diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:23:58 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:23:58 -0700 |
| commit | 7c2b19f44cea6a7651c9b3245fc4de111f76b97b (patch) | |
| tree | fd10117dc3415ea755ae798c9a40a6206b19e96e /4678-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '4678-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 4678-h/4678-h.htm | 6430 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4678-h/images/coverb.jpg | bin | 0 -> 294147 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4678-h/images/covers.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40048 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4678-h/images/tpb.jpg | bin | 0 -> 201023 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4678-h/images/tps.jpg | bin | 0 -> 24384 bytes |
5 files changed, 6430 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/4678-h/4678-h.htm b/4678-h/4678-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f8cef5 --- /dev/null +++ b/4678-h/4678-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6430 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Johnson's Lives of the Poets, by Samuel Johnson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .5em; + text-decoration: none;} + span.red { color: red; } + body {background-color: #ffffc0; } + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, by Samuel +Johnson, Edited by Henry Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Johnson's Lives of the Poets + Gay, Thomson, Young, Gray, &c. + + +Author: Samuel Johnson + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: May 31, 2020 [eBook #4678] +[This file was first released February 26, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1889 Cassell and Company edition by Les +Bowler.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.</span></p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<h1>LIVES<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OF THE</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">English Poets</span></h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><b>Gay</b> +<b>Thomson</b> <b>Young</b> <b>Gray</b> +etc.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" + src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL & COMPANY, <span +class="smcap">Limited</span>:<br /> +<span class="GutSmall"><i>LONDON</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">, </span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>PARIS</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +</span><span class="GutSmall"><i>NEW YORK & +MELBOURNE</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">1889.</span></p> +<h2><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">This</span> volume contains a record of +twenty lives, of which only one—that of Edward +Young—is treated at length. It completes our edition +of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, from which a few only of +the briefest and least important have been omitted.</p> +<p>The eldest of the Poets here discussed were Samuel Garth, +Charles Montague (Lord Halifax), and William King, who were born +within the years 1660–63. Next in age were +Addison’s friend Ambrose Philips, and Nicholas Rowe the +dramatist, who was also the first editor of Shakespeare’s +plays after the four folios had appeared. Ambrose Philips +and Rowe were born in 1671 and 1673, and Isaac Watts in +1674. Thomas Parnell, born in 1679, would follow next, +nearly of like age with Young, whose birth-year was 1681. +Pope’s friend John Gay was of Pope’s age, born in +1688, two years later than Addison’s friend Thomas Tickell, +who was born in 1686. Next in the course of years came, in +1692, William Somerville, the author of “The +Chace.” John Dyer, who wrote “Grongar +Hill,” and James Thomson, who wrote the +“Seasons,” were both born in the year 1700. +They were two of three poets—Allan Ramsay, the +third—who, almost at the same time, wrote verse instinct +with a fresh sense of outward Nature which was hardly to be found +in other writers of that day. David Mallet, Thomson’s +college-friend and friend of after-years—who shares with +Thomson the curiosity of critics who would decide which of them +wrote “Rule Britannia”—was of Thomson’s +age.</p> +<p>The other writers of whose lives Johnson here gives his note +were men born in the beginning of the eighteenth century: Gilbert +West, the translator of Pindar, in 1706; George Lyttelton, in +1709. William Shenstone, whose sense of Nature, although +true, was mixed with the conventions of his time, and who once +asked a noble friend to open a waterfall in the garden upon which +the poet spent his little patrimony, was born in 1714; Thomas +Gray, in 1716; William Collins, in 1720; and Mark Akenside, in +1721. In Collins, while he lived with loss of reason, +Johnson, who had fears for himself, took pathetic interest. +Akenside could not interest him much. Akenside made his +mark when young with “The Pleasures of Imagination,” +a good poem, according to the fashion of the time, when read with +due consideration as a young man’s first venture for +fame. He spent much of the rest of his life in overloading +it with valueless additions. The writer who begins well +should let well alone, and, instead of tinkering at bygone work, +follow the course of his own ripening thought. He should +seek new ways of doing worthy service in the years of labour left +to him.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p> +<h2><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>KING.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">William King</span> was born in London in +1663; the son of Ezekiel King, a gentleman. He was allied +to the family of Clarendon.</p> +<p>From Westminster School, where he was a scholar on the +foundation under the care of Dr. Busby, he was at eighteen +elected to Christ Church in 1681; where he is said to have +prosecuted his studies with so much intenseness and activity, +that before he was eight years’ standing he had read over, +and made remarks upon, twenty-two thousand odd hundred books and +manuscripts. The books were certainly not very long, the +manuscripts not very difficult, nor the remarks very large; for +the calculator will find that he despatched seven a day for every +day of his eight years; with a remnant that more than satisfies +most other students. He took his degree in the most +expensive manner, as a <i>grand compounder</i>; whence it is +inferred that he inherited a considerable fortune.</p> +<p>In 1688, the same year in which he was made Master of Arts, he +published a confutation of Varillas’s account of Wickliffe; +and, engaging in the study of the civil law, became Doctor in +1692, and was admitted advocate at Doctors’ Commons.</p> +<p>He had already made some translations from the French, and +written some humorous and satirical pieces; when, in 1694, +Molesworth published his “Account of Denmark,” in +which he treats the Danes and their monarch with great contempt; +and takes the opportunity of insinuating those wild principles by +which he supposes liberty to be established, and by which his +adversaries suspect that all subordination and government is +endangered.</p> +<p>This book offended Prince George; and the Danish Minister +presented a memorial against it. The principles of its +author did not please Dr. King; and therefore he undertook to +confute part, and laugh at the rest. The controversy is now +forgotten: and books of this kind seldom live long when interest +and resentment have ceased.</p> +<p>In 1697 he mingled in the controversy between Boyle and +Bentley; and was one of those who tried what wit could perform in +opposition to learning, on a question which learning only could +decide.</p> +<p>In 1699 was published by him “A Journey to +London,” after the method of Dr. Martin Lister, who had +published “A Journey to Paris.” And in 1700 he +satirised the Royal Society—at least, Sir Hans Sloane, +their president—in two dialogues, intituled “The +Transactioner.”</p> +<p>Though he was a regular advocate in the courts of civil and +canon law, he did not love his profession, nor, indeed, any kind +of business which interrupted his voluptuary dreams or forced him +to rouse from that indulgence in which only he could find +delight. His reputation as a civilian was yet maintained by +his judgments in the Courts of Delegates, and raised very high by +the address and knowledge which he discovered in 1700, when he +defended the Earl of Anglesea against his lady, afterwards +Duchess of Buckinghamshire, who sued for a divorce and obtained +it.</p> +<p>The expense of his pleasures, and neglect of business, had now +lessened his revenues; and he was willing to accept of a +settlement in Ireland, where, about 1702, he was made Judge of +the Admiralty, Commissioner of the Prizes, Keeper of the Records +in Birmingham’s Tower, and Vicar-General to Dr. Marsh, the +primate.</p> +<p>But it is vain to put wealth within the reach of him who will +not stretch out his hand to take it. King soon found a +friend, as idle and thoughtless as himself, in Upton, one of the +judges, who had a pleasant house called Mountown, near Dublin, to +which King frequently retired; delighting to neglect his +interest, forget his cares, and desert his duty.</p> +<p>Here he wrote “Mully of Mountown,” a poem; by +which, though fanciful readers in the pride of sagacity have +given it a poetical interpretation, was meant originally no more +than it expressed, as it was dictated only by the author’s +delight in the quiet of Mountown.</p> +<p>In 1708, when Lord Wharton was sent to govern Ireland, King +returned to London, with his poverty, his idleness, and his wit; +and published some essays, called “Useful +Transactions.” His “Voyage to the Island of +Cajamai” is particularly commended. He then wrote the +“Art of Love,” a poem remarkable, notwithstanding its +title, for purity of sentiment; and in 1709 imitated Horace in an +“Art of Cookery,” which he published with some +letters to Dr. Lister.</p> +<p>In 1710 he appeared as a lover of the Church, on the side of +Sacheverell; and was supposed to have concurred at least in the +projection of the <i>Examiner</i>. His eyes were open to +all the operations of Whiggism; and he bestowed some strictures +upon Dr. Kennet’s adulatory sermon at the funeral of the +Duke of Devonshire.</p> +<p>“The History of the Heathen Gods,” a book composed +for schools, was written by him in 1711. The work is +useful, but might have been produced without the powers of +King. The same year he published “Rufinus,” an +historical essay; and a poem intended to dispose the nation to +think as he thought of the Duke of Marlborough and his +adherents.</p> +<p>In 1711, competence, if not plenty, was again put into his +power. He was, without the trouble of attendance or the +mortification of a request, made Gazetteer. Swift, Freind, +Prior, and other men of the same party, brought him the key of +the Gazetteer’s office. He was now again placed in a +profitable employment, and again threw the benefit away. An +Act of Insolvency made his business at that time particularly +troublesome; and he would not wait till hurry should be at an +end, but impatiently resigned it, and returned to his wonted +indigence and amusements.</p> +<p>One of his amusements at Lambeth, where he resided, was to +mortify Dr. Tenison, the archbishop, by a public festivity on the +surrender of Dunkirk to Hill; an event with which Tenison’s +political bigotry did not suffer him to be delighted. King +was resolved to counteract his sullenness, and at the expense of +a few barrels of ale filled the neighbourhood with honest +merriment.</p> +<p>In the autumn of 1712 his health declined; he grew weaker by +degrees, and died on Christmas Day. Though his life had not +been without irregularity, his principles were pure and orthodox, +and his death was pious.</p> +<p>After this relation it will be naturally supposed that his +poems were rather the amusements of idleness than efforts of +study; that he endeavoured rather to divert than astonish; that +his thoughts seldom aspired to sublimity; and that, if his verse +was easy and his images familiar, he attained what he +desired. His purpose is to be merry; but perhaps, to enjoy +his mirth, it may be sometimes necessary to think well of his +opinions.</p> +<h2><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>HALIFAX.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> life of the Earl of Halifax was +properly that of an artful and active statesman, employed in +balancing parties, contriving expedients, and combating +opposition, and exposed to the vicissitudes of advancement and +degradation; but in this collection poetical merit is the claim +to attention; and the account which is here to be expected may +properly be proportioned, not to his influence in the State, but +to his rank among the writers of verse.</p> +<p>Charles Montague was born April 16, 1661, at Horton, in +Northamptonshire, the son of Mr. George Montague, a younger son +of the Earl of Manchester. He was educated first in the +country, and then removed to Westminster, where, in 1677, he was +chosen a King’s Scholar, and recommended himself to Busby +by his felicity in extemporary epigrams. He contracted a +very intimate friendship with Mr. Stepney; and in 1682, when +Stepney was elected at Cambridge, the election of Montague being +not to proceed till the year following, he was afraid lest by +being placed at Oxford he might be separated from his companion, +and therefore solicited to be removed to Cambridge, without +waiting for the advantages of another year.</p> +<p>It seemed indeed time to wish for a removal, for he was +already a schoolboy of one-and-twenty.</p> +<p>His relation, Dr. Montague, was then Master of the college in +which he was placed a Fellow-Commoner, and took him under his +particular care. Here he commenced an acquaintance with the +great Newton, which continued through his life, and was at last +attested by a legacy.</p> +<p>In 1685 his verses on the death of King Charles made such an +impression on the Earl of Dorset that he was invited to town, and +introduced by that universal patron to the other wits. In +1687 he joined with Prior in “The City Mouse and the +Country Mouse,” a burlesque of Dryden’s “Hind +and Panther.” He signed the invitation to the Prince +of Orange, and sat in the Convention. He about the same +time married the Countess Dowager of Manchester, and intended to +have taken Orders; but, afterwards altering his purpose, he +purchased for £1,500 the place of one of the clerks of the +Council.</p> +<p>After he had written his epistle on the victory of the Boyne, +his patron Dorset introduced him to King William with this +expression, “Sir, I have brought a <i>mouse</i> to wait on +your Majesty.” To which the King is said to have +replied, “You do well to put me in the way of making a +<i>man</i> of him;” and ordered him a pension of +£500. This story, however current, seems to have been +made after the event. The King’s answer implies a +greater acquaintance with our proverbial and familiar diction +than King William could possibly have attained.</p> +<p>In 1691, being member of the House of Commons, he argued +warmly in favour of a law to grant the assistance of counsel in +trials for high treason; and in the midst of his speech falling +into some confusion, was for a while silent; but, recovering +himself, observed, “how reasonable it was to allow counsel +to men called as criminals before a court of justice, when it +appeared how much the presence of that assembly could disconcert +one of their own body.”</p> +<p>After this he rose fast into honours and employments, being +made one of the Commissioners of the Treasury, and called to the +Privy Council. In 1694 he became Chancellor of the +Exchequer; and the next year engaged in the great attempt of the +recoinage, which was in two years happily completed. In +1696 he projected the <i>general fund</i> and raised the credit +of the Exchequer; and after inquiry concerning a grant of Irish +Crown lands, it was determined by a vote of the Commons that +Charles Montague, Esq., <i>had deserved his Majesty’s +favour</i>. In 1698, being advanced to the first Commission +of the Treasury, he was appointed one of the regency in the +King’s absence: the next year he was made Auditor of the +Exchequer, and the year after created Baron Halifax. He +was, however, impeached by the Commons; but the Articles were +dismissed by the Lords.</p> +<p>At the accession of Queen Anne he was dismissed from the +Council; and in the first Parliament of her reign was again +attacked by the Commons, and again escaped by the protection of +the Lords. In 1704 he wrote an answer to Bromley’s +speech against occasional conformity. He headed the inquiry +into the danger of the Church. In 1706 he proposed and +negotiated the Union with Scotland; and when the Elector of +Hanover received the Garter, after the Act had passed for +securing the Protestant Succession, he was appointed to carry the +ensigns of the Order to the Electoral Court. He sat as one +of the judges of Sacheverell, but voted for a mild +sentence. Being now no longer in favour, he contrived to +obtain a writ for summoning the Electoral Prince to Parliament as +Duke of Cambridge.</p> +<p>At the Queen’s death he was appointed one of the +regents; and at the accession of George I. was made Earl of +Halifax, Knight of the Garter, and First Commissioner of the +Treasury, with a grant to his nephew of the reversion of the +Auditorship of the Exchequer. More was not to be had, and +this he kept but a little while; for on the 19th of May, 1715, he +died of an inflammation of his lungs.</p> +<p>Of him, who from a poet became a patron of poets, it will be +readily believed that the works would not miss of +celebration. Addison began to praise him early, and was +followed or accompanied by other poets; perhaps by almost all, +except Swift and Pope, who forbore to flatter him in his life, +and after his death spoke of him—Swift with slight censure, +and Pope, in the character of Bufo, with acrimonious +contempt.</p> +<p>He was, as Pope says, “fed with dedications;” for +Tickell affirms that no dedication was unrewarded. To +charge all unmerited praise with the guilt of flattery, and to +suppose that the encomiast always knows and feels the falsehoods +of his assertions, is surely to discover great ignorance of human +nature and human life. In determinations depending not on +rules, but on experience and comparison, judgment is always in +some degree subject to affection. Very near to admiration +is the wish to admire.</p> +<p>Every man willingly gives value to the praise which he +receives, and considers the sentence passed in his favour as the +sentence of discernment. We admire in a friend that +understanding that selected us for confidence; we admire more, in +a patron, that judgment which, instead of scattering bounty +indiscriminately, directed it to us; and, if the patron be an +author, those performances which gratitude forbids us to blame, +affection will easily dispose us to exalt.</p> +<p>To these prejudices, hardly culpable, interest adds a power +always operating, though not always, because not willingly, +perceived. The modesty of praise wears gradually away; and +perhaps the pride of patronage may be in time so increased that +modest praise will no longer please.</p> +<p>Many a blandishment was practised upon Halifax which he would +never have known had he no other attractions than those of his +poetry, of which a short time has withered the beauties. It +would now be esteemed no honour, by a contributor to the monthly +bundles of verses, to be told that, in strains either familiar or +solemn, he sings like Montague.</p> +<h2><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>PARNELL.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> life of Dr. Parnell is a task +which I should very willingly decline, since it has been lately +written by Goldsmith, a man of such variety of powers, and such +felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that +which he was doing; a man who had the art of being minute without +tediousness, and general without confusion; whose language was +copious without exuberance, exact without constraint, and easy +without weakness.</p> +<p>What such an author has told, who would tell again? I +have made an abstract from his larger narrative; and have this +gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of +paying due tribute to the memory of Goldsmith.</p> +<p>Thomas Parnell was the son of a Commonwealthsman of the same +name, who, at the Restoration, left Congleton, in Cheshire, where +the family had been established for several centuries, and, +settling in Ireland, purchased an estate, which, with his lands +in Cheshire, descended to the poet, who was born at Dublin in +1679; and, after the usual education at a grammar school, was, at +the age of thirteen, admitted into the College where, in 1700, he +became Master of Arts; and was the same year ordained a deacon, +though under the canonical age, by a dispensation from the Bishop +of Derry.</p> +<p>About three years afterwards he was made a priest and in 1705 +Dr. Ashe, the Bishop of Clogher, conferred upon him the +archdeaconry of Clogher. About the same time he married +Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom he had two sons, who +died young, and a daughter, who long survived him.</p> +<p>At the ejection of the Whigs, in the end of Queen Anne’s +reign, Parnell was persuaded to change his party, not without +much censure from those whom he forsook, and was received by the +new Ministry as a valuable reinforcement. When the Earl of +Oxford was told that Dr. Parnell waited among the crowd in the +outer room, he went, by the persuasion of Swift, with his +Treasurer’s staff in his hand, to inquire for him, and to +bid him welcome; and, as may be inferred from Pope’s +dedication, admitted him as a favourite companion to his +convivial hours, but, as it seems often to have happened in those +times to the favourites of the great, without attention to his +fortune, which, however, was in no great need of improvement.</p> +<p>Parnell, who did not want ambition or vanity, was desirous to +make himself conspicuous, and to show how worthy he was of high +preferment. As he thought himself qualified to become a +popular preacher, he displayed his elocution with great success +in the pulpits of London; but the Queen’s death putting an +end to his expectations, abated his diligence; and Pope +represents him as falling from that time into intemperance of +wine. That in his latter life he was too much a lover of +the bottle, is not denied; but I have heard it imputed to a cause +more likely to obtain forgiveness from mankind, the untimely +death of a darling son; or, as others tell, the loss of his wife, +who died (1712) in the midst of his expectations.</p> +<p>He was now to derive every future addition to his preferments +from his personal interest with his private friends, and he was +not long unregarded. He was warmly recommended by Swift to +Archbishop King, who gave him a prebend in 1713; and in May, +1716, presented him to the vicarage of Finglass, in the diocese +of Dublin, worth £400 a year. Such notice from such a +man inclines me to believe that the vice of which he has been +accused was not gross or not notorious.</p> +<p>But his prosperity did not last long. His end, whatever +was its cause, was now approaching. He enjoyed his +preferment little more than a year; for in July, 1717, in his +thirty-eighth year, he died at Chester on his way to Ireland.</p> +<p>He seems to have been one of those poets who take delight in +writing. He contributed to the papers of that time, and +probably published more than he owned. He left many +compositions behind him, of which Pope selected those which he +thought best, and dedicated them to the Earl of Oxford. Of +these Goldsmith has given an opinion, and his criticism it is +seldom safe to contradict. He bestows just praise upon +“The Rise of Woman,” “The Fairy Tale,” +and “The Pervigilium Veneris;” but has very properly +remarked that in “The Battle of Mice and Frogs” the +Greek names have not in English their original effect. He +tells us that “The Bookworm” is borrowed from Beza; +but he should have added with modern applications: and when he +discovers that “Gay Bacchus” is translated from +Augurellus, he ought to have remarked that the latter part is +purely Parnell’s. Another poem, “When Spring +Comes On,” is, he says, taken from the French. I +would add that the description of “Barrenness,” in +his verses to Pope, was borrowed from Secundus; but lately +searching for the passage which I had formerly read, I could not +find it. “The Night Piece on Death” is +indirectly preferred by Goldsmith to Gray’s +“Churchyard;” but, in my opinion, Gray has the +advantage in dignity, variety, and originality of +sentiment. He observes that the story of “The +Hermit” is in More’s “Dialogues” and +Howell’s “Letters,” and supposes it to have +been originally Arabian.</p> +<p>Goldsmith has not taken any notice of “The Elegy to the +Old Beauty,” which is perhaps the meanest; nor of +“The Allegory on Man,” the happiest of +Parnell’s performances. The hint of “The Hymn +to Contentment” I suspect to have been borrowed from +Cleveland.</p> +<p>The general character of Parnell is not great extent of +comprehension or fertility of mind. Of the little that +appears, still less is his own. His praise must be derived +from the easy sweetness of his diction: in his verses there is +more happiness than pains; he is sprightly without effort, and +always delights, though he never ravishes; everything is proper, +yet everything seems casual. If there is some appearance of +elaboration in “The Hermit,” the narrative, as it is +less airy, is less pleasing. Of his other compositions it +is impossible to say whether they are the productions of nature, +so excellent as not to want the help of art, or of art so refined +as to resemble nature.</p> +<p>This criticism relates only to the pieces published by +Pope. Of the large appendages which I find in the last +edition, I can only say that I know not whence they came, nor +have ever inquired whither they are going. They stand upon +the faith of the compilers.</p> +<h2><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>GARTH.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Samuel Garth</span> was of a good family +in Yorkshire, and from some school in his own county became a +student at Peter House, in Cambridge, where he resided till he +became Doctor of Physic on July the 7th, 1691. He was +examined before the College at London on March the 12th, +1691–2, and admitted Fellow June 26th, 1693. He was +soon so much distinguished by his conversation and +accomplishments as to obtain very extensive practice; and, if a +pamphlet of those times may be credited, had the favour and +confidence of one party, as Radcliffe had of the other. He +is always mentioned as a man of benevolence; and it is just to +suppose that his desire of helping the helpless disposed him to +so much zeal for “The Dispensary;” an undertaking of +which some account, however short, is proper to be given.</p> +<p>Whether what Temple says be true, that physicians have had +more learning than the other faculties, I will not stay to +inquire; but I believe every man has found in physicians great +liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of +beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there +is no hope of lucre. Agreeably to this character, the +College of Physicians, in July, 1687, published an edict, +requiring all the Fellows, Candidates, and Licentiates to give +gratuitous advice to the neighbouring poor. This edict was +sent to the Court of Aldermen; and, a question being made to whom +the appellation of the <i>poor</i> should be extended, the +College answered that it should be sufficient to bring a +testimonial from the clergyman officiating in the parish where +the patient resided.</p> +<p>After a year’s experience the physicians found their +charity frustrated by some malignant opposition, and made to a +great degree vain by the high price of physic; they therefore +voted, in August, 1688, that the laboratory of the College should +be accommodated to the preparation of medicines, and another room +prepared for their reception; and that the contributors to the +expense should manage the charity.</p> +<p>It was now expected that the apothecaries would have +undertaken the care of providing medicines; but they took another +course. Thinking the whole design pernicious to their +interest, they endeavoured to raise a faction against it in the +College, and found some physicians mean enough to solicit their +patronage by betraying to them the counsels of the College. +The greater part, however, enforced by a new edict, in 1694, the +former order of 1687, and sent it to the Mayor and Aldermen, who +appointed a committee to treat with the College and settle the +mode of administering the charity.</p> +<p>It was desired by the aldermen that the testimonials of +churchwardens and overseers should be admitted; and that all +hired servants, and all apprentices to handicraftsmen, should be +considered as <i>poor</i>. This likewise was granted by the +College.</p> +<p>It was then considered who should distribute the medicines, +and who should settle their prices. The physicians procured +some apothecaries to undertake the dispensation, and offered that +the warden and company of the apothecaries should adjust the +price. This offer was rejected; and the apothecaries who +had engaged to assist the charity were considered as traitors to +the company, threatened with the imposition of troublesome +offices, and deterred from the performance of their +engagements. The apothecaries ventured upon public +opposition, and presented a kind of remonstrance against the +design to the committee of the City, which the physicians +condescended to confute: and at last the traders seem to have +prevailed among the sons of trade; for the proposal of the +College having been considered, a paper of approbation was drawn +up, but postponed and forgotten.</p> +<p>The physicians still persisted; and in 1696 a subscription was +raised by themselves according to an agreement prefixed to +“The Dispensary.” The poor were, for a time, +supplied with medicines; for how long a time I know not. +The medicinal charity, like others, began with ardour, but soon +remitted, and at last died gradually away.</p> +<p>About the time of the subscription begins the action of +“The Dispensary.” The poem, as its subject was +present and popular, co-operated with passions and prejudices +then prevalent, and, with such auxiliaries to its intrinsic +merit, was universally and liberally applauded. It was on +the side of charity against the intrigues of interest; and of +regular learning against licentious usurpation of medical +authority, and was therefore naturally favoured by those who read +and can judge of poetry.</p> +<p>In 1697 Garth spoke that which is now called “The +Harveian Oration;” which the authors of “The +Biographia” mention with more praise than the passage +quoted in their notes will fully justify. Garth, speaking +of the mischiefs done by quacks, has these expressions: +“Non tamen telis vulnerat ista agyrtarum colluvies, sed +theriaca quâdam magis perniciosâ, non pyrio, sed +pulvere nescio quo exotico certat, non globulis plumbeis, sed +pilulis æque lethalibus interficit.” This was +certainly thought fine by the author, and is still admired by his +biographer. In October, 1702, he became one of the censors +of the College.</p> +<p>Garth, being an active and zealous Whig, was a member of the +Kit-Cat Club, and, by consequence, familiarly known to all the +great men of that denomination. In 1710, when the +government fell into other hands, he writ to Lord Godolphin, on +his dismission, a short poem, which was criticised in the +<i>Examiner</i>, and so successfully either defended or excused +by Mr. Addison that, for the sake of the vindication, it ought to +be preserved.</p> +<p>At the accession of the present family his merits were +acknowledged and rewarded. He was knighted with the sword +of his hero, Marlborough; and was made Physician-in-Ordinary to +the King, and Physician-General to the army. He then +undertook an edition of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” +translated by several hands; which he recommended by a preface, +written with more ostentation than ability; his notions are +half-formed, and his materials immethodically confused. +This was his last work. He died January 18th, +1717–18, and was buried at Harrow-on-the-Hill.</p> +<p>His personal character seems to have been social and +liberal. He communicated himself through a very wide extent +of acquaintance; and though firm in a party, at a time when +firmness included virulence, yet he imparted his kindness to +those who were not supposed to favour his principles. He +was an early encourager of Pope, and was at once the friend of +Addison and of Granville. He is accused of voluptuousness +and irreligion; and Pope, who says that “if ever there was +a good Christian, without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. +Garth,” seems not able to deny what he is angry to hear and +loth to confess.</p> +<p>Pope afterwards declared himself convinced that Garth died in +the communion of the Church of Rome, having been privately +reconciled. It is observed by Lowth that there is less +distance than is thought between scepticism and Popery; and that +a mind wearied with perpetual doubt, willingly seeks repose in +the bosom of an infallible Church.</p> +<p>His poetry has been praised at least equally to its +merit. In “The Dispensary” there is a strain of +smooth and free versification; but few lines are eminently +elegant. No passages fall below mediocrity, and few rise +much above it. The plan seems formed without just +proportion to the subject; the means and end have no necessary +connection. Resnel, in his preface to Pope’s Essay, +remarks that Garth exhibits no discrimination of characters; and +that what any one says might, with equal propriety, have been +said by another. The general design is, perhaps, open to +criticism; but the composition can seldom be charged with +inaccuracy or negligence. The author never slumbers in +self-indulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; scarcely a +line is left unfinished; nor is it easy to find an expression +used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expressed. It +was remarked by Pope, that “The Dispensary” had been +corrected in every edition, and that every change was an +improvement. It appears, however, to want something of +poetical ardour, and something of general delectation; and +therefore, since it has been no longer supported by accidental +and intrinsic popularity, it has been scarcely able to support +itself.</p> +<h2><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>ROWE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Nicholas Rowe</span> was born at Little +Beckford, in Bedfordshire, in 1673. His family had long +possessed a considerable estate, with a good house, at Lambertoun +in Devonshire. The ancestor from whom he descended in a +direct line received the arms borne by his descendants for his +bravery in the Holy War. His father, John Rowe, who was the +first that quitted his paternal acres to practise any part of +profit, professed the law, and published Benlow’s and +Dallison’s Reports in the reign of James the Second, when, +in opposition to the notions then diligently propagated of +dispensing power, he ventured to remark how low his authors rated +the prerogative. He was made a serjeant, and died April 30, +1692. He was buried in the Temple church.</p> +<p>Nicholas was first sent to a private school at Highgate; and, +being afterwards removed to Westminster, was at twelve years +chosen one of the King’s Scholars. His master was +Busby, who suffered none of his scholars to let their powers lie +useless; and his exercises in several languages are said to have +been written with uncommon degrees of excellence, and yet to have +cost him very little labour. At sixteen he had, in his +father’s opinion, made advances in learning sufficient to +qualify him for the study of law, and was entered a student of +the Middle Temple, where for some time he read statutes and +reports with proficiency proportionate to the force of his mind, +which was already such that he endeavoured to comprehend law, not +as a series of precedents, or collection of positive precepts, +but as a system of rational government and impartial +justice. When he was nineteen, he was, by the death of his +father, left more to his own direction, and probably from that +time suffered law gradually to give way to poetry. At +twenty-five he produced the <i>Ambitious Step-Mother</i>, which +was received with so much favour that he devoted himself from +that time wholly to elegant literature.</p> +<p>His next tragedy (1702) was Tamerlane, in which, under the +name of Tamerlane, he intended to characterise King William, and +Louis the Fourteenth under Bajazet. The virtues of +Tamerlane seem to have been arbitrarily assigned him by his poet, +for I know not that history gives any other qualities than those +which make a conqueror. The fashion, however, of the time +was to accumulate upon Louis all that can raise horror and +detestation; and whatever good was withheld from him, that it +might not be thrown away was bestowed upon King William. +This was the tragedy which Rowe valued most, and that which +probably, by the help of political auxiliaries, excited most +applause; but occasional poetry must often content itself with +occasional praise. Tamerlane has for a long time been acted +only once a year, on the night when King William landed. +Our quarrel with Louis has been long over; and it now gratifies +neither zeal nor malice to see him painted with aggravated +features, like a Saracen upon a sign.</p> +<p><i>The Fair Penitent</i>, his next production (1703), is one +of the most pleasing tragedies on the stage, where it still keeps +its turns of appearing, and probably will long keep them, for +there is scarcely any work of any poet at once so interesting by +the fable, and so delightful by the language. The story is +domestic, and therefore easily received by the imagination, and +assimilated to common life; the diction is exquisitely +harmonious, and soft or sprightly as occasion requires.</p> +<p>The character of Lothario seems to have been expanded by +Richardson into Lovelace; but he has excelled his original in the +moral effect of the fiction. Lothario, with gaiety which +cannot be hated, and bravery which cannot be despised, retains +too much of the spectator’s kindness. It was in the +power of Richardson alone to teach us at once esteem and +detestation, to make virtuous resentment overpower all the +benevolence which wit, elegance, and courage, naturally excite; +and to lose at last the hero in the villain. The fifth act +is not equal to the former; the events of the drama are +exhausted, and little remains but to talk of what is past. +It has been observed that the title of the play does not +sufficiently correspond with the behaviour of Calista, who at +last shows no evident signs of repentance, but may be reasonably +suspected of feeling pain from detection rather than from guilt, +and expresses more shame than sorrow, and more rage than +shame.</p> +<p>His next (1706) was <i>Ulysses</i>; which, with the common +fate of mythological stories, is now generally neglected. +We have been too early acquainted with the poetical heroes to +expect any pleasure from their revival; to show them as they have +already been shown, is to disgust by repetition; to give them new +qualities, or new adventures, is to offend by violating received +notions.</p> +<p>“<i>The Royal Convert</i>” (1708) seems to have a +better claim to longevity. The fable is drawn from an +obscure and barbarous age, to which fictions are more easily and +properly adapted; for when objects are imperfectly seen, they +easily take forms from imagination. The scene lies among +our ancestors in our own country, and therefore very easily +catches attention. Rodogune is a personage truly tragical, +of high spirit, and violent passions, great with tempestuous +dignity, and wicked with a soul that would have been heroic if it +had been virtuous. The motto seems to tell that this play +was not successful.</p> +<p>Rowe does not always remember what his characters +require. In <i>Tamerlane</i> there is some ridiculous +mention of the God of Love; and Rodogune, a savage Saxon, talks +of Venus and the eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter.</p> +<p>This play discovers its own date, by a prediction of the +Union, in imitation of Cranmer’s prophetic promises to +Henry VIII. The anticipated blessings of union are not very +naturally introduced, nor very happily expressed. He once +(1706) tried to change his hand. He ventured on a comedy, +and produced the <i>Biter</i>, with which, though it was +unfavourably treated by the audience, he was himself delighted; +for he is said to have sat in the house laughing with great +vehemence, whenever he had, in his own opinion, produced a +jest. But finding that he and the public had no sympathy of +mirth, he tried at lighter scenes no more.</p> +<p>After the <i>Royal Convert</i> (1714) appeared <i>Jane +Shore</i>, written, as its author professes, <i>in imitation of +Shakespeare’s style</i>. In what he thought himself +an imitator of Shakespeare it is not easy to conceive. The +numbers, the diction, the sentiments, and the conduct, everything +in which imitation can consist, are remote in the utmost degree +from the manner of Shakespeare, whose dramas it resembles only as +it is an English story, and as some of the persons have their +names in history. This play, consisting chiefly of domestic +scenes and private distress, lays hold upon the heart. The +wife is forgiven because she repents, and the husband is honoured +because he forgives. This, therefore, is one of those +pieces which we still welcome on the stage.