to another “an +Essay proving, by arguments philosophical, that millers, falsely so reputed, +are not thieves, with an interesting argument that taylors likewise are not +so.” A Welsh schoolmaster sends some “natural observations” made in +Wales, in direct imitation of the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1707, +and with humorous love for genealogy, reckons that in his school, “since the +flood, there have been 466, and I am the 467th master: before the flood, +they living long, there were but two—Rice ap Evan Dha the good, and Davie +ap Shones Gonnah the naught, in whose time the flood came.” The first +paper of the collection is an evident jest on John Bagford and his gatherings +for the history of printing, now preserved among the manuscripts of +the British Museum. It purports to be “an Essay on the invention of +samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford, with an account of +her collections for the same:” and written in burlesque of a paper in the +“Philosophical Transactions” for April, 1697. It is a most elaborate performance, +deducing with mock-seriousness the origin of samplers from the +ancient tales of Arachne, who “set forth the whole story of her wrongs +in needlework, and sent it to her sister;” and our author adds, with +much humour, “it is very remarkable that the memory of this story does +at present continue, for there are no samplers, which proceed in any measure +beyond the first rudiments, but have a tree and a nightingale sitting +on it.” Such were the jests of the day against the Royal philosophers.] +He also invented <i>satirical and humorous indexes</i>, not the least facetious +parts of his volumes. King had made notes on more than 20,000 books +and MSS., and his <i>Adversaria</i>, of which a portion has been preserved, +is not inferior in curiosity to the literary journals of Gibbon, though it +wants the investigating spirit of the modern philosopher.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0281' id='Footnote_0281'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0281'><span class='label'>[281]</span></a> +<p>The moral and literary character of Henley has been developed in +“Calamities of Authors.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0282' id='Footnote_0282'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0282'><span class='label'>[282]</span></a> +<p>The twenty-six folios of his “Vegetable System,” with many others, +testify his love and his labour. It contains 1600 plates, representing +26,000 different figures of plants <i>from nature only</i>. This publication +ruined the author, whose widow (the sister of Lord Ranelagh) published +“An Address to the Public, by the Hon. Lady Hill, setting forth the consequences +of the late Sir John Hill’s acquaintance with the Earl of Bute,” +1787. I should have noticed it in the “Calamities of Authors.” It offers +a sad and mortifying lesson to the votary of science who aspires to a noble +enterprise. Lady Hill complains of the <i>patron</i>; but a patron, however +great, cannot always raise the public taste to the degree required to afford +the only true patronage which can animate and reward an author. Her +detail is impressive:—</p> +<p>“Sir John Hill had just wrote a book of great elegance—I think it was +called ‘Exotic Botany’—which he wished to have presented to the king, +and therefore named it to Lord Bute. His lordship waived that, saying +that ‘he had a greater object to propose;’ and shortly after laid before him +a plan of the most voluminous, magnificent, and costly work that ever +man attempted. I tremble when I name its title—because I think the +severe application which it required killed him; and I am sure the expense +ruined his fortune—‘The Vegetable System.’ This work was to consist of +twenty-six volumes folio, containing sixteen hundred copper-plates, the +engraving of each cost four guineas; the paper was of the most expensive +kind; the drawings by the first hands. The printing was also a very +weighty concern; and many other articles, with which I am unacquainted. +Lord Bute said that ‘the expense had been considered, and that Sir John +Hill might rest assured his circumstances should not be injured.’ Thus he +entered upon and finished his destruction. The sale bore no proportion to +the expense. After ‘The Vegetable System’ was completed, Lord Bute +proposed another volume to be added, which Sir John strenuously opposed; +but his lordship repeating his desire, Sir John complied, lest his lordship +should find a pretext to cast aside repeated promises of ample provision for +himself and family. But this was the crisis of his fate—he died.” Lady +Hill adds:—“He was a character on which every virtue was impressed.” +The domestic partiality of the widow cannot alter the truth of the narrative +of “The Vegetable System,” and its twenty-six tomes.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0283' id='Footnote_0283'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0283'><span class='label'>[283]</span></a> +<p>His apologist forms this excuse for one then affecting to be a student +and a rake:—“Though engaged in works which required the attention of +a whole life, he was so exact an economist of his time that he scarcely ever +missed a public amusement for many years; and this, as he somewhere +observes, was of no small service to him; as, without indulging in these +respects, he could not have undergone the fatigue and study inseparable +from the execution of his vast designs.”—Short Account of the “Life, +Writings, and Character of the late Sir John Hill, M.D.” Edinburgh: +1779.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0284' id='Footnote_0284'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0284'><span class='label'>[284]</span></a> +<p>Hogarth has painted a portrait of Folkes, which is still hanging in the +rooms of the Royal Society. He was nominated vice-president by the great +Sir Isaac Newton, and succeeded him as president. He wrote a work on +the “English Silver Coinage,” and died at the age of sixty-four, 1754.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0285' id='Footnote_0285'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0285'><span class='label'>[285]</span></a> +<p>Hill planned his Review with good sense. He says:—“If I am merry +in some places, it ought to be considered that the subjects are too ridiculous +for serious criticism. That the work, however, might not be without its +<i>real use</i>, an <i>Error</i> is nowhere exposed without establishing a <i>Truth</i> in its +place.” He has incidentally thrown out much curious knowledge—such +as his plan for forming a <i>Hortus Siccus</i>, &c. The Review itself may still +be considered both as curious and entertaining.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0286' id='Footnote_0286'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0286'><span class='label'>[286]</span></a> +<p>In exposing their deficiencies, as well as their redundancies, Hill only +wishes, as he tells us, that the Society may by this means become ashamed +of what it has been, and that the world may know that <i>he is <span class='smcaplc'>NOT</span> a member +of it till it is an honour to a man to be so</i>! This was telling the world, +with some ingenuity, and with no little impudence, that the Royal Society +would not admit him as a member. He pretends to give a secret anecdote +to explain the cause of this rejection. Hill, in every critical conjuncture +of his affairs, and they were frequent ones, had always a story to tell, or +an evasion, which served its momentary purpose. When caned by an Irish +gentleman at Ranelagh, and his personal courage, rather than his stoicism, +was suspected, he published a story of <i>his</i> having once caned a person +whom he called Mario; on which a wag, considering Hill as a Prometheus, +wrote—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“To beat one man great Hill was fated.<br /> +What man?—a man whom he created!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>We shall see the story he turned to his purpose, when pressed hard by +Fielding. In the present instance, in a letter to a foreign correspondent, +who had observed his name on the list of the <i>Correspondents</i> of the Royal +Society, Hill said—“You are to know that <i>I have the honour <span class='smcaplc'>NOT</span> to be +a member of the Royal Society of London</i>.”—This letter lay open on his +table when a member, upon his accustomed visit, came in, and in his absence +read it. “And we are not to wonder,” says Hill, “that he who +could obtain intelligence in this manner could also divulge it. <i>Hinc +illæ lachrymæ!</i> Hence all the animosities that have since disturbed this +philosophic world.” While Hill insolently congratulates himself that he +is <i>not</i> a member of the Royal Society, he has most evidently shown that +he had no objection to be the member of any society which would enrol his +name among them. He obtained his medical degree from no honourable +source; and another title, which he affected, he mysteriously contracted +into barbaric dissonance. Hill entitled himself—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><i>Acad. Reg. Scient. Burd. &c. Soc.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>To which Smart, in the “Hilliad,” alludes—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“While <i>Jargon</i> gave his titles on a <i>block</i>,<br /> +And styled him M.D. Acad. Budig. Soc.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>His personal attacks on Martin Folkes, the president, are caustic, but +they may not be true; and on Baker, celebrated for his microscopical +discoveries, are keen. He reproaches Folkes, in his severe dedication of +the work, in all the dignity of solemn invective.—“The manner in which +you represented me to a noble friend, while to myself you made me much +more than I deserved; the ease with which you had excused yourself, +and the solemnity with which, in the face of Almighty God, you excused +yourself again; when we remember that the whole was done within the +compass of a day; these are surely virtues in a patron that I, of all men, +ought not to pass over in silence.” Baker, in his early days, had unluckily +published a volume of lusory poems. Some imitations of Prior’s loose tales +Hill makes use of to illustrate <i>his</i> “Philosophical Transactions.” All is +food for the malicious digestion of Wit!</p> +<p>His anecdote of Mr. Baker’s <i>Louse</i> is a piece of secret scientific history +sufficiently ludicrous.</p> +<p>“The Duke of Montague was famous for his love to the whole animal +creation, and for his being able to keep a very grave face when not in the +most serious earnest. Mr. Baker, a distinguished member of the Royal +Society, had one day entertained this nobleman and several other persons +with the sight of the peristaltic motion of the bowels in a louse, by the +microscope. When the observation was over, he was going to throw the +creature away; but the Duke, with a face that made him believe he was +perfectly in earnest, told him it would be not only cruel, but ungrateful, +in return for the entertainment that creature had given them, to destroy +it. He ordered the boy to be brought in from whom it was procured, and +after praising the smallness and delicacy of Mr. Baker’s fingers, persuaded +him carefully to replace the animal in its former territories, and to give the +boy a shilling not to disturb it for a fortnight.”—“A Review of the Works +of the Royal Society,” by John Hill, M.D., p. 5.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0287' id='Footnote_0287'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0287'><span class='label'>[287]</span></a> +<p>These papers had appeared in the London <i>Daily Advertiser</i>, 1754. +At their close he gleaned the best, and has preserved them in two volumes. +But as Hill will never rank as a classic, the original nonsense will be considered +as most proper for the purposes of a true collector. Woodward, +the comedian, in his lively attack on Hill, has given “a mock Inspector,” +an exquisite piece of literary ridicule, in which he has hit off the egotisms +and slovenly ease of the real ones. Never, like “The Inspector,” flamed +such a provoking prodigy in the cloudy skies of Grub-street; and Hill +seems studiously to have mortified his luckless rivals by a perpetual embroidery +of his adventures in the “Walks at Marybone,” the “Rotunda +at Ranelagh,” spangled over with “my domestics,” and “my equipage.” +[One of his adventures at Ranelagh was sufficiently unfortunate to obtain +for him the unenviable notoriety of a caricature print representing him +enduring a castigation at the Rotunda gate from an Irish gentleman named +Brown, with whose character he had made far too free in one of his “Inspectors.” +Hill showed much pusillanimity in the affair, took to his bed, +and gave out that the whole thing was a conspiracy to murder him. This +occasioned the publication of another print, in which he is represented in +bed, surrounded by medical men, who treat him with very little respect. +One insists on his fee, because Hill has never been acknowledged as one of +themselves; and another, to his plea of want of money, responds, “Sell +your sword, it is only an encumbrance.”]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0288' id='Footnote_0288'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0288'><span class='label'>[288]</span></a> +<p>It is useful to remind the public that they are often played upon in +this manner by the artifices of <i>political writers</i>. We have observed symptoms +of this deception practised at present. It is an old trick of the craft, +and was greatly used at a time when the nation seemed maddened with +political factions. In a pamphlet of “A View of London and Westminster, +or the Town-spy,” 1725, I find this account:—“The <i>seeming quarrel</i>, +formerly, between <i>Mist’s Journal</i> and the <i>Flying Post</i> was <i>secretly concerted</i> +between themselves, in order to decoy the eyes of all the parties on +both their papers; and the project succeeded beyond all expectation; for +I have been told that the former narrowly missed getting an estate by +it.”—p. 32.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0289' id='Footnote_0289'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0289'><span class='label'>[289]</span></a> +<p>Isaac Reed, in his “Repository of Fugitive Pieces of Wit and Humour,” +vol. iv., in republishing “The Hilliad,” has judiciously preserved +the offending “Impertinent” and the abjuring “Inspector.” The style of +“The Impertinent” is volatile and poignant. His four classes of authors +are not without humour. “There are men who write because they have +wit; there are those who write because they are hungry; there are some +of the modern authors who have a constant fund of both these causes; and +there are who will write, although they are not instigated either by the +one or by the other. The first are all spirit; the second are all earth; +the third disclose more life, or more vapidity, as the one or the other cause +prevails; and for the last, having neither the one nor the other principle +for the cause, they show neither the one nor the other character in the +effect; but begin, continue, and end, as if they had neither begun, continued, +nor ended at all.” The first class he instances by Fielding; the +second by Smart. Of the third he says:—“The mingled wreath belongs +to Hill,” that is himself; and the fourth he illustrates by the absurd Sir +William Browne.</p> +<p>“Those of the first rank are the most capricious and lazy of all animals. +The monkey genius would rarely exert itself, if even idleness innate did +not give way to the superior love of mischief. The ass (that is Smart), +which characters the second, is as laborious as he is empty; he wears a +ridiculous comicalness of aspect (which was, indeed, the physiognomy of +the poor poet), that makes people smile when they see him at a distance. +His mouth opens, because he must be fed, while we laugh at the insensibility +and obstinacy that make him prick his lips with thistles.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0290' id='Footnote_0290'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0290'><span class='label'>[290]</span></a> +<p>Woodward humorously attributes Hill’s attack on him to his <i>jealousy</i> +of his successful performance of <i>Harlequin</i>, and opens some of the secret +history of Hill, by which it appears that early in life he trod the theatrical +boards. He tells us of the extraordinary pains the prompter had +taken with Hill, in the part of Oroonoko; though, “if he had not quite +forgotten it, to very little purpose.” He reminds Hill of a dramatic anecdote, +which he no doubt had forgotten. It seems he once belonged to a +strolling company at May-fair, where, in the scene between Altamont and +Lothario, the polite audience of that place all chorused, and agreed with +him, when dying he exclaimed, “Oh, Altamont, thy genius is the +stronger.” He then shows him off as the starved apothecary in <i>Romeo +and Juliet</i>, in one of his botanic peregrinations to Chelsea Garden; from +whence, it is said, he was expelled for “culling too many rare plants”—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“I do remember an apothecary,<br /> +Culling of simples——.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Hill, who was often so brisk in his attack on the wits, had no power of +retort; so that he was always buffeting and always buffeted.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0291' id='Footnote_0291'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0291'><span class='label'>[291]</span></a> +<p>He was also satirised in a poem termed “The Pasquinade,” published +in 1752, in which the goddesses of Pertness and Dulness join to praise him +as their favourite reflex.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Pertness saw her form distinctly shine<br /> +In none, immortal Hill! so full as thine.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Dulness speaks of him thus rapturously:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“See where my son, who gratefully repays<br /> +Whate’er I lavish’d on his younger days;<br /> +Whom still my arm protects to brave the town<br /> +Secure from Fielding, Machiavel, or Brown;<br /> +Whom rage nor sword e’er mortally shall hurt,<br /> +Chief of a hundred chiefs o’er all the pert!<br /> +Rescued an orphan babe from common sense,<br /> +I gave his mother’s milk to Confidence;<br /> +She with her own ambrosia bronz’d his face,<br /> +And changed his skin to monumental brass.<br /> +Whom rage nor sword e’er mortally shall hurt,<br /> +Chief of a hundred chiefs o’er all the pert!<br /> +Rescued an orphan babe from common sense,<br /> +I gave his mother’s milk to Confidence;<br /> +She with her own ambrosia bronz’d his face,<br /> +And changed his skin to monumental <a name='TC_49'></a><ins title="Added quote">brass.”</ins></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0292' id='Footnote_0292'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0292'><span class='label'>[292]</span></a> +<p>Hill addresses the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, and +the Speaker, on Sir Hans Sloane’s Collection of Natural History, proposing +himself as a candidate for nomination in the principal office, by whatever +name that shall be called:—“I deliver myself with humility; but conscious +also that I possess the liberties of a British subject, I shall speak +with freedom.” He says that the only means left for a Briton is to address +his sovereign and the public. “That foreigners will resort to this +collection is certain, for it is the most considerable in the world; and that +our own people will often visit it is as sure, because it may be made the +means of much useful as well as curious knowledge. One and the other +will expect a person in that office who has sufficient knowledge: he must +be able to give account of every article, freely and fluently, not only in his +own, but in the Latin and French languages.</p> +<p>“This the world, and none in it better than your lordship, sees is not a +place that any one can execute: it requires knowledge in a peculiar and +uncommon kind of study—knowledge which very few possess; and in +which, my lord, the bitterest of my enemies (and I have thousands, although +neither myself nor they know why) will not say I am deficient——.</p> +<p>“My lord, the eyes of all Europe are upon this transaction. What title +I have to your lordship’s favour, those books which I have published, and +with which (pardon the necessary boast) all Europe is acquainted, declare. +Many may dispute by interest with me; but if there be one who would +prefer himself, by his abilities, I beg the matter may be brought to trial. +The collection is at hand; and I request, my lord, such person and myself +may be examined by that test, together. It is an amazing store of knowledge; +and he has most, in this way, who shall show himself most acquainted +with it.</p> +<p>“What are my own abilities it very ill becomes me thus to boast; but +did they not qualify me for the trust, my lord, I would not ask it. As to +those of any other, unless a man be conjured from the dead, I shall not +fear to say there is not any one whoever that is able so much as to call the +parts of the collection by their names.</p> +<p>“I know I shall be accused of ostentation in giving to myself this preference; +and I am sorry for it: but those who have candour will know it +could not be avoided.</p> +<p>“Many excel, my lord, in other studies: it is my chance to have bestowed +the labour of my life on this: those labours may be of some use to +others. This appears the only instance in which it is possible that they +should be rewarded——.”</p> +<p>In a subsequent <i>Inspector</i>, he treated on the improvement of botany by +raising plants, and reading lectures on them at the British Museum, with +the living plants before the lecturer and his auditors. Poor Sir John! he +was born half a century too early!—He would, in this day, have made his +lectures fashionable; and might have secured at the opera every night an +elegant audience for the next morning in the gardens of the Museum.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0293' id='Footnote_0293'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0293'><span class='label'>[293]</span></a> +<p>It would be difficult to form a list of his anonymous works or compilations, +among which many are curious. Tradition has preserved his +name as the writer of Mrs. Glasse’s Cookery, and of several novels. +There is a very curious work, entitled “Travels in the East,” 2 vols. 8vo, +of which the author has been frequently and in vain inquired after. These +travels are attributed to a noble lord; but it now appears that they are a +very entertaining narrative manufactured by Hill. Whiston, the bookseller, +had placed this work in his MS. catalogue of Hill’s books.</p> +<p>There is still another production of considerable merit, entitled “Observations +on the Greek and Roman Classics,” 1753. A learned friend recollects, +when young, that this critical work was said to be written by +Hill. It excels Blackwell and Fenton; and aspires to the numerous composition +of prose. The sentimental critic enters into the feelings of the +great authors whom he describes with spirit, delicacy of taste, and sometimes +with beautiful illustration. It only wants a chastening hand to become +a manual for the young classical student, by which he might acquire +those vivid emotions, which many college tutors may not be capable of +communicating.</p> +<p>I suspect, too, he is the author of this work, from a passage which +Smart quotes, as a specimen of Hill’s puffing himself, and of those smart +short periods which look like wit, without being witty. In a letter to +himself, as we are told, Hill writes:—“You have discovered many of the +beauties of the ancients—they are obliged to you; we are obliged to you: +were they alive, they would thank you; we who are alive do thank you.” +If Hill could discriminate the most hidden beauties of the ancients, the +<i>tact</i> must have been formed at his leisure—in his busy hours he never +copied them; but when had he leisure?</p> +<p>Two other works, of the most contrasted character, display the versatility +and dispositions of this singular genius, at different eras. When +“The Inspector” was rolling in his chariot about the town, appeared +“Letters from the Inspector to a Lady,” 1752. It is a pamphlet, containing +the amorous correspondence of Hill with a reigning beauty, whom +he first saw at Ranelagh. On his first ardent professions he is contemptuously +rejected; he perseveres in high passion, and is coldly encouraged; +at length he triumphs; and this proud and sullen beauty, in her turn, +presents a horrid picture of the passions. Hill then becomes the reverse of +what he was; weary of her jealousy, sated with the intercourse, he studiously +avoids, and at length rejects her; assigning for his final argument +his approaching marriage. The work may produce a moral effect, while it +exhibits a striking picture of all the misery of illicit connexions: but the +scenes are coloured with Ovidian warmth. The original letters were +shown at the bookseller’s: Hill’s were in his own handwriting, and the +lady’s in a female hand. But whether Hill was the publisher, as an attempt +at notoriety—or the lady admired her own correspondence, which is +often exquisitely wrought, is not known.</p> +<p>Hill, in his serious hours, published a large quarto volume, entitled +“Thoughts Concerning God and Nature,” 1755. This work, the result of +his scientific knowledge and his moral reasoning, was never undertaken for +the purpose of profit. He printed it with the certainty of a considerable +loss, from its abstract topics, not obvious to general readers; at a time, +too, when a guinea quarto was a very hazardous enterprise. He published +it purely from conscientious and religious motives; a circumstance mentioned +in that Apology of his Life which we have noticed. The more +closely the character of Hill is scrutinised, the more extraordinary appears +this man, so often justly contemned, and so often unjustly depreciated.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0294' id='Footnote_0294'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0294'><span class='label'>[294]</span></a> +<p>Through the influence of Lord Bute he became connected with the +Royal Gardens at Kew; and his lordship also assisted him in publishing +his botanical works. See note, p. <a href='#page_363'>363</a>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0295' id='Footnote_0295'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0295'><span class='label'>[295]</span></a> +<p>It would occupy pages to transcribe epigrams on Hill. One of them +alludes to his philosophical as well as his literary character:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Hill puffs himself; forbear to chide!<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>An insect vile and mean<br /> +Must first, he knows, be magnified<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Before it can be seen.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Garrick’s happy lines are well known on his farces:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“For physic and farces his equal there scarce is—<br /> +His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Another said—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The worse that we wish thee, for all thy vile crimes,<br /> +Is to take thy own physic, and read thy own rhymes.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The rejoinder would reverse the wish—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“For, if he takes his physic first,<br /> +He’ll never read his rhymes.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0296' id='Footnote_0296'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0296'><span class='label'>[296]</span></a> +<p>Hill says, in his pamphlet on the “Virtues of British Herbs”:—“It +will be happy if, by the same means, the knowledge of plants also becomes +more general. The study of them is pleasant, and the exercise of it healthful. +He who seeks the herb for its cure, will find it half effected by the +walk; and when he is acquainted with the useful kinds, he may be more +people’s, besides his own, physician.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0297' id='Footnote_0297'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0297'><span class='label'>[297]</span></a> +<p>Haughtiness was the marking feature of Bentley’s literary character; +and his Wolseyan style and air have been played on by the wits. Bentley +happened to express himself on the King’s MS. of Phalaris in a manner +their witty malice turned against him. “’Twas a surprise (he said) to +find that <span class='smcaplc'>OUR</span> MS. was not perused.”—“<span class='smcap'>Our</span> MS. (they proceed) that is, +his Majesty’s and mine! He speaks out now; ’tis no longer the King’s, +but <span class='smcaplc'>OUR</span> MS., <i>i.e.</i> Dr. Bentley’s and the King’s in common, <i>Ego et Rex +meus</i>—much too familiar for a library-keeper!”—It has been said that +Bentley used the same Wolseyan egotism on Pope’s publications:—“This +man is always abusing <i>me</i> or the <i>King</i>!”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0298' id='Footnote_0298'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0298'><span class='label'>[298]</span></a> +<p>Bentley, in one place, having to give a positive contradiction to the +statement of the bookseller, rising in all his dignity and energy, exclaims, +“What can be done in this case? Here are two contrary affirmations; +and the matter being done in private, neither of us have any witness. I +might plead, as Æmilius Scaurus did against one Varius, of Sucro. <i>Varius +Sucronensis ait, Æmilius Scaurus negat. Utri creditis Quirites?</i>” p. 21.—The +story is told by Valerius Maximus, lib. iii. c. 7. Scaurus was +insolently accused by one Varius, a Sucronian, that he had taken bribes +from Mithridates: Scaurus addressed the Roman people. “He did not +think it just that a man of his age should defend himself against accusations, +and before those who were not born when he filled the offices of the republic, +nor witnessed the actions he had performed. Varius, the Sucronian, says +that Scaurus, corrupted by gold, would have betrayed the republic; Scaurus +replies, It is not true. Whom will you believe, fellow-Romans?”—This +appeal to the people produced all the effect imaginable, and the ridiculous +accuser was silenced.</p> +<p>Bentley points the same application, with even more self-consciousness of +his worth, in another part of his preface. It became necessary to praise +himself, to remove the odium Boyle and his friends had raised on him—it +was a difficulty overcome. “I will once more borrow the form of argument +that Æmilius Scaurus used against Varius Sucronensis. Mr. Spanheim and +Mr. Grævius give a high character of Dr. B.’s learning: Mr. Boyle gives +the meanest that malice can furnish himself with. <i>Utri creditis, Quirites?</i> +Whether of the characters will the present age or posterity believe?”—p. 82. +It was only a truly great mind which could bring itself so close to posterity.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0299' id='Footnote_0299'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0299'><span class='label'>[299]</span></a> +<p>It was the fashion then to appear very unconcerned about one’s literary +reputation; but then to be so tenacious about it when once obtained as +not to suffer, with common patience, even the little finger of criticism to +touch it. Boyle, after defending what he calls his “honesty,” adds, +“the rest <i>only</i> touches my learning. This will give me <i>no concern</i>, +though it may put me to some little trouble. I shall enter upon this with +<i>the indifference of a gamester who plays but for a trifle</i>.” On this affected +indifference, Bentley keenly observes:—“This was entering on his work +a little ominously; for a gamester who plays with indifference never plays +his game well. Besides that, by this odd comparison, he seems to give +warning, and is as good as his word, that he will put the dice upon his +readers as often as he can. But what is worse than all, this comparison +puts one in mind of a general rumour, that there’s another set of gamesters +who <i>play him</i> in his dispute while themselves are safe behind the curtain.”—<span class='smcap'>Bentley’s</span> +<i>Dissertation on Phalaris</i>, p. 2.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0300' id='Footnote_0300'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0300'><span class='label'>[300]</span></a> +<p>Rumours and conjectures are the lot of contemporaries; truth seems +reserved only for posterity; and, like the fabled Minerva, she is born of +age at once. The secret history of this volume, which partially appeared, +has been more particularly opened in one of Warburton’s letters, who +received it from Pope, who had been “let into the secret.” Boyle wrote +the Narrative, “which, too, was corrected for him.” Freind, who wrote +the entire Dissertation on Æsop in that volume, wrote also, with Atterbury, +the body of the Criticisms; King, the droll argument, proving that +Bentley was not the author of his own Dissertation, and the extraordinary +index which I shall shortly notice. In Atterbury’s “Epistolary Correspondence” +is a letter, where, with equal anger and dignity, Atterbury avows +his having written <i>about half, and planned the whole</i> of Boyle’s attack +upon Bentley! With these facts before us, can we read without surprise, +if not without indignation, the passage I shall now quote from the book to +which the name of Boyle is prefixed. In raising an artful charge against +Bentley, of appropriating to himself some MS. notes of Sir Edward Sherburn, +Boyle, replying to the argument of Bentley, that “Phalaris” was the +work of some sophist, says:—“The sophists are everywhere pelted by Dr. +Bentley, for putting out what they wrote in other men’s names; but I did +not expect to hear so loudly of it from one that has so far outdone them; +for <i>I think ’tis much worse to take the honour of another man’s book to +one’s self</i>, than to entitle one’s own book to another man.”—p. 16.</p> +<p>I am surprised Bentley did not turn the point of his antagonist’s sword +on himself, for this flourish was a most unguarded one. But Bentley could +not then know so much of the book, “made up by contributions,” as ourselves.</p> +<p>Partial truths flew about in rumours at the time; but the friends of a +young nobleman, and even his fellow-workmen, seemed concerned that his +glory should not be diminished by a ruinous division. Rymer, in his +“Essay concerning Curious and Critical Learning,” judiciously surmised +its true origin. “I fancy this book was written (as most public compositions +in that college are) by a <i>select club</i>. Every one seems to have +thrown in a repartee or so in his turn; and the most ingenious Dr. Aldrich +(he does not deserve the epithet in its most friendly sense) no doubt at +their head, smoked and punned plentifully on this occasion.” The arrogance +of Aldrich exceeded even that of Bentley. Rymer tells further, that +Aldrich was notorious for thus employing his “young inexperienced students;” +that he “<i>betrayed</i> Mr. Boyle into the controversy, and is still +involving others in the quarrel.” Thus he points at the rival chieftains; +one of whom never appeared in public, but was the great mover behind the +curtain. These lively wits, so deeply busied among the obscurest writers +of antiquity, so much against their will, making up a show of learning +against the formidable array of Bentley, exhilarated themselves in their +dusty labours by a perpetual stimulus of keen humour, playful wit, and +angry invective. No doubt they were often enraged at bearing the yoke +about their luxuriant manes, ploughing the darkest and heaviest soil of +antiquity. They had been reared—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Insultare solo, et gressus glomerare superbos.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'>“Georg.” Lib. iii. 117.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“To insult the ground, and proudly pace the plain.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Trapp.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Swift, in “The Battle of the Books,” who, under his patron, Sir William +Temple, was naturally in alliance with “the Bees,” with ingenious ambiguity +alludes to the glorious manufacture. “Boyle, clad in a suit of +armour, <i>which had been given him by all the <span class='smcap'>Gods</span></i>.” Still the truth was +only floating in rumours and surmises; and the little that Boyle had done +was not yet known. Lord Orrery, his son, had a difficulty to overcome to +pass lightly over this allusion. The literary honour of the family was at +stake, and his filial piety was exemplary to a father, who had unfortunately, +in passion, deprived his lordship of the family library—a stroke +from which his sensibility never recovered, and which his enemies ungenerously +pointed against him. Lord Orrery, with all the tenderness of a +son, and the caution of a politician, observes on “the armour given by the +Gods”—“I shall not <i>dispute</i> about the <i>gift</i> of the armour. The Gods +never bestowed celestial armour except upon heroes, whose courage and +superior strength distinguished them from the rest of mankind.” Most +ingeniously he would seem to convert into a classical fable what was designed +as a plain matter of fact!</p> +<p>It does credit to the discernment of Bentley, whose taste was not very +lively in English composition, that he pronounced Boyle was <i>not the author</i> +of the “Examination,” from <i>the variety of styles in it</i>.—p. 107.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0301' id='Footnote_0301'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0301'><span class='label'>[301]</span></a> +<p>This short and pointed satire of Horace is merely a pleasant story +about a low wretch of the name of King; and Brutus, under whose command +he was, is entreated to get rid of him, from his hereditary hatred to +<i>all kings</i>. I suppose this pun must be considered legitimate, otherwise +Horace was an indifferent punster.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0302' id='Footnote_0302'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0302'><span class='label'>[302]</span></a> +<p>A keen repartee! Yet King could read this mighty volume as “a +vain confused performance,” but the learned <span class='smcap'>Dodwell</span> declared to “the +Bees of Christchurch,” who looked up to him, that “he had never learned +so much from any book of the size in his life.” King was as unjust to +Bentley, as Bentley to King. Men of genius are more subject to “unnatural +civil war” than even the blockheads whom Pope sarcastically reproaches +with it. The great critic’s own notion of his volume seems +equally modest and just. “To undervalue this dispute about ‘Phalaris,’ +because it does not suit one’s own studies, is to quarrel with a circle because +it is not a square. If the question be not of vulgar use, it was writ +therefore for a few; for even the greatest performances, upon the most +important subjects, are no entertainment at all to <i>the many of the world</i>.”—p. +107.