</p> +<p>His last tragedy (1715) was <i>Lady Jane Grey</i>. This +subject had been chosen by Mr. Smith, whose papers were put into +Rowe’s hands such as he describes them in his +preface. This play has likewise sunk into oblivion. +From this time he gave nothing more to the stage.</p> +<p>Being by a competent fortune exempted from any necessity of +combating his inclination, he never wrote in distress, and +therefore does not appear to have ever written in haste. +His works were finished to his own approbation, and bear few +marks of negligence or hurry. It is remarkable that his +prologues and epilogues are all his own, though he sometimes +supplied others; he afforded help, but did not solicit it.</p> +<p>As his studies necessarily made him acquainted with +Shakespeare, and acquaintance produced veneration, he undertook +(1709) an edition of his works, from which he neither received +much praise, nor seems to have expected it; yet I believe those +who compare it with former copies will find that he has done more +than he promised; and that, without the pomp of notes or boasts +of criticism, many passages are happily restored. He +prefixed a life of the author, such as tradition, then almost +expiring, could supply, and a preface, which cannot be said to +discover much profundity or penetration. He at least +contributed to the popularity of his author. He was willing +enough to improve his fortune by other arts than poetry. He +was under-secretary for three years when the Duke of Queensberry +was Secretary of State, and afterwards applied to the Earl of +Oxford for some public employment. Oxford enjoined him to +study Spanish; and when, some time afterwards, he came again, and +said that he had mastered it, dismissed him with this +congratulation, “Then, sir, I envy you the pleasure of +reading ‘Don Quixote’ in the original.”</p> +<p>This story is sufficiently attested; but why Oxford, who +desired to be thought a favourer of literature, should thus +insult a man of acknowledged merit, or how Rowe, who was so keen +a Whig that he did not willingly converse with men of the +opposite party, could ask preferment from Oxford, it is not now +possible to discover. Pope, who told the story, did not say +on what occasion the advice was given; and, though he owned +Rowe’s disappointment, doubted whether any injury was +intended him, but thought it rather Lord Oxford’s <i>odd +way</i>.</p> +<p>It is likely that he lived on discontented through the rest of +Queen Anne’s reign; but the time came at last when he found +kinder friends. At the accession of King George he was made +Poet-Laureate—I am afraid, by the ejection of poor Nahum +Tate, who (1716) died in the Mint, where he was forced to seek +shelter by extreme poverty. He was made likewise one of the +land-surveyors of the customs of the Port of London. The +Prince of Wales chose him Clerk of his Council; and the Lord +Chancellor Parker, as soon as he received the seals, appointed +him, unasked, Secretary of the Presentations. Such an +accumulation of employments undoubtedly produced a very +considerable revenue.</p> +<p>Having already translated some parts of Lucan’s +“Pharsalia,” which had been published in the +<i>Miscellanies</i>, and doubtless received many praises, he +undertook a version of the whole work, which he lived to finish, +but not to publish. It seems to have been printed under the +care of Dr. Welwood, who prefixed the author’s life, in +which is contained the following character:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“As to his person, it was graceful and well +made; his face regular, and of a manly beauty. As his soul +was well lodged, so its rational and animal faculties excelled in +a high degree. He had a quick and fruitful invention, a +deep penetration, and a large compass of thought, with singular +dexterity and easiness in making his thoughts to be +understood. He was master of most parts of polite learning, +especially the classical authors, both Greek and Latin; +understood the French, Italian, and Spanish languages, and spoke +the first fluently, and the other two tolerably well. He +had likewise read most of the Greek and Roman histories in their +original languages, and most that are wrote in English, French, +Italian, and Spanish. He had a good taste in philosophy; +and, having a firm impression of religion upon his mind, he took +great delight in divinity and ecclesiastical history, in both of +which he made great advances in the times he retired into the +country, which was frequent. He expressed on all occasions +his full persuasion of the truth of revealed religion; and, being +a sincere member of the Established Church himself, he pitied, +but condemned not, those that dissented from it. He +abhorred the principles of persecuting men upon the account of +their opinions in religion; and, being strict in his own, he took +it not upon him to censure those of another persuasion. His +conversation was pleasant, witty, and learned, without the least +tincture of affectation or pedantry; and his inimitable manner of +diverting and enlivening the company made it impossible for any +one to be out of humour when he was in it. Envy and +detraction seemed to be entirely foreign to his constitution; and +whatever provocations he met with at any time, he passed them +over without the least thought of resentment or revenge. As +Homer had a Zoilus, so Mr. Rowe had sometimes his; for there were +not wanting malevolent people, and pretenders to poetry too, that +would now and then bark at his best performances; but he was so +conscious of his own genius, and had so much good-nature, as to +forgive them, nor could he ever be tempted to return them an +answer.</p> +<p>“The love of learning and poetry made him not the less +fit for business, and nobody applied himself closer to it when it +required his attendance. The late Duke of Queensberry, when +he was Secretary of State, made him his secretary for public +affairs; and when that truly great man came to know him well, he +was never so pleased as when Mr. Rowe was in his company. +After the duke’s death, all avenues were stopped to his +preferment; and during the rest of that reign he passed his time +with the Muses and his books, and sometimes the conversation of +his friends. When he had just got to be easy in his +fortune, and was in a fair way to make it better, death swept him +away, and in him deprived the world of one of the best men, as +well as one of the best geniuses, of the age. He died like +a Christian and a philosopher, in charity with all mankind, and +with an absolute resignation to the will of God. He kept up +his good-humour to the last; and took leave of his wife and +friends, immediately before his last agony, with the same +tranquillity of mind, and the same indifference for life, as +though he had been upon taking but a short journey. He was +twice married—first to a daughter of Mr. Parsons, one of +the auditors of the revenue; and afterwards to a daughter of Mr. +Devenish, of a good family in Dorsetshire. By the first he +had a son; and by the second a daughter, married afterwards to +Mr. Fane. He died 6th December, 1718, in the forty-fifth +year of his age, and was buried on the 19th of the same month in +Westminster Abbey, in the aisle where many of our English poets +are interred, over against Chaucer, his body being attended by a +select number of his friends, and the dean and choir officiating +at the funeral.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To this character, which is apparently given with the fondness +of a friend, may be added the testimony of Pope, who says, in a +letter to Blount, “Mr. Rowe accompanied me, and passed a +week in the Forest. I need not tell you how much a man of +his turn entertained me; but I must acquaint you, there is a +vivacity and gaiety of disposition, almost peculiar to him, which +make it impossible to part from him without that uneasiness which +generally succeeds all our pleasure.”</p> +<p>Pope has left behind him another mention of his companion less +advantageous, which is thus reported by Dr. Warburton:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Rowe, in Mr. Pope’s opinion, +maintained a decent character, but had no heart. Mr. +Addison was justly offended with some behaviour which arose from +that want, and estranged himself from him, which Rowe felt very +severely. Mr. Pope, their common friend, knowing this, took +an opportunity, at some juncture of Mr. Addison’s +advancement, to tell him how poor Rowe was grieved at his +displeasure, and what satisfaction he expressed at Mr. +Addison’s good fortune, which he expressed so naturally +that he (Mr. Pope) could not but think him sincere. Mr. +Addison replied, ‘I do not suspect that he feigned; but the +levity of his heart is such, that he is struck with any new +adventure, and it would affect him just in the same manner if he +heard I was going to be hanged.’ Mr. Pope said he +could not deny but Mr. Addison understood Rowe well.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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. Few characters can bear the microscopic +scrutiny of wit quickened by anger; and, perhaps, the best advice +to authors would be, that they should keep out of the way of one +another.</p> +<p>Rowe is chiefly to be considered as a tragic writer and a +translator. In his attempt at comedy he failed so +ignominiously that his <i>Biter</i> is not inserted in his works: +and his occasional poems and short compositions are rarely worthy +either praise or censure, for they seem the casual sports of a +mind seeking rather to amuse its leisure than to exercise its +powers. In the construction of his dramas there is not much +art; he is not a nice observer of the unities. He extends +time and varies places as his convenience requires. To vary +the place is not, in my opinion, any violation of nature, if the +change be made between the acts, for it is no less easy for the +spectator to suppose himself at Athens in the second act, than at +Thebes in the first; but to change the scene, as is done by Rowe, +in the middle of an act, is to add more acts to the play, since +an act is so much of the business as is transacted without +interruption. Rowe, by this licence, easily extricates +himself from difficulties; as in Jane Grey, when we have been +terrified with all the dreadful pomp of public execution; and are +wondering how the heroine or the poet will proceed, no sooner has +Jane pronounced some prophetic rhymes than—pass and be +gone—the scene closes, and Pembroke and Gardiner are turned +out upon the stage.</p> +<p>I know not that there can be found in his plays any deep +search into nature, any accurate discriminations of kindred +qualities, or nice display of passion in its progress; all is +general and undefined. Nor does he much interest or affect +the auditor, except in Jane Shore, who is always seen and heard +with pity. Alicia is a character of empty noise, with no +resemblance to real sorrow or to natural madness.</p> +<p>Whence, then, has Rowe his reputation? From the +reasonableness and propriety of some of his scenes, from the +elegance of his diction, and the suavity of his verse. He +seldom moves either pity or terror, but he often elevates the +sentiments; he seldom pierces the breast, but he always delights +the ear, and often improves the understanding. His +translation of the “Golden Verses,” and of the first +book of Quillet’s poem, have nothing in them +remarkable. The “Golden Verses” are +tedious.</p> +<p>The version of Lucan is one of the greatest productions of +English poetry, for there is perhaps none that so completely +exhibits the genius and spirit of the original. Lucan is +distinguished by a kind of dictatorial or philosophic dignity, +rather, as Quintilian observes, declamatory than poetical; full +of ambitious morality and pointed sentences, comprised in +vigorous and animated lines. This character Rowe has very +diligently and successfully preserved. His versification, +which is such as his contemporaries practised, without any +attempt at innovation or improvement, seldom wants either melody +or force. His author’s sense is sometimes a little +diluted by additional infusions, and sometimes weakened by too +much expansion. But such faults are to be expected in all +translations, from the constraint of measures and dissimilitude +of languages. The “Pharsalia” of Rowe deserves +more notice than it obtains, and as it is more read will be more +esteemed.</p> +<h2><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>GAY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">John Gay</span>, descended from an old +family that had been long in possession of the manor of +Goldworthy, in Devonshire, was born in 1688, at or near +Barnstaple, where he was educated by Mr. Luck, who taught the +school of that town with good reputation, and, a little before he +retired from it, published a volume of Latin and English +verses. Under such a master he was likely to form a taste +for poetry. Being born without prospect of hereditary +riches, he was sent to London in his youth, and placed apprentice +with a silk mercer. How long he continued behind the +counter, or with what degree of softness and dexterity he +received and accommodated the ladies, as he probably took no +delight in telling it, is not known. The report is that he +was soon weary of either the restraint or servility of his +occupation, and easily persuaded his master to discharge him.</p> +<p>The Duchess of Monmouth, remarkable for inflexible +perseverance in her demand to be treated as a princess, in 1712 +took Gay into her service as secretary: by quitting a shop for +such service he might gain leisure, but he certainly advanced +little in the boast of independence. Of his leisure he made +so good use that he published next year a poem on “Rural +Sports,” and inscribed it to Mr. Pope, who was then rising +fast into reputation. Pope was pleased with the honour, and +when he became acquainted with Gay, found such attractions in his +manners and conversation that he seems to have received him into +his inmost confidence; and a friendship was formed between them +which lasted to their separation by death, without any known +abatement on either part. Gay was the general favourite of +the whole association of wits; but they regarded him as a +playfellow rather than a partner, and treated him with more +fondness than respect.</p> +<p>Next year he published “The Shepherd’s +Week,” six English pastorals, in which the images are drawn +from real life, such as it appears among the rustics in parts of +England remote from London. Steele, in some papers of the +<i>Guardian</i>, had praised Ambrose Philips as the pastoral +writer that yielded only to Theocritus, Virgil, and +Spenser. Pope, who had also published pastorals, not +pleased to be overlooked, drew up a comparison of his own +compositions with those of Philips, in which he covertly gave +himself the preference, while he seemed to disown it. Not +content with this, he is supposed to have incited Gay to write +“The Shepherd’s Week,” to show that, if it be +necessary to copy nature with minuteness, rural life must be +exhibited such as grossness and ignorance have made it. So +far the plan was reasonable; but the pastorals are introduced by +a <i>Proeme</i>, written with such imitation as they could attain +of obsolete language, and, by consequence, in a style that was +never spoken nor written in any language or in any place. +But the effect of reality and truth became conspicuous, even when +the intention was to show them grovelling and degraded. +These pastorals became popular, and were read with delight as +just representations of rural manners and occupations by those +who had no interest in the rivalry of the poets, nor knowledge of +the critical dispute.</p> +<p>In 1713 he brought a comedy called <i>The Wife of Bath</i> +upon the stage, but it received no applause; he printed it, +however, and seventeen years after, having altered it and, as he +thought, adapted it more to the public taste, he offered it again +to the town; but, though he was flushed with the success of the +<i>Beggar’s Opera</i>, had the mortification to see it +again rejected.</p> +<p>In the last year of Queen Anne’s life Gay was made +secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, Ambassador to the Court of +Hanover. This was a station that naturally gave him hopes +of kindness from every party; but the Queen’s death put an +end to her favours, and he had dedicated his +“Shepherd’s Week” to Bolingbroke, which Swift +considered as the crime that obstructed all kindness from the +House of Hanover. He did not, however, omit to improve the +right which his office had given him to the notice of the Royal +Family. On the arrival of the Princess of Wales he wrote a +poem, and obtained so much favour that both the Prince and the +Princess went to see his <i>What D’ye Call It</i>, a kind +of mock tragedy, in which the images were comic and the action +grave; so that, as Pope relates, Mr. Cromwell, who could not hear +what was said, was at a loss how to reconcile the laughter of the +audience with the solemnity of the scene.</p> +<p>Of this performance the value certainly is but little; but it +was one of the lucky trifles that give pleasure by novelty, and +was so much favoured by the audience that envy appeared against +it in the form of criticism; and Griffin, a player, in +conjunction with Mr. Theobald, a man afterwards more remarkable, +produced a pamphlet called “The Key to the What D’ye +Call It,” “which,” says Gay, “calls me a +blockhead, and Mr. Pope a knave.”</p> +<p>But fortune has always been inconstant. Not long +afterwards (1717) he endeavoured to entertain the town with +<i>Three Hours after Marriage</i>, a comedy written, as there is +sufficient reason for believing, by the joint assistance of Pope +and Arbuthnot. One purpose of it was to bring into contempt +Dr. Woodward, the fossilist, a man not really or justly +contemptible. It had the fate which such outrages +deserve. The scene in which Woodward was directly and +apparently ridiculed, by the introduction of a mummy and a +crocodile, disgusted the audience, and the performance was driven +off the stage with general condemnation.</p> +<p>Gay is represented as a man easily incited to hope, and deeply +depressed when his hopes were disappointed. This is not the +character of a hero, but it may naturally imply something more +generally welcome, a soft and civil companion. Whoever is +apt to hope good from others is diligent to please them; but he +that believes his powers strong enough to force their own way, +commonly tries only to please himself. He had been simple +enough to imagine that those who laughed at the <i>What +D’ye Call It</i> would raise the fortune of its author, +and, finding nothing done, sunk into dejection. His friends +endeavoured to divert him. The Earl of Burlington sent him +(1716) into Devonshire, the year after Mr. Pulteney took him to +Aix, and in the following year Lord Harcourt invited him to his +seat, where, during his visit, two rural lovers were killed with +lightning, as is particularly told in Pope’s +“Letters.”</p> +<p>Being now generally known, he published (1720) his poems by +subscription, with such success that he raised a thousand pounds, +and called his friends to a consultation what use might be best +made of it. Lewis, the steward of Lord Oxford, advised him +to intrust it to the Funds, and live upon the interest; Arbuthnot +bade him to intrust it to Providence, and live upon the +principal; Pope directed him, and was seconded by Swift, to +purchase an annuity.</p> +<p>Gay in that disastrous year had a present from young Craggs of +some South Sea Stock, and once supposed himself to be master of +twenty thousand pounds. His friends persuaded him to sell +his share; but he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not +bear to obstruct his own fortune. He was then importuned to +sell as much as would purchase a hundred a year for life, +“which,” says Penton, “will make you sure of a +clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day.” This +counsel was rejected; the profit and principal were lost, and Gay +sunk under the calamity so low that his life became in +danger. By the care of his friends, among whom Pope appears +to have shown particular tenderness, his health was restored; +and, returning to his studies, he wrote a tragedy called <i>The +Captives</i>, which he was invited to read before the Princess of +Wales. When the hour came, he saw the Princess and her +ladies all in expectation, and, advancing with reverence too +great for any other attention, stumbled at a stool, and, falling +forwards, threw down a weighty Japan screen. The Princess +started, the ladies screamed, and poor Gay, after all the +disturbance, was still to read his play.</p> +<p>The fate of <i>The Captives</i>, which was acted at Drury Lane +in 1723–4, I know not; but he now thought himself in +favour, and undertook (1726) to write a volume of +“Fables” for the improvement of the young Duke of +Cumberland. For this he is said to have been promised a +reward, which he had doubtless magnified with all the wild +expectations of indigence and vanity.</p> +<p>Next year the Prince and Princess became King and Queen, and +Gay was to be great and happy; but on the settlement of the +household, he found himself appointed gentleman usher to the +Princess Louisa. By this offer he thought himself insulted, +and sent a message to the Queen that he was too old for the +place. There seem to have been many machinations employed +afterwards in his favour, and diligent court was paid to Mrs. +Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, who was much beloved by +the King and Queen, to engage her interest for his promotion; but +solicitation, verses, and flatteries were thrown away; the lady +heard them, and did nothing. All the pain which he suffered +from neglect, or, as he perhaps termed it, the ingratitude of the +Court, may be supposed to have been driven away by the unexampled +success of the <i>Beggar’s Opera</i>. This play, +written in ridicule of the musical Italian drama, was first +offered to Cibber and his brethren at Drury Lane and rejected: it +being then carried to Rich, had the effect, as was ludicrously +said, of making Gay <i>rich</i> and Rich <i>gay</i>. Of +this lucky piece, as the reader cannot but wish to know the +original and progress, I have inserted the relation which Spence +has given in Pope’s words:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. +Gay what an odd pretty sort of a thing a Newgate Pastoral might +make. Gay was inclined to try at such a thing for some +time; but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy +on the same plan. This was what gave rise to the +<i>Beggar’s Opera</i>. He began on it, and when first +he mentioned it to Swift, the doctor did not much like the +project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to +both of us, and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or +two of advice; but it was wholly of his own writing. When +it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We +showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said it would +either take greatly or be damned confoundedly. We were all, +at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till +we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyll, +who sat in the next box to us, say, ‘It will do—it +must do! I see it in the eyes of them.’ This +was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us +ease soon; for that Duke (besides his own good taste) has a +particular knack, as any one now living, in discovering the taste +of the public. He was quite right in this, as usual; the +good-nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every +act, and ended in a clamour of applause.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Its reception is thus recorded in the notes to the +“Dunciad”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“This piece was received with greater +applause than was ever known. Besides being acted in London +sixty-three days without interruption, and renewed the next +season with equal applause, it spread into all the great towns of +England; was played in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth +time; at Bath and Bristol fifty, etc. It made its progress +into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed +twenty-four days successively. The ladies carried about +with them the favourite songs of it in fans, and houses were +furnished with it in screens. The fame of it was not +confined to the author only. The person who acted Polly, +till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; +her pictures were engraved and sold in great numbers; her life +written, books of letters and verses to her published, and +pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests. Furthermore, +it drove out of England (for that season) the Italian Opera, +which had carried all before it for ten years.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of this performance, when it was printed, the reception was +different, according to the different opinions of its +readers. Swift commended it for the excellence of its +morality, as a piece that “placed all kinds of vice in the +strongest and most odious light;” but others, and among +them Dr. Herring, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, censured +it as giving encouragement, not only to vice, but to crimes, by +making a highwayman the hero and dismissing him at last +unpunished. It has been even said that after the exhibition +of the <i>Beggar’s Opera</i> the gangs of robbers were +evidently multiplied.</p> +<p>Both these decisions are surely exaggerated. The play, +like many others, was plainly written only to divert, without any +moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it +be conceived, without more speculation than life requires or +admits, to be productive of much evil. Highwaymen and +housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any +elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that +he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon +the stage. This objection, however, or some other rather +political than moral, obtained such prevalence that when Gay +produced a second part under the name of Polly, it was prohibited +by the Lord Chamberlain; and he was forced to recompense his +repulse by a subscription, which is said to have been so +liberally bestowed that what he called oppression ended in +profit. The publication was so much favoured that though +the first part gained him four hundred pounds, near thrice as +much was the profit of the second. He received yet another +recompense for this supposed hardship, in the affectionate +attention of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, into whose +house he was taken, and with whom he passed the remaining part of +his life. The Duke, considering his want of economy, +undertook the management of his money, and gave it to him as he +wanted it. But it is supposed that the discountenance of +the Court sunk deep into his heart, and gave him more discontent +than the applauses or tenderness of his friends could +overpower. He soon fell into his old distemper, an habitual +colic, and languished, though with many intervals of ease and +cheerfulness, till a violent fit at last seized him and carried +him to the grave, as Arbuthnot reported, with more precipitance +than he had ever known. He died on the 4th of December, +1732, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The letter which +brought an account of his death to Swift, was laid by for some +days unopened, because when he received it, he was impressed with +the preconception of some misfortune.</p> +<p>After his death was published a second volume of +“Fables,” more political than the former. His +opera of Achilles was acted, and the profits were given to two +widow sisters, who inherited what he left, as his lawful heirs; +for he died without a will, though he had gathered three thousand +pounds. There have appeared likewise under his name a +comedy called the <i>Distressed Wife</i>, and the <i>Rehearsal at +Gotham</i>, a piece of humour.</p> +<p>The character given him by Pope is this, that “he was a +natural man, without design, who spoke what he thought, and just +as he thought it,” and that “he was of a timid +temper, and fearful of giving offence to the great;” which +caution, however, says Pope, was of no avail.</p> +<p>As a poet he cannot be rated very high. He was, I once +heard a female critic remark, “of a lower +order.” He had not in any great degree the <i>mens +divinior</i>, the dignity of genius. Much, however, must be +allowed to the author of a new species of composition, though it +be not of the highest kind. We owe to Gay the ballad opera, +a mode of comedy which at first was supposed to delight only by +its novelty, but has now, by the experience of half a century, +been found so well accommodated to the disposition of a popular +audience that it is likely to keep long possession of the +stage. Whether this new drama was the product of judgment +or of luck, the praise of it must be given to the inventor; and +there are many writers read with more reverence to whom such +merit or originality cannot be attributed.</p> +<p>His first performance, the <i>Rural Sports</i>, is such as was +easily planned and executed; it is never contemptible, nor ever +excellent. <i>The Fan</i> is one of those mythological +fictions which antiquity delivers ready to the hand, but which, +like other things that lie open to every one’s use, are of +little value. The attention naturally retires from a new +tale of Venus, Diana, and Minerva.</p> +<p>His “Fables” seem to have been a favourite work; +for, having published one volume, he left another behind +him. Of this kind of Fables the author does not appear to +have formed any distinct or settled notion. Phædrus +evidently confounds them with Tales, and Gay both with Tales and +Allegorical Prosopopoeias. A Fable or Apologue, such as is +now under consideration, seems to be, in its genuine state, a +narrative in which beings irrational, and sometimes inanimate, +<i>arbores loquuntur</i>, <i>non tantum feræ</i>, are, for +the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with +human interests and passions. To this description the +compositions of Gay do not always conform. For a fable he +gives now and then a tale, or an abstracted allegory; and from +some, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult +to extract any moral principle. They are, however, told +with liveliness, the versification is smooth, and the diction, +though now and then a little constrained by the measure or the +rhyme, is generally happy.</p> +<p>To “Trivia” may be allowed all that it claims; it +is sprightly, various, and pleasant. The subject is of that +kind which Gay was by nature qualified to adorn, yet some of his +decorations may be justly wished away. An honest blacksmith +might have done for Patty what is performed by Vulcan. The +appearance of Cloacina is nauseous and superfluous; a shoe-boy +could have been produced by the casual cohabitation of mere +mortals. Horace’s rule is broken in both cases; there +is no <i>dignus vindice nodus</i>, no difficulty that required +any supernatural interposition. A patten may be made by the +hammer of a mortal, and a bastard may be dropped by a human +strumpet. On great occasions, and on small, the mind is +repelled by useless and apparent falsehood.</p> +<p>Of his little poems the public judgment seems to be right; +they are neither much esteemed nor totally despised. The +story of “The Apparition” is borrowed from one of the +tales of Poggio. Those that please least are the pieces to +which Gulliver gave occasion, for who can much delight in the +echo of an unnatural fiction?</p> +<p>“Dione” is a counterpart to “Amynta” +and “Pastor Fido” and other trifles of the same kind, +easily imitated, and unworthy of imitation. What the +Italians call comedies from a happy conclusion, Gay calls a +tragedy from a mournful event, but the style of the Italians and +of Gay is equally tragical. There is something in the +poetical Arcadia so remote from known reality and speculative +possibility that we can never support its representation through +a long work. A pastoral of an hundred lines may be endured, +but who will hear of sheep and goats, and myrtle bowers and +purling rivulets, through five acts? Such scenes please +barbarians in the dawn of literature, and children in the dawn of +life, but will be for the most part thrown away as men grow wise +and nations grow learned.</p> +<h2><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>TICKELL.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Thomas Tickell</span>, the son of the Rev. +Richard Tickell, was born in 1686, at Bridekirk, in Cumberland, +and in 1701 became a member of Queen’s College in Oxford; +in 1708 he was made Master of Arts, and two years afterwards was +chosen Fellow, for which, as he did not comply with the statutes +by taking orders, he obtained a dispensation from the +Crown. He held his fellowship till 1726, and then vacated +it by marrying, in that year, at Dublin.</p> +<p>Tickell was not one of those scholars who wear away their +lives in closets; he entered early into the world and was long +busy in public affairs, in which he was initiated under the +patronage of Addison, whose notice he is said to have gained by +his verses in praise of Rosamond. To those verses it would +not have been just to deny regard, for they contain some of the +most elegant encomiastic strains; and among the innumerable poems +of the same kind it will be hard to find one with which they need +to fear a comparison. It may deserve observation that when +Pope wrote long afterwards in praise of Addison, he has +copied—at least, has resembled—Tickell.</p> +<blockquote><p> “Let joy salute fair +Rosamonda’s shade,<br /> +And wreaths of myrtle crown the lovely maid.<br /> +While now perhaps with Dido’s ghost she roves,<br /> +And hears and tells the story of their loves,<br /> +Alike they mourn, alike they bless their fate,<br /> +Since Love, which made them wretched, made them great.<br /> +Nor longer that relentless doom bemoan,<br /> +Which gained a Virgil and an Addison.”—<span +class="smcap">Tickell</span>.</p> +<p> “Then future ages with delight shall +see<br /> +How Plato’s, Bacon’s, Newton’s, looks agree;<br +/> +Or in fair series laurelled bards be shown,<br /> +A Virgil there, and here an Addison.”—<span +class="smcap">Pope</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He produced another piece of the same kind at the appearance +of <i>Cato</i>, with equal skill, but not equal happiness.</p> +<p>When the Ministers of Queen Anne were negotiating with France, +Tickell published “The Prospect of Peace,” a poem of +which the tendency was to reclaim the nation from the pride of +conquest to the pleasures of tranquillity. How far Tickell, +whom Swift afterwards mentioned as Whiggissimus, had then +connected himself with any party, I know not; this poem certainly +did not flatter the practices, or promote the opinions, of the +men by whom he was afterwards befriended.</p> +<p>Mr. Addison, however he hated the men then in power, suffered +his friendship to prevail over his public spirit, and gave in the +<i>Spectator</i> such praises of Tickell’s poem that when, +after having long wished to peruse it, I laid hold of it at last, +I thought it unequal to the honours which it had received, and +found it a piece to be approved rather than admired. But +the hope excited by a work of genius, being general and +indefinite, is rarely gratified. It was read at that with +so much favour that six editions were sold.</p> +<p>At the arrival of King George, he sang “The Royal +Progress,” which, being inserted in the <i>Spectator</i>, +is well known, and of which it is just to say that it is neither +high nor low.</p> +<p>The poetical incident of most importance in Tickell’s +life was his publication of the first book of the +“Iliad,” as translated by himself, an apparent +opposition to Pope’s “Homer,” of which the +first part made its entrance into the world at the same +time. Addison declared that the rival versions were both +good, but that Tickell’s was the best that ever was made; +and with Addison, the wits, his adherents and followers, were +certain to concur. Pope does not appear to have been much +dismayed, “for,” says he, “I have the +town—that is, the mob—on my side.” But he +remarks “that it is common for the smaller party to make up +in diligence what they want in numbers. He appeals to the +people as his proper judges, and if they are not inclined to +condemn him, he is in little care about the highflyers at +Button’s.”</p> +<p>Pope did not long think Addison an impartial judge, for he +considered him as the writer of Tickell’s version. +The reasons for his suspicion I will literally transcribe from +Mr. Spence’s Collection:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“There had been a coldness,” said Mr. +Pope, “between Mr. Addison and me for some time, and we had +not been in company together, for a good while, anywhere but at +Button’s Coffee House, where I used to see him almost every +day. On his meeting me there, one day in particular, he +took me aside and said he should be glad to dine with me at such +a tavern, if I stayed till those people were gone (Budgell and +Philips). He went accordingly, and after dinner Mr. Addison +said ‘that he had wanted for some time to talk with me: +that his friend Tickell had formerly, whilst at Oxford, +translated the first book of the Iliad; that he designed to print +it, and had desired him to look it over; that he must therefore +beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book, +because, if he did, it would have the air of +double-dealing.’ I assured him that I did not at all +take it ill of Mr. Tickell that he was going to publish his +translation; that he certainly had as much right to translate any +author as myself; and that publishing both was entering on a fair +stage. I then added that I would not desire him to look +over my first book of the Iliad, because he had looked over Mr. +Tickell’s, but could wish to have the benefit of his +observations on my second, which I had then finished, and which +Mr. Tickell had not touched upon. Accordingly I sent him +the second book the next morning, and Mr. Addison a few days +after returned it, with very high commendations. Soon after +it was generally known that Mr. Tickell was publishing the first +book of the Iliad, I met Dr. Young in the street, and upon our +falling into that subject, the doctor expressed a great deal of +surprise at Tickell’s having had such a translation so long +by him. He said that it was inconceivable to him, and that +there must be some mistake in the matter; that each used to +communicate to the other whatever verses they wrote, even to the +least things; that Tickell could not have been busied in so long +a work there without his knowing something of the matter; and +that he had never heard a single word of it till on this +occasion. This surprise of Dr. Young, together with what +Steele has said against Tickell in relation to this affair, make +it highly probable that there was some underhand dealing in that +business; and indeed Tickell himself, who is a very fair worthy +man, has since, in a manner, as good as owned it to me. +When it was introduced into a conversation between Mr. Tickell +and Mr. Pope by a third person, Tickell did not deny it, which, +considering his honour and zeal for his departed friend, was the +same as owning it.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Upon these suspicions, with which Dr. Warburton hints that +other circumstances concurred, Pope always in his “Art of +Sinking” quotes this book as the work of Addison.</p> +<p>To compare the two translations would be tedious; the palm is +now given universally to Pope, but I think the first lines of +Tickell’s were rather to be preferred; and Pope seems to +have since borrowed something from them in the correction of his +own.</p> +<p>When the Hanover succession was disputed, Tickell gave what +assistance his pen would supply. His “Letter to +Avignon” stands high among party poems; it expresses +contempt without coarseness, and superiority without +insolence. It had the success which it deserved, being five +times printed.</p> +<p>He was now intimately united to Mr. Addison, who, when he went +into Ireland as secretary to the Lord Sunderland, took him +thither, and employed him in public business; and when (1717) +afterwards he rose to be Secretary of State, made him +Under-Secretary. Their friendship seems to have continued +without abatement; for, when Addison died, he left him the charge +of publishing his works, with a solemn recommendation to the +patronage of Craggs. To these works he prefixed an elegy on +the author, which could owe none of its beauties to the +assistance which might be suspected to have strengthened or +embellished his earlier compositions; but neither he nor Addison +ever produced nobler lines than are contained in the third and +fourth paragraphs; nor is a more elegant funeral poem to be found +in the whole compass of English literature. He was +afterwards (about 1725) made secretary to the Lords Justices of +Ireland, a place of great honour; in which he continued till +1740, when he died on the 23rd of April at Bath.</p> +<p>Of the poems yet unmentioned, the longest is “Kensington +Gardens,” of which the versification is smooth and elegant, +but the fiction unskilfully compounded of Grecian deities and +Gothic fairies. Neither species of those exploded beings +could have done much; and when they are brought together, they +only make each other contemptible. To Tickell, however, +cannot be refused a high place among the minor poets; nor should +it be forgotten that he was one of the contributors to the +<i>Spectator</i>. With respect to his personal character, +he is said to have been a man of gay conversation, at least a +temperate lover of wine and company, and in his domestic +relations without censure.</p> +<h2><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +55</span>SOMERVILE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> Mr. Somervile’s life I am +not able to say anything that can satisfy curiosity. He was +a gentleman whose estate lay in Warwickshire; his house, where he +was born in 1693, is called Edston, a seat inherited from a long +line of ancestors; for he was said to be of the first family in +his county. He tells of himself that he was born near the +Avon’s banks. He was bred at Winchester school, and +was elected fellow of New College. It does not appear that +in the places of his education he exhibited any uncommon proofs +of genius or literature. His powers were first displayed in +the country, where he was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, +and a skilful and useful justice of the peace.</p> +<p>Of the close of his life, those whom his poems have delighted +will read with pain the following account, copied from the +“Letters” of his friend Shenstone, by whom he was too +much resembled:—</p> +<p>“—Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did +not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this +occasion. <i>Sublatum quærimus</i>. I can now +excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of +circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very +soul to think on. For a man of high spirit conscious of +having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, +to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every +sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in +order to get rid of the pains of the mind is a +misery.”—He died July 19, 1742, and was buried at +Wotton, near Henley on Arden.</p> +<p>His distresses need not be much pitied: his estate is said to +be fifteen hundred a year, which by his death has devolved to +Lord Somervile of Scotland. His mother, indeed, who lived +till ninety, had a jointure of six hundred.</p> +<p>It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to +exhibit memorials of a writer who at least must be allowed to +have set a good example to men of his own class, by devoting part +of his time to elegant knowledge; and who has shown, by the +subjects which his poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to +be at once a skilful sportsman and a man of letters.</p> +<p>Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps +he has not in any reached such excellence as to raise much envy, +it may commonly be said at least, that “he writes very well +for a gentleman.” His serious pieces are sometimes +elevated; and his trifles are sometimes elegant. In his +verses to Addison, the couplet which mentions Clio is written +with the most exquisite delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of +those happy strokes that are seldom attained. In his Odes +to Marlborough there are beautiful lines; but in the second Ode +he shows that he knew little of his hero, when he talks of his +private virtues. His subjects are commonly such as require +no great depth of thought or energy of expression. His +Fables are generally stale, and therefore excite no +curiosity. Of his favourite, “The Two Springs,” +the fiction is unnatural, and the moral inconsequential. In +his Tales there is too much coarseness, with too little care of +language, and not sufficient rapidity of narration. His +great work is his Chase, which he undertook in his maturer age, +when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verse, of +which, however, his two first lines give a bad specimen. To +this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by +sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his subject, which +is the first requisite to excellence; and though it is impossible +to interest the common readers of verse in the dangers or +pleasures of the chase, he has done all that transition and +variety could easily effect; and has with great propriety +enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other +countries.</p> +<p>With still less judgment did he choose blank verse as the +vehicle of “Rural Sports.” If blank verse be +not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled prose; and familiar images +in laboured language have nothing to recommend them but absurd +novelty, which, wanting the attractions of nature, cannot please +long. One excellence of the “Splendid Shilling” +is, that it is short. Disguise can gratify no longer than +it deceives.</p> +<h2><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>THOMSON.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">James Thomson</span>, the son of a +minister well esteemed for his piety and diligence, was born +September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of Roxburgh, of which +his father was pastor. His mother, whose name was Hume, +inherited as co-heiress a portion of a small estate. The +revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was +probably in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. +Thomson supported his family, having nine children, that Mr. +Riccarton, a neighbouring minister, discovering in James uncommon +promises of future excellence, undertook to superintend his +education, and provide him books. He was taught the common +rudiments of learning at the school of Jedburgh, a place which he +delights to recollect in his poem of “Autumn;” but +was not considered by his master as superior to common boys, +though in those early days he amused his patron and his friends +with poetical compositions; with which, however, he so little +pleased himself that on every New Year’s Day he threw into +the fire all the productions of the foregoing year.</p> +<p>From the school he was removed to Edinburgh, where he had not +resided two years when his father died, and left all his children +to the care of their mother, who raised upon her little estate +what money a mortgage could afford; and, removing with her family +to Edinburgh, lived to see her son rising into eminence.</p> +<p>The design of Thomson’s friends was to breed him a +minister. He lived at Edinburgh, at a school, without +distinction or expectation, till at the usual time he performed a +probationary exercise by explaining a psalm. His diction +was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the professor of +divinity, reproved him for speaking language unintelligible to a +popular audience; and he censured one of his expressions as +indecent, if not profane. This rebuke is reported to have +repressed his thoughts of an ecclesiastical character, and he +probably cultivated with new diligence his blossoms of poetry, +which, however, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting +his productions to some who thought themselves qualified to +criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding other +judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink into +despondence. He easily discovered that the only stage on +which a poet could appear with any hope of advantage was London; +a place too wide for the operation of petty competition and +private malignity, where merit might soon become conspicuous, and +would find friends as soon as it became reputable to befriend +it. A lady who was acquainted with his mother advised him +to the journey, and promised some countenance or assistance, +which at last he never received; however, he justified his +adventure by her encouragement, and came to seek in London +patronage and fame. At his arrival he found his way to Mr. +Mallet, then tutor to the sons of the Duke of Montrose. He +had recommendations to several persons of consequence, which he +had tied up carefully in his handkerchief; but as he passed along +the street, with the gaping curiosity of a newcomer, his +attention was upon everything rather than his pocket, and his +magazine of credentials was stolen from him.</p> +<p>His first want was a pair of shoes. For the supply of +all his necessities, his whole fund was his “Winter,” +which for a time could find no purchaser; till at last Mr. Millan +was persuaded to buy it at a low price; and this low price he had +for some time reason to regret; but, by accident, Mr. Whately, a +man not wholly unknown among authors, happening to turn his eye +upon it, was so delighted that he ran from place to place +celebrating its excellence. Thomson obtained likewise the +notice of Aaron Hill, whom, being friendless and indigent, and +glad of kindness, he courted with every expression of servile +adulation.</p> +<p>“Winter” was dedicated to Sir Spencer Compton, but +attracted no regard from him to the author; till Aaron Hill +awakened his attention by some verses addressed to Thomson, and +published in one of the newspapers, which censured the great for +their neglect of ingenious men. Thomson then received a +present of twenty guineas, of which he gives this account to Mr. +Hill:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I hinted to you in my last that on Saturday +morning I was with Sir Spencer Compton. A certain +gentleman, without my desire, spoke to him concerning me: his +answer was that I had never come near him. Then the +gentleman put the question, if he desired that I should wait on +him? He returned, he did. On this the gentleman gave +me an introductory letter to him. He received me in what +they commonly call a civil manner; asked me some common-place +questions, and made me a present of twenty guineas. I am +very ready to own that the present was larger than my performance +deserved; and shall ascribe it to his generosity, or any other +cause, rather than the merit of the address.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The poem, which, being of a new kind, few would venture at +first to like, by degrees gained upon the public; and one edition +was very speedily succeeded by another.</p> +<p>Thomson’s credit was now high, and every day brought him +new friends; among others Dr. Rundle, a man afterwards +unfortunately famous, sought his acquaintance, and found his +qualities such that he recommended him to the Lord Chancellor +Talbot.</p> +<p>“Winter” was accompanied, in many editions, not +only with a preface and dedication, but with poetical praises by +Mr. Hill, Mr. Mallet (then Malloch), and Mira, the fictitious +name of a lady once too well known. Why the dedications +are, to “Winter” and the other Seasons, contrarily to +custom, left out in the collected works, the reader may +inquire.</p> +<p>The next year (1727) he distinguished himself by three +publications: of “Summer,” in pursuance of his plan; +of “A Poem on the Death of Sir Isaac Newton,” which +he was enabled to perform as an exact philosopher by the +instruction of Mr. Gray; and of “Britannia,” a kind +of poetical invective against the Ministry, whom the nation then +thought not forward enough in resenting the depredations of the +Spaniards. By this piece he declared himself an adherent to +the Opposition, and had therefore no favour to expect from the +Court.</p> +<p>Thomson, having been some time entertained in the family of +Lord Binning, was desirous of testifying his gratitude by making +him the patron of his “Summer;” but the same kindness +which had first disposed Lord Binning to encourage him, +determined him to refuse the dedication, which was by his advice +addressed to Mr. Dodington, a man who had more power to advance +the reputation and fortune of a poet.</p> +<p>“Spring” was published next year, with a +dedication to the Countess of Hertford, whose practice it was to +invite every summer some poet into the country, to hear her +verses and assist her studies. This honour was one summer +conferred on Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with +Lord Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship’s +poetical operations, and therefore never received another +summons.</p> +<p>“Autumn,” the season to which the +“Spring” and “Summer” are preparatory, +still remained unsung, and was delayed till he published (1730) +his works collected.</p> +<p>He produced in 1727 the tragedy of Sophonisba, which raised +such expectation that every rehearsal was dignified with a +splendid audience, collected to anticipate the delight that was +preparing for the public. It was observed, however, that +nobody was much affected, and that the company rose as from a +moral lecture. It had upon the stage no unusual degree of +success. Slight accidents will operate upon the taste of +pleasure. There is a feeble line in the play:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“O Sophonisba, +Sophonisba, O!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This gave occasion to a waggish parody—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“O, Jemmy +Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>which for a while was echoed through the town.</p> +<p>I have been told by Savage, that of the prologue to +<i>Sophonisba</i>, the first part was written by Pope, who could +not be persuaded to finish it; and that the concluding lines were +added by Mallet.</p> +<p>Thomson was not long afterwards, by the influence of Dr. +Rundle, sent to travel with Mr. Charles Talbot, the eldest son of +the Chancellor. He was yet young enough to receive new +impressions, to have his opinions rectified and his views +enlarged; nor can he be supposed to have wanted that curiosity +which is inseparable from an active and comprehensive mind. +He may therefore now be supposed to have revelled in all the joys +of intellectual luxury; he was every day feasted with instructive +novelties; he lived splendidly without expense: and might expect +when he returned home a certain establishment.</p> +<p>At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole +had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man +felt the want, and with care for liberty which was not in +danger. Thomson, in his travels on the Continent, found or +fancied so many evils arising from the tyranny of other +governments, that he resolved to write a very long poem, in five +parts, upon Liberty. While he was busy on the first book, +Mr. Talbot died; and Thomson, who had been rewarded for his +attendance by the place of secretary of the briefs, pays in the +initial lines a decent tribute to his memory. Upon this +great poem two years were spent, and the author congratulated +himself upon it as his noblest work; but an author and his reader +are not always of a mind. Liberty called in vain upon her +votaries to read her praises, and reward her encomiast: her +praises were condemned to harbour spiders, and to gather dust: +none of Thomson’s performances were so little +regarded. The judgment of the public was not erroneous; the +recurrence of the same images must tire in time; an enumeration +of examples to prove a position which nobody denied, as it was +from the beginning superfluous, must quickly grow disgusting.</p> +<p>The poem of “Liberty” does not now appear in its +original state; but, when the author’s works were collected +after his death, was shortened by Sir George Lyttelton, with a +liberty which, as it has a manifest tendency to lessen the +confidence of society, and to confound the characters of authors, +by making one man write by the judgment of another, cannot be +justified by any supposed propriety of the alteration, or +kindness of the friend. I wish to see it exhibited as its +author left it.</p> +<p>Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and seems for a while to +have suspended his poetry: but he was soon called back to labour +by the death of the Chancellor, for his place then became vacant; +and though the Lord Hardwicke delayed for some time to give it +away, Thomson’s bashfulness or pride, or some other motive +perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from soliciting; and the +new Chancellor would not give him what he would not ask. He +now relapsed to his former indigence; but the Prince of Wales was +at that time struggling for popularity, and by the influence of +Mr. Lyttelton professed himself the patron of wit; to him Thomson +was introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of +his affairs said “that they were in a more poetical posture +than formerly,” and had a pension allowed him of one +hundred pounds a year.</p> +<p>Being now obliged to write, he produced (1738) the tragedy of +<i>Agamemnon</i>, which was much shortened in the +representation. It had the fate which most commonly attends +mythological stories, and was only endured, but not +favoured. It struggled with such difficulty through the +first night that Thomson, coming late to his friends with whom he +was to sup, excused his delay by telling them how the sweat of +his distress had so disordered his wig that he could not come +till he had been refitted by a barber. He so interested +himself in his own drama that, if I remember right, as he sat in +the upper gallery, he accompanied the players by audible +recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him to silence. +Pope countenanced Agamemnon by coming to it, the first night, and +was welcomed to the theatre by a general clap; he had much regard +for Thomson, and once expressed it in a poetical epistle sent to +Italy, of which, however, he abated the value by transplanting +some of the lines into his Epistle to Arbuthnot.</p> +<p>About this time (1737) the Act was passed for licensing plays, +of which the first operation was the prohibition of <i>Gustavus +Vasa</i>, a tragedy of Mr. Brooke, whom the public recompensed by +a very liberal subscription; the next was the refusal of +<i>Edward and Eleonora</i>, offered by Thomson. It is hard +to discover why either play should have been obstructed. +Thomson likewise endeavoured to repair his loss by a +subscription, of which I cannot now tell the success. When +the public murmured at the unkind treatment of Thomson, one of +the Ministerial writers remarked that “he had taken a +<i>Liberty</i> which was not agreeable to <i>Britannia</i> in any +<i>Season</i>.” He was soon after employed, in +conjunction with Mr. Mallet, to write the masque of +<i>Alfred</i>, which was acted before the Prince at Cliefden +House.</p> +<p>His next work (1745) was, <i>Tancred and Sigismunda</i>, the +most successful of all his tragedies, for it still keeps its turn +upon the stage. It may be doubted whether he was, either by +the bent of nature or habits of study, much qualified for +tragedy. It does not appear that he had much sense of the +pathetic; and his diffusive and descriptive style produced +declamation rather than dialogue. His friend Mr. Lyttelton +was now in power, and conferred upon him the office of +Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands; from which, when his +deputy was paid, he received about three hundred pounds a +year.</p> +<p>The last piece that he lived to publish was the “Castle +of Indolence,” which was many years under his hand, but was +at last finished with great accuracy. The first canto opens +a scene of lazy luxury that fills the imagination. He was +now at ease, but was not long to enjoy it, for, by taking cold on +the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, +with some careless exasperation, ended in a fever that put an end +to his life, August 27, 1748. He was buried in the church +of Richmond, without an inscription; but a monument has been +erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.</p> +<p>Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and “more +fat than bard beseems,” of a dull countenance and a gross, +unanimated, uninviting appearance; silent in mingled company, but +cheerful among select friends, and by his friends very tenderly +and warmly beloved. He left behind him the tragedy of +<i>Coriolanus</i>, which was, by the zeal of his patron, Sir +George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit of his +family, and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long +lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as +showed him “to be,” on that occasion, “no +actor.” The commencement of this benevolence is very +honourable to Quin, who is reported to have delivered Thomson, +then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest by a very +considerable present; and its continuance is honourable to both, +for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation. By +this tragedy a considerable sum was raised, of which part +discharged his debts, and the rest was remitted to his sisters, +whom, however removed from them by place or condition, he +regarded with great tenderness, as will appear by the following +letter, which I communicate with much pleasure, as it gives me at +once an opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of +Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. +Boswell, from whom I received it:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“Hagley in +Worcestershire, October the 4th, 1747.</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Sister</span>,—I +thought you had known me better than to interpret my silence into +a decay of affection, especially as your behaviour has always +been such as rather to increase than diminish it. +Don’t imagine, because I am a bad correspondent, that I can +ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do myself +the justice to tell you that my affections are naturally very +fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of complaint against +you (of which, by-the-bye, I have not the least shadow), I am +conscious of so many defects in myself as dispose me to be not a +little charitable and forgiving.</p> +<p>“It gives me the truest heart-felt satisfaction to hear +you have a good kind husband, and are in easy contented +circumstances; but were they otherwise, that would only awaken +and heighten my tenderness towards you. As our good and +tender-hearted parents did not live to receive any material +testimonies of that highest human gratitude I owed them (than +which nothing could have given me equal pleasure), the only +return I can make them now is by kindness to those they left +behind them. Would to God poor Lizy had lived longer, to +have been a farther witness of the truth of what I say and that I +might have had the pleasure of seeing once more a sister who so +truly deserved my esteem and love! But she is happy, while +we must toil a little longer here below: let us, however, do it +cheerfully and gratefully, supported by the pleasing hope of +meeting you again on a safer shore, where to recollect the storms +and difficulties of life will not perhaps be inconsistent with +that blissful state. You did right to call your daughter by +her name: for you must needs have had a particular tender +friendship for one another, endeared as you were by nature, by +having passed the affectionate years of your youth together: and +by that great softener and engager of hearts, mutual +hardship. That it was in my power to ease it a little, I +account one of the most exquisite pleasures of my life. But +enough of this melancholy, though not unpleasing, strain.</p> +<p>“I esteem you for your sensible and disinterested advice +to Mr. Bell, as you will see by my letter to him. As I +approve entirely of his marrying again, you may readily ask me +why I don’t marry at all. My circumstances have +hitherto been so variable and uncertain in this fluctuating +world, as induce to keep me from engaging in such a state: and +now, though they are more settled, and of late (which you will be +glad to hear) considerably improved, I begin to think myself too +far advanced in life for such youthful undertakings, not to +mention some other petty reasons that are apt to startle the +delicacy of difficult old bachelors. I am, however, not a +little suspicious that, was I to pay a visit to Scotland (which I +have some thought of doing soon), I might possibly be tempted to +think of a thing not easily repaired if done amiss. I have +always been of opinion that none make better wives than the +ladies of Scotland; and yet who more forsaken than they, while +the gentlemen are continually running abroad all the world +over? Some of them, it is true, are wise enough to return +for a wife. You see, I am beginning to make interest +already with the Scots ladies. But no more of this +infectious subject. Pray let me hear from you now and then; +and though I am not a regular correspondent, yet perhaps I may +mend in that respect. Remember me kindly to your husband, +and believe me to be</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“Your most affectionate +Brother,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">James Thomson</span>.”</p> +<p>(Addressed) “To Mrs. Thomson in Lanark.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active; he +would give on all occasions what assistance his purse would +supply, but the offices of intervention or solicitation he could +not conquer his sluggishness sufficiently to perform. The +affairs of others, however, were not more neglected than his +own. He had often felt the inconveniences of idleness, but +he never cured it; and was so conscious of his own character that +he talked of writing an Eastern tale “Of the Man who Loved +to be in Distress.” Among his peculiarities was a +very unskilful and inarticulate manner of pronouncing any lofty +or solemn composition. He was once reading to Dodington, +who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much +provoked by his odd utterance that he snatched the paper from his +hands and told him that he did not understand his own verses.</p> +<p>The biographer of Thomson has remarked that an author’s +life is best read in his works; his observation was not well +timed. Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told me +how he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his +works three-parts of his character: that he was “a great +lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent;” +“but,” said Savage, “he knows not any love but +that of the sex; he was, perhaps, never in cold water in his +life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within +his reach.” Yet Savage always spoke with the most +eager praise of his social qualities, his warmth and constancy of +friendship, and his adherence to his first acquaintance when the +advancement of his reputation had left them behind him.</p> +<p>As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: +his mode of thinking and of expressing his thoughts is +original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of +Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the +rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are +of his own growth, without transcription, without +imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks +always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life +with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that +distinguishes in everything presented to its view whatever there +is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a +mind that at once comprehends the vast and attends to the +minute. The reader of the “Seasons” wonders +that he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he +never yet has felt what Thomson impresses. His is one of +the works in which blank verse seems properly used. +Thomson’s wide expansion of general views, and his +enumeration of circumstantial varieties, would have been +obstructed and embarrassed by the frequent intersections of the +sense, which are the necessary effects of rhyme. His +descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring before +us the whole magnificence of Nature, whether pleasing or +dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the splendour of Summer, +the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horror of Winter, take in +their turns possession of the mind. The poet leads us +through the appearances of things as they are successively varied +by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his +own enthusiasm that our thoughts expand with his imagery and +kindle with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without +his part in the entertainment, for he is assisted to recollect +and to combine, to arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the +sphere of his contemplation. The great defect of the +“Seasons” is want of method; but for this I know not +that there was any remedy. Of many appearances subsisting +all at once, no rule can be given why one should be mentioned +before another; yet the memory wants the help of order, and the +curiosity is not excited by suspense or expectation. His +diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant, such as +may be said to be to his images and thoughts “both their +lustre and their shade;” such as invests them with +splendour, through which, perhaps, they are not always easily +discerned. It is too exuberant, and sometimes may be +charged with filling the ear more than the mind.</p> +<p>These poems, with which I was acquainted at their first +appearance, I have since found altered and enlarged by subsequent +revisals, as the author supposed his judgment to grow more exact, +and as books or conversation extended his knowledge and opened +his prospects. They are, I think, improved in general; yet +I know not whether they have not lost part of what Temple calls +their “race,” a word which, applied to wines in its +primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil.</p> +<p>“Liberty,” when it first appeared, I tried to +read, and soon desisted. I have never tried again, and +therefore will not hazard either praise or censure. The +highest praise which he has received ought not to be suppressed: +it is said by Lord Lyttelton, in the Prologue to his posthumous +play, that his works contained</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“No line which, dying, he +could wish to blot.”</p> +<h2><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>WATTS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> poems of Dr. Watts were, by my +recommendation, inserted in the late Collection, the readers of +which are to impute to me whatever pleasure or weariness they may +find in the perusal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden.</p> +<p>Isaac Watts was born July 17, 1674, at Southampton, where his +father, of the same name, kept a boarding-school for young +gentlemen, though common report makes him a shoemaker. He +appears, from the narrative of Dr. Gibbons, to have been neither +indigent nor illiterate.</p> +<p>Isaac, the eldest of nine children, was given to books from +his infancy, and began, we are told, to learn Latin when he was +four years old—I suppose, at home. He was afterwards +taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by Mr. Pinhorne, a clergyman, +master of the Free School at Southampton, to whom the gratitude +of his scholar afterwards inscribed a Latin ode. His +proficiency at school was so conspicuous that a subscription was +proposed for his support at the University, but he declared his +resolution of taking his lot with the Dissenters. Such he +was as every Christian Church would rejoice to have +adopted. He therefore repaired, in 1690, to an academy +taught by Mr. Rowe, where he had for his companions and fellow +students Mr. Hughes the poet, and Dr. Horte, afterwards +Archbishop of Tuam. Some Latin Essays, supposed to have +been written as exercises at this academy, show a degree of +knowledge, both philosophical and theological, such as very few +attain by a much longer course of study. He was, as he +hints in his “Miscellanies,” a maker of verses from +fifteen to fifty, and in his youth he appears to have paid +attention to Latin poetry. His verses to his brother, in +the glyconic measure, written when he was seventeen, are +remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his other odes are +deformed by the Pindaric folly then prevailing, and are written +with such neglect of all metrical rules as is without example +among the ancients; but his diction, though perhaps not always +exactly pure, has such copiousness and splendour as shows that he +was but a very little distance from excellence. His method +of study was to impress the contents of his books upon his memory +by abridging them, and by interleaving them to amplify one system +with supplements from another.</p> +<p>With the congregation of his tutor, Mr. Rowe, who were, I +believe, Independents, he communicated in his nineteenth +year. At the age of twenty he left the academy, and spent +two years in study and devotion at the house of his father, who +treated him with great tenderness, and had the happiness, +indulged to few parents, of living to see his son eminent for +literature and venerable for piety. He was then entertained +by Sir John Hartopp five years, as domestic tutor to his son, and +in that time particularly devoted himself to the study of the +Holy Scriptures; and, being chosen assistant to Dr. Chauncey, +preached the first time on the birthday that completed his +twenty-fourth year, probably considering that as the day of a +second nativity, by which he entered on a new period of +existence.</p> +<p>In about three years he succeeded Dr. Chauncey; but soon after +his entrance on his charge he was seized by a dangerous illness, +which sunk him to such weakness that the congregation thought an +assistant necessary, and appointed Mr. Price. His health +then returned gradually, and he performed his duty till (1712) he +was seized by a fever of such violence and continuance, that from +the feebleness which it brought upon him he never perfectly +recovered. This calamitous state made the compassion of his +friends necessary, and drew upon him the attention of Sir Thomas +Abney, who received him into his house, where, with a constancy +of friendship and uniformity of conduct not often to be found, he +was treated for thirty-six years with all the kindness that +friendship could prompt, and all the attention that respect could +dictate. Sir Thomas died about eight years afterwards, but +he continued with the lady and her daughters to the end of his +life. The lady died about a year after him.</p> +<p>A coalition like this, a state in which the notions of +patronage and dependence were overpowered by the perception of +reciprocal benefits, deserves a particular memorial; and I will +not withhold from the reader Dr. Gibbons’s representation, +to which regard is to be paid as to the narrative of one who +writes what he knows, and what is known likewise to multitudes +besides:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Our next observation shall be made upon +that remarkably kind Providence which brought the Doctor into Sir +Thomas Abney’s family, and continued him there till his +death, a period of no less than thirty-six years. In the +midst of his sacred labours for the glory of God, and good of his +generation, he is seized with a most violent and threatening +fever, which leaves him oppressed with great weakness, and puts a +stop at least to his public services for four years. In +this distressing season, doubly so to his active and pious +spirit, he is invited to Sir Thomas Abney’s family, nor +ever removes from it till he had finished his days. Here he +enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of the truest +friendship. Here, without any care of his own, he had +everything which could contribute to the enjoyment of life, and +favour the unwearied pursuit of his studies. Here he dwelt +in a family which, for piety, order, harmony, and every virtue, +was a house of God. Here he had the privilege of a country +recess, the fragrant bower, the spreading lawn, the flowery +garden, and other advantages, to soothe his mind and aid his +restoration to health; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most +grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to +return to them with redoubled vigour and delight. Had it +not been for this most happy event, he might, as to outward view, +have feebly, it may be painfully, dragged on through many more +years of languor, and inability for public service, and even for +profitable study, or perhaps might have sunk into his grave under +the overwhelming load of infirmities in the midst of his days; +and thus the Church and world would have been deprived of those +many excellent sermons and works which he drew up and published +during his long residence in this family. In a few years +after his coming hither, Sir Thomas Abney dies; but his amiable +consort survives, who shows the Doctor the same respect and +friendship as before, and most happily for him and great numbers +besides; for, as her riches were great, her generosity and +munificence were in full proportion; her thread of life was drawn +out to a great age, even beyond that of the Doctor’s, and +thus this excellent man, through her kindness, and that of her +daughter, the present Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a like degree +esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and +felicities he experienced at his first entrance into this family +till his days were numbered and finished, and, like a shock of +corn in its season, he ascended into the regions of perfect and +immortal life and joy.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If this quotation has appeared long, let it be considered that +it comprises an account of six-and-thirty years, and those the +years of Dr. Watts.</p> +<p>From the time of his reception into this family his life was +no otherwise diversified than by successive publications. +The series of his works I am not able to deduce; their number and +their variety show the intenseness of his industry and the extent +of his capacity. He was one of the first authors that +taught the Dissenters to court attention by the graces of +language. Whatever they had among them before, whether of +learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and blunted by +coarseness and inelegance of style. He showed them that +zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished +diction. He continued to the end of his life a teacher of a +congregation, and no reader of his works can doubt his fidelity +or diligence. In the pulpit, though his low stature, which +very little exceeded five feet, graced him with no advantages of +appearance, yet the gravity and propriety of his utterance made +his discourses very efficacious. I once mentioned the +reputation which Mr. Foster had gained by his proper delivery, to +my friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me that in the art of +pronunciation he was far inferior to Dr. Watts. Such was +his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language, that +in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory +sermons, but, having adjusted the heads and sketched out some +particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary powers. +He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence by any +gesticulations; for, as no corporeal actions have any +correspondence with theological truth, he did not see how they +could enforce it. At the conclusion of weighty sentences he +gave time, by a short pause, for the proper impression.</p> +<p>To stated and public instruction he added familiar visits and +personal application, and was careful to improve the +opportunities which conversation offered of diffusing and +increasing the influence of religion. By his natural temper +he was quick of resentment; but by his established and habitual +practice he was gentle, modest, and inoffensive. His +tenderness appeared in his attention to children, and to the +poor. To the poor, while he lived in the family of his +friend, he allowed the third part of his annual revenue; though +the whole was not a hundred a year; and for children he +condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the +wit, to write little poems of devotion, and systems of +instruction, adapted to their wants and capacities, from the dawn +of reason through its gradations of advance in the morning of +life. Every man acquainted with the common principles of +human action will look with veneration on the writer who is at +one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for +children in their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the +dignity of science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility +can teach.</p> +<p>As his mind was capacious, his curiosity excursive, and his +industry continual, his writings are very numerous and his +subjects various. With his theological works I am only +enough acquainted to admire his meekness of opposition, and his +mildness of censure. It was not only in his book, but in +his mind, that orthodoxy was united with charity.</p> +<p>Of his philosophical pieces, his “Logic” has been +received into the Universities, and therefore wants no private +recommendation; if he owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be +considered that no man who undertakes merely to methodise or +illustrate a system pretends to be its author.</p> +<p>In his metaphysical disquisitions it was observed by the late +learned Mr. Dyer, that he confounded the idea of <i>space</i> +with that of <i>empty space</i>, and did not consider that though +space might be without matter, yet matter being extended could +not be without space.</p> +<p>Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than +his “Improvement of the Mind,” of which the radical +principle may indeed be found in Locke’s “Conduct of +the Understanding;” but they are so expanded and ramified +by Watts, as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the +highest degree useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of +instructing others may be charged with deficiency in his duty if +this book is not recommended.