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0303' id='Footnote_0303'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0303'><span class='label'>[303]</span></a> +<p>This index, a very original morsel of literary pleasantry, is at once a +satirical character of the great critic, and what it professes to be. I preserve +a specimen among the curiosities I am collecting. It is entitled—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>A Short Account of +<em>Dr. <span class='smcap'>Bentley</span></em>, +by way of Index.</i></p> +<p class='lalign'>“Dr. Bentley’s true story proved false, by the testimonies of, &c., p. —<br /> +<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>“His civil language, p. —<br /> +<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>“His nice taste,<br /> +<span class='indent10'> </span>in wit, p. —<br /> +<span class='indent10'> </span>in style, p. —<br /> +<span class='indent10'> </span>in Greek, p. —<br /> +<span class='indent10'> </span>in Latin, p. —<br /> +<span class='indent10'> </span>in English, p. —<br /> +<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>“His modesty and decency in contradicting great men”—a very long list of authors, concluding with ‘<i>Everybody</i>,’ p. —<br /> +<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>“His familiar acquaintance with books he never saw,” p. —<br /> +<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>And lastly, “his profound skill in criticism—from beginning to <span class='smcap'>The End</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Which thus terminates the volume.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0304' id='Footnote_0304'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0304'><span class='label'>[304]</span></a> +<p>Cicero ad Atticum, Lib. vii., Epist. xii.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0305' id='Footnote_0305'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0305'><span class='label'>[305]</span></a> +<p>No doubt this idea was the origin of that satirical Capriccio, which +closed in a most fortunate pun—a literary caricature, where the doctor is +represented in the hands of Phalaris’s attendants, who are putting him +into the tyrant’s bull, while Bentley exclaims, “I had rather be <i>roasted</i> +than <i>Boyled</i>.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0306' id='Footnote_0306'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0306'><span class='label'>[306]</span></a> +<p>Sir Richard Blackmore, in his bold attempt at writing “A Satire +against Wit,” in utter defiance of it, without any, however, conveys some +opinions of the times. He there paints the great critic, “crowned with +applause,” seated amidst “the spoils of ruined wits:”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Till his rude strokes had thresh’d the empty sheaf,<br /> +Methought there had been something else than chaff.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Boyle, not satisfied with the undeserved celebrity conceded to his volume, +ventured to write poetry, in which no one appears to have suspected the +aid of “The Bees”—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“See a fine scholar sunk by wit in Boyle!<br /> +After his foolish rhymes, both friends and foes<br /> +Conclude they know <i>who did not write his prose</i>.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><i>A Satire against Wit.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0307' id='Footnote_0307'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0307'><span class='label'>[307]</span></a> +<p>Randolph’s <i>Muses’ Looking-glass</i>. Act 1, Scene 4.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0308' id='Footnote_0308'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0308'><span class='label'>[308]</span></a> +<p>Swift certainly admired, if he did not imitate Marvell: for in his +“Tale of a Tub” he says, “We still read Marvell’s answer to Parker with +pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0309' id='Footnote_0309'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0309'><span class='label'>[309]</span></a> +<p>This is a curious remark of Wood’s: How came raillery and satire to +be considered as “a newly-refined art?” Has it not, at all periods, been +prevalent among every literary people? The remark is, however, more +founded on truth than it appears, and arose from Wood’s own feelings. +Wit and Raillery had been so strange to us during the gloomy period of the +fanatic Commonwealth, that honest Anthony, whose prejudices did not run +in favour of Marvell, not only considers him as the “restorer of this newly-refined +art,” but as one “hugely versed in it,” and acknowledges all its +efficacy in the complete discomfiture of his haughty rival. Besides this, <i>a +small book</i> of controversy, such as Marvell’s usually are, was another +novelty—the “aureoli libelli,” as one fondly calls his precious books, were +in the wretched taste of the times, rhapsodies in folio. The reader has +doubtless heard of Caryll’s endless “Commentary on Job,” consisting of 2400 +folio pages! in small type. Of that monument of human perseverance, +which commenting on Job’s patience, inspired what few works do to whoever +read them, the exercise of the virtue it inculcated, the publisher, in his +advertisement in Clavel’s Catalogue of Books, 1681, announces the two +folios in 600 sheets each! these were a republication of the first edition, in +twelve volumes quarto! he apologises “that it hath been <i>so long a doing</i>, +to the great vexation and loss of the proposer.” He adds, “indeed, <i>some +few lines</i>, no more than what may be contained <i>in a quarto page</i>, are +expunged, <i>they not relating to the Exposition</i>, which nevertheless some, +by malicious prejudice, have so unjustly aggravated, as if the whole work +had been disordered.” He apologises for curtailing <i>a few lines</i> from 2400 +folio pages! and he considered that these few lines were the only ones that +did not relate to the Exposition! At such a time, the little books of Marvell +must have been considered as relishing morsels after such indigestible +surfeits.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0310' id='Footnote_0310'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0310'><span class='label'>[310]</span></a> +<p>The severity of his satire on Charles’s court may be well understood by +the following lines:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“A colony of French possess the court,<br /> +Pimps, priests, buffoons, in privy-chamber sport;<br /> +Such slimy monsters ne’er approached a throne<br /> +Since Pharaoh’s days, nor so defil’d a crown;<br /> +In sacred ear tyrannick arts they croak,<br /> +Pervert his mind, and good intentions choak.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“The Historical Poem,” given in the poems on State affairs, is so personal +in its attacks on the vices of Charles, that it is marvellous how its +author escaped punishment. “Hodge’s Vision from the Monument” is +equally strong, while the “Dialogue between two Horses” (that of the +statue of Charles I. at Charing-cross, and Charles II., then in the city), +has these two strong lines of regret:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“——to see <i>Deo Gratias</i> writ on the throne,<br /> +And the king’s wicked life say God there is none.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The satire ends with the question:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“But canst thou devise when things will be mended?”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Which is thus answered:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“When the reign of the line of the Stuarts is ended!”.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0311' id='Footnote_0311'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0311'><span class='label'>[311]</span></a> +<p>So Burnet tells us.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0312' id='Footnote_0312'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0312'><span class='label'>[312]</span></a> +<p>See “The Rehearsal Transprosed, the second part,” p. 76.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0313' id='Footnote_0313'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0313'><span class='label'>[313]</span></a> +<p>One of the canting terms used by the saints of those days, and not +obsolete in the dialect of those who still give themselves out to be saints in +the present.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0314' id='Footnote_0314'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0314'><span class='label'>[314]</span></a> +<p>Marvell admirably describes Parker’s journey to London at the Restoration, +where “he spent a considerable time in creeping into all corners +and companies, horoscoping up and down concerning the duration of the +government.” This term, so expressive of his political doubts, is from +“Judicial Astrology,” then a prevalent study. “Not considering anything +as best, but as most lasting and most profitable; and after having many +times cast a figure, he at last satisfied himself that the episcopal government +would endure as long as this king lived, and from thenceforwards +cast about to find the highway to preferment. To do this, he daily enlarged +not only his conversation but his conscience, and was made free of +some of the town vices; imagining, like Muleasses, King of Tunis (for I take +witness that on all occasions I treat him rather above his quality than +otherwise), that by hiding himself among the onions he should escape being +traced by his perfumes.” The narrative proceeds with a curious detail of +all his sycophantic attempts at seducing useful patrons, among whom was +the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then began “those pernicious books,” +says Marvell, “in which he first makes all that he will to be law, and +then whatsoever is law, to be divinity.” Parker, in his “Ecclesiastical +Polity,” came at length to promulgate such violent principles as these, +“He openly declares his submission to the government of a Nero and a +Caligula, rather than suffer a dissolution of it.” He says, “it is absolutely +necessary to set up a more severe government over men’s consciences +and religious persuasions than over their vices and immoralities;” and that +“men’s vices and debaucheries may lie more safely indulged than their +consciences.” Is it not difficult to imagine that this man had once been an +Independent, the advocate for every congregation being independent of a +bishop or a synod?</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0315' id='Footnote_0315'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0315'><span class='label'>[315]</span></a> +<p>Parker’s father was a lawyer, and one of Oliver’s most submissive +sub-committee men, who so long pillaged the nation and spilled its blood, +“not in the hot and military way (which diminishes always the offence), +but in the cooler blood and sedentary execution of an high court of justice.” +He wrote a very remarkable book (after he had been petitioned +against for a misdemeanour) in defence of that usurped irregular state +called “The Government of the People of England.” It had “a most +hieroglyphical title” of several emblems: two hands joined, and beneath a +sheaf of arrows, stuffed about with half-a-dozen mottoes, “enough,” says +Marvell, “to have supplied the mantlings and achievement of this (godly) +family.” An anecdote in this secret history of Parker is probably true. +“He shortly afterwards did inveigh against his father’s memory, and in +his mother’s presence, before witnesses, for a couple of whining fanatics.”—<i>Rehearsal +Transprosed</i>, second part, p. 75.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0316' id='Footnote_0316'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0316'><span class='label'>[316]</span></a> +<p>This preface was prefixed to Bishop Bramball’s “Vindication of the +Bishops from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0317' id='Footnote_0317'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0317'><span class='label'>[317]</span></a> +<p>As a specimen of what old Anthony calls “a jerking flirting way of +writing,” I transcribe the titles of these answers which Marvell received. +As Marvell had nicknamed Parker, Bayes, the quaint humour of one entitled +his reply, “Rosemary and Bayes;” another, “The Transproser +Rehearsed, or the Fifth Act of Mr. Bayes’s Play;” another, “Gregory +Father Greybeard, with his Vizard off;” another formed “a Commonplace +Book out of the Rehearsal, digested under heads;” and lastly, “Stoo him +Bayes, or some Animadversions on the Humour of writing +Rehearsals.”—<i>Biog. Brit.</i> p. 3055.</p> +<p>This was the very Bartlemy-fair of wit!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0318' id='Footnote_0318'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0318'><span class='label'>[318]</span></a> +<p>The title will convey some notion of its intolerant principles: “A +Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity, wherein the authority of the Civil Magistrate +<i>over the Consciences of Subjects</i>, in matters of external Religion, +is asserted.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0319' id='Footnote_0319'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0319'><span class='label'>[319]</span></a> +<p>Milton had become acquainted with Marvell when travelling in Italy, +where he had gone to perfect his studies. He returned to England in +1653, and was connected with the Cromwellian party, through the introduction +of Milton, in 1657. The great poet was at that time secretary to +Cromwell, and he became his assistant-secretary. He afterwards represented +his native town of Hull in Parliament.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0320' id='Footnote_0320'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0320'><span class='label'>[320]</span></a> +<p>Vanus, pannosus, et famelicus poetaster œnopolis quovis vapulans, +fuste et calce indies petulantiæ pœnas tulit—are the words in Parker’s +“<i>De Rebus sui Temporis Commentariorum</i>,” p. 275.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0321' id='Footnote_0321'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0321'><span class='label'>[321]</span></a> +<p>D’Avenant commenced his poem during his exile at Paris. The preface +is dated from the Louvre; the postscript from Cowes Castle, in the +Isle of Wight, where he was then confined, expecting his immediate execution. +The poem, in the first edition, 1651, is therefore abruptly concluded. +There is something very affecting and great in his style on this +occasion. “I am here arrived at the middle of the third book. But it is +high time to strike sail and cast anchor, though I have run but half my +course, when at the helm I am threatened with <i>death</i>; who, though he +can visit us but once, seems troublesome; and even in the innocent may +beget such a gravity, as diverts the music of verse. Even in a worthy +design, I shall ask leave to desist, when I am interrupted by so great an +experiment as <i>dying</i>;—and ’tis an experiment to the most experienced; +for no man (though his mortifications may be much greater than mine) can +say <i>he has already died</i>.”—D’Avenant is said to have written a letter to +Hobbes about this time, giving some account of his progress in the third +book. “But why (said he) should I trouble you or myself with these +thoughts, when I am pretty certain I shall be hanged next week?”—A +stroke of the gaiety of temper of a very thoughtful mind; for D’Avenant, +with all his wit and fancy, has made the profoundest reflections on human +life.</p> +<p>The reader may be interested to know, that after D’Avenant’s removal +from Cowes to the Tower, to be tried, his life was saved by the gratitude +of two aldermen of York, whom he had obliged. It is delightful to believe +the story told by Bishop Newton, that D’Avenant owed his life to +Milton; Wood, indeed, attributes our poet’s escape to both; at the Restoration +D’Avenant interposed, and saved Milton. Poets, after all, +envious as they are to a brother, are the most generously-tempered of +men: they libel, but they never hang; they will indeed throw out a sarcasm +on the man whom they saved from being hanged. “Please your +Majesty,” said Sir John Denham, “do not hang George Withers—that it +may not be said I am the worst poet alive.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0322' id='Footnote_0322'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0322'><span class='label'>[322]</span></a> +<p>It would form a very curious piece of comparative criticism, were the +opinions and the arguments of all the critics—those of the time and of the +present day—thrown into the smelting-pot. The massiness of some opinions +of great authority would be reduced to a thread of wire; and even +what is accepted as standard ore might shrink into “a gilt sixpence.” +On one side, the condemners of D’Avenant would be Rymer, Blackwall, +Granger, Knox, Hurd, and Hayley; and the advocates would be Hobbes, +Waller, Cowley, Dr. Aikin, Headley, &c. Rymer opened his Aristotelian +text-book. He discovers that the poet’s first lines do not give any light +into his design (it is probable D’Avenant would have found it hard to have +told it to Mr. Rymer); that it has neither proposition nor invocation—(Rymer +might have filled these up himself); so that “he chooses to enter +into the top of the house, because the mortals of mean and satisfied minds +go in at the door;” and then “he has no hero or action so illustrious that +the <i>name</i> of the poem prepared the reader for its reception.” D’Avenant +had rejected the marvellous from his poem—that is, the machinery of the +epic: he had resolved to compose a tale of human beings for men. “This +was,” says Blackwall, another of the classical flock, “like lopping off a +man’s limb, and then putting him upon running races.” Our formal critics +are quite lively in their dulness on our “adventurer.” But poets, in the +crisis of a poetical revolution, are more legitimate judges than all such +critics. Waller and Cowley applaud D’Avenant for this very omission of +the epical machinery in this new vein of invention:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Here no bold tales of gods or monsters swell, <br /> +But human passions such as with us dwell;<br /> +<i>Man is thy theme</i>, his virtue or his rage,<br /> +Drawn to the life in each elaborate page.”<br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Waller.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Methinks heroic poesy, till now,<br /> +Like some fantastic fairy-land did show,<br /> +<i>And all but man, in man’s best work had place</i>.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Cowley.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Hurd’s discussion on “Gondibert,” in his “Commentaries,” is the most +important piece of criticism; subtle, ingenious, and exquisitely analytical. +But he holds out the fetter of authority, and he decides as a judge who +expounds laws; not the best decision, when new laws are required to +abrogate obsolete ones. And what laws invented by man can be immutable? +D’Avenant was thus tried by the laws of a country, that of +Greece or Rome, of which, it is said, he was not even a denizen.</p> +<p>It is remarkable that all the critics who condemn D’Avenant could not +but be struck by his excellences, and are very particular in expressing +their admiration of his genius. I mean all the critics who have read the +poem: some assuredly have criticised with little trouble.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0323' id='Footnote_0323'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0323'><span class='label'>[323]</span></a> +<p>It is written in the long four-lined stanzas, which Dryden adopted for +his <i>Annus Mirabilis</i>; nearly 2000 of such stanzas are severe trials for the +critical reader.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0324' id='Footnote_0324'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0324'><span class='label'>[324]</span></a> +<p>I select some of these lines as examples.</p> +<p>Of Care, who only “seals +her eyes in cloisters,” he says,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“She visits cities, but she dwells in thrones.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Of learned Curiosity, eager, but not to be hurried—the student is</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Hasty to know, though not by haste beguiled.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He calls a library, with sublime energy,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The monument of vanish’d minds.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Never has a politician conveyed with such force a most important precept:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——————“The laws,<br /> +Men from themselves, but not from power, secure.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Of the Court he says,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“There prosperous power sleeps long, though suitors wake.”<br /> +<br /> +“Be bold, for number cancels bashfulness;<br /> +Extremes, from which a King would blushing shrink,<br /> +Unblushing senates act as no excess.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And these lines, taken as they occur:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Truth’s a discovery made by travelling minds.”<br /> +“Honour’s the moral conscience of the great.”<br /> +“They grow so certain as to need no hope.”<br /> +“Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>I conclude with one complete stanza, of the same cast of reflection. +<a name='TC_50'></a><ins title="Added missing word">It</ins> may be inscribed in the library of the student, in the studio of the artist, +in every place where excellence can only be obtained by knowledge.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Rich are the diligent, who can command<br /> +Time, nature’s stock! and, could his hour-glass fall,<br /> +Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand,<br /> +And by incessant labour gather all!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0325' id='Footnote_0325'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0325'><span class='label'>[325]</span></a> +<p>Can one read such passages as these without catching some of the sympathies +of a great genius that knows itself?</p> +<p>“He who writes an heroic poem leaves an estate entailed, and he gives +a greater gift to posterity than to the present age; for a public benefit is +best measured in the number of receivers; and our contemporaries are but +few when reckoned with those who shall succeed.</p> +<p>“If thou art a malicious reader, thou wilt remember my preface boldly +confessed, that a main motive to the undertaking was a desire of fame; and +thou mayest likewise say, I may very possibly not live to enjoy it. Truly, +I have some years ago considered that Fame, like Time, only gets a reverence +by long running; and that, like a river, ’tis narrowest where ’tis +bred, and broadest afar off.</p> +<p>“If thou, reader, art one of those who have been warmed with poetic +fire, I reverence thee as my judge; and whilst others tax me with vanity, +I appeal to thy conscience whether it be more than such a necessary assurance +as thou hast made to thyself in like undertakings? For when I observe +that writers have many enemies, such inward assurance, methinks, +resembles that forward confidence in men of arms, which makes them proceed +in great enterprise; since the right examination of abilities begins with +inquiring whether we doubt ourselves.”</p> +<p>Such a composition is injured by mutilation. He here also alludes to +his military character: “Nor could I sit idle and sigh with such as mourn +to hear the drum; for if the age be not quiet enough to be taught virtue +a pleasant way, the next may be at leisure; nor could I (like men that have +civilly slept till they are old in dark cities) think war a novelty.” Shakspeare +could not have expressed his feelings, in his own style, more eloquently +touching than D’Avenant.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0326' id='Footnote_0326'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0326'><span class='label'>[326]</span></a> +<p>It is said there were four writers. The Clinias and Dametas were +probably Sir John Denham and Jo. Donne; Sir Allan Broderick and Will +Crofts, who is mentioned by the clubs as one of their fellows, appear to be the +Sancho and Jack Pudding. Will Crofts was a favourite with Charles II: he +had been a skilful agent, as appears in Clarendon. [In the accounts of moneys +disbursed for secret services in the reign of Charles II., published by the +Camden Society, his name appears for 200<i>l.</i>, but that of his wife repeatedly +figures for large sums, “as of free guift.” In this way she receives 700<i>l.</i> +with great regularity for a series of years, until the death of Charles II.] +Howell has a poem “On some who, blending their brains together, plotted +how to bespatter one of the Muses’ choicest sons, Sir William D’Avenant.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0327' id='Footnote_0327'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0327'><span class='label'>[327]</span></a> +<p>The story was current in D’Avenant’s time, and it is certain he +encouraged the believers in its truth. Anthony Wood speaks of the lady +as “a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation, in which she +was imitated by none of her children but by this William.” He also notes +Shakspeare’s custom to lodge at the Crown Inn, Oxford, kept by her husband, +“in his journies between Warwickshire and London.” Aubrey tells +the same tale, adding that D’Avenant “would sometimes, when he was +pleasant over a glass of wine with his most intimate friends, <i>e.g.</i> Sam. +Butler (author of <ins title="Changed to single quotes">‘Hudibras,’</ins> &c.,) say, that it seemed to him that he writ +with the very same spirit that Shakspeare did, and was contented enough +to be thought his son;” he adds that “his mother had a very light report.” +It was Pope who told Oldys the jesting story he had obtained from Betterton, +of little Will running from school to meet Shakspeare, in one of his visits +to Oxford, and being asked where he was running, by an old townsman, +replied, to “see my godfather Shakspeare.” “There’s a good boy,” said +the old gentleman, “but have a care that you don’t take God’s name in +vain.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0328' id='Footnote_0328'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0328'><span class='label'>[328]</span></a> +<p>The scene where the story of “Gondibert” is placed, which the wits +sometimes pronounced <i>Lumber</i> and <i>Lumbery</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0329' id='Footnote_0329'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0329'><span class='label'>[329]</span></a> +<p>“Curiosities of Literature,” vol. i. p. 158 (last edition).</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0330' id='Footnote_0330'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0330'><span class='label'>[330]</span></a> +<p>There is a small poem, published in 1643, entitled “The Great +Assizes holden in Parnassus,” in the manner of a later work, “The Sessions +of the Poets,” in which all the Diurnals and Mercuries are arraigned +and tried. An impartial satire on them all; and by its good sense and +heavy versification, is so much in the manner of <span class='smcap'>George Wither</span>, that +some have conjectured it to be that singular author’s. Its rarity gives it a +kind of value. Of such verses as Wither’s, who has been of late extolled too +highly, the chief merit is their sense and truth; which, if he were not +tedious, might be an excellence in prose. Antiquaries, when they find a +poet adapted for their purposes, conjecture that he is an excellent one. +This prosing satirist, strange to say, in some pastoral poetry, has opened +the right vein.</p> +<p>Aulicus is well characterized:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><span class='indent2'> </span>———————“hee, for wicked ends,<br /> +Had the Castalian spring defiled with gall,<br /> +And changed by Witchcraft most satyricall,<br /> +The bayes of Helicon and myrtles mild,<br /> +To pricking hawthornes and to hollies wild.<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>———————with slanders false,<br /> +With forged fictitious calumnies and tales—<br /> +He added fewel to the direful flame<br /> +Of civil discord; and domestic blowes,<br /> +By the incentives of malicious prose.<br /> +For whereas he should have composed his inke<br /> +Of liquors that make flames expire, and shrink<br /> +Into their cinders—<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>—He laboured hard for to bring in<br /> +The exploded doctrines of the Florentine,<br /> +And taught that to dissemble and to lie<br /> +Were vital parts of human policie.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0331' id='Footnote_0331'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0331'><span class='label'>[331]</span></a> +<p>Alluding to a ridiculous rumour, that the King was to receive foreign +troops by a Danish fleet.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0332' id='Footnote_0332'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0332'><span class='label'>[332]</span></a> +<p>Col. Urrey, <i>alias</i> Hurrey, deserted the Parliament, and went over to +the King; afterwards deserted the King, and discovered to the Parliament +all he knew of the King’s forces.—<i>See Clarendon.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0333' id='Footnote_0333'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0333'><span class='label'>[333]</span></a> +<p>This Sir William Brereton, or, as Clarendon writes the name, Bruerton, +was the famous Cheshire knight, whom Cleveland characterizes as +one of those heroes whose courage lies in their teeth. “Was Brereton,” +says the loyal satirist, “to fight with his teeth, as he in all other things +resembles the beast, he would have odds of any man at this weapon. He’s +a terrible slaughterman at a Thanksgiving dinner. Had he been cannibal +enough to have eaten those he vanquished, his gut would have made him +valiant.” And in “Loyal Songs” his valiant appetite is noticed:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“But, oh! take heed lest he do eat<br /> +The Rump all at one dinner!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>And Aulicus, we see, accuses him of concealing his bravery in a hayrick. +It is always curious and useful to confer the writers of intemperate times +one with another. Lord Clarendon, whose great mind was incapable of +descending to scurrility, gives a very different character to this pot-valiant +and hayrick runaway; for he says, “It cannot be denied but Sir William +Brereton, and the other gentlemen of that party, albeit their educations +and course of life had been very different from their present engagements, +and for the most part very unpromising in matters of war, and +therefore were too much contemned enemies, executed their commands +with notable sobriety and indefatigable industry (virtues not so well practised +in the King’s quarters), insomuch as the best soldiers who encountered +with them had no cause to despise them.”—<i>Clarendon</i>, vol. ii. +p. 147.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0334' id='Footnote_0334'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0334'><span class='label'>[334]</span></a> +<p>“The Scotch Dove” seems never to have recovered from this metamorphosis, +but ever after, among the newsmen, was known to be only a +Widgeon. His character is not very high in “The Great Assizes.”</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The innocent <i>Scotch Dove</i> did then advance,<br /> +Full sober in his wit and countenance:<br /> +And, though his book contain’d not mickle scence,<br /> +Yet his endictment shew’d no great offence.<br /> +Great wits to perils great, themselves expose<br /> +Oft-times; but the <i>Scotch Dove</i> was none of those.<br /> +In many words he little matter drest,<br /> +And did laconick brevity detest.<br /> +But while his readers did expect some Newes,<br /> +They found a Sermon—”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The Scotch Dove desires to meet the classical Aulicus in the duel of the +pen:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><span class='indent4'> </span>——————“to turn me loose,<br /> +A <i>Scottish Dove</i> against a <i>Roman Goose</i>.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“The Scotch Dove” is condemned “to cross the seas, or to repasse the +Tweede.” They all envy him his “easy mulet,” but he wofully exclaims +at the hard sentence,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“For if they knew that <i>home</i> as well as he,<br /> +They’d rather die than there imprison’d be!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0335' id='Footnote_0335'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0335'><span class='label'>[335]</span></a> +<p>This stroke alludes to a rumour of the times, noticed also by Clarendon, +that Pym died of the <i>morbus pediculosus</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0336' id='Footnote_0336'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0336'><span class='label'>[336]</span></a> +<p>“Peard, a bold lawyer of little note.”—<i>Clarendon.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0337' id='Footnote_0337'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0337'><span class='label'>[337]</span></a> +<p>These divines were as ready with the sword as the pen; thus, we +are told in “The Impartial Scout” for July, 1650—“The ministers +are now as active in the military discipline as formerly they were in the +gospel profession, Parson Ennis, Parson Brown, and about thirty other +ministers having received commissions to be majors and captains, who now +hold forth the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other, telling the +soldiery that they need not fear what man can do against them—that God +is on their side—and that He hath prepared an engine in heaven to break +and blast the designs of all covenant-breakers.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0338' id='Footnote_0338'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0338'><span class='label'>[338]</span></a> +<p>A forcible description of Locke may be found in the curious “Life of +Wood,” written by himself. I shall give the passage where Wood acknowledges +his after celebrity, at the very moment the bigotry of his feelings is +attempting to degrade him.</p> +<p>Wood belonged to a club with Locke and others, for the purpose of hearing +chemical lectures. “John Locke of Christchurch was afterwards a +noted writer. This John Locke was a man of a turbulent spirit, clamorous, +and never contented. The club wrote and took notes from the mouth of +their master, who sat at the upper end of a table, but the said John Locke +scorned to do it; so that while every man besides of the club were writing, +he would be prating and troublesome.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0339' id='Footnote_0339'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0339'><span class='label'>[339]</span></a> +<p>This anecdote deserves preservation. I have drawn it from the MSS. +of Bishop <span class='smcap'>Kennet</span>.</p> +<p>“In the Epitaph on <span class='smcap'>John Philips</span> occurs this line on his metre, that</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘Uni in hoc laudis genere Miltono secundus,<br /></p> +<p class='center cg'>Primoque pene par.’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>These lines were ordered to be razed out of the monument by Dr. Sprat, +Bishop of Rochester. The word Miltono being, as he said, not fit to be in +a Christian church; but they have since been restored by Dr. <span class='smcap'>Atterbury</span>, +who succeeded him as Bishop of Rochester, and who wrote the epitaph +jointly with Dr. <span class='smcap'>Freind</span>.”—Lansdowne MSS., No. 908, p. 162.</p> +<p>The anecdote has appeared, but without any authority. Dr. <span class='smcap'>Symmons</span>, +in his “Life of Milton,” observing on what he calls Dr. Johnson’s “biographical +libel on Milton,” that Dr. Johnson has mentioned this fact, +seems to suspect its authenticity; for, if true, “it would cover the +respectable name of Sprat with eternal dishonour.” Of its truth the +above gives sufficient authority; but at all events the prejudices of Sprat +must be pardoned, while I am showing that minds far greater than his +have shared in the same unhappy feeling. Dr. Symmons himself bears no +light stain for his slanderous criticism on the genius of <span class='smcap'>Thomas Warton</span>, +from the motive we are discussing; though Warton, as my text shows, +was too a sinner! I recollect in my youth a more extraordinary instance +than any other which relates to Milton. A woman of no education, who +had retired from the business of life, became a very extraordinary reader; +accident had thrown into her way a large library composed of authors who +wrote in the reigns of the two Charleses. She turned out one of the <i>malignant</i> +party, and an abhorrer of the Commonwealth’s men. Her opinion of +<span class='smcap'>Cromwell</span> and <span class='smcap'>Milton</span> may be given. She told me it was no wonder that +the rebel who had been secretary to the usurper should have been able to +have drawn so finished a character of <span class='smcap'>Satan</span>, and that the Pandæmonium, +with all the oratorical devils, was only such as he had himself viewed at +Oliver’s council-board.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0340' id='Footnote_0340'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0340'><span class='label'>[340]</span></a> +<p>I throw into this note several curious notices respecting <span class='smcap'>Burnet</span>, and +chiefly from contemporaries.</p> +<p>Burnet has been accused, after a warm discussion, of returning home in +a passion, and then writing the character of a person. But as his feelings +were warm, it is probable he might have often practised the reverse. An +anecdote of the times is preserved in “The Memoirs of Grub-street,” vol. +ii. p. 291. “A noble peer now living declares he stood with a very ill +grace in the history, till he had an opportunity put into his hands of +obliging the bishop, by granting a favour at court, upon which the bishop +told a friend, within an hour, that he was mistaken in such a lord, and +must go and alter his whole character; and so he happens to have a pretty +good one.” In this place I also find this curious extract from the MS. +“Memoirs of the M—— of H——.” “Such a day Dr. B——t told me +King William was an obstinate, conceited man, that would take no advice; +and on this day King William told me that Dr. B——t was a troublesome, +impertinent man, whose company he could not endure.” These anecdotes +are very probable, and lead one to reflect. Some political tergiversation +has been laid to his charge; Swift accused him of having once been an +advocate for passive obedience and absolute power. He has been reproached +with the deepest ingratitude, for the purpose of gratifying his +darling passion of popularity, in his conduct respecting the Duke of Lauderdale, +his former patron. If the following piece of secret history be +true, he showed too much of a compliant humour, at the cost of his honour. +I find it in Bishop Kennet’s MSS. “Dr. Burnet having <i>over night</i> given +in some important depositions against the Earl of Lauderdale to the House +of Commons, was, <i>before morning</i>, by the intercession of the D——, made +king’s chaplain and preacher at the Rolls; so he was bribed to hold the +peace.”