</p> +<p>I have mentioned his treatises of theology as distinct from +his other productions; but the truth is that whatever he took in +hand was, by his incessant solicitude for souls, converted to +theology. As piety predominated in his mind, it is diffused +over his works. Under his direction it may be truly said, +<i>Theologiæ philosophia ancillatur</i> (Philosophy is +subservient to evangelical instruction). It is difficult to +read a page without learning, or at least wishing, to be +better. The attention is caught by indirect instruction; +and he that sat down only to reason is on a sudden compelled to +pray. It was therefore with great propriety that, in 1728, +he received from Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unsolicited diploma, +by which he became a Doctor of Divinity. Academical honours +would have more value if they were always bestowed with equal +judgment. He continued many years to study and to preach, +and to do good by his instruction and example, till at last the +infirmities of age disabled him from the more laborious part of +his ministerial functions, and, being no longer capable of public +duty, he offered to remit the salary appendent to it; but his +congregation would not accept the resignation. By degrees +his weakness increased, and at last confined him to his chamber +and his bed, where he was worn gradually away without pain, till +he expired November 25th 1748, in the seventy-fifth year of his +age.</p> +<p>Few men have left behind such purity of character, or such +monuments of laborious piety. He has provided instruction +for all ages—from those who are lisping their first +lessons, to the enlightened readers of Malebranche and Locke; he +has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature unexamined; he +has taught the art of reasoning, and the science of the +stars. His character, therefore, must be formed from the +multiplicity and diversity of his attainments, rather than from +any single performance, for it would not be safe to claim for him +the highest rank in any single denomination of literary dignity; +yet, perhaps, there was nothing in which he would not have +excelled, if he had not divided his powers to different +pursuits.</p> +<p>As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would probably have +stood high among the authors with whom he is now +associated. For his judgment was exact, and he noted +beauties and faults with very nice discernment; his imagination, +as the “Dacian Battle” proves, was vigorous and +active, and the stores of knowledge were large by which his fancy +was to be supplied. His ear was well tuned, and his diction +was elegant and copious. But his devotional poetry is, like +that of others, unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topics +enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter +rejects the ornaments of figurative diction. It is +sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man +has done well. His poems on other subjects seldom rise +higher than might be expected from the amusements of a man of +letters, and have different degrees of value as they are more or +less laboured, or as the occasion was more or less favourable to +invention. He writes too often without regular measures, +and too often in blank verse; the rhymes are not always +sufficiently correspondent. He is particularly unhappy in +coining names expressive of characters. His lines are +commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously +pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does +not wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour? +He is at least one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance +may be safely pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind +is disposed, by his verses or his prose, to imitate him in all +but his non-conformity, to copy his benevolence to man, and his +reverence to God.</p> +<h2><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>A. +PHILIPS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> the birth or early part of the +life of Ambrose Philips I have not been able to find any +account. His academical education he received at St. +John’s College in Cambridge, where he first solicited the +notice of the world by some English verses, in the collection +published by the University on the death of Queen Mary. +From this time how he was employed, or in what station he passed +his life, is not yet discovered. He must have published his +“Pastorals” before the year 1708, because they are +evidently prior to those of Pope. He afterwards (1709) +addressed to the universal patron, the Duke of Dorset, a +“Poetical Letter from Copenhagen,” which was +published in the <i>Tatler</i>, and is by Pope, in one of his +first Letters, mentioned with high praise as the production of a +man “who could write very nobly.”</p> +<p>Philips was a zealous Whig, and therefore easily found access +to Addison and Steele; but his ardour seems not to have procured +him anything more than kind words, since he was reduced to +translate the “Persian Tales” for Tonson, for which +he was afterwards reproached, with this addition of contempt, +that he worked for half-a-crown. The book is divided into +many sections, for each of which, if he received half-a-crown, +his reward, as writers then were paid, was very liberal; but +half-a-crown had a mean sound. He was employed in promoting +the principles of his party, by epitomising Hacket’s +“Life of Archbishop Williams.” The original +book is written with such depravity of genius, such mixture of +the fop and pedant, as has not often appeared. The epitome +is free enough from affectation, but has little spirit or +vigour.</p> +<p>In 1712 he brought upon the stage <i>The Distressed +Mother</i>, almost a translation of Racine’s +<i>Andromaque</i>. Such a work requires no uncommon powers, +but the friends of Philips exerted every art to promote his +interest. Before the appearance of the play a whole +<i>Spectator</i>, none indeed of the best, was devoted to its +praise; while it yet continued to be acted, another +<i>Spectator</i> was written to tell what impression it made upon +Sir Roger, and on the first night a select audience, says Pope, +was called together to applaud it. It was concluded with +the most successful Epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the +English theatre. The three first nights it was recited +twice, and not only continued to be demanded through the run, as +it is termed, of the play, but whenever it is recalled to the +stage, where by peculiar fortune, though a copy from the French, +it yet keeps its place, the Epilogue is still expected, and is +still spoken.</p> +<p>The propriety of Epilogues in general, and consequently of +this, was questioned by a correspondent of the <i>Spectator</i>, +whose letter was undoubtedly admitted for the sake of the answer, +which soon followed, written with much zeal and acrimony. +The attack and the defence equally contributed to stimulate +curiosity and continue attention. It may be discovered in +the defence that Prior’s Epilogue to <i>Phædra</i> +had a little excited jealousy, and something of Prior’s +plan may be discovered in the performance of his rival. Of +this distinguished Epilogue the reputed author was the wretched +Budgell, whom Addison used to denominate “the man who calls +me cousin;” and when he was asked how such a silly fellow +could write so well, replied, “The Epilogue was quite +another thing when I saw it first.” It was known in +Tonson’s family, and told to Garrick, that Addison was +himself the author of it, and that, when it had been at first +printed with his name, he came early in the morning, before the +copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to Budgell, +that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then +making for a place.</p> +<p>Philips was now high in the ranks of literature. His +play was applauded; his translations from Sappho had been +published in the <i>Spectator</i>; he was an important and +distinguished associate of clubs, witty and poetical; and nothing +was wanting to his happiness but that he should be sure of its +continuance. The work which had procured him the first +notice from the public was his “Six Pastorals,” +which, flattering the imagination with Arcadian scenes, probably +found many readers, and might have long passed as a pleasing +amusement had they not been unhappily too much commended.</p> +<p>The rustic poems of Theocritus were so highly valued by the +Greeks and Romans that they attracted the imitation of Virgil, +whose Eclogues seem to have been considered as precluding all +attempts of the same kind; for no shepherds were taught to sing +by any succeeding poet, till Nemesian and Calphurnius ventured +their feeble efforts in the lower age of Latin literature.</p> +<p>At the revival of learning in Italy it was soon discovered +that a dialogue of imaginary swains might be composed with little +difficulty, because the conversation of shepherds excludes +profound or refined sentiment; and for images and descriptions, +satyrs and fauns, and naiads and dryads, were always within call; +and woods and meadows, and hills and rivers, supplied variety of +matter, which, having a natural power to soothe the mind, did not +quickly cloy it.</p> +<p>Petrarch entertained the learned men of his age with the +novelty of modern pastorals in Latin. Being not ignorant of +Greek, and finding nothing in the word <i>eclogue</i> of rural +meaning, he supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, and +therefore called his own productions <i>Æglogues</i>, by +which he meant to express the talk of goat-herds, though it will +mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by +subsequent writers, and among others by our Spenser.</p> +<p>More than a century afterwards (1498) Mantuan published his +Bucolics with such success that they were soon dignified by +Badius with a comment, and, as Scaliger complained, received into +schools, and taught as classical; his complaint was vain, and the +practice, however injudicious, spread far and continued +long. Mantuan was read, at least in some of the inferior +schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present +century. The speakers of Mantuan carried their +disquisitions beyond the country to censure the corruptions of +the Church, and from him Spenser learned to employ his swains on +topics of controversy. The Italians soon transferred +pastoral poetry into their own language. Sannazaro wrote +“Arcadia” in prose and verse; Tasso and Guarini wrote +“Favole Boschareccie,” or Sylvan Dramas; and all +nations of Europe filled volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and +Thestylis and Phyllis.</p> +<p>Philips thinks it “somewhat strange to conceive how, in +an age so addicted to the Muses, pastoral poetry never comes to +be so much as thought upon.” His wonder seems very +unseasonable; there had never, from the time of Spenser, wanted +writers to talk occasionally of Arcadia and Strephon, and half +the book, in which he first tried his powers, consists of +dialogues on Queen Mary’s death, between Tityrus and +Corydon, or Mopsus and Menalcas. A series or book of +pastorals, however, I know not that anyone had then lately +published.</p> +<p>Not long afterwards Pope made the first display of his powers +in four pastorals, written in a very different form. +Philips had taken Spenser, and Pope took Virgil for his +pattern. Philips endeavoured to be natural, Pope laboured +to be elegant.</p> +<p>Philips was now favoured by Addison and by Addison’s +companions, who were very willing to push him into +reputation. The <i>Guardian</i> gave an account of +Pastoral, partly critical and partly historical; in which, when +the merit of the modern is compared, Tasso and Guarini are +censured for remote thoughts and unnatural refinements, and, upon +the whole, the Italians and French are all excluded from rural +poetry, and the pipe of the pastoral muse is transmitted by +lawful inheritance from Theocritus to Virgil, from Virgil to +Spenser, and from Spenser to Philips. With this +inauguration of Philips his rival Pope was not much delighted; he +therefore drew a comparison of Philips’s performance with +his own, in which, with an unexampled and unequalled artifice of +irony, though he has himself always the advantage, he gives the +preference to Philips. The design of aggrandising himself +he disguised with such dexterity that, though Addison discovered +it, Steele was deceived, and was afraid of displeasing Pope by +publishing his paper. Published however it was +(<i>Guardian</i>, No. 40), and from that time Pope and Philips +lived in a perpetual reciprocation of malevolence. In +poetical powers, of either praise or satire, there was no +proportion between the combatants; but Philips, though he could +not prevail by wit, hoped to hurt Pope with another weapon, and +charged him, as Pope thought with Addison’s approbation, as +disaffected to the Government. Even with this he was not +satisfied, for, indeed, there is no appearance that any regard +was paid to his clamours. He proceeded to grosser insults, +and hung up a rod at Button’s, with which he threatened to +chastise Pope, who appears to have been extremely exasperated, +for in the first edition of his Letters he calls Philips +“rascal,” and in the last still charges him with +detaining in his hands the subscriptions for “Homer” +delivered to him by the Hanover Club. I suppose it was +never suspected that he meant to appropriate the money; he only +delayed, and with sufficient meanness, the gratification of him +by whose prosperity he was pained.</p> +<p>Men sometimes suffer by injudicious kindness; Philips became +ridiculous, without his own fault, by the absurd admiration of +his friends, who decorated him with honorary garlands, which the +first breath of contradiction blasted.</p> +<p>When upon the succession of the House of Hanover every Whig +expected to be happy, Philips seems to have obtained too little +notice; he caught few drops of the golden shower, though he did +not omit what flattery could perform. He was only made a +commissioner of the lottery (1717), and, what did not much +elevate his character, a justice of the peace.</p> +<p>The success of his first play must naturally dispose him to +turn his hopes towards the stage; he did not, however, soon +commit himself to the mercy of an audience, but contented himself +with the fame already acquired, till after nine years he produced +(1722) <i>The Briton</i>, a tragedy which, whatever was its +reception, is now neglected; though one of the scenes, between +Vanoc the British Prince and Valens the Roman General, is +confessed to be written with great dramatic skill, animated by +spirit truly poetical. He had not been idle though he had +been silent, for he exhibited another tragedy the same year on +the story of <i>Humphry</i>, <i>Duke of Gloucester</i>. +This tragedy is only remembered by its title.</p> +<p>His happiest undertaking was (1711) of a paper called <i>The +Freethinker</i>, in conjunction with associates, of whom one was +Dr. Boulter, who, then only minister of a parish in Southwark, +was of so much consequence to the Government that he was made +first Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards Primate of Ireland, where +his piety and his charity will be long honoured. It may +easily be imagined that what was printed under the direction of +Boulter would have nothing in it indecent or licentious; its +title is to be understood as implying only freedom from +unreasonable prejudice. It has been reprinted in volumes, +but is little read; nor can impartial criticism recommend it as +worthy of revival.</p> +<p>Boulter was not well qualified to write diurnal essays, but he +knew how to practise the liberality of greatness and the fidelity +of friendship. When he was advanced to the height of +ecclesiastical dignity, he did not forget the companion of his +labours. Knowing Philips to be slenderly supported, he took +him to Ireland as partaker of his fortune, and, making him his +secretary, added such preferments as enabled him to represent the +county of Armagh in the Irish Parliament. In December, +1726, he was made secretary to the Lord Chancellor, and in +August, 1733, became Judge of the Prerogative Court.</p> +<p>After the death of his patron he continued some years in +Ireland, but at last longing, as it seems, for his native +country, he returned (1748) to London, having doubtless survived +most of his friends and enemies, and among them his dreaded +antagonist Pope. He found, however, the Duke of Newcastle +still living, and to him he dedicated his poems collected into a +volume.</p> +<p>Having purchased an annuity of £400, he now certainly +hoped to pass some years of life in plenty and tranquillity; but +his hope deceived him: he was struck with a palsy, and died June +18, 1749, in his seventy-eighth year.</p> +<p>Of his personal character all that I have heard is, that he +was eminent for bravery and skill in the sword, and that in +conversation he was solemn and pompous. He had great +sensibility of censure, if judgment may be made by a single story +which I heard long ago from Mr. Ing, a gentleman of great +eminence in Staffordshire. “Philips,” said he, +“was once at table, when I asked him, ‘How came thy +king of Epirus to drive oxen, and to say, “I’m goaded +on by love”?’ After which question he never +spoke again.”</p> +<p>Of <i>The Distressed Mother</i> not much is pretended to be +his own, and therefore it is no subject of criticism: his other +two tragedies, I believe, are not below mediocrity, nor above +it. Among the poems comprised in the late Collection, the +“Letter from Denmark” may be justly praised; the +Pastorals, which by the writer of the <i>Guardian</i> were ranked +as one of the four genuine productions of the rustic Muse, cannot +surely be despicable. That they exhibit a mode of life +which did not exist, nor ever existed, is not to be objected: the +supposition of such a state is allowed to be pastoral. In +his other poems he cannot be denied the praise of lines sometimes +elegant; but he has seldom much force or much +comprehension. The pieces that please best are those which, +from Pope and Pope’s adherents, procured him the name of +“Namby-Pamby,” the poems of short lines, by which he +paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole the +“steerer of the realm,” to Miss Pulteney in the +nursery. The numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the +diction is seldom faulty. They are not loaded with much +thought, yet, if they had been written by Addison, they would +have had admirers: little things are not valued but when they are +done by those who can do greater.</p> +<p>In his translations from “Pindar” he found the art +of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may +fall below his sublimity; he will be allowed, if he has less +fire, to have more smoke. He has added nothing to English +poetry, yet at least half his book deserves to be read: perhaps +he valued most himself that part which the critic would +reject.</p> +<h2><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>WEST.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert West</span> is one of the writers +of whom I regret my inability to give a sufficient account; the +intelligence which my inquiries have obtained is general and +scanty. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. West; perhaps him +who published “Pindar” at Oxford about the beginning +of this century. His mother was sister to Sir Richard +Temple, afterwards Lord Cobham. His father, purposing to +educate him for the Church, sent him first to Eton, and +afterwards to Oxford; but he was seduced to a more airy mode of +life, by a commission in a troop of horse, procured him by his +uncle. He continued some time in the army, though it is +reasonable to suppose that he never sunk into a mere soldier, nor +ever lost the love, or much neglected the pursuit, of learning; +and afterwards, finding himself more inclined to civil +employment, he laid down his commission, and engaged in business +under the Lord Townshend, then Secretary of State, with whom he +attended the King to Hanover.</p> +<p>His adherence to Lord Townshend ended in nothing but a +nomination (May, 1729) to be Clerk-Extraordinary of the Privy +Council, which produced no immediate profit; for it only placed +him in a state of expectation and right of succession, and it was +very long before a vacancy admitted him to profit.</p> +<p>Soon afterwards he married, and settled himself in a very +pleasant house at Wickham, in Kent, where he devoted himself to +learning and to piety. Of his learning the late Collection +exhibits evidence, which would have been yet fuller if the +dissertations which accompany his version of “Pindar” +had not been improperly omitted. Of his piety the influence +has, I hope, been extended far by his “Observations on the +Resurrection,” published in 1747, for which the University +of Oxford created him a Doctor of Laws, by diploma (March 30, +1748), and would doubtless have reached yet further had he lived +to complete what he had for some time meditated—the +“Evidences of the Truth of the New Testament.” +Perhaps it may not be without effect to tell that he read the +prayers of the public Liturgy every morning to his family, and +that on Sunday evening he called his servants into the parlour +and read to them first a sermon and then prayers. Crashaw +is now not the only maker of verses to whom may be given the two +venerable names of Poet and Saint. He was very often +visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of +faction and debates, used at Wickham to find books and quiet, a +decent table, and literary conversation. There is at +Wickham a walk made by Pitt; and, what is of far more importance, +at Wickham, Lyttelton received that conviction which produced his +“Dissertation on St. Paul.” These two +illustrious friends had for a while listened to the blandishments +of infidelity; and when West’s book was published, it was +bought by some who did not know his change of opinion, in +expectation of new objections against Christianity; and as +infidels do not want malignity, they revenged the disappointment +by calling him a Methodist.</p> +<p>Mr. West’s income was not large; and his friends +endeavoured, but without success, to obtain an +augmentation. It is reported that the education of the +young Prince was offered to him, but that he required a more +extensive power of superintendence than it was thought proper to +allow him. In time, however, his revenue was improved; he +lived to have one of the lucrative clerkships of the Privy +Council (1752); and Mr. Pitt at last had it in his power to make +him Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital. He was now sufficiently +rich; but wealth came too late to be long enjoyed; nor could it +secure him from the calamities of life; he lost (1755) his only +son; and the year after (March 26) a stroke of the palsy brought +to the grave one of the few poets to whom the grave might be +without its terrors.</p> +<p>Of his translations I have only compared the first Olympic Ode +with the original, and found my expectation surpassed, both by +its elegance and its exactness. He does not confine himself +to his author’s train of stanzas; for he saw that the +difference of languages required a different mode of +versification. The first strophe is eminently happy; in the +second he has a little strayed from Pindar’s meaning, who +says, “If thou, my soul, wishest to speak of games, look +not in the desert sky for a planet hotter than the sun; nor shall +we tell of nobler games than those of Olympia.” He is +sometimes too paraphrastical. Pindar bestows upon Hiero an +epithet which, in one word, signifies <i>delighting in +horses</i>; a word which, in the translation, generates these +lines:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Hiero’s royal brows, whose care<br /> + Tends the courser’s noble breed,<br /> +Pleased to nurse the pregnant mare,<br /> + Pleased to train the youthful steed.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Pindar says of Pelops, that “he came alone in the dark +to the White Sea;” and West—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Near the billow-beaten side<br /> +Of the foam-besilvered main,<br /> +Darkling, and alone, he stood:”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>which, however, is less exuberant than the former passage.</p> +<p>A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover +many imperfections; but West’s version, so far as I have +considered it, appears to be the product of great labour and +great abilities.</p> +<p>His “Institution of the Garter” (1742) is written +with sufficient knowledge of the manners that prevailed in the +age to which it is referred, and with great elegance of diction; +but, for want of a process of events, neither knowledge nor +elegance preserves the reader from weariness.</p> +<p>His “Imitations of Spenser” are very successfully +performed, both with respect to the metre, the language, and the +fiction; and being engaged at once by the excellence of the +sentiments, and the artifice of the copy, the mind has two +amusements together. But such compositions are not to be +reckoned among the great achievements of intellect, because their +effect is local and temporary; they appeal not to reason or +passion, but to memory, and presuppose an accidental or +artificial state of mind. An imitation of Spenser is +nothing to a reader, however acute, by whom Spenser has never +been perused. Works of this kind may deserve praise, as +proofs of great industry and great nicety of observation; but the +highest praise, the praise of genius, they cannot claim. +The noblest beauties of art are those of which the effect is +co-extended with rational nature, or at least with the whole +circle of polished life; what is less than this can be only +pretty, the plaything of fashion, and the amusement of a day.</p> +<p>There is in the <i>Adventurer</i> a paper of verses given to +one of the authors as Mr. West’s, and supposed to have been +written by him. It should not be concealed, however, that +it is printed with Mr. Jago’s name in Dodsley’s +Collection, and is mentioned as his in a letter of +Shenstone’s. Perhaps West gave it without naming the +author, and Hawkesworth, receiving it from him, thought it his; +for his he thought it, as he told me, and as he tells the +public.</p> +<h2><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>COLLINS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">William Collins</span> was born at +Chichester, on the 25th day of December, about 1720. His +father was a hatter of good reputation. He was in 1733, as +Dr. Warton has kindly informed me, admitted scholar of Winchester +College, where he was educated by Dr. Burton. His English +exercises were better than his Latin. He first courted the +notice of the public by some verses to a “Lady +weeping,” published in <i>The Gentleman’s +Magazine</i> (January, 1739).</p> +<p>In 1740 he stood first in the list of the scholars to be +received in succession at New College, but unhappily there was no +vacancy. He became a Commoner of Queen’s College, +probably with a scanty maintenance; but was, in about half a +year, elected a Demy of Magdalen College, where he continued till +he had taken a Bachelor’s degree, and then suddenly left +the University; for what reason I know not that he told.</p> +<p>He now (about 1744) came to London a literary adventurer, with +many projects in his head, and very little money in his +pocket. He designed many works; but his great fault was +irresolution; or the frequent calls of immediate necessity broke +his scheme, and suffered him to pursue no settled purpose. +A man doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not +much disposed to abstracted meditation or remote inquiries. +He published proposals for a “History of the Revival of +Learning;” and I have heard him speak with great kindness +of Leo X., and with keen resentment of his tasteless +successor. But probably not a page of his history was ever +written. He planned several tragedies, but he only planned +them. He wrote now and then odes and other poems, and did +something, however little. About this time I fell into his +company. His appearance was decent and manly; his knowledge +considerable, his views extensive, his conversation elegant, and +his disposition cheerful. By degrees I gained his +confidence; and one day was admitted to him when he was immured +by a bailiff that was prowling in the street. On this +occasion recourse was had to the booksellers, who, on the credit +of a translation of Aristotle’s “Poetics,” +which he engaged to write with a large commentary, advanced as +much money as enabled him to escape into the country. He +showed me the guineas safe in his hand. Soon afterwards his +uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenant-colonel, left him about +£2000; a sum which Collins could scarcely think +exhaustible, and which he did not live to exhaust. The guineas +were then repaid, and the translation neglected. But man is +not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he studied to +live, felt no evil but poverty, no sooner lived to study than his +life was assailed by more dreadful calamities—disease and +insanity.</p> +<p>Having formerly written his character, while perhaps it was +yet more distinctly impressed upon my memory, I shall insert it +here.</p> +<p>“Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of +vigorous faculties. He was acquainted not only with the +learned tongues, but with the Italian, French, and Spanish +languages. He had employed his mind chiefly on works of +fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by indulging some peculiar +habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of +imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the +mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular +traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; +he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze +on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the +waterfalls of Elysian gardens. This was, however, the +character rather of his inclination than his genius; the grandeur +of wildness, and the novelty of extravagance, were always desired +by him, but not always attained. Yet, as diligence is never +wholly lost, if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and +obscurity, they likewise produced in happier moments sublimity +and splendour. This idea which he had formed of excellence +led him to Oriental fictions and allegorical imagery, and, +perhaps, while he was intent upon description, he did not +sufficiently cultivate sentiment. His poems are the +productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished with +knowledge either of books or life, but somewhat obstructed in its +progress by deviation in quest of mistaken beauties.</p> +<p>“His morals were pure, and his opinions pious; in a long +continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation, it cannot +be expected that any character should be exactly uniform. +There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is +almost destroyed; and long association with fortuitous companions +will at last relax the strictness of truth, and abate the fervour +of sincerity. That this man, wise and virtuous as he was, +passed always unentangled through the snares of life, it would be +prejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be said that at +least he preserved the source of action unpolluted, that his +principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of right and +wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of +malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure, +or casual temptation.</p> +<p>“The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but +with pity and sadness. He languished some years under that +depression of mind which enchains the faculties without +destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without +the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived +gathering on his intellect he endeavoured to disperse by travel, +and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield to +his malady, and returned. He was for some time confined in +a house of lunatics, and afterwards retired to the care of his +sister in Chichester, where death, in 1756, came to his +relief.</p> +<p>“After his return from France, the writer of this +character paid him a visit at Islington, where he was waiting for +his sister, whom he had directed to meet him. There was +then nothing of disorder discernible in his mind by any but +himself; but he had withdrawn from study, and travelled with no +other book than an English Testament, such as children carry to +the school. When his friend took it into his hand, out of +curiosity to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, +‘I have but one book,’ said Collins, ‘but that +is the best.’”</p> +<p>Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to +converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.</p> +<p>He was visited at Chichester, in his last illness, by his +learned friends Dr. Warton and his brother, to whom he spoke with +disapprobation of his “Oriental Eclogues,” as not +sufficiently expressive of Asiatic manners, and called them his +“Irish Eclogues.” He showed them, at the same +time, an ode inscribed to Mr. John Home, on the superstitions of +the Highlands, which they thought superior to his other works, +but which no search has yet found. His disorder was no +alienation of mind, but general laxity and feebleness—a +deficiency rather of his vital than his intellectual +powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit; +but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest +upon the couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and +he was again able to talk with his former vigour. The +approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel soon after +his uncle’s death; and, with the usual weakness of men so +diseased, eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the +table and the bottle flatter and seduce. But his health +continually declined, and he grew more and more burthensome to +himself.</p> +<p>To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, +that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and +injudiciously selected. He affected the obsolete when it +was not worthy of revival: and he puts his words out of the +common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for +fame, that not to write prose is certainly to write poetry. +His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with +clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who +cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort +praise when it gives little pleasure.</p> +<p>Mr. Collins’s first production is added here from the +<i>Poetical Calendar</i>:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">TO MISS AURELIA +C—R,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER’S +WEDDING.</span></p> +<p>“Cease, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn;<br /> + Lament not Hannah’s happy state;<br /> +You may be happy in your turn,<br /> + And seize the treasure you regret.<br /> +With Love united Hymen stands,<br /> + And softly whispers to your charms,<br /> +‘Meet but your lover in my bands,<br /> + You’ll find your sister in his +arms.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>DYER.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">John Dyer</span>, of whom I have no other +account to give than his own letters, published with +Hughes’s correspondence, and the notes added by the editor, +have afforded me, was born in 1700, the second son of Robert Dyer +of Aberglasney, in Caermarthenshire, a solicitor of great +capacity and note. He passed through Westminster school +under the care of Dr. Freind, and was then called home to be +instructed in his father’s profession. But his father +died soon, and he took no delight in the study of the law; but, +having always amused himself with drawing, resolved to turn +painter, and became pupil to Mr. Richardson, an artist then of +high reputation, but now better known by his books than by his +pictures.</p> +<p>Having studied a while under his master, he became, as he +tells his friend, an itinerant painter, and wandered about South +Wales and the parts adjacent; but he mingled poetry with +painting, and about 1727 [1726] printed “Grongar +Hill” in Lewis’s Miscellany. Being, probably, +unsatisfied with his own proficiency, he, like other painters, +travelled to Italy; and coming back in 1740, published the +“Ruins of Rome.” If his poem was written soon +after his return, he did not make use of his acquisitions in +painting, whatever they might be; for decline of health and love +of study determined him to the Church. He therefore entered +into orders; and, it seems, married about the same time a lady of +the name of Ensor; “whose grandmother,” says he, +“was a Shakspeare, descended from a brother of +everybody’s Shakspeare;” by her, in 1756, he had a +son and three daughters living.</p> +<p>His ecclesiastical provision was for a long time but +slender. His first patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, +Calthorp in Leicestershire, of eighty pounds a year, on which he +lived ten years, and then exchanged it for Belchford, in +Lincolnshire, of seventy-five. His condition now began to +mend. In 1751 Sir John Heathcote gave him Coningsby, of one +hundred and forty pounds a year; and in 1755 the Chancellor added +Kirkby, of one hundred and ten. He complains that the +repair of the house at Coningsby, and other expenses, took away +the profit. In 1757 he published “The Fleece,” +his greatest poetical work; of which I will not suppress a +ludicrous story. Dodsley the bookseller was one day +mentioning it to a critical visitor, with more expectation of +success than the other could easily admit. In the +conversation the author’s age was asked; and being +represented as advanced in life, “He will,” said the +critic, “be buried in woollen.” He did not +indeed long survive that publication, nor long enjoy the increase +of his preferments, for in 1758 he died.</p> +<p>Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an +elaborate criticism. “Grongar Hill” is the +happiest of his productions: it is not indeed very accurately +written; but the scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the +images which they raise are so welcome to the mind, and the +reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or +experience of mankind, that when it is once read, it will be read +again. The idea of the “Ruins of Rome” strikes +more, but pleases less, and the title raises greater expectation +than the performance gratifies. Some passages, however, are +conceived with the mind of a poet; as when, in the neighbourhood +of dilapidating edifices, he says,</p> + +<blockquote><p> “The +Pilgrim oft<br /> +At dead of night, ’mid his orison hears<br /> +Aghast the voice of Time, disparting tow’rs<br /> +Tumbling all precipitate down dashed,<br /> +Rattling around, loud thund’ring to the Moon.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of “The Fleece,” which never became popular, and +is now universally neglected, I can say little that is likely to +recall it to attention. The woolcomber and the poet appear +to me such discordant natures, that an attempt to bring them +together is to <i>couple the serpent with the fowl</i>. +When Dyer, whose mind was not unpoetical, has done his utmost, by +interesting his reader in our native commodity by interspersing +rural imagery, and incidental digressions, by clothing small +images in great words, and by all the writer’s arts of +delusion, the meanness naturally adhering, and the irreverence +habitually annexed to trade and manufacture, sink him under +insuperable oppression; and the disgust which blank verse, +encumbering and encumbered, superadds to an unpleasing subject, +soon repels the reader, however willing to be pleased.</p> +<p>Let me, however, honestly report whatever may counterbalance +this weight of censure. I have been told that Akenside, +who, upon a poetical question, has a right to be heard, said, +“That he would regulate his opinion of the reigning taste +by the fate of Dyer’s ‘Fleece;’ for, if that +were ill-received, he should not think it any longer reasonable +to expect fame from excellence.”</p> +<h2><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>SHENSTONE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">William Shenstone</span>, the son of +Thomas Shenstone and Anne Pen, was born in November, 1714, at the +Leasowes in Hales-Owen, one of those insulated districts which, +in the division of the kingdom, was appended, for some reason not +now discoverable, to a distant county; and which, though +surrounded by Warwickshire and Worcestershire, belongs to +Shropshire, though perhaps thirty miles distant from any other +part of it. He learned to read of an old dame, whom his +poem of the “Schoolmistress” has delivered to +posterity; and soon received such delight from books, that he was +always calling for fresh entertainment, and expected that, when +any of the family went to market, a new book should be brought +him, which, when it came, was in fondness carried to bed and laid +by him. It is said, that, when his request had been +neglected, his mother wrapped up a piece of wood of the same +form, and pacified him for the night. As he grew older, he +went for a while to the Grammar-school in Hales-Owen, and was +placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an eminent schoolmaster at +Solihul, where he distinguished himself by the quickness of his +progress.</p> +<p>When he was young (June, 1724) he was deprived of his father, +and soon after (August, 1726) of his grandfather; and was, with +his brother, who died afterwards unmarried, left to the care of +his grandmother, who managed the estate.