—Lansdowne MSS., 990. This was quite a politician’s short way to +preferment! An honest man cannot leap up the ascent, however he may try +to climb. There was something morally wrong in this transaction, because +Burnet notices it, and acknowledges—“I was much blamed for what I had +done.” The story is by no means refuted by the <i>naïve</i> apology.</p> +<p>Burnet’s character has been vigorously attacked, with all the nerve of +satire, in “Faction Displayed,” attributed to Shippen, whom Pope celebrates—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>——“And pour myself as plain<br /> +As honest Shippen or as old Montaigne.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Shippen was a Tory. In “Faction Displayed,” Burnet is represented with +his Cabal (so some party nicknames the other), on the accession of Queen +Anne, plotting the disturbance of her government. “Black Aris’s fierceness,” +that is Burnet, is thus described:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“A Scotch, seditious, unbelieving priest,<br /> +The brawny chaplain of the calves’-head feast,<br /> +Who first his patron, then his prince betray’d,<br /> +And does that church he’s sworn to guard, invade,<br /> +Warm with rebellious rage, he thus began,” &c.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>One hardly suspects the hermit Parnell capable of writing rather harsh +verses, yet stinging satire; they are not in his works; but he wrote the +following lines on a report of a fire breaking out in Burnet’s library, which +had like to have answered the purpose some wished—of condemning the +author and his works to the flames—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“He talks, and writes, that Popery will return,<br /> +And we, and he, and all his works will burn;<br /> +And as of late he meant to bless the age<br /> +With <i>flagrant prefaces of party rage</i>,<br /> +O’ercome with passion and the subject’s weight,<br /> +Lolling he nodded in his elbow-seat;<br /> +Down fell the candle! Grease and zeal conspire,<br /> +Heat meets with heat, and pamphlets burn their sire;<br /> +Here crawls a <i>preface</i> on its half-burn’d maggots,<br /> +And there an <i>introduction</i> brings its fagots;<br /> +Then roars the prophet of the northern nation,<br /> +Scorch’d by a flaming speech on moderation.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Thomas Warton smiles at Burnet for the horrors of Popery which perpetually +haunted him, in his “Life of Sir T. Pope,” p. 53. But if we +substitute the term arbitrary power for popery, no Briton will join in the +abuse Burnet has received on this account. A man of Burnet’s fervid +temper, whose foible was strong vanity and a passion for popularity, would +often rush headlong into improprieties of conduct and language; his enemies +have taken ample advantage of his errors; but many virtues his friends +have recorded; and the elaborate and spirited character which the Marquis +of Halifax has drawn of Burnet may soothe his manes, and secure its repose +amid all these disturbances around his tomb. This fine character is preserved +in the “Biographia Britannica.” Burnet is not the only instance of +the motives of a man being honourable, while his actions are frequently the +reverse, from his impetuous nature. He has been reproached for a want +of that truth which he solemnly protests he scrupulously adhered to; yet, +of many circumstances which were at the time condemned as “lies,” when +Time drew aside the mighty veil, Truth was discovered beneath. Tovey, +with his visual good humour, in his “Anglia Judaica,” p. 277, notices +“that pleasant copious imagination which will for ever rank our <i>English +Burnet</i> with the <i>Grecian Heliodorus</i>.” Roger North, in his “Examen,” +p. 413, calls him “a busy Scotch parson.” Lord Orford sneers at his +hasty epithets, and the colloquial carelessness of his style, in his “Historic +Doubts,” where, in a note, he mentions “<i>one</i> Burnet” tells a ridiculous +story, mimicking Burnet’s chit-chat, and concludes surprisingly with, “So +the Prince of Orange mounted the throne.”</p> +<p>After reading this note, how would that learned foreigner proceed, who +I have supposed might be projecting the “Judgments of the Learned” on +our English authors? Were he to condemn Burnet as an historian void of +all honour and authority, he would not want for documents. It would +require a few minutes to explain to the foreigner the nature of political +criticism.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0341' id='Footnote_0341'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0341'><span class='label'>[341]</span></a> +<p>Dryden was very coarsely satirised in the political poems of his own +day; and among the rest, in “The Session of the Poets,”—a general +onslaught directed against the writers of the time, which furnishes us +with many examples of unjust criticism on these literary men, entirely +originating in political feeling. One example may suffice;</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Then in came Denham, that limping old bard,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Whose fame on <i>the Sophy</i> and <i>Cooper’s-hill</i> stands,<br /> +And brought many stationers, who swore very hard<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>That nothing sold better except ’twere his lands.<br /> +But Apollo advised him to write something more,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>To clear a suspicion which possessed the Court,<br /> +That <i>Cooper’s-hill</i>, so much bragg’d on before,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Was writ by a vicar, who had forty pounds for’t.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0342' id='Footnote_0342'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0342'><span class='label'>[342]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Wagstaffe, in his “Character of Steele,” alludes to the rumour +which Pope has sent down to posterity in a single verse: “I should have +thought Mr. Steele might have the example of his <i>friend</i> before his eyes, +who <i>had the reputation of being the author of The Dispensary</i>, till, by +two or three unlucky after-claps, he proved himself incapable of writing it.”—<span class='smcap'>Wagstaffe’s</span> +<i>Misc. Works</i>, p. 136.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0343' id='Footnote_0343'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0343'><span class='label'>[343]</span></a> +<p>I know not how to ascertain the degree of political skill which Steele +reached in his new career—he was at least a spirited Whig, but the ministry +was then under the malignant influence of the concealed adherents to the +Stuarts, particularly of Bolingbroke, and such as Atterbury, whose secret +history is now much better known than in their own day. The terrors of the +Whigs were not unfounded. Steele in the House disappointed his friends; +from his popular Essays, it was expected he would have been a fluent orator; +this was no more the case with him than Addison. On this De Foe said +he had better have continued the <i>Spectator</i> than the <i>Tatler</i>.—<span class='smcap'>Lansdowne’s</span> +<i>MSS.</i> 1097.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0344' id='Footnote_0344'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0344'><span class='label'>[344]</span></a> +<p>Wagstaffe’s “Miscellaneous Works,” 1726, have been collected into +a volume. They contain satirical pieces of humour, accompanied by some +Hogarthian prints. His “Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb,” +ridicules Addison’s on the old ballad of “Chevy Chase,” who had declared +“it was full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of +the ancient poets,” and quoted passages which he paralleled with several in +the Æneid. Wagstaffe tells us he has found “in the library of a schoolboy, +among other undiscovered valuable authors, one more proper to adorn +the shelves of Bodley or the Vatican than to be confined to the obscurity of +a private study.” This little Homer is the chanter of Tom Thumb. He +performs his office of “a true commentator,” proving the congenial spirit +of the poet of Thumb with that of the poet of Æneas. Addison got himself +ridiculed for that fine natural taste, which felt all the witchery of our +ballad-Enniuses, whose beauties, had Virgil lived with Addison, he would +have inlaid into his mosaic. The bigotry of classical taste, which is not +always accompanied by a natural one, and rests securely on prescribed +opinions and traditional excellence, long contemned our vernacular genius, +spurning at the minstrelsy of the nation; Johnson’s ridicule of “Percy’s Reliques” +had its hour, but the more poetical mind of Scott has brought us +back to home feelings, to domestic manners, and eternal nature.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0345' id='Footnote_0345'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0345'><span class='label'>[345]</span></a> +<p>I shall content myself with referring to “The Character of Richard +St—le, Esq.,” in Dr. Wagstaffe’s Miscellaneous Works, 1726. Considering +that he had no personal knowledge of his victim, one may be well surprised +at his entering so deeply into his private history; but of such a character +as Steele, the private history is usually too public—a mass of scandal for +the select curious. Poor Steele, we are told, was “arrested for the maintenance +of his bastards, and afterwards printed a <i>proposal</i> that the public +should take care of them;” got into the House “not to be arrested;”—“his +<i>set</i> speeches there, which he designs to get <i>extempore</i> to speak in the +House.” For his literary character we are told that “Steele was a jay +who borrowed a feather from the peacock, another from the bullfinch, and +another from the magpye; so that <i>Dick</i> is made up of borrowed colours; +he borrowed his humour from Estcourt, criticism of Addison, his poetry of +Pope, and his politics of Ridpath; so that his qualifications as a man of +genius, like Mr. T——s, as a member of Parliament, <i>lie in thirteen +parishes</i>.” Such are the pillows made up for genius to rest its head on!</p> +<p>Wagstaffe has sometimes delicate humour; Steele, who often wrote in +haste, necessarily wrote incorrectly. Steele had this sentence: “And <span class='smcaplc'>ALL</span>, +as one man, will join in a common indignation against <span class='smcaplc'>ALL</span> who would perplex +our obedience:” on which our pleasant critic remarks—“Whatever +contradiction there is, as some suppose, in <i>all joining against all</i>, our +author has good authority for what he says; and it may be proved, in spite +of Euclid or Sir Isaac, that everything consists of <i>two alls</i>, that these <i>alls</i> +are capable of being divided and subdivided into as many <i>alls</i> as you please, +and so <i>ad infinitum</i>. The following lines may serve for an illustration:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>‘Three children sliding on the ice<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Upon a summer’s day;<br /> +As it fell out, they all fell in;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>The rest they ran away.’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“Though this polite author does not directly say there are <i>two alls</i>, yet +he implies as much; for I would ask any <i>reasonable</i> man what can be +understood by <i>the rest they ran away</i>, but the <i>other all</i> we have been +speaking of? The world may see that I can exhibit the beauties, as well +as quarrel with the faults, of his composition, but I hope he will not value +himself on his <i>hasty productions</i>.”</p> +<p>Poor Steele, with the best humour, bore these perpetual attacks, not, +however, without an occasional groan, just enough to record his feelings. +In one of his wild, yet well-meant projects, of the invention of “a Fish-pool, +or Vessel for Importing Fish Alive,” 1718, he complains of calumnies and +impertinent observations on him, and seems to lay some to the account of +his knighthood:—“While he was pursuing what he believed might conduce +to the common good, he gave the syllables <i>Richard Steele</i> to the publick, +to be used and treated as they should think fit; he must go on in <i>the same +indifference</i>, and allow the <span class='smcap'>Town</span> <i>their usual liberty with his name</i>, which +I find they think they have much more room to sport with than formerly, +as it is lengthened with the monosyllable <span class='smcap'>Sir</span>.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0346' id='Footnote_0346'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0346'><span class='label'>[346]</span></a> +<p>“Rehearsal Transprosed,” p. 45.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0347' id='Footnote_0347'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0347'><span class='label'>[347]</span></a> +<p>The late Gilbert Wakefield is an instance where the political and theological +opinions of a recluse student tainted his pure literary works. Condemned +as an enraged Jacobin by those who were Unitarians in politics, and +rejected because he was a Unitarian in religion by the orthodox, poor Wakefield’s +literary labours were usually reduced to the value of waste-paper. +We smile, but half in sorrow, in reading a letter, where he says, “I meditate +a beginning, during the winter, of my criticisms on all the ancient +Greek and Latin authors,<i> by small piecemeals, on the cheapest possible +paper, and at the least possible expense of printing</i>. As I can never do +more than barely indemnify myself, I shall print only 250 copies.” He +half-ruined himself by his splendid edition of Lucretius, which could never +obtain even common patronage from the opulent friends of classical literature. +Since his death it has been reprinted, and is no doubt now a marketable +article for the bookseller; so that if some authors are not successful +for themselves, it is a comfort to think how useful, in a variety of shapes, +they are made so to others. Even Gilbert’s “contracted scheme of publication” +he was compelled to abandon! Yet the classic erudition of Wakefield +was confessed, and is still remembered. No one will doubt that we +have lost a valuable addition to our critical stores by this literary persecution, +were it only in the present instance; but examples are too numerous!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0348' id='Footnote_0348'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0348'><span class='label'>[348]</span></a> +<p>Shaftesbury has thrown out, on this head, some important truths:—“If +men are forbid to speak their minds <i>seriously</i>, they will do it <i>ironically</i>. +If they find it dangerous to do so, they will then redouble their +disguise, <i>invoke themselves into mysteriousness</i>, and talk so as hardly to be +understood. The <i>persecuting</i> spirit has raised the <i>bantering</i> one. The +higher the slavery, the more exquisite the buffoonery.”—Vol. i. p. 71. +The subject of our present inquiry is a very remarkable instance of “involving +himself into mysteriousness.” To this cause we owe the strong +raillery of Marvell; the cloudy “Oracles of Reason” of Blount; and the +formidable, though gross burlesque, of Hickeringill, the rector of All-Saints, +in Colchester. “Of him (says the editor of his collected works, +1716), the greatest writers of our times trembled at his pen; and as great +a genius as Sir Roger L’Estrange’s was, it submitted to his <i>superior way +of reasoning</i>”—that is, to a most extraordinary burlesque spirit in politics +and religion. But even he who made others tremble felt the terrors +he inflicted; for he complains that “some who have thought his pen too +sharp and smart, those who have been galled, sore men where the skin’s +off, have long lain to catch for somewhat to accuse me—upon such touchy +subjects, a man had need have the <i>dexterity to split a hair</i>, to handle them +pertinently, usefully, and yet <i>safely</i> and <i>warily</i>.”—Such men, however, +cannot avoid their fate: they will be persecuted, however they succeed in +“splitting a hair;” and it is then they have recourse to the most absurd +<i>subterfuges</i>, to which our Hobbes was compelled. Thus also it happened to +Woolston, who wrote in a ludicrous way “Blasphemies” against the +miracles of Christ; calling them “tales and rodomontados.” He rested +his defence on this subterfuge, that “it was meant to place the Christian +religion on a better footing,” &c. But the Court answered, that “if the +author of a treasonable libel should write at the conclusion, <i>God save the +king!</i> it would not excuse him.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0349' id='Footnote_0349'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0349'><span class='label'>[349]</span></a> +<p>The moral axiom of Solon “<span class='smcap'>Know thyself</span>” (<i>Nosce teipsum</i>), applied +by the ancient sage as a corrective for our own pride and vanity, +Hobbes contracts into a narrow principle, when, in his introduction to +“The Leviathan,” he would infer that, by this self-inspection, we are +enabled to determine on the thoughts and passions of other men; and thus +he would make the taste, the feelings, the experience of the individual +decide for all mankind. This simple error has produced all the dogmas of +cynicism; for the cynic is one whose insulated feelings, being all of the +selfish kind, can imagine no other stirrer of even our best affections, and +strains even our loftiest virtues into pitiful motives. Two noble authors, +men of the most dignified feelings, have protested against this principle. +Lord Shaftesbury keenly touches the characters of Hobbes and Rochester:—“Sudden +courage, says our modern philosopher (Hobbes), is anger. If so, +courage, considered as constant, and belonging to a character, must, in his +account, be defined constant anger, or anger constantly recurring. All +men, says a witty poet (Rochester), would be cowards, if they durst: that +the poet and the philosopher both were cowards, may be yielded, perhaps, +without dispute! they may have spoken the best of their knowledge.”—<span class='smcap'>Shaftesbury</span>, +vol. i. p. 119.</p> +<p>With an heroic spirit, that virtuous statesman, Lord Clarendon, rejects +the degrading notion of Hobbes. When <i>he</i> looked into his own breast, he +found that courage was a real virtue, which had induced him, had it been +necessary, to have shed his blood as a patriot. But death, in the judgment +of Hobbes, was the most terrible event, and to be avoided by any means. +Lord Clarendon draws a parallel between a “man of courage” and one of +the disciples of Hobbes, “brought to die together, by a judgment they +cannot avoid.” “How comes it to pass, that one of these undergoes +death, with no other concernment than as if he were going any other +journey; and the other with such confusion and trembling, that he is even +without life before he dies; if it were true that all men fear alike upon +the like occasion?”—<i>Survey of the Leviathan</i>, p. 14.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0350' id='Footnote_0350'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0350'><span class='label'>[350]</span></a> +<p>They were distinguished as <i>Hobbists</i>, and the opinions as <i>Hobbianism</i>. +Their chief happened to be born on a Good Friday; and in the metrical +history of his own life he seems to have considered it as a remarkable +event. An atom had its weight in the scales by which his mighty egotism +weighed itself. He thus marks the day of his birth, innocently enough:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Natus erat noster Servator Homo-Deus annos<br /> +Mille et quingentos, octo quoque undecies.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But the <i>Hobbists</i> declared more openly (as Wood tells us), that “as our +Saviour Christ went out of the world on that day to save the men of the +world, so another saviour came into the world on that day to save them!”</p> +<p>That the sect spread abroad, as well as at home, is told us by Lord Clarendon, +in the preface to his “Survey of the Leviathan.” The qualities +of the author, as well as the book, were well adapted for proselytism; +for Clarendon, who was intimately acquainted with him, notices his confidence +in conversation—his never allowing himself to be contradicted—his +bold inferences—the novelty of his expressions—and his probity, and a life +free from scandal. “The humour and inclination of the time to all kind +of paradoxes,” was indulged by a pleasant clear style, an appearance of +order and method, hardy paradoxes, and accommodating principles to existing +circumstances.</p> +<p>Who were the sect composed of? The monstrous court of Charles II.—the +grossest materialists! The secret history of that court could scarcely +find a Suetonius among us. But our author was frequently in the hands of +those who could never have comprehended what they pretended to admire; +this appears by a publication of the times, intituled, “Twelve Ingenious +Characters, &c.” 1686, where, in that of a town-fop, who, “for genteel +breeding, posts to town, by his mother’s indulgence, three or four wild +companions, half-a-dozen bottles of Burgundy, <i>two leaves of Leviathan</i>,” +and some few other obvious matters, shortly make this young philosopher +nearly lose his moral and physical existence. “He will not confess himself +an Atheist, yet he boasts aloud that he holds his <i>gospel</i> from <i>the +Apostle of Malmesbury</i>, though it is more than probable he never read, at +least understood, ten leaves of <i>that unlucky author</i>.” If such were his +wretched disciples, Hobbes was indeed “an unlucky author,” for their +morals and habits were quite opposite to those of their master. <span class='smcap'>Eachard</span>, +in the preface to his Second Dialogue, 1673, exhibits a very Lucianic arrangement +of his disciples—Hobbes’ “Pit, Box, and Gallery Friends.” +The <i>Pit-friends</i> were sturdy practicants who, when they hear that “Ill-nature, +Debauchery, and Irreligion were Mathematics and Demonstration, +clap and shout, and swear by all that comes from Malmesbury.” The +<i>Gallery</i> are “a sort of small, soft, little, pretty, fine gentlemen, who +having some little wit, some little modesty, some little remain of conscience +and country religion, could not hector it as the former, but quickly learnt +to chirp and giggle when t’other clapt and shouted.” But “the Don-admirers, +and <i>Box-friends</i> of Mr. Hobbes are men of gravity and reputation, +who will scarce simper in favour of the philosopher, but can make shift to +nod and nod again.” Even amid this wild satire we find a piece of truth +in a dark corner; for the satirist confesses that “his Gallery-friends, who +were such resolved practicants in <i>Hobbianism</i> (by which the satirist means +all kinds of licentiousness) would most certainly have been so, had there +never been any such man as Mr. Hobbes in the world.” Why then place +to the account of the philosopher those gross immoralities which he never +sanctioned? The life of Hobbes is without a stain! He had other friends +besides these “Box, Pit, and Gallery” gentry—the learned of Europe, and +many of the great and good men of his own country.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0351' id='Footnote_0351'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0351'><span class='label'>[351]</span></a> +<p>Hobbes, in defending Thucydides, whom he has so admirably translated, +from the charge of some obscurity in his design, observes that +“Marcellinus saith he was obscure, on purpose that the common people +might not understand him; and not unlikely, for a wise man should so +write (though in words understood by all men), that wise men only should +be able to commend him.” Thus early in life Hobbes had determined on a +principle which produced all his studied ambiguity, involved him in so +much controversy, and, in some respects, preserved him in an inglorious +security.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0352' id='Footnote_0352'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0352'><span class='label'>[352]</span></a> +<p>Hobbes explains the image in his Introduction. He does not disguise +his opinion that <i>Men</i> may be converted into <i>Automatons</i>; and if he were +not very ingenious we might lose our patience. He was so delighted with +this whimsical fancy of his “artificial man,” that he carried it on to +government itself, and employed the engraver to impress the monstrous +personification on our minds, even clearer than by his reasonings. The +curious design forms the frontispiece of “The Leviathan.” He borrowed +the name from that sea-monster, that mightiest of powers, which Job has +told is not to be compared with any on earth. The sea-monster is here, +however, changed into a colossal man, entirely made up of little men from +all the classes of society, bearing in the right hand the sword, and in the +left the crosier. The compartments are full of political allegories. An +expression of Lord Clarendon’s in the preface to his “Survey of the Leviathan,” +shows our philosopher’s infatuation to this “idol of the Den,” as +Lord Bacon might have called the intellectual illusion of the philosopher. +Hobbes, when at Paris, showed a proof-sheet or two of his work to Clarendon, +who, he soon discovered, could not approve of the hardy tenets. +“He frequently came to me,” says his lordship, “and told me his book +(<i>which he would call <span class='smcap'>Leviathan</span></i>) was then printing in England. He +said, that he knew when I read his book I would not like it, and mentioned +some of his conclusions: upon which I asked him, why he would +publish such doctrine: to which, after a discourse, <i>between jest and +earnest</i>, he said, <i>The truth is, I have a mind to go home!</i>” Some philosophical +systems have, probably, been raised “between jest and earnest;” +yet here was a text-book for the despot, as it is usually accepted, deliberately +given to the world, for no other purpose than that the philosopher +was desirous of changing his lodgings at Paris for his old apartments in +London!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0353' id='Footnote_0353'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0353'><span class='label'>[353]</span></a> +<p>The duplicity of the system is strikingly revealed by Burnet, who +tells of Hobbes, that “he put all the law in the will of the <i>prince</i> or the +<i>people</i>; for he writ his book <i>at first</i> in favour of <i>absolute monarchy</i>, but +turned it afterwards to gratify the <i>republican party</i>. These were his true +principles, though he had disguised them for deceiving unwary readers.” +It is certain Hobbes became a suspected person among the royalists. They +were startled at the open extravagance of some of his political paradoxes; +such as his notion of the necessity of extirpating all the <i>Greek</i> and <i>Latin</i> +authors, “by reading of which men from their childhood have gotten a +habit of licentious controuling the actions of their sovereigns.”—p. 111. +But the doctrines of liberty were not found only among the Greeks and +Romans; the <i>Hebrews</i> were stern republicans; and liberty seems to have +had a nobler birth in the North among our German ancestors, than perhaps +in any other part of the globe. It is certain that the Puritans, who +warmed over the Bible more than the classic historians, had their heads +full of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; the hanging of the five +kings of Joshua; and the fat king of the Moabites, who in his summer-room +received a present, and then a dagger, from the left-handed Jewish +Jacobin. Hobbes curiously compares “The <i>tyrannophobia</i>, or fear of being +strongly governed,” to the <i>hydrophobia</i>. “When a monarchy is once bitten +to the quick by those democratical writers, and, by their poison, men seem +to be converted into dogs,” his remedy is, “a strong monarch,” or “the +exercise of entire sovereignty,” p. 171; and that the authority he would +establish should be immutable, he hardily asserts that “the ruling power +cannot be punished for mal-administration.” Yet in this elaborate system +of despotism are interspersed some strong republican axioms, as The safety +of the people is the supreme law,—The public good to be preferred to that +of the individual:—and that God made the one for the many, and not the +many for the one. The effect the <span class='smcap'>Leviathan</span> produced on the royal party +was quite unexpected by the author. His hardy principles were considered +as a satire on arbitrary power, and Hobbes himself as a concealed favourer +of democracy. This has happened more than once with such vehement advocates. +Our philosopher must have been thunderstruck at the insinuation, +for he had presented the royal exile, as Clarendon in his “Survey” informs +us, with a magnificent copy of “The Leviathan,” written on vellum; this +beautiful specimen of <a name='TC_52'></a><ins title="Was 'caligraphy'">calligraphy</ins> may still be seen, as we learn from the <i>Gentleman’s +Magazine</i> for January, 1813, where the curiosity is fully described. +The suspicion of Hobbes’s principles was so strong, that it produced <a name='TC_53'></a><ins title="Was 'hi'">his</ins> +sudden dismissal from the presence of Charles II. when at Paris. The +king, indeed, said he believed Hobbes intended him no hurt; and Hobbes +said of the king, “that his majesty understood his writings better than +his accusers.” However, happy was Hobbes to escape from France, where +the officers were in pursuit of him, amid snowy roads and nipping blasts. +The lines in his metrical life open a dismal winter scene for an old man on +a stumbling horse:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Frigus erat, nix alta, senex ego, ventus acerbus,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Vexat equus sternax, et salebrosa via—”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>A curious spectacle! to observe, under a despotic government, its vehement +advocate in flight!</p> +<p>The ambiguity of “The Leviathan” seemed still more striking, when Hobbes +came, at length, to place the right of government merely in what he terms +“the Seat of Power,”—a wonderful principle of expediency; for this was +equally commodious to the republicans and to the royalists. By this principle, +the republicans maintained the right of Cromwell, since his authority +was established, while it absolved the royalists from their burdensome +allegiance; for, according to “The Leviathan,” Charles was the English +monarch only when in a condition to force obedience; and, to calm tender +consciences, the philosopher further fixed on that precise point of time, +“when a subject may obey an unjust conqueror.” After the Restoration, +it was subtilely urged by the Hobbists, that this very principle had greatly +served the royal cause; for it afforded a plea for the emigrants to return, +by compounding for their estates, and joining with those royalists who had +remained at home in an open submission to the established government; +and thus they were enabled to concert their measures in common, for reinstating +the old monarchy. Had the Restoration never taken place, Hobbes +would have equally insisted on the soundness of his doctrine; he would +have asserted the title of Richard Cromwell to the Protectorate, if Richard +had had the means to support it, as zealously as he afterwards did that of +Charles II. to the throne, when the king had firmly re-established it. The +philosophy of Hobbes, therefore, is not dangerous in any government; its +sole aim is to preserve it from intestine divisions; but for this purpose, he +was for reducing men to mere machines. With such little respect he +treated the species, and with such tenderness the individual!</p> +<p>I will give Hobbes’s own justification, after the Restoration of Charles II., +when accused by the great mathematician, Dr. Wallis, a republican under +Cromwell, of having written his work in defence of Oliver’s government. +Hobbes does not deny that “he placed the right of government wheresoever +should be the strength.” Most subtilely he argues, how this very +principle “was designed in behalf of the faithful subjects of the king,” +after they had done their utmost to defend his rights and person. The +government of Cromwell being established, these found themselves without +the protection of a government of their own, and therefore might lawfully +promise obedience to their victor for the saving of their lives and fortunes; +and more, they ought even to protect that authority in war by which they +were themselves protected in peace. But this plea, which he so ably urged +in favour of the royalists, will not, however, justify those who, like Wallis, +voluntarily submitted to Cromwell, because they were always the enemies +of the king; so that this submission to Oliver is allowed only to the +royalists—a most admirable political paradox! The whole of the argument +is managed with infinite dexterity, and is thus unexpectedly turned against +his accusers themselves. The principle of “self-preservation” is carried +on through the entire system of Hobbes.—<i>Considerations upon the Reputation, +Loyalty, &c., of Mr. Hobbes.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0354' id='Footnote_0354'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0354'><span class='label'>[354]</span></a> +<p>The passage in Hobbes to which I allude is in “The Leviathan,” +c. 32. He there says, sarcastically, “It is with the <i>mysteries of religion</i> +as with wholesome pills for the sick, which, swallowed whole, have the +virtue to cure; but, chewed, are for the most part cast up again without +<a name='TC_54'></a><ins title="Added quote">effect.”</ins> Hobbes is often a wit: he was much pleased with this thought, +for he had it in his <i>De Cive</i>; which, in the English translation, bears the +title of “Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society,” +1651. There he calls “the wholesome pills,” “bitter.” He translated +the <i>De Cive</i> himself; a circumstance which was not known till the recent +appearance of Aubrey’s papers.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0355' id='Footnote_0355'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0355'><span class='label'>[355]</span></a> +<p>Warburton has most acutely distinguished between the intention of +Hobbes and that of some of his successors. The bishop does not consider +Hobbes as an enemy to religion, not even to the Christian; and even doubts +whether he has attacked it in “The Leviathan.” At all events, he has +“taken direct contrary measures from those of Bayle, Collins, Tindal, +Bolingbroke, and all that school. They maliciously endeavoured to show +the Gospel was <i>unreasonable</i>; Hobbes, as reasonable as his admirable wit +could represent it: they contended for the most unbounded <i>toleration</i>, +Hobbes for the most rigorous <i>conformity</i>.” See the “Alliance between +Church and State,” book i. c. v. It is curious to observe the noble disciple +of Hobbes, Lord Bolingbroke, a strenuous advocate for his political and +moral opinions, enraged at what he calls his “High Church notions.” +Trenchard and Gordon, in their <i>Independent Whig</i>, No. 44, that libel +on the clergy, accuse them of <i>Atheism</i> and <i>Hobbism</i>; while some divines +as earnestly reject Hobbes as an Atheist! Our temperate sage, though +angried at that spirit of contradiction which he had raised, must, however, +have sometimes smiled both on his advocates and his adversaries!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0356' id='Footnote_0356'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0356'><span class='label'>[356]</span></a> +<p>The odious term of <i>Atheist</i> has been too often applied to many great +men of our nation by the hardy malignity of party. Were I to present a +catalogue, the very names would refute the charge. Let us examine the +religious sentiments of Hobbes. The materials for its investigation are not +common, but it will prove a dissertation of facts. I warn some of my +readers to escape from the tediousness, if they cannot value the curiosity.</p> +<p>Hobbes has himself thrown out an observation in his “Life of Thucydides” +respecting Anaxagoras, that “his opinions, being of a strain above the +apprehension of the vulgar, procured him the estimation of an <i>Atheist</i>, +which name they bestowed upon all men that thought not as they did of +their ridiculous religion, and in the end cost him his life.” This was a +parallel case with Hobbes himself, except its close, which, however, seems +always to have been in the mind of our philosopher.</p> +<p>Bayle, who is for throwing all things into doubt, acknowledging that +the life of Hobbes was blameless, adds, One might, however, have been +tempted to ask him this question:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Heus age responde; minimum est quod scire laboro;<br /> +<i>De Jove quid sentis?</i>—<span class='smcap'>Persius</span>, Sat. ii. v. 17.<br /> +<br /> +Hark, now! resolve this one short question, friend!<br /> +<i>What are thy thoughts of Jove?</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>But Bayle, who compared himself to the Jupiter of Homer, powerful in +gathering and then dispersing the clouds, dissipates the one he had just +raised, by showing how “Hobbes might have answered the question with +sincerity and belief, <i>according to the writers of his life</i>.”—But had Bayle +known that Hobbes was the author of all the lives of himself, so partial an +evidence might have raised another doubt with the great sceptic. It appears, +by Aubrey’s papers, that Hobbes did not wish his biography should +appear when he was living, that he might not seem the author of it.</p> +<p>Baxter, who knew Hobbes intimately, ranks him with Spinosa, by a strong +epithet for materialists—“The <i>Brutists</i>, Hobbes, and Spinosa.” He tells +us that Selden would not have him in his chamber while dying, calling out, +“No Atheists!” But by Aubrey’s papers it appears that Hobbes stood by +the side of his dying friend. It is certain his enemies raised stories against +him, and told them as suited their purpose. In the Lansdowne MSS. I +find Dr. Grenville, in a letter, relates how “Hobbes, when in France, and +like to die, betrayed such expressions of repentance to a great prelate, from +whose mouth I had this relation, that he admitted him to the sacrament. +But Hobbes afterwards made this a subject of ridicule in companies.”—<i>Lansdowne +MSS.</i> 990—73.</p> +<p>Here is a strong accusation, and a fact too; yet, when fully developed, +the result will turn out greatly in favour of Hobbes.</p> +<p>Hobbes had a severe illness at Paris, which lasted six months, thus +noticed in his metrical life:</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>Dein per sex menses morbo decumbo propinque<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Accinctus morti; nec fugio, illa fugit.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It happened that the famous Guy Patin was his physician; and in one of +these amusing letters, where he puts down the events of the day, like a +newspaper of the times, in No. 61, has given an account of his intercourse +with the philosopher, in which he says that Hobbes endured such pain, +that he would have destroyed himself—“<i>Qu’il avoit voulu se tuer.