</p> +<p>From school he was sent in 1732 to Pembroke College in Oxford, +a society which for half a century has been eminent for English +poetry and elegant literature. Here it appears that he +found delight and advantage; for he continued his name in the +book ten years, though he took no degree. After the first +four years he put on the civilian’s gown, but without +showing any intention to engage in the profession. About +the time when he went to Oxford, the death of his grandmother +devolved his affairs to the care of the Rev. Mr. Dolman, of Brome +in Staffordshire, whose attention he always mentioned with +gratitude. At Oxford he employed himself upon English +poetry; and in 1737 published a small Miscellany, without his +name. He then for a time wandered about, to acquaint +himself with life, and was sometimes at London, sometimes at +Bath, or any other place of public resort; but he did not forget +his poetry. He published in 1741 his “Judgment of +Hercules,” addressed to Mr. Lyttelton, whose interest he +supported with great warmth at an election: this was next year +followed by the “Schoolmistress.”</p> +<p>Mr. Dolman, to whose care he was indebted for his ease and +leisure, died in 1745, and the care of his own fortune now fell +upon him. He tried to escape it awhile, and lived at his +house with his tenants, who were distantly related; but, finding +that imperfect possession inconvenient, he took the whole estate +into his own hands, more to the improvement of its beauty than +the increase of its produce. Now was excited his delight in +rural pleasures and his ambition of rural elegance; he began from +this time to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to +entangle his walks, and to wind his waters, which he did with +such judgment and such fancy as made his little domain the envy +of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be +visited by travellers and copied by designers. Whether to +plant a walk in undulating curves, and to place a bench at every +turn where there is an object to catch the view, to make the +water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will +be seen, to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to +thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden, +demands any great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a +sullen and surly spectator may think such performances rather the +sport than the business of human reason. But it must be at +least confessed that to embellish the form of Nature is an +innocent amusement, and some praise must be allowed, by the most +supercilious observer, to him who does best what such multitudes +are contending to do well.</p> +<p>This praise was the praise of Shenstone; but, like all other +modes of felicity, it was not enjoyed without its +abatements. Lyttelton was his neighbour and his rival, +whose empire, spacious and opulent, looked with disdain on the +<i>petty state</i> that <i>appeared behind it</i>. For a +while the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their +acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself +admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into +notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could +not suppress by conducting their visitants perversely to +inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong +end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone +would heavily complain. Where there is emulation there will +be vanity; and where there is vanity there will be folly.</p> +<p>The pleasure of Shenstone was all in his eye; he valued what +he valued merely for its looks. Nothing raised his +indignation more than to ask if there were any fishes in his +water. His house was mean, and he did not improve it; his +care was of his grounds. When he came home from his walks, +he might find his floors flooded by a shower through the broken +roof; but could spare no money for its reparation. In time +his expenses brought clamours about him that overpowered the +lamb’s bleat and the linnet’s song, and his groves +were haunted by beings very different from fauns and +fairies. He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death +was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that +spent its oil in blazing. It is said that, if he had lived +a little longer, he would have been assisted by a pension: such +bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed; but that +it was ever asked is not certain; it is too certain that it never +was enjoyed. He died at Leasowes, of a putrid fever, about +five on Friday morning, February 11, 1763, and was buried by the +side of his brother in the churchyard of Hales-Owen.</p> +<p>He was never married, though he might have obtained the lady, +whoever she was, to whom his “Pastoral Ballad” was +addressed. He is represented by his friend Dodsley as a man +of great tenderness and generosity, kind to all that were within +his influence; but, if once offended, not easily appeased; +inattentive to economy, and careless of his expenses; in his +person he was larger than the middle-size, with something clumsy +in his form; very negligent of his clothes, and remarkable for +wearing his grey hair in a particular manner, for he held that +the fashion was no rule of dress, and that every man was to suit +his appearance to his natural form. His mind was not very +comprehensive, nor his curiosity active; he had no value for +those parts of knowledge which he had not himself +cultivated. His life was unstained by any crime. The +“Elegy on Jesse,” which has been supposed to relate +an unfortunate and criminal amour of his own, was known by his +friends to have been suggested by the story of Miss Godfrey in +Richardson’s “Pamela.”</p> +<p>What Gray thought of his character, from the perusal of his +Letters, was this:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I have read, too, an octavo volume of +Shenstone’s Letters. Poor man! he was always wishing +for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his whole +philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, +and in a place which his taste had adorned, but which he only +enjoyed when people of note came to see and commend it. His +correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his own +writings, with two or three neighbouring clergymen, who wrote +verses too.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His poems consist of elegies, odes, and ballads, humorous +sallies, and moral pieces. His conception of an Elegy he +has in his Preface very judiciously and discriminately +explained. It is, according to his account, the effusion of +a contemplative mind, sometimes plaintive, and always serious, +and therefore superior to the glitter of slight ornaments. +His compositions suit not ill to this description. His +topics of praise are the domestic virtues, and his thoughts are +pure and simple, but wanting combination; they want +variety. The peace of solitude, the innocence of +inactivity, and the unenvied security of an humble station, can +fill but a few pages. That of which the essence is +uniformity will be soon described. His elegies have, +therefore, too much resemblance of each other. The lines +are sometimes, such as Elegy requires, smooth and easy; but to +this praise his claim is not constant; his diction is often +harsh, improper, and affected, his words ill-coined or +ill-chosen, and his phrase unskilfully inverted.</p> +<p>The Lyric Poems are almost all of the light and airy kind, +such as trip lightly and nimbly along, without the load of any +weighty meaning. From these, however, “Rural +Elegance” has some right to be excepted. I once heard +it praised by a very learned lady; and, though the lines are +irregular, and the thoughts diffused with too much verbosity, yet +it cannot be denied to contain both philosophical argument and +poetical spirit. Of the rest I cannot think any excellent; +the “Skylark” pleases me best, which has, however, +more of the epigram than of the ode.</p> +<p>But the four parts of his “Pastoral Ballad” demand +particular notice. I cannot but regret that it is pastoral: +an intelligent reader acquainted with the scenes of real life +sickens at the mention of the <i>crook</i>, the <i>pipe</i>, the +<i>sheep</i>, and the <i>kids</i>, which it is not necessary to +bring forward to notice; for the poet’s art is selection, +and he ought to show the beauties without the grossness of the +country life. His stanza seems to have been chosen in +imitation of Rowe’s “Despairing +Shepherd.” In the first are two passages, to which if +any mind denies its sympathy, it has no acquaintance with love or +nature:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I prized every hour that went by,<br /> + Beyond all that had pleased me before:<br /> +But now they are past, and I sigh,<br /> + And I grieve that I prized them no more.</p> +<p>When forced the fair nymph to forego,<br /> + What anguish I felt in my heart!<br /> +Yet I thought (but it might not be so)<br /> + ’Twas with pain that she saw me depart.</p> +<p>She gazed, as I slowly withdrew,<br /> + My path I could hardly discern;<br /> +So sweetly she bade me adieu,<br /> + I thought that she bade me return.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the second this passage has its prettiness; though it be +not equal to the former:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I have found out a gift for my fair:<br /> + I have found where the wood pigeons breed:<br /> +But let me that plunder forbear,<br /> + She will say ’twas a barbarous deed:</p> +<p>For he ne’er could be true, she averred,<br /> + Who could rob a poor bird of its young;<br /> +And I loved her the more when I heard<br /> + Such tenderness fall from her tongue.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the third he mentions the common-places of amorous poetry +with some address:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“’Tis his with mock passion to +glow!<br /> + ’Tis his in smooth tales to unfold,<br /> +How her face is as bright as the snow,<br /> + And her bosom, be sure, is as cold:</p> +<p>How the nightingales labour the strain,<br /> + With the notes of this charmer to vie:<br /> +How they vary their accents in vain,<br /> + Repine at her triumphs, and die.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the fourth I find nothing better than this natural strain +of Hope:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Alas! from the day that we met,<br /> + What hope of an end to my woes,<br /> +When I cannot endure to forget<br /> + The glance that undid my repose?</p> +<p>Yet Time may diminish the pain:<br /> + The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,<br /> +Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,<br /> + In time may have comfort for me.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His “Levities” are by their title exempted from +the severities of criticism, yet it may be remarked in a few +words that his humour is sometimes gross, and seldom +sprightly.</p> +<p>Of the Moral Poems, the first is the “Choice of +Hercules,” from Xenophon. The numbers are smooth, the +diction elegant, and the thoughts just; but something of vigour +is still to be wished, which it might have had by brevity and +compression. His “Fate of Delicacy” has an air +of gaiety, but not a very pointed and general moral. His +blank verses, those that can read them, may probably find to be +like the blank verses of his neighbours. “Love and +Honour” is derived from the old ballad, “Did you not +hear of a Spanish Lady?”—I wish it well enough to +wish it were in rhyme.</p> +<p>The “Schoolmistress,” of which I know not what +claim it has to stand among the Moral Works, is surely the most +pleasing of Shenstone’s performances. The adoption of +a particular style, in light and short compositions, contributes +much to the increase of pleasure: we are entertained at once with +two imitations of nature in the sentiments, of the original +author in the style, and between them the mind is kept in +perpetual employment.</p> +<p>The general recommendation of Shenstone is easiness and +simplicity; his general defect is want of comprehension and +variety. Had his mind been better stored with knowledge, +whether he could have been great, I know not; he could certainly +have been agreeable.</p> +<h2><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>YOUNG.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> following life was written, at +my request, by a gentleman (Mr. Herbert Croft) who had better +information than I could easily have obtained; and the public +will perhaps wish that I had solicited and obtained more such +favours from him:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Dear Sir,—In consequence of our +different conversations about authentic materials for the Life of +Young, I send you the following details:”—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of great men something must always be said to gratify +curiosity. Of the illustrious author of the “Night +Thoughts” much has been told of which there never could +have been proofs, and little care appears to have been taken to +tell that of which proofs, with little trouble, might have been +procured.</p> +<p>Edward Young was born at Upham, near Winchester, in June, +1681. He was the son of Edward Young, at that time Fellow +of Winchester College, and Rector of Upham, who was the son of +Jo. Young, of Woodhay, in Berkshire, styled by Wood, +<i>gentleman</i>. In September, 1682, the poet’s +father was collated to the prebend of Gillingham Minor, in the +church of Sarum, by Bishop Ward. When Ward’s +faculties were impaired through age, his duties were necessarily +performed by others. We learn from Wood that, at a +visitation of Sprat’s, July the 12th, 1686, the prebendary +preached a Latin sermon, afterwards published, with which the +Bishop was so pleased, that he told the chapter he was concerned +to find the preacher had one of the worst prebends in their +Church. Some time after this, in consequence of his merit +and reputation, or of the interest of Lord Bradford, to whom, in +1702, he dedicated two volumes of sermons, he was appointed +chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, and preferred to the +Deanery of Sarum. Jacob, who wrote in 1720, says, “he +was Chaplain and Clerk of the Closet to the late Queen, who +honoured him by standing godmother to the poet.” His +Fellowship of Winchester he resigned in favour of a gentleman of +the name of Harris, who married his only daughter. The Dean +died at Sarum, after a short illness, in 1705, in the sixty-third +year of his age. On the Sunday after his decease, Bishop +Burnet preached at the cathedral, and began his sermon with +saying, “Death has been of late walking round us, and +making breach upon breach upon us, and has now carried away the +head of this body with a stroke, so that he, whom you saw a week +ago distributing the holy mysteries, is now laid in the +dust. But he still lives in the many excellent directions +he has left us both how to live and how to die.”</p> +<p>The dean placed his son upon the foundation at Winchester +College, where he had himself been educated. At this school +Edward Young remained till the election after his eighteenth +birthday, the period at which those upon the foundation are +superannuated. Whether he did not betray his abilities +early in life, or his masters had not skill enough to discover in +their pupil any marks of genius for which he merited reward, or +no vacancy at Oxford offered them an opportunity to bestow upon +him the reward provided for merit by William of Wykeham; certain +it is, that to an Oxford fellowship our poet did not +succeed. By chance, or by choice, New College cannot claim +the honour of numbering among its fellows him who wrote the +“Night Thoughts.”</p> +<p>On the 13th of October, 1703, he was entered an independent +member of New College, that he might live at little expense in +the warden’s lodgings, who was a particular friend of his +father’s, till he should be qualified to stand for a +fellowship at All Souls. In a few months the warden of New +College died. He then removed to Corpus College. The +president of this society, from regard also for his father, +invited him thither, in order to lessen his academical +expenses. In 1708 he was nominated to a law-fellowship at +All Souls by Archbishop Tenison, into whose hands it came by +devolution. Such repeated patronage, while it justifies +Burnet’s praise of the father, reflects credit on the +conduct of the son. The manner in which it was exerted +seems to prove that the father did not leave behind him much +wealth.</p> +<p>On the 23rd of April, 1714, Young took his degree of bachelor +of civil laws, and his doctor’s degree on the 10th of June, +1719. Soon after he went to Oxford he discovered, it is +said, an inclination for pupils. Whether he ever commenced +tutor is not known. None has hitherto boasted to have +received his academical instruction from the author of +“Night Thoughts.” It is probable that his +College was proud of him no less as a scholar than as a poet; for +in 1716, when the foundation of the Codrington Library was laid, +two years after he had taken his bachelor’s degree, Young +was appointed to speak the Latin oration. This is at least +particular for being dedicated in English “To the Ladies of +the Codrington Family.” To these ladies he says +“that he was unavoidably flung into a singularity, by being +obliged to write an epistle dedicatory void of commonplace, and +such an one was never published before by any author whatever; +that this practice absolved them from any obligation of reading +what was presented to them; and that the bookseller approved of +it, because it would make people stare, was absurd enough and +perfectly right.” Of this oration there is no +appearance in his own edition of his works; and prefixed to an +edition by Curll and Tonson, in 1741, is a letter from Young to +Curll, if we may credit Curll, dated December the 9th, 1739, +wherein he says that he has not leisure to review what he +formerly wrote, and adds, “I have not the ‘Epistle to +Lord Lansdowne.’ If you will take my advice, I would +have you omit that, and the oration on Codrington. I think +the collection will sell better without them.”</p> +<p>There are who relate that, when first Young found himself +independent, and his own master at All Souls, he was not the +ornament to religion and morality which he afterwards +became. The authority of his father, indeed, had ceased, +some time before, by his death; and Young was certainly not +ashamed to be patronised by the infamous Wharton. But +Wharton befriended in Young, perhaps, the poet, and particularly +the tragedian. If virtuous authors must be patronised only +by virtuous peers, who shall point them out? Yet Pope is +said by Ruffhead to have told Warburton that “Young had +much of a sublime genius, though without common sense; so that +his genius, having no guide, was perpetually liable to degenerate +into bombast. This made him pass a <i>foolish youth</i>, +the sport of peers and poets: but his having a very good heart +enabled him to support the clerical character when he assumed it, +first with decency, and afterwards with honour.”</p> +<p>They who think ill of Young’s morality in the early part +of his life may perhaps be wrong; but Tindal could not err in his +opinion of Young’s warmth and ability in the cause of +religion. Tindal used to spend much of his time at All +Souls. “The other boys,” said the atheist, +“I can always answer, because I always know whence they +have their arguments, which I have read a hundred times; but that +fellow Young is continually pestering me with something of his +own.”</p> +<p>After all, Tindal and the censurers of Young may be +reconcilable. Young might, for two or three years, have +tried that kind of life, in which his natural principles would +not suffer him to wallow long. If this were so, he has left +behind him not only his evidence in favour of virtue, but the +potent testimony of experience against vice. We shall soon +see that one of his earliest productions was more serious than +what comes from the generality of unfledged poets.</p> +<p>Young perhaps ascribed the good fortune of Addison to the +“Poem to his Majesty,” presented with a copy of +verses, to Somers: and hoped that he also might soar to wealth +and honours on wings of the same kind. His first poetical +flight was when Queen Anne called up to the House of Lords the +sons of the Earls of Northampton and Aylesbury, and added, in one +day, ten others to the number of Peers. In order to +reconcile the people to one, at least, of the new lords, he +published, in 1712, “An Epistle to the Right Honourable +George Lord Lansdowne.” In this composition the poet +pours out his panegyric with the extravagance of a young man, who +thinks his present stock of wealth will never be exhausted. +The poem seems intended also to reconcile the public to the late +peace. This is endeavoured to be done by showing that men +are slain in war, and that in peace “harvests wave, and +commerce swells her sail.” If this be humanity, for +which he meant it, is it politics? Another purpose of this +epistle appears to have been to prepare the public for the +reception of some tragedy he might have in hand. His +lordship’s patronage, he says, will not let him +“repent his passion for the stage;” and the +particular praise bestowed on <i>Othello</i> and <i>Oroonoko</i> +looks as if some such character as Zanga was even then in +contemplation. The affectionate mention of the death of his +friend Harrison of New College, at the close of this poem, is an +instance of Young’s art, which displayed itself so +wonderfully some time afterwards in the “Night +Thoughts,” of making the public a party in his private +sorrow. Should justice call upon you to censure this poem, +it ought at least to be remembered that he did not insert it in +his works; and that in the letter to Curll, as we have seen, he +advises its omission. The booksellers, in the late body of +English poetry, should have distinguished what was deliberately +rejected by the respective authors. This I shall be careful +to do with regard to Young. “I think,” says he, +“the following pieces in <i>four</i> volumes to be the most +excusable of all that I have written; and I wish <i>less +apology</i> was less needful for these. As there is no +recalling what is got abroad, the pieces here republished I have +revised and corrected, and rendered them as <i>pardonable</i> as +it was in my power to do.”</p> +<p>Shall the gates of repentance be shut only against literary +sinners?</p> +<p>When Addison published “Cato” in 1713, Young had +the honour of prefixing to it a recommendatory copy of +verses. This is one of the pieces which the author of the +“Night Thoughts” did not republish.</p> +<p>On the appearance of his poem on the “Last Day,” +Addison did not return Young’s compliment; but “The +Englishman” of October 29, 1713, which was probably written +by Addison, speaks handsomely of this poem. The “Last +Day” was published soon after the peace. The +Vice-Chancellor’s <i>imprimatur</i> (for it was printed at +Oxford) is dated the 19th, 1713. From the exordium, Young +appears to have spent some time on the composition of it. +While other bards “with Britain’s hero set their +souls on fire,” he draws, he says, a deeper scene. +Marlborough <i>had been</i> considered by Britain as her +<i>hero</i>; but, when the “Last Day” was published, +female cabal had blasted for a time the laurels of +Blenheim. This serious poem was finished by Young as early +as 1710, before he was thirty; for part of it is printed in the +<i>Tatler</i>. It was inscribed to the queen, in a +dedication, which, for some reason, he did not admit into his +works. It tells her that his only title to the great honour +he now does himself is the obligation which he formerly received +from her royal indulgence. Of this obligation nothing is +now known, unless he alluded to her being his godmother. He +is said indeed to have been engaged at a settled stipend as a +writer for the Court. In Swift’s “Rhapsody on +Poetry” are these lines, speaking of the Court:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Whence Gay was banished in disgrace,<br /> +Where Pope will never show his face,<br /> +Where Y— must torture his invention<br /> +To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That Y— means Young seems clear from four other lines in +the same poem:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Attend, ye Popes, and Youngs, and Gays,<br +/> +And tune your harps and strew your bays;<br /> +Your panegyrics here provide;<br /> +You cannot err on flattery’s side.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yet who shall say with certainty that Young was a +pensioner? In all modern periods of this country, have not +the writers on one side been regularly called Hirelings, and on +the other Patriots?</p> +<p>Of the dedication the complexion is clearly political. +It speaks in the highest terms of the late peace; it gives her +Majesty praise indeed for her victories, but says that the author +is more pleased to see her rise from this lower world, soaring +above the clouds, passing the first and second heavens, and +leaving the fixed stars behind her; nor will he lose her there, +he says, but keep her still in view through the boundless spaces +on the other side of creation, in her journey towards eternal +bliss, till he behold the heaven of heavens open, and angels +receiving and conveying her still onward from the stretch of his +imagination, which tires in her pursuit, and falls back again to +earth.</p> +<p>The queen was soon called away from this lower world, to a +place where human praise or human flattery, even less general +than this, are of little consequence. If Young thought the +dedication contained only the praise of truth, he should not have +omitted it in his works. Was he conscious of the +exaggeration of party? Then he should not have written +it. The poem itself is not without a glance towards +politics, notwithstanding the subject. The cry that the +Church was in danger had not yet subsided. The “Last +Day,” written by a layman, was much approved by the +ministry and their friends.</p> +<p>Before the queen’s death, “The Force of Religion, +or Vanquished Love,” was sent into the world. This +poem is founded on the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her +husband, Lord Guildford, 1554, a story chosen for the subject of +a tragedy by Edmund Smith, and wrought into a tragedy by +Rowe. The dedication of it to the Countess of Salisbury +does not appear in his own edition. He hopes it may be some +excuse for his presumption that the story could not have been +read without thoughts of the Countess of Salisbury, though it had +been dedicated to another. “To behold,” he +proceeds, “a person <i>only</i> virtuous, stirs in us a +prudent regret; to behold a person <i>only</i> amiable to the +sight, warms us with a religious indignation; but to turn our +eyes to a Countess of Salisbury, gives us pleasure and +improvement; it works a sort of miracle, occasions the bias of +our nature to fall off from sin, and makes our very senses and +affections converts to our religion, and promoters of our +duty.” His flattery was as ready for the other sex as +for ours, and was at least as well adapted.</p> +<p>August the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his friend Jervas, that +he is just arrived from Oxford; that every one is much concerned +for the queen’s death, but that no panegyrics are ready yet +for the king. Nothing like friendship has yet taken place +between Pope and Young, for, soon after the event which Pope +mentions, Young published a poem on the queen’s death, and +his Majesty’s accession to the throne. It is +inscribed to Addison, then secretary to the Lords Justices. +Whatever were the obligations which he had formerly received from +Anne, the poet appears to aim at something of the same sort from +George. Of the poem the intention seems to have been, to +show that he had the same extravagant strain of praise for a king +as for a queen. To discover, at the very onset of a +foreigner’s reign, that the gods bless his new subjects in +such a king is something more than praise. Neither was this +deemed one of his excusable pieces. We do not find it in +his works.</p> +<p>Young’s father had been well acquainted with Lady Anne +Wharton, the first wife of Thomas Wharton, Esq., afterwards +Marquis of Wharton; a lady celebrated for her poetical talents by +Burnet and by Waller.</p> +<p>To the Dean of Sarum’s visitation sermon, already +mentioned, were added some verses “by that excellent +poetess, Mrs. Anne Wharton,” upon its being translated into +English, at the instance of Waller by Atwood. Wharton, +after he became ennobled, did not drop the son of his old +friend. In him, during the short time he lived, Young found +a patron, and in his dissolute descendant a friend and a +companion. The marquis died in April, 1715. In the +beginning of the next year, the young marquis set out upon his +travels, from which he returned in about a twelvemonth. The +beginning of 1717 carried him to Ireland: where, says the +Biographia, “on the score of his extraordinary qualities, +he had the honour done him of being admitted, though under age, +to take his seat in the House of Lords.” With this +unhappy character it is not unlikely that Young went to +Ireland. From his letter to Richardson on “Original +Composition,” it is clear he was, at some period of his +life, in that country. “I remember,” says he, +in that letter, speaking of Swift, “as I and others were +taking with him an evening walk, about a mile out of Dublin, he +stopped short; we passed on; but perceiving he did not follow us, +I went back, and found him fixed as a statue, and earnestly +gazing upward at a noble elm, which in its uppermost branches was +much withered and decayed. Pointing at it, he said, +‘I shall be like that tree, I shall die at +top.’” Is it not probable, that this visit to +Ireland was paid when he had an opportunity of going thither with +his avowed friend and patron?</p> +<p>From “The Englishman” it appears that a tragedy by +Young was in the theatre so early as 1713. Yet +<i>Busiris</i> was not brought upon Drury Lane stage till +1719. It was inscribed to the Duke of Newcastle, +“because the late instances he had received of his +grace’s undeserved and uncommon favour, in an affair of +some consequence, foreign to the theatre, had taken from him the +privilege of choosing a patron.” The Dedication he +afterwards suppressed.</p> +<p><i>Busiris</i> was followed in the year 1721 by <i>The +Revenge</i>. He dedicated this famous tragedy to the Duke +of Wharton. “Your Grace,” says the Dedication, +“has been pleased to make yourself accessory to the +following scenes, not only by suggesting the most beautiful +incident in them, but by making all possible provision for the +success of the whole.” That his grace should have +suggested the incident to which he alludes, whatever that +incident might have been, is not unlikely. The last mental +exertion of the superannuated young man, in his quarters at +Lerida, in Spain, was some scenes of a tragedy on the story of +Mary Queen of Scots.</p> +<p>Dryden dedicated “Marriage a la Mode” to +Wharton’s infamous relation Rochester, whom he acknowledges +not only as the defender of his poetry, but as the promoter of +his fortune. Young concludes his address to Wharton +thus—“My present fortune is his bounty, and my future +his care; which I will venture to say will be always remembered +to his honour, since he, I know, intended his generosity as an +encouragement to merit, though through his very pardonable +partiality to one who bears him so sincere a duty and respect, I +happen to receive the benefit of it.” That he ever +had such a patron as Wharton, Young took all the pains in his +power to conceal from the world, by excluding this dedication +from his works. He should have remembered that he at the +same time concealed his obligation to Wharton for <i>the most +beautiful incident</i> in what is surely not his least beautiful +composition. The passage just quoted is, in a poem +afterwards addressed to Walpole, literally copied:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Be this thy partial smile from censure +free!<br /> +’Twas meant for merit, though it fell on me.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>While Young, who, in his “Love of Fame,” complains +grievously how often “dedications wash an Æthiop +white,” was painting an amiable Duke of Wharton in +perishable prose, Pope was, perhaps, beginning to describe the +“scorn and wonder of his days” in lasting +verse. To the patronage of such a character, had Young +studied men as much as Pope, he would have known how little to +have trusted. Young, however, was certainly indebted to it +for something material; and the duke’s regard for Young, +added to his lust of praise, procured to All Souls College a +donation, which was not forgotten by the poet when he dedicated +<i>The Revenge</i>.</p> +<p>It will surprise you to see me cite second Atkins, Case 136, +Stiles <i>versus</i> the Attorney-General, March 14, 1740, as +authority for the life of a poet. But biographers do not +always find such certain guides as the oaths of the persons whom +they record. Chancellor Hardwicke was to determine whether +two annuities, granted by the Duke of Wharton to Young, were for +legal considerations. One was dated the 24th March, 1719, +and accounted for his grace’s bounty in a style princely +and commendable, if not legal—“considering that the +public good is advanced by the encouragement of learning and the +polite arts, and being pleased therein with the attempts of Dr. +Young, in consideration thereof, and of the love I bear him, +&c.” The other was dated the 10th of July, +1722.</p> +<p>Young, on his examination, swore that he quitted the Exeter +family, and refused an annuity of £100 which had been +offered him for life if he would continue tutor to Lord Burleigh, +upon the pressing solicitations of the Duke of Wharton, and his +grace’s assurances of providing for him in a much more +ample manner. It also appeared that the duke had given him +a bond for £600 dated the 15th of March, 1721, in +consideration of his taking several journeys, and being at great +expenses, in order to be chosen member of the House of Commons, +at the duke’s desire, and in consideration of his not +taking two livings of £200 and £400 in the gift of +All Souls College, on his grace’s promises of serving and +advancing him in the world.</p> +<p>Of his adventures in the Exeter family I am unable to give any +account. The attempt to get into Parliament was at +Cirencester, where Young stood a contested election. His +grace discovered in him talents for oratory as well as for +poetry. Nor was this judgment wrong. Young, after he +took orders, became a very popular preacher, and was much +followed for the grace and animation of his delivery. By +his oratorical talents he was once in his life, according to the +Biographia, deserted. As he was preaching in his turn at +St. James’s, he plainly perceived it was out of his power +to command the attention of his audience. This so affected +the feelings of the preacher, that he sat back in the pulpit, and +burst into tears. But we must pursue his poetical life.</p> +<p>In 1719 he lamented the death of Addison, in a letter +addressed to their common friend Tickell. For the secret +history of the following lines, if they contain any, it is now +vain to seek:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>In joy once joined</i>, in sorrow, now, +for years—<br /> +Partner in grief, and brother of my tears,<br /> +Tickell, accept this verse, thy mournful due.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>From your account of Tickell it appears that he and Young used +to “communicate to each other whatever verses they wrote, +even to the least things.”</p> +<p>In 1719 appeared a “Paraphrase on Part of the Book of +Job.” Parker, to whom it is dedicated, had not long, +by means of the seals, been qualified for a patron. Of this +work the author’s opinion may be known from his letter to +Curll: “You seem, in the Collection you propose, to have +omitted what I think may claim the first place in it; I mean +‘a Translation from part of Job,’ printed by Mr. +Tonson.” The Dedication, which was only suffered to +appear in Mr. Tonson’s edition, while it speaks with +satisfaction of his present retirement, seems to make an unusual +struggle to escape from retirement. But every one who sings +in the dark does not sing from joy. It is addressed, in no +common strain of flattery, to a chancellor, of whom he clearly +appears to have had no kind of knowledge.</p> +<p>Of his Satires it would not have been possible to fix the +dates without the assistance of first editions, which, as you had +occasion to observe in your account of Dryden, are with +difficulty found. We must then have referred to the poems, +to discover when they were written. For these internal +notes of time we should not have referred in vain. The +first Satire laments, that “Guilt’s chief foe in +Addison is fled.” The second, addressing himself, +asks:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Is thy ambition sweating for a rhyme,<br /> +Thou unambitious fool, at this late time?<br /> +A fool at <i>forty</i> is a fool indeed.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The Satires were originally published separately in folio, +under the title of “The Universal Passion.” +These passages fix the appearance of the first to about 1725, the +time at which it came out. As Young seldom suffered his pen +to dry after he had once dipped it in poetry, we may conclude +that he began his Satires soon after he had written the +“Paraphrase on Job.” The last Satire was +certainly finished in the beginning of the year 1726. In +December, 1725, the King, in his passage from Helvoetsluys, +escaped with great difficulty from a storm by landing at Rye; and +the conclusion of the Satire turns the escape into a miracle, in +such an encomiastic strain of compliment as poetry too often +seeks to pay to royalty. From the sixth of these poems we +learn,</p> +<blockquote><p>“’Midst empire’s charms, how +Carolina’s heart<br /> +Glowed with the love of virtue and of art.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Since the grateful poet tells us, in the next couplet,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Her favour is diffused to that degree,<br +/> +Excess of goodness! it has dawned on me.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Her Majesty had stood godmother, and given her name, to the +daughter of the lady whom Young married in 1731; and had perhaps +shown some attention to Lady Elizabeth’s future +husband.</p> +<p>The fifth Satire, “On Women,” was not published +till 1727; and the sixth not till 1728.</p> +<p>To these poems, when, in 1728, he gathered them into one +publication, he prefixed a Preface, in which he observes that +“no man can converse much in the world, but at what he +meets with he must either be insensible or grieve, or be angry or +smile. Now to smile at it, and turn it into +ridicule,” he adds, “I think most eligible, as it +hurts ourselves least, and gives vice and folly the greatest +offence. Laughing at the misconduct of the world will, in a +great measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about +it. One passion is more effectually driven out by another +than by reason, whatever some teach.” So wrote, and +so of course thought, the lively and witty satirist at the grave +age of almost fifty, who, many years earlier in life, wrote the +“Last Day.” After all, Swift pronounced of +these Satires, that they should either have been more angry or +more merry.</p> +<p>Is it not somewhat singular that Young preserved, without any +palliation, this Preface, so bluntly decisive in favour of +laughing at the world, in the same collection of his works which +contains the mournful, angry, gloomy “Night +Thoughts!” At the conclusion of the Preface he +applies Plato’s beautiful fable of the “Birth of +Love” to modern poetry, with the addition, “that +Poetry, like Love, is a little subject to blindness, which makes +her mistake her way to preferments and honours; and that she +retains a dutiful admiration of her father’s family; but +divides her favours, and generally lives with her mother’s +relations.” Poetry, it is true, did not lead Young to +preferments or to honours; but was there not something like +blindness in the flattery which he sometimes forced her, and her +sister Prose, to utter? She was always, indeed, taught by +him to entertain a most dutiful admiration of riches; but surely +Young, though nearly related to Poetry, had no connection with +her whom Plato makes the mother of Love. That he could not +well complain of being related to Poverty appears clearly from +the frequent bounties which his gratitude records, and from the +wealth which he left behind him. By “The Universal +Passion” he acquired no vulgar fortune—more than +three thousand pounds. A considerable sum had already been +swallowed up in the South Sea. For this loss he took the +vengeance of an author. His Muse makes poetical use more +than once of a South Sea Dream.</p> +<p>It is related by Mr. Spence, in his “Manuscript +Anecdotes,” on the authority of Mr. Rawlinson, that Young, +upon the publication of his “Universal Passion,” +received from the Duke of Grafton two thousand pounds; and that, +when one of his friends exclaimed, “Two thousand pounds for +a poem!” he said it was the best bargain he ever made in +his life, for the poem was worth four thousand. This story +may be true; but it seems to have been raised from the two +answers of Lord Burghley and Sir Philip Sidney in Spenser’s +Life.</p> +<p>After inscribing his Satires, not perhaps without the hopes of +preferments and honours, to such names as the Duke of Dorset, Mr. +Dodington, Mr. Spencer Compton, Lady Elizabeth Germain, and Sir +Robert Walpole, he returns to plain panegyric. In 1726 he +addressed a poem to Sir Robert Walpole, of which the title +sufficiently explains the intention. If Young must be +acknowledged a ready celebrator, he did not endeavour, or did not +choose, to be a lasting one. “The Instalment” +is among the pieces he did not admit into the number of his +<i>excusable writings</i>. Yet it contains a couplet which +pretends to pant after the power of bestowing +immortality:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Oh! how I long, enkindled by the theme,<br +/> +In deep eternity to launch thy name!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The bounty of the former reign seems to have been continued, +possibly increased, in this. Whatever it might have been, +the poet thought he deserved it; for he was not ashamed to +acknowledge what, without his acknowledgment, would now perhaps +never have been known:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“My breast, O Walpole, glows with grateful +fire.<br /> +The streams of royal bounty, turned by thee,<br /> +Refresh the dry remains of poesy.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If the purity of modern patriotism will term Young a +pensioner, it must at least be confessed he was a grateful +one.</p> +<p>The reign of the new monarch was ushered in by Young with +“Ocean, an Ode.” The hint of it was taken from +the royal speech, which recommended the increase and the +encouragement of the seamen; that they might be “invited, +rather than compelled by force and violence, to enter into the +service of their country”—a plan which humanity must +lament that policy has not even yet been able, or willing, to +carry into execution. Prefixed to the original publication +were an “Ode to the King, Pater Patriæ,” and an +“Essay on Lyric Poetry.” It is but justice to +confess that he preserved neither of them; and that the Ode +itself, which in the first edition, and in the last, consists of +seventy-three stanzas, in the author’s own edition is +reduced to forty-nine. Among the omitted passages is a +“Wish,” that concluded the poem, which few would have +suspected Young of forming; and of which few, after having formed +it, would confess something like their shame by +suppression. It stood originally so high in the +author’s opinion, that he entitled the poem, “Ocean, +an Ode. Concluding with a Wish.” This wish +consists of thirteen stanzas. The first runs +thus:—</p> +<blockquote><p> “O may I +<i>steal</i><br /> + Along the <i>vale</i><br /> +Of humble life, secure from foes!<br /> + My friend sincere,<br /> + My judgment clear,<br /> +And gentle business my repose!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The three last stanzas are not more remarkable for just +rhymes; but, altogether, they will make rather a curious page in +the life of Young:—</p> + +<blockquote><p> “Prophetic +schemes,<br /> + And golden dreams,<br /> +May I, unsanguine, cast away!<br /> + Have what I <i>have</i>,<br /> + And live, not <i>leave</i>,<br /> +Enamoured of the present day!</p> +<p> “My hours my own!<br +/> + My faults unknown!<br /> +My chief revenue in content!<br /> + Then leave one <i>beam</i><br /> + Of honest <i>fame</i>!<br /> +And scorn the laboured monument!</p> +<p> “Unhurt my urn<br /> + Till that great <span +class="GutSmall">TURN</span><br /> +When mighty Nature’s self shall die,<br /> + Time cease to glide,<br /> + With human pride,<br /> +Sunk in the ocean of eternity!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is whimsical that he, who was soon to bid adieu to rhyme, +should fix upon a measure in which rhyme abounds even to +satiety. Of this he said, in his “Essay on Lyric +Poetry,” prefixed to the poem—“For the more +<i>harmony</i> likewise I chose the frequent return of rhyme, +which laid me under great difficulties. But difficulties +overcome give grace and pleasure. Nor can I account for the +<i>pleasure of rhyme in general</i> (of which the moderns are too +fond) but from this truth.” Yet the moderns surely +deserve not much censure for their fondness of what, by their own +confession, affords pleasure, and abounds in harmony. The +next paragraph in his Essay did not occur to him when he talked +of “that great turn” in the stanza just quoted. +“But then the writer must take care that the difficulty is +overcome. That is, he must make rhyme consistent with as +perfect sense and expression as could be expected if he was +perfectly free from that shackle.” Another part of +this Essay will convict the following stanza of what every reader +will discover in it “involuntary burlesque:—</p> +<blockquote><p> “The +northern blast,<br /> + The shattered mast,<br /> +The syrt, the whirlpool, and the rock,<br /> + The breaking spout,<br /> + The <i>stars gone out</i>,<br /> +The boiling strait, the monster’s shock.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But would the English poets fill quite so many volumes if all +their productions were to be tried, like this, by an elaborate +essay on each particular species of poetry of which they exhibit +specimens?</p> +<p>If Young be not a lyric poet, he is at least a critic in that +sort of poetry; and, if his lyric poetry can be proved bad, it +was first proved so by his own criticism. This surely is +candid.</p> +<p>Milbourne was styled by Pope “the fairest of +critics,” only because he exhibited his own version of +“Virgil” to be compared with Dryden’s, which he +condemned, and with which every reader had it not otherwise in +his power to compare it. Young was surely not the most +unfair of poets for prefixing to a lyric composition an +“Essay on Lyric Poetry,” so just and impartial as to +condemn himself.</p> +<p>We shall soon come to a work, before which we find indeed no +critical essay, but which disdains to shrink from the touchstone +of the severest critic; and which certainly, as I remember to +have heard you say, if it contains some of the worst, contains +also some of the best things in the language.</p> +<p>Soon after the appearance of “Ocean,” when he was +almost fifty, Young entered into orders. In April, 1728, +not long after he had put on the gown, he was appointed chaplain +to George II.</p> +<p>The tragedy of <i>The Brothers</i>, which was already in +rehearsal, he immediately withdrew from the stage. The +managers resigned it with some reluctance to the delicacy of the +new clergyman. The Epilogue to <i>The Brothers</i>, the +only appendages to any of his three plays which he added himself, +is, I believe, the only one of the kind. He calls it an +historical Epilogue. Finding that “Guilt’s +dreadful close his narrow scene denied,” he, in a manner, +continues the tragedy in the Epilogue, and relates how Rome +revenged the shade of Demetrius, and punished Perseus “for +this night’s deed.”</p> +<p>Of Young’s taking orders something is told by the +biographer of Pope, which places the easiness and simplicity of +the poet in a singular light. When he determined on the +Church he did not address himself to Sherlock, to Atterbury, or +to Hare, for the best instructions in theology, but to Pope, who, +in a youthful frolic, advised the diligent perusal of Thomas +Aquinas. With this treasure Young retired from interruption +to an obscure place in the suburbs. His poetical guide to +godliness hearing nothing of him during half a year, and +apprehending he might have carried the jest too far, sought after +him, and found him just in time to prevent what Ruffhead calls +“an irretrievable derangement.”</p> +<p>That attachment to his favourite study, which made him think a +poet the surest guide to his new profession left him little doubt +whether poetry was the surest path to its honours and +preferments. Not long indeed after he took orders he +published in prose (1728) “A True Estimate of Human +Life,” dedicated, notwithstanding the Latin quotations with +which it abounds, to the Queen; and a sermon preached before the +House of Commons, 1729, on the martyrdom of King Charles, +entitled, “An Apology for Princes; or, the Reverence due to +Government.” But the “Second Course,” the +counterpart of his “Estimate,” without which it +cannot be called “A True Estimate,” though in 1728 it +was announced as “soon to be published,” never +appeared, and his old friends the Muses were not forgotten. +In 1730 he relapsed to poetry, and sent into the world +“Imperium Pelagi: a Naval Lyric, written in imitation of +Pindar’s Spirit, occasioned by his Majesty’s return +from Hanover, September, 1729, and the succeeding +peace.” It is inscribed to the Duke of Chandos. +In the Preface we are told that the Ode is the most spirited kind +of poetry, and that the Pindaric is the most spirited kind of +Ode. “This I speak,” he adds, “with +sufficient candour at my own very great peril. But truth +has an eternal title to our confession, though we are sure to +suffer by it.” Behold, again, the fairest of +poets. Young’s “Imperium Pelagi” was +ridiculed in Fielding’s “Tom Thumb;” but let us +not forget that it was one of his pieces which the author of the +“Night Thoughts” deliberately refused to own. +Not long after this Pindaric attempt he published two Epistles to +Pope, “Concerning the Authors of the Age,” +1730. Of these poems one occasion seems to have been an +apprehension lest, from the liveliness of his satires, he should +not be deemed sufficiently serious for promotion in the +Church.</p> +<p>In July, 1730, he was presented by his College to the Rectory +of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. In May, 1731, he married Lady +Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, and widow of +Colonel Lee. His connection with this lady arose from his +father’s acquaintance, already mentioned, with Lady Anne +Wharton, who was co-heiress of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley in +Oxfordshire. Poetry had lately been taught by Addison to +aspire to the arms of nobility, though not with extraordinary +happiness. We may naturally conclude that Young now gave +himself up in some measure to the comforts of his new connection, +and to the expectations of that preferment which he thought due +to his poetical talents, or, at least, to the manner in which +they had so frequently been exerted.</p> +<p>The next production of his muse was “The +Sea-piece,” in two odes.</p> +<p>Young enjoys the credit of what is called an “Extempore +Epigram on Voltaire,” who, when he was in England, +ridiculed, in the company of the jealous English poet, +Milton’s allegory of “Sin and Death:”</p> +<blockquote><p>“You are so witty, profligate and thin,<br +/> +At once we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>From the following passage in the poetical dedication of his +“Sea-piece” to Voltaire it seems that this +extemporaneous reproof, if it must be extemporaneous (for what +few will now affirm Voltaire to have deserved any reproof), was +something longer than a distich, and something more gentle than +the distich just quoted.</p> +<blockquote><p>“No stranger, sir, though born in foreign +climes.<br /> + On <i>Dorset</i> Downs, when Milton’s page,<br +/> + With Sin and Death provoked thy rage,<br /> +Thy rage provoked who soothed with <i>gentle</i> +rhymes?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>By “Dorset Downs” he probably meant Mr. +Dodington’s seat. In Pitt’s Poems is “An +Epistle to Dr. Edward Young, at Eastbury, in Dorsetshire, on the +Review at Sarum, 1722.”</p> +<blockquote><p>“While with your Dodington retired you +sit,<br /> +Charmed with his flowing Burgundy and wit,” etc.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thomson, in his Autumn, addressing Mr. Dodington calls his +seat the seat of the Muses,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Where, in the secret bower and winding +walk,<br /> +For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The praises Thomson bestows but a few lines before on Philips, +the second</p> +<blockquote><p>“Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered +verse,<br /> +With British freedom sing the British song,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>added to Thomson’s example and success, might perhaps +induce Young, as we shall see presently, to write his great work +without rhyme.</p> +<p>In 1734 he published “The Foreign Address, or the best +Argument for Peace, occasioned by the British Fleet and the +Posture of Affairs. Written in the Character of a +Sailor.” It is not to be found in the author’s +four volumes. He now appears to have given up all hopes of +overtaking Pindar, and perhaps at last resolved to turn his +ambition to some original species of poetry. This poem +concludes with a formal farewell to Ode, which few of +Young’s readers will regret:</p> +<blockquote><p>“My shell, which Clio gave, which <i>Kings +applaud</i>,<br /> +Which Europe’s bleeding genius called abroad,<br /> +Adieu!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In a species of poetry altogether his own he next tried his +skill, and succeeded.</p> +<p>Of his wife he was deprived in 1741. Lady Elizabeth had +lost, after her marriage with Young, an amiable daughter, by her +former husband, just after she was married to Mr. Temple, son of +Lord Palmerston. Mr. Temple did not long remain after his +wife, though he was married a second time to a daughter of Sir +John Barnard’s, whose son is the present peer. Mr. +and Mrs. Temple have generally been considered as Philander and +Narcissa. From the great friendship which constantly +subsisted between Mr. Temple and Young, as well as from other +circumstances, it is probable that the poet had both him and Mrs. +Temple in view for these characters; though, at the same time, +some passages respecting Philander do not appear to suit either +Mr. Temple or any other person with whom Young was known to be +connected or acquainted, while all the circumstances relating to +Narcissa have been constantly found applicable to Young’s +daughter-in-law. At what short intervals the poet tells us +he was wounded by the deaths of the three persons particularly +lamented, none that has read the “Night Thoughts” +(and who has not read them?) needs to be informed.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?<br +/> +Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain;<br /> +And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yet how is it possible that Mr. and Mrs. Temple and Lady +Elizabeth Young could be these three victims, over whom Young has +hitherto been pitied for having to pour the “Midnight +Sorrows” of his religious poetry? Mrs. Temple died in +1736; Mr. Temple four years afterwards, in 1740; and the +poet’s wife seven months after Mr. Temple, in 1741. +How could the insatiate archer thrice slay his peace, in these +three persons, “ere thrice the moon had filled her +horn.” But in the short preface to “The +Complaint” he seriously tells us, “that the occasion +of this poem was real, not fictitious, and that the facts +mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the +thought of the writer.” It is probable, therefore, +that in these three contradictory lines the poet complains more +than the father-in-law, the friend, or the widower. +Whatever names belong to these facts, or if the names be those +generally supposed, whatever heightening a poet’s sorrow +may have given the facts; to the sorrow Young felt from them +religion and morality are indebted for the “Night +Thoughts.” There is a pleasure sure in sadness which +mourners only know! Of these poems the two or three first +have been perused perhaps more eagerly and more frequently than +the rest. When he got as far as the fourth or fifth his +original motive for taking up the pen was answered; his grief was +naturally either diminished or exhausted. We still find the +same pious poet, but we hear less of Philander and Narcissa, and +less of the mourner whom he loved to pity.</p> +<p>Mrs. Temple died of a consumption at Lyons, on her way to +Nice, the year after her marriage; that is, when poetry relates +the fact, “in her bridal hour.” It is more than +poetically true that Young accompanied her to the Continent:</p> +<blockquote><p>“I flew, I snatched her from the rigid +North,<br /> +And bore her nearer to the sun.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But in vain. Her funeral was attended with the +difficulties painted in such animated colours in “Night the +Third.” After her death the remainder of the party +passed the ensuing winter at Nice. The poet seems perhaps +in these compositions to dwell with more melancholy on the death +of Philander and Narcissa than of his wife. But it is only +for this reason. He who runs and reads may remember that in +the “Night Thoughts” Philander and Narcissa are often +mentioned and often lamented. To recollect lamentations +over the author’s wife the memory must have been charged +with distinct passages. This lady brought him one child, +Frederick, now living, to whom the Prince of Wales was +godfather.</p> +<p>That domestic grief is, in the first instance, to be thanked +for these ornaments to our language it is impossible to +deny. Nor would it be common hardiness to contend that +worldly discontent had no hand in these joint productions of +poetry and piety. Yet am I by no means sure that, at any +rate, we should not have had something of the same colour from +Young’s pencil, notwithstanding the liveliness of his +satires. In so long a life causes for discontent and +occasions for grief must have occurred. It is not clear to +me that his Muse was not sitting upon the watch for the first +which happened. “Night Thoughts” were not +uncommon to her, even when first she visited the poet, and at a +time when he himself was remarkable neither for gravity nor +gloominess. In his “Last Day,” almost his +earliest poem, he calls her “The Melancholy +Maid,”</p> + +<blockquote><p> “whom +dismal scenes delight,<br /> +Frequent at tombs and in the realms of Night.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the prayer which concludes the second book of the same +poem, he says:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Oh! permit the gloom of solemn night<br /> +To sacred thought may forcibly invite.<br /> +Oh! how divine to tread the milky way,<br /> +To the bright palace of Eternal Day!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When Young was writing a tragedy, Grafton is said by Spence to +have sent him a human skull, with a candle in it, as a lamp, and +the poet is reported to have used it. What he calls +“The <i>true</i> Estimate of Human Life,” which has +already been mentioned, exhibits only the wrong side of the +tapestry, and being asked why he did not show the right, he is +said to have replied that he could not. By others it has +been told me that this was finished, but that, before there +existed any copy, it was torn in pieces by a lady’s +monkey. Still, is it altogether fair to dress up the poet +for the man, and to bring the gloominess of the “Night +Thoughts” to prove the gloominess of Young, and to show +that his genius, like the genius of Swift, was in some measure +the sullen inspiration of discontent? From them who answer +in the affirmative it should not be concealed that, though +“Invisibilia non decipiunt” appeared upon a deception +in Young’s grounds, and “Ambulantes in horto +audierunt vocem Dei” on a building in his garden, his +parish was indebted to the good humour of the author of the +“Night Thoughts” for an assembly and a bowling +green.</p> +<p>Whether you think with me, I know not; but the famous +“De mortuis nil nisi bonum” always appeared to me to +savour more of female weakness than of manly reason. He +that has too much feeling to speak ill of the dead, who, if they +cannot defend themselves, are at least ignorant of his abuse, +will not hesitate by the most wanton calumny to destroy the +quiet, the reputation, the fortune of the living. Yet +censure is not heard beneath the tomb, any more than +praise. “De mortuis nil nisi verum—De vivis nil +nisi bonum” would approach much nearer to good sense. +After all, the few handfuls of remaining dust which once composed +the body of the author of the “Night Thoughts” feel +not much concern whether Young pass now for a man of sorrow or +for “a fellow of infinite jest.” To this favour +must come the whole family of Yorick. His immortal part, +wherever that now dwells, is still less solicitous on this +head. But to a son of worth and sensibility it is of some +little consequence whether contemporaries believe, and posterity +be taught to believe, that his debauched and reprobate life cast +a Stygian gloom over the evening of his father’s days, +saved him the trouble of feigning a character completely +detestable, and succeeded at last in bringing his “grey +hairs with sorrow to the grave.” The humanity of the +world, little satisfied with inventing perhaps a melancholy +disposition for the father, proceeds next to invent an argument +in support of their invention, and chooses that Lorenzo should be +Young’s own son. “The Biographia,” and +every account of Young, pretty roundly assert this to be the +fact; of the absolute impossibility of which, the +“Biographia” itself, in particular dates, contains +undeniable evidence. Readers I know there are of a strange +turn of mind, who will hereafter peruse the “Night +Thoughts” with less satisfaction; who will wish they had +still been deceived; who will quarrel with me for discovering +that no such character as their Lorenzo ever yet disgraced human +nature or broke a father’s heart. Yet would these +admirers of the sublime and terrible be offended should you set +them down for cruel and for savage? Of this report, inhuman +to the surviving son, if it be true, in proportion as the +character of Lorenzo is diabolical, where are we to find the +proof? Perhaps it is clear from the poems.</p> +<p>From the first line to the last of the “Night +Thoughts” no one expression can be discovered which betrays +anything like the father. In the “Second Night” +I find an expression which betrays something else—that +Lorenzo was his friend; one, it is possible, of his former +companions; one of the Duke of Wharton’s set. The +poet styles him “gay friend;” an appellation not very +natural from a pious incensed father to such a being as he paints +Lorenzo, and that being his son. But let us see how he has +sketched this dreadful portrait, from the sight of some of whose +features the artist himself must have turned away with +horror. A subject more shocking, if his only child really +sat to him, than the crucifixion of Michael Angelo; upon the +horrid story told of which Young composed a short poem of +fourteen lines in the early part of his life, which he did not +think deserved to be republished. In the “First +Night” the address to the poet’s supposed son +is:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Lorenzo, Fortune makes her court to +thee.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the “Fifth Night:”—</p> +<blockquote><p>“And burns Lorenzo still for the sublime<br +/> +Of life? to hang his airy nest on high?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Is this a picture of the son of the Rector of Welwyn? +“Eighth Night:”—</p> +<blockquote><p>“In foreign realms (for thou hast travelled +far)”—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>which even now does not apply to his son. In +“Night Five:”—</p> +<blockquote><p>“So wept Lorenzo fair Clarissa’s +fate,<br /> +Who gave that angel-boy on whom he dotes,<br /> +And died to give him, orphaned in his birth!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>At the beginning of the “Fifth Night” we +find:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Lorenzo, to recriminate is just,<br /> +I grant the man is vain who writes for praise.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But, to cut short all inquiry; if any one of these passages, +if any passage in the poems, be applicable, my friend shall pass +for Lorenzo. The son of the author of the “Night +Thoughts” was not old enough, when they were written, to +recriminate or to be a father. The “Night +Thoughts” were begun immediately after the mournful event +of 1741. The first “Nights” appear, in the +books of the Company of Stationers, as the property of Robert +Dodsley, in 1742. The Preface to “Night Seven” +is dated July 7th, 1744. The marriage, in consequence of +which the supposed Lorenzo was born, happened in May, 1731. +Young’s child was not born till June, 1733. In 1741, +this Lorenzo, this finished infidel, this father to whose +education Vice had for some years put the last hand, was only +eight years old. An anecdote of this cruel sort, so open to +contradiction, so impossible to be true, who could +propagate? Thus easily are blasted the reputation of the +living and of the dead. “Who, then, was +Lorenzo?” exclaim the readers I have mentioned. If we +cannot be sure that he was his son, which would have been finely +terrible, was he not his nephew, his cousin? These are +questions which I do not pretend to answer. For the sake of +human nature, I could wish Lorenzo to have been only the creation +of the poet’s fancy: like the Quintus of Anti Lucretius, +“quo nomine,” says Polignac, “quemvis Atheum +intellige.” That this was the case many expressions +in the “Night Thoughts” would seem to prove, did not +a passage in “Night Eight” appear to show that he had +somebody in his eye for the groundwork at least of the +painting. Lovelace or Lorenzo may be feigned characters; +but a writer does not feign a name of which he only gives the +initial letter:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Tell not Calista. She will laugh thee +dead,<br /> +Or send thee to her hermitage with L—.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The “Biographia,” not satisfied with pointing out +the son of Young, in that son’s lifetime, as his +father’s Lorenzo, travels out of its way into the history +of the son, and tells of his having been forbidden his college at +Oxford for misbehaviour. How such anecdotes, were they +true, tend to illustrate the life of Young, it is not easy to +discover. Was the son of the author of the “Night +Thoughts,” indeed, forbidden his college for a time, at one +of our Universities? The author of “Paradise +Lost” is by some supposed to have been disgracefully +ejected from the other. From juvenile follies who is +free? But, whatever the “Biographia” chooses to +relate, the son of Young experienced no dismission from his +college, either lasting or temporary. Yet, were nature to +indulge him with a second youth, and to leave him at the same +time the experience of that which is past, he would probably +spend it differently—who would not?—he would +certainly be the occasion of less uneasiness to his father. +But, from the same experience, he would as certainly, in the same +case, be treated differently by his father.</p> +<p>Young was a poet: poets, with reverence be it spoken, do not +make the best parents. Fancy and imagination seldom deign +to stoop from their heights; always stoop unwillingly to the low +level of common duties. Aloof from vulgar life, they pursue +their rapid flight beyond the ken of mortals, and descend not to +earth but when compelled by necessity. The prose of +ordinary occurrences is beneath the dignity of poets. He +who is connected with the author of the “Night +Thoughts” only by veneration for the Poet and the Christian +may be allowed to observe that Young is one of those concerning +whom, as you remark in your account of Addison, it is proper +rather to say “nothing that is false than all that is +true.” But the son of Young would almost sooner, I +know, pass for a Lorenzo than see himself vindicated, at the +expense of his father’s memory, from follies which, if it +may be thought blameable in a boy to have committed them, it is +surely praiseworthy in a man to lament and certainly not only +unnecessary, but cruel in a biographer to record.</p> +<p>Of the “Night Thoughts,” notwithstanding their +author’s professed retirement, all are inscribed to great +or to growing names. He had not yet weaned himself from +earls and dukes, from the Speakers of the House of Commons, Lords +Commissioners of the Treasury, and Chancellors of the +Exchequer. In “Night Eight” the politician +plainly betrays himself:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Think no post needful that demands a +knave:<br /> +When late our civil helm was shifting hands,<br /> +So P— thought: think better if you can.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yet it must be confessed that at the conclusion of +“Night Nine,” weary perhaps of courting earthly +patrons, he tells his soul—</p> + +<blockquote><p> “Henceforth<br +/> +Thy <i>patron</i> he, whose diadem has dropped<br /> +You gems of Heaven; Eternity thy prize;<br /> +And leave the racers of the world their own.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The “Fourth Night” was addressed by “a +much-indebted Muse” to the Honourable Mr. Yorke, now Lord +Hardwicke, who meant to have laid the Muse under still greater +obligation, by the living of Shenfield, in Essex, if it had +become vacant. The “First Night” concludes with +this passage:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Dark, though not blind, like thee, +Meonides;<br /> +Or, Milton, thee. Ah! could I reach your strain;<br /> +Or his who made Meonides our own!<br /> +Man too he sung. Immortal man I sing.<br /> +Oh had he pressed his theme, pursued the track<br /> +Which opens out of darkness into day!<br /> +Oh, had he mounted on his wing of fire,<br /> +Soared, where I sink, and sung immortal man—<br /> +How had it blest mankind, and rescued me!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To the author of these lines was dedicated, in 1756, the first +volume of an “Essay on the Writings and Genius of +Pope,” which attempted, whether justly or not, to pluck +from Pope his “Wing of Fire,” and to reduce him to a +rank at least one degree lower than the first class of English +poets. If Young accepted and approved the dedication, he +countenanced this attack upon the fame of him whom he invokes as +his Muse.</p> +<p>Part of “paper-sparing” Pope’s Third Book of +the “Odyssey,” deposited in the Museum, is written +upon the back of a letter signed “E. Young,” which is +clearly the handwriting of our Young. The letter, dated +only May 2nd, seems obscure; but there can be little doubt that +the friendship he requests was a literary one, and that he had +the highest literary opinion of Pope. The request was a +prologue, I am told.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“May the 2nd.</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Having been +often from home, I know not if you have done me the favour of +calling on me. But, be that as it will, I much want that +instance of your friendship I mentioned in my last; a friendship +I am very sensible I can receive from no one but yourself. +I should not urge this thing so much but for very particular +reasons; nor can you be at a loss to conceive how a ‘trifle +of this nature’ may be of serious moment to me; and while I +am in hopes of the great advantage of your advice about it, I +shall not be so absurd as to make any further step without +it. I know you are much engaged, and only hope to hear of +you at your entire leisure.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“I am, sir, your most +faithful<br /> +“and obedient servant,<br /> +“E. <span class="smcap">Young</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Nay, even after Pope’s death, he says in “Night +Seven:”—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“Pope, who +could’st make immortals, art thou dead?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Either the “Essay,” then, was dedicated to a +patron who disapproved its doctrine, which I have been told by +the author was not the case; or Young appears, in his old age, to +have bartered for a dedication an opinion entertained of his +friend through all that part of life when he must have been best +able to form opinions. From this account of Young, two or +three short passages, which stand almost together in “Night +Four,” should not be excluded. They afford a picture, +by his own hand, from the study of which my readers may choose to +form their own opinion of the features of his mind and the +complexion of his life.</p> + +<blockquote><p> “Ah +me! the dire effect<br /> +Of loitering here, of death defrauded long;<br /> +Of old so gracious (and let that suffice),<br /> +<i>My very master knows me not</i>.<br /> +I’ve been so long remembered I’m forgot.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>When in his courtiers’ ears I pour my plaint,<br /> +They drink it as the Nectar of the Great;<br /> +And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy,<br /> +Court favour, yet untaken, I <i>besiege</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>If this song lives, Posterity shall know<br /> +One, though in Britain born, with courtiers bred,<br /> +Who thought, even gold might come a day too late;<br /> +Nor on his subtle deathbed planned his scheme<br /> +For future vacancies in Church or State.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Deduct from the writer’s age “twice told the +period spent on stubborn Troy,” and you will still leave +him more than forty when he sate down to the miserable siege of +court-favour. He has before told us—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“A fool at forty +is a fool indeed.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>After all, the siege seems to have been raised only in +consequence of what the general thought his +“deathbed.” By these extraordinary poems, +written after he was sixty, of which I have been led to say so +much, I hope, by the wish of doing justice to the living and the +dead, it was the desire of Young to be principally known. +He entitled the four volumes which he published himself, +“The Works of the Author of the Night +Thoughts.” While it is remembered that from these he +excluded many of his writings, let it not be forgotten that the +rejected pieces contained nothing prejudicial to the cause of +virtue or of religion. Were everything that Young ever +wrote to be published, he would only appear perhaps in a less +respectable light as a poet, and more despicable as a dedicator; +he would not pass for a worse Christian or for a worse man. +This enviable praise is due to Young. Can it be claimed by +every writer? His dedications, after all, he had perhaps no +right to suppress. They all, I believe, speak, not a little +to the credit of his gratitude, of favours received; and I know +not whether the author, who has once solemnly printed an +acknowledgment of a favour, should not always print it. Is +it to the credit or to the discredit of Young, as a poet, that of +his “Night Thoughts” the French are particularly +fond?</p> +<p>Of the “Epitaph on Lord Aubrey Beauclerk,” dated +1740, all I know is, that I find it in the late body of English +poetry, and that I am sorry to find it there. +Notwithstanding the farewell which he seemed to have taken in the +“Night Thoughts” of everything which bore the least +resemblance to ambition, he dipped again in politics. In +1745 he wrote “Reflections on the Public Situation of the +Kingdom, addressed to the Duke of Newcastle;” indignant, as +it appears, to behold</p> +<blockquote><p>“—a pope-bred Princeling crawl +ashore,<br /> +And whistle cut-throats, with those swords that scraped<br /> +Their barren rocks for wretched sustenance,<br /> +To cut his passage to the British throne.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This political poem might be called a “Night +Thought;” indeed, it was originally printed as the +conclusion of the “Night Thoughts,” though he did not +gather it with his other works.</p> +<p>Prefixed to the second edition of Howe’s “Devout +Meditations” is a letter from Young, dated January 19, +1752, addressed to Archibald Macauly, Esq., thanking him for the +book, “which,” he says, “he shall never lay far +out of his reach; for a greater demonstration of a sound head and +a sincere heart he never saw.”</p> +<p>In 1753, when <i>The Brothers</i> had lain by him above thirty +years, it appeared upon the stage. If any part of his +fortune had been acquired by servility of adulation, he now +determined to deduct from it no inconsiderable sum, as a gift to +the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. To this sum +he hoped the profits of <i>The Brothers</i> would amount. +In his calculation he was deceived; but by the bad success of his +play the Society was not a loser. The author made up the +sum he originally intended, which was a thousand pounds, from his +own pocket.</p> +<p>The next performance which he printed was a prose publication, +entitled “The Centaur Not Fabulous, in Six Letters to a +Friend on the Life in Vogue.” The conclusion is dated +November 29, 1754. In the third letter is described the +death-bed of the “gay, young, noble, ingenious, +accomplished, and most wretched Altamont.” His last +words were—“My principles have poisoned my friend, my +extravagance has beggared my boy, my unkindness has murdered my +wife!” Either Altamont and Lorenzo were the twin +production of fancy, or Young was unlucky enough to know two +characters who bore no little resemblance to each other in +perfection of wickedness. Report has been accustomed to +call Altamont Lord Euston.</p> +<p>“The Old Man’s Relapse,” occasioned by an +Epistle to Walpole, if written by Young, which I much doubt, must +have been written very late in life. It has been seen, I am +told, in a Miscellany published thirty years before his +death. In 1758 he exhibited “The Old Man’s +Relapse,” in more than words, by again becoming a +dedicator, and publishing a sermon addressed to the king.</p> +<p>The lively letter in prose, on “Original +Composition,” addressed to Richardson, the author of +“Clarissa,” appeared in 1759. Though he +despairs “of breaking through the frozen obstructions of +age and care’s incumbent cloud into that flow of thought +and brightness of expression which subjects so polite +require,” yet it is more like the production of untamed, +unbridled youth, than of jaded fourscore. Some sevenfold +volumes put him in mind of Ovid’s sevenfold channels of the +Nile at the conflagration:—</p> + +<blockquote><p> “—ostia +septem<br /> +Pulverulenta vocant, septem sine flumine valles.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such leaden labours are like Lycurgus’s iron money, +which was so much less in value than in bulk, that it required +barns for strong boxes, and a yoke of oxen to draw five hundred +pounds. If there is a famine of invention in the land, we +must travel, he says, like Joseph’s brethren, far for food, +we must visit the remote and rich ancients. But an +inventive genius may safely stay at home; that, like the +widow’s cruse, is divinely replenished from within, and +affords us a miraculous delight. He asks why it should seem +altogether impossible that Heaven’s latest editions of the +human mind may be the most correct and fair? And Jonson, he +tells us, was very learned, as Samson was very strong, to his own +hurt. Blind to the nature of tragedy, he pulled down all +antiquity on his head, and buried himself under it. Is this +“care’s incumbent cloud,” or “the frozen +obstructions of age?” In this letter Pope is severely +censured for his “fall from Homer’s numbers, free as +air, lofty and harmonious as the spheres, into childish shackles +and tinkling sounds; for putting Achilles into petticoats a +second time:” but we are told that the dying swan talked +over an epic plan with Young a few weeks before his +decease. Young’s chief inducement to write this +letter was, as he confesses, that he might erect a monumental +marble to the memory of an old friend. He, who employed his +pious pen for almost the last time in thus doing justice to the +exemplary death-bed of Addison, might probably, at the close of +his own life, afford no unuseful lesson for the deaths of +others. In the postscript he writes to Richardson that he +will see in his next how far Addison is an original. But no +other letter appears.</p> +<p>The few lines which stand in the last edition, as “sent +by Lord Melcombe to Dr. Young not long before his +lordship’s death,” were indeed so sent, but were only +an introduction to what was there meant by “The +Muse’s Latest Spark.” The poem is necessary, +whatever may be its merit, since the Preface to it is already +printed. Lord Melcombe called his Tusculum “La +Trappe”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Love thy country, wish it well,<br /> + Not with too intense a care;<br /> +’Tis enough, that, when it fell,<br /> + Thou its ruin didst not share.</p> +<p>Envy’s censure, Flattery’s praise,<br /> + With unmoved indifference view;<br /> +Learn to tread life’s dangerous maze,<br /> + With unerring Virtue’s clue.</p> +<p>Void of strong desire and fear,<br /> + Life’s void ocean trust no more;<br /> +Strive thy little bark to steer<br /> + With the tide, but near the shore.</p> +<p>Thus prepared, thy shortened sail<br /> + Shall, whene’er the winds increase,<br /> +Seizing each propitious gale,<br /> + Waft thee to the Port of Peace.</p> +<p>Keep thy conscience from offence,<br /> + And tempestuous passions free,<br /> +So, when thou art called from hence,<br /> + Easy shall thy passage be;</p> +<p>Easy shall thy passage be,<br /> + Cheerful thy allotted stay,<br /> +Short the account ’twixt God and thee;<br /> + Hope shall meet thee on the way:</p> +<p>Truth shall lead thee to the gate,<br /> + Mercy’s self shall let thee in,<br /> +Where its never-changing state,<br /> + Full perfection, shall begin.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The poem was accompanied by a letter.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“La Trappe, the +27th of October, 1761</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—You seemed +to like the ode I sent you for your amusement; I now send it you +as a present. If you please to accept of it, and are +willing that our friendship should be known when we are gone, you +will be pleased to leave this among those of your own papers that +may possibly see the light by a posthumous publication. God +send us health while we stay, and an easy journey!