</i>”—Patin +is a vivacious writer: we are not to take him <i>au pied de la lettre</i>. +Hobbes was systematically tenacious of life: and, so far from attempting +suicide, that he wanted even the courage to allow Patin to bleed him! It +was during this illness that the Catholic party, who like to attack a Protestant +in a state of unresisting debility, got his learned and intimate friend, +Father Mersenne, to hold out all the benefits a philosopher might derive +from their Church. When Hobbes was acquainted with this proposed interview +(says a French contemporary, whose work exists in MS., but is quoted +in Joly’s folio volume of Remarks on Bayle), the sick man answered, +“Don’t let him come for this; I shall laugh at him; and perhaps I may +convert him myself.” Father Mersenne did come; and when this missionary +was opening on the powers of Rome to grant a plenary pardon, he was +interrupted by Hobbes—“Father, I have examined, a long time ago, all +these points; I should be sorry to dispute now; you can entertain me in +a more agreeable manner. When did you see Mr. Gassendi?” The +monk, who was a philosopher, perfectly understood Hobbes, and this interview +never interrupted their friendship. A few days after, Dr. Cosin +(afterwards Bishop of Durham), the great prelate whom Dr. Grenville +alludes to, prayed with Hobbes, who first <i>stipulated</i> that the prayers +should be those authorised by the <i>Church of England</i>; and he also +received the sacrament with reverence. Hobbes says:—“Magnum hoc +erga disciplinam Episcopalem signum erat reverentiæ.”—It is evident that +the conversion of Father Mersenne, to which Hobbes facetiously alluded, +could never be to Atheism, but to Protestantism: and had Hobbes been +an Atheist, he would not have risked his safety, when he arrived in England, +by his strict attendance to the <i>Church of England</i>, resolutely refusing +to unite with any of the sects. His views of the national religion were not +only enlightened, but in this respect he showed a boldness in his actions +very unusual with him.</p> +<p>But the religion of Hobbes was “of a strain beyond the apprehension of +the vulgar,” and not very agreeable to some of the Church. A man may +have peculiar notions respecting the Deity, and yet be far removed from +Atheism; and in his political system the Church may hold that subordinate +place which some Bishops will not like. When Dr. Grenville tells us +“Hobbes ridiculed in companies” certain matters which the Doctor held +sacred, this is not sufficient to accuse a man of Atheism, though it may +prove him not to have held orthodox opinions. From the MS. collections +of the French contemporary, who well knew Hobbes at Paris, I transcribe +a remarkable observation:—“Hobbes said, that he was not surprised that +the Independents, who were enemies of monarchy, could not bear it in +heaven, and that therefore they placed there three Gods instead of one; +but he was astonished that the English bishops, and those Presbyterians +who were favourers of monarchy, should persist in the same opinion concerning +the Trinity. He added, that the Episcopalians ridiculed the +Puritans, and the Puritans the Episcopalians; but that the wise ridiculed +both alike.”—<i>Lantiniana MS.</i> quoted by Joly, p. 434.</p> +<p>The <i>religion</i> of Hobbes was in <i>conformity</i> to <i>State and Church</i>. He +had, however, the most awful notions of the Divinity. He confesses he is +unacquainted with “the nature of God, but not with the <i>necessity</i> of the +existence of the Power of all powers, and First Cause of all causes; so that +we know that God is, though not what he is.” See his “Human +Nature,” chap. xi. But was the God of Hobbes the inactive deity of +Epicurus, who takes no interest in the happiness or misery of his created +beings; or, as Madame de Staël has expressed it, with the point and felicity +of French antithesis, was this “an Atheism with a God?” This consequence +some of his adversaries would draw from his principles, which +Hobbes indignantly denies. He has done more; for in his <i>De Corpore +Politico</i>, he declares his belief of all the fundamental points of Christianity, +part i. c. 4, p. 116. Ed. 1652. But he was an open enemy to those “who +presume, out of Scripture, by their own interpretation, to raise any <i>doctrine +to the understanding</i>, concerning those things which are incomprehensible;” +and he refers to St. Paul, who gives a good rule “<i>to think +soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man</i> the measure of faith.”—Rom. +xii. 3.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0357' id='Footnote_0357'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0357'><span class='label'>[357]</span></a> +<p>This he pictures in a strange engraving prefixed to his book, and +representing a crowned figure, whose description will be found in the note, +p. <a href='#page_440'>440</a>. It is remarkable that when Hobbes adopted the principle that +the <i>ecclesiastical</i> should be united with the <i>sovereign</i> power, he was then +actually producing that portentous change which had terrified Luther and +Calvin; who, even in their day, were alarmed by a new kind of political +Antichrist; that “Cæsarean Popery” which Stubbe so much dreaded, and +which I have here noticed, p. <a href='#page_358'>358</a>. Luther predicted that as the pope had +at times seized on the political sword, so this “Cæsarean Popery,” under +the pretence of policy, would grasp the ecclesiastical crosier, to form a <i>political +church</i>. The curious reader is referred to Wolfius <i>Lectionum Memorabilium +et reconditarum</i>, vol. ii. cent. x. p. 987. Calvin, in his commentary +on Amos, has also a remarkable passage on this <i>political church</i>, +animadverting on Amaziah, the priest, who would have proved the Bethel +worship warrantable, because settled by the royal authority: “It is the +king’s chapel.” Amos, vii. 13. Thus Amaziah, adds Calvin, assigns the +king a double function, and maintains it is in his power to transform religion +into what shape he pleases, while he charges Amos with disturbing +the public repose, and encroaching on the royal prerogative. Calvin zealously +reprobates the conduct of those inconsiderate persons, “who give +the civil magistrate a sovereignty in religion, and dissolve the Church into +the State.” The supremacy in Church and State, conferred on Henry VIII., +was the real cause of these alarms; but the passage of domination raged +not less fiercely in Calvin than in Henry VIII.; in the enemy of kings than +in kings themselves. Were the <i>forms</i> of religion more celestial from the +sanguinary hands of that tyrannical reformer than from those of the reforming +tyrant? The system of our philosopher was, to lay all the wild +spirits which have haunted us in the chimerical shapes of <i>nonconformity</i>. +I have often thought, after much observation on our Church history since +the Reformation, that <i>the devotional feelings</i> have not been so much concerned +in this bitter opposition to the National Church as the rage of +dominion, the spirit of vanity, the sullen pride of sectarism, and the delusions +of madness.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0358' id='Footnote_0358'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0358'><span class='label'>[358]</span></a> +<p>Hobbes himself tells us that “some bishops are content to hold their +authority from <i>the king’s letters patents</i>; others will needs have somewhat +more they know not what of <i>divine rights</i>, &c., <i>not acknowledging the +power of the king</i>. It is a relic still remaining of the venom of popish +ambition, lurking in that <i>seditious distinction and division</i> between the +power <i>spiritual</i> and <i>civil</i>. The safety of the State does not depend on the +safety of the clergy, but on the <i>entireness of the sovereign power</i>.”—<i>Considerations +upon the Reputation, &c., of Mr. Hobbes</i>, p. 44.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0359' id='Footnote_0359'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0359'><span class='label'>[359]</span></a> +<p>This royal observation is recorded in the “Sorberiana.” Sorbiere +gleaned the anecdote during his residence in England. By the “Aubrey +Papers,” which have been published since I composed this article, I find +that Charles II. was greatly delighted by the wit and repartees of Hobbes, +who was at once bold and happy in making his stand amidst the court wits. +The king, whenever he saw Hobbes, who had the privilege of being admitted +into the royal presence, would exclaim, “Here comes the bear to +be baited.” This did not allude to his native roughness, but the force of +his resistance when attacked.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0360' id='Footnote_0360'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0360'><span class='label'>[360]</span></a> +<p>See “Mr. Hobbes’s State of Nature considered, in a Dialogue between +Philautus and Timothy.” The second dialogue is not contained in the +eleventh edition of Eachard’s Works, 1705, which, however, was long after +his death, so careless were the publishers of those days of their authors’ +works. The literary bookseller, Tom Davies, who ruined himself by giving +good editions of our old authors, has preserved it in his own.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0361' id='Footnote_0361'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0361'><span class='label'>[361]</span></a> +<p>“A Discourse Concerning Irony,” 1729, p. 13.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0362' id='Footnote_0362'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0362'><span class='label'>[362]</span></a> +<p>Men of very opposite principles, but aiming at the same purpose, are +reduced to a dilemma, by the spirit of party in controversy. Sir Robert +Filmer, who wrote against “The Anarchy of a Limited Monarchy,” and +“Patriarcha,” to re-establish <i>absolute power</i>, derived it from the scriptural +accounts of the patriarchal state. But Sir Robert and Hobbes, though alike +the advocates for supremacy of power, were as opposite as possible on theological +points. Filmer had the same work to perform, but he did not like the +instruments of his fellow-labourer. His manner of proceeding with Hobbes +shows his dilemma: he refutes the doctrine of the “Leviathan,” while he +confesses that Hobbes is right in the main. The philosopher’s reasonings +stand on quite another foundation than the scriptural authorities deduced +by Filmer. The result therefore is, that Sir Robert had the trouble to +confute the very thing he afterwards had to establish!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0363' id='Footnote_0363'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0363'><span class='label'>[363]</span></a> +<p>It may be curious to some of my readers to preserve that part of +Hobbes’s Letter to Anthony Wood, in the rare tract of his “Latin +Life,” in which, with great calmness, the philosopher has painfully collated +the odious interpolations. All that was written in favour of the +morals of Hobbes—of the esteem in which foreigners held him—of the +royal patronage, &c., were maliciously erased. Hobbes thus notices the +amendments of Bishop Fell:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Nimirum ubi mihi tu ingenium attribuis <i>Sobrium</i>, ille, deleto <i>Sobrio</i>, +substituit <i>Acri</i>.</p> +<p>“Ubi tu scripseras <i>Libellum scripsit de Cive</i>, interposuit ille inter <i>Libellum</i> +et <i>de Cive, rebus permiscendis natum</i>, de <i>Cive</i>, quod ita manifestè +falsum est, &c.</p> +<p>“Quod, ubi tu de libro meo <i>Leviathan</i> scripsisti, primò, quod esset, +<i>Vicinis gentibus notissimus</i> interposuit ille, <i>publico damno</i>. Ubi tu +scripseras, <i>scripsit librum</i>, interposuit ille <i>monstrosissimum</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A noble confidence in his own genius and celebrity breaks out in this +Epistle to Wood. “In leaving out all that you have said of my character +and reputation, the dean has injured you, but cannot injure me; for long +since has my fame winged its way to a station from which it can never +descend.” One is surprised to find such a Miltonic spirit in the contracted +soul of Hobbes, who in his own system might have cynically ridiculed the +passion for fame, which, however, no man felt more than himself. In his +controversy with Bishop Bramhall (whose book he was cautious not to answer +till ten years after it was published, and his adversary was no more, pretending +he had never heard of it till then!) he breaks out with the same +feeling:—“What my works are, he was no fit judge; but now he has +provoked me, I will say thus much of them, that neither he, if he had +lived, could—nor I, if I would, can—extinguish the light which is set up +in the world by the greatest part of them.”</p> +<p>It is curious to observe that an idea occurred to Hobbes, which some +authors have attempted lately to put into practice against their critics—to +prosecute them in a court of law; but the knowledge of mankind was one +of the liveliest faculties of Hobbes’s mind; he knew well to what account +common minds place the injured feelings of authorship; yet were <i>a jury +of literary men</i> to sit in judgment, we might have a good deal of business +in the court for a long time; the critics and the authors would finally have +a very useful body of reports and pleadings to appeal to; and the public +would be highly entertained and greatly instructed. On this attack of +Bishop Fell, Hobbes says—“I might perhaps have an action on the case +against him, if it were worth my while; but juries seldom consider the +Quarrels of Authors as of much moment.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0364' id='Footnote_0364'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0364'><span class='label'>[364]</span></a> +<p>Bayle has conjured up an amusing theory of apparitions, to show that +Hobbes might fear that a certain combination of atoms agitating his brain +might so disorder his mind that it would expose him to spectral visions; +and being very timorous, and distrusting his imagination, he was averse to +be left alone. Apparitions happen frequently in dreams, and they may +happen, even to an incredulous man, when awake, for reading and hearing +of them would revive their images—these images, adds Bayle, might play +him some unlucky trick! We are here astonished at the ingenuity of a +disciple of Pyrrho, who in his inquiries, after having exhausted all human +evidence, seems to have demonstrated what he hesitates to believe! Perhaps +the truth was, that the sceptical Bayle had not entirely freed himself +from the traditions which were then still floating from the fireside to +the philosopher’s closet: he points his pen, as Æneas brandished his sword +at the Gorgons and Chimeras that darkened the entrance of Hell; wanting +the admonitions of the sibyl, he would have rushed in—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'><i>Et frustra ferro diverberet umbras.</i></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0365' id='Footnote_0365'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0365'><span class='label'>[365]</span></a> +<p>The papers of Aubrey confirm my suggestion. I shall give the words—“There +was a report, and surely true, that in parliament, not long after +the king was settled, some of the bishops made a motion to have the good +old gentleman burned for a heretique; which he hearing, feared that his +papers might be searched by their order, and he told me he had burned +part of them.”—p. 612. When Aubrey requested Waller to write verses +on Hobbes, the poet said that he was afraid of the Churchmen. Aubrey +tells us—“I have often heard him say that he was not afraid of <i>Sprights</i>, +but afraid of being knocked on the head for five or ten pounds which rogues +might think he had in his chamber.” This reason given by Hobbes for +his frequent alarms was an evasive reply for too curious and talkative an +inquirer. Hobbes has not concealed the cause of his terror in his metrical +life—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Tunc venit in mentem mihi Dorislaus et Ascham,<br /> +Tanquam proscripto terror ubique aderat.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Dr. Dorislaus and Ascham had fallen under the daggers of proscription. +[The former was assassinated in Holland, whither he had fled for safety.]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0366' id='Footnote_0366'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0366'><span class='label'>[366]</span></a> +<p>It is said that Hobbes completely recanted all his opinions; and proceeded +so far as to declare that the opinions he had published in his +“Leviathan,” were not his real sentiments, and that he neither maintained +them in public nor in private. Wood gives this title to a work of +his—“An Apology for Himself and his Writings,” but without date. +Some have suspected that this Apology, if it ever existed, was not his +own composition. Yet why not? Hobbes, no doubt, thought that “The +Leviathan” would outlast any recantation; and, after all, that a recantation +is by no means a refutation!—recantations usually prove the force of +authority, rather than the force of conviction. I am much pleased with a +Dr. Pocklington, who hit the etymology of the word <i>recantation</i> with the +spirit. Accused and censured, for a penance he was to make a recantation, +which he began thus:—“If <i>canto</i> be to sing, <i>recanto</i> is to sing +again:” so that he <i>re-chanted</i> his offensive principles by his <i>recantation</i>!</p> +<p>I suspect that the apology Wood alludes to was only a republication of +Hobbes’s Address to the King, prefixed to the “Seven Philosophical +Problems,” 1662, where he openly disavows his opinions, and makes an +apology for the “Leviathan.” It is curious enough to observe how he +acts in this dilemma. It was necessary to give up his opinions to the +clergy, but still to prove they were of an innocent nature. He therefore +acknowledges that “his theological notions are not his opinions, but propounded +with submission to the power ecclesiastical, never afterwards +having maintained them in writing or discourse.” Yet, to show the king +that the regal power incurred no great risk in them, he laid down one +principle, which could not have been unpleasing to Charles II. He asserts, +truly, that he never wrote against episcopacy; “yet he is called an +Atheist, or man of no religion, because he has made the authority of the +Church depend wholly upon the regal power, which, I hope, your majesty +will think is neither Atheism nor Heresy.” Hobbes considered the <i>religion</i> +of his country as a subject of <i>law</i>, and not <i>philosophy</i>. He was not for +<i>separating</i> the Church from the State; but, on the contrary, for <i>joining +them</i> more closely. The bishops ought not to have been his enemies; and +many were not.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0367' id='Footnote_0367'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0367'><span class='label'>[367]</span></a> +<p>In the MS. collection of the French contemporary, who personally +knew him, we find a remarkable confession of Hobbes. He said of himself +that “he sometimes made openings to let in light, but that he could +not discover his thoughts but by half-views: like those who throw open +the window for a short time, but soon closing it, from the dread of the +storm.” <a name='TC_55'></a><i><ins title="Added quote">“Il</ins> +disoit qu’il faisoit quelquefois des ouvertures, mais qu’il ne +pouvoit découvrir ses pensées qu’à-demi; qu’il imitoit ceux qui ouvrent +la fenêtre pendant quelques momens, mais qui la referment promptement +de peur de l’orage.”</i>—Lantiniana MSS., quoted by Joly in his volume of +“Remarques sur Bayle.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0368' id='Footnote_0368'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0368'><span class='label'>[368]</span></a> +<p>Could one imagine that the very head and foot of the stupendous +“Leviathan” bear the marks of the little artifices practised for self by +its author? This grave work is dedicated to Francis Godolphin, a person +whom its author had never seen, merely to remind him of a certain legacy +which that person’s brother had left to our philosopher. If read with this +fact before us, we may detect the concealed claim to the legacy, which it +seems was necessary to conceal from the Parliament, as Francis Godolphin +resided in England. It must be confessed this was a miserable motive for +dedicating a system of philosophy which was addressed to all mankind. +It discovers little dignity. This secret history we owe to Lord Clarendon, +in his “Survey of the Leviathan,” who adds another. The postscript to +the “Leviathan,” which is only in the English edition, was designed as an +easy summary of the principles: and his lordship adds, as a sly address to +Cromwell, that he might be induced to be master of them at once, and +“as a pawn of his new subject’s allegiance.” It is possible that Hobbes +might have anticipated the sovereign power which the <i>general</i> was on the +point of assuming in the <i>protectorship</i>. It was natural enough, that Hobbes +should deny this suggestion.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0369' id='Footnote_0369'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0369'><span class='label'>[369]</span></a> +<p>The story his antagonist (Dr. Wallis) relates is perfectly in <a name='TC_56'></a><ins title="Added period">character.</ins> +Hobbes, to show the Countess of Devonshire his attachment to life, declared +that “were he master of all the world to dispose of, he would give +it to live one day.” “But you have so many friends to oblige, had you +the world to dispose of!” “Shall I be the better for that when I am +dead?” “No,” repeated the sublime cynic, “I would give the whole world +to live one day.” He asserted that “it was lawful to make use of ill instruments +to do ourselves good,” and illustrated it thus:—“Were I cast into +a deep pit, and the devil should put down his cloven foot, I would take +hold of it to be drawn out by it.” It must be allowed this is a philosophy +which has a chance of being long popular; but it is not that of another order +of human beings! Hobbes would not, like Curtius, have leaped into a +“deep pit” for his country; or, to drop the fable, have died for it in the +field or on the scaffold, like the Falklands, the Sidneys, the Montroses—all +the heroic brotherhood of genius! One of his last expressions, when +informed of the approaches of death, was—“I shall be glad to find a hole +to creep out of the world at.” Everything was seen in a little way by this +great man, who, having reasoned himself into an abject being, “licked the +dust” through life.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0370' id='Footnote_0370'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0370'><span class='label'>[370]</span></a> +<p>In our country, Mandeville, Swift, and Chesterfield have trod in +the track of Hobbes; and in France, Helvetius, Rochefoucault in his +“Maxims,” and L’Esprit more openly in his “Fausetté des Vertus +Humaines.” They only degrade us—they are polished cynics! But what +are we to think of the tremendous cynicism of Machiavel? That great +genius eyed human nature with the ferocity of an enraged savage. +Machiavel is a vindictive assassin, who delights even to turn his dagger +within the mortal wound he has struck; but our Hobbes, said his friend +Sorbiere, “is a gentle and skilful surgeon, who, with regret, cuts into the +living flesh, to get rid of the corrupted.” It is equally to be regretted +that the same system of degrading man has been adopted by some, under +the mask of religion.</p> +<p>Yet Hobbes, perhaps, never suspected the arms he was placing in the +hands of wretched men, when he furnished them with such fundamental +positions as, that “Man is naturally an evil being; that he does not love +his equal; and only seeks the aid of society for his own particular purposes.” +He would at least have disowned some of his diabolical disciples. +One of them, so late as in 1774, vented his furious philosophy in “An +Essay on the Depravity and Corruption of Human Nature, wherein the +Opinions of Hobbes, Mandeville, Helvetius, &c. are supported against +Shaftesbury, Hume, Sterne, &c. by Thomas O’Brien M’Mahon.” This +gentleman, once informed that he was <i>born wicked</i>, appears to have considered +that wickedness was his paternal estate, to be turned to as profitable +an account as he could. The titles of his chapters, serving as a string of +the most extraordinary propositions, have been preserved in the “Monthly +Review,” vol. lii. 77. The demonstrations in the work itself must be +still more curious. In these axioms we find that “Man has an <i>enmity</i> to +all beings; that had he <i>power</i>, the first victims of his revenge would be +his wife, children, &c.—a sovereign, if he could reign with the <i>unbounded +authority</i> every man <i>longs for</i>, free from apprehension of punishment for +misrule, would slaughter all his subjects; perhaps he would not leave one +of them alive at the end of his reign.” It was perfectly in character with +this wretched being, after having quarrelled with human nature, that he +should be still more inveterate against a small part of her family, with +whom he was suffered to live on too intimate terms; for he afterwards +published another extraordinary piece—“The Conduct and Good-Nature +of Englishmen Exemplified in their charitable way of Characterising the +Customs, Manners, &c. of Neighbouring Nations; their Equitable and +Humane Mode of Governing States, &c.; their Elevated and Courteous +Deportment, &c. of which their own Authors are everywhere produced as +Vouchers,” 1777. One is tempted to think that this O’Brien M’Mahon, +after all, is only a wag, and has copied the horrid pictures of his masters, +as Hogarth did the School of Rembrandt by his “Paul before Felix, designed +and <i>scratched</i> in the true Dutch taste.” These works seem, however, +to have their use. To have carried the conclusions of the Anti-social +Philosophy to as great lengths as this writer has, is to display their +absurdity. But, as every rational Englishman will appeal to his own +heart, in declaring the one work to be nothing but a libel on the nation; +so every man, not destitute of virtuous emotions, will feel the other to be +a libel on human nature itself.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0371' id='Footnote_0371'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0371'><span class='label'>[371]</span></a> +<p>“Human Nature,” c. ix.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0372' id='Footnote_0372'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0372'><span class='label'>[372]</span></a> +<p>Hobbes did not exaggerate the truth. Aubrey says of Cooper’s portrait +of Hobbes, that “he intends to borrow the picture of his majesty, +for Mr. Loggan to engrave an accurate piece by, which will sell well at home +and abroad.” We have only the rare print of Hobbes by Faithorne, prefixed +to a quarto edition of his Latin Life, 1682, remarkable for its expression +and character. Sorbiere, returning from England, brought home a +portrait of the sage, which he placed in his collection; and strangers, far +and near, came to look on the physiognomy of a great and original thinker. +One of the honours which men of genius receive is the homage the public +pay to their images: either, like the fat monk, one of the heroes of the +<i>Epistolæ obscurorum Virorum</i>, who, standing before a portrait of Erasmus, +spit on it in utter malice; or when they are looked on in silent reverence. +It is alike a tribute paid to the masters of intellect. They have +had their shrines and pilgrimages.</p> +<p>None of our authors have been better known, nor more highly considered, +than our Hobbes, abroad. I find many curious particulars of him +and his conversations recorded in French works, which are not known to +the English biographers or critics. His residence at Paris occasioned this. +See Ancillon’s Mélange Critique, Basle, 1698; Patin’s Letters, 61; Sorberiana; +Niceron, tome iv.; Joly’s Additions to Bayle.—All these contain +original notices on Hobbes.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0373' id='Footnote_0373'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0373'><span class='label'>[373]</span></a> +<p>To his Life are additions, which nothing but the self-love of the +author could have imagined.</p> +<p>“Amicorum Elenchus.”—He might be proud of the list of foreigners +and natives.</p> +<p>“Tractuum contra Hobbium editorum Syllabus.”</p> +<p>“Eorum qui in Scriptis suis Hobbio contradixerunt Indiculus.”</p> +<p>“Qui Hobbii meminerunt seu in bonam seu in sequiorem partem.”</p> +<p>“In Hobbii Defensionem.”—Hobbes died 1679, aged 91. These two +editions are, 1681, 1682.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0374' id='Footnote_0374'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0374'><span class='label'>[374]</span></a> +<p>This fact has been recorded in one of the pamphlets of Richard Baxter, +who, however, was no well-wisher to our philosopher. “Additional +Notes on the life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale,” 1682, p. 40.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0375' id='Footnote_0375'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0375'><span class='label'>[375]</span></a> +<p>“Athen. Oxon.,” vol. ii. p. 665, ed. 1721. No one, however, knew +better than Hobbes the vanity and uselessness of <i>words</i>: in one place he +compares them to “a spider’s web; for, by contexture of words, tender +and delicate wits are insnared and stopped, but strong wits break easily +through them.” The pointed sentence with which Warburton closes his +preface to Shakspeare, is Hobbes’s—that “words are the counters of the +wise, and the money of fools.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0376' id='Footnote_0376'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0376'><span class='label'>[376]</span></a> +<p>Aubrey has minutely preserved for us the manner in which Hobbes +composed his “Leviathan:” it is very curious for literary students. “He +walked much, and contemplated; and he had in the head of his cane a pen +and inkhorn, and carried always a note-book in his pocket; and as soon as +a thought darted, he presently entered it into his book, or otherwise might +have lost it. He had drawn the design of the book into chapters, &c., and +he knew whereabouts it would come in. Thus that book was made.”—Vol. +ii. p. 607. Aubrey, the little Boswell of his day, has recorded another +literary peculiarity, which some authors do not assuredly sufficiently +use. Hobbes said that he sometimes would set his thoughts upon +researching and contemplating, always with this proviso: “that he very +much and deeply considered one thing at a time—for a week, or sometimes +a fortnight.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0377' id='Footnote_0377'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0377'><span class='label'>[377]</span></a> +<p>A small annuity from the Devonshire family, and a small pension from +Charles II., exceeded the wants of his philosophic life. If he chose to +compute his income, Hobbes says facetiously of himself, in French sols or +Spanish maravedis, he could persuade himself that Crœsus or Crassus were +by no means richer than himself; and when he alludes to his property, he +considers wisdom to be his real wealth:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“An quàm dives, id est, quàm sapiens fuerim?”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He gave up his patrimonial estate to his brother, not wanting it himself; +but he tells the tale himself, and adds, that though small in extent, it was +rich in its crops. Anthony Wood, with unusual delight, opens the character +of Hobbes: “Though he hath an ill name from some, and good from +others, yet he was a person endowed with an excellent philosophical soul, +was a contemner of riches, money, envy, the world, &c.; a severe lover +of justice, and endowed with great morals; cheerful, open, and free of his +discourse, yet without offence to any, which he endeavoured always to +avoid.” What an enchanting picture of the old man in the green vigour of +his age has Cowley sent down to us!</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Nor can the snow which now cold age does shed<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>Upon thy reverend head,<br /> +Quench or allay the noble fires within;<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>But all which thou hast been,<br /> +And all that youth can be, thou’rt yet:<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>So fully still dost thou<br /> +Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of wit,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And all the natural heat, but not the fever too.<br /> +So contraries on Ætna’s top conspire:<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Th’ embolden’d snow next to the flame does sleep.—<br /> +To things immortal time can do no wrong;<br /> +And that which never is to die, for ever must be young.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0378' id='Footnote_0378'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0378'><span class='label'>[378]</span></a> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Ipse meos nôsti, Verdusi candide, mores,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Et tecum cuncti qui mea scripta legunt:<br /> +Nam mea vita meis non est incongrua scriptis;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Justitiam doceo, Justitiamque colo.<br /> +Improbus esse potest nemo qui non sit avarus,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Nec pulchrum quisquam fecit avarus opus.<br /> +Octoginta ego jam complevi et quatuor annos;<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Pene acta est vitæ fabula longa meæ.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0379' id='Footnote_0379'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0379'><span class='label'>[379]</span></a> +<p>Hobbes, in his metrical (by no means his poetical) life, says, the more +the “Leviathan” was written against, the more it was read; and adds,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Firmiùs inde stetit, spero stabitque per omne<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Ævum, defensus viribus ipse suis.<br /> +Justitiæ mensura, atque ambitionis elenchus,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Regum arx, pax populo, si doceatur, erit.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The term <i>arx</i> is here peculiarly fortunate, according to the system of the +author—it means a citadel or fortified place on an eminence, to which the +people might fly for their common safety.</p> +<p>His works were much read; as appears by “The Court Burlesqued,” a +satire attributed to Butler.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“So those who wear the holy robes<br /> +That rail so much at <i>Father Hobbs</i>,<br /> +Because he has exposed of late<br /> +<i>The nakedness of Church and State</i>;<br /> +Yet tho’ they do his books condemn,<br /> +They love to buy and read the same.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Our author, so late as in 1750, was still so commanding a genius, that +his works were collected in a handsome folio; but that collection is not +complete. When he could not get his works printed at home, he published +them in Latin, including his mathematical works, at Amsterdam, by +Blaew, 1668, 4to. His treatises, “De Cive,” and “On Human Nature,” +are of perpetual value. Gassendi recommends these admirable works, and +Puffendorff acknowledges the depth of his obligations. The Life of +Hobbes in the “Biographia Britannica,” by Dr. Campbell, is a work of +curious research.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0380' id='Footnote_0380'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0380'><span class='label'>[380]</span></a> +<p>The origin of his taste for mathematics was purely accidental: begun +in love, it continued to dotage. According to Aubrey, he was forty years +old when, “being in a gentleman’s library, Euclid’s Elements lay open at +the 47th Propos. lib. i., which, having read, he swore ‘This is impossible!’ +He read the demonstration, which referred him back to another—at +length he was convinced of that truth. This made him in love with +geometry. I have heard Mr. Hobbes say that he was wont to draw lines +on his thighs and on the sheets a-bed.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0381' id='Footnote_0381'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0381'><span class='label'>[381]</span></a> +<p>The author of the excellent Latin grammar of the English language, +so useful to every student in Europe, of which work that singular patriot, +Thomas Hollis, printed an edition, to present to all the learned Institutions +of Europe. Henry Stubbe, the celebrated physician of Warwick, to +whom the reader has been introduced, joined, for he loved a quarrel, in +the present controversy, when it involved philosophical matters, siding with +Hobbes, because he hated Wallis. In his “Oneirocritica, or an Exact Account +of the Grammatical Parts of this Controversy,” he draws a strong +character of Wallis, who was indeed a great mathematician, and one of +the most extraordinary decypherers of letters; for perhaps no new system of +character could be invented for which he could not make a key; by which +means he had rendered the most important services to the Parliament. +Stubbe quaintly describes him as “the sub-scribe to the tribe of Adoniram” +(<i>i.e.</i> Adoniram Byfield, who, with this cant name, was scribe to the fanatical +Assembly of Divines), and “as the glory and pride of the Presbyterian +faction.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0382' id='Footnote_0382'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0382'><span class='label'>[382]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Seth Ward, after the Restoration made Bishop of Salisbury, said, +some years before this event was expected, that “he had rather be the +author of one of Hobbes’s books than be king of England.” But afterwards +he seemed not a little inclined to cry out <i>Crucifige</i>! He who, to +one of these books, the admirable treatise on “Human Nature,” had prefixed +one of the highest panegyrics Hobbes could receive!—<i>Athen. Oxon.</i> +vol. ii. p. 647.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0383' id='Footnote_0383'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0383'><span class='label'>[383]</span></a> +<p>It is mortifying to read <i>such language</i> between two mathematicians, in +the calm inquiries of square roots, and the finding of mean proportionals +between two straight lines. I wish the example may prove a warning. +Wallis thus opens on Hobbes:—“It seems, Mr. Hobbs, that you have a +mind to <i>say your lesson</i>, and that the mathematic professors of Oxford +should <i>hear</i> you. You are too old to learn, though you have as much need +as those that be younger, and yet will think much to be whipped.</p> +<p>“What moved you to say your lessons in English, when the books against +which you do chiefly intend them were written in Latin? Was it chiefly +for the perfecting your natural rhetoric whenever you thought it convenient +to repair to Billingsgate?—You found that the oyster-women could not +teach you to rail in Latin. Now you can, upon all occasion, or without +occasion, give the titles of <i>fool</i>, <i>beast</i>, <i>ass</i>, <i>dog</i>, &c., which I take to be but +barking; and they are no better than a man might have at Billingsgate for +a box o’ the ear.</p> +<p>“You tell us, ‘though the beasts that think our railing to be roaring +have for a time admired us; yet now you have showed them our ears, they +will be less affrighted.’ Sir, those persons (the professors themselves) needed +not the sight of <i>your ears</i>, but could tell by the <i>voice</i> what kind of creature +<i>brayed</i> in your books: you dared not have said this to their faces.”—He +bitterly says of Hobbes, that “he is a man who is always writing what +was answered before he had written.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0384' id='Footnote_0384'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0384'><span class='label'>[384]</span></a> +<p>Dr. Campbell’s art. on Hobbes, in “Biog. Brit.” p. 2619.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0385' id='Footnote_0385'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0385'><span class='label'>[385]</span></a> +<p>Found in the king’s tent at Naseby, and which were written to the +queen on important political subjects, in a cypher of which they only had +the key. They were afterwards published in a quarto pamphlet, and did +much mischief to the royal cause.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0386' id='Footnote_0386'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0386'><span class='label'>[386]</span></a> +<p>The strange conclusions some mathematicians have deduced from their +principles concerning the <i>real quantity of matter</i>, and the <i>reality of space</i>, +have been noticed by Pope, in the <i>Dunciad</i>:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Mad <i>Mathésis</i> alone was unconfined,<br /> +Too mad for mere material chains to bind:<br /> +Now to <i>pure space</i> lifts her ecstatic stare;<br /> +Now running round <i>the circle</i>, finds its <i>square</i>.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><i>Dunciad</i>, Book iv. ver. 31.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0387' id='Footnote_0387'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0387'><span class='label'>[387]</span></a> +<p>When all animosities had ceased, after the death of Hobbes, I find +Dr. Wallis, in a very temperate letter to Tenison, exposing the errors of +Hobbes in mathematical studies; Wallis acknowledges that philology had +never entered into his pursuits,—in this he had never designed to oppose +his superior genius: but it was Hobbes who had too often turned his mathematical +into a philological controversy. Wallis has made a just observation +on the nature of mathematical truths:—“Hobbes’s argumentations +are destructive in one part of what is said in another. This is more convincingly +evident, and more unpardonable, in mathematics than in other +discourses, which are things capable of cogent demonstration, and so evident, +that though a good mathematician may be subject to commit an error, +yet one who understands but little of it cannot but see a fault when it is +showed him.”</p> +<p>Wallis was an eminent genius in scientific pursuits. His art of decyphering +letters was carried to amazing perfection; and among other phenomena +he discovered was that of teaching a young man, born deaf and +dumb, to speak plainly. He humorously observes, in one of his letters:—“I +am now employed upon another work, as hard almost as to make Mr. +Hobbes understand mathematics. It is to teach a person dumb and deaf to +speak, and to understand a language.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0388' id='Footnote_0388'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0388'><span class='label'>[388]</span></a> +<p>The gross convivialities of the times, from the age of Elizabeth, were +remarkable for several circumstances. Hard-drinking was a foreign vice, +imported by our military men on their return from the Netherlands: and +the practice, of whose prevalence Camden complains, was even brought to +a kind of science. They had a dialect peculiar to their orgies. See +“Curiosities of Literature,” vol. ii. p. 294 (last edition).</p> +<p>Jonson’s inclinations were too well suited to the prevalent taste, and he +gave as largely into it as any of his contemporaries. Tavern-habits were +then those of our poets and actors. Ben’s <i>Humours</i>, at “the Mermaid,” +and at a later period, his <i>Leges Convivales</i> at “the Apollo,” the club-room +of “the Devil,” were doubtless one great cause of a small personal unhappiness, +of which he complains, and which had a very unlucky effect in +rendering a mistress so obdurate, who “through her eyes had stopt her +ears.” This was, as his own verse tells us,</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“His mountain-belly and his rocky face.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>He weighed near twenty stone, according to his own avowal—an Elephant-Cupid! +One of his “Sons,” at the “Devil,” seems to think that +his <i>Catiline</i> could not fail to be a miracle, by a certain sort of inspiration +which Ben used on the occasion.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“With strenuous sinewy words that <i>Catiline</i> swells,<br /> +I reckon it not among men-miracles.<br /> +How could that poem heat and vigour lack,<br /> +<i>When each line oft cost <span class='smcap'>Ben</span> a cup of sack</i>?” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>R. Baron’s</span> <i>Pocula Castalia</i>, p. 113, 1650.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Jonson, in the Bacchic phraseology of the day, was “a Canary-bird.” +“He would (says Aubrey) many times exceed in drink; canary was his +beloved liquor; then he would tumble home to bed; and when he had +thoroughly perspired, then to study.”</p> +<p>Tradition, too, has sent down to us several tavern-tales of “Rare Ben.” +A good-humoured one has been preserved of the first interview between +Bishop Corbet, when a young man, and our great bard. It occurred at a +tavern, where Corbet was sitting alone. Ben, who had probably just +drank up to the pitch of good fellowship, desired the waiter to take to the +gentleman “a quart of <i>raw</i> wine; and tell him,” he added, “I <i>sacrifice</i> +my service to him.”—“Friend,” replied Corbet, “I thank him for his +love; but tell him, from me, that he is mistaken; for <i>sacrifices are always +burned</i>.” This pleasant allusion to the mulled wine of the time by the +young wit could not fail to win the affection of the master-wit himself. +Harl. MSS. 6395.</p> +<p>Ben is not viewed so advantageously, in an unlucky fit of ebriety recorded +by Oldys, in his MS. notes on Langbaine; but his authority is not to +me of a suspicious nature: he had drawn it from a MS. collection of +Oldisworth’s, who appears to have been a curious collector of the history of +his times. He was secretary to that strange character, Philip, Earl of +Pembroke. It was the custom of those times to form collections of little +traditional stories and other good things; we have had lately given to us by +the Camden Society an amusing one, from the L’Estrange family, and the +MS. already quoted is one of them. There could be no bad motive in recording +a tale, quite innocent in itself, and which is further confirmed by +Isaac Walton, who, without alluding to the tale, notices that Jonson parted +from Sir Walter Raleigh and his son “not in cold blood.” Mr. Gifford, +in a MS. note on this work, does not credit this story, it not being accordant +with dates. Such stories may not accord with dates or persons, and +yet may be founded on some substantial fact. I know of no injury to +Ben’s poetical character, in showing that he was, like other men, quite incapable +of taking care of himself, when he was sunk in the heavy sleep of +drunkenness. It was an age when kings, as our James I. and his majesty +of Denmark, were as often laid under the table as their subjects. My +motive for preserving the story is the incident respecting <i>carrying men in +baskets</i>: it was evidently a custom, which perhaps may have suggested the +memorable adventure of Falstaff. It was a convenient mode of conveyance +for those who were incapable of taking care of themselves before the invention +of hackney coaches, which was of later date, in Charles the First’s +reign.</p> +<p>Camden recommended Jonson to Sir Walter Raleigh as a tutor to his son, +whose gay humours not brooking the severe studies of Jonson, took advantage +of his foible, to degrade him in the eyes of his father, who, it +seems, was remarkable for his abstinence from wine: though, if another +tale be true, he was no common sinner in “the true Virginia.” Young +Raleigh contrived to give Ben a surfeit, which threw the poet into a deep +slumber; and then the pupil maliciously procured a buck-basket, and a +couple of men, who carried our Ben to Sir Walter, with a message that +“their young master had sent home his tutor.” There is nothing improbable +in the story; for the circumstance of <i>carrying drunken men in baskets</i> +was a usual practice. In the Harleian MS. quoted above, I find more +than one instance; I will give one. An alderman, carried in <i>a porter’s +basket</i>, at his own door, is thrown out of it in a <i>qualmish</i> state. The +man, to frighten away the passengers, and enable the grave citizen to creep +in unobserved, exclaims, that the man had the <i>falling sickness</i>!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0389' id='Footnote_0389'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0389'><span class='label'>[389]</span></a> +<p>These were Marston and Decker, but as is usual with these sort of +caricatures, the originals sometimes mistook their likenesses. They were +both town-wits, and cronies, of much the same stamp; by a careful +perusal of their works, the editor of Jonson has decided that Marston was +Crispinus. With him Jonson had once lived on the most friendly terms: +afterwards the great poet quarrelled with both, or they with him.</p> +<p>Dryden, in the preface to his “Notes and Observations on the Empress +of Morocco,” in his quarrel with Settle, which has been sufficiently narrated +by Dr. Johnson, felt, when poised against this miserable rival, who +had been merely set up by a party to mortify the superior genius, as +Jonson had felt when pitched against <i>Crispinus</i>. It is thus that literary +history is so interesting to authors. How often, in recording the fates of +others, it reflects their own! “I knew indeed (says Dryden) that to write +against him was to do him too great an honour; but I considered Ben +Jonson had done it before to Decker, our author’s predecessor, whom he +chastised in his Poetaster, under the character of <i>Crispinus</i>.” Langbaine +tells us the subject of the “Satiromastix” of Decker, which I am to notice, +was “the witty Ben Jonson;” and with this agree all the notices I have +hitherto met with respecting “the Horace Junior” of Decker’s <i>Satiromastix</i>. +Mr. Gilchrist has published two curious pamphlets on Jonson; +and in the last, p. 56, he has shown that Decker was “the poet-ape of +Jonson,” and that he avenged himself under the character of <i>Crispinus</i> in +his “Satiromastix;” to which may be added, that the <i>Fannius</i>, in the same +satirical comedy, is probably his friend Marston.</p> +<p>Jonson allowed himself great liberty in <i>personal satire</i>, by which, doubtless, +he rung an alarum to a waspish host; he lampooned <i>Inigo Jones</i>, +the great machinist and architect. The lampoons are printed in Jonson’s +works [but not in their entirety. The great architect had sufficient court +influence to procure them to be cancelled; and the character of <i>In-and-in +Medley</i>, in “The Tale of a Tub,” has come down to us with no other +satirical personal traits than a few fantastical expressions]; and I have in +MS. an answer by Inigo Jones, in verse, so pitiful that I have not printed +it. That he condescended to bring obscure individuals on the stage, +appears by his character of <i>Carlo Buffoon</i>, in <i>Every Man out of his +Humour</i>. He calls this “a second untruss,” and was censured for having +drawn it from personal revenge. The Aubrey Papers, recently published +have given us the character of this <i>Carlo Buffoon</i>, “one Charles Chester, +a bold impertinent fellow; and they could never be at quiet for him; a +perpetual talker, and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time +at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him, and seals up his mouth; <i>i.e.</i>, +his upper and nether beard, with hard wax.”—p. 514. Such a character +was no unfitting object for dramatic satire. Mr. Gilchrist’s pamphlets defended +Jonson from the frequent accusations raised against him for the +freedom of his muse, in such portraits after the life. Yet even our poet +himself does not deny their truth, while he excuses himself. In the dedication +of “The Fox,” to the two Universities, he boldly asks, “Where +have I been particular? Where personal?—Except to a mimic, cheater, +bawd, buffoon, creatures (for their insolencies) worthy to be taxed.” The +mere list he here furnishes us with would serve to crowd one of the “twopenny +audiences” in the small theatres of that day.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0390' id='Footnote_0390'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0390'><span class='label'>[390]</span></a> +<p>Alluding, no doubt, to the price of seats at some of the minor theatres.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0391' id='Footnote_0391'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0391'><span class='label'>[391]</span></a> +<p>It was the fashion with the poets connected with the theatre to wear +long hair. Nashe censures Greene “for his fond (foolish) disguising of a +Master of Arts (which was Greene’s degree) with ruffianly hair.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0392' id='Footnote_0392'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0392'><span class='label'>[392]</span></a> +<p>Alluding to the trial of the Poetasters, which takes place before +Augustus and his poetical jury of Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, &c., in Ben’s play.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0393' id='Footnote_0393'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0393'><span class='label'>[393]</span></a> +<p>Decker alludes here to the bastard of Burgundy, who considered himself +unmatchable, till he was overthrown in Smithfield by Woodville, Earl +Rivers.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0394' id='Footnote_0394'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0394'><span class='label'>[394]</span></a> +<p>Horace acknowledges he played Zulziman at Paris-garden. “Sir +Vaughan: Then, master Horace, you played the part of an honest man—”</p> +<p>Tucca exclaims: “Death of Hercules! he could never play that part well +in ’s life!”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0395' id='Footnote_0395'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0395'><span class='label'>[395]</span></a> +<p>Among those arts of imitation which man has derived from the practice +of animals, naturalists assure us that he owes <i>the use of clysters</i> to +the Egyptian Ibis. There are some who pretend this medicinal invention +comes from the stork. The French are more like <i>Ibises</i> than we are: <i>ils +se donnent des lavements eux-mêmes</i>. But as it is rather uncertain what +the Egyptian <i>Ibis</i> is; whether, as translated in Leviticus xi. 17, the cormorant, +or a species of stork, or only “a great owl,” as we find in +Calmet; it would be safest to attribute the invention to the unknown +bird. I recollect, in Wickliffe’s version of the Pentateuch, which I once +saw in MS. in the possession of my valued friend Mr. Douce, that that +venerable translator interpolates a little, to tell us that the Ibis “giveth to +herself a purge.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0396' id='Footnote_0396'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0396'><span class='label'>[396]</span></a> +<p>This work was not given to the public till 1724, a small quarto, with +a fine portrait of Brooke. More than a century had elapsed since its +forcible suppression. Anstis printed it from the fair MS. which Brooke +had left behind him. The author’s paternal affection seemed fondly to +imagine its child might be worthy of posterity, though calumniated by its +contemporaries.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0397' id='Footnote_0397'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0397'><span class='label'>[397]</span></a> +<p>“Verum enimverò de his et hoc genere hominum ne verbum amplius +addam, tabellam tamen summi illius artificis Apellis, cùm colorum vivacitate +depingere non possim, verbis leviter adumbrabo et proponam, ut Antiphilus +noster, suique similes, et qui calumniis credunt, hanc, et in hac +seipsos semel simulque intueantur.</p> +<p>“Ad dextram sedet quidam, quia credulus, auribus prælongis insignis, +quales ferè illæ Midæ feruntur. Manum porrigit procul accedenti Calumniæ. +Circumstant eum mulierculæ duæ, Ignorantia ac Suspicio. Adit +aliunde propiùs Calumnia eximiè compta, vultu ipso et gestu corporis efferens +rabiem, et iram æstuanti conceptam pectore præ se ferens: sinistra +facem tenens flammantem, dextra secum adolescentem capillis arreptum, +manus ad superos tendentem, obtestantemque immortalium deorum fidem, +trahit. Anteit vir pallidus, in specium impurus, acie oculorum minimè +hebeti, cæterùm planè iis símilis, qui gravi aliquo morbo contabuerunt. +Hic livor est, ut facilè conjicias. Quin, et mulierculæ aliquot Insidiæ et +Fallaciæ ut comites Calumniam comitantur. Harum est munus, dominam +hortari, instruere, comere, et subornare. A tergo, habitu lugubri, pullato, +laceroque Pœnitentia subsequitur, quæ capite in tergum deflexo, cum +lachrymis, ac pudore procul venientem Veritatem agnoscit, et excipit.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0398' id='Footnote_0398'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0398'><span class='label'>[398]</span></a> +<p>A <i>Fletcher</i> is a maker of bows and arrows.—<span class='smcap'>Ash.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0399' id='Footnote_0399'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0399'><span class='label'>[399]</span></a> +<p>Brooke died at the old mansion opposite the Roman town of Reculver +in Kent. The house is still known as Brooke-farm; and the original +gateway of decorative brickwork still exists. He was buried in Reculver +Church, now destroyed, where a mural monument was erected to his memory, +having a rhyming inscription, which told the reader:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Fifteenth October he was last alive,<br /> +One thousand six hundred and twenty-five,<br /> +Seaventy-three years bore he fortune’s harms,<br /> +And forty-five an officer of armes.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Brooke was originally a painter-stainer. His enmity to Camden appears +to have originated in the appointment of the latter to the office of Clarencieux +on the death of Richard Lee; he believing himself to be qualified for +the place by greater knowledge, and by his long connexion with the College +of Arms. His mode of righting himself lacked judgment, and he was +twice suspended from his office, and was even attempted to be expelled +therefrom.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0400' id='Footnote_0400'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0400'><span class='label'>[400]</span></a> +<p>In Anstis’s edition of “A Second Discoverie of Errors in the Much-commended +‘Britannia,’ &c.,” 1724, the reader will find all the passages +in the “Britannia” of the edition of 1594 to which Brooke made +exceptions, placed column-wise with the following edition of it in 1600. +It is, as Anstis observes, a debt to truth, without making any reflections.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0401' id='Footnote_0401'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0401'><span class='label'>[401]</span></a> +<p>There is a sensible observation in the old “Biographia Britannica” on +Brooke. “From the splenetic attack originally made by Rafe Brooke upon +the <ins title="Changed to single quotes">‘Britannia’</ins> arose very <i>great advantages to the public</i>, by the shifting +and bringing to light as good, perhaps a better and more authentic account +of our nobility, than had been given at that time of those in any +other country of Europe.”—p. 1135.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0402' id='Footnote_0402'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0402'><span class='label'>[402]</span></a> +<p>The Church History by Dodd, a Catholic, fills three vols. folio: it is +very rare and curious. Much of our own domestic history is interwoven +in that of the fugitive papists, and the materials of this work are frequently +drawn from their own archives, preserved in their seminaries at +Douay, Valladolid, &c., which have not been accessible to Protestant +writers. Here I discovered a copious nomenclature of eminent persons, +and many literary men, with many unknown facts, both of a private and +public nature. It is useful, at times, to know whether an English author +was a Catholic.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0403' id='Footnote_0403'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0403'><span class='label'>[403]</span></a> +<p>I refer the reader to Selden’s “Table Talk” for many admirable ideas +on “Bishops.” That enlightened genius, who was no friend to the ecclesiastical +temporal power, acknowledges the absolute necessity of this order +in a great government. The preservers of our literature and our morals +they ought to be, and many have been. When the political reformers +ejected the bishops out of the house, what did they gain? a more vulgar +prating race, but even more lordly! Selden says—“The bishops being +put out of the house, whom will they lay the fault upon now? When the +dog is beat out of the room, where will they lay the stink?”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0404' id='Footnote_0404'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0404'><span class='label'>[404]</span></a> +<p>The freedom of the press hardly subsisted in Elizabeth’s reign; and +yet libels abounded! A clear demonstration that nothing is really gained +by those violent suppressions and expurgatory indexes which power in its +usurpation may enforce. At a time when they did not dare even to publish +the titles of such libels, yet were they spread about, and even hoarded. +The most ancient catalogue of our vernacular literature is that by Andrew +Maunsell, published in 1595. It consists of Divinity, Mathematics, Medicine, +&c.; but the third part which he promised, and which to us would +have been the most interesting, of “Rhetoric, History, Poetry, and Policy,” +never appeared. In the Preface, such was the temper of the times, and of +Elizabeth, we discover that he has deprived us of a catalogue of the works +alluded to in our text, for he thus distinctly points at them:—“The books +written by the <i>fugitive papistes</i>, as also those that are <i>written against the +present government</i> (meaning those of the Puritans), I doe not think +meete for me to meddle withall.” In one part of his catalogue, however, +he contrived to insert the following passage; the burden of the song seems +to have been chorused by the ear of our cautious Maunsell. He is noticing +a Pierce Plowman in prose. “I did not see the beginning of this booke, +but it ended thus:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“God save the king, and speed the plough<br /> +And send the <i>prelats</i> care inough,<br /> +<span class='indent4'> </span>Inough, inough, inough.”—p. 80.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Few of our native productions are so rare as the <i>Martin Mar-Prelate</i> +publications. I have not found them in the public repositories of our +national literature. There they have been probably rejected with indignity, +though their answerers have been preserved; yet even these are +almost of equal rarity and price. They were rejected in times less enlightened +than the present. In a national library every book deserves +preservation. By the rejection of these satires, however absurd or infamous, +we have lost a link in the great chain of our National Literature +and History. [Since the above was written, many have been added to our +library; and the Rev. William Maskell, M.A., has published his “History +of the Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy.” It is a most careful summary of +the writings and proceedings of all connected with this important event, +and is worthy the attentive perusal of such as desire accurate information +in this chapter of our Church history.]</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0405' id='Footnote_0405'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0405'><span class='label'>[405]</span></a> +<p>We know them by the name of Puritans, a nickname obtained by their +affecting superior sanctity; but I find them often distinguished by the more +humble appellative of Precisians. As men do not leap up, but climb on +rocks, it is probable they were only <i>precise</i> before they were <i>pure</i>. A +satirist of their day, in “Rythmes against Martin Marre-Prelate,” melts +their attributes into one verse:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The sacred sect, and perfect <i>pure precise</i>.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>A more laughing satirist, “Pasquill of England to Martin Junior,” persists +in calling them Puritans, <i>a pruritu!</i> for their perpetual itching, or a +desire to do something. Elizabeth herself only considered them as “a +troublesome sort of people:” even that great politician could not detect +the political monster in a mere chrysalis of reform. I find, however, in a +poet of the Elizabethan age, an evident change in the public feeling respecting +the <i>Puritans</i>, who being always most active when the government was +most in trouble, their political views were discovered. Warner, in his +“Albion’s England,” describes them:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“If ever England will in aught prevent her own mishap,<br /> +Against these Skommes (no terme too gross) let England shut the gap;<br /> +With giddie heads—<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Their countrie’s foes they helpt, and most their country harm’d.<br /> +If <i>Hypocrites</i> why <i>Puritaines</i> we term, be asked, in breefe,<br /> +’Tis but an <i>ironised terme</i>: good-fellow so spells theefe!”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>The gentle-humoured <span class='smcap'>Fuller</span>, in his “Church History,” felt a tenderness +for the name of <i>Puritan</i>, which, after the mad follies they had played +during the Commonwealth, was then held in abhorrence. He could not +venture to laud the good men of that party, without employing a new term +to conceal the odium. In noticing, under the date of 1563, that the bishops +urged the clergy of their dioceses to press uniformity, &c., he adds—“Such +as refused were branded with the name of Puritans—a name which in this +nation began in this year, subject to several senses, and various in the +acceptions. <i>Puritan</i> was taken for the opposers of hierarchy and church +service, as resenting of superstition. But the nickname was quickly improved +by profane mouths to abuse pious persons. We will decline the +word to prevent exceptions, which, if casually slipping from our pen, the +reader knoweth that only <i>nonconformists</i> are intended,” lib. ix. p. 76. +Fuller, however, divided them into classes—“the mild and moderate, and +the fierce and fiery.” <span class='smcap'>Heylin</span>, in his “History of the Presbyterians,” +blackens them as so many political devils; and <span class='smcap'>Neale</span>, in his “History of +the Puritans,” blanches them into a sweet and almond whiteness.</p> +<p>Let us be thankful to these <span class='smcap'>Puritans</span> for a political lesson. They began +their quarrels on the most indifferent matters. They raised disturbances +about the “Romish Rags,” by which they described the decent surplice as +well as the splendid scarlet chimere<a name='FNanchor_0407' id='FNanchor_0407'></a><a href='#Footnote_0407' class='fnanchor'>[407]</a> thrown over the white linen rochet, +with the square cap worn by the bishops. The scarlet robe, to please their +sullen fancy, was changed into black satin; but these men soon resolved +to deprive the bishops of more than a scarlet robe. The affected niceties +of these <span class='smcap'>Precisians</span>, dismembering our images, and scratching at our paintings, +disturbed the uniformity of the religious service. A clergyman in a +surplice was turned out of the church. Some wore square caps, some +round, some abhorred all caps. The communion-table placed in the East +was considered as an idolatrous altar, and was now dragged into the middle +of the church, where, to show their contempt, it was always made the +filthiest seat in the church. They used to kneel at the sacrament; now +they would sit, because that was a proper attitude for a supper; then they +would not sit, but stand: at length they tossed the elements about, because +the bread was wafers, and not from a loaf. Among their <i>preciseness</i> was a +qualm at baptism: the water was to be taken from a basin, and not from +a fount; then they would not name their children, or if they did, they +would neither have Grecian, nor Roman, nor Saxon names, but Hebrew +ones, which they ludicrously translated into English, and which, as Heylin +observes, “many of them when they came of age were ashamed to own”—such +as “Accepted, Ashes, Fight-the-good-Fight-of-Faith, Joy-again, +Kill-sin, &c.”</p> +<p>Who could have foreseen that some pious men quarrelling about the square +caps and the rochets of bishops should at length attack bishops themselves; +and, by an easy transition, passing from bishops to kings, finally +close in levellers!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0406' id='Footnote_0406'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0406'><span class='label'>[406]</span></a> +<p>The origin of the controversy may be fixed about 1588. “A far less +easy task,” says the Rev. Mr. Maskell, “is it to guess at the authors. +The tracts on the Mar-Prelate side have been usually attributed to Penry, +Throgmorton, Udal, and Fenner. Very considerable information may be +obtained about these writers in Wood’s ‘Athenæ,’ art. <i>Penry</i>; in Collier, +Strype, and Herbert’s edition of ‘Arnes,’ to whom I would refer. After +a careful examination of these and other authorities on the subject, the +question remains, in my judgment, as obscure as before; and I think that +it is very far from clear that either one of the three last-named was actually +concerned in the authorship of any of the pamphlets.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0407' id='Footnote_0407'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0407'><span class='label'>[407]</span></a> +<p>So Heylin writes the word; but in the “Rythmes against Martin,” a +contemporary production, the term is <i>Chiver</i>. It is not in Cotgrave.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0408' id='Footnote_0408'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0408'><span class='label'>[408]</span></a> +<p>In the “Just Censure and Reproof of Martin Junior” (circæ 1589), we +are told: “There is Cartwright, too, at Warwick; he hath got him such a +company of disciples, both of the worshipfull and other of the poorer sort, +as wee have no cause to thank him. Never tell me that he is too grave to +trouble himself with Martin’s conceits. Cartwright seeks the peace of the +Church no otherwise than his platform may stand.” He was accused before +the commissioners in 1590 of knowing who wrote and printed these +squibs, which he did not deny.—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0409' id='Footnote_0409'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0409'><span class='label'>[409]</span></a> +<p>I give a remarkable extract from the writings of Cartwright. It will +prove two points. First, that the <i>religion</i> of those men became a cover +for a <i>political</i> design; which was <i>to raise the ecclesiastical above the civil +power</i>. Just the reverse of Hobbes’s after scheme; but while theorists +thus differ and seem to refute one another, they in reality work for an identical +purpose. Secondly, it will show the not uncommon absurdity of man; +while these nonconformists were affecting to annihilate the hierarchy of +England as a remains of the Romish supremacy, they themselves were designing +one according to their own fresher scheme. It was to be a state or republic +of Presbyters, in which <i>all Sovereigns</i> were to hold themselves, to use +their style, as “Nourisses, or servants under the Church; the Sovereigns +were to be as subjects; they were to vail their sceptres and to offer their +crowns as the prophet speaketh, <i>to lick the dust of the feet of the Church</i>.” +These are Cartwright’s words, in his “Defence of the Admonition.” But he +is still bolder, in a joint production with <i>Travers</i>. He insists that “the +<i>Monarchs of the World</i> should give up their <i>sceptres and crowns</i> unto him +(Jesus Christ) who is <i>represented by the Officers of the Church</i>.” See “A +Full and Plain Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline,” p. 185. One would +imagine he was a disguised Jesuit, and an advocate for the Pope’s supremacy. +But observe how these saintly Republicans would govern the State. +Cartwright is explicit, and very ingenious. “The world is now deceived that +thinketh that the <i>Church</i> must be framed according to the <i>Commonwealth</i>, +and the <i>Church Government</i> according to the <i>Civil Government</i>, which is as +much as to say, as if a man should fashion his house according to his hangings; +whereas, indeed, it is clean contrary. That as the hangings are made fit +for the house, so the Commonwealth must be made to agree with the Church, +and the government thereof with her government; for, as the house is before +the hangings, therefore the hangings, which come after, must be framed +to the house, which was before; so the Church being before there was a +commonwealth, and the commonwealth coming after, must be fashioned +and made suitable to the Church; otherwise, God is made to give place to +men, heaven to earth.”—<span class='smcap'>Cartwright’s</span> <i>Defence of the Admonition</i>, p. 181.</p> +<p>Warburton’s “Alliance between Church and State,” which was in his +time considered as a hardy paradox, is mawkish in its pretensions, compared +with this sacerdotal republic. It is not wonderful that the wisest of +our Sovereigns, that great politician Elizabeth, should have punished with +death these democrats: but it is wonderful to discover that these inveterate +enemies to the Church of Rome were only trying to transfer its absolute +power into their own hands! They wanted to turn the Church into a democracy. +They fascinated the people by telling them that there would be +no beggars were there no bishops; that every man would be a governor by +setting up a Presbytery. From the Church, I repeat, it is scarcely a single +step to the Cabinet. Yet the early Puritans come down to us as persecuted +saints. Doubtless, there were a few honest saints among them; but they +were as mad politicians as their race afterwards proved to be, to whom they +left so many fatal legacies. Cartwright uses the very language a certain +cast of political reformers have recently done. He declares “An establishment +may be made without the magistrate;” and told the people that +“if every hair of their head was a life, it ought to be offered for such a +cause.” Another of this faction is for “registering the names of the fittest +and hottest brethren without lingering for Parliament;” and another +exults that “there are a hundred thousand hands ready.” Another, that +“we may overthrow the bishops and all the government in one day.” +Such was the style, and such the confidence in the plans which the lowest +orders of revolutionists promulgated during their transient exhibition in this +country. More in this strain may be found in “Maddox’s Vindication Against +Neale,” the advocate for the Puritans, p. 255; and in an admirable letter of +that great politician, Sir Francis Walsingham, who, with many others of +the ministers of Elizabeth, was a favourer of the Puritans, till he detected +their secret object to subvert the government. This letter is preserved in +“Collier’s Eccl. Hist.” vol. ii. 607. They had begun to divide the whole +country into <i>classes</i>, provincial synods, &c. They kept registers, which recorded +all the heads of their debates, to be finally transmitted to the secret +head of the <i>Classis</i> of Warwick, where Cartwright governed as <i>the perpetual +moderator</i>! <i>Heylin’s Hist. of Presbyt.</i> p. 277. These violent advocates +for the freedom of the press had, however, an evident intention to monopolise +it; for they decreed that “no book should be put in print but by +consent of the <i>Classes</i>.”—Sir <span class='smcap'>G. Paul’s</span> <i>Life of Whitgift</i>, p. 65. The +very Star-Chamber they justly protested against, they were for raising +among themselves!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0410' id='Footnote_0410'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0410'><span class='label'>[410]</span></a> +<p>Under the denomination of <i>Barrowists</i> and <i>Brownists</i>. I find Sir +Walter Raleigh declaring, in the House of Commons, on a motion for reducing +disloyal subjects, that “they are worthy to be rooted out of a Commonwealth.” +He is alarmed at the danger, “for it is to be feared that +men not guilty will be included in the law about to be passed. I am sorry +for it. I am afraid there is near twenty thousand of them in England; +and when they be gone (that is, expelled) who shall maintain their wives +and children?”—<span class='smcap'>Sir Simonds D’Ewes’</span> <i>Journal</i>, p. 517.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0411' id='Footnote_0411'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0411'><span class='label'>[411]</span></a> +<p>The controversies of Whitgift and Cartwright were of a nature which +could never close, for toleration was a notion which never occurred to either. +These rivals from early days wrote with such bitterness against each other, +that at length it produced mutual reproaches. Whitgift complains to Cartwright: +“If you were writing against the veriest Papist, or the ignorantest +dolt, you could not be more spiteful and malicious.” And Cartwright replies: +“If peace had been so precious unto you as you pretend, you would +not have brought so many hard words and bitter reproaches, as it were +sticks and coals, to double and treble the heat of contention.”</p> +<p>After this it is curious, even to those accustomed to such speculations, +to observe some men changing with the times, and furious rivals converted +into brothers. Whitgift, whom Elizabeth, as a mark of her favour, called +“her black husband,” soliciting Cartwright’s pardon from the Queen; and +the proud Presbyter Cartwright styling Whitgift his Lord the Archbishop’s +Grace of Canterbury, and visiting him!</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0412' id='Footnote_0412'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0412'><span class='label'>[412]</span></a> +<p>Sir George Paul, a contemporary, attributes his wealth “to the benevolence +and bounty of his followers.” Dr. Sutcliffe, one of his adversaries, +sharply upbraids him, that “in the persecution he perpetually complained +of, he was grown rich.” A Puritan advocate reproves Dr. Sutcliffe for +always carping at Cartwright’s purchases:—“Why may not Cartwright +sell the lands he had from his father, and buy others with the money, as +well as some of the bishops, who by bribery, simony, extortion, racking of +rents, wasting of woods, and such like stratagems, wax rich, and purchase +great lordships for their posterity?”