—My dear +Dr. Young,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“Yours, most cordially,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Melcombe</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In 1762, a short time before his death, Young published +“Resignation.” Notwithstanding the manner in +which it was really forced from him by the world, criticism has +treated it with no common severity. If it shall be thought +not to deserve the highest praise, on the other side of +fourscore, by whom, except by Newton and by Waller, has praise +been merited?</p> +<p>To Mrs. Montagu, the famous champion of Shakespeare, I am +indebted for the history of “Resignation.” +Observing that Mrs. Boscawen, in the midst of her grief for the +loss of the admiral, derived consolation from the perusal of the +“Night Thoughts,” Mrs. Montagu proposed a visit to +the author. From conversing with Young, Mrs. Boscawen +derived still further consolation; and to that visit she and the +world were indebted for this poem. It compliments Mrs. +Montagu in the following lines:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Yet write I must. A lady sues:<br /> + How shameful her request!<br /> +My brain in labour with dull rhyme,<br /> + Hers teeming with the best!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And again—</p> +<blockquote><p>“A friend you have, and I the same,<br /> + Whose prudent, soft address<br /> +Will bring to life those healing thoughts<br /> + Which died in your distress.<br /> +That friend, the spirit of my theme<br /> + Extracting for your ease,<br /> +Will leave to me the dreg, in thoughts<br /> + Too common; such as these.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>By the same lady I was enabled to say, in her own words, that +Young’s unbounded genius appeared to greater advantage in +the companion than even in the author; that the Christian was in +him a character still more inspired, more enraptured, more +sublime, than the poet; and that, in his ordinary +conversation—</p> +<blockquote><p>“—letting down the golden chain from +high,<br /> +He drew his audience upward to the sky.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Notwithstanding Young had said, in his “Conjectures on +Original Composition,” that “blank verse is verse +unfallen, uncursed—verse reclaimed, re-enthroned in the +true language of the gods;” notwithstanding he administered +consolation to his own grief in this immortal language, Mrs. +Boscawen was comforted in rhyme.</p> +<p>While the poet and the Christian were applying this comfort, +Young had himself occasion for comfort, in consequence of the +sudden death of Richardson, who was printing the former part of +the poem. Of Richardson’s death he says—</p> +<blockquote><p>“When heaven would kindly set us free,<br /> + And earth’s enchantment end;<br /> +It takes the most effectual means,<br /> + And robs us of a friend.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To “Resignation” was prefixed an apology for its +appearance, to which more credit is due than to the generality of +such apologies, from Young’s unusual anxiety that no more +productions of his old age should disgrace his former fame. +In his will, dated February, 1760, he desires of his executors, +<i>in a particular manner</i>, that all his manuscript books and +writings, whatever, might be burned, except his book of +accounts. In September, 1764, he added a kind of codicil, +wherein he made it his dying entreaty to his housekeeper, to whom +he left £1,000, “that all his manuscripts might be +destroyed as soon as he was dead, which would greatly oblige her +deceased <i>friend</i>.”</p> +<p>It may teach mankind the uncertainty of wordly friendships to +know that Young, either by surviving those he loved, or by +outliving their affections, could only recollect the names of two +<i>friends</i>, his housekeeper and a hatter, to mention in his +will; and it may serve to repress that testamentary pride, which +too often seeks for sounding names and titles, to be informed +that the author of the “Night Thoughts” did not blush +to leave a legacy to his “friend Henry Stevens, a hatter at +the Temple-gate.” Of these two remaining friends, one +went before Young. But, at eighty-four, +“where,” as he asks in <i>The Centaur</i>, “is +that world into which we were born?” The same +humility which marked a hatter and a housekeeper for the friends +of the author of the “Night Thoughts,” had before +bestowed the same title on his footman, in an epitaph in his +“Churchyard” upon James Baker, dated 1749; which I am +glad to find in the late collection of his works. Young and +his housekeeper were ridiculed, with more ill-nature than wit, in +a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, called “The +Card,” under the names of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby. +In April, 1765, at an age to which few attain, a period was put +to the life of Young. He had performed no duty for three or +four years, but he retained his intellects to the last.</p> +<p>Much is told in the “Biographia,” which I know not +to have been true, of the manner of his burial; of the master and +children of a charity-school, which he founded in his parish, who +neglected to attend their benefactor’s corpse; and a bell +which was not caused to toll as often as upon those occasions +bells usually toll. Had that humanity, which is here +lavished upon things of little consequence either to the living +or to the dead, been shown in its proper place to the living, I +should have had less to say about Lorenzo. They who lament +that these misfortunes happened to Young, forget the praise he +bestows upon Socrates, in the Preface to “Night +Seven,” for resenting his friend’s request about his +funeral. During some part of his life Young was abroad, but +I have not been able to learn any particulars. In his +seventh Satire he says,</p> +<blockquote><p>“When, after battle, I the field have <span +class="GutSmall">SEEN</span><br /> +Spread o’er with ghastly shapes which once were +men.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is known, also, that from this or from some other field he +once wandered into the camp with a classic in his hand, which he +was reading intently; and had some difficulty to prove that he +was only an absent poet, and not a spy.</p> +<p>The curious reader of Young’s life will naturally +inquire to what it was owing, that though he lived almost forty +years after he took orders, which included one whole reign +uncommonly long, and part of another, he was never thought worthy +of the least preferment. The author of the “Night +Thoughts” ended his days upon a living which came to him +from his college without any favour, and to which he probably had +an eye when he determined on the Church. To satisfy +curiosity of this kind is, at this distance of time, far from +easy. The parties themselves know not often, at the +instant, why they are neglected, or why they are preferred. +The neglect of Young is by some ascribed to his having attached +himself to the Prince of Wales, and to his having preached an +offensive sermon at St. James’s. It has been told me +that he had two hundred a year in the late reign, by the +patronage of Walpole; and that, whenever any one reminded the +king of Young, the only answer was, “he has a +pension.” All the light thrown on this inquiry, by +the following letter from Secker, only serves to show at what a +late period of life the author of the “Night +Thoughts” solicited preferment:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“Deanery of St. +Paul’s, July 8, 1758.</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Good Dr. Young</span>,—I have +long wondered that more suitable notice of your great merit hath +not been taken by persons in power. But how to remedy the +omission I see not. No encouragement hath ever been given +me to mention things of this nature to his majesty. And +therefore, in all likelihood, the only consequence of doing it +would be weakening the little influence which else I may possibly +have on some other occasions. Your fortune and your +reputation set you above the need of advancement; and your +sentiments, above that concern for it, on your own account, +which, on that of the public, is sincerely felt by</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“Your loving Brother, <span +class="smcap">Tho. Cant</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>At last, at the age of fourscore, he was appointed, in 1761, +Clerk of the Closet to the Princess Dowager. One obstacle +must have stood not a little in the way of that preferment after +which his whole life seems to have panted. Though he took +orders, he never entirely shook off politics. He was always +the lion of his master Milton, “pawing to get free his +hinder parts.” By this conduct, if he gained some +friends, he made many enemies. Again: Young was a poet; and +again, with reverence be it spoken, poets by profession do not +always make the best clergymen. If the author of the +“Night Thoughts” composed many sermons, he did not +oblige the public with many. Besides, in the latter part of +his life, Young was fond of holding himself out for a man retired +from the world. But he seemed to have forgotten that the +same verse which contains “oblitus meorum,” contains +also “obliviscendus et illis.” The brittle +chain of worldly friendship and patronage is broken as +effectually, when one goes beyond the length of it, as when the +other does. To the vessel which is sailing from the shore, +it only appears that the shore also recedes; in life it is truly +thus. He who retires from the world will find himself, in +reality, deserted as fast, if not faster, by the world. The +public is not to be treated as the coxcomb treats his mistress; +to be threatened with desertion, in order to increase +fondness.</p> +<p>Young seems to have been taken at his word. +Notwithstanding his frequent complaints of being neglected, no +hand was reached out to pull him from that retirement of which he +declared himself enamoured. Alexander assigned no palace +for the residence of Diogenes, who boasted his surly satisfaction +with his tub. Of the domestic manners and petty habits of +the author of the “Night Thoughts,” I hoped to have +given you an account from the best authority; but who shall dare +to say, To-morrow I will be wise or virtuous, or to-morrow I will +do a particular thing? Upon inquiring for his housekeeper, +I learned that she was buried two days before I reached the town +of her abode.</p> +<p>In a letter from Tscharner, a noble foreigner, to Count +Haller, Tscharner says, he has lately spent four days with Young +at Welwyn, where the author tastes all the ease and pleasure +mankind can desire. “Everything about him shows the +man, each individual being placed by rule. All is neat +without art. He is very pleasant in conversation, and +extremely polite.” This, and more, may possibly be +true; but Tscharner’s was a first visit, a visit of +curiosity and admiration, and a visit which the author +expected.</p> +<p>Of Edward Young an anecdote which wanders among readers is not +true, that he was Fielding’s Parson Adams. The +original of that famous painting was William Young, who was a +clergyman. He supported an uncomfortable existence by +translating for the booksellers from Greek, and, if he did not +seem to be his own friend, was at least no man’s +enemy. Yet the facility with which this report has gained +belief in the world argues, were it not sufficiently known that +the author of the “Night Thoughts” bore some +resemblance to Adams. The attention which Young bestowed +upon the perusal of books is not unworthy imitation. When +any passage pleased him he appears to have folded down the +leaf. On these passages he bestowed a second reading. +But the labours of man are too frequently vain. Before he +returned to much of what he had once approved he died. Many +of his books, which I have seen, are by those notes of +approbation so swelled beyond their real bulk, that they will +hardly shut.</p> +<blockquote><p>“What though we wade in wealth, or soar in +fame!<br /> +Earth’s highest station ends in <i>Here he lies</i>!<br /> +And <i>dust to dust</i> concludes her noblest song!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The author of these lines is not without his ‘<i>Hic +jacet</i>.’ By the good sense of his son it contains +none of that praise which no marble can make the bad or the +foolish merit; which, without the direction of stone or a turf, +will find its way, sooner or later, to the deserving.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">M. S.<br /> +Optimi parentis<br /> +<span class="smcap">Edwardi Young</span>, LL.D.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Hujus Ecclesiæ rect. et +Elizabethæ fæm. prænob<br /> +Conjugis ejus amantissimæ<br /> +Pio & gratissimo animo hoc marmor posuit<br /> +F. Y.<br /> +Filius superstes.</p> +<p>Is it not strange that the author of the “Night +Thoughts” has inscribed no monument to the memory of his +lamented wife? Yet what marble will endure as long as the +poems?</p> +<p>Such, my good friend, is the account which I have been able to +collect of the great Young. That it may be long before +anything like what I have just transcribed be necessary for you, +is the sincere wish of,</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Dear Sir, your greatly obliged +Friend,</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Herbert +Croft</span>, Jun.</p> +<p>Lincoln’s Inn, Sept., 1780.</p> +<p>P.S.—This account of Young was seen by you in +manuscript, you know, sir, and, though I could not prevail on you +to make any alteration, you insisted on striking out one passage, +because it said that if I did not wish you to live long for your +sake, I did for the sake of myself and of the world. But +this postscript you will not see before the printing of it, and I +will say here, in spite of you, how I feel myself honoured and +bettered by your friendship, and that if I do credit to the +Church, after which I always longed, and for which I am now going +to give in exchange the bar, though not at so late a period of +life as Young took orders, it will be owing, in no small measure, +to my having had the happiness of calling the author of +“The Rambler” my friend.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">H. C.</p> +<p>Oxford, Oct., 1782.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of Young’s Poems it is difficult to give any general +character, for he has no uniformity of manner; one of his pieces +has no great resemblance to another. He began to write +early and continued long, and at different times had different +modes of poetical excellence in view. His numbers are +sometimes smooth and sometimes rugged; his style is sometimes +concatenated and sometimes abrupt, sometimes diffusive and +sometimes concise. His plan seems to have started in his +mind at the present moment, and his thoughts appear the effect of +chance, sometimes adverse and sometimes lucky, with very little +operation of judgment. He was not one of those writers whom +experience improves, and who, observing their own faults, become +gradually correct. His poem on the “Last Day,” +his first great performance, has an equability and propriety, +which he afterwards either never endeavoured or never +attained. Many paragraphs are noble, and few are mean, yet +the whole is languid; the plan is too much extended, and a +succession of images divides and weakens the general conception, +but the great reason why the reader is disappointed is that the +thought of the <span class="smcap">Last Day</span> makes every +man more than poetical by spreading over his mind a general +obscurity of sacred horror, that oppresses distinction and +disdains expression. His story of “Jane Grey” +was never popular. It is written with elegance enough, but +Jane is too heroic to be pitied.</p> +<p>“The Universal Passion” is indeed a very great +performance. It is said to be a series of epigrams, but, if +it be, it is what the author intended; his endeavour was at the +production of striking distichs and pointed sentences, and his +distichs have the weight of solid sentiments, and his points the +sharpness of resistless truth. His characters are often +selected with discernment and drawn with nicety; his +illustrations are often happy, and his reflections often just. +His species of satire is between those of Horace and Juvenal, and +he has the gaiety of Horace without his laxity of numbers, and +the morality of Juvenal with greater variation of images. +He plays, indeed, only on the surface of life; he never +penetrates the recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole +power of his poetry is exhausted by a single perusal; his +conceits please only when they surprise. To translate he +never condescended, unless his “Paraphrase on Job” +may be considered as a version, in which he has not, I think, +been unsuccessful; he indeed favoured himself by choosing those +parts which most easily admit the ornaments of English +poetry. He had least success in his lyric attempts, in +which he seems to have been under some malignant influence; he is +always labouring to be great, and at last is only turgid.</p> +<p>In his “Night Thoughts” he has exhibited a very +wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections +and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the +fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every +odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse +could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage. The +wild diffusion of the sentiments and the digressive sallies of +imagination would have been compressed and restrained by +confinement to rhyme. The excellence of this work is not +exactness but copiousness; particular lines are not to be +regarded; the power is in the whole, and in the whole there is a +magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the +magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity.</p> +<p>His last poem was the “Resignation,” in which he +made, as he was accustomed, an experiment of a new mode of +writing, and succeeded better than in his “Ocean” or +his “Merchant.” It was very falsely represented +as a proof of decaying faculties. There is Young in every +stanza, such as he often was in the highest vigour. His +tragedies, not making part of the collection, I had forgotten, +till Mr. Stevens recalled them to my thoughts, by remarking, that +he seemed to have one favourite catastrophe, as his three plays +all concluded with lavish suicide, a method by which, as Dryden +remarked, a poet easily rids his scene of persons whom he wants +not to keep alive. In <i>Busiris</i> there are the greatest +ebullitions of imagination, but the pride of <i>Busiris</i> is +such as no other man can have, and the whole is too remote from +known life to raise either grief, terror, or indignation. +The <i>Revenge</i> approaches much nearer to human practices and +manners, and therefore keeps possession of the stage; the first +design seems suggested by <i>Othello</i>, but the reflections, +the incidents, and the diction, are original. The moral +observations are so introduced and so expressed as to have all +the novelty that can be required. Of <i>The Brothers</i> I +may be allowed to say nothing, since nothing was ever said of it +by the public. It must be allowed of Young’s poetry +that it abounds in thought, but without much accuracy or +selection. When he lays hold of an illustration he pursues +it beyond expectation, sometimes happily, as in his parallel of +<i>Quicksilver</i> with <i>Pleasure</i>, which I have heard +repeated with approbation by a lady, of whose praise he would +have been justly proud, and which is very ingenious, very subtle, +and almost exact; but sometimes he is less lucky, as when, in his +“Night Thoughts,” having it dropped into his mind +that the orbs, floating in space, might be called the +<i>cluster</i> of creation, he thinks of a cluster of grapes, and +says, that they all hang on the great vine, drinking the +“nectareous juice of immortal life.” His +conceits are sometimes yet less valuable. In the +“Last Day” he hopes to illustrate the reassembly of +the atoms that compose the human body at the “Trump of +Doom” by the collection of bees into a swarm at the +tinkling of a pan. The Prophet says of Tyre that “her +merchants are princes.” Young says of Tyre in his +“Merchant,”</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“Her merchants +princes, and each <i>deck a throne</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Let burlesque try to go beyond him.</p> +<p>He has the trick of joining the turgid and familiar: to buy +the alliance of Britain, “Climes were paid +down.” Antithesis is his favourite, “They for +kindness hate:” and “because she’s right, +she’s ever in the wrong.” His versification is +his own; neither his blank nor his rhyming lines have any +resemblance to those of former writers; he picks up no +hemistichs, he copies no favourite expressions; he seems to have +laid up no stores of thought or diction, but to owe all to the +fortuitous suggestions of the present moment. Yet I have +reason to believe that, when once he had formed a new design, he +then laboured it with very patient industry; and that he composed +with great labour and frequent revisions. His verses are +formed by no certain model; he is no more like himself in his +different productions than he is like others. He seems +never to have studied prosody, nor to have had any direction but +from his own ear. But with all his defects, he was a man of +genius and a poet.</p> +<h2><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>MALLET.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> David Mallet, having no written +memorial, I am able to give no other account than such as is +supplied by the unauthorised loquacity of common fame, and a very +slight personal knowledge. He was by his original one of +the Macgregors, a clan that became, about sixty years ago, under +the conduct of Robin Roy, so formidable and so infamous for +violence and robbery, that the name was annulled by a legal +abolition; and when they were all to denominate themselves anew, +the father, I suppose, of this author, called himself +Malloch.</p> +<p>David Malloch was, by the penury of his parents, compelled to +be <i>Janitor</i> of the High School at Edinburgh, a mean office +of which he did not afterwards delight to hear. But he +surmounted the disadvantages of his birth and fortune; for, when +the Duke of Montrose applied to the College of Edinburgh for a +tutor to educate his sons, Malloch was recommended; and I never +heard that he dishonoured his credentials. When his pupils +were sent to see the world, they were entrusted to his care; and +having conducted them round the common circle of modish travels, +he returned with them to London, where, by the influence of the +family in which he resided, he naturally gained admission to many +persons of the highest rank, and the highest character—to +wits, nobles, and statesmen. Of his works, I know not +whether I can trace the series. His first production was, +“William and Margaret;” of which, though it contains +nothing very striking or difficult, he has been envied the +reputation; and plagiarism has been boldly charged, but never +proved. Not long afterwards he published the +“Excursion” (1728); a desultory and capricious view +of such scenes of nature as his fancy led him, or his knowledge +enabled him, to describe. It is not devoid of poetical +spirit. Many of his images are striking, and many of the +paragraphs are elegant. The cast of diction seems to be +copied from Thomson, whose “Seasons” were then in +their full blossom of reputation. He has Thomson’s +beauties and his faults. His poem on “Verbal +Criticism” (1733) was written to pay court to Pope, on a +subject which he either did not understand, or willingly +misrepresented; and is little more than an improvement, or rather +expansion, of a fragment which Pope printed in a miscellany long +before he engrafted it into a regular poem. There is in +this piece more pertness than wit, and more confidence than +knowledge. The versification is tolerable, nor can +criticism allow it a higher praise.</p> +<p>His first tragedy was <i>Eurydice</i>, acted at Drury Lane in +1731; of which I know not the reception nor the merit, but have +heard it mentioned as a mean performance. He was not then +too high to accept a prologue and epilogue from Aaron Hill, +neither of which can be much commended. Having cleared his +tongue from his native pronunciation so as to be no longer +distinguished as a Scot, he seems inclined to disencumber himself +from all adherences of his original, and took upon him to change +his name from Scotch <i>Malloch</i> to English <i>Mallet</i>, +without any imaginable reason of preference which the eye or ear +can discover. What other proofs he gave of disrespect to +his native country I know not; but it was remarked of him that he +was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend. About +this time Pope, whom he visited familiarly, published his +“Essay on Man,” but concealed the author; and, when +Mallet entered one day, Pope asked him slightly what there was +new. Mallet told him that the newest piece was something +called an “Essay on Man,” which he had inspected +idly, and seeing the utter inability of the author, who had +neither skill in writing nor knowledge of the subject, had tossed +it away. Pope, to punish his self-conceit, told him the +secret.</p> +<p>A new edition of the works of Bacon being prepared (1740) for +the press, Mallet was employed to prefix a Life, which he has +written with elegance, perhaps with some affectation; but with so +much more knowledge of history than of science, that, when he +afterwards undertook 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>When the Prince of Wales was driven from the palace, and, +setting himself at the head of the opposition, kept a separate +court, he endeavoured to increase his popularity by the patronage +of literature, and made Mallet his under-secretary, with a salary +of two hundred pounds a year; Thomson likewise had a pension; and +they were associated in the composition of <i>The Masque of +Alfred</i>, which in its original state was played at Cliefden in +1740; it was afterwards almost wholly changed by Mallet, and +brought upon the stage at Drury Lane in 1751, but with no great +success. Mallet, in a familiar conversation with Garrick, +discoursing of the diligence which he was then exerting upon the +“Life of Marlborough,” let him know that in the +series of great men quickly to be exhibited he should <i>find a +niche</i> for the hero of the theatre. Garrick professed to +wonder by what artifice he could be introduced: but Mallet let +him know that, by a dexterous anticipation, he should fix him in +a conspicuous place. “Mr. Mallet,” says +Garrick, in his gratitude of exultation, “have you left off +to write for the stage?” Mallet then confessed that +he had a drama in his hands. Garrick promised to act it; +and <i>Alfred</i> was produced.</p> +<p>The long retardation of the life of the Duke of Marlborough +shows, with strong conviction, how little confidence can be +placed on posthumous renown. When he died, it was soon +determined that his story should be delivered to posterity; and +the papers supposed to contain the necessary information were +delivered to Lord Molesworth, who had been his favourite in +Flanders. When Molesworth died, the same papers were +transferred with the same design to Sir Richard Steele, who, in +some of his exigencies, put them in pawn. They remained +with the old duchess, who in her will assigned the task to Glover +and Mallet, with a reward of a thousand pounds, and a prohibition +to insert any verses. Glover rejected, I suppose, with +disdain, the legacy, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet; who +had from the late Duke of Marlborough a pension to promote his +industry, and who talked of the discoveries which he had made; +but left not, when he died, any historical labours behind +him. While he was in the Prince’s service he +published <i>Mustapha</i> with a prologue by Thomson, not mean, +but far inferior to that which he had received from Mallet for +<i>Agamemnon</i>. The epilogue, said to be written by a +friend, was composed in haste by Mallet, in the place of one +promised, which was never given. This tragedy was dedicated +to the Prince his master. It was acted at Drury Lane in +1739, and was well received, but was never revived. In 1740 +he produced, as has been already mentioned, <i>The Masque of +Alfred</i>, in conjunction with Thomson. For some time +afterwards he lay at rest. After a long interval his next +work was “Amyntor and Theodora” (1747), a long story +in blank verse; in which it cannot be denied that there is +copiousness and elegance of language, vigour of sentiment, and +imagery well adapted to take possession of the fancy. But +it is blank verse. This he sold to Vaillant for one hundred +and twenty pounds. The first sale was not great, and it is +now lost in forgetfulness.</p> +<p>Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his dependence on +the Prince, found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride and +petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom +Mallet was content to court by an act which I hope was +unwillingly performed. When it was found that Pope +clandestinely printed an unauthorised pamphlet called the +“Patriot King,” Bolingbroke in a fit of useless fury +resolved to blast his memory, and employed Mallet (1749) as the +executioner of his vengeance. Mallet had not virtue, or had +not spirit, to refuse the office; and was rewarded, not long +after, with the legacy of Lord Bolingbroke’s works.</p> +<p>Many of the political pieces had been written during the +opposition to Walpole, and given to Francklin, as he supposed, in +perpetuity. These, among the rest, were claimed by the +will. The question was referred to arbitrators; but, when +they decided against Mallet, he refused to yield to the award; +and, by the help of Millar the bookseller, published all that he +could find, but with success very much below his expectation.</p> +<p>In 1775 [<i>sic</i>], his masque of <i>Britannia</i> was acted +at Drury Lane, and his tragedy of <i>Elvira</i> in 1763; in which +year he was appointed keeper of the book of entries for ships in +the port of London. In the beginning of the last war, when +the nation was exasperated by ill success, he was employed to +turn the public vengeance upon Byng, and wrote a letter of +accusation under the character of a “Plain +Man.” The paper was with great industry circulated +and dispersed; and he, for his seasonable intervention, had a +considerable pension bestowed upon him, which he retained to his +death. Towards the end of his life he went with his wife to +France; but after a while, finding his health declining, he +returned alone to England, and died in April, 1765. He was +twice married, and by his first wife had several children. +One daughter, who married an Italian of rank named Cilesia, wrote +a tragedy called <i>Almida</i>, which was acted at Drury +Lane. His second wife was the daughter of a +nobleman’s steward, who had a considerable fortune, which +she took care to retain in her own hands. His stature was +diminutive, but he was regularly formed; his appearance, till he +grew corpulent, was agreeable, and he suffered it to want no +recommendation that dress could give it. His conversation +was elegant and easy. The rest of his character may, +without injury to his memory, sink into silence. As a +writer, he cannot be placed in any high class. There is no +species of composition in which he was eminent. His dramas +had their day, a short day, and are forgotten: his blank verse +seems to my ear the echo of Thomson. His “Life of +Bacon” is known, as it is appended to Bacon’s +volumes, but is no longer mentioned. His works are such as +a writer, bustling in the world, showing himself in public, and +emerging occasionally from time to time into notice, might keep +alive by his personal influence; but which, conveying little +information, and giving no great pleasure, must soon give way, as +the succession of things produces new topics of conversation and +other modes of amusement.</p> +<h2><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +165</span>AKENSIDE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mark Akenside</span> was born on the 9th +of November, 1721, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His father Mark +was a butcher, of the Presbyterian sect; his mother’s name +was Mary Lumsden. He received the first part of his +education at the grammar-school of Newcastle; and was afterwards +instructed by Mr. Wilson, who kept a private academy. At +the age of eighteen he was sent to Edinburgh that he might +qualify himself for the office of a dissenting minister, and +received some assistance from the fund which the dissenters +employ in educating young men of scanty fortune. But a +wider view of the world opened other scenes, and prompted other +hopes: he determined to study physic, and repaid that +contribution, which being received for a different purpose, he +justly thought it dishonourable to retain. Whether, when he +resolved not to be a dissenting minister, he ceased to be a +dissenter, I know not. He certainly retained an unnecessary +and outrageous zeal for what he called and thought liberty; a +zeal which sometimes disguises from the world, and not rarely +from the mind which it possesses, an envious desire of plundering +wealth or degrading greatness; and of which the immediate +tendency is innovation and anarchy, an impetuous eagerness to +subvert and confound, with very little care what shall be +established.</p> +<p>Akenside was one of those poets who have felt very early the +motions of genius, and one of those students who have very early +stored their memories with sentiments and images. Many of +his performances were produced in his youth; and his greatest +work, “The Pleasures of Imagination,” appeared in +1744. I have heard Dodsley, by whom it was published, +relate that when the copy was offered him, the price demanded for +it, which was a hundred and twenty pounds, being such as he was +not inclined to give precipitately, he carried the work to Pope, +who, having looked into it, advised him not to make a niggardly +offer; for “this was no every-day writer.”</p> +<p>In 1741 he went to Leyden in pursuit of medical knowledge; and +three years afterwards (May 16, 1744) became Doctor of Physic, +having, according to the custom of the Dutch Universities, +published a thesis or dissertation. The subject which he +chose was “The Original and Growth of the Human +Foetus;” in which he is said to have departed, with great +judgment, from the opinion then established, and to have +delivered that which has been since confirmed and received.</p> +<p>Akenside was a young man, warm with every notion that by +nature or accident had been connected with the sound of liberty, +and, by an eccentricity which such dispositions do not easily +avoid, a lover of contradiction, and no friend to anything +established. He adopted Shaftesbury’s foolish +assertion of the efficacy of ridicule for the discovery of +truth. For this he was attacked by Warburton, and defended +by Dyson; Warburton afterwards reprinted his remarks at the end +of his dedication to the Freethinkers. The result of all +the arguments which have been produced in a long and eager +discussion of this idle question may easily be collected. +If ridicule be applied to any position as the test of truth it +will then become a question whether such ridicule be just; and +this can only be decided by the application of truth, as the test +of ridicule. Two men fearing, one a real, and the other a +fancied danger, will be for a while equally exposed to the +inevitable consequences of cowardice, contemptuous censure, and +ludicrous representation; and the true state of both cases must +be known before it can be decided whose terror is rational and +whose is ridiculous; who is to be pitied, and who to be +despised. Both are for a while equally exposed to laughter, +but both are not therefore equally contemptible. In the +revisal of his poem, though he died before he had finished it, he +omitted the lines which had given occasion to Warburton’s +objections. He published, soon after his return from Leyden +(1745), his first collection of odes; and was impelled by his +rage of patriotism to write a very acrimonious epistle to +Pulteney, whom he stigmatises, under the name of Curio, as the +betrayer of his country. Being now to live by his +profession, he first commenced physician at Northampton, where +Dr. Stonehouse then practised, with such reputation and success, +that a stranger was not likely to gain ground upon him. +Akenside tried the contest a while; and, having deafened the +place with clamours for liberty, removed to Hampstead, where he +resided more than two years, and then fixed himself in London, +the proper place for a man of accomplishments like his. At +London he was known as a poet, but was still to make his way as a +physician; and would perhaps have been reduced to great +exigencies but that Mr. Dyson, with an ardour of friendship that +has not many examples, allowed him three hundred pounds a +year. Thus supported, he advanced gradually in medical +reputation, but never attained any great extent of practice or +eminence of popularity. A physician in a great city seems +to be the mere plaything of fortune; his degree of reputation is, +for the most part, totally casual—they that employ him know +not his excellence; they that reject him know not his +deficience. By any acute observer who had looked on the +transactions of the medical world for half a century a very +curious book might be written on the “Fortune of +Physicians.”</p> +<p>Akenside appears not to have been wanting to his own success: +he placed himself in view by all the common methods; he became a +Fellow of the Royal Society; he obtained a degree at Cambridge; +and was admitted into the College of Physicians; he wrote little +poetry, but published from time to time medical essays and +observations; he became physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital; +he read the Gulstonian Lectures in Anatomy; but began to give, +for the Croonian Lecture, a history of the revival of learning, +from which he soon desisted; and in conversation he very eagerly +forced himself into notice by an ambitious ostentation of +elegance and literature. His “Discourse on the +Dysentery” (1764) was considered as a very conspicuous +specimen of Latinity, which entitled him to the same height of +place among the scholars as he possessed before among the wits; +and he might perhaps have risen to a greater elevation of +character but that his studies were ended with his life by a +putrid fever June 23, 1770, in the forty-ninth year of his +age.</p> +<p>Akenside is to be considered as a didactic and lyric +poet. His great work is the “Pleasures of +Imagination,” a performance which, published as it was at +the age of twenty-three, raised expectations that were not amply +satisfied. It has undoubtedly a just claim to very +particular notice as an example of great felicity of genius, and +uncommon aptitude of acquisitions, of a young mind stored with +images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them. +With the philosophical or religious tenets of the author I have +nothing to do; my business is with his poetry. The subject +is well chosen, as it includes all images that can strike or +please, and thus comprises every species of poetical +delight. The only difficulty is in the choice of examples +and illustrations; and it is not easy in such exuberance of +matter to find the middle point between penury and satiety. +The parts seem artificially disposed, with sufficient coherence, +so as that they cannot change their places without injury to the +general design. His images are displayed with such +luxuriance of expression that they are hidden, like +Butler’s Moon, by a “Veil of Light;” they are +forms fantastically lost under superfluity of dress. +<i>Pars minima est ipsa puella sui</i>. The words are +multiplied till the sense is hardly perceived; attention deserts +the mind, and settles in the ear. The reader wanders +through the gay diffusion, sometimes amazed, and sometimes +delighted; but, after many turnings in the flowery labyrinth, +comes out as he went in. He remarked little, and laid hold +on nothing. To his versification justice requires that +praise should not be denied. In the general fabrication of +his lines he is perhaps superior to any other writer of blank +verse; his flow is smooth, and his pauses are musical; but the +concatenation of his verses is commonly too long continued, and +the full close does not occur with sufficient frequency. +The sense is carried on through a long intertexture of +complicated clauses, and, as nothing is distinguished, nothing is +remembered.</p> +<p>The exemption which blank verse affords from the necessity of +closing the sense with the couplet betrays luxuriant and active +minds into such self-indulgence that they pile image upon image, +ornament upon ornament, and are not easily persuaded to close the +sense at all. Blank verse will therefore, I fear, be too +often found in description exuberant, in argument loquacious, and +in narration tiresome. His diction is certainly poetical, +as it is not prosaic; and elegant, as it is not vulgar. He +is to be commended as having fewer artifices of disgust than most +of his brethren of the blank song. He rarely either recalls +old phrases, or twists his metre into harsh inversions. The +sense, however, of his words is strained when “he views the +Ganges from Alpine heights”—that is, from mountains +like the Alps. And the pedant surely intrudes (but when was +blank verse without pedantry?) when he tells how “Planets +<i>absolve</i> the stated round of Time.”