</p> +<p>To this Sutcliffe replied:</p> +<p>“I do not carpe alway, no, nor once, at Master Cartwright’s purchase. I +hinder him not; I envy him not. Only thus much I must tell him, that +Thomas Cartwright, a man that hath more landes of his own in possession +than any bishop that I know, and that fareth daintily every day, and feedeth +fayre and fatte, and lyeth as soft as any tenderling of that brood, and hath +wonne much wealth in short time, and will leave more to his posterity than +any bishop, should not cry out either of persecution or of excess of bishop’s +livinges.”—<span class='smcap'>Sutcliffe’s</span> <i>Answer to Certain Calumnious Petitions.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0413' id='Footnote_0413'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0413'><span class='label'>[413]</span></a> +<p>“The author of these libels,” says Bishop Cooper, in his “Admonition +to the People of England,” 1589, “calleth himself by a feigned name, +<i>Martin Mar-Prelate</i>, a very fit name undoubtedly. But if this outrageous +spirit of boldness be not stopped speedily, I fear he will prove himself +to be, not only <i>Mar-Prelate</i>, but Mar-Prince, Mar-State, Mar-Law, +Mar-Magistrate, and altogether, until he bring it to an Anabaptistical +equality and community.”—<span class='smcap'>Ed.</span></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0414' id='Footnote_0414'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0414'><span class='label'>[414]</span></a> +<p>Cartwright approved of them, and well knew the concealed writers, +who frequently consulted him: this appears by Sir G. Paul’s “Life of +Whitgift,” p. 65. Being asked his opinion of such books, he said, that +“since the bishops, and others there touched, would not amend by grave +books, it was therefore meet they should be dealt withal to their farther +reproach; and that some books must be <i>earnest</i>, some <i>more mild and +temperate</i>, whereby they may be both of the spirit of Elias and Eliseus;” +the one the great mocker, the other the more solemn reprover. It must be +confessed Cartwright here discovers a deep knowledge of human nature. +He knew the power of ridicule and of invective. At a later day, a writer +of the same stamp, in “The Second Wash, or the <i>Moore</i> Scoured <i>once +more</i>,” (written against Dr. Henry More, the Platonist), in defence of that +vocabulary of <i>names</i> which he has poured on More, asserts it is a practice +allowed by the high authority of Christ himself. I transcribe the curious +passage:—“It is the practice of Christ himself to character <i>men</i> by those +<i>things</i> to which they assimilate. Thus hath he called <i>Herod</i> a <i>fox</i>; <i>Judas</i> +a <i>devil</i>; <i>false pastors</i> he calls <i>wolves</i>; the <i>buyers and sellers</i>, <i>theeves</i>; +and those Hebrew Puritans the <i>Pharisees</i>, <i>hypocrites</i>. This rule and +justice of his Master St. Paul hath well observed, and he acts freely +thereby; for when he reproves the Cretians, he makes use of that ignominious +proverb, <i>Evil beasts and slow bellies</i>. When the high priest commanded +the Jews to <i>smite</i> him on the face, he replied to him, not without +some bitterness, <i>God shall smite thee, thou white wall</i>. I cite not these +places to justify an injurious spleen, but to argue the liberty of the truth.”—<i>The +Second Wash, or the +<em>Moore</em> +Scoured once</i> more. 1651. P. 8.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0415' id='Footnote_0415'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0415'><span class='label'>[415]</span></a> +<p>One of their works is “A Dialogue, wherein is laid open the tyrannical +dealing of L. Bishopps against God’s children.” It is full of scurrilous +stories, probably brought together by two active cobblers who were so +useful to their junto. Yet the bishops of that day were not of dissolute +manners; and the accusations are such, that it only proves their willingness +to raise charges against them. Of one bishop they tell us, that after +declaring he was poor, and what expenses he had been at, as Paul’s church +could bear witness, shortly after hanged four of his servants for having +robbed him of a considerable sum. Of another, who cut down all the +woods at Hampstead, till the towns-women “fell a swaddling of his men,” +and so saved Hampstead by their resolution. But when <i>Martin</i> would +give a proof that the Bishop of London was one of the bishops of the devil, +in his “Pistle to the terrible priests,” he tells this story:—“When the +bishop throws his bowl (as he useth it commonly upon the Sabbath-day), he +runnes after it; and if it be too hard, he cries <i>Rub! rub! rub! the diuel +goe with thee!</i> and he goeth himself with it; so that by these words he +names himself the Bishop of the Divel, and by his tirannical practice +prooveth himselfe to be.” He tells, too, of a parson well known, who, +being in the pulpit, and “hearing his dog cry, he out with this text: +‘Why, how now, hoe! can you not let my dog alone there? Come, +Springe! come, Springe!’ and whistled the dog to the pulpit.” One of +their chief objects of attack was Cooper, Bishop of Lincoln, a laborious +student, but married to a dissolute woman, whom the University of Oxford +offered to separate from him: but he said he knew his infirmity, and +could not live without his wife, and was tender on the point of divorce. +He had a greater misfortune than even this loose woman about him—his +<i>name</i> could be punned on; and this bishop may be placed among that unlucky +class of authors who have fallen victims to their <i>names</i>. Shenstone +meant more than he expressed, when he thanked God that he could not +be punned on. Mar-Prelate, besides many cruel hits at Bishop Cooper’s +wife, was now always “making the <i>Cooper’s hoops to flye off</i>, and the +bishop’s tubs to leake out.” In “The Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat,” +where he tells of two bishops, “who so contended in throwing down elmes, +as if the wager had bene whether of them should most have impoverished +their bishopricks. Yet I blame not <i>Mar-Elme</i> so much as Cooper for this +fact, because it is no less given him by his <i>name</i> to spoil elmes, than it is +allowed him by the secret judgment of God to mar the Church. A man of +<i>Cooper’s</i> age and occupation, so wel seene in that trade, might easily knowe +that tubs made of green timber must needs leak out; and yet I do not so +greatly marvel; for he that makes no conscience to be a deceiver in the +building of the churche, will not stick for his game to be a <i>deceitfull workeman +in making of tubbs</i>.”—p. 19. The author of the books against Bishop +Cooper is said to have been Job Throckmorton, a learned man, affecting +raillery and humour to court the mob.</p> +<p>Such was the strain of ribaldry and malice which Martin Mar-Prelate +indulged, and by which he obtained full possession of the minds of the +people for a considerable time. His libels were translated, and have been +often quoted by the Roman Catholics abroad and at home for their particular +purposes, just as the revolutionary publications in this country have +been concluded abroad to be the general sentiments of the people of England; +and thus our factions always will serve the interests of our enemies. +Martin seems to have written little verse; but there is one epigram worth +preserving for its bitterness.</p> +<p>Martin Senior, in his “Reproofe of Martin Junior,” complains that +“his younger brother has not taken a little paines in ryming with <i>Mar-Martin</i> +(one of their poetical antagonists), that the Cater-Caps may know +how the meanest of my father’s sonnes is able to answeare them both at +blunt and sharpe.” He then gives his younger brother a specimen of what +he is hereafter to do. He attributes the satire of <i>Mar-Martin</i> to Dr. +Bridges, Dean of Sarum, and John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='center cg'><b>“The first Rising, Generation, and Original of <i>Mar-Martin</i>.</b></p> +<p class='cg'><br /> +“From Sarum came a goos’s egg,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>With specks and spots bepatched;<br /> +A priest of Lambeth coucht thereon,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Thus was <i>Mar-Martin</i> hatched.<br /> +<br /> +Whence hath <i>Mar-Martin</i> all his wit,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But from that egge of Sarum?<br /> +The rest comes all from great Sir John,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Who rings us all this ’larum.<br /> +<br /> +What can the cockatrice hatch up<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But serpents like himselfe?<br /> +What sees the ape within the glasse<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>But a deformed elfe?<br /> +<br /> +Then must <i>Mar-Martin</i> have some smell<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Of forge, or else of fire:<br /> +A sotte in wit, a beaste in minde,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>For so was damme and sire.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0416' id='Footnote_0416'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0416'><span class='label'>[416]</span></a> +<p>It would, however, appear that these revolutionary publications reached +the universities, and probably fermented “the green heads” of our students, +as the following grave admonition directed to them evidently proves:—</p> +<p>“Anti-Martinus sive monitio cujusdam Londinensis ad adolescentes +vtrimque academiæ contra personatum quendam rabulam qui se Anglicè +Martin Marprelat, &c. Londini, 1589, +4<sup>o</sup>.”</p> +<p>A popular favourite as he was, yet even Martin, <i>in propria persona</i>, +acknowledges that his manner was not approved of by <i>either party</i>. His +“Theses Martinianæ” opens thus: “I see my doings and my course misliked +of many, both the good and the bad; though also I have favourers of +both sortes. The bishops and their traine, though they stumble at the +cause, yet especially mislike my maner of writing. Those whom foolishly +men call <i>Puritanes</i>, like of the matter I have handled, but the forme they +cannot brooke. So that herein I have them both for mine adversaries. +But now what if I should take the course in certain theses or conclusions, +without <i>inveighing</i> against either <i>person</i> or <i>cause</i>.” This was probably +written after Martin had swallowed some of his own sauce, or taken his +“Pap (offered to him) with a Hatchet,” as one of the most celebrated government +pamphlets is entitled. But these “Theses Martinianæ,” without +either scurrility or invective are the dullest things imaginable; abstract +propositions were not palatable to the multitude; and then it was, +after the trial had been made, that <i>Martin Junior and Senior</i> attempted +to revive the spirit of the old gentleman; but if sedition has its progress, +it has also its decline; and if it could not strike its blow when strongest, +it only puled and made grimaces, prognostics of weakness and dissolution. +This is admirably touched in “Pappe with an Hatchet.” “Now Old +Martin appeared, with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and pinking +like the snuffe of a candle; <i>quantum mutatus ab illo</i>, how unlike the +knave he was before, not for malice, but for sharpnesse! The hogshead +was even come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him +but dregs; yet the emptie caske sounds lowder than when it was full, and +protests more in his waining than he could performe in his waxing. I drew +neere the sillie soul, whom I found quivering in two sheets of protestation +paper (alluding to the work mentioned here in the following note). O how +meager and leane he looked, so crest falne that his combe hung downe to +his bill; and had I not been sure it was the picture of Envie, I should +have sworn it had been the image of Death: so like the verie anatomie of +Mischief, that one might see through all the ribbes of his conscience.”</p> +<p>In another rare pamphlet from the same school, “Pasquill of England to +Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to Martin Junior,” he humorously +threatens to write “The Owle’s Almanack, wherein your night labours be +set down;” and “some fruitful volumes of ‘The Lives of the Saints,’ +which, maugre your father’s five hundred sons, shall be printed,” with +“hays, jiggs, and roundelays, and madrigals, serving for epitaphs for his +father’s hearse.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0417' id='Footnote_0417'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0417'><span class='label'>[417]</span></a> +<p>Some of these works still bear evident marks that the “pursuivants” +were hunting the printers. “The Protestatyon of Martin Mar-Prelate, +wherein, notwithstanding the surprising of the printer, he maketh it +knowne vnto the world that he feareth neither proud priest, tirannous +prelate, nor godlesse cater-cap; but defieth all the race of them,” including +“a challenge” to meet them personally; was probably one of their latest +efforts. The printing and the orthography show all the imperfections of +that haste in which they were forced to print this work. As they lost +their strength, they were getting more venomous. Among the little Martins +disturbed in the hour of parturition, but already christened, there +were: “Episto Mastix;” “The Lives and Doings of English Popes;” +“Itinerarium, or Visitations;” “Lambethisms.” The “Itinerary” was +a survey of every clergyman of England! and served as a model to a +similar work, which appeared during the time of the Commonwealth. The +“Lambethisms” were secrets divulged by Martin, who, it seems, had got +into the palace itself! Their productions were, probably, often got up in +haste, in utter scorn of the Horatian precept. [These pamphlets were +printed with difficulty and danger, in secrecy and fear, for they were +rigidly denounced by the government of Elizabeth. Sir George Paul, in +his “Life of Archbishop Whitgift,” informs us that they were printed with +a kind of wandering press, which was first set up at Moulsey, near Kingston-on-Thames, +and from thence conveyed to Fauseley in Northamptonshire, +and from thence to Norton, afterwards to Coventry, from thence to +Welstone in Warwickshire, from which place the letters were sent to another +press in or near Manchester; where by the means of Henry, Earl of +Derby, the press was discovered in printing “More Work for a Cooper;” +an answer to Bishop Cooper’s attack on the party, and a work so rare Mr. +Maskell says, “I believe no copy of it, in any state, remains.”]</p> +<p>As a great curiosity, I preserve a fragment in the <i>Scottish</i> dialect, which +well describes them and their views. The title is wanting in the only copy +I have seen; but its extreme rarity is not its only value: there is something +venerable in the criticism, and poignant in the political sarcasm.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Weil lettred clarkis endite their warkes, quoth Horace, slow and geasoun,<br /> +Bot thou can wise forth buike by buike, at every spurt and seasoun;<br /> +For men of litrature t’endite so fast, them doth not fitte,<br /> +Enanter in them, as in thee, their pen outrun thair witte.<br /> +The shaftis of foolis are soone shot out, but fro the merke they stray;<br /> +So art thou glibbe to guibe and taunte, but rouest all the way,<br /> +Quhen thou hast parbrackt out thy gorge, and shot out all thy arrowes,<br /> +See that thou hold thy clacke, and hang thy quiver on the gallows.<br /> +Els Clarkis will soon all be Sir Johns, the priestis craft will empaire,<br /> +And Dickin, Jackin, Tom, and Hob, mon sit in Rabbies chaire.<br /> +Let Georg and Nichlas, cheek by jol, bothe still on cock-horse yode,<br /> +That dignitie of Pristis with thee may hau a long abode.<br /> +Els Litrature mon spredde her wings, and piercing welkin bright,<br /> +To Heaven, from whence she did first wend, retire and take her flight.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0418' id='Footnote_0418'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0418'><span class='label'>[418]</span></a> +<p>“Pasquill of England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to +Martin <a name='TC_58'></a><ins title="Changed comma to period">Junior.”</ins></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0419' id='Footnote_0419'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0419'><span class='label'>[419]</span></a> +<p>“Most of the books under Martin’s name were composed by John +Penry, John Udall, John Field, and Job Throckmorton, who all concurred +in making Martin. See ‘Answer to Throgmorton’s Letter by Sutcliffe,’ +p. 70; ‘More Work for a Cooper;’ and ‘Hay any Work for a Cooper;’ and +‘Some layd open in his Colours;’ were composed by Job Throckmorton.”—MS. +Note by Thomas Baker. Udall, indeed, denied having any concern +in these invectives, and professed to disapprove of them. We see Cartwright, +however, of quite a different opinion. In Udall’s library some +MS. notes had been seen by a person who considered them as materials for +a Martin Mar-Prelate work in embryo, which Udall confessed were written +“by a friend.” All the writers were silenced ministers; though it is +not improbable that their scandalous tales, and much of the ribaldry, +might have been contributed by their lowest retainers, those purveyors for +the mob, of what they lately chose to call their “Pig’s-meat.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0420' id='Footnote_0420'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0420'><span class='label'>[420]</span></a> +<p>The execution of Hacket, and condemnation of his party, who had +declared him “King of Europe,” so that England was only a province to +him, is noted in our “General History of England.” This was the first +serious blow which alarmed the Puritanic party. Doubtless, this man was +a mere maniac, and his ferocious passions broke out early in life; but, in +that day, they permitted no lunacy as a plea for any politician. Cartwright +held an intercourse with that party, as he had with Barrow, said to +have been a debauched youth; yet we had a sect of Barrowists; and Robert +Brown, the founder of another sect, named after him <i>Brownists</i>; which +became very formidable. This Brown, for his relationship, was patronised +by Cecil, Earl of Burleigh. He was a man of violent passions. He had a +wife, with whom he never lived; and a church, wherein he never preached, +observes the characterising Fuller, who knew him when Fuller was young. +In one of the pamphlets of the time I have seen, it is mentioned that being +reproached with beating his wife, he replied, “I do not beat Mrs. Brown +as my wife, but as a curst cross old woman.” He closed his life in prison; +not for his opinions, but for his brutality to a constable. The old women +and the cobblers connected with these Martin Mar-Prelates are noticed in +the burlesque epitaphs on Martin’s death, supposed to be made by his +favourites; a humorous appendix to “Martin’s Monthminde.” Few political +conspiracies, whenever religion forms a pretext, is without a woman. +One Dame Lawson is distinguished, changing her “silke for sacke;” and +other names might be added of ladies. Two cobblers are particularly +noticed as some of the industrious purveyors of sedition through the kingdom—Cliffe, +the cobbler, and one Newman. Cliffe’s epitaph on his friend +Martin is not without humour:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Adieu, both naule and bristles now for euer;<br /> +The shoe and soale—ah, woe is me!—must sever.<br /> +Bewaile, mine awle, thy sharpest point is gone;<br /> +My bristle’s broke, and I am left alone.<br /> +Farewell old shoes, thumb-stall, and clouting-leather;<br /> +Martin is gone, and we undone together.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Nor is Newman, the other cobbler, less mortified and pathetic. “The +London Corresponding Society” had a more ancient origin than that sodality +was aware.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“My hope once was, my old shoes should be sticht;<br /> +My thumbs ygilt, that were before bepicht:<br /> +Now Martin’s gone, and laid full deep in ground,<br /> +My gentry’s lost, before it could be found.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Among the Martin Mar-Prelate books was one entitled “The Cobbler’s +Book.” This I have not seen; but these cobblers probably picked up intelligence +for these scandalous chronicles. The writers, too, condescended +to intersperse the cant dialect of the populace, with which the cobblers +doubtless assisted these learned men, when busied in their buffoonery. +Hence all their vulgar gibberish; the Shibboleth of the numerous class of +their admirers—such as, “O, whose <i>tat</i>?” John <i>Kan</i>kerbury, for Canterbury; +<i>Paltri</i>-politans, for Metropolitans; <i>See Villains</i>, for Civilians; +and Doctor of <i>Devility</i>, for Divinity! and more of this stamp. Who could +imagine that the writers of these scurrilities were learned men, and that +their patrons were men of rank! We find two knights heavily fined for +secreting these books in their cellars. But it is the nature of rebellion to +unite the two extremes; for <i>want</i> stirs the populace to rise, and <i>excess</i> +the higher orders. This idea is admirably expressed in one of our elder +poets:—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Want made them murmur; for the people, who <br /> +To get their bread, do wrestle with their fate,<br /> +Or those, who in superfluous riot flow,<br /> +Soonest rebel. Convulsions in a State,<br /> +Like those which natural bodies do oppress,<br /> +Rise from repletion, or from emptiness.”<br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Aleyne’s</span> <i>Henry VII</i>.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0421' id='Footnote_0421'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0421'><span class='label'>[421]</span></a> +<p>The writer of Algernon Sidney’s Memoirs could not have known this +fact, or he would not have said that “this was the first indictment of +high treason upon which any man lost his life for <i>writing anything without +publishing it</i>.”—Edit. 1751, p. 21. It is curious to have Sidney’s +own opinion on this point. We discover this on his trial. He gives it, +assuming one of his own noble principles, not likely to have been allowed +by the wretched Tories of that day. Addressing the villanous Jeffries, +the Lord Chief Justice:—“My Lord, I think it is <i>a right of mankind, +and ’tis exercised by all studious men</i>, to write, in their own closets, +what they please, for their own memory; and no man can be answerable +for it, unless they publish it.” Jeffries replied:—“Pray don’t go away +with <i>that right of mankind</i>, that it is lawful for me to write what I will +in my own closet, so I do not publish it. We must not endure men to +talk thus, that by the <i>right of nature</i> every man may contrive mischief in +his own chamber, and is not to be punished till he thinks fit to be called +to it.” Jeffries was a profligate sophist, but his talents were as great as +his vices.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0422' id='Footnote_0422'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0422'><span class='label'>[422]</span></a> +<p>Penry’s unfinished petition, which he designed to have presented to +the Queen before the trial, is a bold and energetic composition; his protestation, +after the trial, a pathetic prayer! Neale has preserved both in his +“History of the Puritans.” With what simplicity of eloquence he remonstrates +on the temporising government of Elizabeth. He thus addresses the +Queen, under the title of Madam!—“Your standing is, and has been, by +the Gospel: it is little beholden to you for anything that appears. The +practice of your government shows that if you could have ruled without +the Gospel, it would have been doubtful whether the Gospel should be +established or not; for now that you are established in your throne by +the Gospel, you suffer it to reach no farther than the end of your sceptre +limiteth unto it.” Of a milder, and more melancholy cast, is the touching +language, when the hope of life, but not the firmness of his cause had deserted +him. “I look not to live this week to an end. I never took myself +for a rebuker, much less for a reformer of states and kingdoms. I +never did anything in this cause for contention, vainglory, or to draw disciples +after me. Great things, in this life, I never sought for: sufficiency +I had, with great outward trouble; but most content I was with my lot, +and content with my untimely death, though I leave behind me a friendless +widow and four infants.”—Such is often the pathetic cry of the simple-hearted, +who fall the victims to the political views of more designing heads.</p> +<p>We could hardly have imagined that this eloquent and serious young man +was that Martin Mar-Prelate who so long played the political ape before the +populace, with all the mummery of their low buffoonery, and even mimicking +their own idioms. The populace, however, seems to have been divided +in their opinions respecting the sanity of his politics, as appears by some +ludicrous lines, made on Penry’s death, by a northern rhymer.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“The Welshman is hanged,<br /> +Who at our kirke flanged,<br /> +And at the state banged,<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>And brened are his buks.<br /> +And though he be hanged,<br /> +Yet he is not wranged;<br /> +The deil has him fanged<br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>In his kruked kluks.”<br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Weever’s</span> <i>Funerall Monuments</i>, p. 56. Edit. 1631.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0423' id='Footnote_0423'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0423'><span class='label'>[423]</span></a> +<p>Observe what different conclusions are drawn from the same fact by +opposite writers. Heylin, arguing that Udall had been justly condemned, +adds, “the man remained a <i>living monument</i> of the archbishop’s extraordinary +goodness to him in the preserving of that life which by the law he +had forfeited.” But Neale, on the same point, considers him as one who +“died for his conscience, and stands upon record <i>as a monument</i> of the +oppression and cruelty of the government.” All this opposition of feeling +is of the nature of party-spirit; but what is more curious in the history of +human nature, is the change of opinion in the same family in the course of +the same generation. The son of this Udall was as great a zealot for Conformity, +and as great a sufferer for it from his father’s party, when they +possessed political power. This son would not submit to their oaths and +covenants, but, with his bedridden wife, was left unmercifully to perish +in the open streets,—<span class='smcap'>Walker’s</span> <i>Sufferings of the Clergy</i>, part ii. p. 178.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0424' id='Footnote_0424'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0424'><span class='label'>[424]</span></a> +<p>In Herbert’s “Typographical Antiquities,” p. 1689, this tract is intituled, +“A Whip for an Ape, or Martin Displaied.” I have also seen the +poem with this title. Readers were then often invited to an old book by +a change of title: in some cases, I think the same work has been published +with several titles.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0425' id='Footnote_0425'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0425'><span class='label'>[425]</span></a> +<p><i>Martin</i> was a name for a <i>bird</i>, and a cant term for an <i>Ass</i>; and, as +it appears here, an <i>Ape</i>. Our <i>Martins</i>, considered as birds, were often +reminded that their proper food was “hempen seed,” which at length +choked them. That it meant an <i>Ass</i>, appears from “Pappe with a +Hatchet.” “Be thou Martin the bird or Martin the beast, a bird with +the longest bill, or a <i>beast with the longest ears</i>, there’s a net spread for +your neck.”—Sign. B. 5. There is an old French proverb, quoted by Cotgrave, +<i>voce</i> Martin:—“<i>Plus d’un <span class='smcaplc'>ASNE</span> à la foire, a nom +<em>Martin</em></i>.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0426' id='Footnote_0426'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0426'><span class='label'>[426]</span></a> +<p>Martin was a <i>protégé</i> of this <i>Dame Lawson</i>. There appear to have +been few political conspiracies without a woman, whenever religion forms +a part. This dame is thus noticed in the mock epitaphs on Martin’s funeral—</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='cg'>“Away with silk, for I will mourn in sacke;<br /> +Martin is dead, our new sect goes to wrack.<br /> +Come, gossips mine, put finger in the eie,<br /> +He made us laugh, but now must make us crie.” <br /></p> +<p class='ralign cg'><span class='smcap'>Dame Lawson.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“Sir Jeffrie’s Ale-tub” alludes to two knights who were ruinously fined, +and hardly escaped with life, for their patronage of Martin.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0427' id='Footnote_0427'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0427'><span class='label'>[427]</span></a> +<p><i>Chwere</i>, <i>i.e.</i> “that I were,” alluding to their frequently adopting the +corrupt phraseology of the populace, to catch the ears of the mob.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0428' id='Footnote_0428'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0428'><span class='label'>[428]</span></a> +<p>It is a singular coincidence that Arnauld, in his caustic retort on +the Jesuits, said—“I do not fear your <i>pen</i>, but your <i>penknife</i>.” The +play on the word, tells even better in our language than in the original—<i>plume</i> +and <i>canife</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0429' id='Footnote_0429'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0429'><span class='label'>[429]</span></a> +<p>I know of only one <i>Laneham</i>, who wrote “A Narrative of the Queen’s +Visit at Kenilworth Castle,” 1575. He was probably a redoubtable satirist. +I do not find his name in Ritson’s “Bibliographia Poetica.”</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0430' id='Footnote_0430'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0430'><span class='label'>[430]</span></a> +<p>Alluding to the title of one of their most virulent libels against Bishop +Cooper [“Hay any worke for Cooper,” which was a pun on the Bishop’s +name, conveyed in the street cry of an itinerant trader, and was followed +by another entitled] “More work for a Cooper.” Cooper, in his “Admonition +to the People of England,” had justly observed that this <i>Mar-Prelate</i> +ought to have many other names. See note, p. <a href='#page_510'>510</a>.</p> +<p>I will close this note with an extract from “Pappe with a Hatchet,” +which illustrates the ill effects of all sudden reforms, by an apposite and +original image.</p> +<p>“There was an aged man that lived in a well-ordered Commonwealth +by the space of threescore years, and finding, at the length, that by the +heate of some men’s braines, and the warmness of other men’s blood, that +newe alterations were in hammering, and that it grewe to such an height, +that all the desperate and discontented persons were readie to runne their +heads against their head; comming into the midst of these mutiners, +cried, as loude as his yeeres would allow:—‘Springalls, and vnripened +youthes, whose wisedomes are yet in the blade, when this snowe shall be +melted (laying his hand on his siluer haires) then shall you find store of +dust, <i>and rather wish for the continuance of a long frost, than the incomming +of an vntimely thaw</i>.’”—<i>Sig. D. 3. verso.</i></p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0431' id='Footnote_0431'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0431'><span class='label'>[431]</span></a> +<p>Lansdowne MSS. 1042-1316.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0432' id='Footnote_0432'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0432'><span class='label'>[432]</span></a> +<p><span class='smcap'>Gibbon’s</span> <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, vol. i. 243.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0433' id='Footnote_0433'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0433'><span class='label'>[433]</span></a> +<p><span class='smcap'>Walpole’s</span> <i>Memoirs</i>, vol. iii. 40.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0434' id='Footnote_0434'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0434'><span class='label'>[434]</span></a> +<p>The Life of Wood, by <span class='smcap'>Gutch</span>, vol. i.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0435' id='Footnote_0435'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0435'><span class='label'>[435]</span></a> +<p><span class='smcap'>Nichols’s</span> <i>Literary Anecdotes</i>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_0436' id='Footnote_0436'></a><a href='#FNanchor_0436'><span class='label'>[436]</span></a> +<p>“Curiosities of Literature,” vol. iii. p. 303-4.</p> +</div> +<hr class='fn' /> +<hr class='pb' /> +<div class='chsp' style='padding-top:0'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_541' name='page_541'></a>541</span> +<a name='INDEX' id='INDEX'></a> +<h2>INDEX.</h2> +</div> +<p class='lalign'><span class='smcap'>Addison</span>, quarrels with Pope, <a href='#page_313'>313</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>disapproves of his satire on Dennis, <a href='#page_315'>315</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>aids a rival version of Homer, <a href='#page_316'>316</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>satirized by Pope as <i>Atticus</i>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_317'>317</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his nervous fear of criticism, <a href='#page_317'>317</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his last interview with Pope, <a href='#page_318'>318-320</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>quarrels with Steele on political grounds, <a href='#page_433'>433</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his disbelief in Rowe, <a href='#page_535'>535</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Akenside</span> exhibited as a ludicrous personage by Smollett; his real character cast in the mould of antiquity, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_114'>114</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>severely criticised by Warburton, <a href='#page_264'>264</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Aldrich</span>, Dean, secretly fosters the attacks on Bentley, <a href='#page_378'>378</a>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_383'>383</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Amhurst</span>, a political author, his history, <a href='#page_11'>11</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Arnall</span>, a great political scribe, <a href='#page_10'>10</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ascham</span>, Roger, the founder of English Prose, <a href='#page_19'>19</a><br /> +<br /> +<a name='ATHENA_BRITANNICA' id='ATHENA_BRITANNICA'></a><span class='smcap'>Athenæ Britannicæ</span>, one of the rarest works, account of, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Athenæ Oxonienses</span>, an apology for, <a href='#page_89'>89</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Atterbury</span>, Bp., on terrors of conscience, <a href='#page_451'>451</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>severe remarks on Pope, <a href='#page_535'>535</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Aubrey</span>, gives the real reason for the fears of Hobbes the philosopher, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_452'>452</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>minutely narrates the mode in which he composed his “Leviathan,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_459'>459</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Authors</span> by profession, a phrase of modern origin, <a href='#page_8'>8</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>original letter to a Minister from one, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Fielding’s apology for them, <a href='#page_11'>11</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Authors</span>, Horace Walpole affects to despise them, <a href='#page_43'>43</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>their maladies, <a href='#page_78'>78</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>case of, stated, <a href='#page_15'>15</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>incompetent remuneration of, <a href='#page_21'>21</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>who wrote above the genius of their own age, <a href='#page_84'>84</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>ill reception from the public of their valuable works, <a href='#page_85'>85</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>who have sacrificed their fortunes to their studies, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>who commenced their literary life with ardour, and found their genius obstructed by numerous causes, <a href='#page_87'>87</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>who have never published their works, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>provincial, liable to bad passions, <a href='#page_128'>128</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ayre’s</span> Memoirs of Pope, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_319'>319</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Baker</span> and his microscopical discoveries, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_366'>366-367</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Rev. Thomas, his collection, <a href='#page_93'>93</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Balguy</span>, Dr. Thos., <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_273'>273</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Barnes</span>, Joshua, wrote a poem to prove Solomon was the author of the “Iliad,” and why, <a href='#page_97'>97</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his pathetic letter descriptive of his literary calamities, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>hints at the vast number of his unpublished works, <a href='#page_98'>98</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Bayle</span>, his use of paradox, <a href='#page_247'>247</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his theory of apparitions, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_451'>451</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Bayne</span>, Alexander, died of intense application, <a href='#page_72'>72</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Bentley</span>, Dr., his controversy with Boyle, <a href='#page_378'>378</a>, <a href='#page_390'>390</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his haughtiness, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_379'>379</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his dissertation on “Phalaris”, <a href='#page_380'>380</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_542' name='page_542'></a>542</span><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>satirized by Dr. Middleton, <a href='#page_531'>531</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Biographia Britannica</span> in danger of being left unfinished, <a href='#page_84'>84</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Birkenhead</span>, Sir J., a newspaper-writer, <a href='#page_416'>416</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Blackstone</span> investigates the quarrel between Pope and Addison, <a href='#page_314'>314</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Bohun</span>, his unjustifiable attack on William of Wykeham, <a href='#page_537'>537</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Bolingbroke</span>, his share in Pope’s “Essay on Man,”, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>quarrel with Pope, <a href='#page_321'>321-328</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Patriot King” secretly printed by Pope, <a href='#page_321'>321</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his hatred of Warburton, <a href='#page_323'>323-328</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Booksellers</span> in the reign of Elizabeth, <a href='#page_23'>23</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>why their interest is rarely combined with the advancement of literature, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_87'>87</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>why they prefer the crude to the matured fruit, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Boyle</span>, his controversy with Bentley, <a href='#page_378'>378-390</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his edition of “Phalaris”, <a href='#page_378'>378-381</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his literary aids, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_382'>382</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Bramhall</span> opposes Hobbes’ philosophy, <a href='#page_449'>449</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Brereton</span>, Sir W., characterised by Clarendon and Cleveland, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_418'>418</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Brooke</span> attacks errors in Camden’s “Britannia”, <a href='#page_492'>492</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his work unfairly suppressed, <a href='#page_495'>495</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his severe remarks on Camden, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>humorous rhymes on a horse, <a href='#page_497'>497</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his self-defence, <a href='#page_498'>498</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his real motives vindicated, <a href='#page_499'>499</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>biographical note, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Brown</span>, Dr., his panegyric on Warburton, and his sorrow for writing it, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_235'>235</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>account of, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_273'>273</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Brown</span>, Robt., founder of a sect of Puritans, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_518'>518</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Burnet</span>, Bp., his character attacked, <a href='#page_426'>426</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Burton</span>, his laborious work, <a href='#page_83'>83</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his constitutional melancholy, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_182'>182</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cæsalpinus</span>, originally the propounder of a theory of the circulation of the blood, <a href='#page_335'>335</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Calvin’s</span> opinions on government, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_447'>447</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Calvin</span>, his narrowed sectarianism, <a href='#page_502'>502</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Camden</span> recommends Jonson to Raleigh, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_476'>476</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his industry, and his great work the “Britannia”, <a href='#page_491'>491</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Brooke points out its errors, <a href='#page_492'>492</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his works suppressed through Camden’s interest, <a href='#page_495'>495</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his exasperation, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his powerful picture of calumny, <a href='#page_496'>496</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his quiet adoption of Brooke’s corrections, <a href='#page_499'>499</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Campanella</span> and his political works, <a href='#page_351'>351-352</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Carey</span>, Henry, inventor of “Namby Pamby”, <a href='#page_101'>101</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>“Carey’s Wish,” a patriotic song on the Freedom of Election, by the author of “God save the King,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_102'>102</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>“Sally in our Alley,” a popular ballad, its curious origin, <a href='#page_103'>103</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>author of several of our national poems, <a href='#page_104'>104</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his miserable end, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Carte</span>, Thomas, his valuable history, <a href='#page_110'>110-111</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the first proposer of public libraries, <a href='#page_111'>111</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>its fate from his indiscretion, <a href='#page_112'>112</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cartwright</span>, Thomas, chief of the Puritan faction, <a href='#page_505'>505</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>progress of his opinions, <a href='#page_506'>506</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his great popularity, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>forsakes his party, <a href='#page_508'>508-509</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Caryll’s</span> voluminous commentary on Job, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_392'>392</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Castell</span>, Dr., ruined in health and fortune by the publication of his Polyglott, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_189'>189</a><br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_543' name='page_543'></a>543</span><br /> +<span class='smcap'>Charles the Second’s</span> jest at the Royal Society, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_311'>311</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>an admirer of Hobbes’s ability in disputation, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_448'>448</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Chatterton</span>, his balance-sheet on the Lord Mayor’s death, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_25'>25</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Churchill’s</span> satire on Warburton, <a href='#page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#page_246'>246</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Churchyard</span>, Thomas, an unhappy poet, describes his patrons, <a href='#page_26'>26</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his pathetic description of his wretched old age, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cibber</span>, his easy good-nature, <a href='#page_306'>306</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his reasonable defence of himself, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_305'>305-307</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Essay on Cicero,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_306'>306</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>apology for his Life, <a href='#page_307'>307</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>attacks on himself, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#page_308'>308</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>unjustly degraded, <a href='#page_312'>312</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Clarendon</span>, Lord, his prejudice against May, <a href='#page_434'>434</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his opinion of Hobbes’s philosophy, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_438'>438</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Clergy</span> fight in the great civil wars, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_422'>422</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cleland</span>, biographical note on, <a href='#page_282'>282</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cleveland’s</span> character of a journal-maker, <a href='#page_416'>416</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cole</span>, Rev. William, his character, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his melancholy confession on his lengthened literary labours, <a href='#page_92'>92</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his anxiety how best to dispose of his collections, <a href='#page_93'>93</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Collins</span>, Arthur, historian of the Peerage, <a href='#page_85'>85</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Collins</span>, Wm., the poet, quits the university suddenly with romantic hopes of becoming an author, <a href='#page_172'>172</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>publishes his “Odes” without success, and afterwards indignantly burns the edition, <a href='#page_180'>180</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>defended from some reproaches of irresolution, made by Johnson, <a href='#page_181'>181</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>anecdote of his life in the metropolis, <a href='#page_182'>182</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>anecdotes of, when under the influence of a disordered intellect, <a href='#page_183'>183</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his monument described, <a href='#page_184'>184</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>two sonnets descriptive of Collins, <a href='#page_185'>185</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his poetical character defended, <a href='#page_186'>186</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Contemporaries</span>, how they seek to level genius, <a href='#page_206'>206</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cooper</span>, author of “Life of Socrates,” attacked by Warburton, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_272'>272</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cooper</span>, Bishop, attacked by Mar-Prelates, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_513'>513</a>, <a href='#page_514'>514</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Copyrights</span>, Lintot’s payments for, <a href='#page_328'>328-333</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Corbet</span>, his humorous introduction to Ben Jonson, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_475'>475</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cotgrave</span>, Randle, falls blind in the labour of his “Dictionary”, <a href='#page_73'>73</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Court</span> of Charles II. satirised by Marvell, <a href='#page_393'>393</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>its characteristics, <a href='#page_414'>414</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cowel</span> incurs by his curious work “The Interpreter” the censure of the King and the Commons on opposite principles, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cowley</span>, original letter from, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his essays form a part of his confessions, <a href='#page_37'>37</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>describes his feelings at court, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his melancholy attributed to his “Ode to Brutus,” by which he incurred the disgrace of the court, <a href='#page_40'>40</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his remarkable lamentation for having written poetry, <a href='#page_41'>41</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his Epitaph composed by himself, <a href='#page_42'>42</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Critic</span>, poetical, without any taste, how he contrived to criticise poems, <a href='#page_143'>143</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Criticisms</span>, illiberal, some of its consequences stated, <a href='#page_140'>140</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Cross</span> attacks the Royal Society, <a href='#page_344'>344-346</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Crousaz</span> dissects Pope’s “Essay on Man”, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Curll</span>, and his publication of Pope’s letters, <a href='#page_292'>292</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>D’Avenant</span>, his poem of “Gondibert”, <a href='#page_404'>404</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>history of its composition, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_404'>404</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_544' name='page_544'></a>544</span><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>its merits and defects, <a href='#page_405'>405-408</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>a club of wits satirize it, <a href='#page_409'>409</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>and its author, <a href='#page_412'>412</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>and occasion it to be left unfinished, <a href='#page_413'>413</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Davies</span>, Myles, a mendicant author, his life, <a href='#page_30'>30</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Decker</span> quarrels with Ben Jonson for his arrogance, <a href='#page_475'>475-487</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>ridicules him in his “Satiromastix”, <a href='#page_482'>482-487</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Dedication</span>, composed by a patron to himself, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_30'>30</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Dedications</span>, used in an extraordinary way, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_30'>30</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>De Lolme’s</span> work on the Constitution could find no patronage, and the author’s bitter complaints, <a href='#page_200'>200</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>relieved by the Literary Fund, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_201'>201</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Denham</span> falsely satirized, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_429'>429</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Dennis</span>, John, distinguished as “The Critic”, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Original Letters” and “Remarks on Prince Arthur,” his best productions, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>anecdotes of his brutal vehemence, <a href='#page_53'>53</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>curious caricature of his personal manners, <a href='#page_54'>54</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>a specimen of his anti-poetical notions, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_55'>55</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his frenzy on the Italian Opera, <a href='#page_57'>57</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>acknowledges that he is considered as ill-natured, and complains of public neglect, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>more the victim of his criticisms than the genius he insulted, <a href='#page_58'>58</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his insatiable vengeance toward Pope, <a href='#page_286'>286</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his attack on Addison’s “Cato”, <a href='#page_315'>315</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his account with the bookseller Lintot, <a href='#page_331'>331</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Drake</span>, Dr. John, a political writer, his miserable life, <a href='#page_11'>11</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Drayton’s</span> national work, “The Polyolbion,” ill received, and the author greatly dejected, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>angry preface addressed “To any that will read it”, <a href='#page_211'>211</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Drummond</span> of Hawthornden, his love of poetry, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>conversation with Jonson, <a href='#page_475'>475</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Dryden</span>, in his old age, complains of dying of over-study, <a href='#page_204'>204</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his dramatic life a series of vexations, <a href='#page_205'>205</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>regrets he was born among Englishmen, <a href='#page_206'>206</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>remarkable confession of the poet, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>vilified by party spirit, <a href='#page_427'>427</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>compares his quarrel with Settle to that of Jonson with Decker, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_477'>477</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Dunciad</span>, Pope’s collections for, <a href='#page_278'>278</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>early editions of, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_283'>283</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>rage of persons satirized in, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_284'>284</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>satire on naturalists in, <a href='#page_342'>342</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Dunton</span> the bookseller satirized by Swift, <a href='#page_430'>430</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Dyson</span> defends Akenside, <a href='#page_265'>265</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Eachard’s</span> satire on Hobbes and his sect, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_439'>439</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Edwards</span>, Thomas, author of “Canons of Criticism”, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>biographical notice, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_532'>532</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>anecdotes of his critical sagacity, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_262'>262-263</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>origin of his “Canons of Criticism”, <a href='#page_532'>532</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Evans</span>, Arise, a fanatical Welsh prophet, patronised by Warburton, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_240'>240</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Evelyn</span> defends the Royal Society, <a href='#page_340'>340</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Exercise</span>, to be substituted for medicine by literary men, and which is the best, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>False</span> rumours in the great Civil War, <a href='#page_421'>421</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Farneworth’s</span> Translation of Machiavel, <a href='#page_84'>84</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Fell</span>, Dr., an opponent of the Royal Society, <a href='#page_350'>350</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>ungenerous to Hobbes, <a href='#page_450'>450</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>rhymes descriptive of his unpopularity, <a href='#page_451'>451</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Fielding</span> attacks Sir John Hill, <a href='#page_368'>368-369</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Filmer</span>, Sir R., writes to establish despotism, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_449'>449</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Folkes</span>, Martin, President of the Royal Society, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_364'>364</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_545' name='page_545'></a>545</span><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>attacked by Sir John Hill, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_366'>366</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Fuller’s</span> “Medicina Gymnastica,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_71'>71</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Garth</span>, Dr., and his Dispensary, <a href='#page_429'>429</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Gay</span> acts as mediator with Pope and Addison, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his account with Lintot the bookseller, <a href='#page_330'>330</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Gibbon</span>, Ed., price of his copyright, <a href='#page_87'>87</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'><a name='TC_59'></a><ins title="Was 'Gilden'">Gildon</ins></span> supposed by Pope to have been employed by Addison to write against him, <a href='#page_316'>316</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Glanvill</span> a defender of the Royal Society, <a href='#page_244'>244</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Glover</span>, Leonidas, declines to write a Life of Marlborough, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_325'>325</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Goldsmith’s</span> remonstrance on illiberal criticism, from which the law gives no protection, <a href='#page_142'>142</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Granger’s</span> complaint of not receiving half the pay of a scavenger, <a href='#page_85'>85</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Greene</span>, Robert, a town-wit, his poverty and death, <a href='#page_23'>23</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>awful satirical address to, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Grey</span>, Dr. Zachary, the father of our commentators, ridiculed and abused, <a href='#page_104'>104</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the probable origin of his new mode of illustrating Hudibras, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Warburton’s double-dealing with him, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_259'>259</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Guthrie</span> offers his services as a hackney-writer to a minister, <a href='#page_8'>8</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hackett</span> executed for attacks on the church, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_518'>518</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hanmer</span>, Sir T., his edition of Shakespeare, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_242'>242</a>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_258'>258</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hardouin</span> supposes the classics composed by monks in the Middle Ages, <a href='#page_249'>249-252</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Harrington</span> and his “Oceana”, <a href='#page_449'>449</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Harvey</span>, Dr., and his discovery of the circulation of the blood, <a href='#page_335'>335</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Harvey</span>, Gabriel, his character, <a href='#page_117'>117</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his device against his antagonist, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his portrait, <a href='#page_121'>121</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>severely satirised by Nash for his prolix periods, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>cannot be endured to be considered as the son of a rope-maker, <a href='#page_123'>123</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his pretended sordid manners, <a href='#page_124'>124</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his affectation of Italian fashions, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his friends ridiculed, <a href='#page_125'>125</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his pedantic taste for hexameter verses, &c., <a href='#page_127'>127</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his curious remonstrance with Nash, <a href='#page_126'>126</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his lamentation on invectives, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his books, and Nash’s, suppressed by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury for their mutual virulence, <a href='#page_120'>120</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hawkesworth</span>, Dr., letter on presenting his MS. of Cook’s Voyages for examination, the publication of which overwhelmed his fortitude and intellect, <a href='#page_199'>199</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Henley</span>, Orator, this buffoon an indefatigable student, an elegant poet, and wit, <a href='#page_59'>59</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his poem of “Esther, Queen of Persia”, <a href='#page_60'>60</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>sudden change in his character, <a href='#page_62'>62</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>seems to have attempted to pull down the Church and the University, <a href='#page_63'>63</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>some idea of his lectures, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_64'>64</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his projects to supply a Universal School, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>specimens of his buffoonery on solemn occasions, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Defence of the Oratory,” <i>n.</i> <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>once found his match in two disputants, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>specimen of the diary of his “Oratory Transactions”, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>close of his career, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his character, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>parallel between him and Sir John Hill, <a href='#page_363'>363</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Henry</span>, Dr., the Historian, the sale of his work, on which he had expended most of his fortune and his life, stopped, and himself ridiculed, by a conspiracy raised against him, <a href='#page_136'>136</a><br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_546' name='page_546'></a>546</span><br /> +<span class='smcap'>Henry</span>, Dr., caustic review of his history, <i>n.</i> <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Heron</span>, Robert, draws up the distresses of a man of letters living by literary industry, in the confinement of a sponging-house, from his original letter, <a href='#page_81'>81</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Herrick</span>, Robert, petulant invective against Devonshire, <a href='#page_215'>215</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hill</span>, Aaron, and his quarrel with Pope, <a href='#page_290'>290</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hill</span>, Sir John, <a href='#page_362'>362-396</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>parallel between him and Orator Henley, <a href='#page_383'>383</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his great work on Botany, <i>n.</i> <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his personalities, <a href='#page_364'>364</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>attacks the Royal Society, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his <i>Inspector</i>, <a href='#page_367'>367</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>war of wit with Fielding, <a href='#page_368'>368</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>and Smart, <a href='#page_370'>370-372</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>attacks Woodward, who replies with some ridiculous anecdotes, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_372'>372</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>proposes himself as keeper of the Sloane collection, <a href='#page_374'>374</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>manufactures <i>Travels</i>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_374'>374</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his death, <a href='#page_375'>375</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hobbes</span> contemns the Royal Society, <a href='#page_342'>342</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>praises D’Avenant’s poem of “Gondibert”, <a href='#page_408'>408-412</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his quarrels, <a href='#page_436'>436</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>peculiarities of his character, <a href='#page_437'>437</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his sect, <a href='#page_438'>438</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his real opinions, <a href='#page_439'>439</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Leviathan”, <a href='#page_440'>440-448</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>feared and suspected by both parties, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_442'>442</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>no atheist, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_445'>445</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his continual disputations, <a href='#page_448'>448-450</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his terror of death, <a href='#page_451'>451</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the real solution of his fears, <a href='#page_452'>452</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his disciples in literature, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_455'>455</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his pride, <a href='#page_456'>456</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his mode of composition, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_459'>459</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his contented poverty, and consistent conduct, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>characteristics of his writings, <a href='#page_461'>461</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his passion for mathematics, <a href='#page_464'>464</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>leads to a quarrel with Dr. Wallis, <a href='#page_465'>465-473</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Home</span> and his tragedy of “Douglas”, <a href='#page_79'>79</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Howel</span>, nearly lost his life by excessive study, <a href='#page_74'>74</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hume</span>, his literary life mortified with disappointments, <a href='#page_202'>202</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>wished to change his name and his country, <a href='#page_204'>204</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his letter to Des Maiseaux requesting his opinion of his philosophy, <a href='#page_202'>202</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Hurd</span>, Bishop, biographical note on, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>imitates Warburton’s style, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_269'>269</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Icon Libellorum.</i> See <i><a href='#ATHENA_BRITANNICA'>Athenæ Britannicæ</a></i>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Johnson</span>, <a name='TC_60'></a><ins title="Added period">Dr.,</ins> his aversion to Milton’s politics, <a href='#page_425'>425</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Jones</span>, Inigo, ridiculed by Ben Jonson, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_477'>477</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Jonson</span>, Ben, his quarrel with Decker, <a href='#page_475'>475</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his conversation with Drummond of Hawthornden, <a href='#page_475'>475</a>, <a href='#page_535'>535</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his general conviviality, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_475'>475</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his play “The Poetaster”, <a href='#page_476'>476-481</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his powerful satire on Decker, <a href='#page_482'>482-487</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his bitter allusions to his enemies, <a href='#page_487'>487-488</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Kennet’s</span>, Bishop, Register and Chronicle, <a href='#page_87'>87</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Kenrick</span>, Dr., a caustic critic, treats our great authors with the most amusing arrogance, <a href='#page_141'>141</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>an epigram on himself, by himself, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_142'>142</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>King</span>, Dr., his payments as an author, <a href='#page_332'>332</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>biographical notice of, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_358'>358</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>ridicules the Transactions of the Royal Society, <a href='#page_358'>358</a>, <a href='#page_361'>361</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_547' name='page_547'></a>547</span><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>aids in attacking Bentley, <a href='#page_384'>384</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his satirical Index to Bentley’s Characteristics, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_386'>386</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Lawson</span>, Dame, a noted female Puritan, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_519'>519</a>, <a href='#page_525'>525</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Lee</span>, Nat., his love of praise, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Leland</span>, the antiquary, an accomplished scholar, <a href='#page_172'>172</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Strena,” or New Year’s Gift to Henry VIII.; an account of his studies, and his magnificent projects, <a href='#page_174'>174</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>doubts that his labours will reach posterity, <a href='#page_175'>175</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>he values “the furniture” of his mind, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his bust striking from its physiognomy, <a href='#page_177'>177</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the ruins of his mind discovered in his library, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the inscription on his tomb probably had been composed by himself, before his insanity, <a href='#page_178'>178</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>thoughts on Eloquence, <a href='#page_255'>255</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Libels</span> abounded in the age of Elizabeth, <a href='#page_503'>503</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Lightfoot</span> could not procure the printing of his work, <a name='TC_61'></a><ins title="Was '132'"><a href='#page_192'>192</a></ins><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Lintot’s</span> account-book, <a href='#page_328'>328-333</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Literary Property</span>, difficulties to ascertain its nature, <a href='#page_16'>16</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>history of, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>value of, <i>n.