</p> +<p>It is generally known to the readers of poetry that he +intended to revise and augment this work, but died before he had +completed his design. The reformed work as he left it, and +the additions which he had made, are very properly retained in +the late collection. He seems to have somewhat contracted +his diffusion; but I know not whether he has gained in closeness +what he has lost in splendour. In the additional book the +“Tale of Solon” is too long. One great defect +of this poem is very properly censured by Mr. Walker, unless it +may be said in his defence that what he has omitted was not +properly in his plan. “His picture of man is grand +and beautiful, but unfinished. The immortality of the soul, +which is the natural consequence of the appetites and powers she +is invested with, is scarcely once hinted throughout the +poem. This deficiency is amply supplied by the masterly +pencil of Dr. Young, who, like a good philosopher, has invincibly +proved the immortality of man from the grandeur of his +conceptions and the meanness and misery of his state; for this +reason a few passages are selected from the ‘Night +Thoughts,’ which, with those from Akenside, seem to form a +complete view of the powers, situation, and end of +man.”—“Exercises for Improvement in +Elocution,” p. 66.</p> +<p>His other poems are now to be considered; but a short +consideration will despatch them. It is not easy to guess +why he addicted himself so diligently to lyric poetry, having +neither the ease and airiness of the lighter, nor the vehemence +and elevation of the grander ode. When he lays his +ill-fated hand upon his harp his former powers seem to desert +him; he has no longer his luxuriance of expression or variety of +images. His thoughts are cold, and his words +inelegant. Yet such was his love of lyrics that, having +written with great vigour and poignancy his “Epistle to +Curio,” he transformed it afterwards into an ode +disgraceful only to its author.</p> +<p>Of his odes nothing favourable can be said; the sentiments +commonly want force, nature, or novelty; the diction is sometimes +harsh and uncouth, the stanzas ill-constructed and unpleasant, +and the rhymes dissonant or unskilfully disposed, too distant +from each other, or arranged with too little regard to +established use, and therefore perplexing to the ear, which in a +short composition has not time to grow familiar with an +innovation. To examine such compositions singly cannot be +required; they have doubtless brighter and darker parts; but, +when they are once found to be generally dull, all further labour +may be spared, for to what use can the work be criticised that +will not be read?</p> +<h2><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>GRAY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Thomas Gray</span>, the son of Mr. Philip +Gray, a scrivener of London, was born in Cornhill, November 26, +1716. His grammatical education he received at Eton, under +the care of Mr. Antrobus, his mother’s brother, then +assistant to Dr. George, and when he left school, in 1734, +entered a pensioner at Peterhouse, in Cambridge. The +transition from the school to the college is, to most young +scholars, the time from which they date their years of manhood, +liberty, and happiness; but Gray seems to have been very little +delighted with academical gratifications; he liked at Cambridge +neither the mode of life nor the fashion of study, and lived +sullenly on to the time when his attendance on lectures was no +longer required. As he intended to profess the common law, +he took no degree. When he had been at Cambridge about five +years, Mr. Horace Walpole, whose friendship he had gained at +Eton, invited him to travel with him as his companion. They +wandered through France into Italy; and Gray’s +“Letters” contain a very pleasing account of many +parts of their journey. But unequal friendships are easily +dissolved; at Florence they quarrelled and parted; and Mr. +Walpole is now content to have it told that it was by his +fault. If we look, however, without prejudice on the world, +we shall find that men whose consciousness of their own merit +sets them above the compliances of servility are apt enough in +their association with superiors to watch their own dignity with +troublesome and punctilious jealousy, and in the fervour of +independence to exact that attention which they refuse to +pay. Part they did, whatever was the quarrel; and the rest +of their travels was doubtless more unpleasant to them +both. Gray continued his journey in a manner suitable to +his own little fortune, with only an occasional servant. He +returned to England in September, 1741, and in about two months +afterwards buried his father, who had, by an injudicious waste of +money upon a new house, so much lessened his fortune that Gray +thought himself too poor to study the law. He therefore +retired to Cambridge, where he soon after became Bachelor of +Civil Law, and where, without liking the place or its +inhabitants, or professing to like them, he passed, except a +short residence at London, the rest of his life. About this +time he was deprived of Mr. West, the son of a chancellor of +Ireland, a friend on whom he appears to have set a high value, +and who deserved his esteem by the powers which he shows in his +“Letters” and in the “Ode to May,” which +Mr. Mason has preserved, as well as by the sincerity with which, +when Gray sent him part of <i>Agrippina</i>, a tragedy that he +had just begun, he gave an opinion which probably intercepted the +progress of the work, and which the judgment of every reader will +confirm. It was certainly no loss to the English stage that +<i>Agrippina</i> was never finished. In this year (1742) +Gray seems to have applied himself seriously to poetry; for in +this year were produced the “Ode to Spring,” his +“Prospect of Eton,” and his “Ode to +Adversity.” He began likewise a Latin poem, “De +Principiis Cogitandi.”</p> +<p>It may be collected from the narrative of Mr. Mason that his +first ambition was to have excelled in Latin poetry; perhaps it +were reasonable to wish that he had prosecuted his design; for +though there is at present some embarrassment in his phrase, and +some harshness in his lyric numbers, his copiousness of language +is such as very few possess; and his lines, even when imperfect, +discover a writer whom practice would have made skilful. He +now lived on at Peterhouse, very little solicitous what others +did or thought, and cultivated his mind and enlarged his views +without any other purpose than of improving and amusing himself, +when Mr. Mason, being elected Fellow of Pembroke Hall, brought +him a companion who was afterwards to be his editor, and whose +fondness and fidelity has kindled in him a zeal of admiration +which cannot be reasonably expected from the neutrality of a +stranger and the coldness of a critic. In this retirement +he wrote (1747) an ode on the “Death of Mr. Walpole’s +Cat;” and the year afterwards attempted a poem of more +importance, on “Government and Education,” of which +the fragments which remain have many excellent lines. His +next production (1750) was his far-famed “Elegy in the +Churchyard,” which, finding its way into a magazine, first, +I believe, made him known to the public.</p> +<p>An invitation from Lady Cobham about this time gave occasion +to an odd composition called “A Long Story,” which +adds little to Gray’s character. Several of his +pieces were published (1753) with designs by Mr. Bentley; and, +that they might in some form or other make a book, only one side +of each leaf was printed. I believe the poems and the +plates recommended each other so well that the whole impression +was soon bought. This year he lost his mother. Some +time afterwards (1756) some young men of the college, whose +chambers were near his, diverted themselves with disturbing him +by frequent and troublesome noises, and, as is said, by pranks +yet more offensive and contemptuous. This insolence, having +endured it awhile, he represented to the governors of the +society, among whom perhaps he had no friends; and finding his +complaint little regarded, removed himself to Pembroke Hall.</p> +<p>In 1759 he published “The Progress of Poetry” and +“The Bard,” two compositions at which the readers of +poetry were at first content to gaze in mute amazement. +Some that tried them confessed their inability to understand +them, though Warburton said that they were understood as well as +the works of Milton and Shakespeare, which it is the fashion to +admire. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. +Some hardy champions undertook to rescue them from neglect; and +in a short time many were content to be shown beauties which they +could not see.</p> +<p>Gray’s reputation was now so high that, after the death +of Cibber, he had the honour of refusing the laurel, which was +then bestowed on Mr. Whitehead. His curiosity, not long +after, drew him away from Cambridge to a lodging near the Museum, +where he resided near three years, reading and transcribing, and, +so far as can be discovered, very little affected by two odes on +“Oblivion” and “Obscurity,” in which his +lyric performances were ridiculed with much contempt and much +ingenuity. When the Professor of Modern History at +Cambridge died, he was, as he says, “cockered and spirited +up,” till he asked it of Lord Bute, who sent him a civil +refusal; and the place was given to Mr. Brocket, the tutor of Sir +James Lowther. His constitution was weak, and, believing +that his health was promoted by exercise and change of place, he +undertook (1765) a journey into Scotland, of which his account, +so far as it extends, is very curious and elegant; for, as his +comprehension was ample, his curiosity extended to all the works +of art, all the appearances of nature, and all the monuments of +past events. He naturally contracted a friendship with Dr. +Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philosopher, and a good +man. The Mareschal College at Aberdeen offered him a degree +of Doctor of Laws, which, having omitted to take it at Cambridge, +he thought it decent to refuse. What he had formerly +solicited in vain was at last given him without +solicitation. The Professorship of History became again +vacant, and he received (1768) an offer of it from the Duke of +Grafton. He accepted, and retained, it to his death; always +designing lectures, but never reading them; uneasy at his neglect +of duty, and appeasing his uneasiness with designs of +reformation, and with a resolution which he believed himself to +have made of resigning the office if he found himself unable to +discharge it. Ill-health made another journey necessary, +and he visited (1769) Westmoreland and Cumberland. He that +reads his epistolary narration wishes that, to travel, and to +tell his travels, had been more of his employment; but it is by +studying at home that we must obtain the ability of travelling +with intelligence and improvement. His travels and his +studies were now near their end. The gout, of which he had +sustained many weak attacks, fell upon his stomach, and, yielding +to no medicines, produced strong convulsions, which (July 30, +1771) terminated in death. His character I am willing to +adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a letter written to my friend +Mr. Boswell by the Rev. Mr. Temple, rector of St. Gluvias in +Cornwall; and am as willing as his warmest well-wisher to believe +it true:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Perhaps he was the most learned man in +Europe. He was equally acquainted with the elegant and +profound parts of science, and that not superficially, but +thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both natural +and civil; had read all the original historians of England, +France, and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, +metaphysics, morals, politics, made a principal part of his +study; voyages and travels of all sorts were his favourite +amusements; and he had a fine taste in painting, prints, +architecture, and gardening. With such a fund of knowledge, +his conversation must have been equally instructing and +entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and +humanity. There is no character without some speck, some +imperfection; and I think the greatest defect in his was an +affectation in delicacy, or rather effeminacy, and a visible +fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his inferiors in +science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which +disgusted Voltaire so much in Mr. Congreve: though he seemed to +value others chiefly according to the progress they had made in +knowledge, yet he could not bear to be considered merely as a man +of letters; and, though without birth or fortune or station, his +desire was to be looked upon as a private independent gentleman, +who read for his amusement. Perhaps it may be said, What +signifies so much knowledge, when it produced so little? Is +it worth taking so much pains to leave no memorial but a few +poems? But let it be considered that Mr. Gray was to others +at least innocently employed; to himself certainly +beneficially. His time passed agreeably; he was every day +making some new acquisition in science; his mind was enlarged, +his heart softened, his virtue strengthened; the world and +mankind were shown to him without a mask; and he was taught to +consider everything as trifling and unworthy of the attention of +a wise man except the pursuit of knowledge and practice of virtue +in that state wherein God hath placed us.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To this character Mr. Mason has added a more particular +account of Gray’s skill in zoology. He has remarked +that Gray’s effeminacy was affected most “before +those whom he did not wish to please;” and that he is +unjustly charged with making knowledge his sole reason of +preference, as he paid his esteem to none whom he did not +likewise believe to be good.</p> +<p>What has occurred to me from the slight inspection of his +letters in which my undertaking has engaged me is, that his mind +had a large grasp; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his +judgment cultivated; that he was a man likely to love much where +he loved at all; but that he was fastidious and hard to +please. His contempt, however, is often employed, where I +hope it will be approved, upon scepticism and infidelity. +His short account of Shaftesbury (author of the +“Characteristics”) I will insert:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“You say you cannot conceive how Lord +Shaftesbury came to be a philosopher in vogue; I will tell you: +first, he was a lord; secondly, he was as vain as any of his +readers; thirdly, men are very prone to believe what they do not +understand; fourthly, they will believe anything at all, provided +they are under no obligation to believe it; fifthly, they love to +take a new road, even when that road leads nowhere; sixthly, he +was reckoned a fine writer, and seems always to mean more than he +said. Would you have any more reasons? An interval of +about forty years has pretty well destroyed the charm. A +dead lord ranks with commoners; vanity is no longer interested in +the matter, for a new road has become an old one.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Mason has added, from his own knowledge, that though Gray +was poor he was not eager of money, and that out of the little +that he had he was very willing to help the necessitous. As +a writer, he had this peculiarity—that he did not write his +pieces first rudely, and then correct them, but laboured every +line as it arose in the train of composition; and he had a +notion, not very peculiar, that he could not write but at certain +times, or at happy moments—a fantastic foppery to which my +kindness for a man of learning and virtue wishes him to have been +superior.</p> +<p>Gray’s poetry is now to be considered; and I hope not to +be looked on as an enemy to his name if I confess that I +contemplate it with less pleasure than his Life. His ode +“On Spring” has something poetical, both in the +language and the thought; but the language is too luxuriant, and +the thoughts have nothing new. There has of late arisen a +practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the +termination of participles; such as the <i>cultured</i> plain, +the <i>daisied</i> bank; but I was sorry to see, in the lines of +a scholar like Gray, the <i>honied</i> Spring. The morality +is natural, but too stale; the conclusion is pretty.</p> +<p>The poem “On the Cat” was doubtless by its author +considered as a trifle, but it is not a happy trifle. In +the first stanza, “the azure flowers <i>that</i> +blow” show resolutely a rhyme is sometimes made when it +cannot easily be found. Selima, the cat, is called a nymph, +with some violence both to language and sense; but there is no +good use made of it when it is done; for of the two lines</p> +<blockquote><p>“What female heart can gold despise?<br /> +What cat’s averse to fish?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>the first relates merely to the nymph, and the second only to +the cat. The sixth stanza contains a melancholy truth, that +“a favourite has no friend;” but the last ends in a +pointed sentence of no relation to the purpose. If <i>what +glistered</i> had been <i>gold</i>, the cat would not have gone +into the water; and if she had, would not less have been +drowned.</p> +<p>“The Prospect of Eton College” suggests nothing to +Gray which every beholder does not equally think and feel. +His supplication to Father Thames to tell him who drives the hoop +or tosses the ball is useless and puerile. Father Thames +has no better means of knowing than himself. His epithet +“buxom health” is not elegant; he seems not to +understand the word. Gray thought his language more +poetical as it was more remote from common use. Finding in +Dryden “honey redolent of spring,” an expression that +reaches the utmost limits of our language, Gray drove it a little +more beyond common apprehension by making “gales” to +be “redolent of joy and youth.”</p> +<p>Of the “Ode on Adversity,” the hint was at first +taken from “O Diva, gratum quæ regis Antium;” +but Gray has excelled his original by the variety of his +sentiments, and by their moral application. Of this piece, +at once poetical and rational, I will not by slight objections +violate the dignity.</p> +<p>My process has now brought me to the <i>wonderful</i> +“Wonder of Wonders,” the two Sister Odes, by which, +though either vulgar ignorance or common sense at first +universally rejected them, many have been since persuaded to +think themselves delighted. I am one of those that are +willing to be pleased, and therefore would gladly find the +meaning of the first stanza of the “Progress of +Poetry.” Gray seems in his rapture to confound the +images of spreading sound and running water. A +“stream of music” may be allowed; but where does +“music,” however “smooth and strong,” +after having visited the “verdant vales, roll down the +steep amain,” so as that “rocks and nodding groves +rebellow to the roar”? If this be said of music, it +is nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the +purpose. The second stanza, exhibiting Mars’ car and +Jove’s eagle, is unworthy of further notice. +Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy to his +common-places. To the third it may likewise be objected +that it is drawn from mythology, though such as may be more +easily assimilated to real life. Idalia’s +“velvet green” has something of cant. An +epithet or metaphor drawn from Nature ennobles Art; an epithet or +metaphor drawn from Art degrades Nature. Gray is too fond +of words arbitrarily compounded. +“Many-twinkling” was formerly censured as not +analogical; we may say “many-spotted,” but scarcely +“many-spotting.” This stanza, however, has +something pleasing. Of the second ternary of stanzas, the +first endeavours to tell something, and would have told it, had +it not been crossed by Hyperion; the second describes well enough +the universal prevalence of poetry; but I am afraid that the +conclusion will not rise from the premises. The caverns of +the North and the plains of Chili are not the residences of +“glory and generous shame.” But that poetry and +virtue go always together is an opinion so pleasing that I can +forgive him who resolves to think it true. The third stanza +sounds big with “Delphi,” and +“Ægean,” and “Ilissus,” and +“Meander,” and “hallowed fountains,” and +“solemn sound;” but in all Gray’s odes there is +a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away. His +position is at last false. In the time of Dante and +Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, Italy +was overrun by “tyrant power” and “coward +vice;” nor was our state much better when we first borrowed +the Italian arts. Of the third ternary, the first gives a +mythological birth of Shakespeare. What is said of that +mighty genius is true, but it is not said happily; the real +effects of this poetical power are put out of sight by the pomp +of machinery. Where truth is sufficient to fill the mind, +fiction is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases the +genuine. His account of Milton’s blindness, if we +suppose it caused by study in the formation of his poem (a +supposition surely allowable), is poetically true, and happily +imagined. But the <i>car</i> of Dryden, with his <i>two +coursers</i>, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in which +any other rider may be placed.</p> +<p>“The Bard” appears, at the first view, to be, as +Algarotti and others have remarked, an imitation of the prophecy +of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it superior to its original; +and, if preference depends only on the imagery and animation of +the two poems, his judgment is right. There is in +“The Bard” more force, more thought, and more +variety. But to copy is less than to invent, and the copy +has been unhappily produced at a wrong time. The fiction of +Horace was to the Romans credible; but its revival disgusts us +with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. <i>Incredulus +odi</i>. To select a singular event, and swell it to a +giant’s bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and +predictions, has little difficulty; for he that forsakes the +probable may always find the marvellous. And it has little +use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as +we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see +that “The Bard” promotes any truth, moral or +political. His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes; +the ode is finished before the ear has learned its measures, and +consequently before it can receive pleasure from their consonance +and recurrence. Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning +has been celebrated; but technical beauties can give praise only +to the inventor. It is in the power of any man to rush +abruptly upon his subject that has read the ballad of +“Johnny Armstrong,”</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“Is there ever a +man in all Scotland—?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The initial resemblances or alliterations, “ruin, +ruthless,” “helm or hauberk,” are below the +grandeur of a poem that endeavours at sublimity. In the +second stanza the Bard is well described, but in the third we +have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are +told that “Cadwallo hushed the stormy main,” and that +“Modred made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped +head,” attention recoils from the repetition of a tale +that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn. +The <i>weaving</i> of the <i>winding-sheet</i> he borrowed, as he +owns, from the Northern Bards, but their texture, however, was +very properly the work of female powers, as the act of spinning +the thread of life in another mythology. Theft is always +dangerous; Gray has made weavers of slaughtered bards by a +fiction outrageous and incongruous. They are then called +upon to “Weave the warp and weave the woof,” perhaps +with no great propriety, for it is by crossing the <i>woof</i> +with the <i>warp</i> that men weave the <i>web</i> or piece, and +the first line was dearly bought by the admission of its wretched +correspondent, “Give ample room and verge +enough.” He has, however, no other line as bad. +The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, +beyond its merit. The personification is indistinct. +<i>Thirst</i> and <i>hunger</i> are not alike, and their +features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been +discriminated. We are told in the same stanza how +“towers are fed.” But I will no longer look for +particular faults; yet let it be observed that the ode might have +been concluded with an action of better example, but suicide is +always to be had without expense of thought.</p> +<p>These odes are marked by glittering accumulations of +ungraceful ornaments, they strike rather than please; the images +are magnified by affectation; the language is laboured into +harshness. The mind of the writer seems to work with +unnatural violence. “Double, double, toil and +trouble.” He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is +tall by walking on tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too +visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and +nature. To say that he has no beauties would be unjust; a +man like him, of great learning and great industry, could not but +produce something valuable. When he pleases least, it can +only be said that a good design was ill directed. His +translations of Northern and Welsh poetry deserve praise; the +imagery is preserved, perhaps often improved, but the language is +unlike the language of other poets. In the character of his +Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common reader, for by the +common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary prejudices, +after all the refinements of subtlety and the dogmatism of +learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical +honours. The “Churchyard” abounds with images +which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which +every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas, beginning +“Yet even these bones,” are to me original; I have +never seen the notions in any other place, yet he that reads them +here persuades himself that he has always felt them. Had +Gray written often thus, it had been vain to blame and useless to +praise him.</p> +<h2><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +185</span>LYTTELTON.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">George Lyttelton</span>, the son of Sir +Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley, in Worcestershire, was born in +1709. He was educated at Eton, where he was so much +distinguished that his exercises were recommended as models to +his schoolfellows. From Eton he went to Christchurch, where +he retained the same reputation of superiority, and displayed his +abilities to the public in a poem on +“Blenheim.” He was a very early writer both in +verse and prose. His “Progress of Love” and his +“Persian Letters” were both written when he was very +young, and, indeed, the character of a young man is very visible +in both. The verses cant of shepherds and flocks, and +crooks dressed with flowers; and the letters have something of +that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of +genius always catches when he enters the world, and always +suffers to cool as he passes forward. He stayed not long in +Oxford, for in 1728 he began his travels, and saw France and +Italy. When he returned he obtained a seat in Parliament, +and soon distinguished himself among the most eager opponents of +Sir Robert Walpole, though his father, who was Commissioner of +the Admiralty, always voted with the Court. For many years +the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of every +debate in the House of Commons. He opposed the standing +army; he opposed the excise; he supported the motion for +petitioning the king to remove Walpole. His zeal was +considered by the courtiers not only as violent but as +acrimonious and malignant, and when Walpole was at last hunted +from his places, every effort was made by his friends, and many +friends he had, to exclude Lyttelton from the secret +committee.</p> +<p>The Prince of Wales, being (1737) driven from St. +James’s, kept a separate court, and opened his arms to the +opponents of the Ministry. Mr. Lyttelton became his +Secretary, and was supposed to have great influence in the +direction of his conduct. He persuaded his master, whose +business it was now to be popular, that he would advance his +character by patronage. Mallet was made Under Secretary, +with £200, and Thomson had a pension of £100 a +year. For Thomson, Lyttelton always retained his kindness, +and was able at last to place him at ease. Moore courted +his favour by an apologetical poem called the “Trial of +Selim,” for which he was paid with kind words, which, as is +common, raised great hopes, that were at last disappointed.</p> +<p>Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of Opposition, and Pope, +who was incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the +clamour against the Ministry, commended him among the other +patriots. This drew upon him the reproaches of Fox, who in +the House imputed to him as a crime his intimacy with a lampooner +so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported his friend; +and replied that he thought it an honour to be received into the +familiarity of so great a poet. While he was thus +conspicuous he married (1741) Miss Lucy Fortescue, of Devonshire, +by whom he had a son, the late Lord Lyttelton, and two daughters, +and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree of +connubial felicity; but human pleasures are short; she died in +childbed about five years afterwards, and he solaced his grief by +writing a long poem to her memory. He did not, however, +condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow, for after a +while he was content to seek happiness again by a second marriage +with the daughter of Sir Robert Rich, but the experiment was +unsuccessful. At length, after a long struggle, Walpole +gave way, and honour and profit were distributed among his +conquerors. Lyttelton was made (1744) one of the Lords of +the Treasury, and from that time was engaged in supporting the +schemes of the Ministry.</p> +<p>Politics did not, however, so much engage him as to withhold +his thoughts from things of more importance. He had, in the +pride of juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt +conversation, entertained doubts of the truth of Christianity; +but he thought the time now come when it was no longer fit to +doubt or believe by chance, and applied himself seriously to the +great question. His studies, being honest, ended in +conviction. He found that religion was true, and what he +had learned he endeavoured to teach (1747) by “Observations +on the Conversion of St. Paul,” a treatise to which +infidelity has never been able to fabricate a specious +answer. This book his father had the happiness of seeing, +and expressed his pleasure in a letter which deserves to be +inserted:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I have read your religious treatise with +infinite pleasure and satisfaction. The style is fine and +clear, the arguments close, cogent, and irresistible. May +the King of Kings, whose glorious cause you have so well +defended, reward your pious labours, and grant that I may be +found worthy, through the merits of Jesus Christ, to be an +eye-witness of that happiness which I don’t doubt he will +bountifully bestow upon you. In the meantime I shall never +cease glorifying God for having endowed you with such useful +talents, and giving me so good a son.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“Your affectionate +father,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span class="smcap">Thomas +Lyttelton</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A few years afterwards (1751), by the death of his father, he +inherited a baronet’s title, with a large estate, which, +though perhaps he did not augment, he was careful to adorn by a +house of great elegance and expense, and by much attention to the +decoration of his park. As he continued his activity in +Parliament, he was gradually advancing his claim to profit and +preferment; and accordingly was made in time (1754) Cofferer and +Privy Councillor: this place he exchanged next year for the great +office of Chancellor of the Exchequer—an office, however, +that required some qualifications which he soon perceived himself +to want. The year after, his curiosity led him into Wales; +of which he has given an account, perhaps rather with too much +affectation of delight, to Archibald Bower, a man of whom he has +conceived an opinion more favourable than he seems to have +deserved, and whom, having once espoused his interest and fame he +was never persuaded to disown. Bower, whatever was his +moral character, did not want abilities. Attacked as he was +by a universal outcry, and that outcry, as it seems, the echo of +truth, he kept his ground; at last, when his defences began to +fail him, he sallied out upon his adversaries, and his +adversaries retreated.</p> +<p>About this time Lyttelton published his “Dialogues of +the Dead,” which were very eagerly read, though the +production rather, as it seems, of leisure than of +study—rather effusions than compositions. The names +of his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their +conversation; and when they have met, they too often part without +any conclusion. He has copied Fenelon more than +Fontenelle. When they were first published they were kindly +commended by the “Critical Reviewers;” and poor +Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I +have read, acknowledgments which can never be proper, since they +must be paid either for flattery or for justice.</p> +<p>When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious +commencement of the war made the dissolution of the Ministry +unavoidable, Sir George Lyttelton, losing with the rest his +employment, was recompensed with a peerage; and rested from +political turbulence in the House of Lords.</p> +<p>His last literary production was his “History of Henry +the Second,” elaborated by the searches and deliberations +of twenty years, and published with such anxiety as only vanity +can dictate. The story of this publication is +remarkable. The whole work was printed twice over, a great +part of it three times, and many sheets four or five times. +The booksellers paid for the first impression; but the changes +and repeated operations of the press were at the expense of the +author, whose ambitious accuracy is known to have cost him at +least a thousand pounds. He began to print in 1755. +Three volumes appeared in 1764, a second edition of them in 1767, +a third edition in 1768, and the conclusion in 1771.</p> +<p>Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable abilities and not +unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to persuade +Lyttelton, as he had persuaded himself, that he was master of the +secret of punctuation; and, as fear begets credulity, he was +employed, I know not at what price, to point the pages of +“Henry the Second.” The book was at last +pointed and printed, and sent into the world. Lyttelton +took money for his copy, of which, when he had paid the pointer, +he probably gave the rest away; for he was very liberal to the +indigent. When time brought the History to a third edition, +Reid was either dead or discarded; and the superintendence of +typography and punctuation was committed to a man originally a +comb-maker, but then known by the style of Doctor. +Something uncommon was probably expected, and something uncommon +was at last done; for to the Doctor’s edition is appended, +what the world had hardly seen before, a list of errors in +nineteen pages.</p> +<p>But to politics and literature there must be an end. +Lord Lyttelton had never the appearance of a strong or of a +healthy man; he had a slender, uncompacted frame, and a meagre +face; he lasted, however, sixty years, and was then seized with +his last illness. Of his death a very affecting and +instructive account has been given by his physician, which will +spare me the task of his moral character:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“On Sunday evening the symptoms of his +lordship’s disorder, which for a week past had alarmed us, +put on a fatal appearance, and his lordship believed himself to +be a dying man. From this time he suffered from +restlessness rather than pain; though his nerves were apparently +much fluttered, his mental faculties never seemed stronger, when +he was thoroughly awake. His lordship’s bilious and +hepatic complaints seemed alone not equal to the expected +mournful event; his long want of sleep, whether the consequence +of the irritation in the bowels, or, which is more probable, of +causes of a different kind, accounts for his loss of strength, +and for his death, very sufficiently. Though his lordship +wished his approaching dissolution not to be lingering, he waited +for it with resignation. He said, ‘It is a folly, a +keeping me in misery, now to attempt to prolong life;’ yet +he was easily persuaded, for the satisfaction of others, to do or +take anything thought proper for him. On Saturday he had +been remarkably better, and we were not without some hopes of his +recovery.</p> +<p>“On Sunday, about eleven in the forenoon, his lordship +sent for me, and said he felt a great hurry, and wished to have a +little conversation with me, in order to divert it. He then +proceeded to open the fountain of that heart, from whence +goodness had so long flowed, as from a copious spring. +‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘you shall be my confessor: +when I first set out in the world I had friends who endeavoured +to shake my belief in the Christian religion. I saw +difficulties which staggered me, but I kept my mind open to +conviction. The evidences and doctrines of Christianity, +studied with attention, made me a most firm and persuaded +believer of the Christian religion. I have made it the rule +of my life, and it is the ground of my future hopes. I have +erred and sinned; but have repented, and never indulged any +vicious habit. In politics and public life I have made +public good the rule of my conduct. I never gave counsels +which I did not at the time think the best. I have seen +that I was sometimes in the wrong, but I did not err +designedly. I have endeavoured in private life to do all +the good in my power, and never for a moment could indulge +malicious or unjust designs upon any person +whatsoever.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“At another time he said, ‘I must leave my soul in +the same state it was in before this illness; I find this a very +inconvenient time for solicitude about anything.’</p> +<blockquote><p>“On the evening, when the symptoms of death +came on, he said, ‘I shall die; but it will not be your +fault.’ When Lord and Lady Valentia came to see his +lordship, he gave them his solemn benediction, and said, +‘Be good, be virtuous, my lord; you must come to +this.’ Thus he continued giving his dying benediction +to all around him. On Monday morning a lucid interval gave +some small hopes, but these vanished in the evening; and he +continued dying, but with very little uneasiness, till Tuesday +morning, August 22, when, between seven and eight o’clock, +he expired, almost without a groan.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His lordship was buried at Hagley, and the following +inscription is cut on the side of his lady’s +monument:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“This unadorned +stone was placed here by the particular<br /> +desire and express directions of the Right Honourable<br /> +<span class="smcap">George Lord Lyttelton</span>,<br /> +who died August 22, 1773, aged 64.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Lord Lyttelton’s Poems are the works of a man of +literature and judgment, devoting part of his time to +versification. They have nothing to be despised, and little +to be admired. Of his “Progress of Love,” it is +sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank +verse in “Blenheim” has neither much force nor much +elegance. His little performances, whether songs or +epigrams, are sometimes sprightly, and sometimes insipid. +His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot much +tire, because they are short, but which seldom elevates or +surprises. But from this censure ought to be excepted his +“Advice to Belinda,” which, though for the most part +written when he was very young, contains much truth and much +prudence, very elegantly and vigorously expressed, and shows a +mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry which cultivation +might have raised to excellence.</p> +<pre> + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS*** + + +***** This file should be named 4678-h.htm or 4678-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/6/7/4678 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. 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. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/4678-h/images/coverb.jpg b/4678-h/images/coverb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..85df934 --- /dev/null +++ b/4678-h/images/coverb.jpg diff --git a/4678-h/images/covers.jpg b/4678-h/images/covers.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..18b2414 --- /dev/null +++ b/4678-h/images/covers.jpg diff --git a/4678-h/images/tpb.jpg b/4678-h/images/tpb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..63d42f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/4678-h/images/tpb.jpg diff --git a/4678-h/images/tps.jpg b/4678-h/images/tps.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b6c668 --- /dev/null +++ b/4678-h/images/tps.jpg |