</i> <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Literary</span> quarrels from personal motives, <a href='#page_529'>529-539</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Lloyd’s</span>, Bishop, collections and their fate, <a href='#page_93'>93</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Logan</span>, the history of his literary disappointments, <a href='#page_78'>78</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>dies broken-hearted, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his poetic genius, <a href='#page_80'>80</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Lowth</span>, Bishop, attack on pretensions of Warburton, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_235'>235-246</a>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_252'>252-268</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>M’Donald</span>, or Matthew Bramble, his tragical reply to an inquiry after his tragedy, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Macdiarmid</span>, John, died of over-study and exhaustion, <a href='#page_74'>74</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Mallet</span>, his knowledge of Pope and Warburton, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his attacks on Warburton, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_271'>271</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>employed by Bolingbroke to libel Pope, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>anecdote of his egotism, <a href='#page_324'>324</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>employed by the Duchess of Marlborough on a Life of the Duke, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_325'>325</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>M’Mahon</span> and his anti-social philosophy, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_456'>456</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Marston</span>, John, satirised by Ben Jonson, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_477'>477</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Martin Mar-Prelate’s</span> libels issuing from a moveable press carried about the country, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>a party-name for satirists of the Church, <a href='#page_510'>510</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>their popularity, <a href='#page_513'>513-516</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>their secret printings, <a href='#page_515'>515</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>opposed by other wits, <a href='#page_517'>517</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>authors of these satires, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_505'>505</a>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_518'>518</a>, <a href='#page_520'>520</a>, <a href='#page_523'>523</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>curious rhymes against, <a href='#page_524'>524-528</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Marvell</span> attacks the intolerant tenets of Bishop Parker, <a href='#page_392'>392</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>severity of his satire on the Court of Charles II., <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_393'>393</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>comments on the early career of Parker, <a href='#page_394'>394-395</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>origin of quarrel, <a href='#page_396'>396</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his noble defence of Milton, <a href='#page_399'>399</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his rencontre with Parker in the streets, <a href='#page_401'>401</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his political honesty, <a href='#page_402'>402</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his generous criticism on Butler, <a href='#page_434'>434</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Maskell</span>, Rev. W., history of the Mar-Prelate controversy, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_503'>503</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>date of its origin, and opinion on its authors, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_505'>505</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Melancholy</span> persons frequently the most delightful companions, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_182'>182</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Menassah</span>, Ben Israel, his treatise “De Resurrectione Mortuorum,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_252'>252</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Mickle’s</span> pathetic address to his muse, <a href='#page_207'>207</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his disappointments after the publication of the “Lusiad” induce him to wish to abandon his native country, <a href='#page_208'>208</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Middleton</span>, Dr. Conyers, quarrel with Bentley, <a href='#page_530'>530</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>and with Warburton, <a href='#page_532'>532</a><br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_548' name='page_548'></a>548</span><br /> +<span class='smcap'>Milton’s</span> works the favourite prey of booksellers, <a href='#page_17'>17</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>vilified by party spirit, <a href='#page_424'>424-425</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Mortimer</span>, Thomas, his complaint in old age of the preference given to young adventurers, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Motteux</span>, Peter, and his patron, <a href='#page_30'>30</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Mughouse</span>, political clubs, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_32'>32</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Nash</span>, Tom, the misery of his literary life, <a href='#page_23'>23</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>threatens his patrons, <a href='#page_24'>24</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>silences Mar-Prelate with his own weapons, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his character as a Lucianic satirist, <a href='#page_120'>120</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Have with you to Saffron Walden,” a singular literary invective against Gabriel Harvey, <a href='#page_120'>120</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Needham</span>, Marchmont, a newspaper writer in the great Civil War, <a href='#page_420'>420</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Newspapers</span> of the great Civil War, <a href='#page_415'>415</a>, <a href='#page_422'>422</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Newton</span>, of a fearful temper in criticism, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_140'>140</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Newton’s</span> “Optics” first favourably noticed in France, <a href='#page_84'>84</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ockley</span>, Simon, among the first of our authors who exhibited a great nation in the East in his “History of the Saracens”, <a href='#page_163'>163</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his sufferings expressed in a remarkable preface dated from gaol, <a href='#page_187'>187</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>dines with the Earl of Oxford; an original letter of apology for his uncourtly behaviour, <a href='#page_189'>189</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>exults in prison for the leisure it affords for study, <i>n.</i> <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>neglected, but employed by ministers, <a href='#page_196'>196</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Oldmixon</span> asserts Lord Clarendon’s “History” to have been interpolated, while himself falsifies Daniel’s “Chronicle,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_10'>10</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Palermo</span>, Prince of; and his Palace of Monsters, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Paper-wars</span> of the Civil Wars, <a href='#page_415'>415</a>, <a href='#page_422'>422</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Parker</span>, Bishop of Oxford, his early career, <a href='#page_394'>394-395</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the intolerance of his style, <a href='#page_397'>397</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>attacks Milton, <a href='#page_399'>399</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>and Marvell in the streets, <a href='#page_401'>401</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his posthumous portrait of Marvell, <a href='#page_402'>402</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Parr</span>, Dr., his talent and his egotism, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_236'>236</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his defence of Warburton, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_239'>239</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>in revenge for Bishop Hurd’s criticism, publishes his early works of irony, <a href='#page_531'>531</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Patin</span>, Guy, his account of Hobbes, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_445'>445</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Pattison</span>, a young poet, his college career, <a href='#page_98'>98</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his despair in an address to Heaven, and a pathetic letter, <a href='#page_101'>101</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Penry</span>, one of the writers of Mar-Prelate tracts, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_505'>505</a>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_518'>518</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his career, <a href='#page_520'>520</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his execution, <a href='#page_521'>521</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his petition and protest, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_521'>521</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>rhymes on his death, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Phalaris</span>, Epistles of, <a href='#page_378'>378</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Phillips</span> asperses Pope, <a href='#page_316'>316</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Pierce</span>, Dr. T., his controversies, <a href='#page_537'>537</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Poets</span>, <i>mediocre</i> Critics are the real origin of <i>mediocre</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Nat. Lee describes their wonderful susceptibility of praise, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>provincial, their situation at variance with their feelings, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Pope</span>, Alex., his opinion of “the Dangerous Fate of Authors”, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the Poet Prior, <a href='#page_216'>216</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Pope</span>, Alexander, his high estimation of Warburton, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#page_273'>273</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Warburton’s edition of his works, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his miscellaneous quarrel, <a href='#page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>collects libels on himself, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_273'>273</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>literary stratagems, <a href='#page_280'>280</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>early neglect of his “Essay on Criticism,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_280'>280</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the real author of the “Key to the Lock,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_280'>280</a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_549' name='page_549'></a>549</span><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>hostilities between him and others, <a href='#page_282'>282</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the finest character-painter, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_283'>283</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his personal sufferings on Cibber’s satire, <a href='#page_285'>285</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his first introduction to Dennis, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_286'>286</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>narrative of the publication of his letter to Curll, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his attacks on Cibber, <a href='#page_301'>301</a>, <a href='#page_312'>312</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his condemned comedy, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_301'>301</a>, <a href='#page_307'>307</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>quarrels with Addison, <a href='#page_313'>313</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>urges an attack on his <i>Cato</i>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_315'>315</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>believes him to have employed adverse critics, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_316'>316-317</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>satirizes Addison as Atticus, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_317'>317</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his last interview with Addison, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>surreptitiously prints Bolingbroke’s “Patriot King”, <a href='#page_321'>321</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his bookselling account with Lintot, <a href='#page_329'>329</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his earliest satire, <a href='#page_333'>333-335</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his satires and their effects, <a href='#page_535'>535</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Prideaux’s</span> “Connection of Old and New Testament”, <a href='#page_84'>84</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Prince’s</span> “Worthies of Devon”, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Prior</span>, curious character of, from a Whig satire, <a href='#page_216'>216</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>felicitated himself that his natural inclination for poetry had been checked, <a href='#page_217'>217</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>attacked for his political creed, <a href='#page_429'>429</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Proclamation</span> issued by James I. against Cowel’s book, “The Interpreter,” a curious document in literary history, <a href='#page_195'>195</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Prynne</span>, a voluminous author without judgment, but the character of the man not so ridiculous as the author, <a href='#page_146'>146</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his intrepid character, <a href='#page_147'>147</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his curious argument against being debarred from pen and ink, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_148'>148</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his interview with Laud in the Tower, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>had a good deal of cunning in his character, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>grieved for the Revolution in which he himself had been so conspicuous a leader, <a href='#page_148'>148</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his speeches as voluminous as his writings, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_151'>151</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>seldom dined, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_152'>152</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>account of his famous “Histriomastix”, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Milton admirably characterises Prynne’s absurd learning, <i>n.</i> <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>how the “Histriomastix” was at once an elaborate work of many years, and yet a temporary satire—the secret history of the book being as extraordinary as the book itself, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Puritans</span>, origin of their name, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_504'>504</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Raleigh</span>, Sir W., an opposer of Puritanism, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_508'>508</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Reformation</span>, the, under Elizabeth, <a href='#page_501'>501</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ridicule</span> described, <a href='#page_114'>114</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>it creates a fictitious personage, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>a test of truth, <a href='#page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#page_267'>267</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ritson</span>, Joseph, the late poetical antiquary, carried criticism to insanity, <a href='#page_51'>51</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ritson</span>, Isaac, a young Scotch writer, perishes by attempting to exist by the efforts of his pen, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his extemporary rhapsody descriptive of his melancholy fate, <a href='#page_76'>76</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Royal Society</span>, the, <a href='#page_335'>335</a>, <a href='#page_361'>361</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>encounters much opposition when first established, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ruffhead’s</span> Life of Pope, <a href='#page_290'>290</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Rushworth</span> dies of a broken heart, having neglected his own affairs for his “Historical Collections”, <a href='#page_85'>85</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Rymer’s</span> distress in forming his “Historical Collections”, <a href='#page_85'>85</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ryves</span>, Eliza, her extraordinary literary exertions and melancholy end, <a href='#page_107'>107</a><br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_550' name='page_550'></a>550</span><br /> +<span class='smcap'>Sale</span>, the learned, often wanted a meal while translating the Koran, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_189'>189</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Savage</span> the Poet employed by Pope to collect materials for notes to the <i>Dunciad</i>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_279'>279</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Scot</span>, Reginald, persecuted for his work against Witchcraft, <a href='#page_198'>198</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Scott</span>, of Amwell, the Quaker and poet, offended at being compared to Capt. Macheath by the affected witticism of a Reviewer, <a href='#page_143'>143</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his extraordinary “Letter to the Critical Reviewers,” in which he enumerates his own poetical beauties, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Selden</span> compelled to recant his opinions, and not suffered to reply to his calumniators, <a href='#page_198'>198</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>refuses James I. to publish his defence of the “Sovereignty of the Seas” till Grotius provoked his reply, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>opinions on bishops, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_502'>502</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Settle</span>, Elkanah, the ludicrous close of a scribbler’s life, <a href='#page_146'>146</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the hero of Pope’s earliest satire, <a href='#page_333'>333</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>manages Pope burnings, <a href='#page_334'>334</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Shaftesbury</span>, Lord, on the origin of irony, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_436'>436</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his character of Hobbes, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_437'>437</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his conversation with Hobbes in Paris on his work, “The Leviathan,” <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_441'>441</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Shuckford</span>, “Sacred and Profane History Connected”, <a href='#page_85'>85</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Sloane</span>, Sir Hans, his peculiarities of style, <a href='#page_358'>358-360</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Smart</span> and his satire, “The Hilliad”, <a href='#page_371'>371-372</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Smollett</span> confesses the incredible labour and chagrin he had endured as an author, <a href='#page_13'>13</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Socrates</span> ridiculed by Aristophanes, <a href='#page_266'>266</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>South’s</span> poignant reflection on the Royal Society, <a href='#page_342'>342</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Sprat’s</span> History of the Royal Society, <a href='#page_337'>337-339</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his aversion to Milton, <a href='#page_424'>424</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Steele</span>, his paradoxical character, <a href='#page_168'>168</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>satirized by Swift, <a href='#page_429'>429-431</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>why he wrote a laughable comedy after his “Christian Hero”, <a href='#page_169'>169</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his ill choice in a wife of an uncongenial character, <a href='#page_170'>170</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>specimens of his “Love Despatches,” <i>n.</i> <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>finely contrasts his own character with that of Addison, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_172'>172</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>introduces Pope to Addison, <a href='#page_314'>314</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>manages a friendly interview between them after a long disseverance, <a href='#page_319'>319</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his political creed loses him Addison’s friendship, <a href='#page_433'>433</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Steevens, G.</span>, satirizes Sir John Hawkins, <a href='#page_535'>535</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Stillingfleet</span>, Bishop, his end supposed to have been hastened by Locke’s confutation of his metaphysical notions, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_140'>140</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Stockdale</span>, Perceval, his character an extraordinary instance of the illusions of writers in verse, <a href='#page_218'>218</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>draws a parallel between Charles XII. and himself, <a href='#page_224'>224</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Stowe</span>, the chronicler, petitions to be a licensed beggar, <a href='#page_29'>29</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Strutt</span>, the antiquary, a man of genius and imagination, <a href='#page_86'>86</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his spirited letters on commencing his career of authorship, <a href='#page_88'>88</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Stuart</span>, Dr. Gilbert, his envious character; desirous of destroying the literary works of his countrymen, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>projects the “Edinburgh Magazine and Review;” its design, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his horrid feelings excited by his disappointments, <a href='#page_132'>132</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>raises a literary conspiracy against Dr. Henry, <a href='#page_135'>135</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>dies miserably, <a href='#page_139'>139</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Stubbe</span> and his attacks on the Royal Society, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his early history, <a href='#page_347'>347</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>influenced by Dr. Fell in his attacks, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_350'>350</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>specimens of them, <a href='#page_356'>356</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Systems</span> of Opinions, often fallacies in practice, <a href='#page_461'>461</a><br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_551' name='page_551'></a>551</span><br /> +<span class='smcap'>Subscriptions</span> once inundated our literature with worthless works, <a href='#page_29'>29</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Temple</span>, Sir W., Essay on Learning, <a href='#page_378'>378</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Theobald</span>, his payments from, and literary arrangements with Lintot, <a href='#page_331'>331-332</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Tickell’s</span> Homer, <a href='#page_316'>316</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Toland</span>, a lover of study, <a href='#page_157'>157</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>defends himself from the aspersion of atheism or deism, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>accused of an intention to found a sect, <a href='#page_159'>159</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>had the art of explaining away his own words, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>a great artificer of title-pages, <a href='#page_160'>160</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his “Pantheisticon”, <a href='#page_161'>161</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>projects a new office of a private monitor to the minister, <a href='#page_163'>163</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>of the books he read and his MSS. <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_166'>166</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his panegyrical epitaph composed by himself, <a href='#page_167'>167</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Locke’s admirable foresight of his character, <a href='#page_168'>168</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the miserable payment for his life of literary labour, <a href='#page_332'>332</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Tonson</span>, Jacob, bickerings with Dryden, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_171'>171</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his bookselling career, <i>ib.</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Udall</span>, John, a writer in the Mar-Prelate controversy, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_505'>505</a>, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_518'>518</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his character and career, <a href='#page_521'>521-523</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Wagstaffe</span>, Dr., his character of Steele, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_429'>429-432</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his satirical works, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_431'>431</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Wakefield</span>, Gilbert, his works unsuccessful because of his politics, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_435'>435</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Wallis</span>, Dr., his curious narrative of a dialogue between Hobbes and the Countess of Devonshire, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_455'>455</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his quarrel with Hobbes, <a href='#page_465'>465-473</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his power of deciphering secret writing, <a href='#page_472'>472</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his real opinion of Hobbes, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_473'>473</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Walpole</span>, Horace, his literary character, <a href='#page_43'>43</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>instances of his pointed vivacity against authors, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_43'>43</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>why he attacked the fame of Sydney, and defended Richard III., <a href='#page_45'>45</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his literary mortifications, acknowledged by himself from his original letters, <a href='#page_47'>47</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>how Gray treated him when invited to Strawberry-hill, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_46'>46</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>extraordinary letter of, expressing his contempt of his most celebrated contemporaries, <a href='#page_49'>49</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Walsingham</span>, Sir Francis, originally favours the Puritans, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_508'>508</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Warburton</span>, dishonest criticism on Gray’s “Hudibras”, <a href='#page_105'>105</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>and his quarrels, <a href='#page_233'>233-277</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his early career, <a href='#page_239'>239</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his traffic in dedications, <a href='#page_241'>241</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his contemptuous criticism on Pope and Addison, <a href='#page_244'>244</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his miscellaneous reading, <a href='#page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#page_246'>246</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his love of conjecture, <a href='#page_247'>247</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>Divine Legation, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#page_267'>267</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>unhappy in his labours, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_252'>252</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his coarseness of invective, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#page_268'>268</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his contemptuous criticisms, <a href='#page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#page_269'>269</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>conjectural criticism on Shakspeare, <a href='#page_260'>260</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his edition of Pope, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#page_271'>271</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his literary recruits, <a href='#page_274'>274</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>defends Pope against Bolingbroke, <a href='#page_321'>321</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>influenced Pope through his religion, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_323'>323</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his opinion of Hobbes, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_444'>444</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>offends Edwards in a contest, <a href='#page_532'>532</a><br /> + +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_552' name='page_552'></a>552</span><br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ward</span>, Dr. Seth, his double opinion of Hobbes’ Works, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_465'>465</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Ward</span>, Dr., his quarrel with Dr. Pierce, <a href='#page_536'>536</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Wharton</span>, Henry, sunk under his historical studies, <a href='#page_74'>74</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Whitgift</span>, Archbishop, his controversies with Cartwright the Puritan, and ultimate friendship with him, <i>n.</i> <a href='#page_509'>509</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>William</span> of <span class='smcap'>Wykeham</span> attacked by Bohun, <a href='#page_537'>537</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Wood</span>, Anthony, his character, <a href='#page_94'>94</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>an apology for the “Athenæ Oxonienses”, <a href='#page_92'>92</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>the writers of a party whom he abhorred frequently refer to him in their own favour, <a href='#page_99'>99</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>defines Marvell’s style, <a href='#page_392'>392</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>gives Bishop Parker’s early history, <a href='#page_394'>394</a><br /> +<span class='indent2'> </span>his prejudice against Lake, <a href='#page_423'>423</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Woodward</span> the actor attacked by Hill, <a href='#page_372'>372</a>, and note<br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Works</span>, valuable, not completed from deficient encouragement, <a href='#page_84'>84</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='smcap'>Wotton’s</span> reflections on learning, <a href='#page_378'>378</a></p> +<p class='padtop center'>THE END.</p> +<div class="trnote"> +<p><b>Transcriber Notes</b></p> +<p>Typographical inconsistencies have been changed and are +<ins title="Was 'hgihligthed'">highlighted</ins> and +listed below.</p> +<p>Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved, including the author’s use of “wont” instead of “won’t”.</p> +<p>Author’s punctuation style is preserved, except where noted below.</p> +<p>Sections in Greek will yield a transliteration when the pointer is moved over each line, e.g. <span lang="el" title="KTÊMA ES AEI">ΚΤΗΜΑ ΕΣ ΑΕΙ</span></p> +<p class='padtop'><b>Transcriber Changes</b></p> +<p>The following changes were made to the original text:</p> +<p><a href='#TC_1'>Page 11</a>: Added missing word (He passed through a youth of iniquity, and was expelled <b>from</b> his college for his irregularities)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_2'>Page 21</a>: Was ’ingratisude’ (it seems a national <b>ingratitude</b> to limit the existence of works for their authors)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_3'>Page 23</a>: Was ’roya’ (passed off in currency their base metal stamped with a <b>royal</b> head)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_4'>Page 40</a>: Was ’discontentd’ (he retired <b>discontented</b> into Surrey.”)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_5'>Page 62</a>: Was smudged ’brothe’ (envied their Ciceronian <b>brothers.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_6'>Page 63</a>: Added period (he then requested the Bishop of <b>London.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_7'>Page 89</a>: Was ’prosspects’ (his imagination delighted to expatiate in its future <b>prospects</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_8'>Page 105</a>: Was ’Hubidras’ (might have served as the model of Grey’s <b>Hudibras</b>.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_9'>Page 118</a>: Added quote (<b>“Harvey</b>, the happy above happier men, I read)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_10'>Page 187</a>: Was ’sorows’ (the oriental student pathetically counts over his <b>sorrows</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_11'>Page 215</a>: Removed quote (O people currish, churlish as their <b>seas—</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_12'>Page 230</a>: Changed comma to period (he gave a new turn to our <b>studies.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_13'>Page 281</a>: Added quote (“and the weekly clubs held to consult of hostilities against the <b>author;”</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_14'>Page 289</a>: Was ’nor’ (Is <b>not</b> <i>Word-catching</i> more serviceable in splitting a cause, than explaining a fine poet?)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_18'>Page 327</a>: Was ’damagogue’ (which such a political <b>demagogue</b> as Bolingbroke never forgave)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_19'>Page 328</a>: Added quote (which I have noticed in the <b>“Quarrels</b> of Warburton.”)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_20'>Page 350</a>: Was ’petulent’ (which closed this life of toil and hurry and <b>petulant</b> genius)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_21'>Page 399</a>: Was ’ut’ (he was glad to make use of anything rather than sit <b>out</b>;)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_22'>Page 403</a>: Was ’Philosoper’ (while the <b>Philosopher</b> keenly retorts on the Club)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_24'>Page 420</a>: Added missing i (I give a short narrative of the political temper of the times, <b>in</b> their unparalleled gazettes.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_28'>Page 434</a>: Added quote (From age to age, <b>&c.”</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_29'>Page 436</a>: Was ’montrous’ (his <b>monstrous</b> egotism)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_30'>Page 469</a>: Changed comma to period (than in his younger <b>days.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_31'>Page 471</a>: Removed quote (you are older already than <b>Methuselah.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_32'>Page 481</a>: Added quote (‘Barmy froth, inflate, turgidous, and ventosity are come <b>up.’</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_33'>Page 483</a>: Was ’searchin’ (Mine enemies, with sharp and <b>searching</b> eyes)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_34'>Page 487</a>: Added period (Nor the <b>Untrussers.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_35'>Page 497</a>: Removed quote (<b>Now</b>, to show himself as good a painter as he is a herald)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_36'>Footnote 20</a>: Extra comma removed (his <i>Bibliographia <b>Poetica</b></i>.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_38'>Footnote 140</a>: Was ’afterwardss’ (As City Poet <b>afterwards</b> Settle composed the pageants)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_39'>Footnote 140</a>: Was ’Mayor’ (songs for the Lord <b>Mayor’s</b> Shows from 1691 to 1708)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_40'>Footnote 140</a>: Original split across lines as ‘im,’ and ‘poverished,’ (Towards the close of his career he became <b>impoverished</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_41'>Footnote 150</a>: Changed period to comma (by <b>Indignatio,”</b> 1772)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_42'>Footnote 157</a>: Added quote (“that last foible of superior <b>genius.”</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_43'>Footnote 163</a>: Was ’Manasseh’ (which <b>Menasseh</b> Ben Israel has written his treatise)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_44'>Footnote 183</a>: Was ’infallibilty’ (to the standard of your <b>infallibility</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_45'>Footnote 186</a>: Added quote (<b>“Letter</b> to Warburton,” p. 4.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_46'>Footnote 195</a>: Added quote (Prince Eugene, <b>“who</b> came hither for that purpose.”)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_47'>Footnote 202</a>: Was ’Irishmant o’ (had a tall Irishman <b>to</b> attend him)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_49'>Footnote 291</a>: Added quote (And changed his skin to monumental <b>brass.”</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_50'>Footnote 324</a>: Added missing word (<b>It</b> may be inscribed in the library of the student)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_52'>Footnote 353</a>: Was ’caligraphy’ (this beautiful specimen of <b>calligraphy</b> may still be seen)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_53'>Footnote 353</a>: Was ’hi’ (it produced <b>his</b> sudden dismissal from the presence of Charles II. when at Paris)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_54'>Footnote 354</a>: Added quote (but, chewed, are for the most part cast up again without <b>effect.”</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_55'>Footnote 367</a>: Added quote (<b>“Il</b> disoit qu’il faisoit quelquefois des ouvertures)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_56'>Footnote 369</a>: Added period (The story his antagonist (Dr. Wallis) relates is perfectly in <b>character.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_58'>Footnote 418</a>: Changed comma to period (in a countercuffe given to Martin <b>Junior.”</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_59'>Index</a>: Was ’Gilden’ (<span class='smcap'><b>Gildon</b></span> supposed by Pope to have been employed by Addison to write against him, <a href='#page_316'>316</a>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_60'>Index</a>: Added period (<span class='smcap'>Johnson</span>, <b>Dr.,</b> his aversion to Milton’s politics, <a href='#page_425'>425</a>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_61'>Index</a>: Was ’132’ (<span class='smcap'>Lightfoot</span> could not procure the printing of his work, <b><a href='#page_192'>192</a></b>)</p> +</div> + +<!-- generated by ppg.rb version: 3.14k --> +<!-- timestamp: Wed Dec 23 01:10:10 -0500 2009 --> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 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